pylons.
It flickered again, this time plunging the room into darkness for a second or two.
Blake muttered something to himself and peered at the bulb. The bloody thing was loose, no wonder it kept going on and off. He picked up his pen once more, now scarcely able to keep his eyes open. He turned to a fresh page but, before he could start writing, he had slumped forward in his seat and, within seconds, he was sound asleep. The bathroom was full of steam.
Like a swirling white fog it curled and twisted in the air, condensation covering the mirror like a shroud so that when Blake looked into it, his reflection was smudged and unclear. He could still hear taps running, water splashing noisily into what was obviously an overfilled tub. Rivulets of water were
running down the side of the bath which, for some reason, was hidden by the shower curtain which had been pulled around it. Blake shrugged, he didn’t remember doing that.
He reached over and turned off the hot tap, cursing when he felt the heat in the metal. The condensation was on the shower curtain too, pouring down to puddle on the tiles beneath his feet.
Blake pulled back the flimsy plastic.
He shrieked aloud at the sight which met him.
Sitting up in the scalding water, skin covered by hideous welts from the blistering temperature, was a man.
The man was smiling broadly, his lips little more than ragged puffed up sores still leaking clear fluid. His head had obviously been immersed in the searing water because his face was red like a boiled lobster, the skin having risen to form innumerable liquescent blisters, some of which had burst and were spilling their contents down his cheeks. His entire body was scarlet and, such was the intensity of the water’s heat, Blake noticed that three of the man’s fingernails had been scalded free. They hung by thin tendrils of skin from the ends of the raw digits.
Blake stood rooted to the spot, his eyes gaping wide. But, it was not the appearance of the man which terrified him. It was his features.
Scalded and burnt though they were, they were unmistakably those of Blake himself.
He screamed again. The scream woke him.
Blake sat bolt upright in his seat, perspiration beaded on his forehead. The lamp had stopped flickering, the room was bathed in a comforting yellowish glow. The sound of heavy rock music had been replaced by the sound of voices as the DJ interviewed his guest.
It took the writer a moment to realize that he’d been dreaming.
He swallowed hard and looked behind him to where the bathroom door was ajar.
It was dark in there. No running water. No light. No steam.
Blake wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and released a sigh of relief.
‘That’s what you get for trying to work at this time in the morning,’ he told himself, reaching forward to close the notepad.
The page which had been blank before he dozed off had several sentences written on it.
The letters were large and untidy but the handwriting was unmistakably his.
Blake rubbed his eyes and turned back a page. He must have written the words before dozing off. But, as he re-read them, he realized that the words were new. He scanned the spidery writing:
The writer swallowed hard as he scanned the words. His own words. Blake had heard of this kind of thing before, of so-called ‘automatic writing’ but it usually only occurred when the subject was in a trance. Was what he saw before him an example of automatic writing?
He sucked in a deep breath and held the paper before him. This time, he did not intend keeping things to himself. He would tell Mathias about what had happened and about the nightmare. Blake tore the piece of paper from the pad, wincing suddenly as he did so. He felt pain in his right hand and, as he turned it over he saw that his palm and wrist were bright red and swollen slightly.
As if they’d been scalded in very hot water.
Oxford
‘How many days is it since you last slept?’ Kelly asked Maurice Grant who was drumming agitatedly on the table at which they sat. Between them was a tape recorder, its twin spools turning slowly, the microphone pointed towards Grant.
‘Two,’ Grant snapped. ‘Why the hell are you asking? You ought to know, you’re the ones who keep pumping me full off fucking drugs.’ He got to his feet and walked away from the table towards the large plate glass window in the far wall. Outside the sun was shining.
‘Look out there,’ said Grant. ‘It’s a beautiful day and I’m stuck in here with you two bastards asking me stupid questions.’
The man seated to Kelly’s right leant closer.
‘What are you giving him?’ asked John Fraser, quietly.
‘Thirty mg of Methadrine,’ said Kelly. ‘But without the Tubarine to put him out at nights.’
Fraser nodded and scribbled something down on the note pad before him.
The room they were in was light and airy, mainly due to the large window at the far end. Two or three bright paintings decorated the white walls, adding a touch of colour, but the room was dominated by the bulk of an EEG machine. The Elema Schonander Mingograf was the most up to date of its kind and was one of four which the Institute owned. Readings had already been taken earlier that morning from Maurice Grant, over an hour ago according to the large wall clock which hung over the machine. But, at present, Kelly and her colleague were more concerned with Grant’s verbal reactions than those culled from an elec-troencephalogrammatic scan of his brain. He had been deliberately deprived of sleep for the last two nights, unable to live out, subconsciously, the nightmare which he usually experienced.
Both investigators watched him as he paced agitatedly back and forth before the window.
‘Why don’t you come and sit down again?’ said Fraser.
Kelly had worked with John Fraser on a number of occasions. He was ten years older than her but looked closer to fifty than thirty-five. His face had a mottled appearance to it as if he’d been out in the sun too long. His bulbous nose was shiny and reminded Kelly of a bald head. His eyes were rheumy and heavy-lidded like those of a man about to doze off. But he had a lean muscular body which looked as though it had somehow acquired the wrong head. The youthful frame and the haggard features seemed at odds.
i said, why don’t you …’
Grant cut him short.
‘Yeah, I heard you,’ he rasped, hesitating a moment before stomping back to the table where he sat down heavily. ‘Why the hell do you have to keep asking me so many questions? I just want to sleep.’
‘Why do you want to sleep?’ Fraser asked.
‘Because I’m fucking shattered,’ snapped Grant. ‘Do I need a better reason?’
He glared at the two investigators with eyes full of rage. A razor hadn’t touched his face for three or four days now and his cheeks and chin were carpeted by coarse bristles which rasped as he rubbed them.
‘You knew that things might get a little uncomfortable when you first agreed to help us,’ Kelly reminded him.
Maurice Grant didn’t answer. He merely looked from Kelly to Fraser then back again.
‘Are you ready to answer some questions?’ she asked him.
if I do, does that mean I can get some sleep?’ he demanded.
She nodded.
‘All right, ask your questions,’ he said, picking at the skin around his fingernails, chewing it occasionally.
‘When you can’t dream, what do you think about?’ she wanted to know, pushing the microphone closer to him.
‘Things, I …”
‘What kind of things?’ Fraser interrupted.
‘Things,’ Grant hissed. ‘All kinds of things, thoughts.’
‘Can you remember any of them?’ Kelly enquired.
‘No,” he said, flatly.
