Read Online The Ward by S.L. Grey - Free Book Online

isn’t.
    I grab Farrell’s arm to steady myself. ‘Oh God,’ I breathe.
    ‘What?’
    ‘You don’t want to know.’
    ‘Christ,’ he says. ‘Is that what I think it is?’
    The thing on the table was once a person, its back twisted into an impossible converse foetal position, its limbs drawn tightly into its sides as if they’ve shrunk into its body. Its skin
is a cracked, hard, blackened mass; its fingers, toes and hair are gone. I can’t tell if it was once male or female, young or old. Then the nausea disappears and I find myself taking a step
forward and gazing down at the face, nothing but a charcoal rictus mask. It looks fragile, like, if I touched it, it would crumble.
    ‘You think this is someone from the crash?’ Farrell asks.
    I jump as a door in the far right-hand corner of the room swings open and bashes against the wall. A stocky man wearing thick green gloves and a gore-spattered industrial-looking apron appears.
He’s mumbling to himself. He starts when he catches sight of us.
    ‘What are you doing in here?’ he says in a thick accent. ‘You should not be in here.’
    Farrell clears his throat. ‘Sorry, we—’
    ‘No, no, no. This is not good.’ He’s foreign – Spanish or Cuban. I can’t tell how old he is; his olive skin is unlined, but his hair is wispy and thinning. He
stares at the dressing covering my nose and my hand automatically leaps to my face. His gaze slides to Farrell’s hospital gown, blue scrub trousers and bare feet. ‘How did you get
here?’
    ‘We’re lost,’ Farrell says, trying to grin charmingly. ‘We’d really appreciate it if you’d point us towards the exit.’
    He remains impassive. ‘There is no exit down here. This is a restricted area.’
    ‘Yeah. Sorry about that,’ Farrell says. ‘Please, we—’
    ‘Which ward are you from? You are patients? You should not be here.’
    The black doors smash open, and a porter pushing a gurney containing a sheet-draped body barrels in. ‘Incoming,’ the porter says. He’s a youngish guy with cornrows and
bloodshot eyes.
    The Cuban man sighs. ‘How many more times? Do not bring them in here. They are to go to the viewing room for storage.’
    The porter stares at him blankly.
    ‘The viewing room. Now!’ the man snaps.
    The porter shrugs. ‘Don’t know it, boss.’ He glances at me and Farrell, then at the charred body on the table, but his bored, slightly resentful expression doesn’t
change.
    ‘Wait here,’ the Cuban guy says to us. Muttering under his breath, he herds the porter and the gurney back towards the double doors.
    ‘Now’s our chance,’ Farrell whispers when they’ve disappeared.
    We head towards the door in the corner of the room. Farrell stumbles into one of the shallow drains in the floor and I grab his arm to steady him, trying not to step into the globs of…
matter… and drying blood that haven’t been sluiced away.
    The door opens into a long, narrow corridor. It ends in a metal rolldown shutter like the doors you see in warehouses and halfway along it there’s another door set into the wall. I jiggle
its handle and push against it.
    ‘Locked.’
    ‘Fucking great,’ Farrell mutters.
    ‘There has to be a way to open that rolling door.’ Then I see it. There’s a chunky control panel hanging from a thick cord attached to the ceiling.
    I race up to it and press the single red button.
    Nothing happens for a second, and then there’s a whir as the metal door’s mechanism grinds into life. It starts inching upwards. Light seeps in from underneath. Daylight. I’m
sure of it.
    ‘I think we can get out this way,’ I say, as Farrell shuffles up behind me.
    The door behind us bangs open.
    ‘Hey! No, no! You must not open that!’ the Cuban man shouts. He jogs towards us. ‘No!’
    I turn to face him. ‘I’m sorry, but you don’t understand. We really need to—’
    ‘What in the hell…?’ Farrell says, scrunching up his eyes and leaning forward. He sounds