Organ Music Read Online Free PDF Page B

staring at them in irritation. ‘Don’t make a stupid fuss. Sleep – just sleep – and we’ll wake you for breakfast.’
    Behind him, Quinta straightened as if she were a puppet jerked upwards by unseen strings. Tilting back her head, she howled: ‘Run! Run now! There’s no waking up! No breakfast! Hide! Hi-ide! Run and hide!’
    Dr Fabrice may not have been able to see the young man and the flow of blood, but he heard Quinta – that owl looking over his shoulder. Suddenly he knew she was there. His jaw dropped, he turned; Quinta actually smiled at him as if they were old friends. His eyes were only inches away from her glasses. As David and Harley, acting together, pushed past him, a dreadful sound forced its way out of Dr Fabrice: not just a groan of fear, but the agony of a man feeling his brain invisibly twisting inside his head. First Harley, then David, scrambled past him and out of the room, pelting as fast as they could along the pale blue, curving corridor, even though they knew of no safe place to run to. It was as if they had been practising that fast take-off for a long time, and must make use of it, come what may.
    Behind the perpetual music something began screaming. Someone’s torturing a cat , thought David in horror, but the sound rose and fell too evenly for true pain, always incoherent. He realized he was hearing a siren – an alarm call. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw Dr Fabrice crawling on the floor of the blue corridor with his head hanging almost to the floor, as a mechanical toy with a broken neck might crawl. Then he collapsed and lay still. David felt certain that, though Dr Fabrice might get up again, he would never be the same man he had been.
    And now David also felt the vibration of pursuit. Feet were running from somewhere, pounding towards them. Grabbing a handle on the nearest door, he twisted it madly. Miraculously, the door opened, and he and Harley leaped sideways into darkness, pulling the door shut behind them. It clicked in such a conclusive way that David immediately knew they were locked in again, and the thought of being locked in this unknown, black room made him giddy with fear. Who knew what was in such a room, sharing the darkness with them? As he sank down on his trembling haunches, burying his face in his hands, he was aware of Harley collapsing beside him.
    â€˜He was dead. That man in the bed was dead,’ Harley mumbled. David suspected he might be weeping in the dark.
    â€˜Shhh!’ he whispered. Feet thumped rapidly past the door. David put out his hand and touched Harley’s arm. ‘He can’t have been dead.’ He wanted to be sensible and comforting at the same time. ‘Dead men don’t bleed like that. I mean, if he was dead his heart would have stopped beating and ... ’
    â€˜He was dead,’ repeated Harley. ‘And not only that ...’
    He fell silent. David did not want to think about what Harley had started to say. Before entering the previous room, they had looked in at the beds, and those beds had certainly been empty.
    As if it were feeding on David’s fear, the music grew louder and louder. The darkness rang with it, and David felt that he was ringing with it, too.

Then it faded again.
    â€˜I hate that music,’ panted David.
    â€˜Bach!’ whispered Harley.
    â€˜Bark?’ David turned his head towards Harley, but could see only blackness. ‘Woof woof?’
    â€˜Bach! You know. Bach, the composer. They’ve been playing that ever since we came in here. And Mozart, I think. Nothing but organ music anyway.’
    It vaguely surprised David that Harley knew about composers and organ music. But he had probably heard a lot of music from his mother.
    â€˜What happened ?’ Harley sounded stern, like someone struggling out of a nightmare, desperate to take control of life once more.
    â€˜Quinta yelled “Run!” and we ran,’ David