Bay of the Dead by Mark Morris Page A

trailing in her wake.
The car park in front of the hospital was on several levels and spread over a wide area. Each level was separated by clumps of bushes and young trees, and veined with pedestrian walkways. Usually at this hour there were not many people around; even vehicular traffic was infrequent. Yet tonight, despite the drizzly weather, there was movement everywhere – dozens of dark figures converging on the hospital. With a little chill of dread, Rianne realised that the white-haired old lady downstairs had been right: there was something odd, something wrong , about the way that the people were moving.
They were shuffling, lurching, dragging their feet. It was as though every single one of them was sleep-walking or drugged. Not only that, but many of them seemed to be holding their upper bodies stiffly – their shoulders hunched, their heads tilted at strange angles.
'What's the matter with them?' Nina asked wonderingly.
'I don't—' Rianne began, and then her eyes widened. 'Oh, sweet Jesus. Look there.'
She pointed at a thick clump of bushes directly below, which appeared to be nothing but a mass of black in the selectively illuminated darkness. Seconds earlier, she had seen a pair of arms emerge from the bushes and drag a head and shoulders into view. She had been wondering what was so wrong with the man that he had to crawl along the ground, when he had hauled the rest of himself into the light. She gaped now, unable to comprehend how little of him there was. His body simply stopped above what would have been his waist. He even appeared to be dragging a remnant of spine in his wake like a bony tail.
Rianne felt Nina's hand tighten on her arm. The girl's eyes were as wide as she imagined her own to be.
'That is impossible, isn't it?' she said. 'He can't survive like that, can he?'
'Evidently he can,' Rianne said, and felt the sudden appalling urge to giggle.
More of the shuffling figures were now emerging from the shadows, into the light that was bleeding from the hospital. As they did so, both women were horrified to see that the crawling man was not alone in his affliction. Too many of the figures were dressed in rags; too many were stick-thin; too many were hideously misshapen or lacking limbs.
'What is this?' Nina murmured. 'Amputees' outing?'
'They look like they've been in a battle,' said Rianne. 'The walking wounded.'
The words were barely out of her mouth when twin headlamps swept into the car park entrance behind the shuffling army – a late patient or visitor, Rianne thought. Or perhaps a member of staff about to start the graveyard shift.
The car swept down the curving approach road, as though its driver was in a hurry and unaware of the crowd in his path.
'He's going to hit someone,' Nina said, her hand once again tightening on Rianne's arm.
And then with a screech of brakes the car stopped.
None of the figures had flinched or leaped aside as the vehicle bore down on them. Even now, they didn't move to the side of the road to allow the car through, as any normal person would have done.
The car seemed to pause for a moment, dark and sleek, like a big cat sizing up its prey – and then the driver's door flew open and a man scrambled out. Neither Rianne nor Nina could tell from their vantage point what the man was saying, but it was clear from his body language that he was not happy. He marched towards the three or four figures in the path of his car, waving his arms, head jerking as he shouted. The two women saw a couple of the shuffling figures stumble to a halt, saw them turn clumsily to face the furious man.
Then they saw the man stop dead, his arms dropping to his sides and, even from five floors up, Rianne could have sworn she could see the man's eyes widen in horror and shock.
Next moment the man was running back to his car, and the figures were lurching after him. Rianne felt a leap of fear in her chest for the man's safety, but she told herself that he would surely be fast enough to outrun