“Okay,” I said, struggling. “At least I’ll pray for you.”
He charged the syringe and approached Hopper. I watched, feeling the hairs on the back of my neck rising and my heart beginning to thump against my ribs.
He was a little shaky, but his serious, horse-like face was calm. Gently he pushed Hopper’s pyjama sleeve back and poised the syringe. It was like watching a man fiddling with the fuse of a delayed-action bomb. There was nothing I could do but watch and sweat for him, and I sweated all right, wanting to tell him to hurry up, and for the love of Mike not to stand there like a dummy, but get the thing over.
He was a little short-sighted in spite of his glasses, and he couldn’t see the right vein. His head kept getting closer and closer to Hopper while he peered at the white, sinewy arm. He seemed to have forgotten how dangerous Hopper was. All he seemed to be thinking about was to make a good job of the operation. His face was only about a foot away from Hopper’s when he nodded his head as if he had found the vein he was after. Very gently he laid the side of the needle down on the vein.
I wasn’t breathing now. My hands were clutching at the sheet. Then, just as he was going to plunge in the needle, he drew back with an impatient exclamation and walked over to the tray he had left on the chest of drawers.
My breath whistled in my dry mouth as I said unevenly, “What the hell’s the matter now?”
“I forgot the ether,” he said. “Stupid of me. One should always clean the skin before making a puncture.”
He was sweating almost as badly as I, but he had been taught to use ether before giving the syringe and that was the way he was going to give it: come hell, come sunshine.
Hopper stirred slightly as Quell dabbed on the ether. I was half out of bed with nervous anticipation, and Quell’s hand was unsteady as he began the ghastly hunt for the vein again.
Down went his head within a foot of Hopper’s, his eyes intent on Hopper’s skin.
Suddenly Hopper opened his eyes. Quell was too busy to notice.
“Look out!” I croaked.
As Quell looked up with a stifled gasp, Hopper, moving with the speed of a snake, had him by the throat.
VI
With one furious, violent movement I dragged the heavy sheet off my legs and threw myself out of bed. I had a crazy idea die force of my throw would wrench the bed free so I could drag it across the floor and get at Hopper. But the bed held, and I only succeeded in knocking the breath out of my body.
Quell’s wild yell hit the ceiling, bounced off and burst over me like shrapnel. He yelled again, and then his next yell trailed off into a blood-chilling gurgle as Hopper’s hands cut off his breath.
I didn’t look at them. I was afraid to. The sound of the struggle was bad enough. Instead, I hoisted myself up on the bed, slid to the end and got my free leg over the bed-rail and on to the floor. I was in such a panic I could scarcely breathe, and I was shaking like an old man with the palsy. I stretched towards the chest of drawers. My fingertips just brushed the handles of the top drawer. Behind me came a savage growling noise: a noise like nothing I have ever heard or ever want to hear again. I strained frantically towards the drawer handle. My fingernails got a purchase. I pulled madly away from the handcuff and the skin around my ankle felt as if it was on fire.
My nails hooked into the handle and the drawer opened an inch. It was enough. It gave me just enough purchase to pull the drawer right out so it fell with a crash to the floor. It was full of towels and surgical bandages, and, hanging over the rail I scrabbled madly among the junk, hunting for the key.
A sudden yammering noise behind me sent my blood pressure up, but I didn’t pause in my frantic hunt. I found the key at last between two towels, and, sobbing for breath, I swung myself back on the bed, searching for the tiny lock opening in the cuff. My ankle was bleeding, but I didn’t care about that. I sank the key into the lock, turned it and the cuff came off.
I was off the bed and across the room in one movement. Then I stopped short, took two steps back, and gulped down a sudden rush of saliva into my mouth.
Hopper peered at me over Quells body. He showed his teeth, and I could see his mouth was coated with blood. There was blood everywhere. On the wall behind him, over the sheet, over him and Quell.
Quell lay across the bed: a dummy in bloodstained clothes. His half-open eyes looked at me in glazed horror. Hopper had bitten into his jugular vein. He was deader than a dead mackerel.
“Give me the key,” Hopper said in a forced whisper. “Others shall die tonight.”
I moved away. I thought I was a tough guy, but not now: Malloy the squeamish with cold sweat on his face and a lump of lead in his belly. I have seen some pretty horrible sights in my life, but this little tableau took the Oscar.
“Give me the key or I will kill you, too,” Hopper said, and threw Quells body off the bed on to the floor. He began to creep down the bed towards me, his face working, the blood on his mouth glistening in the soft lamp- light.
A Grand Guignol nightmare this. A dream to tell your friends about; a dream they wouldn’t believe.
I began a slow, backward, circling movement towards the door.
“Don’t go away, Seabright,” Hopper said, crouching on the bed and glaring at me. “Give me the key!”
I reached the door, and, as my hand closed over the handle he let out an unearthly scream of frustrated rage and threw himself off the bed at me. The bed rocked, but held, and his clawing fingers scrabbled at the carpet six feet or so away from me.
I was shaking. I got the door open and almost fell into the passage. As I grabbed the handle to shut it, the horrible animal sound burst out of his throat again.
For some moments I just stood in the long, silent corridor, my heart jumping and my knees knocking, then slowly I took hold of myself. With one hand against the wall to support me, I set off slowly towards the massive door at the end of the corridor. I passed four other doors before I came to the end one. I ran my hands over the surface, feeling the soft rubber cool against my hot skin. I turned the handle, but nothing happened. The door was locked as fast as Pharaoh’s tomb.
Well, I expected that. But if I could I was going to get out of here. The thought of going back to that charnel-house of a room gave me the shakes. I took hold of the door handle and bent my strength to it. Nothing happened. It was like trying to push over the Great Wall of China.
That wasn’t the way out.
I retraced my steps to the far end of the corridor and examined the mess-grill window. Nothing short of a crowbar would have shifted it, and even with a crowbar it would have taken hall a day to break out.
The next move was to find a weapon. If I could find something I could use as a cosh I had only to hide myself near the main door and wait for someone to show up. Q.E.D. Even a Malloy will get an idea sometimes.
I began to move along the corridor. The first door I tried was unlocked. I peered cautiously into darkness, listened, heard my own breathing and nothing else, groped for the light switch and turned on the light. Probably Quell’s room. It was neat and tidy and clean, and there was no weapon in sight or nothing I could use for a weapon. A white uniform hanging on a stretcher gave me an idea. I slid into the room and tried on the coat. It didn’t fit me any better than a mole-skin would fit a Polar bear, so I dropped the idea.
The next room was also empty of life. Above the dirty-looking bed was a large coloured print of a girl in a G- string and a rope of pearls. She smiled at me invitingly, but I didn’t smile back. That made it Bland’s room.
I slid in and shut the door. A rapid search through the chest of drawers produced among other things a leather-bound cosh with a wrist thong: a nicely-balanced, murderous little weapon, and just what I warned.
I went across the room to a cupboard, found a spare uniform and tried on the jacket. It was a fair fit, a little big, but good enough. I changed, leaving my pyjamas on the floor. I felt a lot better once I was in trousers and shoes again. Pyjamas and bare feet are not the kit for fighting. I shoved the cosh into my hip pocket, and wished I had a gun.
At the bottom of the cupboard I found a pint bottle of Irish whisky. I broke the seal, unscrewed the cap and took a slug. The liquor went down like silk and exploded in my stomach like a touched-off Mills bomb.
