Mr. Somnus (Complete)

6

Barrie appears at the end of the corridor.

'Minnie, what happened?' Barrie runs to the girl and puts his hands on her face. 'Are you alright? Who did this to you?'

'Can you hear the music?' is all that the girl says, her eyes staring into space.

Barrie throws his arms around her. He sees a limp figure sprawled on the floor behind the girl. He lets Domina go and rushes to see Randy lying in a pool of blood.

'Oh, no, Randy,' he falls on his knees and puts his hands on a gaping wound in the boy's abdomen. 'Bugsy, come and help me!'

But Bugsy has curled himself into a tight, shivering ball rocking against the wall. Deans runs into the corridor with his nurse trotting behind him.

'Oh, my Lord,' Deans exclaims, 'Domina, what have you done?'

The doctor checks Randy's pulse and feels the temperature of his forehead with the back of his hand. He quickly removes his robe, bunches it up and presses it into Randy's abdomen.

'Here,' he tells Barrie, 'keep pressure on that wound; he's going into shock.'

The doctor stands up and goes to face Domina. He slowly tries to take the knife from Domina. She yanks her hand away and raises the knife above her head, ready to strike him.

'Nurse,' Deans says without taking his eyes away from Domina, 'ready a sedative for me and then be prepared to take this girl to a secure room where you will strap her down.'

Domina launches herself onto Deans. The doctor catches her hand and wrests the knife from her. Domina goes crashing to the floor. Deans pounces on her and flips her over facedown. He places his knee on the small of her back and pushes her face into the carpet.

'Hey, doctor,' Barrie calls out, 'is all that necessary?'

Barrie gets up and charges for Deans. The doctor picks up the knife and points it at Barrie.

'Stay back!' the doctor commands. To Tambudzai he shouts, 'Nurse, stop standing there like a cataplexic and get me my sedative!'

Tambudzai dashes out of sight. Victoria stumbles into the corridor, half asleep.

'What the hell!' she exclaims. 'Oh, no, Randy... what happened?'

Victoria runs to Randy and finds he is still bleeding. She presses the robe firmly on his abdomen.

Domina is fighting to get up.

'You're hurting her!' Barrie yells.

Tambudzai rushes back to the doctor's side with a large syringe. Deans grabs it, stabs the girl in the neck with it and empties the barrel. Almost instantly, Domina becomes inanimate. Deans removes his knee from the girl's back and stands up. Barrie throws himself to the floor and collects the girl into his bosom.

'What have you done to her?' Barrie cries.

'Listen to me, my boy,' Deans says soberly, 'a crime has been committed here. Now you shall have to let me deal with this, otherwise your girlfriend will spend the rest of her sweet years in juvenile detention before she is shipped off to a dungeon somewhere filled with dangerous people.'

'What are we going to do?' Barrie's teary eyes look at the doctor.

'First we need to get that boy to surgery,' Deans points a thumb behind his back without looking. 'As long as he is not dead, we won't have a murder case on our hands.'