Sitting idling at the intersection, Charlotte observed another murder of crows sitting lined up on the horizontal bar spanning the road above them. Their glass eyes glistened with the late morning sun as they twisted their heads, looking down on her. She counted them. Seven in all, ruffling their feather and continuing to study them with a stony gaze. Strange, she thought, they only come in groups of six or seven, but why? Were the birds trying to tell her something, or were their numbers just a coincidence? The light turned green, and she drove through the intersection and parked in a small lot overlooking the ocean.
"Hey, have you noticed," she looked over at Charles, "how the crows here seem to only come in groups of six or seven?"
"No..." he paused and glanced out to the seven who had followed them and were now sitting on the bench across from them. "You for real? Or are you just messing with me?"
"No, I mean it. I thought it was strange how they are always in large groups, so I have been counting them since we got on the island." She paused and took a sip of her coffee. "Six or seven, that’s the only number they come in. Don't you think it's a tad, peculiar?"
"I guess." Chuck continued to stare out the windshield and recounted the birds on the bench. "Reminds me of a silly counting rhyme my mom taught me when I was a young boy. Let me see if I remember how it goes... oh yes... one for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy."
"Yeah, that rhyme was originally used to count magpies over in England. My mom taught it to me too, but hers was a bit different from yours."
"How so?"
"Hers went like this: One for sorrow, two for mirth, three for a funeral, four for a birth, five for heaven, six for hell, seven for the devil, his own self."
"A bit dark for a kiddie rhyme, don't you think?"
"Perhaps." Charlotte glanced at him and smirked. "But my mom always claimed that it was far more accurate than the improved version you know."
"So, what are you saying? These birds are telling us we are in hell and that the devil is amongst us?"
"Who knows, maybe, or maybe they are just birds. I just find it strange how their flocks are only in those numbers, that's all."
"You know... now that you mention it, have you noticed something else strange about this place?"
"Like what?"
"Like how the only birds on this island are crows? There isn't even a single seagull here."
"You're right, that is strange." Charlotte flexed her hands on the steering wheel and continued to stare out the window. "Come to think of it, I watched the gulls turn and head away from the island when we were still three miles out, almost like they dared not venture here."
"Shit Char, now you're scaring the shit out of me. What if..."
"EMS thirty-six fifity-five," The radio crackled, making Charlotte and Chuck jump in their seats. "EMS thirty-six fifity-five, please respond to fourteen o eight Ocean Ave for a thirty-five-year-old male who injured his leg in his garage. This is a priority call."
"Dispatch," Charles picked up the receiver, looking over at Charlotte who was still panting, "this is EMS thirty-six fifity-five, we copy, responding to fourteen o eight Ocean Ave." Hanging the radio back up, he nudged Charlotte whose knuckles were turning white from gripping the wheel as she continued to shake. "Ready to go?"
"Yes. Sorry. It just startled me. Let's go."
Flicking on the lights and sirens, Charlotte backed out of her spot and headed up the road to the address. Onlookers stood on the sidewalk and watched as they flew by them with their lights spinning and their ambulance wailing. Slowing down for a sharp turn, she rounded the corner and pulled up into the driveway of a white Cape, which seemed oddly silent. There were no neighbors or family to welcome them and show them to the injured man, just the still calmness of a tomb, or a funeral parlor. It was almost as if someone made a prank call and was hiding out inside, and if they just made it up a few more feet, they would discover no injured man and absolutely nothing to worry about.
Chapter Ten
“There are black zones of shadow close to our daily paths, and now and then some evil soul breaks a passage through. When that happens, the man who knows must strike before reckoning the consequences.” ― H.P. Lovecraft, The Thing on the Doorstep
T he wind whistled eerily through the trees as Charlotte walked up the winding stone walkway to the white house with the forest-green shutters and a matching green door. Something about the space unnerved her, and in her gut, she sensed an ancient evil as she rang the bell and waited for someone to answer. Nothing. She waited a few minutes and rang the bell again. This time she heard shuffling on the other side and the door opened to reveal an elderly lady in a yellow, blood-spangled house dress. The woman looked over at the two medics with her bulging gray eyes and smiled.
"Yes. Can I help you?"
"Sorry to bother you ma'am," Charlotte stole a glance behind her at a tabby cat sitting on the sofa yowling in her direction, "but we received a call about a man injured at this address."
"Oh, yes," she bobbed her head and the curly wisps of white hair on her head bounced with every motion, "Mickey is in the garage, follow me."
The woman left the door open and went deeper into the house. Charlotte stole a glance back at Chuck, who shrugged his shoulders, and she stepped into the cozy cottage. Once inside, the scrawny, mangy looking cat hopped off the floral sofa it was sitting on and hissed at her before swiping at her leg with its sharp claws. Startled, she leaped back with a yelp and the feline ran off to hide under the skirt of the pastel pink recliner.
"Oh, don't mind Mr. Figgins, dear. He just doesn't like uniforms. Come now, Mickey is this way."
The calmness in the woman's voice was uncanny, and Charlotte was wondering if this was all an elaborate prank to hoodwink the rookies until she stepped through the door into the garage, and her heart sank into her stomach. The first thing she noticed was the blood-streaked wall, with the spray fanning up to the ceiling and running down the white paint in streams. Following the carnage, she spotted an ash-gray foot sitting beside a miter saw which was still spinning with a loud hum, blood congealing on its polished steel platform. Behind it, a man sat up against the wall, humming while the stump of his right leg continued to spurt blood which pooled on the concrete beneath him.
"Jesus..." Charles muttered.
"Jesus doesn't live here anymore."
Charlotte turned back to glance at the disheveled old woman who was grinning from ear to ear, pulling back her lips into a sneer. The white hair flying around her made her appear insane with her bulging eyes as she went back inside the house with a cackle, shutting the door behind her. Bewildered by the encounter, Charlotte wanted to bolt through the nearest door, but she knew she'd have to treat her patient despite the panic pooling up inside her stomach. Turning to the man in question, she swallowed her fear and rushed to his side. Throwing her bag down beside him, she kneeled to assess him while she put on her latex gloves.
At first glance, the man was sweating profusely, beads of perspiration glistened on his ashen brow, and his lips were turning blue. His breath was shallow and rapid as he turned to glance at her with his sunken brown eyes. Taking his clammy wrist into her hand, Charlotte could feel his pulse weakening, he was going into hypovolemic shock, she had little time to move.
Yelling for Chuck to preserve the foot, she reached in her bag and pulled out a tourniquet. Placing it just above the cut in his leg, she tightened it to stem the flow of blood and covered the man up with a thermal blanket to keep him warm. She was busy applying a pressure bandage to the bloody stump when her partner walked up to her with a foot held inside a bag filled with an ice saline solution. Instructing him to run an IV and provide the patient with some ketamine for the pain, she glanced back up at the man who seemed to be getting worse.
"Sir, can you tell us exactly how this accident happened?"
"Accident?" The man glanced up at her, grinning. "Who said anything about an accident?"
Tilting his hea
d back, the man laughed almost hysterically, chilling Charlotte to the bone. Nodding her head at Chuck, they managed to get the man on a back board and secure him to the stretcher as he continued to howl with laughter, thrashing against the straps that held him down. Trembling, she shouted for her partner to open the garage door as their patient continued to act irrationally, telling her all about how his mother helped him cut off his foot. Her heart raced, even as the door clanked above her head. Running up to her, Charles threw the bagged limb on top of the patient and grabbed his bag.
"Ready to go?"
"Yes," Charlotte put her bag over her shoulder, "let's transport him while he's still somewhat stable."
"Should we tell the old woman that we are leaving?"
"No. I'm sure she will figure it out once she hears our siren. Plus, I don't want to stay here longer than we need to. Something about this whole thing just don't feel right."
"No, kidding." Charles peered at the foot on the stretcher. "All right, let's go."
Wheeling the patient to the back of the ambulance, Charlotte glanced up and spotted the old woman standing at the bay window, watching them through a pulled-back sheer panel. There was a huge grin on her face, and she slowly waved at them before turning back to head into the house. Swallowing the hard lump in her throat, she couldn't help but think how calm the lady was, almost as if they were taking her son on a fun ride and not like he had life-threatening injuries. Perhaps they both suffered from some form of mental illness, and she intended to have Iris instruct the officers to check it out as soon as they got going. Relaying her concerns to Chuck, he assured her he would take care of it as he shut the door behind her, leaving her in the back with the man who was still hooting and hollering.
Chapter Eleven
“The real world is where the monsters are.” — Rick Riordan
I n the back of the ambulance, Charlotte continued to work on her patient as it sped down the winding island streets. The man had calmed himself, and she was able to turn away from him to a bag of fluids which she intended to administer to him intravenously. Turning back to the stretcher, her heart nearly leaped out of her chest. What was once a human man had transformed into a hellish creature straight out of a nightmare. Its gray skin clung loosely to its elongated bones and his once brown eyes were as dark and lifeless as black holes. Opening its mouth to reveal rows of needle-sharp fangs, the creature grabbed hold of her wrist with its bony, ape-like fingers and pulled her in closer.
"We're coming for you."
His voice was hauntingly melodic, as if he were trying to sing her to sleep with his very threat. The breath that caught in her lungs was burning and Charlotte's scream came out as nothing more than an inaudible whisper. Thrashing and twisting, she attempted to pull away from him, but he held tight. Then suddenly, he let go of her, sending her falling to the floor, hitting her elbow against the metal counter. Standing up, she rubbed her aching joint and studied the man passed out, breathing heavily just as the ambulance pulled up to a stop.
She waited for Charles to open the door to the sweet freedom beyond the cramped confines of the cabin and was getting ready to jump out past him before her professionalism took over. Wheeling the man out, a group of nurses who were ready to take possession of the patient greeted them. Following the ladies in pink scrubs through the bay doors, Charlotte relayed information to a stout woman with short gray hair and a friendly smile.
The nurse assured her the man was in expert care and put a hand on Charlotte's shoulder. She noted how cold and lifeless it felt, and for the first time she noticed how the smell of death seemed to cling to every person who worked at the hospital. Not a fresh scent you might expect at a trauma center, but an old one, akin to a rotting corpse or the stale earth of a burial ground.
Transferring the patient to the hospital bed, Charlotte left her paperwork with the nurse and wheeled the stretcher back to the ambulance. Having cleaned up the mess in the cabin, the two partners sat on the back bumper and stared up at the clear sky. She continued to shiver from her encounter, despite the afternoon sun warming her skin, and wondered what Charles would think of her if she told him.
"Hey, what's this?" He lifted her elbow, pointing to the bruise which started to blossom on the flesh. "You okay, partner?"
"Oh, that, yeah, I'm fine. The guy just attacked me while I was inside, I fell down trying to get away."
"What? How is that possible, we strapped him down before we left?"
"I know, but it was not him that attacked me..." she paused, wondering if she should continue, "he seemed possessed or something. I don't know how else to explain this, but he seemed different."
"How so?"
"I guess he was more like some alien creature, or a demon. But perhaps I'm just going crazy and imagining things."
"No, I don't think you are. Did you notice the smells in that place..." Chuck glanced over his shoulder at the red-brick building behind him, "they were not normal for a hospital?"
"You're right. Most hospitals smell like bleach and antiseptic, but this one smelled... damp and mildewy."
"Right... I also noted the sour, metallic scent of blood floating in the air. I suppose it's not all that uncommon, but I've never got a whiff so strong before. And it was as cold as the tundra in there, or a tomb."
Tomb, Charlotte nodded, deep in thought. She didn't make that connection before, but now that Chuck brought it up, she had to agree that the interior of the hospital appeared to be more like a mausoleum than a place of healing. There was an odd silence to the place, a somber one which reminded her of a cemetery or a morgue. Normally hospitals were a bustling place with chatter, phones ringing, and news anchors on TVs spouting the latest events as they happened. But Wilson Memorial had none of that. It was as hushed as the vacuum of space.
"EMS thirty-six fifty-five," the speakers on their collars crackled simultaneously, "please respond to thirty-six hundered Prospect Street for reports of a deceased female on premises."
Frowning, Charlotte picked up the radio and pressed down the button.
"Dispatch, this is EMS thirty-six fifty-five, please confirm you want us to respond to thirty-six hundered Prospect Street?"
"That’s correct EMS thirty-six fifty-five.”
"What's wrong, Char?"
"That's the site of the old hospital. Cyrus said the locals dare not step foot on those grounds. So why would there be a dead body on premises?"
"No clue, maybe someone dumped it, want to go check it out?"
"We have to. It's our job."
Getting up from the bumper, Charlotte and Chuck shut the cabin doors and headed for the front of the ambulance when another crack from the radio rooted them to their spots.
"EMS thirty-six fifty-five, this is dispatch," Victoria's icy voice hissed through the radio, "disregard that last call and return to the station house... immediately."
"Yes, ma'am." Charlotte spoke into her collar. "We'll be right over."
Next to her, Charles gave her a shrug of his shoulder and walked to the front of the cab.
"Guess the boss lady has spoken. Off to the station we go."
Not daring to say anything, Charlotte got in the passenger seat of the cab and stole a glance out the window. There, above the ambulance bay, were six crows perched neatly in a row, watching them leave. An ominous premonition filled her, a primitive dread or some ancestral memory which was telling her to leave the island or come face to face with death. She pondered what she should do on their short drive back to the station, but she was no closer to finding an answer. While the temptation was great to go back to Boston and start over on familiar ground, Charlotte was not ready to admit defeat just yet. That, and she wanted to get to the bottom of the mysteries enshrouding the island.
Chapter Twelve
“What humans want most of all, is to be right. Even if we're being right about our own doom. If we believe there are monsters around the next corner ready to tear us apart, we would literally prefer to be right about t
he monsters, than to be shown to be wrong in the eyes of others and made to look foolish.” ― David Wong, This Book Is Full of Spiders
P ulling back into the garage bay of the station house, the first thing Charlotte saw was Victoria pacing back and forth by the wall. Upon hearing the ambulance pull in, she stopped, turned, narrowed her eyes at them with pursed lips, and tapped her foot on the floor. Charlotte felt uneasy around her and waited for Chuck to hop out first before she carefully opened her door and followed slightly behind him.
"What's up boss lady?"
"This is nothing against the two of you, personally." The chill in Victoria's voice matched the icy luster in her eyes as she spoke to the two of them. "But I will tell you exactly what I told Miss. Chapman when she was too hasty to give you that ludicrous call; you are under no circumstances to go near that abandoned hospital. Is that understood?"
"But ma'am." Charlotte piped up, stepping forward from behind Chuck's back. "What if someone was seriously hurt there? Isn't it our job to respond to every call?"
"Your job, Miss. Briggs," Victoria spat out her words as her nostrils flared, "is to help the injured and the dying, and occasionally, transport the dead. I can with the utmost confidence assure you that there was no one hurt at that hospital. Furthermore, there will never be anyone who will get hurt there. The calls we get about that condemned structure are nothing more than prank calls by local hooligans who want to stir things up and scare the bejesus out of us given the building's colorful history. Rest assured, Miss. Briggs, the grounds of that place are entirely off limits, to anyone, and the area is locked down tighter than Fort Knox. You are to stay away from that old hospital if you know what's good for you. Are we clear on that?"
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