Fighting Pax. Robin Jarvis

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      “You!”

      Bickering, they jostled for possession of the buggy, wrenching it from one another’s greedy grasp.

      Lee bawled at them. The hands gripping his arms gave them a sudden, violent twist and his face smacked the ground.

      “Please stop,” he begged fearfully. “Don’t do this. Don’t hurt my angel. I’ll do whatever you want.”

      Captain Swazzle cackled and swaggered across to join the others.

      “I make baby sleep,” he declared. Grabbing the buggy’s handles, he rocked it roughly from side to side. Leering down, he brought his hideous face close to the child’s and blew a smoke ring. Then he began to croon a foul Punchinello lullaby.

       “Halt your wailing temper or you shall earn a clout,

       only bitches whimper, only cats mew out.

       I’ll pinch and pull your nose to grow,

       I’ll give your chin a curl.

       Dream of stunted legs that bow

       and be a humpbacked girl.”

      While he sang, another guard took hold of the front wheel and, together, they swung the buggy in ever-increasing arcs.

      Lee tried to break loose, but every movement was rewarded with a vicious wrench on his arms and a violent stamp on his legs.

      “Stop!” he pleaded. “Stop!”

      “More!” Captain Swazzle squawked. “Up she goes!”

      The swings became wilder. The buggy swept higher and higher into the air until it was level with the Punchinellos’ hats. If the baby hadn’t been secured in the seat, she would have fallen out. Then it went higher still. Captain Swazzle’s yellow eyes bulged in their sockets and he hooted repulsively.

      “Up and down!” he screeched. “Up and down – up and down… that’s the way to do it.”

      The rest of them joined in the familiar chant, stamped their feet and flourished their spears.

      “That’s the way to do it, that’s the way to do it!”

      Lee couldn’t bear it. Hot tears streaked his face. He prayed and he shouted, but there was nothing he could do.

      “Aaaaaand… up she goes!” Captain Swazzle shrieked one last time. As the buggy went higher than ever, he let go of the handles and the other Punchinello released the front wheel. The buggy continued sailing through the air. It flew up and over the railings, then down again.

      Lee squeezed his eyes tight shut. He heard the splash, followed by the trampling of the guards’ boots as they charged across to watch the buggy sink into the river.

      “Oooooh, what a pity,” Captain Swazzle cried, staring down at the cloudy waters where a woollen hat, in the shape of a cupcake, floated on the scum. “Oh, what a pity.”

      Lee’s scream ripped across the Thames.

      The pain bit deeply into his wrists and he lurched upright.

      His face was dripping, drenched in icy sweat that stung his eyes. He wrenched at his arms, but they were still held firm. His despairing yell filled the room.

      “Mr Lee Charl,” a calm, female voice soothed. “You fine, you safe, you not worry, please.”

      The boy’s frantic, heaving breaths continued and his heart pounded as his eyes stared blankly around. The river was gone. The Punchinellos had disappeared. He was in a dimly lit room with blank walls and no window. A hospital bed was before him, surrounded by monitoring equipment, and four men in smart olive uniforms, armed with AK-47 rifles, were standing impassively on either side. There was a figure on the bed, sitting bolt upright, with wires attached to his forehead. A petite woman, wearing a white lab coat over her army uniform, crossed to the door and snapped on the main light switch. Overhead, a fluorescent strip began to stutter. Lee now saw that the eyes of the patient were wide and the stark, traumatised expression on that face was painful to witness. Then something pink glinted under the clinical light. It was a diamanté stud in the patient’s ear. With a jolt, Lee remembered he was staring at a large mirror covering one entire wall and the pitiful figure on the bed was him.

      Repulsed, he looked away and the calmly efficient female doctor consulted his case notes.

      “You want sedative, Mr Lee Charl?” she asked with crisp politeness.

      “Hell, no,” he answered thickly. “I slept plenty already – and they make the dreams worse.”

      “Same dream, please?” she asked, ready to jot his words down.

      “Pretty much.”

      “Was Ismus in dream?”

      “He’s never in them, Doctor Choe. They’re just dreams. It’s not like the other thing. I’m not sneakin’ off and going to Mooncaster, you know that. They’re just bad dreams. I ain’t havin’ no secret cosies with that mad son of a…”

      “Detail of dream, please.”

      He shook his head. “Laters – I’ll save it for the shrink session.”

      “You might forget detail,” she said a little more forcefully, though the smile didn’t slip from her face. “Detail important.”

      “Fat chance of that,” he uttered bitterly. “Now can I hit the shower and get me some dry clothes? Feels like I peed in these. Is there hot water today?”

      Doctor Choe Soo-jin put the notes down and reached for a syringe.

      “First I take bloods,” she told him.

      “More? You supportin’ a family of vampires at home or somethin’? You’ve had enough juice outta me since I got here to fill a hot tub.”

      “Not so much,” she said through her implacable smile. “We need to test, Mr Lee Charl. Test important.”

      “So you says, but I can hardly find a vein no more. My arms are worse than a dead junkie’s. Gimme a break, yeah? If it ain’t the red stuff, you’re moochin’ every other damn thing I got.”

      Doctor Choe Soo-jin proceeded to take the sample. Lee gazed around at the four young soldiers flanking the bed. They might have been shop-window dummies for all the expression on their features. None of them spoke English, or at least had never acknowledged that they could. Sometimes he wondered if they listened to what was said when he was in the company of his friends and then reported everything to Doctor Choe, or their commanding officer, afterwards.

      Lee cast a piercing glance at the mirrored wall. He was sure it was one of those two-way numbers; probably a video camera behind there taping it all anyway.

      He looked back at the two grim-faced men on his left. There were three different sets who ‘nannied’ СКАЧАТЬ