Doctor Who_ The Sleep of Reason - Martin Day [7]
Saliva-flecked jaws, crammed with teeth like shards of yellowed ivory, would snap about her legs. Great padded claws would cuff her, knock her to the floor, roll her over and over. Playing with their food.
She was lost. There was no hope.
Flight impossible, she turned to face her pursuers – she would at least stare them in the eyes as their mouths lunged for her neck. Her throbbing throat became clogged with bile and fear. The malevolent, mesmeric eyes came ever closer.
Then, with a roaring ocean rush, Death’s hounds swallowed her utterly.
Laska came to with her eyes screwed shut against the light.
Laska. She was reborn now – she’d killed Caroline again.
Her stomach surged and roiled. Pain throbbed through her head, stabbing just behind eyes that seemed unused to the light.
Pain was helpful. Pain meant life – those two always went hand in hand.
She forced open her eyes. The inner light – heaven? hell? – receded, replaced by the unstinting glare of a neon lamp. Pale white walls, an angular bed frame, some sort of cubicle, a clutter of unused equipment and a bare wardrobe.
Bedside cabinet. Flowers, a card.
Laska let out a hissing sigh. She was alive. Elation left her now, left her alone – her mind suddenly lacked relief, or disappointment. She felt nothing.
‘Welcome back,’ said a voice.
Laska twisted her head – an explosion of discomfort set the room spinning –
and saw a nurse staring down at her. The face, young and not unkind, broke into a smile. She reminded Laska of herself, when caught unawares by a secret 12
photograph, when momentarily relaxed – what might have happened if life had been different.
‘You’re in hospital,’ continued the nurse pointlessly, returning the clipboard to the bottom of the bed. ‘We thought we might lose you. An overdose and an attempt to cut your wrists – one of your more serious cries for help.’
‘I’m serious about everything I do,’ said Laska, her voice cracked and dry.
‘Do you think we should have let you die?’
Laska knew the game – cut to the chase. Is she still a danger to herself – or others?
Too tired to even think about constructing a façade, Laska answered honestly. ‘I don’t know.’
‘The consultant will be in to see you later.’
‘Which one?’ Laska was on first-name terms with many of the consultant psychiatrists, though each to her represented only invasive questions and the grim authority that kept her alive.
The nurse ducked the question. ‘Would you like a drink?’
Laska nodded, gratefully taking the offered glass. It tasted less bitter than the tap water she remembered swigging down with the tablets. ‘What will happen to me?’ she asked.
‘We have a proposal for you.’ The nurse smiled again. ‘Something new.’
The rest of the day – after the relief of unconsciousness – was a blur of people, suggestions and movement. From the hospital cubicle she was wheeled through corridors that smelled of vomit and NHS bleach by a succession of brusque porters who ignored her protests that there was nothing wrong with her legs, to be interviewed by an array of doctors, most of whom she did not recognise. There were forms to fill in, questions to be answered or dodged: though they kept saying that it was her choice, that what she wanted was important, all Laska wanted was to rest, to sleep for a hundred years and find out what happened next. She was passive, and thus easy to influence; she accepted a plan of action she knew she didn’t even begin to understand.
Then the ambulance came and swallowed her up, smothered her in blankets and the sympathy of a barely qualified nurse. This woman’s uniform seemed so smart Laska was sure it had only just come out of its cellophane wrapper, its logo – an intertwined ‘T’ and ‘R’ – formed from crisp stitching.
Laska began to panic when she saw the driveway and the building beyond.
The young nurse flapped around, which only made