A Song of Spiders

Chapter 5 - Rachel

The gnome trudged to the top of the blisteringly hot sand dune. It tottered there for a second and then proceeded down the cooler leeward side. Its emerald green eyes shone. Its first task was to leave this barren place and get back onto the grid to pass on its message. So it trudged on.

Rachel was buried up to her neck at the bottom of the dune. Her sun and wind-burned head half covered with blown sand, watched her little gnome go over the top and out of sight.  ‘Go gnome go’ she whispered through cracked lips and dropped unconscious into a nightmare fever of darkness. 

It was growing dark, and it started to rain softly. The wind blew cans and paper down the alleyway behind Time Tours. The nightly cleaning crew arrived in a van beside a large metal-shuttered door. Out of the back climbed a group of small old women. They were carrying buckets, mops, a laundry hamper and big industrial vacuum cleaners. The van waited with its engine idling quietly.

Without exchanging a word or even a glance they went to every corner of the building and began their work. The few remaining office staff ignored them. Two of the women went to the be-movie floor. They used a silver pass to open the locks and methodically entered each room. They silently swept, dusted and polished. When they reached the final rooms on the floor, one kept watch while another used a gold pass to open the last door on the corridor that was marked ‘Staff Only’. Inside, Rachel lay curled up unconscious on the ground. The first woman beckoned the second with a hand gesture and together they swiftly placed her in the laundry hamper and via the service elevator took her out the back to the waiting van. It glided away into the night and they returned inside and resumed their work.

Rachel began to awaken. She was dimly aware of people speaking around her. She heard one voice say ‘I.V. started’ that explains the sudden pain in the back of my hand, she thought. 

Another voice said ‘vital signs good, breathing normal, pulse normal, temperature normal. I think she's coming around.’ 

She opened her eyes. She was on a metal framed bed with tough white sheets and a softer pink blanket. There were two nurses, one male, one female, in white matching outfits on either side of her. Around them all was a white floral curtain. The curtain was abruptly pulled aside to show an elderly but fit looking doctor with old-fashioned glasses looking at her over the top of the bed. ‘Hospital’ she managed to speak. It hurt and her voice sounded hoarse. ‘Why am I in hospital?’ she croaked. No-one answered her. The nurses continued to hook up an IV and attach a monitor to her finger and pull over a sort of touch screen on a pole. Then they straightened her sheets, gave her quick, professional smiles and stepped away swiftly. The doctor spoke over his glasses while he looked at her chart. ‘Hello Rachel. I am Dr. Bellamy. You are in a mobile army surgical hospital, can you speak?’

She had no idea which side he was on. She had to be careful what she said. She was lucid enough to realise that. He had said this was an army hospital. But which army? Another man appeared around the curtain. ‘Rachel, it's OK, it's me Cabot.’ He addressed the other man. ‘Doctor can this wait a few minutes, she's disoriented.’ He turned back to her. ‘Rachel, we found you and got you out. It was a close thing, believe me. You are on one of our underground trains, it's an old army M.A.S.H., but it's ours now. You're safe.’

She felt too hot on the bed and tried to sit up. A nurse appeared and said gently. ‘Try and stay still.’ She was weak as a kitten. She realised her face felt puffy and sore. ‘Cabot. What happened to me?’ she said slowly, it was almost a whisper.

‘We got the message from your phone. We don't know how you even managed to relay a message in the be-movie, but that gnome is a determined little critter all the same, it somehow got the message to us. 'No greater love hath Gnome Ann' eh?’. He laughed a small coughing laugh.