Figment - Jace Cameron. Страница 5

If they're not asking for money, they are begging for food, a loaf of bread, a single egg, or a potato, with open mouths. Some even beg for whiff of salt or a sip of clean water.

An old man with a stick shoos a few kids away. "Go back to London, you filthy rotten beggars!" he grunts before he trips to the floor himself. He is as weak as everyone else, upset that they're begging for his share of meals.

People don't seem to notice me.

Most people are conspicuously shorter than usual. Maybe they're not really shorter—their backs are bent over from poverty, a lack of nutrition and shelter.

I keep stepping over the muddy earth, realizing that what was Wonderland a few breaths ago has turned into a nightmare of older times.

Victorian times.

It looks like I am in a factually real point in history. Did I travel back in time?

I realize I can just open my eyes and escape this vision. But I don't. I want to I understand why am I having it.

Is this why January the 14th is so important? My hands crawl to the key at the end of the necklace Lewis gave me last time. One of the six keys to open Wonderland doors, he said.

I stop in my place and gaze ahead, only to see Lewis Carroll walking in a haze. He is wearing a priest's outfit, and a pile of papers is tucked under his armpit. A tattered umbrella is held loosely in his other hand before some kids steal it and run away, hitting the old man with it.

Lewis doesn't care. He tucks his hands into his pockets and pulls out a fistful of breadcrumbs. He offers them to the homeless children. The children circle him like ants around a huge insect they'd just trapped. The kids snatch the bread and then knock Lewis to the floor, the papers of his manuscript scattering in the air. They begin hitting him, asking him for money, but he is not fighting back, astonished by their aggressive acts. They steal his watch and his wallet, and rid him of his hat.

I run toward him. They have left him half naked. He seems to be the only one who sees me.

"Lewis," I yelp. "What's going on?"

"I couldn't save them, Alice," he cries in the rain. "I was too late. Couldn't save them."

"Save who? I don't understand," I say as a few kids suddenly are aware of my existence.

"I—I tried," he hiccups. "Th-those p-poor children." Lewis stutters.

I also realize my time in this vision is short. I'm exposed entirely to the children, and they are approaching. They'll rip me of my asylum's nightgown for sure and see if I have any bread or money.

"Run, Alice," Lewis demands, but holds to my hand for one last time. "Never tell anyone that I couldn't save them!"

I don't understand, but I have slid my hand away and am already running from the sinister Victorian kids.

Suddenly, my head hits something and my lips swell as if I have been punched in the face by a train.

My eyes flip open as my vision phases out, back into the uninteresting real world. As I regain my balance and momentum, I realize I've hit the garden's wall.

"This can't be," I whisper to myself. "I had to run from the kids, but I had to save Lewis. What was that about? Who are they, the people he could not help?"

I close my eyes deliberately again, wishing to re-enter the vision. It's not there anymore. I don't know how this works.

I stand, helpless and imprisoned in the choking arms of these walls of the asylum. Either I am mad beyond all madness, or I can travel through time. Either I was right about forgetting about that happened to me last week, or it's a terrible mistake.

What did Lewis mean? I couldn't save them, Alice.

Chapter 5

Director's office, Radcliffe Lunatic Asylum, Oxford

Instead of spending his money on his failing marriage, Dr. Tom Truckle, director of the Radcliffe Lunatic Asylum, spent it on surveillance cameras.

He even helped install them himself in the VIP Ward when the Pillar was away. Although Dr. Truckle's life was sliding down on an oily spiral of circumstances, his obsession with the Pillar pushed him to do maddening things. He needed more cameras—from every angle possible—to learn about the Pillar's secret.

How does Pillar the Killer escape his cell and return as if he's world's best magician?

Two days ago, Professor Carter Pillar escaped his cell again, leaving a trail of swirling hookah smoke behind. It hung in the air, shaping the word Frabjous.

Dr. Truckle had previously doubled the security guards on the VIP Ward. He also sent for England's finest magicians to ask them how such an escape was possible. They had no clue. Architects, too, had been consulted. Radcliffe Asylum was a two-centuries-old building, first built in Victorian times. Maybe the asylum hid secret tunnels underneath it. Secret tunnels only someone as devious and intellectually crazy as Professor Pillar knew about.

But no. Truckle's mind had been reaching too far—possibly an aftereffect of the many medication pills he swallowed like the kids gorge on M&M's.

The architects called the idea of tunnels implausible. In fact, they declared that escaping the asylum was physically impassible.

"Impossible, you mean," Dr. Truckle replied to the architects.

"No, we mean impassible," the twin architects had insisted. "Nothing is impossible." They had laughed, and Dr Truckle hadn't understood why. "You've never read Alice in Wonderland?" one of the twin architects asked. Dr. Truckle shook his head. He hated Alice in Wonderland. "It's an inside joke," they told him. "You can only get it if you've read the book."

 Dr. Truckle didn't want to get it. He wanted to know how the Pillar escaped.

Of course, the Pillar was expected to show up soon, claiming he was out buying a new hookah or something. Dr. Truckle knew otherwise: Pillar the Killer was almost uncatchable. He could escape and live in an uncharted island full of mushrooms for the rest of his life. But he didn't. He preferred to spend his days imprisoned in this stupid asylum. And his sole reason for that was Alice Wonder.

That, at least, Dr. Truckle was sure of.

But why Alice? What in the world did such a young and mad girl possess that was so valuable to the Pillar?

Dr. Truckle swallowed another pill—the fifth today—and closed his eyes to calm down. He stood next to his desk, his eyes monitoring the Pillar's cell through the surveillance screens fixed on the wall. The Pillar hadn't arrived yet.

One of the screens was broadcasting news on national TV. Dr. Truckle liked to watch the local news while he was waiting. Watching the madness plaguing the world helped him tolerate his relatively mad job in the asylum, particularly after the horrifying incident in Stamford Bridge stadium yesterday.

Since the incident, Dr. Truckle knew things wouldn't end just there. The incident of a stuffed head in a ball was a beginning of something madder. Soon enough more bodies would pile up all over Britain, if not the whole world.

And here it was, right in front of his eyes.

The news host on national TV was announcing the discovery of another chopped-off head, found with the phrase "Off with their heads" written in blood on its forehead.

"Ramon Yeskelitch, a Ukrainian immigrant," the news reporter—a nerdy middle-aged woman with red glasses and an uptight but fancy suit—reported, "who lives near Borough Market in London, a divorced and unemployed father of two, went to buy his weekly mouthwatering watermelon today. Mr. Yeskelitch and his family have a certain liking for watermelons."

Dr. Truckle leaned forward, excited by the morbidity lurking in the air.