Stacey stood considering the open cabin door before returning her attention to Maria. "Do you think she might be hurt or something?"
"Something’s gotta’ be wrong," Maria said. She stepped forward and shouted in the direction of the cabin."Hanna!"
No one answered.
Maria charily moved forward and circled to the left, looking in the direction of Hanna’s storage shed.
Hanna wasn’t there.
"Maybe she left," Stacey said quietly.
"She would never leave her door open. Little animals get in the cabin."
Maria turned back and moved towards the open cabin door. "Hanna!" she called as she stepped onto Hanna’s front porch. A low pitched growling sound came from within the cabin. Maria gasped and backed into Stacey. They both squealed and jumped away from the porch.
"What in God’s name was that?" Stacey said.
Maria grabbed Stacey’s coat and pulled her back."I don’t know. It could be a bear."
They backed away from the cabin and stood staring into the open door.
"What should we do?" Stacey asked.
"Hanna!" Maria called out again. She glanced at Stacey once more and began moving back towards the cabin. "We’ve got to find Hanna," she said. She looked around her and spotted a loose lodgepole branch. "Hopefully," she said, "whatever is in there is as afraid as we are." She gingerly moved to the door.
Stacey found a fist-sized rock and moved up close to Maria. Maria cautiously stepped up onto the porch and nudged the door all the way open.
The cabin was dark, no fire in the fireplace.
"This can’t be right," Maria said. She stepped slightly into the cabin and peeked into the living room.
Suddenly Stacey shrieked. Maria screamed and scrambled off the porch. She turned to see Stacey sprinting towards the tree-line. Terror gripped her and she found herself running wildly. Within moments she caught up with Stacey, who had stopped running and was staring back at her wild eyed.
"Someone’s in there!" Stacey yelled. "There’s a woman in there."
"What?" Maria said gasping.
"A woman, didn’t you see the woman?"
"Hanna’s in there?"
Stacey shook her head. "It’s a woman, but—"
"Stacey," Maria said laughing. "You scared me to death. I thought it was a bear." She turned and began making her way back to the cabin.
"Wait!" Stacey shouted. She hesitated before following after her.
Maria moved back to the porch. "Hanna!" she called out stepping into the cabin. "You had us scared, we thought—"
A scream involuntarily erupted from her lungs. She fell backwards slamming against the log wall. In the dark shadow of the tiny corner kitchen area, hunched in an impossible squat between the countertop and tiny cupboard a woman-thing crouched like a monstrous demented toad. The stench of it was overwhelming. It was growling, a low throaty sound like a cornered cat. The hair was wild, the color of dead bark bleached grey in the sun. The eyes were huge and black. Its lips were pulled tight against the teeth in a nightmarish snarl. Maria had seen this before.
In the flick of a sparrow’s eye the hellish face darted in Stacey’s direction. The head twisted like a curious puppy and flicked back to glare at Maria. Stacey edged to Maria’s side and stood staring.
"What is it you want of me, mother?" The thing screeched.
Maria gasped. "Vicki?"
Stacey stepped forward. "Who are you?"
The thing on the counter recoiled and hissed.
"What is your name?" Stacey demanded moving closer.
"Yagalub tablok yeashob destrobro."
"Tell me your name!"
"Yak yak yak tibble dep bobbla."
To Maria’s dismay, Stacey moved forward, hovering over the horror close enough to touch it. "Jesus the Christ commands you to come out of that woman!" she shouted.
The thing on the counter screamed and collapsed.
Stacey stepped forward and managed to catch Hanna Parrish before she rolled onto the kitchen floor.
Maria slid down the log wall and fainted.
~~~
Gladys lifted Hanna’s wrist and found a pulse. "Breathe normally," she said, never taking her eyes off the thermometer she had pulled from Hanna’s mouth. She paused a moment and shrugged. "Other than a slight case of high blood pressure, I can’t find anything wrong with you."
"Better check again," Hanna said. "I feel like death on steroids."
She was lying on an examination table, atop a thin mattress partially covered with a paper drape sheet.
Gladys glanced at Todd who was standing in the corner of the room, pulled a wheeled stool to the table and took a seat. She lifted an otoscope off a small rolling metallic table and pushed it up to Hanna’s ear.
Apart from the obnoxious cream colored wood paneling, the well lit examination room bore little resemblance to the back bedroom of a single wide trailer house, though that’s what it was.
Gladys and Todd had spent many a long day bartering medical services for supplies. The tiny community had managed to put together a fully functional clinic, featuring the latest in medical technology. The Parktown clinic even boasted of a state of the art diesel 60 megawatt Stateline Standby Generator.
On Mondays and Saturdays Gladys Fasbender, one of only a handful of doctors in the west, practiced here. The remaining days were spent overseeing sixty four newly recruited medical residents staffing four different clinics in and around Salt Lake City. Today was Wednesday and she and Todd were here on an emergency call.
"Well I guess you can sit up and get dressed," Gladys said shrugging. "You say you can’t remember anything since day before yesterday?"
"Not a thing,” Hanna said. "It’s all a blank."
Gladys looked over her glasses eyeing her patient one more time. "You have a few cuts and bruises but nothing requiring stitches. I had Todd give you a tetanus shot earlier just in case."
She slowly stood and moved through the door. "Get dressed and come on out," she said as she went. Todd followed her into the trailer living room-turned-waiting room.
Todd, her primary resident student, was never far from her side. She made no secret that he was to be her successor, schooling or no schooling, license or no license. She was, after all, nearly seventy years old.
Maria was sitting on the couch holding baby Joshua. Stacey sat on the couch nearby. Tina, Todd and Maria’s teenage babysitter, sat on a chair across from them.
Maria smiled as Todd approached."Look, Tina brought Josh to me."
Todd found a chair of his own and sat down. "Appreciate it, Tina."
Gladys dropped heavily in the room’s resident lounge chair.
"What’s wrong with Hanna?" Maria asked.
Gladys shrugged. "I don’t know. We’re calling it CreutzJake. We’re calling everything we don’t understand CreutzJake. Whatever it is, it’s going around."
"What do you mean?"Maria said.
"This is our third case, and that’s just around here."
Maria looked at Todd and back at Gladys. "What do you mean third case; who else?"
"Vicki and Nigel."
"Nigel? What happened to Nigel?"
"We took him to Salt Lake this morning," Todd said. "He was just like Vicki, raving, hallucinating."
Maria frowned. "Oh my God, what’s happening?"
"We don’t know,” Gladys said, blowing out a sigh, “but there are more cases just east of Salt Lake City in the canyons and mountains, cases not unlike Hanna’s. On the outside chance it might be a virus or pollutant native to these mountains, the Mums are thinking about pulling us all out and resettling us in the city."
"Hanna was possessed by a demon," Stacey said flatly.
Gladys slowly turned and looked at Stacey. "A what?"
Stacey glanced at the teenage babysitter staring back at her wide-eyed. She paused and looked back at Gladys. "Maybe we should talk about this another time."
Gladys looked at the terrified babysitte
r. "Might be a little tough to get the cat back in the mail box, don’t you think?"
She leaned towards the babysitter. "Sweetheart, Hanna is not demon possessed, she’s as fit as a key… matter of fact, there is no such thing as demon possession, but there is a real case for demon obsession, which is what I think may be happening here." She turned and glared at Stacey.
Stacey flushed and looked at the floor.
Hanna stepped out of the examination room into the waiting room. "Hi guys," she said, looking round the room. "Sorry I caused you all the trouble. I don’t know what happened."
"You look just fine," Maria said. "Gladys is a miracle worker. You should have seen yourself this afternoon. You scared us to death."
Todd quickly found another chair and Hanna sat down on it. "I don’t know," she said. "All I remember is finding myself propped up on that sled of yours and you two bringing me down the hill."
The teenage babysitter leaned forward, looking at Hanna. "Were you possessed by a demon?"
Hanna turned to the babysitter, shocked. "Honey… of course I wasn’t possessed by a demon! Why would you ask a thing like that?"
Gladys sighed and tilted her head. "Todd, maybe you should take little Tina home before we scare her to death, the poor child’s going to have nightmares for a month."
Todd nodded. “It’s getting late anyway." He pulled off his white smock and replaced it with his heavy winter coat. Tina joined him and they went out into the night.
Gladys turned and glared at Stacey.
"Don’t you start with me, Doctor!" Stacey yelled surprising everyone. "I’m sorry I said that in front of the little girl, but I’m not sorry for saying it. Hanna was possessed by a demon—"
"What?" Hanna said. "What the hell are you talking about—?"
"Stacey-Stacey-Stacey," Gladys said holding up the palm of her hand. "This isn’t the seventeenth century. Modern medicine has—"
"Modern medicine has what?" Stacey yelled, "Look at Hanna! She’s perfectly fine. What about your patients, Doctor? How are they? Where are they tonight? They’re still sick, as you call it. Hanna is healed because Jesus the Christ cast the demon out of her. How else can you explain it?"
Gladys hesitated for a moment glaring at Stacey. Finally she spoke. "I can’t believe I'm even having this conversation."
"Can I say something?" Maria said, breaking her silence. "I was there, and I saw the whole thing. Stacey said… what she said… and Hanna was better… that’s all I know."
"Consider this," Gladys said quickly. "Hanna got better about the same time Stacey said what she said. The two events had absolutely nothing to do with each other."
The clinic door opened. Bob Tanner quickly stepped inside, followed closely by Debby. "I’m glad I found you, Doctor," he said, looking at Gladys. "They need you in Salt Lake tomorrow morning as early as possible. Vicki is awake. She knows now that she lost her hands and she’s not taking it very well, but at least she’s talking and eating. Nigel is fine too… all of them. They all snapped out of it at the same time."
Maria glanced up at Bob Tanner. "What time?" she asked.
"What?"
"What time… approximately did Vicki and the others get better?"
"Oh, I don’t know," Bob said slowly, "around three…three thirty I guess."
"And you say they all snapped out of it at the same time?"
"Yeah, exactly… that’s what was so weird."
Maria turned to Gladys. "It was around three thirty when Stacey cast the demon out of Hanna. I know because I was worried about the time. I kept checking my watch because I had to feed the baby around four."
"No-no," Stacey said, "I didn’t cast anything out. The Lord Jesus cast the demon out of her. Not me."
“Oh good lord,” Gladys moaned shaking her head.
"But don’t you see?" Maria said. "You or… He didn’t only cast the demon out of Hanna; He cast them all out."
~~~
"Maria, I don’t think you should go up there anymore," Todd said, setting his coffee cup on the table. "It worried me enough when you were with Nigel, but now it’s just you two women traipsing around the mountain by yourself."
Todd had prepared a hardy trout supper, provided by Ben Price as payment for a couple of stitches in his right palm. A jar of pressure cooked asparagus and a boxed package of macaroni and cheese served to top off the meal.
Maria sighed and leaned back from the dinner table. "I think you’re right. I get scared. Every time I go up there I’m scared, even with Stacey. And now, after what happened with Hanna—"
"OK," Todd said, "that settles it. If it scares you, you really need to stop going up there."
"But what about Hanna and the others? Who’s going to look after them?"
"There’s no reason they have to live up there. They’ll just have to mingle or do without. Besides, you’re not the only one who can do it. There are men in Parktown who have nothing better to do… old Pete Thompson, for one."
"He’s a drunk," Maria said. "He can’t be counted on." She stood up from the dinner table, pulled baby Joshua out of his nearby high chair, and moved to the couch. Todd remained at the table sipping his coffee.
They were silent for a time before Todd spoke. "What do you think of Stacey?"
Maria looked up, smiling. "I love Stacey. She makes me laugh so hard."
Todd sat silent for another moment, drumming his fingers on the table. "Gladys thinks she’s a little… fanatical. She thinks she may be starting harmful rumors."
Maria looked up again. "Stacey knew she shouldn’t have talked about it in front of Tina. She said she was sorry."
"Not just Tina," Todd said, going in for another sip of coffee. "She scared the hell out of Bob."
Maria lifted the baby, opened her shirt and began feeding him. When he was settled, she turned her attention back to Todd. "Gladys had to be there. That’s all I’ll say about that."
Todd stood, lifted his cup from the table, and joined Maria on the couch. "You know, there are bona fide medical conditions that produce pretty frightening symptoms."
"I’m not arguing with you, or Gladys," Maria said. "I agree with what you’re saying. All I know is, Hanna was perched up on that tiny little two foot cabinet looking like some sort of demonic Leprechaun which scared the hell right out of me. Stacey said something to her, and she got better and stayed better. That’s all I know."
Todd leaned back and pulled Maria’s hair away from her neck. "So you think she was possessed?"
Maria glanced at him and back at the baby at her breast. "Do you remember the night Vicki came? You left me with her and you went to get Bob."
"I didn’t want to leave you with her," Todd said, "but she was so injured she couldn’t have possibly—"
"I know," Maria said. "She couldn’t have hurt me, but while you were gone she sort of changed… and then she said something very strange. She pulled her face up close to mine in a weird way and said: ‘what is it you want of me, mother’? Just like that, only in a strange voice. Then she fell back on the bed sound asleep. It scared me out of my wits."
"Why didn’t you tell me this before?" Todd asked.
"Well, you know… she was rambling on and on. She was obviously delusional. But my point is, Hanna said the same thing to me. It even sounded like Vicki, and I hadn’t told a soul about what Vicki said that night."
Todd sat pondering for a time, his eyebrows curled in thought. "Did you tell Stacey what Vicki said to you?" he said finally.
"I didn’t tell a soul."
Todd sat staring at the wall. "That’s freaky," he said quietly. He sighed and shook his head. "We’ve seen some oddball things in our time together. I’ve had to open my mind a time or two. One thing’s for sure, something’s been happening up here in these mountains, and it’s starting to look like the Mums are going to evacuate us. Gladys said they have an area south of the city. They may settle us there. She says they’re still not all that trusting of non-Mormon travelers. They want us
close by but not in."
Maria smiled and rolled her fingers over the baby’s fat cheek."I still can’t blame them."
"I thought you’d be upset," Todd said.
"About what?"
"You were upset about moving away earlier. I guess I just thought—"
"But we’re all moving. All of our friends are coming with us. We’re taking our belongings. I had visions of you, me, and the baby wandering out into the wilderness again."
"Well that’s good because Gladys seems to think they plan to move us soon."
"That’s okay with me," Maria said. "Let’s get out of these spooky old mountains."
Todd glanced at the wall clock. "I have to talk to Gladys. Debby had to make a few changes in the schedule tomorrow and she wanted me to fill Gladys in."
"Now?" Maria said looking up.
"Yeah, I won’t be long. I completely forgot about it till we started talking about Gladys."
"OK," Maria said, pouting, "but hurry home."
Todd put on his heavy coat and left the cabin.
Maria laid Joshua on the couch and sat staring at the wall. She had to find a way to deal with these dark jealous thoughts before she said or did something stupid and ruin everything.
Still, she wondered. Why would Todd have to go to Gladys's cabin at this time of night? Debby had been staying with Gladys since the weekend and hadn’t planned on returning to Salt Lake until later that evening. Todd was in the examination room out of earshot when Gladys had mentioned it. Gladys, Todd, and Debby had been together the entire day. Why would Debby know anything about scheduling that Gladys wouldn’t be aware of?
She couldn’t help but feel ashamed. She had always been the one who provoked jealousy from other women. She had always viewed those women as weak and insecure. She hated that she had become one of those women.
"So this is love," she said, softly talking to her sleeping child.
She stood and moved to the dinner table. Todd is with Debby, she said to herself, I can feel it. She turned and looked at the baby still sleeping soundly on the couch.
"Let’s bundle up and go for a walk, shall we?"
Johnson, C. W. Page 10