Elephant Man - Christine Sparks [96]
“Bring your friend,” called a male voice.
Renshaw laughed drunkenly. “He’s had ’is fill for one night.”
He stood where he was, holding up the exhausted Merrick, while he watched them move reluctantly toward the iron gates of Bedstead Square. It was safest to make sure they’d really gone. In the moonlight he could just make out a dark shape beyond the iron gates. It might have been a horse and cart but it was hard to be sure.
It occurred to Renshaw that it was some time since he’d last seen the man with the stove-pipe hat, who had paid him so generously, but he shrugged. If a fool parted with his money and then didn’t stay to see the show, that wasn’t his concern.
He helped Merrick climb clumsily back in through the window and put him on the bed. The room lay in a shambles about them. Renshaw began to pick up some of the pieces of the cathedral. He had a vague idea of making everything tidy again so that no questions should be asked, but after stumbling about for a few moments he realized he was only making things worse. His mind was too fuddled by now to care.
He grinned at Merrick. “I did real well tonight.”
From his pocket he fished a coin which he flipped onto the floor in front of the Elephant Man.
“An almond for the parrot,” he said. “Here—buy yourself a sweet.”
Merrick neither moved nor spoke. He sat petrified, his eyes fixed on Renshaw as the porter made his way to the window and climbed clumsily out. Still he sat immobile, listening as the brass-heeled boots clinked across the cobbles and out of the gate, grew fainter in the distance … died away…
It was silent now and almost completely dark. The ordeal was over. The agony of it had shattered him, but still beneath his suffering pulsed the thought that he had survived. Tomorrow he would force himself to say something about these visits to Treves, or perhaps there would be no need to speak. Treves would see the shambles and ask questions, and the burden of the terrifying decision would be taken from him. After the scene that afternoon, Carr-Gomm’s announcement that he could stay forever, it was easier to feel that he could be protected.
Somewhere far back in his mind lurked the memory of Bytes’ voice, but it was fading. He supposed it must have been an illusion, created by his terror. He had seen nothing of Bytes, and now it was all over. Slowly he let his breath out in relief and lay back against the cool pillows. Their softness brought blessed relief. He relaxed against them, offering himself to exhausted sleep …
“My treasure …”
The voice was soft and husky and seemed to float out of the darkness, but it had the effect of making Merrick’s eyes flash open. He could see nothing, but he needed to see nothing. Already he knew that he had been wrong. Bytes’ voice had been no illusion but a frightful reality. Bytes had not gone away. He was here, now, in this room. Even as Merrick strained to see, Bytes appeared out of the shadows by the window where he had been hiding ever since he had crept in, unnoticed, during the commotion. He was smiling a horrible smile.
“Aren’t you glad to see me?” he asked, caressingly.
“Bytes …” Merrick could only utter the word in primeval horror, as a man might repeat the name of a fiend that haunts him. He was beyond conscious thought, beyond reaction. He only knew that his worst nightmares had risen to engulf him.
He had no strength to resist Bytes, and his brain was too stunned to give him the determination to try. He submitted as in a trance to a will stronger than his own, while all the time his mind was silently screaming despairing appeals for help to an uncaring world.
He knew, as if he were seeing it happen to someone else, that Bytes had pulled him off the bed and wrapped his cloak around him, was grunting into his ear.
“Now we’re ready to go. Don’t waste time about that.”
These last words were jerked from Bytes by the sight of Merrick reaching toward the little table where stood the framed picture of his mother. He had almost reached it when Bytes impatiently knocked his hand aside