Flux

say for sure when, or for how long it had been, the voice of his friend fell silent. He kept his eyes scrunched tight shut for a long while afterwards but when the subtle smell of disinfectant and perfume reached his nostrils, he gingerly opened them and slowly looked around; more to find out why he could smell perfume.
    “Hi Iain. Welcome back.” Eve was sitting at the end of the bed. “You’ve been out of it for a long time.”
    Iain looked at her through red rimmed eyes, and burst into an uncontrollable fit of crying. Reaching out her arms, she embraced his head, pulling him to her bosom, softly stroking his hair. “SShhh; it’s OK. You’re safe now.”
    He’d never been more relieved to see anybody in his whole life, and then, regaining his composure, he pulled away from her and sat upright. “Sorry,” he said, looking at the damp tear mark on her blouse.
    “Don’t worry. I thought I’d pop in and see how you are?”
    “Thanks for coming. I’ve been better. Didn’t think I’d see you, or anyone familiar again.”
    Eve simply smiled; her kind face lighting up, making everything better. Still sniffling Iain calmed down enough to sit and talk. Thankfully, she made no mention of the killings, cannibalism or Iain’s insanity. Instead they simply chatted about the mundane; what it was like in the hospital, to which Iain really didn’t have a lot to say, and about events in the outside world. It had been raining for three days straight and somewhere in Cornwall had flooded again.
    They talked until Iain slumped back onto his bed and slipped into a deep and restful sleep.

Chapter Thirty-Nine
    Spider Woman

    Iain now seemed to be existing in a constant state of flux: One world superimposed on the other, although which one was on which, he couldn’t say. Through the white clean hospital walls he could make out the ghostlike appearance of stone and on the bed, straw. Often, one of the places would gain dominance and swim into full focus.
    It was on one such occasion when he saw the gargoyle sit up and stare at him through the bars, as if distracted from some activity it was doing out of sight. Iain flinched, but did not look away; instead he walked over to the door, touching the key in his pocket, to see what the beast had been doing. It sat straight, growling a soft warning at his approach. There was another, slightly smaller gargoyle there, its muzzle buried deep within Gary’s body cavity, feasting on the black putrid flesh. It too looked up momentarily and Iain saw scraps of meat hanging from its teeth, blood dripped to the floor. To Iain’s horror, Gary still writhed as the beasts ate his innards, his jaw flopped open and Iain was sure his friend mouthed the words “help me.” Then the creature, seeing no threat, carried on as if Iain weren’t there at all.
    About to turn his back, Iain sensed rather than saw, something scurrying in the shadows. He spun back around just in time to see one of the spider creatures jump onto the larger gargoyle's back; tearing at thin papery wings with snapping mandibles. The first spider was quickly followed by a second, then a third until there were more spiders than Iain cared to try counting.
    The ensuing fight was a noisy one, leaving in the aftermath one of the gargoyles dead and the other injured, along with the twitching bodies of half a dozen of the spider things. The injured gargoyle had fled into the dark, back to where it had come from. Within no longer than two minutes, Gary’s remains had been devoured by the swarm of arachnids, leaving only picked white bones in their wake.
    And then they went, no doubt in search of their next quarry. Iain wondered why they hadn’t turned on him; some of the spiders were small enough to fit through the bars. Then he pushed the thought from his mind as the hospital room swam back into view.
    He lay awake, staring at the ceiling. A spider, just a normal small house spider, walked across, spinning a web to the light fitting. Iain shuddered. Unable to comprehend fully what he’d just witnessed happening to his friend, his mind was mostly blank apart from the times when memories came flooding back like a tsunami and Iain would start to shake and sob uncontrollably. That’s how the doctor found him when entering the room.
    At first the doctor didn’t say anything; just picked up the paper Iain had let slip from his grasp, and looked at it intently. He scratched his chin thoughtfully, trying to analyse the picture