Glasshouse - Charles Stross [96]
I make the top step and glance round quickly. The master bedroom is on the left, just like in my own house. There are piles of filthy clothing mounded up along one wall, and I take in the sick-but-sweet stench of blocked drains overlying something else, something less identifiable. I dart into the bedroom, and my hand goes to the light switch. Something squeals.
There’s a splintering crash downstairs and a bellow of inarticulate rage, but I’m too busy staring at the bed to pay attention. Most of the furniture in the room has been trashed, like someone threw it about or took an axe to it. The bed is the sole exception, but it’s been stripped down to the mattress. It stinks of excrement and stale urine, there are flies buzzing about, and it’s occupied: Cass is lying on it naked. Her arms are tied to the headboard, and her legs to either corner of the bottom of the bed. She’s filthy and there are bruises on her thighs and her face looks like she’s been repeatedly punched. That’s where the squealing noise is coming from. I think he’s broken her jaw.
“Up here,” I yell through the doorway. I turn back to her. “We’ll get you out of here, my friend.” I bend over her and pull out the switchblade I brought along for emergencies. “This is going to hurt.” I begin sawing on the cord around her arms and she whimpers. As she moves there’s a horrible stench from the encrusted mattress and I realize she isn’t just skinny, she’s half-starved, and there are sores on her arms, angry red rope burns.
I hear more crashes and bangs from downstairs, then an angry yell. Cass whimpers, then moans loudly as the last cord parts; her arms flop limply, and she moans some more. Her hands are puffy and bruised-looking, and I’ve got a bad feeling about them, but there’s no time to waste. I move to the foot of the bed and start sawing away at the rope around her right ankle, and that’s when she screams and I see what he’s done to stop her from running away. There’s blood on the rope because he’s slashed the big tendon on her ankle, and her foot flops uncontrollably, and every time it moves, she tries to scream, gurgling around her broken jaw. He said you get lots of points for having a baby. I yell with fury, then there’s someone in the doorway. I look up and see it’s Sam. There’s a cut on his cheek that’s bleeding, and one eye is half-closed. That gets my attention, and I’m in control again. “Over here,” I say tensely. “I need you to hold her leg still . . .”
When we go downstairs, Greg phones a number I don’t know about and calls an ambulance. Everyone is a bit the worse for wear, except for Greg and Tammy. Sam is going to have a beautiful black eye tomorrow, and Fer caught a kick in the ribs while he and Sam and Greg were taking down Mick. They’ve laid him out on the floor of the conservatory while we figure out what to do with him. I’m really regretting my earlier stand against lynching, but the first priority is to get Cass to safety. We’ll have plenty of time to deal with Mick later, assuming he doesn’t choke on his own vomit while he’s unconscious. That would make things easier all round.
“How is she?” asks Tammy. “I’d better—”
“No.” I stop her by standing in the way. “Trust me. We need to get her to the, the hospital. This isn’t something you can do at home.”
“How bad?” Tammy demands.
“Hospital.” I don’t want her to see what Mick did to Cass’s legs. I don’t want to be responsible tonight.
The ambulance arrives within five minutes, a boxy white vehicle with stylized red crescents on it. Two polite zombies in blue uniforms come up to the front door. “This way,” I say, leading them upstairs. For once I’m glad there are zombies everywhere—they won’t ask the kind of awkward questions someone with cognitive autonomy might raise. Sam is up there with Cass,