Doctor Who_ Bad Therapy - Matthew Jones [46]
The director walks over to the Toy which is lifeless, naked and limp. I can’t help feeling nauseous just looking at it. It’s like a shop window dummy, only instead of being firm and solid, it’s soft, as if somehow it’s been melted. With the support staff redeployed, there’s no one here to tend to them. Its flesh is beginning to discolour and is sagging around its joints.
The director lifts the Toy and holds its dead weight clumsily in his arms.
The director is a physically large man: tall, thickset and muscular. But even he is struggling.
76
Then the change begins. I’ve witnessed this over a hundred times and I’m still transfixed. Only now the awe I feel is mixed with revulsion. One moment there is only a pale expanse of shapeless flesh and then a woman is standing there. The transformation is instantaneous. It happens so quickly that you’re only aware of it afterwards. We’ve slowed the process down with a camera –
which is terrifying. Its features emerge as though its face has been pushed out from the inside of an inflated balloon. The surface of its face stretches to accommodate the new features. Slits in its face appear – tiny rips that form into a woman’s eyes, nostrils and mouth.
It’s always the same woman. I don’t know who she is. And I’ve never dared ask the director. She’s quite flawless. Chiselled features, raven black hair that’s so thick that it could be feathers. It’s that perfect beauty that makes you ache.
The director takes the newly made woman in his arms, and moves to kiss her. She looks tiny and brittle in his great treetrunk-like arms. And then – and this happens every time – she opens her almond-shaped eyes, catches sight of him, flinches, and begins to scream. She lashes out with her fists, kicks him repeatedly in the knees, tries to bite his face. She twists like a trapped snake, using every ounce of her strength to get out of his embrace.
The director roars with anger. And beneath the angry cry there is something else. A wail like a wounded animal. Simple, inarticulate pain. He throws her to the floor – hard. She cries out and, like a struck dog, makes a desperate graceless scramble for the corner of the room. Away from him, her defiance evaporates. She pulls her knees up to her chest and her cries become softer, quickly dissolving into whimpers. And as her moans lose their harsh edge, so her features begin to blur. They don’t completely vanish, just start to melt, until they’re only floating on the loose skin of her face. The mannequin’s head lolls forward drunkenly. Lifeless. A doll. An outsized child’s toy.
The director stares at the one-way mirror – no, he must be staring through it, because he is looking directly at where I am sitting.
‘Another failure,’ he roars at me and storms out of the room.
It’s over. That was Director Moriah’s last experiment. The Petruska Programme is finally over.
Julia Mannheim snapped the folder shut and threw it on to the desk in front of her. She hurried over to the door of the darkened observation room and fumbled for the light switch. The room filled with electrical light. With the lighting in the two rooms reversed, the window to the therapy room darkened, becoming impenetrable blackness.
As Julia Mannheim began to gather up her papers, klaxons sounded in the corridors outside.
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What now?
Leaving her bundle on the desk she made her way into the long empty corridor. A window looked out on to the Institute’s grounds. The unkempt gardens looked peaceful and still in the light from the Institute. She heard the sound of one of the guard dogs barking excitedly.
‘Oh, no,’ she whispered. ‘Another breakout. That’s all we need.’
Julia Mannheim tugged her white labcoat more tightly around her stocky torso and bustled off down the corridor. She failed to notice the two veiled female figures enter the therapy room. A moment later they left the room, supporting the crumpled woman between them, and disappeared into the shadows.