Stranger Things by William Paul

Author:William Paul [Paul, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 2018-12-13T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Five

Wednesday: 14.37

Joan hovered above, forming gradually in front of him like one of those pictures in television quiz shows where each feature is revealed separately before the final figure takes shape. He saw her hair hooked behind her ears to hang vertically down. There were tiny reflected stars in her eyes and a sheen on her cheeks. Her teeth shone whitely. The bones of her neck stood out under the skin that was stretched over the hollow of her throat. The desk sergeant had been right. Her blouse certainly was a bit tight.

‘How are you feeling?’ Joan asked.

Fyfe paid attention to the dull, thumping pain behind his eyes. Every few minutes it changed to become something very like a sharp chisel being driven into the bridge of his nose. The nose itself felt uncomfortably huge and very, very tender. When he moved a hand up to try and touch it to check that it was real, Joan caught his wrist to stop him. Her mouth grew larger, her teeth whiter, as she shook her head and smiled down encouragingly.

‘I wouldn’t do that,’ she said. ‘He head-butted you.’

‘Who did?’

‘Davidson. He ambushed us.’

Fyfe took a few seconds to identify Davidson. He examined Joan’s nose, perfectly straight with delicately flared nostrils, and a slightly upturned tip. He tried to touch his own nose again but she held onto his wrist. The pain behind his eyes pulsed rhythmically and assumed a sharper edge with every third beat. Fyfe blinked and Joan’s face reassembled itself above him more quickly this time. He remembered the previous night and Doug lying in the hallway curled up and moaning in pain after the beating he had received. Now it was his turn to do the moaning, a low mournful sound exhaled on every breath.

‘He headed you something awful,’ Joan informed him. ‘You didn’t have a chance. He came out from behind the curtain like a madman. It must be sore but at least it doesn’t seem to be bleeding. It’s probably broken.’

Still holding onto Fyfe’s wrist, she reached out with her fingers and didn’t quite touch his nose. The approaching fingertips became blurred smudges that caused a delayed reaction in Fyfe, making him jerk his head back and increase the intensity of the nagging pain. When he re-opened his eyes Joan’s face was already there, in one nicely arranged piece. It would be rewarding, he thought, to go swimming with Joan.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

‘He didn’t touch me. After he hit you he just kept running right out the door. He was off like a rat up a drainpipe.’

‘Let’s get after him then.’

Fyfe struggled to get up but was easily held down. It was only then that Fyfe realized he was in a hospital bed wearing a surgical gown and that, as well as Joan, there were two doctors and a nurse standing round him. He relaxed and closed his eyes. The pain pulsed quietly inside his skull.

‘There’s no point,’ Joan said. ‘He’s long gone from here.

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