by Tim Miller
He sounded like an older guy, but I couldn’t see him in the dark. I managed to grab my flashlight, which had rolled a few feet away from me.
“This girl. She’s either crazy, or flipped out on drugs or something. But she’s strong as hell. She assaulted several people in the street, nearly killed one of your techs and just knocked me out.”
“I’m not sure if ‘crazy’ is a correct diagnosis. What happened to the lights?” he asked.
“I have no idea,” I said. They went off after she got loose. She just talked to me in three different people’s voices too. So yeah, I have no idea.”
“Well, I’ll help you find her. My office is just outside the psych unit. Let me take a look at you, make sure you’re not injured.”
We stood and walked down the hall, where he unlocked another heavy door that led into an office. It was fairly roomy, but still dark. I handed him my flashlight, as he examined my face.
“Yeah, you’re gonna have a nice shiner,” he said. “No blood or swelling. Nose isn’t broken.”
“So, what do you think is up with this girl, doctor? I mean, I’m not religious, but she acts like she’s demon possessed or something.”
“That’s a fairly common phenomenon with psychotic patients, especially if drugs or alcohol is involved. Religion actually can be somewhat scientific.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“We are wired to be spiritual. Your temporal lobe is the part of the brain where that occurs.” Through the dim light of the flashlight, I could see him pointing at the side of his head. “Some of us are more prone to spirituality than others. The same way some are more creative, while others are more scientific, it’s all in what parts of our brain are most active. When a religious person has an injury to their temporal lobe, temporal lobe epilepsy, or certain chemical imbalances, this causes ‘hyper-religiosity.’ That’s when you see people who think they are Jesus Christ, or the Virgin Mary.”
“Is that what’s happening with her, you think?”
“Could be, could be a combination of things. I’d have to examine her to know for sure. How did she get loose?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. I had her handcuffed to the bed. The cuffs weren’t broke. She must have wiggled her way out somehow.”
“Well, let’s go see if we can find her. It’s not safe for her, or anyone else, with her running loose in the hospital. Do you know her name?”
“Nope. I don’t have any info on her at all.”
“Interesting,” he said. There was a crash and shouting from the hallway. We both ran out and saw several flashlights waving around. Shouts came from down the hall. We ran that direction, to see a group of the security guards who had the girl subdued. They were in a pile, with her pinned underneath. She screamed and flailed as we approached.
“Rape this bitch you fat fuckers!” she yelled. “Shove your cocks into this rotten cunt! Her cunt will rip off your sorry peckers!”
I ignored her screams, pulled out my Taser and shot her, hitting her in the upper back. She screamed a horrific sound, as her body twitched and convulsed. After a few seconds I released the trigger, and she stopped moving.
“Go get a gurney,” the doctor said to one of the guards. “And restraints, full body restraints.”
He returned a few minutes later. We strapped the girl to the gurney, and placed double restraints on her hands and feet, and a restraining belt around her waist. Hopefully that would hold her. We wheeled her to the psych unit and into one of the secure rooms, and locked the door. There had been several laws over the years, related to patient rights about whether or not you could lock up a psych patient. I didn’t think we could, but for now, she was going to stay locked down. Once it was secured, I leaned against the door.
“Jesus Christ,” I said. “What do we do with this kid?”
“Hopefully she’ll sleep for a bit. I’ll get her some medication. That should calm her down.”
“Shit, I hope so. The Taser seemed to work. Maybe we could just give her some shock therapy.”
Doctor Bennett shook his head.
“I won’t rule anything out at this point,” he said.
Chapter 5
12:00 a.m.
For some reason the lights still hadn’t come on. No one had any idea why they were out in the first place, or when they might come back. My cell phone buzzed in my pocket. It was dispatch.
“I’m still here,” I said. “The girl is detained for now, but I’m going to stick around for a bit. She might wake up and flip out again.”
The dispatcher’s name was Jennifer. She’d only been working there a few months, but she knew her stuff.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I'm fine, why?”
“You just sound really shaken,” Jennifer said.
“She decked me pretty good earlier, it was quite a scene. Guess I'm just on an adrenaline dump.”
“Well, be careful. I got some info on the girl. A group home outside of town reported a runaway, to county, yesterday afternoon. I’ll email you her picture. Her name is Amanda Ross. Fifteen years old, blonde hair, brown eyes, about five-foot-three.”
“Yep, that sounds like her.”
“According to the report, she began acting bizarre. She was yelling and screaming, even bit one of the social workers. She busted out a window and took off, on foot.”
“What the hell?”
“So she hit you?” she asked.
“Yeah, knocked me on my ass. This kid is crazy. I’ll tell you later. You won’t believe it anyway.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“Interesting isn't the half of it. Not sure what I’ll put in my report. Anyway, I’m gonna go check on things. Later.”
I stepped back into the main psych unit. Doctor Bennett was there talking to one of the nurses. I couldn’t see her name tag though. I looked through the window of the seclusion room. Amanda was awake and looking around. Her face wasn’t distorted like before.
“Hey Doc,” I said. “You might want to see this.” He came over and watched the girl.
“Well, well. I should go talk to her. She might be lucid.” He unlocked the door and stepped inside. I came in with him, in case she had another episode. The room was were still dark, except for the faint light from my flashlight. I pulled the doctor aside before he we got to her bed, and told him what I’d learned. We turned back toward her.
“Amanda,” he said. “Can you hear me?” She looked around at each of us. I tried to hold the light at an angle where it wouldn’t be right in her face.
“What’s going on? Where am I?”
“You’re in the hospital. My name is Doctor Bennett. Do you remember anything?”
She looked around, from me and then to the doctor, and back.
“Last thing I remembered, another girl at the group home was arguing with me. I started to feel dizzy, and that’s it.”
“Well, you’re safe now. We’ll let the home know you’re here. I’m going to keep an eye on you for a few days.”
Despite all he’d seen, Dr. Bennett was very calm, almost fatherly, as he spoke to her. I’m sure he was a good psychiatrist. Listening to him was making me feel better. Amanda was totally different now, for some reason. I don’t know if the Taser caused her to snap out of it or what. She seemed like a normal, frightened child.
“Thank you, doctor. I’m really scared,” she said.
“I’m sure you are. I’ll have the nurse give you something to help you stay calm.” Amanda jerked up in bed, her arms still bound, and began screaming. Not the horrible thing from earlier, but screaming, in pain.
“No! No! Help me!” she screeched. “It’s happening again! Make it stop!” She started flopping back and forth on the bed. Her screams changed into the animal-like growls she’d been doing earlier. Even though they were off already, the fluorescent light bulbs in the ceiling began to shatter, as glass shards rained down on us. The girl began bouncing up and down, taking the whole bed with her,
a loud banging sound echoed in the room each time the bed hit the floor.
“You,” she said, looking right at me. Her eyes appeared to glow in the darkness. “Murderer. Hahaha! Murderer!” Doctor Bennett looked at me, confused. I didn’t know what to say. “What doc? Didn’t know you got a killer cop helping you? Tell him Petey. Tell him how you killed your momma. Your poor sick momma.”
“What is she talking about?” the doctor asked. “How does she know you?”
“I don’t know! That’s what I was trying to tell you earlier. Is this part of that temporal shit you were talking about?”
“No, it isn’t,” a voice from the doorway answered. We turned, and saw a man walking toward us. A priest. Are you kidding me? A priest? Could this night get more weird?
“Father Pierce? What are you doing here?” Doctor Bennett asked. I looked at him as he continued. “He’s one of our chaplains.”
“One of the nurses called me, and told me what was going on.” Pierce said.
“And just what did she say was going on?” Bennett asked.
“She thought someone was possessed by demons.” Even in the dark I could see Doctor Bennett’s eye-roll.
“That nurse was out of line,” Bennett said. “No one is demon possessed.”
The conversation involved yelling, so they could hear each other over the commotion Amanda was making.
“Typically I’d agree with you. This particular nurse doesn’t believe in such things, but she was quite frightened. The rest of the staff is afraid, as well. My undergrad was in psychology, so I’m no witch doctor, but you and I both know that this isn’t schizophrenia or anything else we’ve seen.”
“So, what are you going to do? An exorcism? Doesn’t that have to be approved or something?” Doctor Bennett asked.
“Didn’t say I was going to do anything, yet. I’ll assist you in any way I can, until we know more, if that’s okay.”
“I suppose. Would you mind changing into some scrubs? I think the sight of a priest will make her worse.”
“You’re probably right,” Pierce said. “And hello officer, I didn’t mean to ignore you.”
“No problem sir,” I said. “I’m just here to help.”
“Very good. You can start by praying. For all of us.”
Chapter 6
12:15 a.m.
Father Pierce stepped back into the room, wearing scrubs. He looked slightly younger than Doctor Bennett, but had less hair. Amanda’s screaming had calmed, and she was now lying there growling. For some reason, having the priest in the room made me more nervous.
“You think we should step out for a bit?” I asked.
“Not a bad idea,” Dr. Bennett answered.
We walked out of the room, locked the door and headed to the nurse’s station. There was a nurse and a hospital tech, who’d been watching us earlier. They were pretending to be absorbed in some paperwork. The nurse looked too young to be a nurse.. She had to be fresh out of nursing school. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail that bounced every time she moved her head. I couldn’t see her name tag. Apparently the graveyard shift on the psych ward was the best job she could get. Seemed like ten years ago, medical facilities couldn’t hire enough nurses.
“Everything okay back there?” she asked. “That girl is scary.”
“She’s definitely an interesting one,” Bennett said. “Chloe, go get her 20 mg of Geodon IM. We’ll go in with you to administer it. Also, .5 mg of Ativan, if she’ll take it. I want to get her calmed down.” The nurse, Chloe, nodded and began making notes in a chart. When she finished writing, she walked into the med room to prepare the medications.
“So, what do you think it is?” the tech asked. He didn’t look much older than the nurse, but he was heavier set, with thick black hair. He was playing with something on his phone as he spoke.
“Too early to tell. Right now, I just want to keep her from trashing the hospital.”
“One of the nurses from the ER said she’s possessed.”
“We need to have another class about confidentiality. It’s difficult enough without the staff freaking each other out,” Bennett said.
“What do you think Father?” the tech asked.
“I haven’t seen enough to convince me it’s anything other than mental illness,” he said.
“Hey Father, I wanted your thoughts on something,” I said.
“Sure.”
“Sometimes she yelled a bunch of gibberish, but some of it sounded like another language. The one nurse said it was Greek. Doc didn’t know what to make of it. You ever heard of that?”
“Not associated with a mental illness, no. This isn’t the movies though, so it’s not necessarily demon possession either.”
I didn’t mention the murderer comments she’d made. No point in bringing any more attention to that than necessary. Chloe stepped out of the med room, with a syringe, wearing a pair of rubber gloves.
“We ready guys?” she asked. Just as she spoke there was a scream from Amanda’s room, then a loud crash. We all turned that direction, at the end of the unit, as the door flew off its hinges and crashed against the wall. Amanda leapt from the room, turned and faced us. She began running straight toward us.
“Motherfucker!” Chloe yelled, as Amanda charged at her. I jumped at Amanda, knocking her to the ground, before she reached Chloe. She flung me off her as if I was a rag doll, and punched me in the face, again. She grabbed the syringe from Chloe’s hand and stabbed at her with it. Chloe put her arm up to block it, and took the injection in the forearm. Amanda let go, as the syringe stuck out from Chloe’s arm, the plunger had been pushed down. Chloe pulled it out, and stumbled behind the nurse’s desk. The doctor and chaplain stepped away, and Amanda circled around, growling at them.
“Forgive me father,” she said to Father Pierce, “Gia eímai amartía.” She jumped onto the desk, leapt up at the ceiling and knocked away one of the ceiling panels. As she sprang again, she pulled herself up and disappeared into the vents, through the ceiling.
“You gotta be shittin’ me,” I said, looking at the opening where she’d just disappeared. “You okay?” I asked Chloe, who was already falling asleep. She took a strong dose, and she’ll probably sleep all day and night. I looked at Doctor Bennett, who, for the first time, looked concerned. “Well doc?”
“I guess we need to find Amanda. Again.”
“What kind of design is that?” I asked, pointing at the ceiling.
“Not a good one obviously. But I’ve been here for over twenty years, and no one has ever jumped up like that.” He scratched his chin, looking up at the opening. “She could be anywhere now.”
“No way any of us can go up there,” I said. “We’re all too heavy. The ceiling would come crashing down.”
“That was Greek,” Father Pierce said.
“What?” I asked.
“That thing she yelled at me. In English she said ‘Forgive me father,’ then in Greek she said ‘For I am sin.’”
That’s just great. My shift wasn't even half over. This night showed no sign of being over. Ever.
Chapter 7
12:35 a.m.
I asked Father Pierce to join me in the hallway. Fortunately, there were some extra flashlights in the nurse’s station, so he had one too. We went back to the hallway, and listened for any strange sounds. There hadn’t been a peep from the girl since she disappeared into the ceiling.
“Unit A-367,” my radio squawked.
“Go ahead,” I replied.
“You still at the hospital?”
“Affirmative.”
“We just received a 911 from there. On the fifth floor, the nurse advised there was a female subject running through the hall. Subject attacked another nurse.”
“10-4,” I said. Shit.
“Fifth floor?” Father Pierce repeated, “That’s the pediatric floor.”
“Fuck me,” I looked at the priest, who had no reaction. “Sorry Father.”
“Don’t worr
y about it,” he said. With the power still out, we’ll have to take the stairs to the fifth floor.
“You know where the stairwell is?” I asked.
“This way, follow me.” We walked down the long hall, and through a doorway, into the dark stairwell. As if total darkness wasn’t enough, our every movement echoed throughout the concrete walls and metal staircase. It was dark and loud. I don’t creep out easily, but chasing a possessed girl through a dark hospital, in the middle of the night, wasn’t at the top of my list of cool things to do.
We’d walked up several steps, when the lights came back on. At the top of the stairwell, the girl was standing, snarling at us. The lights turned back off, and then came back on again. This time she was gone, in total darkness.
“What the hell? Did you see that?” I asked Father Pierce.
“I sure did.”
“Do you need to give us a blessing or something?”
“You watch too many movies, officer. She might just be trying to freak us out.”
“Well, she’s off to a good start.”
We climbed a few more steps and up the next few flights, with no problem. When we got to the fifth floor, I realized I needed to start doing more cardio. As we pushed the door open, someone screamed. It was coming from the other end of the hall. I shined my light in that direction, and there was a nurse standing about twenty feet away.
“Everything okay ma’am?” I asked.
“Who’s there?”
“I’m a police officer. Officer Roman. You called about a disturbance?”
“Oh yes.” She walked over to us. “You scared the crap out of me when the door opened. You got here fast.”
“I was already on the third floor. I brought the girl in earlier. She escaped from the psychiatric unit,” I explained.
“That’s crazy. She’s here somewhere. She attacked Maggie, but she’s okay. Knocked her to the ground. That kid is strong.”
“Tell me about it,” I said, as I rubbed my eye where she’d punched me earlier. “Any idea where she was last seen?”