Get Katja (14 page)

“Normally we’d get someone to take you to the exit but under the current circumstances . . .”

“It’s fine,” Stasko tells the young doctor, waving him away. The man helps Stasko from the bed and to his feet, the scent of the antiseptic they had doused his wounds in clouding around him.

“The injuries are minor but should you feel any drowsiness or neck pains, please come straight back.”

Stasko nods as much as his stiff neck allows. His left side has suffered the worst but even then it’s only cuts and bruises. He is vaguely aware that something had fallen across him, protecting him from being crushed by the beams and burning timber which had crashed down around him.

“If you’ll excuse me I have other patients to—”

“Wait,” Stasko says, grabbing him by the arm. “My . . . friend. Do you know if she was brought in also?”

The doctor shakes his head. “I’m sorry, there’s a lot of confusion right now. We haven’t managed to identify most of those brought in so far but I’m sure if you check back later we’ll be able to give you some information.”

“I really need to find her.”

The doctor sighs. “What is her name?”

“Katja.”

“What does she look like?”

“Medium height. Shaved head. Tattoos across her chest.”

Stasko’s voice turns to a whisper as he describes her, his hand drifting across his own throat, mirroring the way he had earlier stroked her freshly inserted trach tube.

The doctor nods. “I remember her. Bed 13, at least when she was brought in. I think she was okay—”

And before he can finish Stasko is already hobbling away, past a row of gurneys lined up next to one another, empty and blood-stained, past the reception desk. Each bed has a plastic plate mounted onto its head, held in place by cable ties, large black numbers embossed on it.

He finds bed 13 empty.

His heart sinks as he stands next to it, running his fingers across the indentation left behind. And so she is gone again, taken from him. Perhaps Bridget is correct about the girl not being right for the project. Perhaps she isn’t the fitting replacement for Anna that he thought she was. Anna, at least, had been willing and although he feels certain that the punk would have come around to the idea of her transformation—at what cost? It had seemed such a perfect moment to have seen Katja’s poster that night but now it is beginning to feel fraudulent, that he had been tricking himself in a moment of desperation.

He turns and walks away, trying instead to spot the distinctive pink shock of Bridget’s hair, only now thinking of how she might be or even if she is there at all. He starts to cough, his esophagus raw and burning as if he were still breathing in the hot smoke from the fire, holding out a hand to a nearby wall for support.

Someone brushes past him, leaving behind a flowery scent-trail which cuts through the medicinal stench and is instantly recognisable.

“Anna?”

He looks up and sees the scent’s source walking away from him, their back to him. Shaven head. Barefoot. A skimpy leopard-print dress.

A vision of utter beauty.

And then she turns her head.

Stasko’s world comes to a complete halt.

He
is
wrong about Katja. She
isn’t
the one.

His misery had tricked him that night but now his mind is clear.

The creature turns away again and stalks into the corridor beyond the ER.

Stasko, a strange bliss now blooming within him, goes after her.

With the Policie officer chasing after them, Katja and Nikolai charge towards the hospital’s radiology suite. They collide with a group of doctors in deep conversation, and then duck around a corner, the officer’s shouts echoing past them. They race ahead and then around one corner and then another.

A sign overhead reads
Main Entrance
but Katja grabs Nikolai when he starts towards it, pulling him in the opposite direction. They go through a set of doors, emerging into a dimly lit carpeted room lined with the sort of cheap plastic chairs found at low-rent conference halls. Spread out across three of the chairs which have been neatly aligned, a medical student is fast asleep. They creep around him as the sounds of the Policie officer’s boots thud past in the corridor outside, and exit through a door on the opposite side of the room.

“Where are we going?” Nikolai asks.

“We need to find another way out than the main entrance,” she tells him once they are out of the room again. “They might be waiting for us there.”

“Who might?”

“The trannies, Dimebag Dexter, that fucked-up surgeon . . . take your pick,” she answers as they reach another junction. A man in a bright green gown approaches one way so she takes the other.

They travel only a few metres before she stops suddenly.

“Shit.”

“What?”

Before she can answer he too recognises that they’ve hit a dead end. They both turn and are about to go back the way they came when Katja holds up a hand to block Nikolai. She nods at the floor in front of them and at the neat trail of blood that describes their route. She checks herself quickly then looks at Nikolai and her eyes go wide. Another drop of blood escapes his head wound and splashes to the ground.

“Oh,” he says.

“If anyone was trying to follow us . . .”

Her words, and the implication, drifts. She grabs his head and for a moment he thinks she is going to beat the shit out of him for being so careless then he feels something being pressed against his wound. The sleeve of her t-shirt. She pushes it against him in an attempt to help it clot then steps back. Tears at the garment, ripping a chunk of it away where the seam has already started to come loose.

“Here,” she says, offering him the chunk of fabric. “Now let’s get a move on before . . .”

“Before what?” Nikolai asks, pressing the piece of t-shirt to his wound.

But she’s looking right past him. Her eyes going wider still.

He follows her gaze and sees Lady D coming towards them.

The debt collector having now seen them and charging towards them, together Katja and Nikolai rush back to the junction. They duck around the corner and into the opposite corridor, the snap of the transvestite’s heels ricocheting around the floors and ceiling. They quicken their pace, going round another corner and then another, starting to put distance between them and their pursuer. Katja grabs an empty instrument trolley as they race past it and pulls it into the corridor behind them. A few moments later there’s a crashing noise and Katja turns in time to see Lady D tumbling to the ground over the cart.

They hurry onwards until Katja stops and pushes open a door.

“Here!” she shouts, shoving Nikolai inside.

She closes the door behind them, locks it, and they hurry down a short ramp into near-darkness. A wet heat washes over them and there’s the smell of fresh laundry. A row of washing machines line one wall, each one rattling and humming, the glow from their displays the only illumination in the room.

“Look for an exit!” she says. “There might be a loading bay or something.”

“I can’t see anything!” Nikolai replies, clumsily feeling his way along one wall then shrieking when he places a hand on a scalding hot pipe.

“Quiet!” Katja snaps. She palms her way through the darkness, looking for any slivers of light which might indicate a way out but can’t find any. “Shit!”

“Katja, where are you?”

“Here.” She puts a hand on his shoulder. Then, “There’s no other way out. We’re going to have to go back up.”

“Motherfucker,” the woman growls.

Stasko looks at her, sprawled on the floor of the empty corridor next to the fallen cart, one long and beautiful leg spread out to the side, the ankle at the end of it red and slightly swollen. She reaches up to a nearby window ledge with one manicured hand and tries to pull herself upright but slips and she slumps back down again. The passageway’s lighting frames her, surrounds her in an angelic glow.

He takes a step towards her, offers a hand. “Here,” he says, “let me help.”

She instantly snaps around the way a fighting dog might.

“Who the fuck are you?”

For a moment Stasko can’t speak, so struck is he by her beauty. Her skull is perfectly shaped and shadowed by stubble. Her eyes are dark yet luminous, her frame strong yet delicate.

“You are
perfection
,” he says as he crouches next to her, the words a mere whisper.

“Excuse me?”

“When I saw you in the ER I knew that you were . . . but now, now I see you up close you are even more . . .”

He clasps a hand over his mouth to control his emotions.

“Look, I don’t know who the hell you think I am but—”

“You’re the one,” he interrupts.

“Is that right?” she says, getting to her feet. She winces when she first puts weight on the ankle, easing herself away from him. “Well that may well be the case but I’m afraid I don’t have the time right now to—”

She stops when she sees the syringe in his hand.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, not again,” she says just before he stabs it into her neck.

The day, it seems, is nothing but an infinite see-saw between consciousness and unconsciousness.

This time Lady D comes to with a start. Something is strapped across her chest, preventing her from raising herself any higher than a few inches. The harsh whiteness of the hospital has been swallowed by darkness but the smell of disinfectant and antiseptic hand gel is still strong in the air. A multi-coloured cloud hovers before her, following her gaze as she shifts it from side to side. It pulses in time with the pounding in her head but is quickly fading.

She tries to move her arms and legs but they too are held in place, pain igniting across her ankles and wrists. She hears movement—rustling, smothered breathing – then a bright pinprick of light shines at her. It hits her eyes as if it were a solid shard and she pushes herself back into the bed she is laid out on, twisting her head from side to side to get away from it.

A hand grabs her face, squeezing her cheeks together. It turns her towards the source of the light and she can only just make out a figure behind it wearing a disposable surgical smock and mask. Her thoughts tumble into place and she remembers the man who had helped her to her feet before dosing her with sedative.

“Stay quiet,” he says, still gripping her face.

She snaps her head to one side, pulls herself free, then drags phlegm from the back of her throat and spits it at him. “Fuck you.”

The man leans over her, the little pen-light he has tilting to more fully illuminate him. His eyes are dark, his pupils fully dilated. He looks her up and down, running a hand up her leg. Lady D jolts her body, doing what she can to resist him whilst still held by the bonds. Another inch or two and he may be in for an unwelcome surprise.

“Now, now,” the man whispers to her, his hand skipping to her torso then sweeping across her head. “Don’t be afraid, I’m not going to harm you. You don’t have to hide yourself from me.”

And he holds something up for her to see—the bandage-like wrapping that is the final, outer layer of her gaff.

“No . . .” The word escapes Lady D’s lips as a gasp at the suddenly realized exposure.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” the man says, bundling the fabric up into a little ball. “Transformation is natural. It is vital. I know how you must feel.”

“Get me the fuck out of here right now,” Lady D says through gritted, and finely polished, teeth. “You have no idea who I am.”

The man tilts his head to one side, pulls the mask away from his face and lets it hang beneath his jaw. “I think it’s
you
who has no idea who you are,” he tells her. “But I can help you with that.”

He’s gone for a moment or two then returns with another syringe and a plastic bite plate. He places the plate into her mouth, wrapping the elasticated band it is attached to around the back of her head.

“As soon as I’ve got you out of here and back to my lab, we can begin. . . .”

He removes the syringe’s protective cap and gives it a quick tap and squirt to get rid of air bubbles. Lady D struggles once more but the bonds, cable-ties, she realizes, hold firm, biting into her and drawing blood. She refuses to give up, however, twisting and pulling on them, grimacing as the pain builds, grunting and whining behind the bit.

“Hold still,” the man says, smacking her inner arm to encourage her veins to swell. “We can’t have you thrashing about like this.”

The sharp pain of the needle presses against her; her struggle intensifies, her anger and frustration builds as if it will explode from within her.

And then light floods across them.

“Who the hell . . . ?” the man says.

Lady D turns, looks towards the entrance to the room. A woman stands there, her eyes shimmering with tears, her cheeks stained with diluted eye makeup. Lady D blinks rapidly, urging her vision to clear.

“Get out of my way,” the man snaps, pulling on the gurney Lady D is strapped to, positioning it between himself and the woman. “Can’t you see I have a patient here? She needs to go to surgery
immediately
, do you understand?”

“You’re not going anywhere,” the woman says, standing firm. “You have no idea who I am do you?”

“I have no
interest
in who you are,” the man says, jabbing the gurney towards her as if it were a weapon.

In response the woman takes a gun from her bag. Points it at the surgeon.

And her captor may not recognise the woman but Lady D now does. After all it was only a couple of hours since she had kidnapped her.

Liz peers around the corner of the alleyway she had ducked into after being told by Bridget to leave and get to her safe house. After walking away from the vehicle it had been her every intention to go straight to an old friend who would ask no questions about her need to hide, but with each step she had taken her confidence had waned. She’d eventually turned a corner when she knew that she would be out of Bridget’s sight, before cutting through into the alley and doubling back on herself. She’d kept a close eye on Bridget, the smells of Chinese food drifting from a vent above her, until she saw a pair of headlights in the distance and a station wagon pull up alongside her.

Now she watches the figure within the car lean across and talk with Bridget who, moments later, gets out and climbs into his vehicle. When the door opens an internal light comes on and identifies Stasko as the driver. For several moments Liz fights with herself, suddenly certain that something awful is about to happen, that Stasko somehow knows what they are planning. Her fingernails dig into the soft mortar between the wall’s bricks.

The internal light goes out and Stasko pulls away. The car comes towards her then fizzes past, spraying up water from the pools on the road, the vehicle’s red tail-lights illuminating the shower of droplets. Liz rushes to Bridget’s abandoned car and gratefully finds the key tucked under the driver’s seat where Bridget often leaves it—right next to a small handgun. Liz takes both, starts the engine, the tail-lights of Stasko’s car only just visible in the distance.

She presses down on the accelerator and chases after them.