by K Fisher
The doctor’s sudden and loud voice broke Hazel’s trance, bringing her back to the room and situation at hand, instead of in the past and the event that only hindered her chances of getting back on the force.
“I am going to advise you actively stay in counseling. I do not feel comfortable with the thought of you returning to work at this time. I know it’s not what you want to hear and I do believe you will be able to get past this…”
“Not a problem! Thank you for your time. I’m feeling a bit tired today. Do you mind if I cut this short and schedule a double for next time?” Standing, Hazel pointed both her fingers at the doctor and gave her a wink and a smile.
The abrupt exits were starting to become normal between the two of them, but the past week had been a slow-growing anxiety and stress pile. Hearing Dr. Moore say those words to her again? Confirming she most likely would be in several more months of therapy before she was ever able to attempt to get her job back, if ever? It was the cherry on top of everything terrible happening in her life and Hazel had to get out before she did anything to worsen her current situation or break down into tears in the office.
It wasn’t like she would lash out in anger or violence, she just didn’t want to get on her knees and start begging the woman to let her return to work. Her pride couldn’t take much more at this point.
Without waiting for an answer, Hazel grabbed her bag and left the room. The door closed softly behind her and her smile did not falter as she made her way through the patient waiting area, past the guard picking at the underside of his nails, and out to her parked red sedan. She couldn’t register the weather around her or the people walking about, feeling like she was walking in a fog as she unlocked the car and jumped in.
The second her car started, the weight of her most recent meeting hit Hazel fully. Her face felt sore from holding the strained smile, finding it was a relief to bring everything back to neutral, shoulders slacking as she leaned forward in her seat. Unfortunately, neutral happened to be what her old squad had deemed the ‘resting warrior face’. Which of course meant she looked as though she was ready to punch someone in the throat at any given moment. Thankfully Hazel was in her car and not dealing with the general public.
The weight on her chest was familiar, but she found her own ways to ignore it. She could have sat there and cried in her car to some sad song on the radio, or screamed it out for a moment before finding the nearest store that sold something sweet. Instead, she thought of the list of things she needed to get done that night. Namely, the applications she needed to start filling out, and the small things she needed to organize at home which would distract her from what was happening and the likelihood she’d need to find another line of work.
There was no time to cry and be upset, she had already prepared herself for the possibility she would not be passing any mental exam in therapy that day. In a way, she had known there was no way she was going to be approved in the woman’s eyes the moment the mug had broken against the wall the week before.
She didn’t blame Dr. Moore. Despite her own disappointment, she knew if she were in Dr. Moore’s position there was no way she would let her anywhere near weapons or a high stress situation. It was just the process of coming to terms with the fact she would never be a police officer again, never feel the pride of being able to help someone the way she had before.
Sure, they would let her work the front desk at the precinct if she wanted, but that was a slow torture; watching and not being able to be a part of the action. Her gun was gone, too, a clear sign she could not be trusted with something able to take a life.
Her Captain seemed to think she was highly capable, but it was wholly dependent on their relationship. He’d been like a father to her after both her adoptive parents passed, and during the years she worked with him, he had no issues hiding her psychological abnormalities. Of course, he was often in the same crazy boat as she was. It was sweet how much he tried to make her feel normal during the worst of days.
But Hazel knew there would be a point where she would have to let go of her stubbornness when it came to believing things were going to go back to the way they were before the recent developments in her ‘curse’. It was time to move on with life and find another passion, a new way to shove the voices and apparitions down, to keep them from slowly destroying her one day when she felt seemingly safe.
Since she was a child, Hazel had seen what she knew to be spirits, the good and the bad, but never had they tried to harm her or take control; not until that day several months prior, the day that they tried to kill her. It was something she had learned to deal with, but now it made her uneasy every time she left her home. Like a gentle dog she had trusted before it had decided to bite her.
She needed to get back to the safety of her apartment, to the cold gaze of her cat, and the mound of laundry waiting for her. It would be easy enough for her to get back into independent contracting and helping with the domestic violence hotlines like before. It would be enough to keep her afloat; however, it wasn’t the money that Hazel would miss.
It had never been about the money.
Working for the police force was what had made her the happiest. It had not vanquished the apparitions and spirits she had seen, but it made her believe she was conquering them for the first time in her life. Her job had provided her with a mental and physical challenge she had been unable to match in any other field before, a challenge that fed her focus and provided her with a distraction.
What more could she do? It was far easier to pass her mental evaluation at the start of her career than to convince someone she was no longer capable of being a danger to herself after the recent ordeal. The entire team had been privy to the attempt at her own life, an attempt which was not of her own doing.
Now Hazel didn’t know what to do. With her team watching her lift the gun to her head, it had been a better choice to lie and say she had a mental breakdown than to tell them something possessed her to do it; something contradicting what they saw with their own eyes.
The new scars on her side would be a constant reminder of what she was now dealing with. Even the thought of it sent chills down her spine. Only a few times in the past had she been touched by the things she saw, but it was difficult even when she desired bridging the gap.
From a young age, Hazel had spoken with the dead, learning about them and her own magically-inclined blood. But even the things of her past had told her to turn and run the other way, the dead man, Guardian as she had called him when she was little, had pleaded with her to do so.
She had not listened and now things were getting worse.
It was supposed to be a quick in and out. Ensure no homeless people were squatting in the old building before they made moves to tear it down. More often than not, those long abandoned buildings were used as a home or as a drug den for those who needed it, and although Hazel had never wanted to take someone’s home from them, actions needed to be made before demolition.
Hazel had been more than familiar with the building; the old orphanage looked so different now than it had when she was a child, but it still had the same chill. With all the new state funding, they had been able to move the children and organization to a new location downtown when this one was finally deemed too old a structure with too many expensive problems. First it was mold, eating away at the inside of the windows and the plumbing, then it was the cracks in the foundation, the rain never ceased to find a way into the residence…
The energy of the place remained, however. The restlessness she had endured as a child consumed her again as she scanned through each room with her team and tried to shove it away. Despite how sunny it was outside, the building was so incredibly dark with the boarded up windows. Their flashlights danced through every room and black corner, illuminating trash and old blankets, but there was not a single soul there, only the darkness left behind. It would be a best-case scenario for each and every one of them if it continued to be the case, exhaustion from the lon
g week finally settling in.
Hazel had yelled out for the rooms to vacate, her voice echoing down the hallway as they continued on and their flashlights searched, but the moment she turned to address her captain, she heard a response; a soft voice sounding out in an adjacent room. The singsong tone of a child danced through the air toward her and sent chills down her spine as panic seized her. How could a child be there? It was far from safe and they needed to find her immediately.
But when no one else in her group turned towards the voice, Hazel felt the familiar cold energy pulse through her body, knowing something resided there in the abandoned building with them.
Something no longer alive.
Hazel tried to ignore the voice that called out, keeping a close eye on her team as they moved on, not hearing what she was hearing. Unfortunately, she could now decipher what it was saying and she was unable to ignore it any longer.
“Hazel, Hazel…” Her name snaked through the air, begging her to turn around and address it.
She did not turn to follow the calling. Shivers cascaded down her arms and back as she swallowed hard, following behind the others as they made their way further into the building and away from the voice.
Suddenly, the sound of small, running steps raced up behind her. The iron grip of a tiny hand latched onto her hand and knocked the flashlight to the ground. Hazel’s skin burned at the touch and she whipped her hand away desperately, but as soon as she did, the small nails scratched into her side, dragging along her body. Despite her clothing remaining intact, she felt the pain beneath it, sharp and piercing, then a dripping sensation as though blood soaked down her torso and through her uniform. Hazel opened her mouth to scream, but nothing escaped, the iron hand reaching up to grasp onto her once more.
She was being led away from her squad, away from their mission of clearing out the hallway. Suddenly Hazel found herself in a nearby room. The old door closed behind her and she desperately hoped one of her teammates would notice she had left them and follow, would hear the door shut and come to her aid. But she stood there with the small girl latched onto her arm, alone in a room she vaguely remembered as a play center.
Hazel forced herself to look down at the girl and focus on her features, despite knowing the small being was not alive anymore. Maybe if she gave the girl the attention she so desperately sought she would release her once more. The child looked no older than five, her long hair was black, no, it was blonde, Hazel could see the pale strands peeking through what could only be dried blood along her head. The blood was dripping down each strand, trailing down the child’s porcelain face as she peered up at Hazel with wide, bloodshot, blue eyes. Her hand was real, physically squeezing Hazel’s arm as it demanded attention, but the rest of her body was flickering, almost translucent hue in the dark, empty room.
“What do you want from me?” Hazel choked out finally.
The small hand released her, the girl reeling back into the middle of the room as her hands rose to each side of her face, dragging down the skin with a look of horror. “PLEASE LET ME GO, PLEASE!” she cried out, sharp nails scratching into her cheeks until new trails of blood fell.
“Stop, STOP!” Hazel yelled out, racing to the spirit’s side as she tried to reach for her hands and cease the clawing.
Normally she did everything in her power to not speak to the dead, to ignore their requests and questions as she tried to conduct a more normal life, but this was a child. This was an innocent child and Hazel wanted to know how she died, if it was by the hands of anyone she had known during her own time there at the community home. “Please stop hurting yourself.”
Hazel grasped the small, bloodied hands of the child and forced them to cease scratching, the spirit struggling in her grasp as she shrieked and tried to gain freedom. All around Hazel the room started to change shape, filling with old toys she remembered from long ago. Playsets and colorful balls came into focus as the once empty room came to life.
The child’s skin brightened in coloring, her eyes no longer bloodshot as the bright blue shone through with fear. All at once, she stopped struggling against Hazel’s grasp as her little head moved forward, blood soaked hair falling into her face.
“You can get us out of here, release me.”
“I don’t know what you mean. How did you get this way? Who did this to you?”
The little girl stared at Hazel, eyes blank as the focus started to diminish. She was staring through her, not listening to the words Hazel spoke, privy to something else entirely. Then, without warning she lunged, sharp nails scratching and fighting to make contact with any part of Hazel’s face and arms she could, knocking her to the ground with surprising strength.
Hazel screamed out, kicking and fighting to get the little girl off of her. All around the two of them, small children started to come into focus. They were playing with each other, laughing and dancing around the toys as they paid no mind to the scuffle going on before them.
Out of nowhere, Hazel’s hand moved against her control, lowering to the gun at her side, slowly sliding it from the holster as she lay upon the ground. She was a mere puppet for the undead little girl who taunted her, a puppet to the forces she had never been able to control and only observe. The little girl had released her and was standing, her small hands extended towards Hazel as she commanded her slave’s hand rise, the gun rising along with it. Hazel could not move, could not fight against the command as she looked to the gun in horror.
“Hazel, what…” Her teammate Darren stood in the doorway to the room, watching in fear as Hazel appeared to threaten her own life, the cold steel now pressed to her head. “What the fuck are you doing, Sampson?”
“Help…” Hazel managed.
The faces of her suddenly-appearing team in front of her were desperate to jump at her and pull the gun away, and to put their own hands in the air in an attempt to freeze her in time. They were all doing the same ‘whoa girl’ gesture as they slowly approached her, but still she could not move the gun from her head.
Hazel’s hand was shaking from the effort, a scream tearing from her mouth as she clenched her eyes shut. She was fully prepared for the evil to force her to shoot, to take the safety off and finish it. Instead, the moment they took a step forward, the gun dropped from her hand, the dead girl commanding it, the other children and remnants of the room disappearing.
Rushing footsteps echoed as her team raced over to her and their curses filled the room as one kicked the gun away from her reach.
The laughter of the child was the last thing Hazel heard before the world went black. The dead girl’s small frame stood behind her team, peering at her with a smile before running back to the dark hallway.
Taking Hazel’s freedom and sanity with her.
Turning up the music, Hazel drowned out the memory and cursed at the red light in front of her. She was so close to being in her warm and safe home, of course she would hit every single delay possible along the way.
The young woman at the crosswalk gave the cars in each lane a little wave as she made her way across the street with her jogging stroller. For a moment, Hazel felt as happy as the woman crossing the street. She imagined what it would be like to have a family someday, to have her coffee in one cup holder, her shopping list in the other. She would take her family around everywhere she could, enjoying the day without fear that anything unwelcome would ruin it. Prepared at any moment for a job or emergency where she might be needed but still able to give her children the attention and love they…
Hazel's throat closed up, the air around her thickening as the mother made her way in front of her car. She safely made it to the crosswalk and continued on her way down the street, but it was what followed her that made Hazel’s body seize up.
A shadow followed the woman, the dark masses behind it stretching upwards like wings. The once sunny sky had turned a dirty gray, trees and plants surrounding the busy street curling and withering until they were only skeletons of what they once were.
As if it noticed her stare, the being paused on its path for a mere moment and turned to face her car. Two pale blue eyes opened amidst the dark mass and fixated on her. A mouth appeared next, opening and closing as a dark substance spilled from those lips and onto the pavement below.
It took several shaky steps towards her, the shadow shifting into a shape looking almost human. One hand extended to touch the bumper of her car, only to linger several inches above it. Hazel felt her muscles tighten and freeze as she stayed in the eyesight of the inhuman mass before her.
Suddenly, a chorus of honking awoke her from the spell. Squeaking out in panic, she slammed on the gas. Hazel broke through the shadow, leaving only a dark mist behind. The trees were lush around her again, the sun glaring down and making her incredibly warm despite the cold she had felt only a second before. It was as if nothing had changed, like nothing had happened.
Almost home, almost home.
Things of this nature had been occurring more and more frequently in the last six months, since she had been off the force. At first, Hazel thought it was due to the free time she had acquired; more time to herself meant less time focusing her mind on the trials and tribulations of her stimulating job and more time observing the world around her. It was not that the beings were sometimes not apparent, it was simply she was forced to acknowledge them.
Before, she could bury her face in case files and engage her mind in the hunt of even the simplest of assignments. Now, she was forced to acknowledge the masses who peered through her windows, to note the shadows who sped under her doorways and begged to be seen.
These small shadows in her home were nothing compared to the thing she had seen at the crosswalk or the experience with the broken mug the week prior. The little girl who had taken her over and harmed her, the force which followed the mother across the street… Those were something else entirely.