“It can do whatever it wants, almost.” Rand threw open the trunk and pulled out the jack.
“But we could have been killed!”
“I think that’s the idea.”
Rachel wrapped her arms around her body. Before, she had been afraid, but now Rand could tell she was also becoming angry.
Rand got down on his hands and knees and shoved the jack into place. “I’ll put this back on and then drop you off.”
Rachel said nothing. She only went to the passenger side, retrieved her umbrella, and opened it over Rand as he worked.
His phone rang again.
It chimed from somewhere inside the Jeep. He’d forgotten that Libby had tried to call him just before they’d spun out.
Rand straightened and found his phone underneath the car seat where it had fallen.
“Hey,” he said. “Sorry about before. You’re never going to believe—”
“Dad! Come to the hospital!”
He’d never heard his daughter sound so upset. “What’s wrong? Are you all right?”
Rachel looked at him, concern washing over her face.
“It’s Georgia! You need to get here now!”
31
Rand left his Jeep at the front of St. Mary’s main reception door, not caring if it got towed. He and Rachel rushed into the hospital.
The ICU was on the third floor, and the elevator opened into a large visitor waiting room. It was mostly empty at that time of night, but Libby met him there. When he saw his daughter, he could tell she’d been crying.
“Libby!” he said, running up to her. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“She just fell. Collapsed.”
“What were you and her doing?”
She gave him a look. One of frozen terror.
“Libby—”
“He attacked us.”
“The demon?”
“Yeah. He came for us in the hallway when we went down to get ice cream. We tried to run away, but it kept appearing in front of us. So we ran into the chapel to hide. But then he burst open the door and trashed the whole place. After, Georgia just fell down and I couldn’t wake her up.” Recounting the story made tears fall from her eyes again.
“Okay,” Rand said, pulling her close to him. “You did well. Running for the chapel was the right thing to do.”
“But it didn’t work! He still hurt her. He did this to her.”
“Come on. Let’s go see her.”
“What should I do?” Rachel asked.
“You should go,” Rand told her.
“I don’t want to leave you,” she said. “What if the same thing happens as before? Like last time?”
Rand hated to see how worried she was for him. “It won’t get the best of me again.”
She nodded, but Rand could tell she wasn’t so sure. Regardless, she took a seat on a couch and tried her best to calm herself.
Libby used her ICU visitor badge to scan the reader by the door to get into the ICU. But as Rand tried to follow her in, a nearby security guard placed a strong hand on his chest, holding him back. It took Rand a moment to recognize him, but finally he did—Jerry, Harold’s colleague.
“Evening, Jerry,” Rand said, trying to put on his best charming smile.
“You know I can’t let you in here,” Jerry said quietly, looking around them. Libby stood on the other side of the ICU’s threshold. “I’m supposed to call to the police, but I don’t want to do that, Rand. You should just leave.”
“This is for Georgia,” Rand said. “Please. Just give me some time.”
“Harold also gave you some time, and look what happened to him. Suspended. He’s in there now, with the girl, and I wasn’t even supposed allow that to happen. Please, Rand. Don’t put me in a tough position.”
Rand met Jerry’s eyes and held his ground. “I can’t leave and you know that. You saw what was on those security videos. It’s gotten even stronger, and now it’s attacking her.” Jerry let his gaze drop to the ground. “I’m the only one who can help her.”
Jerry placed his hands on his hips and looked around, as if checking to see if anyone was watching. “Damn it. For as much as you claim you’re here to help, you sure do stir up a lot of trouble.”
“My daughter and her mother would both agree with you,” Rand said. “But listen. After tonight, this will be all over. Everything will go back to normal.”
Jerry sighed heavily and stepped out of Rand’s way.
The ICU was a large, circular room. All the patient rooms were on the periphery of the main section, so that the patients could be seen at all times by the staff. Georgia was in room 316.
Inside were Nick and Maria, Father Calvin, and Harold, dressed in plain clothes.
Georgia lay on the bed, still and peaceful. Her body was straight and relaxed, arms down by her side, a thick, white blanket pulled up to her chin. She looked like she was sleeping.
She also looked dead. Rand had to tear his eyes away.
“Oh, Rand,” Maria said, hugging him. “Thank you for coming.”
“I drove here as soon as I could. Libby told me what happened.”
Nick shook his head. “I could hardly believe it.”
“The chapel is destroyed,” Father Calvin said. “The girls were only in there for a few minutes while I stepped out.” Calvin took out his cell phone and opened his camera roll. He showed Rand the pictures.
They weren’t kidding. The entire place was ransacked, turned upside down. The stained-glass windows were smashed, the cushions in the pews were torn up, the carpet was covered with dark marks that looked like blood, and the statue of Jesus had fallen, the face broken to pieces.
“I came back to the chapel and heard screaming,” Father Calvin continued. “That’s where I found your daughter and Georgia. Georgia had passed out and we could not wake her up. I pressed the code-blue button on the wall, which thankfully still worked, and now we’re here.”
Rand looked at the girl in the bed again and ground his teeth. All of the trauma. All of the attacks. It had to end. She was too young and too sick to go through something like this. He despised the demons and how they chose their targets. They always picked on the vulnerable and unsuspecting.
“The doctors are saying coma,” Nick said. “But they can’t figure out why. All of her other vitals are normal.”
“They don’t know why she won’t wake up,” Maria said, wiping away a tear.
Seventeen days.
It was now the night of the sixteenth day. The demon was making good on his promise.
Rand took in a slow, deep breath. “Right. Then there is only one thing left to do.”
There came a knock at the door. When Rand turned, he saw Katie slipping in, visitor badge in hand and looking worried. “How is she?”
“Coma,” Nick said. “And they don’t know why.”
“We have to get rid of this demon,” Rand told Katie. “Tonight. It attacked her and Libby, and that’s why Georgia’s in the coma.”
And because the time limit is up.
Katie nodded. She was the only other one who knew of Georgia’s ticking clock.
“Will you help?” Rand asked Calvin.
The man tensed at the suggestion, but after feeling all the eyes on the room on him, he finally said, “Whatever needs to be done for Georgia.”
Rand hoped the priest would find the same courage he’d mustered for his encounter with the possessed girl all those years ago. “Do you have any holy water?”
“There are a few bottles in the chapel that weren’t smashed.”
“We’ll need as much as you have. Can you get them now?”
Calvin nodded and left.
“Wait a minute, Rand,” Katie said. “You want to do it in here? In the ICU?”
“Where else? This is where Georgia is.”
“There are people around. Doctors, patients, nurses. Everyone.”
“So?”
Katie looked at him incredulously. “So, it’s an
ICU. You can’t kick all the staff out of here. The patients are really sick.”
“What other choice do we have?”
“You know how destructive this demon is,” Katie went on. “There could be more damage. Vandalism. Especially when we challenge it. This is a very dangerous place for an exorcism.”
She was right. But there wasn’t much use in doing it in the parking lot when the demon was attached to Georgia in the ICU.
“Can we bring her to another room?” Maria asked.
“They won’t let us move her when she’s comatose,” Nick said.
“Why not? She’s our daughter. They should allow us to go anywhere we want.”
“Excuse me.”
The sharp voice belonged to a thin woman at the door, wearing a white coat. Her name badge read Vanessa Clarke. “There is a visitor limit in the ICU for a reason,” she said, eyeing everyone in the group sternly. “There are really sick patients up here and we can’t have too many people around.”
“Right,” Nick said. “We were just leaving, Dr. Clarke.”
Dr. Clarke looked as if she didn’t quite believe him, then turned and walked away.
“We’ll leave you and Katie here,” Nick told Rand. “And Father Calvin. You three… do what you need to do.”
Rand nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”
The machines attached to Georgia Collins started beeping and going haywire.
“Oh my God,” Maria said.
The alarms triggered a flood of nurses into the room, which pushed the group out like displaced water. Rand and the others waited outside 316 while Dr. Clarke rushed over and supervised the four nurses who pressed buttons on the machines, analyzed Georgia’s heart rhythms, and checked her pulse and breathing.
Maria Collins started crying. Her husband pulled her close.
“She’s not crashing,” Rand whispered to Katie. “It’s just our little friend messing with us.”
The nurses who were investigating the equipment looked back at Dr. Clarke, shrugging.
“The machines aren’t reading accurately,” one of them said.
“Why?” Dr. Clarke asked. “What’s wrong with them?” No one had an answer. “Swap them all out.”
The nurses nodded and Dr. Clarke left the room, the equipment still beeping and blaring wildly behind her.
“What’s going on?” Maria asked her.
“Your daughter is fine,” Dr. Clarke said. “No change. The machines are reading stats that aren’t correct.”
Nick and Maria looked at Rand. He saw in their faces that they’d put two and two together, now silently asking him if it was the demon who was causing the malfunctions.
Dr. Clarke followed their gaze and settled her eyes on him. “There are a lot of rumors going around about Georgia Collins,” she said. “Are you that man everyone’s been talking about?”
“Probably.”
“If I’m not mistaken, you’re not allowed in this hospital anymore.”
“I’m here for the same reason as you, Doctor,” Rand said. “To help Georgia.”
“Then why don’t you leave it to the professionals?”
A loud crack came from Georgia’s room. One machine had blown out, a rain of sparks falling onto the ground as the screen went black. The nurses all jumped back, startled. Even Dr. Clarke stared in amazement before regaining her composure.
It’s escalating, Rand thought. He’s near. He wouldn’t be surprised if an apparition appeared soon. We need to begin. But Dr. Clarke was interfering.
“Get those things out of there!” she shouted at the nurses, and they moved double time to obey.
“Do you know why that equipment is doing that?” Rand asked. “Have you ever experienced something like that in your career?”
Dr. Clarke set her jaw and did not respond.
Father Calvin came through the ICU door, carrying a box with him. He approached the group while eyeing the chaos happening in Georgia’s room. “What’s going on?”
Rand ignored him for the time being. “Let me do what I need to do,” he pleaded to Dr. Clarke. “What do we have to lose? You still haven’t figured out what’s keeping her in a coma.”
“What do we have to lose?” Dr. Clarke rounded on him. “Everything! Our reputation, our accreditation, our patients. You threaten all of those things by being here.”
“The demon doesn’t care about any of that.”
Dr. Clarke winced at the word. “You sound like a crazy person. I have to ask you to leave. If you don’t, then I will call security.” Then she walked away.
Inside Georgia’s room, the nurses had powered off all the medical equipment that surrounded her and were rolling it out.
“What are we going to do?” Katie asked.
Rand watched Dr. Clarke go. “We’re not getting any support here. I think we just need to go for it.” He turned to Nick and Maria Collins. “It’s probably best if you two wait in the visitor area outside.”
They looked at each other, frightened and hesitant to leave.
“Come on, folks,” Harold said, putting his hands on their shoulders. “Let’s go get some coffee.”
He led them out of the ICU, Libby following close behind them. She turned and gave her dad a saddened, hopeful look.
Because they both knew if he couldn’t remove the demon now, it was likely to be beyond his ability. In his past cases, Rand had been beaten, thrown around, and scratched. He’d witnessed past clients on the verge of madness, driven insane by the unexplainable terror happening around them. But in the end, he’d always won. For the first time, though, the possibility that he could be in over his head entered his mind. He remembered the morgue, and how helpless he’d been, saved only by Harold’s arrival.
This one is strong, he thought. I have to be stronger.
There was no one else to save Georgia Collins.
“It’s time,” Rand said.
Calvin looked around the ICU nervously. “There are too many people and patients.”
“I told him the same thing,” Katie said.
“You’re right,” Rand said. “We need to clear them out.”
“How? You can’t just tell the doctor to move a bunch of sick people out of the ward. It would take hours to relocate them safely.”
“If I can’t convince them, then I know what can.”
It took Calvin and Katie a few moments to understand what he meant.
“No,” Katie said. “Absolutely not.”
Rand’s idea was against his better judgment. He knew it was dangerous, and it was not something he would have normally ever done.
But he was out of options and out of time.
He went to the center of the ICU and bellowed at the top of his lungs, “Shindael!”
32
All the nurses stopped short and stared at him like he was a crazy man. They weren’t wrong.
“Shindael!” Rand bellowed again. “Show yourself! In the name of the Lord, I command you to come here!”
The room was silent and still, all the ambient noise created by the staff doing their jobs halting as they stopped to stare at him and look around at each other, wondering which one of them would be the first to step up and speak out.
That person was Dr. Clarke. She zipped over to him, a patient’s chart in hand, glaring. “That’s it. I’m calling security and the police.”
Rand ignored her. “Shindael! You coward!”
“Stop screaming in here!” Dr. Clarke said through clenched teeth.
When nothing happened, Rand knew it was time to play dirty. He went to Father Calvin and grabbed a bottle of holy water from the box he still held. He bit off the cork and spat it onto the ground, then walked to the entrance of Georgia’s room and tossed the water over the door in the sign of the cross. He’d learned it was sometimes better to go on the offensive. Anything holy was sure to provoke the spirit into action.
“In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I command you to make yourself known!”
All
of the lights flickered. In response, the backup lights on the generator flared to life, then those also lost power and went dim.
The nurses looked overhead, confused and frightened. Dr. Clarke, who had raised a phone to her ear to call security, paused and glanced around, unsure of herself.
That’s it, he thought. You hear me now.
Rand returned to the center of the ICU and threw more holy water in the sign of the cross on the floor. “In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I command you to show yourself! Come out of hiding. We’re here for you.”
You can’t disobey when commanded in the name of God.
The ICU filled with the incessant sounds of medical equipment going haywire. Beeps, alarms, and chimes all went off in every room of the ICU, as if every patient had suddenly crashed at the same time.
Dr. Clarke looked around. The colored lights above each patient room flashed with an alert. “Everyone!” she called out to the frozen nurses. “Get with your patients! Close the blinds!”
The nurses moved all at once. Each one darted into a patient room, closed the door, and lowered the blinds over the windows.
The alarms dinged and the lights flickered on and off. Then, Rand experienced the unmistakable heavy feeling. The same one from his night in the morgue when he’d encountered Shindael for the first time.
He’s here. He’s coming.
“Shindael!” Rand shouted again.
“What is going on?” Dr. Clarke demanded, grabbing his arm, phone and police forgotten.
“I’m saving your patient,” Rand said. “That’s what’s going on.”
Everything went silent when all the alarms stopped at the same time. The room fell into darkness, with only a few backup lights giving off a dim hue in the large room.
The temperature of the room plunged. Rand looked around, expecting Shindael to appear behind him.
And when Rand looked in front of him again, he had appeared—the boy from the morgue. The boy he’d followed around the hospital, dressed in a patient gown and holding an IV pole. He looked at the ground, his face obscured in the dim room.
The Tenth Ward Page 17