Fic: Jabberwocky: Part 5a/?
When Sam awoke, he found himself in a room made up of nothing but stone. Hard, cold, grey slate made up the floor, the slightly curving walls, the high ceiling overhead. Although there was no light source to be seen, everything was strangely visible. Granted, there wasn’t much to see; it was just a room, a cave hollowed out in a quarry, with no windows, no doors, no openings of any kind.
Sam took note of the fact that he was totally uninjured, and that his vision seemed to be perfectly clear. He was also naked, and he felt gooseflesh break out along his arms and legs, along his neck and through his nether regions. He slowly stood, trying to understand where he was, and he drew a blank.
“Hello?” Sam called out into the darkness, and not even an echo responded. He swallowed, hard, and tried to think of what had just happened… What had just…
Sam’s eyes went wide and he started to turn in a circle, and then he moved for the walls, sliding his hands frantically along the sides, searching for some form of opening. “No, this isn’t… It isn’t supposed to be like this… What the hell is this place? Where am I?” Sam shouted out to no one as panic began to rise in him. He turned again, and again, nothing answered him; the room did, however, appear to have grown. He closed his eyes and shook his head, his voice becoming desperate as he continued to plead and beg with the nothingness.
“Get me out of here! Now! Right now! I don’t care if it’s 2006, or 1973, either one, just let me out of here! Where the hell is this? Someone, please, someone hear me! Someone answer me! Let me out of here, now!” Sam’s voice started to grow higher pitched and to waiver as the panic started to overwhelm him, and he resumed frantically moving around the walls, his hands sliding manically over the curving surfaces, brightly lit despite the lack of any known source of light. He felt his eyes begin to burn with tears as he moved faster and faster, sure that the room was growing now, becoming larger around him. When he was certain that he’d made his way around the room at least three times, he collapsed on the floor, drawing his knees up to his chest and curling around them, overwhelmed by the sobs that had been threatening him since he first found himself in the stone prison.
“Mmm, not very macho, Sammy,” he heard his own voice, colored by a sly sneer, and looked up to find his double, dressed in a plain, black suit of 21st century cut, and resting upon a battered and decaying stone sundial that had appeared, on a soft plot of grass, in the middle of the room.
“How… Where am I?” Sam stared at the double, who grinned widely and cocked its head at him. The double leapt deftly off the edge of the sundial, into the shadowed grass.
“Come here, Sam. Come sit with me in the wabe. We don’t have to gyre and gimble, not if you don’t want to. I think you’ve had more than your fair share of that lately, haven’t you?” The double’s expression and voice seemed sympathetic for the first time, and he sat down upon the grass, patting the patch next to him invitingly. “You don’t have to be afraid, Sam. This isn’t the time or place for those things, anyway. Come on, there’s a good lad, come sit with me.”
Sam slowly took a tentative step closer to the sundial, and the double sitting under it, still patting the patch of grass with one hand as he straightened his tie with the other. Sam was still acutely aware that he was naked, and he looked down at himself. “This is my mind, yeah? Can I have some clothes, please?” He looked up at his double, whose sympathetic expression was warping into one of strained patronization, as if he were listening to a child stating that the world was flat, or that the sun went around the earth.
“Not right now, Sam, no. Not here. We have to talk, first.” The double gestured again towards the patch of grass next to him, his hand slightly extended, palm upwards. Sam nodded and moved slowly towards the double, feeling his pulse quicken with each step. Nothing, however, happened when he sat down, and he again curled his legs up and clutched his arms around them, and then stared over at the double.
“So where is this place? Is this some form of purgatory, is that it? I died in 2006, so I had to die in 1973, and now I’m here? Is that it?” Sam felt tears begin to form in his eyes as his heart raced inside his throat.
The double shook his head and rested a hand on Sam’s shoulder, and Sam shuddered when he felt the coldness of it. The double wasn’t alive at all; it was like ice. “Sam, you’re not dead. But you do have an awful lot of realizations to make. For example: what’s real. Do you know what reality is, Sam?”
“You mean 2006?” Sam tried not to stare at the hand that was now tightening on his shoulder, starting to hold him in place.
“No, Sam, I mean reality. Do you have any idea what reality is? It’s a fairly simple question, Sam, and even easier than the chicken and the egg. Except this time, you will be required to answer. And, eventually, you’ll have to answer the egg question as well.” The double’s grip on his shoulder continued to tighten, vice-like and constricting, and Sam felt pain lance through it as the fingers locked in on his flesh.
“You’re hurting me,” Sam said softly, averting his eyes from the double, who was now grinning eerily, manically at Sam.
The double tightened his grip further, and Sam was sure he could feel bones begin to snap and tendons begin to twist and rip. He felt tears of pain well up in his eyes and struggled to keep from screaming out. The double continued to leer at him, “Sam, I’ll stop when you give me an honest answer. Do you know what reality is? I’m not asking for a when, or a where, or anything like that. Just whether or not you know what it is. Just the what, please, and then I’ll stop. Then we can leave the wabe, and go to the wood. You’ll like it in the wood, Sam - there’s many tasks there for you. But you must complete them, Sam. You don’t get a choice about this. Now,” the double’s hand locked down harder, and Sam hear rips, pops, and snaps as his shoulder warped inwards. He closed his eyes tightly and turned his head away, balling up his fist and bringing it to his mouth, biting down on his own knuckles to keep from screaming.
“I… I don’t know what reality is. I don’t…” Sam let the words slowly slip, soft, strained and muffled by his sobs, muttered around the teeth digging into his hand. The double immediately withdrew his hand from Sam’s shoulder, and Sam did allow himself to scream this time. This time, the sound resulted in an echo, and Sam felt himself keel over onto his side, sliding into a tight fetal position, sobbing wretchedly.
“Good boy. That’s one task of the quest completed, isn’t it? Accepting that you have a problem, now, there’s a lovely first step. Are we ready for the next bit, Sammy?” The double stood up next to Sam, and the pain in Sam’s shoulder disappeared. He felt a strange current of air around him, and then stood, still naked, still clutching his arms about himself. The double was gone, and he was… In a wood? A densely packed, dark wood, filled with tall, hulking masses of tree trunks, foliage swimming above him, blocking out all but small spaces of light, filtering other light through in varied hues of yellow and green, the colors performing an odd dance upon the tall, swaying grass and patches of dark, fertile soil that covered the ground.
“Bloody hell, he really did mean a wood,” Sam muttered under his breath, feeling anger rise inside of him. “What the hell is this supposed to be, then? Some sort of test? Should I have brought a feather with me, or some other shit? I’m sorry, I seem to have misplaced my book of the dead, maybe my dog ate it!” He screamed it upwards, flailing his arms madly.
“Someone had better hear me and get me out of this place, I swear, I want out of this place right now! Just get me out! Someone bloody hear me! You can’t leave me here, just get me back to any place, anywhere! You damned bastards!” Sam felt his face redden and the veins in his neck and head strain as he shouted at the top of his lungs, and then the sounds came. The forest was echoing, and he knew the sounds…
*…24 hour observation for the next week, single room, no unauthorized visitors.*
*Mrs Tyler, he’s still with us, but still in the coma… The surgery was successful, but difficult… Let me try to explain…*
*Keep the transfusions going, and I want those bloods back. We need to find out what caused the temperature drop, and what caused the seizures.*
*Keep the EEG going, those brain patterns are NOT normal*
“You’re telling me!” Sam felt his anger even more strongly as he screamed upwards. “Does this look normal to you?” He gestured at the dense woodland around him. “This is not normal! Now you fix this, right now!”
*Sam darling, please, you need to be strong. You need to keep fighting. You… They say I can’t spend as much time with you until you’re stronger*
“Mum! Don’t cry, Mum, I’m here, I’m all right!” Sam heard her sobs through the trees, and they seemed to echo all around him. “Mum, God, please don’t cry, Mum,” Sam felt like crying himself as he shouted upwards at the dense canopy of leaves. “What the hell are you telling her, you bastards? What have you done? You stop upsetting my mum!”
*You have to make it. You have to come back to me. Please, please, darling… My beautiful boy…*
“Mum!” The sound of Ruth’s crying slowly faded away as Sam stared upwards. “I’m here, Mum, I’m all right and I’m coming back!” An idea dawned upon Sam as he shouted upwards, and he started to scream again, directing his shouts into the woods around him.
“You want to know if I know about reality? That’s reality! Me, out there, in a hospital! And I want you to take me back to that, to that world, right now! You take me back right now! I’m lying on a bed, in hospital, and I need to wake up! That’s reality! I want to wake up, right now! You let me! You stop this shit, and all these games, and you let me go there, right now!” Sam’s own voice echoed briefly, but the sound was soon lost to the rustle of leaves and the cries of birds. He swallowed hard, closed his eyes, and broke into a run. Leaves and branches whipped at his naked skin as he began to sprint, faster and faster, his lungs burning and his arms pumping just as hard and fast as his legs. Roots, tall grass, and stumps rose up out of the ground and seemed to clutch at his ankles, trying not just to trip him, but to drag him down, deeper into whatever hell he was lost in.
In the strange, dark forest, Sam continued to run.
“DCI Hunt?” Gene stubbed out his cigarette in the overflowing ashtray of the waiting room, ignoring the shocked stares that occasional doctors, nurses, and porters were throwing at his blood-soaked clothing. He’d taken a minute to wipe the blood from his face, and to give his hands a washing, back when the surgery was first starting. A tall, broad-shouldered man with thinning ginger hair and horn-rimmed glasses was approaching him, hand outstretched. Gene took the proffered hand.
“You the surgeon, then?” Gene tried to read the man’s expression, but it was totally blank; somewhat tired, and devoid of other emotion.
“William Denslow, yes, sir,” the doctor responded. He ran his hand over his hair, and then gestured down a hallway. “My office is in the administrative wing on this floor, if you’d care to join me?”
“I’d prefer to see my damned inspector, if it’s all the same to you,” Gene grunted, getting to his feet and crossing his arms over his chest.
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible, not for a few hours at least, Mr. Hunt,” Dr. Denslow continued to gesture towards the hallway, and Gene, an angry look clouding his features, began to follow.
“So when will I be able to see him? You got some sort of bloody visiting hours set up, family from two to five, friends from three to four, ruddy great sods of your bosses soaked in your blood can only see you at half past two on a Monday, sorry, Love? Is that it?” Gene tried to keep his voice calm, but the doctor still flinched. It was satisfying, in a way.
“Mr. Tyler won’t be able to have visitors until we stabilize his condition, I’m afraid, sir. At the moment, one of my colleagues, Dr. Gale, is currently with him. Even then, he’s likely to be on our critical list for quite some time, so visitors will be restricted to…” Denslow’s voice trailed off as he noticed the look of menace on Gene’s face. “Well, we do always make exceptions, especially for Manchester’s finest. And it appears that we’re not the only ones.”
“What the bloody hell is that supposed to mean?” Gene barked as he entered the office at the end of the hallway, and then moved towards one of the two chairs facing the large mahogany desk. Books lined the walls, along with a small bar and a shelf with pictures of a smiling, dark haired woman and two ginger boys, and several golfing trophies. Gene hated golfers, and he hated anyone that felt the urge to keep more than a dozen books on hand at any given point in time.
Denslow pulled a decanter of what appeared, thankfully, to be scotch from the bar and lifted it in a gesture of offering. Gene nodded; his own flasks had run out several hours ago. The surgeon continued speaking as he deftly poured two cut glass glasses, matching in pattern to the decanter, nearly halfway full of the scotch. Gene’s hatred for the man began to subside as he took the glass that was offered to him and reevaluated the surgeon slightly.
“To be honest with you, Mr. Hunt, we’re really not sure how Mr. Tyler survived. The damage to his chest was massive. I’d need to see your pathologist’s postmortem report, but I’m fairly certain that the damage to Mr. Tyler’s ribs was much more severe than that of the other three victims. With the severity of his injuries, Mr. Tyler should have died within fifteen minutes, perhaps within a few hours at the very, very best, but he somehow managed to live for nearly 26 hours with injuries that should have resulted in asphyxiation and exsanguination much sooner than that,” Denslow took a generous pull from his glass, and Gene followed suit before grunting a reply at him.
“He’s a tough one, that lad. Talks a bit of a pansy, but he’s a good copper, bollocks of steel an’ all,” Gene muttered as he felt his heart begin to thump heavily in his throat. Tell me that he’s going to be all right, you smug bastard. Tell me before I jump up and force you to… Gene struggled to keep from voicing the thought allowed and fixed an icy stare at Denslow. “So he’ll be fine now, yeah? Critical for a few, out in a week or two?”
“I’m afraid I really can’t say, Mr. Hunt. We’ve got him on a respirator at the moment, and we have chest tubes in place. We’re also giving him around the clock transfusions, and warm saline to combat the lowered blood pressure and the hypothermia he suffered,” Denslow stared into his glass thoughtfully, swirling the liquid. “It’s very strange, though. It looked almost as if the damage had been partially repaired while we were working on him, and he should have died from blood loss, particularly from bleeding into the chest cavity, several times over - but it was almost as if it’d been suctioned and he’d been given transfusions already. I’ve never seen anything even remotely like it.”
“So he’s damned lucky. I could’ve told you that based on the fact that I haven’t wrung his smug, scrawny neck yet. What I want to hear is when he’ll be up and about again.” Gene took another liberal pull from his glass and tried to lock his eyes onto Denslow’s, and the surgeon, thankfully, looked up from his glass and met his gaze.
“DCI Hunt. I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you that. I can’t even tell you if he’s going to live through the night, to be honest. It’s a miracle, and I do NOT use that word lightly, a bloody miracle that he survived at all. He’s been very badly injured, Mr. Hunt, and there is a very real possibility that he could die from those injuries. Now, I’m sorry, but…” Denslow was unable to finish his sentence, as Gene had dropped his glass on the floor and sprung forward, grabbing the collar of his shirt and dragging him up over the desk.
“Now you listen here, Mr. Smug-faced scrotum of a bloody twat of a surgeon, because I am going to say this once, and once only - Sam Tyler is not going to die. Not today, not tonight, not next bloody week! That boy is a fighter, and damned hard, for all his poncy ways, and one of the finest coppers that I have ever seen. So if you don’t mind, I’d prefer you not to go selling me his damned tombstone like some grim reaping Avon lady, you despicable little cunt!” Gene’s face was bright red and he pulled Denslow so close that the surgeon’s nose was touching his own. He shook the other man once, to get his point across, and then shoved him back across the desk.
Denslow stared at Hunt for a moment, shock registering on his face, and then slowly, calmly, he collected himself and picked both of the scotch glasses up off the floor, setting them coolly on top of the desk. “I understand that you’re upset, Mr. Hunt. And we’re doing all that we can for Mr. Tyler. At the moment, however, we’re still working to stabilize his condition, and we cannot allow you to see him. In light of this fact, I would like to suggest that you go home and change into something a little less… Soiled. I can assure you that you will be allowed to see Mr. Tyler as soon as he is stabilized, and, if you wish, you may leave a member of the constabulary at the hospital at all times. Again, we are doing all that we can,” he said the words slowly, taking a breath between each one, “and Mr. Tyler has, as you said, been a fighter. To a miraculous extent. And that is all that I can say for now.” Denslow stood and extended a hand towards the door, his expression still blank.
“So we can leave a copper here all hours, then, to call in whenever he’s ready for visitors and the like? And one present at all times until he goes home?” Gene eyed the other man warily, not used to people, especially civilians, reacting this way to one of his outbursts.
“Yes, Mr. Hunt. I’ll speak to the nurses and porters and make sure that it’s understood. One officer, Mr. Hunt, except during visiting hours. Now if you please, sir, the blood on your shirt is not only unsanitary, it’s disconcerting for many of the staff and other visitors and patients.” Denslow continued to gesture towards the door.
Gene reluctantly climbed to his feet, and then, turning to give one last angry glare at the surgeon, headed for the office’s door. “Back shortly,” he snapped, and then began to briskly walk out, stopping only to ask the nurse for the use of a phone, and to call Ray to come pick him up.
“No, Ray, just you. We can’t see him yet. I need to get back to the station, change, see what type of nightmare the bloody journos are throwing about like circus clowns with flaming chainsaws. Chainsaws. And flaming things. Circus clowns, juggling, Ray! Whatever, just so we’re ready for their shite… She did? Bless the clever bitch; we all owe her on this one, Ray. Right brilliant little tart she is. Slap her arse for me for that, will you? Good. Now come get me, and as soon as we’ve cleared away the damned mess, I’m going to be bloody back here, and then we’re taking it in shifts waiting for him to come to. No, you can’t. I’ve got the first one.” Gene hung up the phone, and then glared at the wide-eyed nurse who was staring at his blood soaked shirt.
“Aren’t nurses supposed to be able to stand the bloody damned sight of blood, you flighty bitch?” He shook his head at her before storming off towards the door, where he stood, chain smoking and throwing frightening looks at the gasping and gawping passersby, until Ray pulled up in the Cortina. On top of all this shit, the paintwork had better not be scratched, Gene thought as he climbed into the driver’s seat, and then waited for Ray to secure himself in the front passenger’s seat.
Ray found himself staring at the blood stains covering Gene’s clothing, and then averted his eyes as he saw Gene turn and give him a very, very threatening look. “You got a staring problem, Raymondo?”
“No, Gov.” Ray stared forward for a moment, waiting for Gene to give him some information, and then swallowed hard when none came. He decided to venture a question, hoping that it wouldn’t earn him a kicking. “The boss going to be all right, Gov?” He turned to look at his DCI’s eyes.
Gene kept his gaze fixed on the road, an annoyed expression distorting his features. “Course he’s going to be all right. Just a bit bruised up, is all. Bit cut up. He’ll be fine. If he’s not, I’ll rip off his doctors’ balls, one set at a time, and then string ‘em all up like Christmas lights about the bloody damned hospital, each with a little green and red bulb inside. Be right festive, that. Granted, cut off balls have a tendency to go off in the time between September and December...” Gene tried to make himself laugh, as well as Ray, and failed on both counts.
“So we can go see him after we finish up with those twonks from the papers?” Ray hazarded.
Gene’s throat moved a few times, and Ray felt his heart seem to turn to stone in his chest as he realized that the Gov was trying to keep from crying. He turned his own gaze forward on the road; not wanting to see Gene anywhere near tears, not wanting to believe that he was even capable of them. It was a few moments later before Gene finally spoke again.
“He’s… He’s hurt pretty bad, Ray. Doc said a bunch of stupid medical shit, tubes and shite and all, and said we can’t see him yet, not for a few hours at least, maybe more. But he’ll be all right in the end, just you wait and see,” Gene gritted his teeth as he pulled into the station’s car park.
“May be a poncy little git, but he’s a fighter, all right, is our dozy twonk,” Ray smiled a bit and nodded, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. He got out of the car and slowly followed Gene up the steps and into the station, throwing hard looks at anyone who looked like they were about to attempt to ask a question of Gene.
All comments, criticism, feedback, squees, even flames are all welcome and encouraged.
Sam took note of the fact that he was totally uninjured, and that his vision seemed to be perfectly clear. He was also naked, and he felt gooseflesh break out along his arms and legs, along his neck and through his nether regions. He slowly stood, trying to understand where he was, and he drew a blank.
“Hello?” Sam called out into the darkness, and not even an echo responded. He swallowed, hard, and tried to think of what had just happened… What had just…
Sam’s eyes went wide and he started to turn in a circle, and then he moved for the walls, sliding his hands frantically along the sides, searching for some form of opening. “No, this isn’t… It isn’t supposed to be like this… What the hell is this place? Where am I?” Sam shouted out to no one as panic began to rise in him. He turned again, and again, nothing answered him; the room did, however, appear to have grown. He closed his eyes and shook his head, his voice becoming desperate as he continued to plead and beg with the nothingness.
“Get me out of here! Now! Right now! I don’t care if it’s 2006, or 1973, either one, just let me out of here! Where the hell is this? Someone, please, someone hear me! Someone answer me! Let me out of here, now!” Sam’s voice started to grow higher pitched and to waiver as the panic started to overwhelm him, and he resumed frantically moving around the walls, his hands sliding manically over the curving surfaces, brightly lit despite the lack of any known source of light. He felt his eyes begin to burn with tears as he moved faster and faster, sure that the room was growing now, becoming larger around him. When he was certain that he’d made his way around the room at least three times, he collapsed on the floor, drawing his knees up to his chest and curling around them, overwhelmed by the sobs that had been threatening him since he first found himself in the stone prison.
“Mmm, not very macho, Sammy,” he heard his own voice, colored by a sly sneer, and looked up to find his double, dressed in a plain, black suit of 21st century cut, and resting upon a battered and decaying stone sundial that had appeared, on a soft plot of grass, in the middle of the room.
“How… Where am I?” Sam stared at the double, who grinned widely and cocked its head at him. The double leapt deftly off the edge of the sundial, into the shadowed grass.
“Come here, Sam. Come sit with me in the wabe. We don’t have to gyre and gimble, not if you don’t want to. I think you’ve had more than your fair share of that lately, haven’t you?” The double’s expression and voice seemed sympathetic for the first time, and he sat down upon the grass, patting the patch next to him invitingly. “You don’t have to be afraid, Sam. This isn’t the time or place for those things, anyway. Come on, there’s a good lad, come sit with me.”
Sam slowly took a tentative step closer to the sundial, and the double sitting under it, still patting the patch of grass with one hand as he straightened his tie with the other. Sam was still acutely aware that he was naked, and he looked down at himself. “This is my mind, yeah? Can I have some clothes, please?” He looked up at his double, whose sympathetic expression was warping into one of strained patronization, as if he were listening to a child stating that the world was flat, or that the sun went around the earth.
“Not right now, Sam, no. Not here. We have to talk, first.” The double gestured again towards the patch of grass next to him, his hand slightly extended, palm upwards. Sam nodded and moved slowly towards the double, feeling his pulse quicken with each step. Nothing, however, happened when he sat down, and he again curled his legs up and clutched his arms around them, and then stared over at the double.
“So where is this place? Is this some form of purgatory, is that it? I died in 2006, so I had to die in 1973, and now I’m here? Is that it?” Sam felt tears begin to form in his eyes as his heart raced inside his throat.
The double shook his head and rested a hand on Sam’s shoulder, and Sam shuddered when he felt the coldness of it. The double wasn’t alive at all; it was like ice. “Sam, you’re not dead. But you do have an awful lot of realizations to make. For example: what’s real. Do you know what reality is, Sam?”
“You mean 2006?” Sam tried not to stare at the hand that was now tightening on his shoulder, starting to hold him in place.
“No, Sam, I mean reality. Do you have any idea what reality is? It’s a fairly simple question, Sam, and even easier than the chicken and the egg. Except this time, you will be required to answer. And, eventually, you’ll have to answer the egg question as well.” The double’s grip on his shoulder continued to tighten, vice-like and constricting, and Sam felt pain lance through it as the fingers locked in on his flesh.
“You’re hurting me,” Sam said softly, averting his eyes from the double, who was now grinning eerily, manically at Sam.
The double tightened his grip further, and Sam was sure he could feel bones begin to snap and tendons begin to twist and rip. He felt tears of pain well up in his eyes and struggled to keep from screaming out. The double continued to leer at him, “Sam, I’ll stop when you give me an honest answer. Do you know what reality is? I’m not asking for a when, or a where, or anything like that. Just whether or not you know what it is. Just the what, please, and then I’ll stop. Then we can leave the wabe, and go to the wood. You’ll like it in the wood, Sam - there’s many tasks there for you. But you must complete them, Sam. You don’t get a choice about this. Now,” the double’s hand locked down harder, and Sam hear rips, pops, and snaps as his shoulder warped inwards. He closed his eyes tightly and turned his head away, balling up his fist and bringing it to his mouth, biting down on his own knuckles to keep from screaming.
“I… I don’t know what reality is. I don’t…” Sam let the words slowly slip, soft, strained and muffled by his sobs, muttered around the teeth digging into his hand. The double immediately withdrew his hand from Sam’s shoulder, and Sam did allow himself to scream this time. This time, the sound resulted in an echo, and Sam felt himself keel over onto his side, sliding into a tight fetal position, sobbing wretchedly.
“Good boy. That’s one task of the quest completed, isn’t it? Accepting that you have a problem, now, there’s a lovely first step. Are we ready for the next bit, Sammy?” The double stood up next to Sam, and the pain in Sam’s shoulder disappeared. He felt a strange current of air around him, and then stood, still naked, still clutching his arms about himself. The double was gone, and he was… In a wood? A densely packed, dark wood, filled with tall, hulking masses of tree trunks, foliage swimming above him, blocking out all but small spaces of light, filtering other light through in varied hues of yellow and green, the colors performing an odd dance upon the tall, swaying grass and patches of dark, fertile soil that covered the ground.
“Bloody hell, he really did mean a wood,” Sam muttered under his breath, feeling anger rise inside of him. “What the hell is this supposed to be, then? Some sort of test? Should I have brought a feather with me, or some other shit? I’m sorry, I seem to have misplaced my book of the dead, maybe my dog ate it!” He screamed it upwards, flailing his arms madly.
“Someone had better hear me and get me out of this place, I swear, I want out of this place right now! Just get me out! Someone bloody hear me! You can’t leave me here, just get me back to any place, anywhere! You damned bastards!” Sam felt his face redden and the veins in his neck and head strain as he shouted at the top of his lungs, and then the sounds came. The forest was echoing, and he knew the sounds…
*…24 hour observation for the next week, single room, no unauthorized visitors.*
*Mrs Tyler, he’s still with us, but still in the coma… The surgery was successful, but difficult… Let me try to explain…*
*Keep the transfusions going, and I want those bloods back. We need to find out what caused the temperature drop, and what caused the seizures.*
*Keep the EEG going, those brain patterns are NOT normal*
“You’re telling me!” Sam felt his anger even more strongly as he screamed upwards. “Does this look normal to you?” He gestured at the dense woodland around him. “This is not normal! Now you fix this, right now!”
*Sam darling, please, you need to be strong. You need to keep fighting. You… They say I can’t spend as much time with you until you’re stronger*
“Mum! Don’t cry, Mum, I’m here, I’m all right!” Sam heard her sobs through the trees, and they seemed to echo all around him. “Mum, God, please don’t cry, Mum,” Sam felt like crying himself as he shouted upwards at the dense canopy of leaves. “What the hell are you telling her, you bastards? What have you done? You stop upsetting my mum!”
*You have to make it. You have to come back to me. Please, please, darling… My beautiful boy…*
“Mum!” The sound of Ruth’s crying slowly faded away as Sam stared upwards. “I’m here, Mum, I’m all right and I’m coming back!” An idea dawned upon Sam as he shouted upwards, and he started to scream again, directing his shouts into the woods around him.
“You want to know if I know about reality? That’s reality! Me, out there, in a hospital! And I want you to take me back to that, to that world, right now! You take me back right now! I’m lying on a bed, in hospital, and I need to wake up! That’s reality! I want to wake up, right now! You let me! You stop this shit, and all these games, and you let me go there, right now!” Sam’s own voice echoed briefly, but the sound was soon lost to the rustle of leaves and the cries of birds. He swallowed hard, closed his eyes, and broke into a run. Leaves and branches whipped at his naked skin as he began to sprint, faster and faster, his lungs burning and his arms pumping just as hard and fast as his legs. Roots, tall grass, and stumps rose up out of the ground and seemed to clutch at his ankles, trying not just to trip him, but to drag him down, deeper into whatever hell he was lost in.
In the strange, dark forest, Sam continued to run.
“DCI Hunt?” Gene stubbed out his cigarette in the overflowing ashtray of the waiting room, ignoring the shocked stares that occasional doctors, nurses, and porters were throwing at his blood-soaked clothing. He’d taken a minute to wipe the blood from his face, and to give his hands a washing, back when the surgery was first starting. A tall, broad-shouldered man with thinning ginger hair and horn-rimmed glasses was approaching him, hand outstretched. Gene took the proffered hand.
“You the surgeon, then?” Gene tried to read the man’s expression, but it was totally blank; somewhat tired, and devoid of other emotion.
“William Denslow, yes, sir,” the doctor responded. He ran his hand over his hair, and then gestured down a hallway. “My office is in the administrative wing on this floor, if you’d care to join me?”
“I’d prefer to see my damned inspector, if it’s all the same to you,” Gene grunted, getting to his feet and crossing his arms over his chest.
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible, not for a few hours at least, Mr. Hunt,” Dr. Denslow continued to gesture towards the hallway, and Gene, an angry look clouding his features, began to follow.
“So when will I be able to see him? You got some sort of bloody visiting hours set up, family from two to five, friends from three to four, ruddy great sods of your bosses soaked in your blood can only see you at half past two on a Monday, sorry, Love? Is that it?” Gene tried to keep his voice calm, but the doctor still flinched. It was satisfying, in a way.
“Mr. Tyler won’t be able to have visitors until we stabilize his condition, I’m afraid, sir. At the moment, one of my colleagues, Dr. Gale, is currently with him. Even then, he’s likely to be on our critical list for quite some time, so visitors will be restricted to…” Denslow’s voice trailed off as he noticed the look of menace on Gene’s face. “Well, we do always make exceptions, especially for Manchester’s finest. And it appears that we’re not the only ones.”
“What the bloody hell is that supposed to mean?” Gene barked as he entered the office at the end of the hallway, and then moved towards one of the two chairs facing the large mahogany desk. Books lined the walls, along with a small bar and a shelf with pictures of a smiling, dark haired woman and two ginger boys, and several golfing trophies. Gene hated golfers, and he hated anyone that felt the urge to keep more than a dozen books on hand at any given point in time.
Denslow pulled a decanter of what appeared, thankfully, to be scotch from the bar and lifted it in a gesture of offering. Gene nodded; his own flasks had run out several hours ago. The surgeon continued speaking as he deftly poured two cut glass glasses, matching in pattern to the decanter, nearly halfway full of the scotch. Gene’s hatred for the man began to subside as he took the glass that was offered to him and reevaluated the surgeon slightly.
“To be honest with you, Mr. Hunt, we’re really not sure how Mr. Tyler survived. The damage to his chest was massive. I’d need to see your pathologist’s postmortem report, but I’m fairly certain that the damage to Mr. Tyler’s ribs was much more severe than that of the other three victims. With the severity of his injuries, Mr. Tyler should have died within fifteen minutes, perhaps within a few hours at the very, very best, but he somehow managed to live for nearly 26 hours with injuries that should have resulted in asphyxiation and exsanguination much sooner than that,” Denslow took a generous pull from his glass, and Gene followed suit before grunting a reply at him.
“He’s a tough one, that lad. Talks a bit of a pansy, but he’s a good copper, bollocks of steel an’ all,” Gene muttered as he felt his heart begin to thump heavily in his throat. Tell me that he’s going to be all right, you smug bastard. Tell me before I jump up and force you to… Gene struggled to keep from voicing the thought allowed and fixed an icy stare at Denslow. “So he’ll be fine now, yeah? Critical for a few, out in a week or two?”
“I’m afraid I really can’t say, Mr. Hunt. We’ve got him on a respirator at the moment, and we have chest tubes in place. We’re also giving him around the clock transfusions, and warm saline to combat the lowered blood pressure and the hypothermia he suffered,” Denslow stared into his glass thoughtfully, swirling the liquid. “It’s very strange, though. It looked almost as if the damage had been partially repaired while we were working on him, and he should have died from blood loss, particularly from bleeding into the chest cavity, several times over - but it was almost as if it’d been suctioned and he’d been given transfusions already. I’ve never seen anything even remotely like it.”
“So he’s damned lucky. I could’ve told you that based on the fact that I haven’t wrung his smug, scrawny neck yet. What I want to hear is when he’ll be up and about again.” Gene took another liberal pull from his glass and tried to lock his eyes onto Denslow’s, and the surgeon, thankfully, looked up from his glass and met his gaze.
“DCI Hunt. I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you that. I can’t even tell you if he’s going to live through the night, to be honest. It’s a miracle, and I do NOT use that word lightly, a bloody miracle that he survived at all. He’s been very badly injured, Mr. Hunt, and there is a very real possibility that he could die from those injuries. Now, I’m sorry, but…” Denslow was unable to finish his sentence, as Gene had dropped his glass on the floor and sprung forward, grabbing the collar of his shirt and dragging him up over the desk.
“Now you listen here, Mr. Smug-faced scrotum of a bloody twat of a surgeon, because I am going to say this once, and once only - Sam Tyler is not going to die. Not today, not tonight, not next bloody week! That boy is a fighter, and damned hard, for all his poncy ways, and one of the finest coppers that I have ever seen. So if you don’t mind, I’d prefer you not to go selling me his damned tombstone like some grim reaping Avon lady, you despicable little cunt!” Gene’s face was bright red and he pulled Denslow so close that the surgeon’s nose was touching his own. He shook the other man once, to get his point across, and then shoved him back across the desk.
Denslow stared at Hunt for a moment, shock registering on his face, and then slowly, calmly, he collected himself and picked both of the scotch glasses up off the floor, setting them coolly on top of the desk. “I understand that you’re upset, Mr. Hunt. And we’re doing all that we can for Mr. Tyler. At the moment, however, we’re still working to stabilize his condition, and we cannot allow you to see him. In light of this fact, I would like to suggest that you go home and change into something a little less… Soiled. I can assure you that you will be allowed to see Mr. Tyler as soon as he is stabilized, and, if you wish, you may leave a member of the constabulary at the hospital at all times. Again, we are doing all that we can,” he said the words slowly, taking a breath between each one, “and Mr. Tyler has, as you said, been a fighter. To a miraculous extent. And that is all that I can say for now.” Denslow stood and extended a hand towards the door, his expression still blank.
“So we can leave a copper here all hours, then, to call in whenever he’s ready for visitors and the like? And one present at all times until he goes home?” Gene eyed the other man warily, not used to people, especially civilians, reacting this way to one of his outbursts.
“Yes, Mr. Hunt. I’ll speak to the nurses and porters and make sure that it’s understood. One officer, Mr. Hunt, except during visiting hours. Now if you please, sir, the blood on your shirt is not only unsanitary, it’s disconcerting for many of the staff and other visitors and patients.” Denslow continued to gesture towards the door.
Gene reluctantly climbed to his feet, and then, turning to give one last angry glare at the surgeon, headed for the office’s door. “Back shortly,” he snapped, and then began to briskly walk out, stopping only to ask the nurse for the use of a phone, and to call Ray to come pick him up.
“No, Ray, just you. We can’t see him yet. I need to get back to the station, change, see what type of nightmare the bloody journos are throwing about like circus clowns with flaming chainsaws. Chainsaws. And flaming things. Circus clowns, juggling, Ray! Whatever, just so we’re ready for their shite… She did? Bless the clever bitch; we all owe her on this one, Ray. Right brilliant little tart she is. Slap her arse for me for that, will you? Good. Now come get me, and as soon as we’ve cleared away the damned mess, I’m going to be bloody back here, and then we’re taking it in shifts waiting for him to come to. No, you can’t. I’ve got the first one.” Gene hung up the phone, and then glared at the wide-eyed nurse who was staring at his blood soaked shirt.
“Aren’t nurses supposed to be able to stand the bloody damned sight of blood, you flighty bitch?” He shook his head at her before storming off towards the door, where he stood, chain smoking and throwing frightening looks at the gasping and gawping passersby, until Ray pulled up in the Cortina. On top of all this shit, the paintwork had better not be scratched, Gene thought as he climbed into the driver’s seat, and then waited for Ray to secure himself in the front passenger’s seat.
Ray found himself staring at the blood stains covering Gene’s clothing, and then averted his eyes as he saw Gene turn and give him a very, very threatening look. “You got a staring problem, Raymondo?”
“No, Gov.” Ray stared forward for a moment, waiting for Gene to give him some information, and then swallowed hard when none came. He decided to venture a question, hoping that it wouldn’t earn him a kicking. “The boss going to be all right, Gov?” He turned to look at his DCI’s eyes.
Gene kept his gaze fixed on the road, an annoyed expression distorting his features. “Course he’s going to be all right. Just a bit bruised up, is all. Bit cut up. He’ll be fine. If he’s not, I’ll rip off his doctors’ balls, one set at a time, and then string ‘em all up like Christmas lights about the bloody damned hospital, each with a little green and red bulb inside. Be right festive, that. Granted, cut off balls have a tendency to go off in the time between September and December...” Gene tried to make himself laugh, as well as Ray, and failed on both counts.
“So we can go see him after we finish up with those twonks from the papers?” Ray hazarded.
Gene’s throat moved a few times, and Ray felt his heart seem to turn to stone in his chest as he realized that the Gov was trying to keep from crying. He turned his own gaze forward on the road; not wanting to see Gene anywhere near tears, not wanting to believe that he was even capable of them. It was a few moments later before Gene finally spoke again.
“He’s… He’s hurt pretty bad, Ray. Doc said a bunch of stupid medical shit, tubes and shite and all, and said we can’t see him yet, not for a few hours at least, maybe more. But he’ll be all right in the end, just you wait and see,” Gene gritted his teeth as he pulled into the station’s car park.
“May be a poncy little git, but he’s a fighter, all right, is our dozy twonk,” Ray smiled a bit and nodded, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. He got out of the car and slowly followed Gene up the steps and into the station, throwing hard looks at anyone who looked like they were about to attempt to ask a question of Gene.
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