"Isn't there anything else you could tell us?" said Charlie. "Some way to beat him?"
"I've already told you that," she said.
"How did you avoid him?" I said. "How did he let you shoot your husband and burn everything? Why didn't he show up to stop you?"
She had a grimacing smile. "That's because I -"
There was a knock on the door and Jennifer immediately clamped her mouth shut. I stared at the door in dismay. Had they seen Jennifer's outburst? Were they throwing us out? But we were so close, Jennifer seemed like she had something to tell us!
The door opened a crack. Since the door opened to our side of the room, Jennifer couldn't see who was on the other side, but I could. It was the orderly, Laurie.
"John," she said in a half whisper. She gave me a come hither.
Confused, I got up and walked out into the hall with her. She let the door close. There was another orderly standing guard, but no doctor. It didn't seem like we were getting tossed out.
"What is it?" I asked.
She smiled. "Your wife just stopped by, she said you had forgotten your keys today and she wanted to make sure you had them before she went to work." She handed me a set of keys.
"My wife?" I said in confusion and shock. Especially since I hadn't forgotten my keys - I was the one who had driven. I looked down at the keychain. There were only two keys on it, neither of which I recognized. But when I saw what dangled from the keychain, my heart skipped a beat.
A plastic figure of Hornswaggle.
Then every single light shut off simultaneously, leaving us in total darkness.
The keychain had already started my panic, but the darkness was even worse. We were deep in the hospital and there were no windows, so everything was black. Laurie gasped and I heard various startled noises from nearby. But none of those were a concern as I searched the darkness for actual danger. For evil. I could smell it already: the familiar smell of rot and manure.
Then I heard it: the clomping of hooves, like the ghostly form of the headless horseman was going to come riding through the place. But I knew I was not so lucky; I knew this was far worse than some old folktale. The clomping came quickly, rushing through the hall. Laurie had just managed to turn on a flashlight she carried on her own keychain as the hooves came close and we were both tossed to the side as the dark form of Hornswaggle rammed through the door into the observation room.
I struggled to my feet, hearing the sounds of a struggle in the room. I heard Jennifer cry out in pain, and then there were some ugly sounds - wet sounds, breaking sounds. I grabbed at Laurie's flashlight, which had fallen to the floor. Once I had it, I swept the floor, desperately looking for the keys which had fallen from my hand when I was thrown to the ground. I heard more sounds from the room, but I was focused on my frantic search.
The beam fell upon the keys. I lunged forward, my fingers closing around the key ring. At the same time, large hands grabbed me, hauling up into the air. I knew that grip well, I was just glad it was not on my throat this time. The smell was overpowering. The beam of the flashlight was up, right up into his face. I had seen that horrible horse face on the roof and again at my apartment, but this time it was more disturbing than ever. It was lit below by the flashlight, giving it a campfire horror look, the red eyes glowing through the shadows. But I could also see blood and gore that had splattered across Hornswaggle's mane and hair. Even in my sudden fear, I was aware that my middle finger just barely held the key ring, dangling from the underside of my first knuckle.
"You continue to be a problem, Detective," said that gravelly deep voice, this time something shrill and forced added to it. Anger, frustration, venom. "Stop digging. This doesn't concern you. It has never concerned you."
"You're killing people! You killed Nick!" I said, my voice strained by the painful hold he had of me, each of his hands digging into the area just below my ribs. I delicately tried to get a better grip on the key ring with one hand, trying to go slow so I didn't drop it. Behind Hornswaggle, I saw a light, probably a flashlight, click on in the observation room. It danced across blood splattered walls.
"Mere humans, mere nobodies," said Hornswaggle. "As are you. Don't think that just because you are protected by another that I will not kill you. I have done that courtesy to your master, but if you keep interfering even you too shall die, Detective!"
"My master?" I said in confusion. "I have no master."
The demon let out a neighing laugh, a cackling whinny. "It does not matter. You will all serve me eventually. It is inevitable. You will all serve to pay back your debt."
"I'd never serve you," I said, less defiance in my voice than I would like due to fear and confusion.
"You are all insignificant to me, you forget your rightful place!" said the demon. "I gave you humans everything when you crawled out of the trees! The secrets of the fields, the mastery of the battlefield, the taming of the beasts! And you still turned away from me! You forgot me! No more! You are going to remember! I will make you remember! You and your children... and your children's children!"
The light behind Hornswaggle was now focused on the creature's back. I had an idea of who held it.
"You'll never rule us," I said. "Now!"
Hornswaggle was confused by my sudden shout, but it was not for him. Charlie rammed his shoulder into Hornswaggle's back. His hope and mine was that the force of his charge would be enough to knock Hornswaggle down. We were not so lucky. The monster did not fall. However, it was enough to shock Hornswaggle and cause him to stumble.
The large hands which held me let go, dumping me on the ground. Hornswaggle spun around to swat Charlie with the back of his hand. Charlie stumbled against the wall, his own flashlight tumbling to the floor.
But this was enough of an opening. Hornswaggle might have dropped me to the ground in the darkness, but I still held the key ring. I put the Hornswaggle figure on the ground, then slammed the base of my hand down on it, breaking the figure into pieces.
The lights were suddenly back on, as if they had never gone out. I could almost have considered it all a delusion, a fevered waking nightmare, but I could see the traces of the fight. Laurie and the orderly unconscious on the floor, the linoleum dented by heavy hooves, the blood on the walls of the observation room, and Charlie struggling to his feet.
I would have helped Charlie up, I would have seen if the others were seriously hurt, but there was something that burned in my mind. Hornswaggle had help. Some ally had been here, my "wife". It was through their keychain that Hornswaggle was here. And I knew if the beast had allies, we needed to know who they were. So rather than stay and help, I ran.
As fast as I could, I took the halls that I had memorized, rushing by confused nurses and administrators who did not yet know why they had a power failure. I poured on the speed, having the hope that I could just catch a glimpse of Hornswaggle's confederate. Maybe we could get a lead out of them. If not, we would at least just know our enemy.
I pushed my way through the waiting room door, then I burst through the front doors of the hospital, out into the hot and sunny daytime. I slowed to a halt, my head darting from side to side, looking for any sign of my enemy. I saw a blue compact sedan screech out of the parking lot, clearly in a hurry. I wanted to look and memorize the license plate, maybe get in my car and follow.
But I couldn't.
The young girl I had dubbed the Seer stepped out from the cover of the building next to me, standing in front of me. I found myself immobile in shock. But it wasn't shock because I had seen her, though her actions were very surprising.
No, I was immobile from the four inches of the dagger she had thrust into my chest.
Fifteen
Getting stabbed is nothing like being cut, beaten, slashed, or otherwise wounded. Even the worst of those still feel like surface injuries, like things being done to parts of you. The pain is there, but something in you is still whole, some amoeba-like consciousness that pulls back and wails at the horrible se
nsations happening to their meat suit. Getting stabbed - really stabbed, a few inches in the chest - is different. The pain is there, of course, but there's a greater shock. There's a greater crisis. Something has been thrust deep into your center, into your organs, your guts, your sense of self. You don't think about the pain at first. You think about the icy intrusion, about how your soul hurts. You think about how you are going to die.
With a dagger in my chest, I had no action to make, no witty response, no counter attack. The world went cold and I gasped for breath.
"The world is now saved." The Seer spat the words in my face. Her pale face showed triumph mixed with grim purpose. I wished to study her face for some remorse, some deeper reaction as the color was draining from the world, but she turned away and disappeared.
My legs gave out and I sank to the ground. I was only barely conscious of blood flowing down me and the dagger which was still in me. I hit my knees, looking up into the sky which was rapidly draining of color and emotion like everything else. I pulled the knife out - I don't know why. Maybe I just wanted to die clean. It clattered to the ground and the bleeding increased. Was this where my life ended? Alone in a parking lot in front of a mental hospital?
I soon learned that I wasn't destined to die alone.
"Holy shit! John?" Charlie's voice, startled, frantic. I felt his hands on me. Lifting me and bringing me somewhere. Was Hornswaggle still around? Were we unsafe?
I was put in the backseat of my car. It was so cold and the pain was mounting. I could hear myself gasping, grunting, squealing in pain. My breathing was heavy, husky, wet. Each inhale was coming slower and shallower, the exhales more painful, more blocked. I felt like I wasn't getting anything in and I was exhaling my life. I writhed in the backseat, my blood probably staining the cushions.
"Hold on, buddy, hold on!" said Charlie with a nervous look from the front seat, his eyes darting back to the driving.
I couldn't hold on.
What came next was a dark place. I was laying on my back, but I wasn't in the car anymore. I didn't know what had happened. I simply closed my eyes and was here. Whatever lay beneath me was hard and elevated off the ground; I somehow knew that. I wasn't indoors or outdoors, I felt like I was underground. The air felt cramped, almost suffocating, but it wasn't warm. This place was cold, icy cold. And wet. I could hear the constant dripping of water as if there was a leak somewhere. Beyond that there was another sound - torrential rain? Or the massive sound of the ocean? The air was cold but thick, smelling of oil, chemicals, metal, blood, and mold. I didn't draw breath, but the scent still filled my nose.
My pain was gone, but I still felt terrible. The massive pain had been replaced with a coldness that seared me, that made me sweat, that made me feeble. I couldn't tell if I had died and it was a cruel trick that you were as vulnerable as when you died, or if I was hallucinating, still in the backseat, still dying.
Drip drip.
I looked up and saw someone I hadn't noticed before. I knew her a moment before I recognized her height and build. It was Katie Vanders. She stood a few feet away from the place I lay, looking down on me. In her hand she carried a staff that stretched above her head and curved back down to hold a hanging lantern. That light - the only light of this place - only illuminated half of her face, the rest disappearing into dark shadow. The look on her face was mournful, but it was subdued. No tears fell, she did not wince or say anything, but she was so sad. The lamp she held swung back and forth, sometimes disappearing behind her to create a halo behind her head. I noticed that the light seemed to show the motion of rain, as if we were in a storm, but I felt nothing fall upon my skin.
Drip drip.
There were suddenly others in the room. They did not walk in, it was as if they just appeared, rising up from the darkness of the floor to stand around me. Black forms of men, seemingly made of oil or mud. Their skin was fluid, constantly flowing off them as if there were geysers on the top of their heads. The speed at which the black liquid flowed over them was the only thing that differed - for some it was fast, others it was slow. I could vaguely make out human-like features below the oil in the poor light; but this was only the sparsest gesture of cheeks, of noses, of perhaps mouths.
Drip drip.
I could see Katie behind them, her face averted, but still tense. She didn't want to see what would come next but she could not help but bear witness. The black figures crowded in around me, almost completely obscuring Katie from view. They leaned forward, pushing their dark featureless faces toward me, as if I were a patient on an examining table. But this was no comfortable examination, as there were at least eight of these dark men, pushing forward and leering at me from every direction. I could see no eyes with which they looked at me, but I felt their gaze, somehow behind that black stuff all over them - or perhaps as part of that inky darkness. In panic, my lungs heaved for a breath it could not find. I shuddered, continually gasping for air I could not get, yet not finding myself suffocating.
Drip drip.
The black figures pulled back so that they were no longer leaning over me, but they were still crowded around the table. And then I heard the voice.
"KEATS."
Everything in my body seized up again. It was that voice. That horrible voice, that voice of darkness I had experienced once upon a pyramid disjointed in time and space back at Bellingham. It was the voice I wished I never heard, the voice I dreaded hearing again. The voice I knew I would hear again. I just didn't know that this was when I would hear it.
Drip drip.
"WE ARE SPEAKING BECAUSE WE ARE ONCE AGAIN IN ALIGNMENT. EVENTS HAVE PUT YOU CLOSE TO US AGAIN AS EXPECTED. YOU HAVE A PROBLEM. YOUR LIVING SYSTEMS ARE EXPIRING. YOU WILL BECOME UNSUITABLE."
Yes, I knew I was dying. I wasn't happy about it either. But I said neither of these things. Instead my body seized up, fear blossoming behind my eyes. The longer that horrible voice went on, the more it grated on every fiber of my being, making me feel so much colder. I didn't know if the voice came from one of them or all of them. Their heads all seemed to point at me, but I had no idea who addressed me. Katie still looked sad and tense, but her lips were sealed.
"BUT THIS EVENT HAS BEEN FORSEEN AND ARRANGED. WE ARE PREPARED TO REENGAGE YOUR LIVING SYSTEMS, PENDING YOUR ACCEPTANCE. WE AWAIT YOUR RESPONSE BUT TIME IS SHORT."
Drip drip.
What? Reengage my living systems? What were they talking about? Did they mean bring me back to life?
"YES, THAT IS CORRECT. BACK TO LIFE."
New ice flooded through my mind. I hadn't said anything. I know hadn't. I hadn't been able to even move my lips in anything more than a shudder. But they had understood what I was thinking!
Drip dip.
"TIME IS RUNNING SHORT. THE ALIGNMENT IS CHANGING. YOU ARE EXPIRING. WE AWAIT YOUR RESPONSE. WE AWAIT YOUR ACCEPTANCE."
I didn't know where I was, what these dark figures were, or what they were talking about. But if they were going to intervene and save my life, how could I refuse? Of course I was going to accept!
In the lens of time, we get to question some of our choices. Do I regret the life I've lived since then, or only the price of it? Would I choose differently if I lived this moment again? Sometimes I think I would.
"THE CHOICE HAS BEEN MADE. YOU WILL BE RETURNED, KEATS."
As if they never had any substance, the figures around me all melted, their black water falling directly to the ground and disappearing into the darkness of the place. This left me with Katie, who still held the only light source hanging from her staff. Her face was full of sadness and disappointment. She turned away from me and started walking, quickly swallowed up by the darkness. Her light disappeared as swiftly as her. Then there was darkness.
"Wait, where are you going?" I said, suddenly finding my voice. It was wheezing and weak, but I heard it over the sound of the rain and dripping. However, there was no response from Katie or the darkness which had devoured her. I was alone, not even having the uneasy compan
y of the dark figures.
Drip drip.
"Don't leave me! Don't leave me alone!" I shouted, getting more of my voice back.
No response came.
And then whatever rain storm, whatever ocean I had been hearing in the distance was no longer far away. I heard it loudly and clearly. I felt drops of water falling on my skin, cold and icy. One drop, two drops, five, ten, a hundred. I was getting rained upon, and it was not stopping. But it wasn't water. I was in total darkness, but I knew it wasn't water. It was that black liquid, that ink, that oil. It stuck to my skin, then clung to me. I was beginning to be encased in it, as if it were mud. I felt it moving across my body as it still rained down. It covered my face and the plunged inside my nostrils, pushing deep within my mouth. It surged down my throat, deep into my stomach, filling me up with cold darkness. I wanted to scream as I writhed and thrashed. I gurgled at first, but then put all my effort into it and finally screamed.
My voice howled weakly across the backseat, scaring Charlie, which resulted in a sharp braking and a swerve to the shoulder. I was in my car again, my clothes and the seats bloody. It was amazingly bright, even though it was only late afternoon. I felt uneasy, almost nauseous and glad the car was stopping on the shoulder, but I had a bigger priority. I clutched at my shirt and ripped it open. I looked for the wound, where the blade had been in me. I saw only a black mark. When I moved, that mark fell away, dripping down as black oil. In its place was only scar tissue - old scar tissue, as if I had been stabbed years ago and survived.
I'd like to blame the shock of seeing that for what came next, but I knew it wasn't the cause. Urgent need had me flinging the door open and leaning over. I vomited the contents of my stomach. Some would say it was due to sickness or shock, but I think my body still held the sensation of black fluid forced down into my throat and wanted to get rid of it all. What came out was just vomit, just lunch. Nothing black and horrible came out. It did not make me feel any better.
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