A Symphony of Echoes by Jodi Taylor Read Free Book Online

untouched.
    I climbed into bed just as lunch arrived. ‘I see the service is improving. After all these years, Helen, you finally seem to be getting the hang of patient care. I’m so proud.’
    ‘Eat, then sleep, or terrible things will happen to you.’ She left.
    I wasn’t as hungry as I had thought and Kal ate virtually nothing. Farrell, Peterson, and Dieter turned up, but Kal’s listlessness and depression was infectious and I wasn’t good company either. I put it down to the long drive. They didn’t stay long. We watched a little television. Neither of us ate our suppers. By mutual consent, we turned out the lights and tried to sleep.
    I didn’t think I would sleep, but I must have, because I dreamed. I dreamed I was wandering around St Mary’s. I was in the long corridor leading to Hawking Hanger, which, in the way of dreams, seemed far longer than it actually was. I floated like a ghost. Walls were insubstantial and I could see people going about their normal business. No one saw me. No one ever saw me.
    I drifted silently up the stairs, head turning, sniffing her out, and always looking. Across the hall at the top. All these doors. She was here.
    I chose the first door on the left, opposite the nurse’s station. The nurse didn’t look up. They never did. I passed silently through the door. Now both beds were occupied. One was an old friend. I would see her later. The other – had come back. As I knew she would. I stood at the bottom of her bed.
    See me …
    She opened her eyes and saw me. And screamed …
    … I screamed. Bloody hell, how I screamed. I wasn’t alone. Kal screamed too. They must have heard us down in Hawking.
    The door flew open and Hunter slapped the light switch. ‘What’s happening? What’s going on?’
    The room was empty. I mean, there were just the three of us. No one stood at the foot of my bed. I fell back on the pillows, panting in fright. With trembling hands, I reached for a glass of water. Bloody hell, that was a bad one. I looked over to Kal. ‘Sorry I woke you. Bad dream.’
    She said carefully, ‘Me too,’ and I remembered the simultaneous screaming.
    Hunter said, ‘You both had bad dreams and woke each other up. You scared the shit out of me. I’ll go and make some tea.’
    After she’d gone, I said to Kal, ‘A long corridor. Looking for something. Invisible. Soundless. Standing, watching me sleep.’
    ‘ Yes ! Thank God. Oh, thank God.’ She lay back on her pillows. ‘I thought I was going mad. Every day it gets worse. It’s getting stronger and it’s looking for me. It will find me and I’m helpless. And now you, too?’
    ‘I asked Leon, over and over. Is it gone? Did you destroy it? Completely? And he said yes.’
    ‘But they did. First thing I asked when I came round. Everything went. The pod was gutted. The remains themselves, our clothing, their clothing, medical waste – everything was incinerated.’
    ‘We have an incinerator?’
    ‘A big one. In the basement. Guthrie and Farrell oversaw the whole operation. They wouldn’t botch it.’
    No, they wouldn’t. If there were two people in the world I would trust to do this right, it was those two. But something was wrong. I climbed out of bed and started to get dressed.
    ‘Where are you going?’
    ‘To check it out. Something’s wrong somewhere.’
    ‘Not without me, you’re not.’
    I looked at her. She wasn’t fit to be up. On the other hand, she had a little colour and her eyes were alive again. ‘Can you walk?’
    ‘Yes, but we’ll steal a wheelchair so we can move faster.’
    The old Kal was definitely coming back. I finished dressing, helped her out of bed, and found her dressing gown.
    ‘Are you going to be all right? I don’t want you falling down.’
    ‘I’m fine. At least I haven’t got a face like a balloon and eyes like two piss-holes in the snow.’
    Yes, she was fine.
    We were just oozing out of the door when Hunter came back.
    ‘Where the hell do you two think you’re