Terror in the Shadows Vol 5

by Scare Street

  She reached out with a shaky hand, covering her eyes with the other. She felt a strong hand grasp her and pull slowly. She used her knees to crawl to the door.

  She carefully stepped out. She could feel the presence of the people around her, could hear their murmuring voices. Some of them sounded angry. She knew she didn’t want to see their faces in particular. She moaned and walked, slightly bent over.

  “Does anything hurt? Do you know your name?”

  “Natalie Crawford,” she answered, without removing her hand from across her eyes.

  “Is there something wrong with your eyes, Natalie? Did you get glass in them?”

  Natalie shook her head. “No. No.”

  “We should take a look at them,” the man said as he led her a few feet away from the SUV. A new voice mixed in with the crowd, a voice that boomed over the others.

  “What was she thinking? I could have killed her! What’s wrong with you, lady? Didn’t you see me coming? Lemme guess, you were on your cell phone, right? Not paying attention?”

  It had to be the truck driver. He sounded furious. Tears slipped down her face, renewing the stinging sensation as they touched her open wounds. She heard what she assumed were police officers, telling the man to calm down. His voice was fading, and she knew he was being led away from her.

  “It wasn’t his fault,” she murmured. “It wasn’t his fault.”

  “What was that?” The paramedic leaned closer. She could feel him just inches away from her, feel his hands maneuvering her till she was sitting down on something hard. It was probably the back end of an ambulance. She hadn’t heard the sirens from it or the police.

  “You got to me fast,” she said. “How did you do that?”

  The paramedic chuckled as he lifted her arm. “I’m going to take your blood pressure, Natalie. Stay calm, okay? Just going to do some checking and make sure you’re all right.”

  “I’m not all right,” she murmured.

  “And to answer your question, the hospital is two blocks from here. We didn’t even need sirens. Those two policemen were probably going to pull you over for going through that red light. They were in the gas station parking lot.”

  “Getting donuts?” Natalie joked. The paramedic’s voice was soothing. He was calm and had a good sense of humor.

  He laughed. “Maybe. They will probably take you and book you if you don’t go to the hospital.”

  Fear overtook Natalie. “I think I need to go to the hospital.” She used a joking tone, but she was serious. She didn’t want to go to jail.

  “I think you need to, as well.”

  Natalie pulled in a deep sigh. “Thank you for your help. What’s your name?”

  “Jim. Jim Singer.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Jim Singer.”

  “Nice to meet you, too, Natalie Crawford. Are you sure you don’t want to take your hand away so I can check your eyes? I’ll have to clean those wounds under your hand. Can’t do that when they’re covered.”

  “I… I don’t want to.”

  “You can keep them closed if you like. But I’ll really need to make sure you don’t have any severe lacerations under there.”

  “I don’t want to,” Natalie insisted.

  “Can I ask why?”

  Because I don’t want to see that you’re a monster, too, she thought. “I… I’m not feeling… seeing the right… I don’t know. My eyes…” She shook her head, feeling as confused as she thought Jim probably was at that point. “I don’t know what’s happened. I think I’m seeing things. That’s why I went through the light. I’m… I’m hallucinating or something… I don’t know.” Fear hit her hard as the tears returned. She lowered her head but felt Jim’s fingers under her chin, lifting it back up gently.

  “Keep your eyes closed and let me take your hand away just for a moment, so I can check and make sure you’re all right? Please?”

  She felt his fingers on her hand. She began to breathe shakily and allowed him to take it down. She squeezed her eyes shut. She could feel the warmth of the light on her eyes, but she had them closed so tight all she could see was blackness.

  “Relax your eyes, Natalie,” Jim said gently. “I won’t open them, I promise.”

  A chill ran through her. His voice was so gentle, she wanted to do what he told her. But she was afraid. Could she trust him? If he tried to lift her eyelid, she would have no choice but to look at him. She didn’t want to see those monstrous faces anymore.

  “I… I can’t…” she moaned, softly. “Please don’t make me.”

  “You can trust me,” Jim said. “I promise I won’t make you open your eyes. I just need to check a little better, just to make sure there aren’t any hidden glass shards there. I’m just going to point the light at you. I won’t open them. Trust me.”

  Natalie’s breath was tight in her chest. She let out a shaky breath and forced herself to relax her eyes. The brightness of the direct light moved from one eye to the other. When it disappeared, she squeezed them tight again.

  “Did you see anything?” she asked.

  “No.” She heard him reply but felt him moving into the ambulance behind her. She felt her seat bounce slightly when he stepped up onto it. She heard him rustling through the drawers.

  Moments later, he was next to her. When he spoke, she felt his breath brush over her ear.

  “I’m going to cover your eyes with this bandage,” he whispered. “So you don’t have to keep your eyes covered or shut tight. I’ll take you to the hospital so you don’t have to go with the police. I’ll tell them you need to be seen for something. They’ll listen to me.”

  “They’re going to want to talk to me.”

  “I know.”

  “What do I do?”

  Natalie felt him touch her head. He began twisting the bandage around her eyes, securing it tightly, but not too tight.

  “That feel okay?” he asked. “Open your eyes and tell me what you see.”

  Natalie hesitated. What if the bandage didn’t work? Or she could see people through the small holes?

  “It’s okay, go ahead. Tell me what you see. You shouldn’t see anything.”

  It took a few more moments for Natalie to build up the courage to open her eyes.

  But she did it. And she saw nothing.

  She realized he had used something like an ace bandage instead of the gauze she had pictured in her mind.

  Her heart calmed some, and she began to feel a little better. Her mind cleared and she stood up. She held her hand out in front of her, moving it to the side where Jim had been. He took it and stepped out of the ambulance.

  “Can you see anything?”

  “No. Thank you.”

  “Get back up. I’ll go get the police. Here.” He turned her slightly and placed her hand on the back of the vehicle. “Climb in. The gurney is right in front of you. Sit on it and I’ll be right back.”

  “Okay, thank you,” Natalie said.

  She heard his footsteps as he walked away. It only took a few seconds for her to find the gurney. She sat on it, gripping the sides with both hands.

  It got quiet as the crowd outside dispersed and the police got traffic moving again. She heard a wrecker coming for her car to pull it out of the road. She wondered how much damage had been done to it.

  She pulled in a deep breath, trying to relax. If she could think clearly, maybe she would figure out what had happened to her eyes. What was it she was seeing? Had she gone crazy, as the spectators thought?

  It was a possibility. She couldn’t think of any other explanation. She’d heard somewhere that crazy people didn’t know they were crazy. So if she knew she was… was she?

  She shook her head. The thoughts racing through her mind wouldn’t let her think logically. There had to be a reason why she was seeing these horrendous faces. She felt swallowed up by them from the moment she saw them draw near. The man who’d reached for her after the wreck…

  Natalie shivered.

  It se
emed like an eternity before Jim came back. He was as cordial as he had been at first.

  “All right, Natalie,” he said, stepping up into the ambulance. She felt him sit on the gurney next to her. “You’re going to be all right. No one was hurt in the wreck, and the truck driver didn’t sustain any damage to his vehicle except a broken headlight. He’s already back on the road, and I told the police you had a seizure and your foot slammed on the pedal.”

  Natalie felt relief and confusion sweep through her at the same time. She stammered when she spoke again. “I… I don’t know what to say. Thank you. Why are you being so nice to me?”

  Jim chuckled softly. “I really don’t know. Something about you, I guess. You seem like a woman in pretty bad distress right now. It’s my job to help people who are hurting. Here, lie back on the gurney. Like this.”

  Jim guided her, holding her shoulder up as he slid the pillow under her head. She tried to lie back, but pain coursed through her body when the cuts on her back pushed against the fabric. She sat back up abruptly, groaning.

  “What’s wrong? Let me check. I’m going to lift up your shirt.”

  She felt Jim move away from her and heard the ambulance doors closing. He returned and sat on the edge of the bed.

  While he examined the cuts all over her stomach, arms and back, Natalie felt the ambulance begin to move. She hadn’t realized someone else was there the whole time Jim was taking care of her. They had been either completely silent or sitting still in the driver’s seat, not doing anything.

  She frowned.

  “Someone else is driving,” she observed softly.

  “Yes, my partner, Jim 2.”

  Natalie raised her eyebrows. “Jim 2?”

  “Yeah.” She could hear the dismissive tone in his voice. “It’s a running joke. We’ve got the same name, so when I’m referring to him, he’s Jim 2, and when he’s referring to me, I’m Jim 2.”

  Natalie let out a small laugh. The abrupt shift in her mood made her want to believe things could get better. Maybe if she slept it off, she would wake up and not see what she had been seeing. But how would she find out? She could look at herself in the mirror. But could she be sure?

  She felt the vehicle rocking back and forth and bouncing over the gravelly pavement. She listened to Jim, talking on his comm device to the hospital, notifying them that she was coming in. She liked the sound of his voice. She wondered what he looked like.

  She was a little glad she didn’t know what he looked like. Her mind would distort it into something else just from the memory of what she’d already seen.

  “Okay, I’m going to give you a mild sedative, Natalie.”

  Natalie turned her head to him as he settled her on the bed. She could feel the bandages he’d put on the cuts. The pain had receded to a burning ache.

  “Why? Do I need one?”

  “It’s something I would give any patient who’d had a seizure. It won’t knock you out for long. It’s standard procedure.”

  “Okay, that’s fine. I’m hoping I’ll wake up and things won’t be the same anyway.”

  Her heart beat nervously. She was shaking so a sedative would probably do her some good. She still didn’t know how she would find out if her eyes were still seeing the demonic faces. If she did, she didn’t know what she would do.

  The sedative didn’t take long to work. She and Jim chatted briefly until she slipped off into unconsciousness.

  When she woke up, she blinked a few times and opened her eyes. She was in a hospital bed on her back. She felt a plastic clasp attached to her finger. She turned her eyes to the left and right, observing the displays with her temperature and the other bodily functions they were monitoring. The beeping sounds were light and random. She didn’t know what they indicated.

  “Hello?”

  She sat up. The room was dark. It looked like a typical hospital room to her, and she wasn’t handcuffed to the bed, so she was in the clear there.

  Natalie swung her legs over the side of the bed and pulled the clasp from her finger. She lowered herself to the cold floor and shivered when her bare feet touched it.

  It was quieter than she expected for a hospital. She tiptoed to the door and pulled it open.

  The hallway stretched out to her left and right. The nurse’s station was to her left. There were doctors and nurses standing around with clipboards, many in front of computers, engrossed in their work.

  Natalie realized she didn’t know what time it was. How long had she been asleep?

  She walked toward the doctors and nurses.

  “Excuse me? Excuse me?”

  She felt a hand on her shoulder.

  “Miss? Are you all right?”

  She turned and looked at the smiling nurse. Her heart jumped up in her throat as the memories flooded back in her mind. The nurse’s face stretched up and down, her smile cracking into a zigzag. She tilted her head and spoke again, revealing gaping holes in her mouth and jagged teeth that looked ready to bite.

  Natalie screamed, the sound wrenching through her throat painfully. Her eyes dropped to the woman’s pocket where two ink pens were stored. She snatched the pens, closed her eyes and drove one into each of her eyes, instantly blacking out.

  ***

  Natalie woke up to blackness. Her head was spinning but she felt a euphoria she guessed could only have come from some major painkillers.

  She felt needles in her body now, and she knew she was back in the hospital bed.

  “H… Hello?” She could barely get the words through her dry, cracked throat.

  She felt movement next to her.

  “Natalie?”

  She recognized Jim’s voice.

  “Jim? Is that you?”

  “I’m so glad you’re back, Natalie. My God, you’ve been out for three days. I didn’t think you were coming back.”

  Natalie felt confusion slide through her. “You’ve been here all this time?”

  “No, I have a job.” She could hear the humor in his voice. It was faint. She could tell he was trying to cheer her up. “I’ve been here a lot though. I was so worried about you. Why would you do something like that, Natalie? What were you seeing?”

  Natalie tried not to let the memory of the demon faces come to mind. She blocked it out as best she could. “What… what do you mean? Why do you think I saw something?”

  “I have something to tell you, Natalie. You have to stay calm though, all right? It’s something you need to know.”

  Natalie pressed her lips together, fear engulfing her. “Tell me.”

  She heard Jim pull in a breath. “The accident triggered an investigation. The police wanted to know why you had a seizure. Sometimes people who drink a lot have them. They went through your bathroom to look for drugs. They tested everything.” Jim hesitated.

  “Keep going.” Natalie couldn’t imagine where Jim could possibly be going with this. She didn’t do drugs and had none in her bathroom.

  “They found that a really strong hallucinogen had been injected into your toothpaste. It showed up under testing. Someone wanted you to have a really bad day. The drug was only temporary, lasting about 30 to 40 hours.”

  Natalie swallowed, tears trying to come to her damaged eyes.

  “I’m going to live?” she asked in a shaky voice.

  “Now that you’re out of the coma, you will,” Jim replied. “But Natalie, who would want to do something like that to you?”

  Natalie shook her head.

  “I don’t know.”

  She listened to him continue talking, not really hearing what he was saying. She would be blind for the rest of her life because of a prank someone had pulled on her. That’s why her bathroom door was open and her light was on.

  She focused on Jim’s voice, wishing she’d been able to see him.

  At least once.

  Just one glimpse.

  * * *

  The Sound of Bone

  By David Longhorn

  “I thought it would be a
real ghost town!” exclaimed Mari, pouting a little. “Like, with abandoned buildings and stuff! I saw one in California, years ago. It was cool, in a sad way. But this is just—well, this is nothing.”

  Richard sighed as he engaged the parking brake. He had tried to explain what they would see. Or rather, what they would not see. He began to explain again.

  “Darling,” he said, “the village was abandoned at the time of the Black Death. That plague struck in the fourteenth century. Any buildings have long since collapsed, or more likely were plundered for stone as soon as the plague passed.”

  Mari looked ahead at green fields and scrubby clumps of trees. There was nobody else in sight, apart from one distant figure that Richard thought might actually be a scarecrow. It was stationary in a hedgerow and leaning at a slight angle.

  “So, what’s the point of coming here?” Mari persisted. “If there’s nothing to see. So many bits of British heritage are like—like, I dunno, kind of an anti-Disneyworld!”

  Richard stifled a second sigh. He gestured out through the windshield.

  “We can still see the lines in the fields where the old buildings stood. A whole community, Hallowfield, with dozens of families. Archaeologists have found lots of interesting items.”

  Mari looked slightly less bored at that.

  “Treasure?” she asked hopefully. “They found, like, gold coins and stuff? Because I’m not getting out of this car to look for fragments of pottery.”

  Richard had to smile at that. He and Mari were as unlike as chalk and cheese, and the old adage that opposites attract seemed to hold true. His very English love of the past did not impress her. Her fascination with the modern and fashionable baffled him, and ascribed it to her adventurous, can-do American character. But they still got along well. So well, in fact, that they had just visited his parents for the first time, acting like a regular couple.

  “We could be back in London by now,” grumbled Mari, checking her phone. “But, hey, go and tramp around in a muddy field, fall over a few times. I’ll be right here, professor. Safe and warm. Finishing off the potato chips.”