Doctor Who_ Wooden Heart - Martin Day [52]
The old woman shook her head. ‘There is a better way. The island, in the heart of the lake…’
‘But that’s where the children are coming from!’ exclaimed Petr – who seemed quite prepared to believe the legends now.
‘On the island, there is a cave, and within the cave, is the monster – not those small beasts that patrol the forests, but the god-monster that drives the children towards us. The stories say that all shall not be lost if a brave hero ventures there to slay the evil.’
Saul grinned, and Martha noticed him grasp the hilt of his sword ever more tightly. The Dazai looked from Saul to Petro ‘Of course, in the original text, the number of heroes is not specified.’
And then she turned to Martha.
‘And neither is the gender.’
Abbas sat alone in the dark, his knees pulled up to his chest, and remembered. He thought of the brief moments of happiness that had punctured his life, the jealousy that had almost sent him mad – his attempt to cook a meal for Gabby Jayne. How pathetic! Then the televised trial, complete with preening judges and jurors. After the trial had come the long trip to the research station Castor, way out in neutral space and beyond the reach of any meaningful legislation.
He remembered his first day on the station – the guard who’d welcomed him to hell, the smell of fear and disinfectant that seemed to hang heavy in the air – and the unremitting torture that began moments after his arrival. It was torture, of course – there was no other way of looking at it, however hard the jailers and the scientists tried to apply the masquerade of science and research. It hurt physically, of course – each session was like a trip to the electric chair, the ‘Mercy Seat’ of old Earth penitentiaries, but without the finality – and release – of death at its conclusion. But, worse than that, was the emotional trauma, of literally reliving every bad experience, every moment of deceit, every murderous impulse – and, in his case, every murderous action.
And the dreams that followed… For weeks Abbas had dreamt of stabbing Gabby Jayne, again and again, over and over, and yet each night she was alive again, and Abbas was no longer sure what was nightmare and what was reality.
Eventually, though, progress had been made. Abbas began to forget his past, forget who he was – and it was not time that healed and erased his memories, but the machinery, the experiments. His memories – even his very personality and mind – were coming adrift, until everything in his head moved and changed position, like numerous icebergs sailing away from the landmass that had once sustained them all.
Day-to‐day relationships with the other prisoners were either strained or non-existent: with each person in their own private anguish, hell wasn’t so much other people as yourself magnified. Hell was being forced forever to live in the past, to confront it – and then watch it drift away into the void of ambiguity. Hell was loneliness.
And now, as death closed in, Abbas felt more lonely than ever. He was on his own – most of the others were dead now – and he was absolutely powerless.
He looked about him – his cell door was open, either wrenched apart by some great force, or casually disengaged when the systems overloaded and fire swept through the technical areas. He could still smell the burning now – the rank bitterness of smouldering metal and flesh – and hear the screams of terror in his mind, even though that stage of the calamity had long since passed into awful silence. Screams of terror, as one man turned on another in a frenzy of violence. Some were driven to destroy – others to strive to survive at all costs.
Despite the open door, Abbas was sanguine and passive. Through the arch he could see the great curved cylinder of cells that formed this wing of the prison area. Fires flared in some, while outside others were crumpled black shapes, angular limbs jutting upwards like the residue of a forest after a lightning strike. One or two people moved about, from corridor to room to cell, crying