The Book: Chapter 35

Alice and Mick arrived in London on Tuesday morning. The city rose above them with so many tall buildings when they were used to open spaces and green fields.  The capital looked grey beneath an overcast sky and the air was loaded with an eerie stillness. The street was unrecognisable. Somebody had taken reality, shaken it up, and set it down askew. The usual honks and chatter of Bishopsgate seemed far away and muted and a sense of wrongness hit them as they turned into the street where the Bedlam Diner had been three days before.

It was gone.

The ruined shell of the old St Mary’s of Bethlehem Hospital stood in its place.  Its crumbling façade was streaked with grime and the windows were hollow sockets that swallowed any daylight filtering through the clouds. The wrought-iron gate was rusted and twisted at peculiar angles as if it had been pried open by an unseen force—or maybe just vandals. Alice got a grip and reined her imagination in. Faded warning signs hung on the fence, Danger: unsafe structure. Keep out, their edges curling like a dead Dover sole. Weeds pushed through the cracked pavement, reclaiming the space where, days ago, a neon-lit fifties diner had been.

The diner had been there, serving greasy burgers with ketchup blood. They’d spoken to a staff of living people. But it was as if it had never existed.

Mick swore and fumbled his phone from his pocket. He dialled the number for Earnest Cole. The ringing tone peeled loud in the empty street, a funeral bell that cut away to silence. No longer in service. He tried the number for the diner. Disconnected.

Alice turned around looking at the derelict street. A body lay huddled under a filthy nylon sleeping bag, and from this distance, she had no idea if it was male or female, alive or dead. ‘This is insane. We were here,’ she muttered.

‘The book’s playing another trick. And we aren’t the crazy ones,’ Mick said.

Alice shivered and moved closer to Mick. Apart from the obvious, that the whole world had gone bloody mad, and a previously gaudy monstrosity was a crumbling pile—everything about this was wrong.

Mick eyed the homeless person, and Alice worried he might wake them—things could get ugly. Mick must have thought the same thing because he changed direction and went to look in one of the lower windows. ‘Spidey senses in overdrive,’ he said. ‘I don’t like this, but we need answers.’

‘What can you see?’ Alice asked, trying to push alongside him to look in the window.’

‘Pigeon crap.’

‘Jesus, Mick. What else?’

‘Nothing. Just a big empty room.’

‘Oh.’

‘I think I spotted my will to live in there too,’ he said.

They went around the back of the hospital into a narrow alley. Decaying and filthy, the scent of damp brick and rotting rubbish attacked them and clung to their skin. The buildings on either side leaned inward, their rooftops almost touching and blocking out what little daylight broke through the clouds. Old pipes jutted from the walls dripping sludge into the cracks of the uneven pavement and a single streetlamp shone above them, its yellow haze barely cutting through the drab alley. The walls were scrawled with graffiti—some of it modern, and some so old it had faded into illegibility, cryptic warnings in layers of overlapping ink. A love heart stood out in red spray paint with two names encased within the shape: Mick and Alice 4 Eva. Alice shivered in revulsion. Their names here made it real, it was obscene. She felt sick.  

‘It’s all in the detail, and it doesn’t miss a trick’ Mick said. His voice was granite-hard, sarcasm cutting into his tone. ‘Banksy here thinks we’re a power couple.’ His hand stiffened in hers and Alice felt his fury. A rat darted across their path, disappearing into the shadows. At least this was more or less what they’d expected on their first visit. Even so, they were at a loss for what to do next. It was decided for them when they saw movement.

A figure shuffled forward from the recess behind a blue corporation skip. Alice thought it was another homeless person until the feeble light caught him.

The man wore a filthy, striped hospital gown issued to asylum patients in the early 1950s. It was torn at the hem, exposing shackled ankles that clinked with every step he took. His face was gaunt with sallow skin stretched over high cheekbones and falling off his face in places giving the impression of Dali’s melting clocks. But it was the eyes that terrified Alice most, they were expressionless sunken pits of blackness. His lips curled in something that might have been a grin—but it spread across his face—hollow.

Alice gasped when she saw the axe he held in both hands. She saw her reflection in its blade as he swung it gently across his middle.

The weapon gleamed, even in the dim alley and its edge looked sharp despite the rusty blade. He moved forward again and let the axe swing from his hand where he dragged it behind him. The metal head scraped against the concrete leaving a white line and the sound set Alice’s teeth on edge.

Mick was the first to speak. ‘Who are you? What do you want?’ The man took another step forward, his head tilting unnaturally. And Alice saw the hospital badge sewn to his gown.

Earnest Cole.

Mick saw it at the same time. The blood drained from his face. ‘Alice, run.’ Cole’s lips parted, revealing blackened teeth. He lunged.

The axe swung through the air, missing Mick’s shoulder by inches as they bolted down the alley. Alice heard the shackles rattling, the grotesque shuffle of feet gaining speed behind them. She dared a glance back—Cole was moving faster than he should have been able to, his bound feet didn’t slow him down. He jerked like a marionette, erratic but impossibly fast. The sound of the axe scraping the pavement brought a whispering promise of death. His eyes gleamed with something worse than madness. They held a knowing hunger.

‘Alice,’ it hissed. The word elongated and it spread out, lasting for seconds. And when it was done, it came back to them on an echo.

Alice and Mick sprinted through the alley, skidding around a puddle of something she didn’t want to identify. The walls closed in as the alley stretched longer than it had on the way in. A trick the book had used before, in the hospital when the corridors never ended. The book had its name—if it had one—written all over this. Time had warped and became meaningless. Her breath came in irregular gasps. The air was decayed, festering beneath the city and oozing up through the storm grids. She didn’t want to breathe it, but the alternative was death.

They reached the front of the building. Alice’s breathing pounded against her ribs. She had a stitch and doubled over, clasping her sides, unable to run another step.

‘Don’t stop,’ Mick said. ‘We’ve got to keep moving.’ He came back to help her and as she straightened they turned to look back.

Cole was gone.

There was nowhere to go, but he had vanished.

Mick followed Alice, bracing his hands on his knees. ‘Tell me we imagined that.’

She didn’t answer. Alice was staring at the doorway where the diner had been.

A girl had come out from beneath the sleeping bag and sat with her hand outstretched. ‘Loose change, miss?’

Her hair was matted, her face streaked with dirt and her hospital gown tattered and stained. Her eyes, bloodshot and hollow, darted between them as she extended a filthy palm. ‘Spare some change?’ Alice couldn’t stand it and looked away from the infected track marks on her arms.

Alice recognised her, and what she saw made her sad.

It was the cashier.

But not as she’d been on Saturday. Alice saw a girl who had lived a hard life. The pretty, clean-cut teenager in the cherry-red uniform was gone. She had her whole life ahead of her, then. She knew her stable world and wore the optimism and entitlement of youth like a scrunchie in her hair. Alice couldn’t move. It was her—but it wasn’t. She’d decomposed into this in three days. It was impossible. The girl’s lips pulled into a grin. And she laughed, baying, a broken, rasping cackle that clawed into Alice’s head, as sharp as glass and unshakeable.

‘Earnest likes pretty ladies. Earnest does,’ the girl said. Alice saw her name tag. Emily.

 She grabbed Mick’s arm. ‘We need to go. Now.’

He took her by the hand and they ran, pounding through filthy puddles and tripping on loose stones.

No matter how fast Alice moved, she couldn’t escape it—the girl’s laughter followed them, bouncing off the walls of the empty street.

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