Broken Window Read online

  And then I would be without her.

  I close my eyes for a moment, already feeling the presence of tears. In my heart, I know that Catherine's death would mean my own as well. I could no more live without my dear wife than I could live without my own blood. She is the best part of me, and in the wake of her passing I would surely have no option but to follow her. A world without Catherine is a world I cannot contemplate, a world I cannot even imagine, a world filled with absolutely nothing but the swollen ache of sorrow. At the same time, if I have any doubt in my ability to save her, I must surely be merciful and let her slip away in peace.

  No, I shall save her.

  We shall be happy again.

  I can do this.

  Opening my eyes, I reach into her abdomen and begin to search for the point at which I shall begin sewing. I take a moment to wipe away some more blood, and then I set to work. There is still much blood, of course, which makes the job rather difficult and slippery. Still, I am able to sew with delicacy and with firm hands, and the task takes a surprisingly short amount of time. After a mere ten minutes or so, I have completed the main part of the procedure, and the whore's kidney is now a part of my wife's body. In fact, as I set the needle and thread aside, I cannot help but note that the kidney looks as if it belongs in its new home. This time, the operation is going to succeed, and I have no doubt about that fact.

  Yet there is blood.

  So much blood, more blood than usual, more blood than I had anticipated.

  So much, in fact, that I can hear it trickling down the drain.

  Indeed, the more I sew, the more blood comes flooding out, both from the kidney and from Catherine's own body. I take a scalpel and try to move some of the flesh aside, hoping to find the source of the flow, but in truth the blood seems to be coming from everywhere all at once. A moment later I hear a faint moan emerge from Catherine's lips, but when I look at her face I see that she is still unconscious. Still, something seems to be going wrong, so I set the scalpel aside and rush to the counter, from which I take some cotton padding and a set of clamps. If Catherine loses too much more blood, she will be in great danger.

  For the next few minutes, I work furiously.

  Every time I stop one source of blood, another seems to open, flooding Catherine's abdomen. It is as if her body is determined to lose more and more at any cost, as if her flesh is fighting back against my attempts to save my dear wife. I can only assume that just as my hands sought to betray me, so too does her body seek in its own way to betray her desire to survive. My hands are covered in blood now, so much so that the clamps slip whenever I try to grip them, but I manage to keep working until finally, by some miracle, the flow of blood seems to slow.

  I work on, determined to counter every last drop. Eventually I begin to feel as if I have won, although a moment later I spot another tell-tale dribble emerging from between the thick black wire that I have used for stitching. I wipe the blood away, but more comes soon enough and I realize with a growing sense of horror that the stitches have begun to come loose.

  I reach for the needle again, and then I look back at the kidney just in time to see more and more blood erupting from the wound. Even as I try once again to stem the tide, it is as if Catherine's body is once again doing its best to thwart my every move.

  There is blood everywhere. The kidney is coming loose and Catherine is already beginning to look pale.

  “No!” I gasp as I work faster and faster, trying to stop the flow of blood even as more coming flooding into her abdomen. “I won't let this happen! I refuse!”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Maddie

  Today

  The pain wakes me suddenly, but when I open my eyes I see only darkness.

  Gasping, I realize I can feel something digging into my waist. I reach down and immediately feel my fingers brushing against some kind of thick black wire. I have no idea what's happening, but I think I'm flat on my back and resting on the stone floor.

  I try to sit up, but an excruciating pain rips through my waist and I let out a brief whimper as I settle back down. My hands are still shaking and my fingers are getting wrapped deep in the wire, causing the wire's loops to tug at the wound, and my fingers are wet and sticky with blood. I try to pull my hands away, and finally I'm able to disentangle the fingers of my right hand from all the wire. I still can't see anything, although when I turn to the left I spot my flashlight over on the floor, but somehow further down, almost as if...

  I hesitate for a moment, before reaching down and feeling the stones beneath me. Even before I feel the deep, blood-filled grooves, I know that I'm not on the floor at all. I'm on the stone slab in the center of the basement and -

  Suddenly a hand clamps tight over my mouth, pushing down hard as I try to scream.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Doctor Charles Grazier

  Sunday September 30th, 1888

  Finally, all is still.

  All is quiet.

  She has stopped bleeding and I am done.

  She lost a great deal of blood, but not so much that she will die. She will be weak for some time, I'm quite sure, but she has a strong constitution and I am certain she can still make a full recovery. So long as she bleeds no more, I believe that her innate strength will pull her through. Catherine has always had a kind of steel in her heart, a determination to keep on living. It is this spirit that makes her so strong, and I know she will pull through.

  I believe in her.

  It is time now to sew her belly up and set her on the path to recovery. First, though, I take one final quick look at my night's work, just so that I can be sure I have left no loose ends. Spotting a small section of tubing that is poking out from the side of the stitching, I realize that I should make my work as neat as possible. I reach for the scalpel, only to find that it no longer rests on the edge of the table.

  I look around, but the scalpel is indeed gone.

  I know without a shadow of doubt that I set the instrument down on the table's edge, and I am certain I would have heard if I had knocked it to the floor. Still, I look down at the stones beneath the table, before looking back at the spot where the scalpel should be resting. All I see, however, is Catherine's hand. Of the scalpel, there is no sign whatsoever.

  I must have misremembered.

  Supposing myself to have made a simple error, I turn and head over to the counter where I keep my tools. It is late, and I am exhausted, and the misplacement of one little scalpel is not, I tell myself, any great disaster. Even the most brilliant men must surely have an occasional lapse. Still, as I search for this particular scalpel among the others, I find to my consternation that it is still missing. Evidently I did not set it here, as I had assumed, which means it must still be over at the table. There is simply nowhere else for it to be.

  Yet it is not there.

  I spend several minutes searching, determined to find where I left the missing implement, but it seems to have vanished entirely. I grow increasingly frustrated, reminding myself over and over again that I am not the kind of man who loses things. Indeed, I do not remember ever losing a single item during my entire career, since I always have the presence of mind to conduct my work with care. I have always taken great pride in my sense of order.

  But this scalpel, this cursed little piece of metal that is barely five inches long, is entirely gone.

  As I continue to search, I begin to feel as if I am losing my mind. There is nowhere else in this entire room, nowhere for the scalpel to have fallen or slipped away. I even check at the foot of the wooden stairs, just in case in some moment of panic I kicked the scalpel and sent it skittering across the floor, yet there is still nothing to be found. The scalpel is a solid object, and solid objects do not simply disappear, but no amount of logic seems sufficient to actually help me find what I am looking for. It is almost as if the scalpel somehow slipped out of existence.

  Finally, exhausted, I stop at the foot of the table and lean against my hands, trying to
get my breath back and – more importantly – to organize my mind.

  I shall find the scalpel eventually.

  It is here, and it will turn up later.

  I do not need to prove such things to myself now.

  I must reluctantly admit that it takes several minutes before I am able to cast doubt and superstition from my mind, but ultimately I succeed in reasoning with myself. I shall waste no more time on this fruitless hunt. I know the scalpel is here, so I do not need to prove this fact. I'm quite certain that I shall come down later and locate it with ease.

  Stepping around to the other end of the table, I reach down and brush away matted hair from the sides of Catherine's face. She is caked in sweat but still unconscious, and as I look at her beautiful features I cannot help but feel a flickering sense of hope in my chest. I still have to sew her belly shut, of course, but I am certain that her body has already begun to heal itself, and that soon I shall be able to see the first proper signs of her improvement. Even now, the new kidney will be introducing itself to the rest of her body and preparing to take on all the normal functions of such an organ. I know with absolute certainty that I have made no mistakes.

  This time in a year, Catherine will be laughing and dancing, and I am sure it will seem silly to ever think back to this awful moment.

  “I have saved you,” I whisper, still stroking her hair. “Your pain and suffering will soon be over. You will be better than ever.”

  I wait, almost as if I expect her to answer me, but of course she cannot. The solutions in her bloodstream will keep her unconscious for many hours to come, and I shall top them up as necessary. Given the extent of the surgery I have performed tonight, it might be wise to keep Catherine fully sedated for a couple of days, so that there's no risk of her waking and feeling any pain. As I stroke her hair a little more and stare down at her beautiful face, I feel utterly horrified by the idea that my poor darling might ever experience another moment of discomfort. Not after she has already been through so much. I must save her from all of that, as I have saved her from death.

  Finally, I step around the table and take the thick black wire, and then I set to work sewing her belly shut. I take such absolute care, threading each loop of wire with calm precision. There will be scarring, of course, but my dear Catherine will undoubtedly continue to grow more beautiful with each passing day. She now has her whole life ahead of her, and our future has been saved.

  We faced death together, and we pushed its foul hands from our shoulders. Now the darkness can start to lift from our lives.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Maddie

  Today

  The storm has stopped.

  That's the first thought that springs into my mind as my eyes flicker open. And then, as I try to remember where I am and how I got here, I see a door in the distance with a faint trace of morning light coming from the top of a set of wooden stairs. For a moment – one stupid moment – I actually wonder whether I'm back at home in my old room, before the truth leaks into my thoughts and I realize the truth.

  I remember those stairs.

  I remember -

  Suddenly I take a deep breath, and I let out an immediate cry of pain as I feel something sharp tugging at my waist. I try to sit up, but now the pain is throbbing and in a panic I try to look down. There's very little light in here, but as I frantically pull the blanket open I see to my horror that not only is there blood all over the fabric, but also the bare skin around my waist is caked in thick patches of blood that looks to have dried in a set of smears. And at the heart of all the blood, there are several loops of what looks like thick black wire poking out from my skin.

  ***

  Letting out another cry as I reach the top of the stairs, I lean against the jamb and stop to look down once more at my waist.

  There's just enough light up here for me to be able to see the mess of stitched loops that are keeping my wound closed. There's nothing neat about what's been done to me. Quite the opposite, in fact: the stitches are haphazard and irregular, and in several places it looks as if the wire has been crossed over the same point more than once, as if the wound wasn't quite sealing properly. Some parts of the wire are poking out by almost an inch in thick loops, and one end hasn't even been cut off, instead left dangling so that it hangs down and brushes against my knee.

  But the wound has been sealed, and I'm not bleeding anymore.

  I remember waking up at one point and feeling pain in my side, and there was also the sensation of a hand over my mouth. I have no idea exactly what happened, but – as I back against the wall and look across the hallway – I can't deny that one thing is very obvious. During the night, somebody stitched my wound back together and stopped the bleeding, which means I'm not alone in the house.

  There are even semi-fingerprints in the dried blood around the wound.

  Trying not to panic, I wait for a moment before turning and hurrying through to the front room. I quickly find my clothes and pick them up, only to find that they're still soaking wet from the thunderstorm. I start trying to wring some water out of my shirt, but the fabric's heavy and I know I'm on a hiding to nothing. Still, the sense of panic is rising and I feel like I have to get out of this house as fast as possible, before anyone comes back and finds me. I toss the shirt aside and pick up my trousers, but these too are still soaking wet. Finally giving up on trying to dry them, I reach down and start slipping my left leg into the trousers, so that -

  Suddenly I hear a bell ringing somewhere in the house.

  The sound startles me so much, I start to spin around, only to lose my footing and crash down against the dusty floor. Then I sit in terrified silence, listening to the sound of the empty house.

  It was a brief sound, already over by the time I fell, but I know without a shadow of doubt that it was real.

  I heard a bell ringing somewhere inside this house.

  My left foot is still inside the sopping wet trouser leg, but after a moment I lift the foot out an set my trousers aside.

  There's somebody in this house with me, but I'm starting to realize that maybe I shouldn't panic. After all, if this person wanted to hurt me, they had ample opportunity during the night. I was unconscious for several hours. I could have been tortured, raped, murdered or hacked to pieces, or maybe even all those things. I could have been tied up or imprisoned in the basement, but none of that happened.

  Instead, I was lifted onto the stone table and then my wound was stitched. Those aren't the actions of a monster. They're the actions of somebody who wants to help. I guess this house wasn't abandoned after all, but whoever's here – whoever helped me – they don't seem to be dangerous.

  I wait a moment longer, before pulling the blanket tight as I get to my feet and limp back to the door.

  When I lean out into the hallway, I see that the door to the basement is still open, while the house's main staircase winds up high to the upper floors, past a boarded-shut window that lets in just a frame of light around its edges. The chandelier is hanging high above, still slightly skewed and still looking as if it might fall at any moment.

  I listen for a few seconds, but my mysterious savior – whoever he or she might be – isn't making a sound now.

  My lips tremble, and I can't quite decide whether it would be wise or stupid to speak. I can definitely imagine Alex telling me to run as fast as I can, but then again maybe Alex wasn't always right about things. Finally, I figure that the person here in the house obviously made an effort to help me. I should at least try to thank him. Or her.

  “Hello?” I call out, and I'm immediately shocked by how small and fearful I sound.

  I wait, but the house remains silent. The only sound is a very faint scraping at the broken window, and I can see a shadow flashing at the edge, as if a stray branch from the overgrown garden is getting blown against the glass.

  Pulling the blanket even tighter shut, I make my way out into the hallway and stop at the foot of the main staircase, looking up towa
rd the landing. All I can see is a handrail, and some old paintings on the walls up there.

  “Hello?” I say again, before realizing that I need to be a little louder. “Hello, is anyone there?”

  The only reply is the continued scraping of the branch against the window.

  There's still a part of me that wants to turn and run, but deep down I feel as if the person in this house only wanted to help me. Perhaps he's shy, or perhaps he's resting, or maybe he even stepped out for a while. I don't know why he would have operated on me himself, instead of calling an ambulance, but then I figure sometimes people don't want to draw attention to themselves, and that's definitely something I can appreciate. So I watch the top of the stairs for a moment longer, and then – almost without thinking – I start walking up.

  “Hello?” I say yet again, keeping my eyes fixed on the railing at the top, in case I spot a hint of movement. “Is anyone here?”

  The steps creak under my feet, and the branch continues to brush the window, but otherwise there's no sound at all. As I reach the halfway point and stop again, I'm starting to feel as if maybe the other person simply came and went in the night, saving my life and then rushing off into the darkness. That story's pretty improbable, but it's the only thing that even remotely makes sense right now. Or maybe nothing makes sense, and this whole situation is insane.

  “My name's Maddie,” I continue, speaking to the empty space at the top of the stairs, just in case anyone is listening. “Thank you for...”

  My voice trails off, and I look down once again at my stitches. The wound still hurts, and there's still a lot of blood caked across the skin, but I can't deny that the torn skin has been forced back together. The stranger's work might not be neat, but it seems to have been effective.

  He might even have saved my life.

  “Thank you for helping me,” I say finally, looking back up toward the top of the stairs. “I don't quite know what happened. I don't want to bother you, but... Thank you.”