The Innsmouth Syndrome by Philip Hemplow Read Free Book Online Page A

led the way into the ward and held a muttered conversation with the nurse in charge before beckoning Carla forward and ushering her towards the door of the boy’s room.
     
    “His name is Gary.  Gary Taub.  Good luck!”
     
    He knocked on the door and opened it for her without waiting for a response.  Carla exhaled deeply and walked past him into the room. 
     
    Gary Taub was staring out of the rain-sprayed window, and did not turn to look at her as she entered.  He looked very small in the big hospital bed, his arms spindly and emaciated against the crisply-turned sheets.  Carla automatically made a mental note: `possible eating disorder’.  It would at least fit with his history of presumed self-harm.
     
    “Hello, Gary” she ventured, looking for a response.  He ignored her.  She waited a few seconds and tried again.  “My name’s Carla.  Is it OK if I sit down?” 
     
    The boy sighed pointedly and slowly turned his head to look at her.  “Who are you?” he wanted to know.  “Social worker?”
     
    “No” replied Carla, gingerly taking a seat on the edge of the bed.  “I’m a Doctor.  Doctor Edwards.  Do you mind if I ask you a few questions before your parents get here?”
     
    Gary winced in annoyance.  “I already told the other doctor everything.  I was messin’ around with a blade, got a bit careless.  No big deal.”
     
    Carla decided to play it casual too.  “Uh huh.  So I hear.  I was actually hoping to ask you about someone else though.”
     
    That got his attention.  He focussed his eyes on her properly for the first time.  He looked tired.  Exhausted, actually.  The skin of his face was spattered with constellations of angry-looking blackheads – not too unusual in a teenager, Carla reminded herself.  However, further down, on his throat, were what looked like self-inflicted wounds.  Parallel scars, three on each side of his neck.  Old, but badly healed by the look of them.  Beneath them bulged visibly swollen lymph nodes.  Did he have an infection?  Or were they the result of excessive vomiting?  Bulimia?
     
    “You’re the woman I saw earlier.  Who?” asked Gary, watching her intently from beneath lowered lids.  “Who’d you want to ask me about?”
     
    Carla gambled.  “Your friend – RamRam.”
     
    Gary immediately turned his face back to the window.  “He’s dead.  Car wreck.”
     
    “I know” replied Carla, scooching a little further up the bed.  “What I want to know is:  why did they kill themselves?”
     
    Gary looked back at her.  His drowsy eyes were glistening as if he was about to cry.  “How’d you know they killed themselves?”
     
    “You don’t seem very surprised at the idea, so maybe the same way that you do.”
     
    Gary passed a hand across his face and spoke without looking at her.  “I know because Ramone told me.  Told me they were going to.  He wouldn’t let me go along with them.”
     
    “Wouldn’t let you – are you saying that he told you what they were planning to do?  Did he say why?”
     
    “Din’t have to say why.”  He looked back at Carla, searching for understanding, and finding it absent became annoyed.  “For fuck’s sake, look at me!  Look at any of us!”  His remaining fingers scrunched and twisted the bedsheets as he spoke.  “It’s not so bad for the others - they fucking look forward to it – but it’s not like we get given a choice!  It’s not like we did something wrong, or something to deserve it, or that we’re out there praying for it with the rest of them.  So, maybe we don’t want it, maybe we just want to be normal – not a fucking chance.  RamRam –“
     
    He swallowed and looked as though he wanted to stop talking, but the words came flooding out anyway.  “RamRam wanted to take me with them.  Wayne wouldn’t allow it.  He didn’t like me cos of my mom being high-up in the Order, like it was my fault.  Said I’d have to make my own