At Pilgrim Hospital, Chapter Four

Half-running, half-tumbling along the passage, Presh was upon the stairs and letting gravity carry her down almost before she knew what she was doing. The man however wasn't slow to give chase, for Presh could already hear his bare feet slapping the hospital linoleum, together with a dreadful metallic noise which she thought at first must have come of him rhythmically opening and closing the deadly scissors on his wrists.

But no. It was laughter. That was the way he laughed. Lustfully imitating the weapons he wore.

The reception area below was deserted. It would be, Presh guessed, at this time of night. She started for the exit the minute her soles quit the final step, but oh, those automatic double-doors! It was like something in a nightmare. Even as Presh barrelled headlong towards them, she saw from their leisurely creaking separation she was going to have to wait at least one precious second, maybe even two. Sure enough, by the time she ran up against moving steel and glass, the gap between those old shuddery doors wasn't yet near a width she might squeeze through.

Back when she was in the Brownies, maybe. But she'd filled out a bit since then.

Throwing her curls out of the way, Presh cast a terrified glace behind her. She saw wild eyes and teeth fixed in a leer, hastening to the foot of the stairs, atop a nude blade-bearing body which for all sorts of reasons Presh preferred not to look at too long.

She made herself fit through the ponderously widening gap. Bruisingly, wrenchingly, she negotiated it and was out in the clammy night.

Every sodium-bulb in the hospital forecourt bobbed above its own reflection like a ghoulish misty jack o'lantern, but Presh didn't stop to admire the view. Straight across the car park she darted, breathing in pants, whichever way you looked at it. All the while Presh knew that that same silken scarlet shimmy would be as unto the proverbial red flag to he who harried her from behind.

This shouldn't be happening.

Not to her.

Her gender was supposed to have the power, not his.

What that stray thought might have meant would have been one to dwell on, if Presh hadn't cleared the main entrance that moment to commence hot-footing it along a pavement which stretched away into black. They didn't go in for street-lighting much once you were past Boston's limits, which was just where Pilgrim Hospital sat. Presh hadn't had time to take much of a glance in the other direction before striking out, but her fleeting glimpse had been an intriguing one.

Two pairs of headlamps was all.

Only the cars to which they were attached had seemed to be flying.

The cowboy and Mini-Flash Splitsville had been right to double back. As soon as they hit the main road, their blinders pinned the pursuer and pursued way off in the distance.

Schiss-Zazz. They might have known.

Stepping on it, the duo whooshed past the monolithic hospital, its many windows haloed in the wet night. If Presh had had her wits about her she’d have turned right and made for town, instead of left, which route let directly onto open fields. Another breath on the part of the cavalry and their lights fell only on asphalt, plus a muscular fleshy back, and a dwindling distance ahead of that a desperate little glimmer of crimson.

Schiss-Zazz’s instincts being what they were, he was wise to the oncoming bodies at once and whirled to face their glare.

Thrusting one hand above the rim of his windshield the cowboy threw a jet of fire sizzling and steaming ahead of him. Twin shears sprang open and Schiss-Zazz leapt, all the while sniggering his mad snipping laugh. He was in his element, and no fool could miss an inbound space-car on this lonely stretch. The roaring torrent barely warmed his heels.

Schiss-Zazz was fast. But he had nobody to count on.

A portal appeared in the path of the flames, swallowing them before they reached Presh. Next second Schiss-Zazz was blasted in the flank even as he descended to the cowboy’s rust-red apron, courtesy of Splitsville’s door in nothingness which reopened obliquely and loosed the inferno upward. Snarling and twisting Schiss-Zazz arced ablaze over the verge and was lost to darkness, doused in damp amid a mighty hissing splatter and a heady suffusion of scorched cabbage-leaves.

First the rusty rod, then the sleek black one, slammed on the brakes about stumbling Presh and set up a cordon with their searchlights.

Bright beams, which left no shadow for the likes of Schiss-Zazz to skulk in.

END OF CHAPTER FOUR