VI
“Charlie!?” Paige called, her
voice echoing about the empty reception area.
“Charlie, where are you?”
The reception area was as empty
and unwelcoming as when they had first arrived and the boy was nowhere to be
seen. The ceiling lights flickered
occasionally, helping to give the untidy space a slightly sinister air, but
Paige was starting to get used to sinister and at that precise moment her only
fear was that she had lost Charlie.
“Charlie!?” she called again,
moving around the room to make sure he wasn’t hiding behind the chairs, or the
reception desk, or a vending machine.
Josh was standing near the
stairwell, scanning the room himself, but looking as if he was uncertain as to
what he should do. He looked so
young! For a moment Paige found it hard
to believe he was the same young man who had lead them down here in the first
place, or that they had just had that conversation in the stairwell. He was just a teenager and earlier that
evening she would never have thought of him as someone she might follow. She wondered what he made of it all.
But there wasn’t time to
think. She needed to find Charlie.
“Charlie!” she called one more
time, losing her patience and tapping into nerves which were already frayed
beyond imagining, “He was definitely just ahead of us,” she added, turning to
Josh.
“Perhaps he went outside,” he
suggested, glancing towards the open automatic doors at the foggy night beyond.
Paige rushed to the door and
stuck her head out into the darkness.
She couldn’t see a thing.
“Charlie? Charlie!” she called.
“Here,” Josh said, suddenly
beside her, “try this.” He handed her
the torch he had been carrying before they arrived at the hospital. It had been left sitting on the reception
desk when they saw that the hospital lights were on. She flicked it on and began sweeping it across the car park, but
there were too many vehicles in the way.
If Charlie was out there he could be hidden behind any one of them.
She was about to step outside
and begin searching between the lines of cars when she heard the doors to the
stairwell swing shut behind them. She
turned even as Josh did to see the old man standing in the middle of the
reception area, looking tired and confused and most of all terrified. He hadn’t even dressed himself properly,
having chosen to wear trousers over the top of the hospital gown he had been
wearing in the ward.
“Henry, you’re up!”
“I couldn’t stay,” he managed,
then, though he looked like he had wanted to say more, he suddenly closed his
mouth. He gave the room a quick glance
and then asked, “Where’s the boy?”
“We don’t know,” Paige replied.
“We were just about to check
outside,” Josh added.
“Have you checked the
lavatories?” the old man asked, gesturing towards the three sign-posted doors
at one end of the reception area, “I know I’d like to go before we head
on.” And with that he made his way to
the door marked for the gents and disappeared inside.
Paige and Josh shared a look,
but they waited in silence until a few moments later when Charlie appeared at
the door Henry had just entered. When
the boy saw Paige’s expression he suddenly looked very sheepish.
“Don’t go running of like
that!” she yelled. “We were worried
half to death!”
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I just…
I needed to go.”
“It’s alright,” Josh said
calmly, “you’re here now and when Henry comes back out we’ll leave this place
and see if we can’t find somewhere a bit… safer.”
“Do you really…?” Paige began,
before remembering that Charlie was standing beside them. Instead of finishing she just looked Josh in
the eye and what she saw there answered her question clearly.
Josh’s eyes said one thing: No.
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