by Tim Miller
“She ran down this way,” she said, pointing behind her. “I’m not sure where she came from, she just appeared. The lights went off, and she was just there.”
“Okay, thank you.”
“Is that Father Pierce with you?” she asked, as she approached us.
“Yes, it’s me,” he said. “You doing okay Jolene?”
“I’m fine. What are you doing? And why are you in scrubs?”
“It’s a long story. Just trying to help Officer Roman out.”
We turned and continued down the hall before she could answer. So far, Amanda hadn’t harmed any of the patients. Hopefully she wouldn’t hurt any of the kids. We walked through the dark hall, shining the light across each doorway. The door to one of the rooms was cracked part way open. I slowly eased the door open, and saw a little girl standing inside. She couldn’t have been more than seven or eight years old, and she was staring up at me with a dead gaze. Either she was sleepwalking or was heavily medicated, or god knows what else. Father Pierce knelt down beside her.
“You okay sweetie?” he asked. She never took her eyes off me, however. “Little girl, I’m the chaplain, Father Pierce. Why aren’t you in bed? Are you okay?”
“You’re going to die tonight,” she said, still staring at me. “He knows what you did. He’s gonna get you.”
Chapter 8
12:50 p.m.
Father Pierce turned and looked at me, in disbelief.
“What’s she talking about? He knows what you did. What did you do?” he asked.
I had no idea how this girl or Amanda knew anything about me, but it had become disturbing. My past had nothing to do with the current situation. I needed to keep the focus off me, and on finding the girl, and getting her under control. This craziness had gone on long enough.
“I have no idea what she’s talking about,” I answered. “I doubt she does either.”
“Come on honey,” Father Pierce said to the girl. “Let’s get you back in bed.” He took her by the hand and walked her back to the bed, where she climbed in. Once she was in bed, he approached me.
“You still think I watch too many movies?” I questioned.
“Perhaps,” he said, as he started walking away.
I bit my lip, as I followed behind him. What the girl said had obviously unsettled him. Nothing I could do about it now. I wasn’t sure why it was even bothering me. There was no need to worry, because there was nothing for him to find out. I shined the light along the ceiling and other parts of the hallway. On the other side of the hall, there was another door, partially open. I was afraid to see what was behind that door. This was turning into some kind of nasty game, like “Let’s Make a Deal” from hell. I walked over and gently eased the door open. As I stepped into the room, I could see that the bed was empty, but in the corner, there was a body hanging from the ceiling. Next to the body was a little boy, looking at me with the same dead eyes as the little girl in the previous room.
“See what you did?” he said. “More people will die.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “What did I do? Who is going to die? Who did this?”
“He did.”
“He who?”
“The Doctor.”
“What doctor?” I asked. The kid’s expression hadn’t changed it all. He just spoke in this creepy monotone.
“He’s everywhere.”
So, that wasn’t helpful. I looked at the body. It was a young woman in scrubs. She was either a nurse or a tech. I had no way to get her down. I grabbed the boy by the hand and walked him out into the hall. Father Pierce was returning from the other direction.
“There’s a body in there,” I said. “One of the staff is hanging from the ceiling.”
“My God. What did you bring to this place?” he asked.
“Me? How was I supposed to know she’d go on some rampage? I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“I have, once. Though it wasn’t this bad, I didn’t want to jump to that conclusion.”
“You serious? What happened?” I asked.
I never believed in all this devil stuff they kept talking about, but this night's events were starting to play with my head.
“I was working at a mission in Haiti back in the ’90s. There was a young man who acted like this. He terrorized a whole village. Eventually we realized that he was actually possessed by demons.”
“I thought you said that was almost impossible?”
“It is. But it does happen. I didn’t believe it at the time either. Not until I watched him float off the ground, and tear a goat in half. It scared the hell out of me. I was working with Father Gomez, who did an exorcism. It took several sessions. They continued ten hours a day, for three weeks. We saw the boy, prayed over him, repeated the Rite of Exorcism. Finally, the demon left him, but it took its toll on both of us. Father Gomez was old at the time, and he had a heart attack shortly after. He lived, but had to retire. I had nightmares for years. I probably will again, after tonight.”
“So you think she’s possessed?”
“It’s starting to look that way. The effect she has on those around her. That’s not just mental illness. And I’ve seen everything. Are you a man of faith officer?”
“No, I’ve seen everything too. At least I thought I had, until this crazy shit.”
“After tonight, I bet you believe.”
“Don’t count on it. If doing an exorcism makes her think the demons are gone, then great. Now we have a homicide on top of everything else, which reminds me, I have to call this in.”
I got on my radio to call dispatch, but there was nothing but static. I checked my radio and the battery still had a charge. I tried a few more times, but there was nothing. I took out my cell phone and it was dead. It was almost 3 a.m., at this point. There was no backup coming, and I couldn’t call out. I went to the nurse’s desk to use the phone. Jolene was there, still looking worried.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
“Not really. Is your phone working? She took the receiver off the hook and hit a few of the line buttons. After a minute she hung it up, shaking her head. “What the hell?”
“What? Did something happen? I haven’t seen our tech, Lisa since you got here. Have you seen her?”
“No,” I lied. “I think the girl is still on the unit though, and I’ve seen evidence she is dangerous. Can you—”
There was a scream, as Amanda burst from one of the rooms and hopped onto the nurse’s desk. She crouched on all fours, snarling, as she looked back and forth at each of us, waiting to pounce. Amanda faced Jolene, a twisted grin on her face, and leaned back as if preparing to leap. Before she could, I pulled my gun and shot her once, sending her flying off the counter. I ran around the desk, keeping my gun trained on her. I’d resisted shooting her earlier, but she’d proven herself to be so dangerous, I had no choice.
I walked around the counter. She was lying on her back, holding her stomach. Blood was everywhere. She looked up at me, and this time her eyes were brown, not the weird yellow I’d seen earlier.
“Why’d you shoot me?” she pleaded, in her own voice. Amanda was back to herself for now. Father Pierce came running down the hallway. When he arrived, he looked at me accusingly.
“What did you do? You shot a child!” Jolene was sitting in a chair behind the nurse’s station crying, her face in her hands. I couldn’t seem to catch a break.
Chapter 9
Doctor Bennett, 12:45 a.m.
I was sitting in my office at the hospital when the lights went out, and I’d heard some commotion in the hallway. The ER had called earlier to let me know they were bringing up a new patient. I hadn’t had time to go down and do a consult. She was apparently pretty much out of control, so they wanted her secured as soon as possible. After the lights went out, I figured I’d take a look around.
In the hallway I’d stumbled upon a police officer, lying on the floor. The patient had punched him, knocking him to the ground. After spe
aking with him about her possible condition, and some searching around, he heard that security had found her at the other end of the hall. Officer Roman had Taser’d her, and we were able to admit her into the psychiatric unit. That’s when things got really interesting.
She was restrained to her bed in the seclusion room. The girl looked completely wild. Her eyes were a strange, milky yellow color, while her face was scratched. It appeared that she’d been beaten. She spoke in several different sounding voices, and odd languages. None of this was completely unusual. In thirty-five years as a psychiatrist, I’d seen just about everything. However, there were a few things about this girl I’d never encountered. For one, she kept yelling at Officer Roman, calling him a murderer, saying something about killing his mother. He acted as if he had no idea what she was talking about. The officer told me his mother had died of cancer, but there was no way the patient would know that.
In the middle of all this, Father Pierce, our chaplain showed up. Some nurse downstairs had called him, telling him our patient was demon possessed. Father Pierce has a degree in psychology and is a very sensible man. He’s never been the kind to interfere with treatment or to suggest religion over medicine. I’d never seen him show up without a specific request from the patient, or the authorities. Yet, here he was. He agreed with me to change out of his attire and into scrubs. I didn’t know how the patient would react to seeing a priest. Though, not long after that, the young patient, Amanda, managed to knock the door off its hinges, inject our nurse with medication meant for her, and climb through the ceiling tiles. Officer Roman and Father Pierce left the unit to look for her. I stayed to tend to Chloe, our nurse who was reeling from the injection of Geodon.
The tech assisted me to walk Chloe into a vacant patient room, and we placed her onto the bed. The only thing we could do was let her sleep it off. It would take a few hours, at a minimum. I’ve seen it happen a time or two on the unit, where a nurse gets injected with her own shot. As far as needle sticks go, I’d prefer it happened this way instead of her being stuck with the needle, after the patient was injected.
Once I got Chloe settled, I went back to my office to check on some things. The power was still out, so my computer wouldn’t power up. I pulled out my laptop, which still had an operating battery. It powered up fine, so I was able to do some searches. I looked through hospital records, and found that Peter’s mother had been a patient here several years ago. I tried to find more information, but she’d been a patient here before the new computer system was put into place. I’d have to go into the basement to pull her actual records. I was curious to see how she actually died.
On my way there, I tried not to get angry at Father Pierce's interference. I know he means well, and he's not the kind to put his faith over science. He generally stays out of the way, unless he’s called for a consultation. As far as priests go, he's always been fairly progressive, since I've known him. This talk about demons was nonsense. I sensed that there was some kind of connection between the girl and Officer Roman, and I needed to find out what it was. There's something the officer isn’t saying. Amanda would be asleep for awhile, so I had plenty of time to do some research.
The elevator was still out, so I took the eight flights of stairs to the basement. It was pitch black, except for the small flashlight I carried. This time of night, there was no one down there. The charts were stacked on large metal shelves, rows and rows of them. I weaved my way through each row, until I found the R’s. Her name had been Norma Roman. When I found the chart, I brought it to the table toward the back of the room. It was strange being down there. It was so dark and eerily quiet. I assumed I’d hear some kind of noise in the basement, pipes clanking, or steam from the boilers, but there were none.
I set the chart on the table and flipped it open, just as. I heard what sounded like footsteps from behind me. I turned, shining the light in that direction, but there was nothing there. Then, in an instant, there was a white face, inches from mine. I jumped, let out a short scream. As soon as the sound left my mouth, the vision of the face was gone. With everything else weird that had been happening tonight, I chalked it up to imagination. The human mind is a complicated machine, and it can, and will, play tricks on people, myself included.
As I shined my light back on the chart, the pages began to flip … on their own. It was as if a breeze was blowing them. They flipped one by one and came to a stop. The chart was suddenly opened to Norma Roman’s lab work. I studied it. Much of it was normal for a woman in her 50’s, with cancer. The labs were obviously abnormal, but things such as white and red blood cell counts were in the range for a cancer patient. Further down the page, however, it was torn. Half the page was missing. It was the half that showed any other substances in the blood.
I tried to think where else I might find this information. It was almost ten years ago, so it wouldn’t be in any current database. Why would a page be missing? I’d always trusted and respected our men in blue. However, the patient had screamed at Officer Roman, called him a murderer. Now, part of his mother’s blood work missing, and it had me thinking. Between the weird way the chart had flipped itself to the lab results, and other strange events, there had to be an explanation. I was determined to find out what was going on.
Chapter 10
1:15 a.m.
I left the dark basement and climbed the stairs to the third floor. In the psychiatric unit, the unit tech, Bobby, was still at the desk.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Bobby said. “Been quiet since the girl took off. That was really freaky. I keep waiting for her to fall out of the hole in the ceiling.”
I looked up, and saw the spot where the ceiling tile was missing, where the patient had escaped. I went into the room to look in on Chloe, She was still sound asleep. I wasn’t sure if she took the full injection or not, but it knocked her out hard. I walked back out to the nurse’s station to Bobby.
“Bobby?”
“Yes Doctor?”
“Have you moved from that spot since I left?”
“Umm, yeah. I, uh—“
“Don’t worry about it. Would you do a quick walk through the unit, make sure everyone else is okay. Then take care of that door and the mess by the seclusion room? I don’t want anyone to hurt themselves on any of that. Just set the door out in the hall for now. Maintenance will take care of it in the morning.”
“Sure, doc,” he said, as he went back to playing with his phone.
“Bobby?”
“Huh?”
“Now please.”
“Oh, right.”
He jumped from his chair and waddled down the hallway toward the mess. I went back into my office. I wished there was direct access to my office from the unit, but I had to walk out of the unit, then into my office. It made things tricky sometimes, but it was an old design. I stepped inside and sat at my desk, wishing the lights would come on. I reached for my laptop and powered it back up. It really bothered me about the missing lab page. I had no idea where I’d look, either. Since Norma Roman was in hospice care when she died, there would have been no autopsy. I was able to access the county vital records from my laptop.
The death certificate had been scanned into their database. It just said “Cervical cancer as complicated by heart failure”. She hadn’t been sick very long. Only three months. From what I had seen in her records, it wasn’t advanced when they found it. Yet it took her so quickly, she had just barely started chemo. The doctors ordered hospice rather soon, as well. The only reasonable conclusion was that something caused her illness to accelerate. But what? Could her son have done this?
I did a Google search for Officer Roman. His name tag said “P. Roman.” After a short search, I found his name was Peter Roman. I looked up his address, even found his Facebook page. It was mostly private, but some of the photos weren’t. He lived in a small apartment, and drove a Ford Focus. It didn’t appear as money was a motive. I closed the laptop and leaned back. Something was
n’t right. Maybe the girl really was crazy. Roman’s mother’s death didn’t add up, but he didn’t kill her for money, from what I could tell. I took out my phone and sent a text to Father Pierce. I wanted him to know what I’d found out, and to be careful. If Roman did kill his mother, he might kill again.
In the meantime, I wanted Amanda back in custody. This time I’d insist they take her to the jail. I can treat her there. It’s more secure and she’d be less likely to hurt anyone. Father Pierce texted me back and asked what he should do. I told him to play it cool for now, and see what else he can find out. After I hit send, my phone went completely dead. The screen went blank and it wouldn’t power back on at all. I took the battery out, and reinserted it, but nothing. Without power, there was no way to charge it. The battery indicator showed over half a charge, it was strange that it just died, but I was beginning to believe that anything was possible tonight.
I stood and started toward the hall, when the office door slammed in my face. I tried to open it, but it was locked. It only locked from the inside, but it wouldn’t budge.
“What the hell?”
I checked my desk phone and it was still out too. Great. I was trapped into this tiny little office, with no power, and no communication. I opened my laptop, but it snapped shut on me, pinching my fingers. I jerked my hand up, shaking it, as my fingers throbbed. I tried the door again, but nothing. I thought of yelling for Bobby or anyone who might be in the hall, but that would be useless. No one would be around this time of night, and the walls were too thick for Bobby to hear me.
I sat there in my dark office, cut off from the rest of the hospital. This was even more strange than what happened in the basement. The power failure must have caused some other kind of surge, affecting other electronics, but that wouldn’t explain the door. There was no explanation for the door. As I looked around, for a moment, I saw that same white face. This time it was smiling, and as quickly as it appeared, then it was gone again.