The Sleeping Dead Read Online Free

back. “I’m sorry?”
    Laine spoke again, his voice too low for Jackson to understand. He probably wasn’t saying anything sensible anyway. Jackson had an idea that whatever was wrong with Laine, he had passed beyond sensible a little while ago.
    Jackson leaned in close. The man was whispering rapidly. Words churned from him like water boiling in a pan.
    Laine tucked his hands back into his armpits and began to sway. His utterances became more fevered. He began to grind his head against the window, as if he wanted to burrow through the glass.
    “Let me help you,” Jackson said.
    Laine did not seem to hear the offer. He pulled his head back, the muscles in his neck straining with the effort, and then slammed his forehead against the glass.
    “Jesus. Fuck.”
    Jackson reached out to pull Laine away from the window. For a moment Laine looked at Jackson, but he seemed to stare right through him. A large red welt sprung up in the center of his forehead where he had hit the glass. Jackson tugged on his arm, but Laine wrenched himself free.
    He hit the window again. Harder. The sound reminded Jackson of a bird slamming into a glass door.
    Laine hit the window again.
    “Jesus.” Jackson turned around, but the corridor was empty. “Help!” he screamed. His voice drifted down the corridor, all urgency lost. “Hey, I need some help here.” He grabbed for Laine. The guy was going to hurt himself if he carried on.
    Laine hit the window. When he pulled back this time, there was a smear of blood on the glass.
    Jackson wrapped his arms around the man, but it was like trying to hold on to a bag of snakes. Laine shifted and wriggled and flexed beneath him, but still Jackson hung on. The little man was stronger than Jackson had appreciated. He had no muscle on him—just a pipe-cleaner thin body on which someone had hung a gray suit—but Jackson struggled to contain the man.
    Laine bowed his head, and bit Jackson’s hand.
    Jackson screamed, more in surprise than pain. The bastard had actually bitten him. He looked at his hand and the tooth marks were bright white within a red ring.
    Laine ran at the window and hit it with a heavy, ominous crack. A drop of blood rolled down the glass. He backed up a couple of steps, and before Jackson could respond, he threw himself at the window once again.
    This time the impact drew a jagged line down the center of the glass. Laine backed up once more, shaking his head like a prizefighter in the fifteenth round.
    When he hit the window the next time, it exploded. Shards of glass fell inside the corridor but more fell outward, down to the ground eight stories below. Laine teetered for a moment, halfway out the window.
    Jackson ran toward him but Laine removed his hands from under his armpits and placed them on the jagged bottom of the window. Immediately a flood of fresh blood washed down the broken mountain range of glass below him. He pushed down and, in a single graceful movement, pulled himself over the window ledge. For a moment he seemed finally balanced, teetering on the edge, and then Laine fell.
    The sound of the man landing on the concrete reached up the eight floors—hard and wet. A moment later the screaming began.
    Jackson stared at the broken window, unable to accept what he had just witnessed, and then turned and fled down the corridor, back in the direction of MedWay.

 
     
     
    4
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    The whey-faced boy from MedWay’s reception placed a cup of black tea on the table in front of Jackson and took a step backward.
    “Thanks,” Jackson whispered. The boy nodded and then fled the room.
    Jackson took a sip from the cup. The harsh taste of black tea was underlined by an intense sweetness—the boy must have dumped at least five spoons of sugar into the cup.
    A figure passed the door. It had happened regularly since he had staggered into MedWay screaming about Laine’s suicide, as if word had got round the company and they were taking it in turns to get a