The Mercy Chair (WASHINGTON POE #6) by M. W. Craven EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors: M. W. Craven
- Language: English
- Genre: Thriller / Suspense
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2.3 MB
- Price: Free
The hospital was old. A cathedral to the sick, built when eight-year-olds
crawled up chimneys and a queen’s empire was the largest the world had
ever known. They called it a lunatic asylum then, now they said psychiatric
hospital.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
The man staring out of a high-arched, curtainless window wasn’t
thinking about the UK’s mental health crisis though, he was thinking about
the hospital’s colour scheme. He was wondering if the paint on the corridor
he was standing in had been chosen for its therapeutic qualities. He
suspected not. It was institutional green, the type of colour not found
anywhere in nature, and still smelled fresh and acrid. He thought it made
the hospital seem more like a prison than a place of healing. Perhaps that
was the point.
The corridor was empty and echoed as if it were a church. The chemical
stink of wall-socket air fresheners soaked the still air; the linoleum floor
was buffed to a shine. A fob-controlled navy double door blocked off one
entrance, a steel security door the other. The corridor had three rooms and
the man was waiting to be called into the middle one. None of the doors had
handles.
There were no seats in this corridor, no waiting area with televisions and
pot plants and magazines about idyllic lives in the Cotswolds, so the man
stood. On the other side of the security door someone screamed and
someone else shouted. Before long he could hear accents from all four
corners of the country. He didn’t turn away from the window. Screaming
and shouting and crying and alarms were the hospital’s soundtrack, an aria
heard all day and all night.
And he knew no one would enter this corridor.
Not until it was time.
A crow flew into view. It wheeled overhead and landed on the hospital
lawn. Two more joined it. The man watched their strong, scrawny feet
scratch at the earth, searching for bugs and beetles and worms. He
shuddered in revulsion. He had come to hate crows.
He turned his back on them and glanced at his watch. It was almost time.
He removed his phone from his pocket to see if there were any urgent
messages. But there was nothing. Not one. Not even a good luck text from
his friend. Instead, he saw his face reflected in the black mirror. His eyes
were red and gritty and puffed up, as if he’d slept on a plane. The hands
holding the phone were heavily calloused, covered in scratches and smelled
of the sea. He wondered if they would ever be clean again.
The door to the middle room opened. A shaven-headed man stepped out.
He was wearing a royal blue tunic top with black trousers. He had a
personal alarm clipped to his belt loop. Pulling the cord or pressing the red
button would rush people to his location, like a police officer sending out an
urgent assistance request.
A smaller man in a suit joined the shaven-headed man. He had the
harried look all doctors seemed to have. ‘Doctor Lang is ready to see you
now,’ he said
For More Read Download This Book
EPUB