by C. E. Murphy
She wasn’t there. I started to let myself get worried then, and grabbed a nurse who was passing by. “Where’s Annie Muldoon? She usually works here.”
The lady pulled away like she was afraid, instead of just annoyed at my rudeness. She whispered, “I’m not sure. They called everyone with any psychiatric experience up to the third floor a while ago. Annie went up there.” She gave herself a shake and blinked like she was seeing me for the first time. “You’re her husband, right? She called you before she went up. All the patients up there woke up all at once and started screaming about seeing visions. The same visions, all of them.”
“Wait a minute. Woke up?”
“It’s our long-term illness ward.” The nurse was pulling herself together now that she had somebody to lecture about hospital regulations. “One or two of the patients up there are actually comatose, breathing on their own but surviving through IV feeds. Others are terminally ill and spend a great deal of time in medically induced comas for their own comfort.”
Sounded like hell. Dying quick and getting it over with seemed like the best way to go, to me. But I kept my mouth shut, listening as the lady said, “They’ve all woken up, even the ones who were comatose. Nothing will put them back down, and there’s something…something dreadful about their faces. Like there’s no living mind inside them anymore, just some kind of anger trying to escape. I went up to help but I couldn’t bear it. Almost no one’s been able to stay near them for long. Anne is very brave.”
I muttered, “Yeah. Yeah, she is,” and bolted for the third floor. The nurse called, “She said you helped someone who had visions once! That’s why she called you in!”
Annie was putting too much faith in me. I hadn’t done a damned thing to help her Pa. Something else had happened that day, something I didn’t understand, but it was bigger than me. And I was expecting something bigger than me was at work in the third floor hospital ward, too. All I wanted was to get Annie out of it.
About twenty feet down the hall from the ward I got a cold-skin tingle like I hadn’t had since Korea. I stopped, letting that cold wash all over, an’ then I backed up into one of the private rooms and looked for weapons. Not once in the two years since I’d got out had I missed having a knife or gun on hand, but right then I started feeling the lack. An IV post was something, at least, an’ I crept back toward the ward with it, feeling grim.
Voices were raised in a babble, in there. Men an’ women alike, all of ‘em sounding like madness had taken over. Annie’s pop hadn’t been like that. He’d been a sane crazy person, just painting the pictures that came to his head. Didn’t sound like anybody in the ward was painting anything at all.
Showed what I knew. I pushed the door open a couple inches an’ ran into a body. White coat, splashed with red: one of the doctors. I knew the fella’s name, but couldn’t remember it. Didn’t matter just then. I dropped down low, taking a quick look through the cracked-open door.
Somebody across the room was painting, making big splashes across the walls in blood. I got colder, a different kinda cold I knew from Korea. I’d felt it going into battle, knowing somebody was gonna end up dead and preparing to do everything possible to make sure it wasn’t me. Killer cold, that’s what it was, and I didn’t like it, but I figured I’d like dying even less. I shoved the door open, stepped inside, an’ took in a mess as bad as I’d ever seen in Korea.
Eight patients, all in hospital robes an’ bare feet, were spread around the room. Two doctors and a nurse were on the floor, and another patient was sittin’ on the nurse, scooping her eyeballs out and eatin’ them. One more was the one painting on the wall, working on some kinda design I bet nobody but her wanted finished, and licking her fingers between lines. She was thin, like all of ‘em, with withered muscle and skin that hadn’t seen sunlight in way too long. They were moving like they’d forgotten how, stiff an’ uncoordinated, but they’d moved somehow, ‘cause somebody’d killed the doctors an’ the nurse. One by one they started dropping down beside the bodies, and eating them raw.
The dead cold feeling I’d gotten fighting the starlight demon got stronger. A memory rose up, a memory of something I sure as hell had never seen and didn’t much want to now: three dead girls spread around a park, their guts tying ‘em to each other at three points of a diamond. I saw their souls rising up and being gobbled down by a black-eyed beast that got a little stronger with every bite it took.
The whole idea shifted, set down over the scene in front of me, and clicked into place. The patients weren’t getting stronger with every bite they took, but something linking them together was. I couldn’t see it, but I felt it taking all the warmth outta the air, and seething with rage and triumph. All that anger turned ‘round and ‘round, focusing itself, waiting until it was strong enough to strike.
And it was gonna strike at Annie.
She was squashed into a corner, holding a broken-off bed rail in one hand and a bedside lamp without a shade in the other. The closest dead doctor wasn’t more than a couple feet from her. I thought maybe he was dead ‘cause he’d put himself between her an’ the patients who were now eating him. She looked half scared to death, and all determined not to die.
Took me about half a second to take all that in. I was kicking the first patient off the doctor at the door before I was even done looking around. The patient snarled an’ I swung my IV pole like a bat, cracking him along the jaw. He fell back and didn’t move again, which was enough for me. The second one wasn’t quite eating anybody yet. I kicked him away, too, and winced when he clobbered his head on a bed leg. Dunno why that bothered me when hitting him myself wouldn’t have, but he slumped, dazed, and that was all that really mattered.
The next couple of patients were women, and any other time I mighta had a problem with that, too. Guessed I wasn’t so chivalrous when there were folks eating other people’s eyebrows. The fourth one went down, leaving four or five more to go, but a scream rose up outta the air and the cold anger gathering pulled itself together enough to have a shape. It pulled the patients with it as it moved. Even the ones I’d knocked out slithered along the floor, dragged by the times that bound them. The demon got more solid and angrier with every step it took.
I stopped worrying about the woman painting on the wall, about all of the still-conscious patients slurping down entrails, an’ vaulted two beds to slam the IV pole into the thing’s back when it was barely three feet from Annie.
The thing lashed forward as it fell, scraping Annie’s cheek with its nails, and burst in a wave of eye-watering heat. It was gone, fast as that. Annie screamed and twitched sideways, tryin’ ta avoid my IV pole weapon. I nearly stabbed her anyway, ‘cause I twitched too, both of us going to our strong side: me left, and her to the right, which meant we were both heading the same way. I let out a shout and wrenched even further sideways. The pole hit the wall an’ skittered across, leaving a scar that ended in a down-stroke when I hit the floor and dropped it. My heart felt like somebody was squeezing it, panic finally setting in, but I didn’t know what was goin’ on behind me. I rolled over, almost on my feet again when it came home that everybody in the room had dropped without a sound. Everybody but me and Annie. She flung herself against my chest and we sat down with a grunt, both of us panting and gasping. My shirt got wet from her bloody cheek pressing against my chest, but I could feelin her breathing and she could hear my heart pounding, all of it telling us we were both still alive.
The patients weren’t. I didn’t know what’d happened when I’d drove the metal through the thing’s chest, but it had let go of the patients it’d been possessing and they’d all dropped like puppets without strings. I couldn’t help wondering if the thing possessing them had been keeping them alive for a long time, or if it had only just snuck in to kick up a fuss today.
Annie put it outta my mind, though, by finally taking a deep shaky breath and speaking with more composure than I expected: “What. The hell. Was that?”
First off I laughed an’ put my mouth on
her hair. “Never heard you swear before, sweetheart.”
“I’ve never had enough reason to,” she said all primly, an’ sat up with her hand still over my heart an’ her poor cheek red an’ bloody from the scratches. “Gary, what was that thing? And…why weren’t you surprised?”
“I was surprised, doll. I was plenty surprised.”
“You came in here with a weapon, took one look at the room, and handled it. You didn’t seem surprised.”
“That’s just training, darlin’. Assessing the situation. Army taught me that.” I was only telling her half the truth, though, and she knew it as well as I did. “Let’s wait til we get home, all right, sweetheart? Some strange things happened in Korea. I guess I didn’t wanna talk about ‘em, but maybe now I better.”
She gave me a good looking-over, then nodded. “All right. Gary, I have to see if anyone is alive, if there’s anything I can do—” She got up, though I was shaking my head.
“There ain’t, darlin’.”
She said, “I know,” with quiet dignity. “But I have to try.”
I was never gonna stop loving this woman. I got to my feet, too, and together we righted beds, checked bodies, an’ at least lifted ‘em onto the beds so they were peaceful insteada thrown all over the room. Nobody was left alive except me and her. She closed their eyes as we put ‘em to bed. When we’d straightened up the mess an’ got ourselves to the door, she stopped and looked around. Not just at the ward of dead folks, but down the hall, like she was searching for something. “Where is everyone, Gary? Why hasn’t anyone come?”
I thought about how me and Danny hadn’t said one word to each other about the starlight demon, an’ shook my head. “I dunno, darlin’, but I don’t think people come running when somethin’ like this happens. I think maybe they look real hard the other way, and in the morning they tell the papers it was some kinda mysterious tragedy. We gotta get your cheek looked at before we go home.”
“Something like this. What is this, Gary? What happened?”
“That scratch first, sweetheart, an’ then home, an’ then we talk. I don’t like us hanging around here tonight. I want you home safe, all right?”
“My shift doesn’t end for another two hou—”
“Annie.”
She looked down, eyelashes tangling, and then she sighed. “All right. All right, Gary.” She let me put her arm around her shoulders, an’ I walked her outta there. We got her cheek fixed up, and on the way home I started talking. I told her about Dandy Andy an’ Reckless Rick and about Danny’s warnings, and about the starlight demon we’d killed, and how I’d gotten the same kinda creepy feeling at the hospital as that night. I took a deep breath an’ told her about the sometimes-voice at the back of my head, the one that thought things weren’t quite right, and I finally ran outta things to say and got quiet and waited.
And Annie listened through the whole thing, all the way home and to the sitting room couch, where she clasped her hands together and looked at ‘em while I talked. After a while she looked up, not at me, but at the wall, and a long time after I was done, she said, “Do you think my father was crazy, Gary?”
I shut my mouth on the first answer, which was to say, “Of course not, darlin’,” without thinking about it. But she was really asking, and after all I’d just said, she deserved for me to think about it a bit. Besides, as soon as I started thinking, I saw what she was really asking. There was her Pop, who’d spent a lotta years locked up for seeing visions of magic things, things that somehow revolved around Annie, and now here was her husband talking about the same kinda crazy stuff, and expecting her to believe it. Hoping she’d believe it, anyway.
“I don’t know, doll. I guess I woulda said yes, before. But I don’t think I am, and I guess his stories weren’t any crazier than mine. I guess I gotta give him the benefit of the doubt.”
“Then why me?” she asked quietly. “Is that coincidence? Can it be? That I’d marry a man who has the same kind of…visions…my father did?”
I tried a smile. “They say we marry people like our folks, sweetheart.” Annie gave me a look that said she knew I was tryin’ ta be funny, but my timing was lousy. I sighed and sat down to study my hands. “Let’s say he ain’t crazy. Let’s say he was seeing the same kinda things I’m seeing now. He said when he met that I was gonna take care of you now.”
“No.” Annie’s voice was real clear and I looked up, surprised. “No, Gary, he said you’ll take care of “her” now.”
I opened my hands. “Who else could he’a been talking about, doll?”
“The girl in the painting.”
“Joanne.” The name came outta the back of my head an’ shocked us both into sitting up straighter. Annie’s spine was rigid as a pipe. “Who is she, Gary? Is she our…our daughter?”
“I donno. I donno!” I put my hands on my skull, wishing I could shake some answers loose. “I donno where that came from, doll. I’ve never seen the girl. How could she be somebody I’m s’posed ta look after?”
“How could she be someone whose name you know?”
“She ain’t.” A growl came up inside me and cut loose. “She ain’t, Annie. You’re the one I’m supposed to take care of, til death do us part. And I’m going to. Maybe—maybe your pop passed that on to me somehow. Maybe he was carrying some kinda weight, somethin’ he was never supposed to, and when we met that first time he handed it on. He started getting better after that, right? So maybe he was just…shouldering a burden for a while.”
Annie looked at me a long minute, weighing whether to let the question of the girl go, and finally did. “What burden, then? And still, why me? I’m not particularly special.”
“Hah!” I coughed after that laugh, tryin’ ta make it less sharp, but Annie smiled anyway. “You’re supposed to think I’m special, Gary. I’m your wife. But in the greater scheme of things?” She shook her head. “I can’t imagine I’m all that important. Why should…magic…happen around me?”
“I guess if magic’s real, darlin’, why shouldn’t it? But maybe it ain’t about how big or important you are in the world. Maybe it’s just being important enough to somebody that you’re drawing it to you. Or maybe there’s some kinda bigger picture we ain’t seeing, or…hell, I donno, sweetheart. Maybe you’re just magic. I sure think so.”
She rolled her eyes an’ laughed again, then got up to come huddle against my side. We were quiet a while, until she sighed. “Gary, if magic is real…what do we do about it?”
“Whatcha mean?”
“You’ve already fought that starlight demon, and the thing at the hospital tonight. If those are real, there must be other…other monsters out there, right? You’re taking care of me, but who’s taking care of the other people crossing the monsters’ paths?”
I felt my eyebrows climbing. “What’re you saying, darlin’? I finish up college like most guys do, then instead of getting a factory job or selling cars, I go out an’ what, become a hunter?”
“Sweetheart,” she said, an’ she was teasing because she never used the nicknames I did, but there was something deadly serious in her at the same time. “Sweetheart, you weren’t just hunting that thing tonight. You were a reaper.”
“A reaper.” I gave her a quick grin. “You sayin’ that’s what I do now? I reap monsters? I don’t think that’s gonna pay the bills, darlin’.”
“That’s all right.” Annie looked as proud as she ever did, right then. “I can pay the bills.”
A week later she got sick.
CHAPTER TWELVE
She was used to that. We both were. She was a nurse, working around sickness all the time. Whenever something new came in, she’d get it, just like most of the other nurses, and like most of ‘em, she shook it off fast. This one, though, crept up on her and not anybody else, and insteada getting better quick, she kept getting just a little bit worse. It started in her throat like most colds, then settled in as a bright red rash in her armpits an’ behind her ears. That was when she re
cognized it, an’ checked herself into the hospital with scarlet fever. They hustled her up to a bed and gave her a shot of penicillin, promising she’d be a whole lot better by morning.
“You’re already infected, if you’re going to catch it,” she told me with a kinda macabre cheer, “but there’s no sense in me spreading it around more. I’ll be fine in a few days. I’ll feel much better in the morning, now that I’ve got the antibiotic in me.”
“Uh huh. And I’ll be sitting here until you are.” It wasn’t a bad bedside chair, plenty comfortable for a young guy to sack out in for a couple nights. Annie settled in and went ta sleep quicker than her light-hearted words accounted for. I watched her sleep for a long time, counting her breaths and assuring myself she was still alive, before finally falling asleep myself.
Her whimpering woke me up before dawn. Didn’t have to be a doctor to tell she was worse, not better. Her skin was just about blue from paleness, all except for hot spots on her cheeks and the rash standing out like flares in every crease and crook of her body. I hollered for help and three doctors came running, along with more nurses than I could count. They loved my Annie, maybe just about as much as I did. One of the doctors went through her chart, scowling so hard his eyes disappeared. “There’s nothing in here about a penicillin allergy. Do you know of anything else she might be allergic to, Mr. Muldoon?”
“Long haired cats is about it.”
The doctor’s eyes reappeared, sympathetic. “Probably not the cause here, but we’ll keep it in mind. Nurse, can you get her an IV? She’s…” He touched her forehead an’ the frown came back. “Much too warm. Take her temperature every five minutes. If it’s not dropping in twenty, prepare a cool bath. We want that fever to break before there’s permanent damage.”
I caught his arm as he tried heading out. “Whaddaya mean, permanent?”
“Very high fevers are dangerous in adults, Mr. Muldoon.” He took my hand off his arm without making a fuss about it. “If they go on long enough there can be brain damage, or other physically detrimental effects. We won’t worry about it just yet, all right? Anne is young and strong, and I’m sure we’ll bring her fever down with some liquids.”