Sometime in the afternoon, people started arriving for the funeral. I tried to stay away from them, as they seemed to regard me with something like disgust. I didn’t really blame them, though- I was covered in dirt and blood and probably looked like a homeless foreigner/murderer to them.
By now I was hungry and weak. The last time I had eaten was lunch during school the previous day. But at least I wasn’t quite so cold as before. Earlier I had tried to give the undertaker his coat back but he had refused, telling me I needed it more than he did. Then to top it off, he had given me his scarf/sash thing. He had disappeared somewhere now, probably busy with the funeral. I felt less guilty now that I had tried to give it back and now that I had seen he had actually been wearing another coat under that one; I guessed he had them to spare.
Now I was leaning against a wrought iron fence, passing the time by warming my face in the sun. Vaguely I wondered where I might find something to eat. There were probably some edible plants growing around here, I thought, but I gave up on the idea because I had no way of identifying them.
For a while I walked around this little village. I actually managed to find an apple tree. So, my fear of heights forgotten, I scrambled up the tree and spent a while up there eating apples before falling out of it and rediscovering my fear of heights.
It was pretty late now; the sun was almost gone from the sky. I knew it would be about time for the funeral to be over, I wondered when the undertaker would be done with his work. Did he have to bury the body, too? Well, I soon found out that he did because even after they had taken the coffin out to the graveyard and all the guests had left he still hadn’t reappeared. Then again, maybe he had left without me. I felt really gloomy at that thought, but waited outside the church for a bit anyway.
I coughed, and a wave of chills went through me. Before I knew it I was on the ground, trembling and coughing. I’m not sure how long I lay there like that, coughing and shaking and hurting, but it seemed soon that I heard some stranger’s voice above me.
“Miss, are you alright?” He shook my shoulder; I guess I looked unconscious.
Then there was another set of feet running towards me and a voice asked, “What happened to her?”
“Doctor! I don’t know, she suddenly collapsed,”
Both of the men were unfamiliar to me. One was a teenager who couldn’t have been any older than me. The other looked to be in his thirties. More people to trouble! I mumbled something along the lines of, “No, I’m alright. I’m waiting for someone,”
“Oh, maybe the person she’s waiting for is in the church! I’ll go check,” The younger man offered. He was stopped by the other’s hand.
“All the lights are out in the church- there’s no one there. Poor girl, perhaps she’s been abandoned by her companion?” The older man said,
“Looks like she has a fever. I’ll take her back to my office and care for her,”
“Do you need help to carry her?”
“No, I can handle it. You head on home,"
Something about that guy was unsettling; I really didn’t want to go with him. The more I struggled, though, the rougher he handled me.
Finally he just picked me up and carried me over his shoulder like luggage. I resisted for a while but soon lost even that bit of strength and was reduced to shivering and coughing. Maybe this guy was actually a doctor who would help me, I thought hopefully.
I remember looking at the ground as he walked. I could see my own arms dangling below me but couldn’t seem to feel them. I think the circulation had gone out of them. Then the ground became steps and we were going down into a dark place. It gave me a very bad feeling.
Where had the undertaker gone? Had he really gone away without even telling me? Not that I’d blame him; we were practically strangers and I’d been nothing but a nuisance ever since we’d met.
I was laid upon a hard surface. It was too dark to see but I could hear the man moving around the room. He lit a candle. It’s light washed over the rest of the room and if I wasn’t already convinced that I was going to die, all of my doubts disappeared once I’d looked around at the room.
It was so abruptly a gruesome scene that my mind went blank for several minutes. I was lying upon a bloodstained wooden table, in a room with bloodstained walls. On a shelf nearby I could see jars holding what looked like various body parts. But the real horror came when I looked over at another table and saw the remains of what must have once been a woman. Now she was a ripped up corpse missing her hands.
The man must have seen me looking at her, because he said, “That patient was a failure. She died, but I figured it was useless to waste such pretty hands as hers. So I took them,” He proceeded to unbutton my coat and then lift up my shirt to just past my navel, “Now let’s see what I can take from you,” He held up a scalpel.
I gasped, tried to speak, and failed miserably. I wanted to get up, but my body felt really heavy all of a sudden. How did I keep getting into trouble like this?
He shushed me, saying, “Don’t try to talk. Just trust me,”
Before he could cut into me there was a sound of metal against bone and the mad doctor dropped heavily to the ground. Behind him, holding a shovel was none other than the undertaker. He dropped the shovel and leaned closer; looking me over, touching my neck to find my pulse.
His voice was firm when he said, “Breathe,”
I gasped then, realizing I hadn’t been breathing.
Vaguely, I can remember him leading me up the stairs and away from the house while I clung to him. For a while I didn’t really pay attention to where we were. I think he tried to talk to me, but I didn’t really feel well enough to try to listen- it might bring me back to reality.
“Ehhh? Are you not talking now?” He said finally, “Well, that’s fine. None of my ‘guests’ talk to me either~,”
I felt kind of bad about it, but I still couldn’t really bring myself to say anything. It was then that I began to wonder where we were going. I found myself hoping it was a car with a heater in it. No such luck, it seemed that he, like everyone else around here, was stuck in some kind of time warp. But a horse-drawn carriage was better than walking, so it was all right.
I was so tired that it didn’t even bother me that I was in a hearse. I sank into a deep sleep.
No comments:
Post a Comment