Twisted Screams

by Sheri Lewis Wohl

  Nurse Thompson pursed her lips before taking hold of the woman’s chin and twisting her head back and forth. When she looked up, a small smile crossed her face. “My, my, perhaps you are right. Well, sometimes it works and sometimes it does not. You boys know what to do. You will find an urn already waiting.” She turned her back and left the room without another glance.

  The two orderlies pushed the gurney out of the room, and Lorna followed. They continued down a dark hallway and through two swinging doors. Inside the big room, they opened a heavy iron furnace door. Picking the body up, they slid it inside and shut the door. Their movements were so smooth Lorna knew this wasn’t the first time they’d done this. Or the second. With sickening clarity she understood this was routine business, and they’d probably done it a hundred times.

  One of them walked over to a table holding a line of copper urns and slid one closer to the edge. Lorna walked over and peered at the shiny receptacles. On the one closest to the furnace, the one the orderly had moved, was already engraved, Rose Halbren, 1882–1903.

  Chapter Seventeen

  On any other day Anna would have freaked out at the sight of the huge man with flowing black hair who held open the door to the lower level, his size so out of proportion to the building it looked as though he held the door to a playhouse open. This was definitely not any other day, and she was not freaking out. She’d experienced one crazy thing after another, so one more was no big deal.

  Rather than scream, which under normal circumstances would have been very appropriate, she grabbed Sadie’s arm and pulled her in the opposite direction. “We have to get out of this hellhole. I am done with all the insanity.” Just across the room, a wide door with windows revealed the night sky. She wanted to see that sky, up close and personal. She wanted fresh air and no ghosts. Repeat: no ghosts.

  Sadie shook her head and pulled away. Jeremy had disappeared through the open doorway as soon as the giant man opened it, and Sadie was following him. “We have to help.” Her words were confident.

  Anna didn’t agree. “No, we have to get out of here.” The last thing she intended to do was go through any door that didn’t lead directly outside. She liked to think of herself as strong and capable, but right now, she sounded like a terrified ten-year-old. Damn it. Sadie had been through enough, and she’d been captive in this place way too long. The time to leave was yesterday, not after traipsing down some dark and creepy stairs. Besides, Jeremy was perfectly capable of helping Lorna. They didn’t need either her or Sadie.

  “Anna,” Sadie said sharply as she stopped at the top of the stairs and stared at her. “They came to help me, and they don’t even know me. They came because you called. We are not leaving them down there. They could have told you to go to hell when you called and asked for help, but they didn’t. No way am I walking away from this fight, and neither are you. We aren’t the kind of people who turn their back on their friends.”

  Guilt hit her hard, and she was pretty sure that’s exactly what Sadie intended. She was right too. Anna had called out of the blue and pleaded with Lorna to come help her. Lorna had every reason to hate her and turn her back on Anna, yet she’d done exactly the opposite. Despite all the ugliness that rested squarely on Anna’s shoulders, Lorna had taken the high road and was here tonight to help. No bitterness, no recriminations, no nothing. She simply came because Anna asked. What kind of cowardly bitch would she be if she walked away from Lorna now?

  She sighed. There were times to walk away and times to do the right thing. This was one of the latter. “You’re right. We have to go after him.”

  Sadie gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, the touch of her lips warm and comforting. “That’s the woman I married. Come on. Let’s go help kick some ghost butt.”

  Kicking ghost butt didn’t hold much appeal to her. Nonetheless, she followed Sadie closely down the stairs and into the unknown darkness that lay below. The squeaks of every step on the hundred-year-old staircase made her incredibly nervous. Nothing like announcing their arrival to the devil. She didn’t know what they were going to find at the bottom of the long staircase, but she had a strong feeling it wasn’t going to be anything good. Nothing good had happened since she’d stepped foot inside this old hospital except for finding Sadie.

  She wasn’t wrong either. As her foot hit the concrete floor below, everything seemed to be a blur of motion. Renee, moaning in what she could only describe as pain, was sliding across the floor as if unseen hands were dragging her. Her legs were kicking, though she never seemed to be able to make purchase. A door opened and she was tossed through it. Unseen hands slammed it shut, followed by the sounds of locks turning. It all happened so fast she wouldn’t have been able to help even if she’d taken off at a dead run.

  As if seeing Renee manhandled by nothing wasn’t bad enough, Anna watched Katie’s gun fly from her hand and bounce against a far wall. It hit the floor with a loud bang, and for a second she thought it had gone off. With relief she realized it was only the sound of metal meeting concrete. Just as with Renee, Katie was pulled across the room by unseen hands with her heels dragging and her legs kicking. A second door opened and she was thrown in. Once more Anna heard the door close, and the sound of a lock engaging was crystal clear. Only Lorna remained standing, her unflinching eyes locked on Nurse Thompson.

  “Fuck you, bitch,” Lorna said in a low, venomous voice. “I know what you did.” She’d heard Lorna before when she was angry or unhappy. This was very different. The tone of her voice now was something she’d never heard before, and it sent shivers up her spine.

  Nurse Thompson’s laugh chilled Anna to the marrow of her bones. So did the sound of the door at the top of the stairs slamming shut. Damn doors around here refused to stay open. She thought vaguely if she ever saw another locked door, it would be too soon.

  The nurse stood tall, her back straight, her posture arrogant as if nothing they could say or do would touch her. Judging by what she’d seen so far, Anna was afraid she might be right. She sure hoped Lorna had some magic up her sleeve.

  “Don’t you understand? Don’t any of you understand? It doesn’t matter what you know.” Her eyes drifted past Lorna, past them all until they landed on Sadie. Her smile made Anna’s stomach turn. “You have come back to me, and you have brought your friends. Very thoughtful of you, and it is fortunate that we have plenty of room for everyone. Oh, I have waited a very long time for you. I always knew you would return.”

  Sadie’s gaze was on hers. There was no fear in her eyes. Like Lorna, there was something hard and unforgiving in them. “You were crazy in life, and you’re crazy now.”

  The nurse’s gaze shifted back to Lorna, and her hands remained folded in front of her apron. She was as calm as if this was a conversation she had every day. “I simply do what has to be done. I keep everyone safe and always have. Each of us has a job in life, and this one is mine. I do it well. Better than anyone if you must know.”

  “What is she talking about?” Anna whispered. “I mean, she’s a real nutcase and all, but she does seem to have an agenda.”

  Nurse Thompson’s head whipped around. “You.” She held out a bony finger in Anna’s direction. “You are a meddling fool, and I will make certain you do not destroy what I have so carefully built and guarded. I have a very special plan for you.”

  Making good on her word, Nurse Thompson swung her arm around, and the blow felt as hard to Anna as if someone had struck her in the head with a baseball bat. Her head whipped to the side and her vision began to fade to black as she lost her footing and began to tumble hard across the concrete floor.

  *

  Lorna had been waiting for exactly this kind of opening. She lunged at the nurse and took her to the floor in a move worthy of a Saturday-night wrestling match. It was really weird and a new one on her. She was getting accustomed to dealing with spirits and visions, the kind that happened in some shadowy world between the living and the dead where much was seen and nothing was touched. Not
the case here at all. The woman was solid and, damn it, warm. It was like she was flesh and blood, but that, her rational mind screamed, was totally impossible.

  It was also totally unfair. Lorna had nothing to fight her with except her psychic powers, and given her opponent’s solid form, she wasn’t exactly sure how they would help. She needed something more substantial, like maybe a cross or holy water or magical spells. Anything tangible that might shake this thing up and give her the edge she so desperately needed.

  As she rolled across the floor fighting with the devil, her feeling of powerlessness grew. The nurse pulled her hair and scratched her face. Somewhere along the line, this crazy woman had done her fair share of street fighting, and she fought dirty. Never in her life was Lorna as grateful for her Ironman training as at this moment. She was as strong as she’d ever been, and she needed every ounce to subdue the insane woman…ghost…who fought with unnatural power. Big surprise there. Supernatural power from a supernatural being. It was bad enough dealing with spirits in visions; this was a twist she could honestly say she was not too fond of. She preferred her spirits more spirit-like. One who actually drew blood was, well, a bitch.

  “Jeremy,” she yelled when she had the fighting tiger pinned. “I need you now.” The woman was twisting and spitting, her legs kicking as she tried to free herself. Her jaws snapped as she attempted to bite Lorna. Talk about street fighting.

  “What do we do?” He kneeled beside her, holding the woman’s legs while waiting to hear her idea on what else to do with the devil she was sitting on.

  She wished she knew. How could she make this thing disappear forever? She couldn’t even begin to comprehend how the nurse had managed to morph from ghost to flesh-and-blood, let alone how to send her back to hell. Seriously, there should be a manual for this kind of crap. “I don’t know,” she said, breathless after the rigorous cat fight.

  “We gotta do something with her. She isn’t giving up.”

  He was right too. The nurse didn’t seemed fazed in the least. She still struggled with an amazing amount of power, though fortunately for them, she wasn’t able to free herself. There was power in numbers in all realms.

  “Duh. Give me a sec.” Her mind was whirling as she felt something on the top of her head. For a second she wasn’t sure what she was feeling, and then she realized what it was. Someone had laid their hand on her head, and it wasn’t Jeremy.

  Silence swept over the room, though it was more as if her ears went deaf, because the woman beneath her continued to struggle and scream as she fought to free herself from her captors. Lorna heard none of it and barely felt the twisting of the woman she sat on. She turned her head and looked up. Beside her stood a man, a giant of a man, dressed all in black and with long, flowing black hair. The hair would have made her stop even if he hadn’t been wearing a black cape. Shades of Dracula was the first thing that jumped into her mind. If she hadn’t been seeing it, she wouldn’t have believed that this night had just become even stranger.

  She pulled her gaze away and glanced around, astonished to see that no one else seemed surprised by his appearance. How could they not be? The man was NBA tall and looked quite out of place in his tidy, though Gothic, attire. Someday, she was going to write a book. They’d call it fiction because nobody in their right mind would believe it. She barely believed it, and she was the one currently sitting on top of a ghost and looking up at what had to be the giant from “Jack and the Beanstalk.”

  As she gazed up into his pale face, peace flowed over her body like a fine spring rain. He, simply by standing next to her, made her feel safe and at ease. Then he held out one of his massive hands toward her, and suddenly she knew. She understood it all as if they’d spent an hour together talking, and yet not a single word had passed between them.

  Standing up, she released her grip on the squirming madwoman. She took his offered hand, her small one dwarfed by his. With her free hand, she took hold of Jeremy’s because he too had released his grip on the woman’s legs. When she wrapped her fingers around Jeremy’s, she could hear again, and Nurse Thompson’s wild screams once more filled the air. She gave new meaning to the term screech.

  Jeremy’s voice was full of with panic as he squeezed her hand a little too tight. “What in the world are you doing? We shouldn’t let her go.” He said the words, though he didn’t move to try to restrain the woman again, and she wasn’t surprised. Instead, he kept hold of Lorna’s hand. It reminded her a bit of when they were children and were frightened by scary movies or bad thunderstorms. They were always there for each other, in good times and in bad.

  “Encircle her,” she told him as she turned to look into his eyes. “We can destroy her, but it’s going to take us all to do it. Sadie.”

  Understanding came into his face and he nodded. “I think I get it,” he said and held her hand firmer. “Good plan, sister. Let’s take this monster out.”

  She looked up at the stairs toward Sadie. This wasn’t a job just for her and Jeremy. In fact, Sadie was a critical piece of this puzzle. Anna was out cold on the floor, which was too bad because she’d use her too if she was conscious. As it was, the four of them would have to be enough. “Hurry, we need you.”

  Sadie ran to the other side of Jeremy and took his free hand. With her other, she reached out to the tall man. The circle was complete: Lorna, Jeremy, Sadie, and the tall stranger. When they surrounded Nurse Thompson, holding their hands tightly together, she rose cursing to her feet. She pushed against them all one by one as she tried to break free of the healing circle.

  “You cannot hurt me,” she screamed, her face turning crimson. She wasn’t an attractive woman to begin with, and the fury that infused her had turned her face into the mask of a monster. “I am immortal. I will stand guard over my special ones for eternity. I am special.”

  Lorna looked at her wild eyes and listened to her insane protests. She was no longer frightened by this soul who belonged in the past, for the man had brought her the wisdom to send the deranged woman back. He was strange and unexpected and exactly what she needed at this critical moment. The words Lorna knew she needed came without effort, as if she’d known them for years.

  “Our Father, descend upon us and purify us. Lord, mold us, fill us, use us. Banish all the forces of evil from this place, destroy them, vanquish them, and cleanse this place for all eternity. Banish from this building all spells, black magic, diabolic infestations, oppressions, possessions: all that is evil and sinful. Burn all these evils in hell, that they may never again touch any in this place or any other creature in the entire world. By the power of almighty God, in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior, leave forever, and be consigned into the everlasting hell.”

  A blast of cold air hit her so hard she flew back, losing her hold on the giant and on Jeremy. She landed on the floor, and her head hit the concrete with such violence, her vision went black.

  *

  To Renee it sounded as though a tornado was happening outside the door. Screams filled the air, and things hit the door with enough force she thought it would at least splinter the wood, allowing her to go free. It didn’t, and she remained locked inside a room with no light. To make things worse, it smelled as though a thousand dead bodies had decomposed inside here. It was all she could do not to gag and vomit. But she wouldn’t give that bitch the satisfaction. She was going to get out of here, and she was going to help Lorna.

  Her hands hurt as she pounded against the door, screaming and kicking. It wouldn’t move and the doorknob refused to turn. How often had she heard the refrain, “They don’t build things like they used to,” and this was a testament to that sentiment. A hundred years later and the door was still tight and solid.

  Tears flowed down her cheeks, and all she could think of was getting to Lorna. This couldn’t be the end; she refused to let it be. She intended to marry Lorna and spend the rest of her life with her. After everything that had happened to her, she’d finally found the pot of gold at the end of the rain
bow, and now it was being ripped from her hands. By a damn ghost. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t going to happen.

  “Let me out!” she screamed. “Let me out of this goddamn room!” The horrible odor inside brought tears to her eyes and made her cough as she screamed over and over. Someone had to open the door for her. She had to get to Lorna.

  The sound of an explosion made her step back from the door, and her screams faded. Her heart constricted as the implications of what it might be shook her to the core. “Please, God,” she prayed. “Let her be all right.” God couldn’t be this cruel. Not to her and not to Lorna. Not after everything Lorna had done to protect her family and friends, and even strangers. Not after she’d swallowed her pride to help the one who broke her heart. No, God couldn’t be that cruel.

  She had started back to the door, intending to beat it down if she had to, when it suddenly popped open, and a crack of light filtered in. She wanted to run to it, rip it open, and race out. But fear made her more cautious, and once more she backed up a few steps. With her fingertips, she reached over and pulled it open enough to see outside. The light illuminated the interior of the room enough for her to get a picture of where she was being held. For a moment, what she was seeing didn’t fully register. When it did, she pushed the door all the way open, the light of the big open room spilling inside her cell to reveal its grisly secrets.

  She gasped and slapped her hand to her mouth. Mother of God, what kind of place was this? All around her were stains, dark ugly stains that must have been there for years. They covered the floor and the walls, and the realization of their origins turned her cold. Instruments of torture hung from big hooks, and like the floor and the walls, they were covered with the unmistakable evidence of the room’s purpose.

  Renee stifled a sob and hurled herself out of her temporary prison. After what she’d just seen, she could barely process what awaited her outside. Her gaze took in the scene playing out in the big room, though making sense of it was nearly impossible. She didn’t try because she saw the one thing that made her heart nearly stop. Lorna lay unconscious on the floor, her face as white as snow. Maybe God could be that cruel.