Fic: Jabberwocky, Part 9b/?
“Andrew Bennett, chief administrator,” the man held out his hand as they walked onto the lift, but Ray refused to take it, shock and anger burning red in his face. “Apparently, the constable watching the room went for a cup of tea, and when he returned… None of the nurses saw anything…” The man was near hysterical now, running his hands through his hair and wringing his hands. The lift stopped and they stepped out and onto the third floor of the hospital, and the man practically ran towards the room, Ray taking long strides to keep up with him.
The two of them came up to a room labeled 317, and Ray noticed the mortified constable standing outside, looking at him with a frightened gaze. “DS Carling, I, it was just, it was just for a few minutes, I have no idea how…” Ray shoved the plod in the chest, forcing him against the wall, then followed Bennett into the room.
“I can’t believe this is happening; we’ve never had anything like it happen in the hospital before, I can assure you,” Bennett’s voice was racing, his words tripping over one another, his hands moving rapidly through his hair, over the front of his neat suit, gripping at his wrists. “They just found him like that…”
Jefferson Myers’ eyes were staring blankly upwards, blood spattered against the sheets from the small hole in the back of his hand, the plastic tubing of his IV having been ripped out. The tube was stretched back and around his throat, tightly, and his mouth gaped open, tongue lolling out grotesquely from a mouth frozen in a last, permanent scream.
Ray moved to examine the cord, and then heard Sam’s voice in the back of his head, “Wait for forensics.” He withdrew his hand, then surveyed the scene with his eyes. The blankets and sheets covering Myers were twisted from the man’s struggling, his large form contorted and the bandages on his arms torn, including the one over his injured shoulder, where blood was seeping through. The bandage over his broken jaw was askew on his face, having been ripped down while the tube was wrapped around his neck, and his lifeless, staring eyes were bulging out of the sockets. Ray stormed out of the room, heading quickly for the floor’s nurses’ station, Bennett in tow.
“I need to use the phone. Now, you sodding bitch!” Ray screamed at the nurse behind the counter, who cowered back and gingerly placed the phone up on the counter. Ray grabbed it and spat the number at the operator, “Right bloody now, you cow!” And then he waited for the station to pick up. It was Phyllis who answered the phone.
“Manchester police, Desk Sergeant Dobbs speaking,” Phyllis’ voice came over the receiver, and Ray launched in on her.
“Phyllis, it’s Ray, the Gov needs to get down to the hospital, now, and so do bleedin’ forensics. Now!” Ray shouted into the line, watching as the nurse shrank further away from him, knowing that his shoulders were squared and raised in an expression of pure fury, his large chest heaving with the shock of the situation and the ire that fueled his screams, threatening to break loose and force him to strangle Bennet, and the officer that had been watching the room.
“Hold you bloody horses! What’s happened?” Phyllis came back over the line, tension in her voice. “This about the new body? The Gov’s already been down the morgue, and…” Ray cut her off.
“New body? What the bloody hell do you mean, new soddin’ body?” Ray screeched, not sure if he understood what she was saying. It was impossible, it was….
“There was another murder, same MO as the first three - the coroner thinks there’s another that did the first one, and this one, and that Myers must’ve been the killer for the second and third murders, and the boss… Gov’s been running round like a chicken with its head cut off on this one, and half the station’s…” Ray slammed the end of the receiver against the counter, and the nurse leapt away, her back ramming into the desk area behind the other side of the station, patient forms scattering to the floor.
“Just get the Gov to get his arse down here, now! Someone’s killed Myers,” Ray held the phone’s hand piece back up to his head and screeched down the line, then slammed it back down on the phone with a clang, not listening to the scream of “What!” that echoed through the line as he did so. He twisted around and grabbed Bennett by his lapels, “My Gov’s coming. And you’d better have a bloody good explanation as to why no one knows who went in there, or you’ll be charged with aiding and abetting, and that means my foot up your arse and the Gov’s fists god only knows where, you soddin’ git!” He slammed Bennett against the wall, then moved towards the officer on duty, who stood up tall, though his hands were shaking visibly.
“And as for you, what the bloody hell do you think you were doing, leaving a guarded room? Couldn’t one of the nurses have gone and gotten you your cuppa, you damned arsehole?” Ray threw a punch directly into the constable’s eye, then straightened, forcing himself to calm down slightly. He turned around him, noticing the frightened looks on the faces of the nurses, and on Bennett. The constable was slowly rising to his feet, straightening his uniform and steeling himself for another blow. Ray didn’t deliver, just marched over to the lifts.
“I’ll be back in a few, and you’d all better be here, and no one else had better have been murdered in that time, you useless tossers!” He shouted at them, then let the lift doors close in front of him as he punched the number for floor 5, the ICU. His face burned with rage and he had to stop himself from punching the lift walls as the thing slowly took him upwards, seconds stretching to hours in his mind. Something didn’t add up… A lot of things didn’t add up. Another DCI, and now Myers murdered, right under their noses… Someone was going to pay, and pay hard.
Annie watched as the lift doors slowly parted before her, and then made her way towards the waiting area. Chris was sitting there, a beaten, dejected look on his face, stubbing out a fag end in the ashtray on the table. Annie noticed that the ashtray was already overflowing, and shook her head. A slight tinge of anger surged through her as she remembered Chris’ missed shift, and she moved to stand next to him, shaking her head again as she noticed that he hadn’t even seen her arrive, his eyes fixed on the hallway and the door to Sam’s room.
“Chris.” She stated his name, then moved around him to sit down next to him. “Where were you, then?”
Chris turned a confused look towards her for a second, then glued his eyes back on Sam’s door. “What you mean?”
“Your other shift, you were gone.” Annie stated it flatly, trying not to let her anger show.
“Took Myers back to the station. Wanted to get an early start on the questioning. Didn’t learn anything, though.” Chris continued to keep his eyes trained on the door, and Annie sighed in exasperation.
“What did he say, then, Myers?” Annie said as she tried to lock her eyes onto his, craning her neck around so that her face was close to his.
“Not sure. Made a tape. Have to listen to it later,” Chris’ voice was a whisper as he tried to block out the events in the lost property room.
“You don’t remember what happened in an interrogation? Chris…” Annie’s tone was soft but stern as she tried to keep herself from showing her irritability.
“No. I don’t.” Chris stated it flatly, his voice shaking. Annie’s eyebrows knit together in confusion as she continued to stare at him, and then she leaned back, staring at the ceiling for a moment.
“You have the tape, then?” Annie asked, and Chris shook his head.
“Left it at home. I’ll go over it later, look for clues.”
“I can go over it with you, if you like,” Annie said, trying to find a way to make herself useful, wishing for anything that would take her mind off of the image of Sam, the ventilator tube snaking out of his mouth and the bandages covering his eyes, his face, almost his entire body.
“All right.” Chris didn’t seem to be listening to her as he continued to stare at the door. His head snapped up then, as if he were suddenly remembering something. “There were someone else came to see him. Nurses said another DCI, but it weren’t anyone from the station. Ray went to ask the doctor about it,” Chris added, turning a confused look to Annie, hoping that she knew what he was talking about. Annie’s eyes widened in shock.
“Another DCI? To see Sam? When?” Annie stared at him, and he let his eyes wander from the room door for a moment to look her in the face.
“Some time yesterday, maybe this morning. Weren’t specific, didn’t have no name, neither,” Chris muttered, and Annie felt her heart freeze. What if someone had been in while she’d fallen asleep? She felt anger rise up in her as she realized that she wouldn’t have done so, if Chris had shown up for his shift. For the shift that he’d volunteered for, she reminded herself.
“So Ray’s still here, then? Neither of you have heard anything from the Gov or the station in the past eight hours?” She let her voice harden slightly, fighting the urge to slap Chris for not appearing earlier.
“No; we’ve heard nought.” Chris shook his head and retrained his eyes on the door. “Watching the door, making sure no one else slips past,” he explained, then leaned back in his seat. Another bolt of realization shot through him as he glanced at Annie from the corner of his eye.
“They said he can have visitors now. Just one at a time.” Chris hoped that she would leave, the idea of talking to anyone incredibly unappealing to him.
“They did?” Hope rose up and doused the growing anger inside of Annie’s heart as she stared at Chris. “You’ve been in to see him, then? How did he look?”
“Asleep. He was asleep.” Chris kept his gaze stuck to the door, not daring to look away any more than he had to. “He looked, he looked like…” Chris let his gaze fall to the floor, not willing to tell Annie anything, or to let his resolve falter. The very last thing that he wanted to do was to cry in front of Annie.
“Looked like what?” Annie pressed, urgency and hope filling her voice. Chris shook his head.
“Go and see ‘im yourself. One of them’d be willing to take you,” Chris nodded towards the nurses.
Annie nodded back at Chris and stood, moving towards the nurses’ station, casting one final, reproachful glance Chris’ way. He flinched under her gaze, and she rolled her eyes as she went and asked to see Sam. The nurse consented to a short visit, and then led her down the hallway.
As the door to Sam’s room was slowly opened, Annie noticed that the room nurse was carefully removing a blood pressure cuff from Sam’s arm. “That won’t hurt him, will it?” She asked, pointing at the cuff.
“No, dear, he can’t feel it right now. Fast asleep, he is, and the bandages are laid in extra thick and then extra thin right around the proper places. And we need to take his vitals every hour, doctor’s orders, and standard procedure,” she said, replacing the cuff and the stethoscope around her neck in the drawer in the small table next to the bed. She smiled up at Annie, “Blood pressure’s good. Nurse Blakely will be in shortly to listen to his chest, every half hour, she’s been specially trained to check on his lungs, like.”
Annie nodded, then moved more closely to Sam. He did look asleep, as opposed to unconscious, his eyes moving rapidly under their lids. She smiled a bit as she noticed that the tube was no longer snaking out of his mouth; it had been replaced by an oxygen mask, and the hideous hiss and thump of the respirator had been replaced by a thin whistling of oxygen. “No more tubes, then,” she said, relief flooding into her voice.
“No, dear. He’s doing much better. Good chance he’ll pull through now, poor thing,” The nurse said. She patted Sam’s hand, lightly, then motioned for Annie to come closer, grasping her wrist and moving it over Sam’s hand. “Careful not to jostle him too much, Love, but you can hold his hand now, if you like,” the nurse stood and offered her seat to Annie, who sat down, gratefully, and then stared at Sam.
Annie let her fingers curl over Sam’s, then moved to flatten his hair slightly, brushing his temple with her free hand. “Keep that from sticking up for you, Sam. You and your ridiculous haircut,” she said, running the back of her hand along the exposed side of Sam’s face, noticing his lips twitch under the plastic shell of the mask. “Everyone’s waiting for you to come back, Sam. We’ve all been worried about you; we all want you back,” she whispered, continuing to stroke his face with one hand, and the back of his hand with her other.
Sam stirred in his sleep, and felt reality slowly start to bleed through the edges of the blackness that covered him.
*Everyone’s waiting for you to come back, Sammy. We’ve all been worried about you; we all want you back*
Sam shifted slightly under Annie’s touch, the movements in his eyes dying away, and his lips twitching again. “Mum…” He’d heard his mother’s voice through the darkness, and he could feel… He could feel one hand against his face, and another on his hand. He tried to move, and felt an oxygen mask over his face. The doctor had said… There had been a surgeon… He felt pain lancing through him, and it was comforting; he was back in reality. Exaltation surged through him. “Mum…”
Annie bolted upright and tightened her grip on Sam’s hand. “Sam?” She turned to the nurse. “He’s waking up!” Her head whipped back around towards Sam, whose head was starting to move slightly from side to side. “Sam! Sam, can you hear me?” Her voice grew louder, a large grin spreading over her face as hot tears started to streak down her cheeks. “Sam?”
“Mum?” Sam’s voice was a barely audible whisper beneath the mask, and his eyelids started to flutter. Annie tried to keep herself from grasping his hand too tightly, and failed, her fingers closing over his in a forceful, joyous grip.
“Sam?” Annie leaned closely over his face, grinning and crying, one hand clasped around Sam’s, the other settled down against the side of his face. “Sam, come back to us…”
Sam struggled to open his eyes, his eyelids once again weighted down, heavy against his face. Light slowly started to filter through as his eyes focused, and he could vaguely make out a shape above him. He tried to speak, hearing his mother begging him to come back, just as he had so many times through the television, the radios, the phones. His voice was tight and hard to work, and he became acutely aware of the plastic shell covering his nose and mouth. He struggled to focus his eyes on the blurry shape above him, and to form words with his mouth. Pain filled his body, and he had to struggle to keep from crying out, knowing that he had precious little strength and not wanting to spend it before he’s spoken with his mother. “Mum, I’m here,” he said, and he saw the face above him grin, and slowly spin into focus, the blurriness dissolving into… Annie? No… Sam saw the test card girl then, standing next to Annie, a broad grin making her pretty, childish features somehow seem evil and malicious, her free arm raised to wave at him.
“No…” Sam started to struggle, willing himself to stand, to scream, to do anything, and felt pillows giving way and moving back slightly under his head. “No. Not real…”
Annie’s grin faded into a look of horror as she tried to make out what Sam was saying, his words a strangled whisper beneath the mask. “Sam? Sam, it’s me, Annie,” she tried to make her voice as comforting as possible, shock overtaking her as Sam started to thrash about on the bed, pulling away from her touch. “Sam, it’s Annie, it’s all right, I’m here.”
“Not real…” Sam’s eyes went wide, a look of absolute terror filling them, and then the nurse moved behind Annie, calling out from the door, “Amy, get in here, now!” Sam continued to thrash on the bed, pulling away from Annie, and the nurse quickly pushed Annie out of the way, resting her hands on Sam’s shoulders.
Terror filled Sam, drowning out the pain and the difficulty of movement, as he noticed a nurse in a 1973 uniform move above him, the test card girl still grinning maddeningly at him next to her. He tried to pull away, and felt the nurse’s hands on his shoulders. “Just calm down, Love. Mr. Tyler, it’s all right, you’re in hospital, lad,” he heard the nurse’s voice grow more stern, and he continued to struggle against her as she tried to still him.
Behind the nurse and the test card girl, he saw Annie, a look of fright on her face, tears streaming down her cheeks and a hand clamped over her mouth. And there, behind her, he saw the double. His own features leered back at him, and then he saw the double’s arms, clad in his leather jacket and one of his idiotic 1973 shirts, slowly snake around Annie’s waist, bending down so that his head was leaning on her shoulder. The double moved in to lightly kiss Annie’s ear, and then drew a cruel tongue against her cheek. Sam tried to leap up, wanting to push the horrible apparition away from her, but found that he couldn’t move against the nurse’s hands. Another nurse came in, then, and helped the first to hold him down. They were both trying to keep him pinned without touching his arms or his chest, Sam realized, and then the events in the warehouse started to flood into him.
“No…” Sam moaned against the pain in his lungs and the flow of air over his nose and mouth, and then he stared at the double again, who was still holding Annie tightly, a look of terror on her face and a horrid, twisted look of glee on his. The test card girl spoke then, leaning over him closely, and he felt her sickly sweet child’s breath against the side of his face as she bent through the nurse, her form going soft and transparent.
“This is what we promised, Sam. You waking up, in hospital, surrounded by those that love you. It’s what you wanted, Sam. It’s what you’ve always wanted.” The girl straightened and smiled, and then the double spoke around his disgusting, perverted leer.
“This is what we promised, she’s right, you know. And this one, she definitely loves you, Sam,” the double’s voice was cruel and thin, a slipping, malicious parody of Sam’s own voice, and he snaked out his tongue again, drawing it along Annie’s cheek as she started to sob and move towards him.
“Sam, Sam, it’s me, Annie. You’re all right, you’re in hospital. Sam, please, please calm down,” he heard Annie’s voice rippling with tears, and then felt his own eyes start to fill, pain bearing down on him harder than the nurses, his arms, back, and backside all throbbing with dull, stabbing pain, and his chest burning with a cold, thick pressure.
The double and the girl both disappeared then, the cruel words, “And we’ll be waiting for you, to fulfill your side of the deal,” lingering in the air in his own voice as they faded away into nothing. Sam closed his eyes tightly, feeling them start to burn, as well, and slowly allowed himself to still, fighting to open his eyes once more. It wasn’t real, it couldn’t be real. They’d tricked him, Sam realized, and horror began to lapse back into resigned, cold betrayal as he stared at Annie, wanting to comfort her, just as he had with his mother.
“Annie… Annie…” He let her name slip past his lips as he stared at her, willing her to stop crying, hoping that if he couldn’t comfort his mother in the real world, he could comfort her. She moved past the nurses, who had stopped trying to restrain him, now that he was stilled, and she took his hand in both of hers, not noticing that she’d bent his arm at the elbow, the bandages creasing and pain lancing through his arm, blinding white flashes of it mixing with the throb in his other wounds and the thick, burning weight against his chest.
“Sam! Sam, it’s me, you’re safe now, you’re safe,” Annie was clutching tightly at his fingers, tears still running freely down her face. “I’m here, and you’re safe. Sam…” Annie’s voice drowned away, a low buzzing filling the world, and the room started to spin away into darkness again.
Sam wasn’t sure what he felt, other than pain and the comfort of Annie’s soft hands clutching at his, and his eyes slowly shut out the fading world. Blackness started to envelope him again as he realized that he had agreed upon waking in a hospital, any hospital, surrounded by loved ones, any loved ones. The horrible feeling of betrayal began to subside as well as the darkness overtook him, and he felt tears start to slide down his cheeks as the world slid away again.
Annie started to sob as she saw the tears sliding down Sam’s eyes as he faded out of consciousness again, and the nurses let her remain for nearly a full minute before they pushed her away, one of them drawing her out into the hallway while the other started to straighten Sam’s bandages and bedclothes around him, checking on IV tubes, checking his pulse. Annie allowed herself to be lead out of the door, where Chris was standing, a worried look on his face.
“I saw the nurse call for help - what happened? Bloody hell, what happened?” Tears were shining in Chris’ eyes as Annie wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his shoulder and letting the sobs overtake her, great, shuddering sighs racking her body. Her legs threatened to give way, and Chris straightened his back to support her, wrapping his own arms around her and feeling his own tears start to flow, slowly and silently, down his cheeks, a strange, numb feeling filling him. The two of them stood there for a moment, and then Annie pulled away, wiping frantically at her eyes and nose with the back of her sleeve.
“He woke up, and he didn’t, he didn’t… He didn’t recognize me at first, and I think he thought he was still there, in the warehouse…” Annie’s voice cracked as she and Chris walked back to the waiting area, both glancing back at the door occasionally. “But he did, in the end, before he fell asleep again. He saw me, I know he did,” Annie tried to take comfort in the fact that recognition had formed on Sam’s face, and tried to ignore the look of absolute terror in his eyes as he had looked at her before. What was it that he had said? Not real… She thought back to their numerous conversations, his strange, crazy ideas about being from the future, and she had to push the thought away. Sam was still Sam, and he’d be all there soon. She didn’t dare let herself believe anything else.
Chris wasn’t sure what to do as he and Annie sat down on the seats again, tears still running down both of their faces, and he tried to block out the memories again, and the fear that Sam would never be all right. He considered putting an arm around Annie’s shoulders, but then thought better of it, wishing that Ray were there, or the Gov… The boss was the only one who really knew how to deal with birds, he reckoned, and then felt his heart sink as he realized the boss wouldn’t be able to comfort Annie, this time. He lit up a cigarette and offered it to Annie, and the absurdity of the gesture made her laugh a bit, a tiny chuckle between the tears as she shook her head at his offer.
A spark of joy suddenly lit itself in Annie’s tear streaked face, and she turned to face Chris, who still wore a dazed expression. “He woke up,” she said, softly, and then, happiness filled her voice as more tears started to flow, “He woke up!” She clamped her arms around Chris again, a smile stretching over her face, and Chris dropped his cigarette onto the linoleum floor of the waiting area, the sudden crush of feminine softness, of breasts and perfume and long hair, making his face blush and filling him with a strange feeling of uncertainty. He let his hands fall softly around her, looking about him for someone else, someone that might be able to pull her away from him, or at least offer some sort of comfort against the confusion, and found no one.
Annie slowly pulled away from Chris on her own, and relief flood through him. “He woke up, yeah? On the mend,” Chris said softly, bending to retrieve his cigarette and then setting it on the ashtray, which one of the nurses must have emptied while they were down the hall.
“On the mend, yeah,” Annie grinned, and then twisted in her chair as she heard footsteps behind her. Gene and Ray were approaching, and she jumped to her feet, her face split by a wide smile and her eyes dancing. “He woke up!” she shouted at them, and then her face fell as she saw the stony, hateful clouds of anger filling both of their faces. Chris, too, stood, and stared at Ray and Gene.
“Both of you, arses in line… There’s been another killing,” Gene said, his voice a low, threatening growl.
“Been another killing, and Myers’s copped it,” Ray said, his own voice gravelly and menacing.
Chris felt his heart turn to stone. It had all been so easy, the first time he’d shot anyone, that stupid Big Bird bitch had been out of hospital and in women’s prison less than a week after he’d put one through her shoulder, but then he’d shot Grey through the head… He felt his legs go rubbery underneath him at the prospect of a third death on his conscience, cold dread seeping into every fiber of his being. Myers as well as Grey, right alongside… He looked up at Ray, “Because of, because of…”
Ray shook his head. “Daft plod was s’posed to be looking over him went for a cuppa, bloody damned sod, and someone else got in, strangled the bastard on one of them medical tubes.” Relief flooded through Chris as he sat down, hard, on the chair nearest the end, staring up at Gene, Ray, and Annie.
“What do you mean, another killing?” Chris whispered, and Gene’s face seemed to turn to stone.
“Just what I said, another killing. Cartwright, you stay here, look after Tyler,” Gene’s voice was also hard as stone, coming in short, clipped bursts from his straining throat. “’Fraid it might be more than just a few hours, and I can’t not have someone here, not after what Ray’s just told me. There’s been someone else to see Sam, and I want to know who. That’s your job. You two bastards, after me,” Gene said, gesturing for Chris and Ray to follow him, and they left Annie staring, a shocked expression on her face as the three men headed towards the lift. She sat down on the chair that Chris had vacated, her hand going to her mouth, not sure what to believe. Another killing… And Myers dead… She tried to concentrate on the fact that Sam had woken up, but the joy that had filled her was usurped by cold fear. Who could have possibly done that, to those other men, to Sam? Myers wasn’t working alone… Who could have possibly helped him, aside from Grey, who was dead? Her mind reeled as she stared at Sam’s door, and then she snapped to. Task at hand, Annie, she reminded herself, and she stood and walked towards the nurses’ station, wiping at the tears that had finally stopped streaming down her face, and trying to make herself look as intimidating as possible.
“There was another man to see DI Tyler, either yesterday or this morning,” she said, and the nurse behind the counter nodded at her. “Can you describe him for me?”
All comments, criticism, etc. are highly encouraged and greatly appreciated! Comments = love.