Doctor Who_ Cat's Cradle_ Warhead - Andrew Cartmel [74]
Ace leaned on the sink, catching her breath, bracing herself for the effort of hauling him into the tub. She remembered what the Doctor had said about the gel. Already she could feel, or imagined she could feel, the stuff taking hold. The skin at the base of her neck and along her spine had begun to tingle. Her shoulder was hurting but now the pain seemed distant, overlayed with a warm rippling. She felt a little sleepy and waves of slow heat pulsed across her ribcage and the inner surfaces of her arms, where she’d picked up the most gel.
The boy in the wicker chair suddenly gulped, opened his eyes and cleared his throat as if he was about to say something.
For a moment he stared directly at Ace, blank bright eyes locked on hers. Then he nodded, spat a fat wet slug of the preserving gel on to the floor between her feet, closed his eyes and subsided again.
Ace sighed and read the name off the boy’s dogtag. ‘Bathtime, Vincent.’
By the time she’d settled him into the tub, sitting propped up at one end, the big bath was about ready to overflow. She wrestled with the taps for a minute and finally wrenched them back to the off position. Hidden pipes shuddered and the flow of water slowed to a dribble then a steady irritating dripping. Ace looked at the boy. His eyes were puffy and squeezed shut. He looked authentically asleep. More than that, he looked sightless, blind, born blind like some pale marine creature. She dropped a yellow plastic duck into the water of the bathtub. Not a flicker. The duck bobbed and floated against the pale milky blue skin of the kid’s chest as she stripped off her swimsuit, thoroughly soaked in the struggle to get Vincent into the tub. The heavy drenched fabric puddled at her feet. She hooked it with a toe and kicked it across the room. The swimsuit hit the side of the glass shower stall with a loud slap. Ace walked across the wet bathroom tiles and stepped under the shower. When the spray hit her she soaped her elbows and began to sing.
The boy, Vincent, remained sitting in the deep steaming bath, his head nodding slightly with the residual movement of the water. The old faucet dripped, slow beads of water from its mineral‐encrusted lip, gathering, hanging, falling into the hot water.
Under pale closed lids the boy’s eyes were rolling.
The sound of liquid dripping.
Steady dripping.
Deep in his dreams Vincent saw the droplets gather, wait, fall. He heard the dripping sound.
Vincent dreamed and listened to the sound. It led him through his dreams.
Now the water is dripping from the sponge in his mother’s hand. Vincent is ten years old and he has a fever. Nothing seems quite real. His face and forehead are hot. The water drips from the sponge as his mother wipes it gently across his skin. Noises ring around the house in a strange way. They seem to be part of his fever dreams. They echo and the echoes make him feel sick. But they aren’t part of his dreams. The sounds are real. They’re coming from the living room downstairs. The sounds are voices. His father’s voice, loud and piercing. His mother’s voice low. Vincent’s father shouldn’t be here. He said he was going back to university. Going to finish his degree this time. He said he’d never come home. Vincent was holding him back. Vincent’s mother was holding him back. Without them he could make something of himself.
But now he’s back and the voices are unbearable as Vincent walks down the stairs like a sleepwalker into the living room. His father shouting at his mother. His mother trying to be rational. Father’s voice like something wild let loose in the room. Let loose in Vincent’s head. His mother’s voice like something small, trying to escape. Vincent walks into the living room, walking in his fever dream, just as his father hits his mother. And then his father sees him.
And grabs him, shakes him. Suddenly Vincent is dizzy with the fever.