The Foreshadowing by Marcus Sedgwick Read Free Book Online Page B

small lamp in the ceiling.
    “Turn it off,” said a voice.
    It came from behind the shelves of sheets in the center of the room.
    I froze, too scared to do anything.
    “Turn it off,” said the voice, plaintively. “It hurts my eyes.”
    I turned if off. Then I realized how rash I was to turn the light off in a small storeroom with an unknown man in there with me.
    For I could tell it was a man’s voice, though it was small and feeble.
    “Who’s there?” I asked.
    There was no answer.
    “I’m not afraid,” I said. That seems a stupid thing to say, but it was all I could manage.
    “Who are you?” I said. “I’m not afraid.”
    “I am,” said the man. “I am.”

76

    Unwittingly, I had said perhaps the one thing that got him to talk.
    “What are you afraid of?” I asked.
    “Everything,” he said, and there was such feeling behind that single word it made me shiver.
    I wondered what I should do. I felt like running out of the room, but I had always wanted to be a nurse, and if I ran from this chance to help someone, I would have failed.
    “Are you sure you wouldn’t like the light on?” I asked.
    “No!” he said. “It hurts my eyes. It’s better in the dark.”
    It was obvious he was a patient.
    “Why does it hurt your eyes?” I asked.
    No response. I thought about what to say. There was something obvious, at least.
    “What’s your name?”
    He answered so quietly I couldn’t hear what he said.
    “Sorry?”
    “Evans,” he said. He paused. “David Evans.”
    I knew he was a soldier then, from the way he gave his surname first. The name was familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
    “What are you doing in here, David?”
    “I come here,” he said. “Get away from the light, the people. That man.”
    Now I recognized his Welsh accent.
    “No one knows,” he continued. “Too busy to care, even if they notice. As long as I’m back before bedtime.”
    “Why don’t you like the light?” I asked again. I was going round in circles, but I couldn’t think what else to say.
    “It hurts. My eyes hurt. Flashes in the dark, all the time. It hurt my eyes. And now I’m here, and they still want to shine lights into my eyes, see? It hurts, so I come here.”
    “Who shines lights into your eyes?” I asked.
    “That man,” he said. “That doctor. Says he wants to look into my eyes, but it hurts, it hurts.”
    With a lurching feeling I realized he might be talking about Father. Then I knew why his name was familiar.
    Evans. He was the shell-shocked patient I’d seen on that very first day with Sister Cave. He was one of the soldiers my father had been doing his tests on.
    “They shine it in my eyes,” he said. “And they stick things to my head.”
    “What things?”
    “Wires,” he said, in a small voice. “They stick wires to my head and put electrics through it.”
    That was what he said. Electrics.
    “Why?” I said, though I knew I was asking the wrong person.
    “To make me better, they say, but it hurts, and everything goes weird.”
    “Weird? What do you mean?”
    I heard noises in the corridor outside. Voices calling, and footsteps. Running footsteps. But they went past the door to the linen room.
    “What do you mean?” I asked again.
    There was silence for a while. I decided to move closer to Evans, even though I couldn’t see him. My legs were starting to cramp, anyway. I stretched, and eased my way round the side of the stacks of blankets.
    “What are you doing?” came Evans’ voice.
    “Just coming closer,” I said. “I can’t hear you properly. Tell me about what happens. When they put the wires on your head.”
    “It hurts,” he said, “and it makes something strange happen. I feel like it’s all happened before.”
    “What? What’s happened before?”
    “Everything. The room, them, the wires, the pain. Like I’m going through it all over again. Living it again. Do you know what I mean?”
    “Yes,” I said, “I think I do.”
    There was more commotion