LAUGHTON RUNS.
She runs past the struggle of bodies right into Gracie’s room.
She looks for a lock, but there isn’t one.
She looks for something to jam against the door and drags the drinks trolley over, but it’s too light to stop anyone coming through that door.
She looks around for a weapon, something heavy, something she can hit or gouge with, but this is a hospital and there’s nothing like that by design.
She ducks her head into the bathroom. There’s nothing to use as a weapon in there either, but there is a lock on the door.
She jumps to the side of Gracie’s bed and lightly slaps her on the cheek.
“Honey, wake up. Please wake up.”
She presses the alarm button on the bedhead and a red light comes on above the door. Somewhere outside down the corridor the distant beep sounds, but it’s coming from where the night nurse is sleeping his drugged sleep.
No one is coming.
“Honey, please wake up.”
Gracie moans and stirs, her eyes rolling half open before closing again. She’s too deeply sedated. Dragging her off the bed and into the relative safety of the bathroom will take too long.
Outside in the corridor Laughton hears a cry of pain and recognizes her father’s voice in it.
She looks down at Gracie, the same age now that she was when this happened to her. She remembers what her mother did to make sure she lived. She never thought she was as strong as her mother, but right now, in this moment, she knows she is. She will do anything to save her daughter, anything.
Another cry out in the hallway makes her head snap round.
Her mother had fought for her and her father is fighting for her now.
That’s what you do when you’re a parent. When the wolf comes for your cubs. You fight them.
She looks at the drinks trolley again, not heavy enough for defense, but better as a weapon. She grabs it, yanks open the door, and charges into the corridor, letting out a howl that comes from somewhere deep and elemental.
Her father is on the floor, his hospital gown twisted and wet with blood as he kicks weakly at his attacker standing over him but now looking at Laughton, the glassy eyes wide with surprise behind the mask.
She grabs the hot water urn from the trolley and hurls it at him, sending near-scalding water arcing through the air and burning herself in the process. The monster ducks but not in time, and the urn hits him hard on the shoulder, throwing a jolt of water over him that makes him stagger backward and squeal.
Laughton swings the trolley round, running at him hard and letting go at the last moment so the sharp metal edge of it hits him full in the side, sending him sprawling to the ground before spinning away down the corridor. His mask slips as he falls and she sees the face beneath as he scrambles to put it back. Pale. Unremarkable. Ordinary.
This is no monster.
She hurries over to her father, slipping in spilt water as she drops down by his side.
“You OK?”
He is holding his side, gritting his teeth in pain, bleeding vivid red onto his white hospital gown. He looks up and the pain in his eyes softens for the flicker of a moment, then they look past her and go hard.
Laughton twists round just as he lurches toward her. He is limping from where the trolley struck him, the eyes full of hate, his hand rising up again, the knife pointing at her now.
She stands and backs away across the wet floor, away from her father and past the door to Gracie’s room with the red light above it that now turns everything scarlet in the dimly lit corridor.
She continues to walk backward, drawing the shuffling thing in the mask after her.
In almost two decades of obsessing about this moment, dreading it, waking from nightmares where it endlessly played out, the emotion that always colored everything was fear. Fear of it happening again. Fear of the monster in the mask coming again and this time catching her.
Run and don’t stop running, her mother had said.
And she had been running, running her entire life—away from home, away from her past, all that running and yet here she was and the monster had still caught up with her. She feels the hard linoleum become soft carpet beneath her feet.
She has been running for long enough. Time to stop.
She plants her back foot on the ground, focuses on the thing limping closer, and starts counting in her head.
. . . One . . .
Her eyes meet the ones in the ragged eyeholes and she gauges his height. He is tall, much taller than she had ever imagined him to be. But this wasn’t him. She had seen his face. This wasn’t a monster, it wasn’t even McVey, it was just a pathetic man hiding behind a mask.
. . . Two . . .
She bends her knees slightly, almost as if cowering, and he smiles behind the mask, enjoying what he sees as a sign of fear and defeat. He raises the knife, ready to stab down hard and finally offer this sacrifice to his dead and twisted god. He takes another step. One more and he will be able to reach her.
. . . Three . . .
Laughton straightens her legs and launches upward, twisting as she rises, her left leg lashing out, catching the edge of the slashing knife but driving on through to connect with the mask and keep on going, shattering plastic and crunching bone.
His body slackens instantly and he staggers backward, arms flailing weakly as he tries to regain balance.
Laughton lands in a controlled crouch and springs forward again, leading with her right leg this time, her left leaking blood where the blade caught it. She aims at the mask again, just as she has practiced so many times. She drives her foot forward, connecting with his head, which snaps back with nowhere near the resistance of the heavy leather bag. His body crumples and he falls backward, landing so hard on the floor that his head bounces and the knife falls from his limp hand.
Laughton is already on him, the red light in the corridor now indistinguishable from the cloud of red mist in her head. She looks down at his face framed by the shattered mask, his eyes rolled back on a slack face, blood pouring from a cut in his lip and a nose that looks like ground beef. Behind her, three hospital security guards run down the corridor, finally answering the earlier alarm.
She raises her right foot ready to stamp down on his head, but strong arms grab her from behind and pull her away.
“It’s OK,” someone says. “You’re safe now. You’re OK.”
And for the first time in her adult life, Laughton feels that she actually is.