I had to come clean. There was no reason for me to continue forward in this lie. Maybe this moment was meant to be in order to clear out the chasm that had existed between the two of us. If he couldn’t understand the extent to which I had been suffering through weirdness, then how could we go forward together into marriage?
The motivation made sense at the time, even if my story didn’t.
“It all started back at the clinic…”
I told him all about the fact that I didn’t even know the patient’s name — that none of us knew. I told him that he had shown up in a coma, and I had taken to talking with him over the course of the last few months during my breaks. I went over the details about the encounter in the admittance room. I included the descriptions about the peculiar deaths of the two patients who had asked for me by name. Then, I felt Dale’s hand on my shoulder.
The entire time I had been ranting, I hadn’t even paused to look up and see if Dale had been listening. Apparently he had, and the way he regarded me now, meant that he had not fully bought into the bizarre tale I had to tell.
“You’re not making any sense,” he told me, his hand squeezing my shoulder in consolation.
I rolled my eyes.
He was using that same voice he used when he was trying to explain something to a particularly inept nurse. He used the same pacifying tone when he spoke to his younger sister. I was neither an airy, woman of about twenty, or an inept nurse. As a result, I begrudged Dale for falling into this same pattern of communication with me.
The pattern was undoubtedly one of infantilization. The fact that there were women in his life that actually knew more, or as much as Dale was a blow to his psyche which couldn’t be tolerated. The result was a bolstering of his ego through talking down to the other person, as though they simply could not help themselves. He had done it to me before, and I had berated him for it. I don’t put up with shit if I can help it, but some habits die hard, and I was too shocked to actually stand up and do something about it in the moment.
“None of the stuff you’re saying is scientifically possible,” he continued. “People don’t turn into shadows when they die, and men in comas for nine months don’t just wake up and starting jumping around. I’m sorry love, but it just isn’t possible.”
That moved me.
“Love?” I asked, narrowing my eyebrows, bitterly. “I’m giving you the unrestricted truth here, and you’re totally blowing me off!”
In spite of my angry outburst, Dale remained composed. I couldn’t tell if it was because he was at work, or if it was because he actually cared about me. Instead of blowing up in response, he simply stood up straight, and brought himself into a state of composure.
“I believe that you believe that these things are true,” he offered diplomatically.
“Such a cop out excuse,” I said. “You either understand my perspective or you don’t.”
He pulled me to the side, leaving the dead man to be tended to by the nurses in the station. They wouldn’t take him away until I had been consoled, but they were a busy establishment, and there was no room for idleness, if it could be helped. Even my conversation was tinged with the administrative pull of the building. I realized that non-verbally, Dale was reminding me that we were in a place of public work, and that he had a position of responsibility here. I took a deep breath, and allowed my mind to sit in the chaos and sadness which surrounded me.
“I think you’ve just been working too hard lately, and…”
Then I felt it.
The same feeling as I had back in the Admittance Room. There was something terrible and dark in the place, and I could feel that same creeping sensation overwhelming my senses. The feeling started in subtle, and then became sickening. I clutched at my chest, feeling a slight burning sensation, and Dale leaned in with concern.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Are you all right?”
“You don’t feel that?” I stared at him incredulously.
He began answering, but then I heard a scream from behind me. The noise came from one of the nurses attending to the dead man. Yet again, I felt a hand on my shoulder, but this time, it wasn’t a hand of consolation.
Dale’s face went white.
“We have to move,” the familiar voice said. “Now.”
I turned around so that my eyes could come into sync with my heart. Patient 888 was alive, and what’s more, is that he actually understood what I had been experiencing. He also knew how to lead us through. I gave him my faith, and my joy. It was all I had to offer — but it was enough.
It would have to be enough.
18
Roma
Dale was the first to speak up — of course.
“It’s all right,” he insisted, preemptively consoling my state of shock, as well as the yelp of the nurse by the table.
Not a single member of the room understood what was happening, except for “The Man Who Was Not Dead,” and it seemed unlikely that anyone was going to get a straight answer out of him — not even me.
“You felt it, Roma, I know you did,” Patient 888 said, urgently. “We need to go.”
“Now hold on,” Dale said in his strongest administrative tone. “Nobody’s going anywhere.”
I could tell he was doing his best to ease the worried expressions of everyone in the room, while simultaneously asserting himself into a position of dominance and authority. I had seen such tactics before around our social group, as well as around the hospital. When an emergency came forward and established itself, Dale did everything that he could to position himself as the one who brought solutions and order back to the context at hand. The feint usually worked — in that everyone usually bought into Dale’s charisma, but this time was different.
“You,” Dale continued, addressing Patient 888, “Tell me you’re name.”
“Matias,” he returned easily, though his attention was directed toward me.
“Matias,” Dale offered, attempting to ease his way into the patient’s consciousness through the use of the familiar name. “ You need to lie down, so we can check you out.”
Matias ignored Dale outright, and focused his attention entirely on me. He was demanding that I respond to him, though he didn’t need to utter a word. The sheer intensity of his eye contact spoke volumes, and carried more authority than Dale could ever hope to achieve in his life. Sad to say it, but something changed right there. I couldn’t ever think of Dale the same way again.
In spite of his other flaws, Dale was not a stupid man, though arrogance and pretense occasionally dominated his personality. He caught onto all of the subtle cues that were being exchanged between myself and the environment. He assessed the authority he held on the floor, as well as the authority he would need to continue to maintain control throughout the rest of the ER. I felt him do all of this, and yet, it seemed like little more than the waves of a troubled mind.
The true threat my intuition perceived was not coming from Dale — not by a long shot.
“We have to go,” Matias urged once more.
His attention was focused on me entirely, and he commanded my attention without an ounce of effort on his part. The difference between him and Dale was like day and night. My only confusion at this point was why I hadn’t felt this level of clarity in my understanding before.
“You can feel them,” Matias continued. “I know you can. Do you have the mark?”
He looked at me urgently, directing my focus.
“Look, Matias…” Dale began, trying to push him back down onto the cart. “I really think you ought to take it easy. You’ve been through a lot, and sometimes…”
He was unable to budge Matias, as the size difference was comical. It wasn’t that Matias was much taller, but he was substantially more built. Compared to Dale, he was a mountain of a man. Dale gave up, and brought his stethoscope out from the side of his jacket.
“Have you been targeted?” Matias continued, completely ignoring Dale’s efforts.
&nb
sp; “This doesn’t make sense…” Dale began to say.
His stethoscope was centered on Matias’s bare chest. I looked at him, and knew without asking that he wasn’t going to be able to find a heartbeat either. The norm was not the rule of the day — today was governed by the paranormal.
The feeling of cold began to grow stronger. I watched as the hairs on my arm rose erect in response to the temperature change. Those around me responded to the cold as well, though they only pulled their jackets around their bodies tighter. Their hearts did not burn with the anticipation of demonic energies. Their chests had not been, as Matias had expressed, ‘targeted’, or ‘marked.’
I narrowed my eyes and focused on Matias. The internal feelings of anxiety and fear began to grow past a threshold of tolerance. I remembered the terror I had felt in the clinic, and again at home with the hellhound. I had been covering up the response through some form of coping mechanism. Once the scab was threatened to be picked again, the recent psychic wounds, in all of their freshness began to overwhelm me.
The fear came back. The terror of what I knew would be here in only a matter of moments.
“You have to come with me,” Matias pleaded.
His tone was not pleading, but I saw the petition in his eyes. He spoke out of compassion, and an understanding of the situation, though he still respected my autonomy. He needed my will to be consistent with his own before we moved forward.
“It’s what is right,” Matias said, with finality. “I know you can feel it.”
“You can’t be honestly considering this,” Dale interjected. “The two of you have been through a serious and traumatic experience, but I can’t endorse a mutually validated fantasy about people whose bodies turn into shadows when they die.”
Matias maintained his composure, and for a moment, I considered staying put in the hospital.
“I’m calling security,” Dale announced, though I could tell that the threat was empty.
Whatever I decided, that is what would be the guiding course for the events to follow.
I made up my mind, and turned around to flee the hospital. When the demons came, they would be speaking my name. They would be searching for me. As far as I knew, none of these people would have to deal with them — but I would. Both Matias, and I had heard my name in the growls of the hell-hound.
Staying at Dale’s side, and waiting for security to arrive was out of the question.
19
Roma
I ran away from the scene in the hallway of the emergency room, as fast as my legs would carry me. The tiles few under my feet, and the bright red exit signs which held their sentinel at the opening to the parking garage loomed in my vision. Beyond the red glow, darkness, and then freedom.
My lungs burned, and I could feel the muscles in my legs straining from the sudden sprint. I might not have pushed so hard, but even at my peak, Matias was one step ahead of me. I could feel the urgency in his movements. He was eager to put as much distance between ourselves and the hospital as possible, and I knew to keep with him would mean safety for everyone involved. In spite of all of the danger, I remember feeling truly alive — maybe for the first time in my life.
In the exertion, I realized something crucial:
Acting was never something that I had wanted.
At an early age, my mother had pushed the career of acting onto me. The reasons for going into the entertainment field were as basic as one can get. She idolized the early actresses who had so much glory and fame in their hay day. My mother had fallen to an accident which had deprived her of the ability to partake in that glory herself, but her genetics were impeccable. If she could not be the next Monroe or Hepburn, then gods be damned — I would do that for her.
Of course, she didn’t phrase things that way.
Most of the time, she spoke about acting in a way which suggested that she felt it would be the best way for me to get into a position of power in my life. From her perspective, the beauty and glory of fame offered a woman rare protections and opportunities that were not offered to the common woman. In a sense, she was right, but I had never found that level of success.
As a childhood star, I was given success early and premature. The benefits that she had strategized for my future did not arrive. As for her surrogate movie star existence — that did not arrive either.
Now the parking lot disappeared, and a fence, hidden behind a row of bushes was transversed. The sharp pains of the wooden branches jarred me out of my spiteful reverie. There was no stopping Matias. He pushed on, without pause, or consideration for the pain caused by the bushes. The implication was that I would keep up.
That I must keep up.
We got through, and came to the railroad tracks on the other side. He retained the pace of the sprint, and we pushed still further into the unknown, and away from the hospital.
Being on the grounds of the hospital, and now away from them, the realization came to me that Dale had done the same thing as my mother — well, relatively so. My mother had encouraged me to be an actress, and Dale had coerced me into being a caretaker. As I ran, I realized that for once in my life, I was taking action based on the feelings that I had about my situation.
Once we got far enough away from the hospital, Matias began to slow down enough to where I was able to grab his hospital gown, and pull to get his attention. Graciously, he slowed down long enough for me to choke out a panting cry for explanation.
“What the hell is going on?”
It took me longer than I’d like to admit to get that simple phrase out, but I wasn’t in nearly the shape that I used to be in. Matias on the other hand, looked like he could have kept going all night, and not broken pace for one moment.
“What year is it?” he asked, looking at me with concern and appraisal in his eyes.
Pretty obvious question, but Coma patients tend to have trouble with placement and timelines. I told him, and his eyes darkened in response. I caught my breath, and he sat down on the railroad tracks, balancing his ass on the rail and keeping his legs crossed. He looked like a madman, meditating in the wilderness. The hospital robe didn’t fit his muscular physique, and so I got a clear glimpse at his inner thighs while he sat down. The fabric had to have been only inches away from his package.
I blushed, and hoped that he didn’t realize I was blushing, due to the fact that I was already red in the face from exertion.
“Had to have been the 1500’s…” he began to mutter.
“1500’s?” I asked, ready to divert the topic from my own embarrassment, and perhaps get some more answers.
“That was the last time I was on Earth,” he replied, stretching his hands upward toward the air.
My eye got caught on the muscular patterns of his chest and shoulders. There was a distinct triangular fold to the fabric, with slight windows in, where the fabric of the nightgown wasn’t sufficient to cover his broad frame. The result was my own private peep show, which I am not ashamed to say — I indulged.
“In spite of what you’ve been through, it may be difficult for you to believe me. Still, I have to share this with you. I am an angel.”
Still checking him out, I bit my lip and nodded.
“I believe you,” I replied.
“The creatures which have been stalking you. The creatures which have laid waste to your apartment, and to the clinic at which you were posted; those are the demons of Hell. Each one has a particular skill and menace. Each one has been sent here, it seems, specifically for you.”
Finally, his words broke through.
“What do you mean, specifically for …”
Then it dropped. The war in Heaven. Marked by demons. I had played through this drama before.
“What is it?” he asked, sensing that I had just come onto something.
I looked up at him, and all of the pleasure of my private fantasies had been drained out from my mind.
“Hells Bells,” I replied.
He nodded; that was all that neede
d to be said.
20
Roma
Making believe that your new man-crush is an angel is easy enough after you’ve been through the kind of traumatic shit that I had been through that day. Still, there was some rational part of my mind that didn’t know what to say about it.
“An angel?” I asked, preferring to believe that somebody had dosed me with a particularly malicious hallucinogen while I had been at the clinic — some disgruntled ex addict, with a grudge.
I don’t know.
The point is, I’m not exactly a practicing catholic, so the idea that an angel would personally visit me, and save my life multiple times was not something that I ever thought would happen to me.
“If you’re an angel, then what’s the deal with your healing?”
I needed to get some clarity, and there were too many questions in mind.
“I don’t have the ability to heal myself based on some kind of magic spell,” he began. “That’s not how it works. Magic doesn’t come from just anywhere — humans in the 1500’s understood that much at least. I imagine the experience is much more clandestine now.”
“What are you talking about?” I shook my head — speak clearly, please.
“Sure,” he continued. “I derive my power from God. If God wants me to be healed, then that is the way that it shall be. After all, this form is just a passing vessel.”
“Clandestine?” I probed.
“Like your Hell’s Bells experience no doubt.”
“That was from a shitty sitcom.”
“Well, you don’t look like a court astrologer, but that doesn’t mean that the same powers are not active within this current context.”
“You’re saying my sitcom had influence with some kind of demon?”
“Don’t waste our time Roma, I didn’t say that, you did — and furthermore, I’d say it is because you already have an intuitive understanding of what is going on here. Now, how many more questions do I need to answer before we can get going? Or, would you prefer to stay here and wait for the Legions of Darkness to find our position?”
Legends of the Damned: A Collection of Edgy Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels Page 300