The Lost and the Damned (33 page)

The second nurse was yanked again, his arm being pulled into the light all the way to his shoulder. The first nurse had been paralyzed in fear up until now but now found his nerve, running to the second nurse. As soon as he got there another yank pulled the second nurse in, pulling in his head and upper chest. The first nurse grabbed at his waist and tried pulling back. There was a momentary contest of strength as the first nurse pulled as much as he could, but then there was another yank and the second nurse was pulled in up to the waist, his legs just hanging out of the white spot of light. Then there was this sound. This horrible sound. I don’t know how to describe it other than saying it sounded like a crunch. We all heard it. We all winced at it. The first nurse stepped back from his half-engulfed compatriot, displaying the same reaction we had. A moment later, the legs and torso of the second nurse dropped to the floor, separated at the waist and spilling blood on the floor.

“Oh… Oh… Oh fuck, oh fuck,” said the remaining nurse, stepping back and walking away from the body, running his hands through his hair. “Oh fuck.”

In a moment of clarity, he remembered himself and rushed to the drug cabinet. He frantically rummaged through the contents, small bottles tumbling to the floor, some breaking and littering the floor with broken glass and clear liquid.

“What are you doing?” asked Ashborn’s calm voice.

“We’re not doing anymore of this fucking stuff,” said the stressed voice of the nurse, as he filled a hypodermic from the bottle he found. He turned to the camera. “I’m sedating his ass.”

“I order you not to do that,” said Ashborn, voice still calm.

“Yeah, well, feel free to fire me later,” said the nurse to the camera, walking over to Max. With expert skill, the nurse grabbed Max’s arm and jabbed him with the needle, giving him the shot. In moments what remaining tension there was in Max’s voice disappeared and his eyes closed, his breathing slow and rhythmic. The nurse dropped the hypodermic to the floor and sighed, running his hand through his hair. He turned to the camera. “What did you expect to happen here?”

There was no reply from Ashborn. Instead, I assumed his focus was where our focus was right now, on the white spot in the background of the video. A large black hand on an elongated forearm had pushed its way through the white light. It was translucent, as if made of shadow. Long elongated fingers, each finger joint a foot long and ending in a point felt around the floor. As we watched, more of the arm pushed its way through. The nurse was oblivious to this, still staring at the camera and yelling at Ashborn. “Did you know that we were in danger? I’m a nurse, not a test subject!”

Behind him, a second arm began pushing through the white light, causing it to expand. This arm was equally elongated, the long sharp fingers feeling around the light. One of the fingers must have scratched audibly because the nurse’s head swung around toward the light. “What the…”

The hands grabbed either side of the white spot and seemed to grab it from this side. Then they began to pull, obviously trying to forcibly expand or tear it wider. The nurse stared at this, watching the arms pull the light wider and larger. More light spilled out, now other colors of the rainbow. Blues, reds, purples and greens all now illuminated the room. Now the nurse freaked out. He ran to the door of the room and began banging on it.

“Let me out! Let me out of here you fuckers! Let me out!”

He kept hammering on the door, but it remained closed. I thought of what kind of people could sit in this booth, watching one man die and another beg to be released yet do nothing. The nurse kept banging on the door, but it did not open. “Please! Open the door!”

The black elongated thing began pulling itself through the white light, which had now shed all of its former white color for deep, dark colors that spilled out over the room. The black thing was half obscured by the swirling colors, a dark humanoid shadow with a giant mouth pulling itself through. The nurse gave up banging and shouting, turning around with his back to the door and staring at the thing that was pulling itself out of the light. On the table, Max slept, unaffected by all that was around him.

The nurse ran to the window in front of the camera and began banging on it. When the thing pulled itself out, it ran at the nurse. I looked away. I heard the horrible screams, but I looked away, only vaguely aware of the blood that splattered on the camera frame. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the thing and its laughing motion, the giant jaws moving. When it was done, it retreated to the spot it had come from, leaping inside, leaving the room empty but filled with the light. The only remaining sound on the video was the reverent voice of Dr. Ashborn.

“My God, it’s beautiful.”

There was no other sound. The rest of the video was just the swirl of colors receding back into the spot, which then disappeared. Fade to black.

After the video finished, we all sat in a stony silence. The silence amplified both the screams and Ashborn’s voice lingering in my head, the last things I had heard. I understood why Merill felt he couldn’t describe what he saw, but at the same time, I needed to have been warned of… that.

“I didn’t need to see that,” said Katie.

I nodded. It was some sort of perverse and horrifying snuff film. I still don’t know what that black thing was. I do know that it reminded me of those five monsters I saw leaving the hospital.

“Do you at least understand how it is possible?” asked Merill. “That this is all a reality projected and contained within Max?”

“Sure it’s possible,” I said throwing up my hands. “At this point, it all seems plausible. When everything is insane, nothing is more impossible than the rest.”

“I always try to believe five impossible things before breakfast,” said Katie in a small voice.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Oh, nothing,” she said, “just a line from Alice in Wonderland. I’m beginning to feel more and more like this is just some twisted wonderland.”

“That would make you Alice,” I observed.

“Then I’ll declare you the White Rabbit,” she said, “and the good doctor over here the Mad Hatter.”

“The White Rabbit? What am I late for then?”

“Your sandy beaches?” she proposed.

“Yes, I’m long overdue for those,” I admitted. We shared a smile before Merill cleared his throat.

“I appreciate that you two are having a moment, but that hardly helps our situation,” he said.

“Yeah, that’s been bothering me,” I said. “All we’ve been doing is just wandering, running from place to place and staying alive.”

“Staying alive is important,” said Katie.

“Agreed,” I said, “It’s priority one. We just need to figure out what else we’re doing. Staying alive is rather… directionless.”

“Okay, let’s make a list,” said Katie, grabbing a yellow legal notepad from the shelf. She picked up a pen and tore off a sheet.

“I don’t think we actually need to write the list,” said Merill.

“Hey, when we’re in the middle of god knows where, doing god knows what, and we forget what we’re doing, you’ll appreciate this list,” said Katie.

“I don’t anticipate having such an extreme case of amnesia,” he replied sourly.

“Well screw you,” she said, “you don’t get to see the list. You’re not writing it, why should you care if we have one? Let’s see. Priority one: STAY ALIVE.” She wrote it in capital letters and underlined it. Twice.

“So what else do we need to do, John?” she asked.

“Well…” I stood and thought for a moment. “First we need to get out of Max’s mind. His reality. Wherever the hell we are. Is that possible?” I said, looking at Dr. Merill.

“I guess it is possible,” he said, “though I have no idea whether it is certain. It’s been many hours since his last sedative. We could be in the middle of an extreme backlash in both his ability and consciousness. We have no idea if that backlash will withdraw, stay stable, or even expand.”

“So a big giant maybe?” I said. “Well, let’s make that a priority. Figure out how to get out of his mind and back to reality.”

“…get back to reality, got it,” said Katie, writing that down as #2. “What else?”

“Then… then we should get out of the hospital. Assuming the army will let us out. Assuming there is a still a hospital to get out of.”

“That’s a great plan,” said Merill sarcastically.

“…get out of hospital. Okay, got that down. Good plan.” Katie did not mean it sarcastically.

“Sure it is. Add winning the lottery to that. Everything’s possible!” said Merill.

“Your vote of confidence makes it all worthwhile,” I said. “At least now we have a plan, or an idea of what we’re trying to do. Much better than ‘hide in the bathroom’, which I believe is one of your greatest hits.”

Merill did not answer, but instead turned away, looking at the door of the booth instead. “Might as well get going,” he said, grabbing the door handle. I turned to Katie, who smiled at me before folding up the yellow sheet of paper with our priorities and putting it into her pocket. I stood up, brushed myself off, straightened my tie, and checked my pockets to make sure everything was where it was. From behind me, I heard Merill’s voice.

“We have a problem.”

I sighed before turning around. Things kept declining from bad to worse, occasionally upgrading to boring before going back to bad. “What is it now?”

“Look out here,” he said. The door was open, and he peered out into the hallway. It had faded, peeling paint, the floors unswept, the lights dim.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “Wrong hallway? It’s not black space, it’s not white, it’s the hospital. What’s wrong with it?”

“This hallway was freshly renovated,” he said. “To install the network for the equipment, we completely renovated this hall. Including fresh paint, new lights, etc. This is wrong. This is how the hospital used to look.”

I looked at the hallway again and realized he was right. These were the halls of Old Sommersfield Hospital. “It’s the hospital from the eighties,” I said.

“That was my guess too,” he said. “Max spent time in this hospital as a teenager. It’s quite an ironic coincidence that he showed up in this same hospital decades later.”

“Is it just coincidence?” said Katie from behind us.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” answered Merill.

“No,” she said. “It’s too great a coincidence. Years later he finds himself brought back to this place where he alters reality so that sometimes it becomes the same hospital but twenty years before, the same one he experienced? He’s got powers. Maybe he made that happen.”

“I have no idea,” said Merill. “Ashborn arranged for him to be transferred here. I have no idea under what circumstances or what type of deals were made. I only received Max and his case file.”

“So it’s possible?” prompted Katie. “That Max somehow made it happen?”

“Yes, I admit the possibility,” said Merill, “But to what end? What’s so special about this place?”

We all lapsed into silence. None of us could give an answer to this question. Our wondering was stopped by the sound of loud footsteps walking down the hall. I grabbed the door and closed it until just a small opening remained. I knew those footsteps. High heels.

In a moment I saw the tall form of Nurse Callahan walking down the hallway. She walked purposely, without worry. After the murder of Nurse Phillips, I expected this hospital would be in disarray. I figured at least Nurse Callahan would be concerned that her friend had died in this hospital. Had they not discovered her body yet? Or in this twisted memory, were the other people unaffected by the changes made?

The nurse walked past our door without a glance, continuing down the hall. I opened the door, leaning out to watch her turn a corner. I stepped out into the hallway. “Come on,” I said.

“Where are we going?” asked Katie.

“We’re following her.”

“Why?” asked Katie.

“Yes, what do we have to gain by that?” asked Merill.

“In each of these memories we wander through, somebody dies,” I said. “Usually someone Max knew or who affected his life. These two nurses had a tyrannical hold on this hospital. They tortured Max. One of the nurses is already dead. I expect the same to happen to this one.”

“So we’re just going to follow her toward danger?” asked Katie.

“Yeah, that’s the plan.”

“It doesn’t sound like a very good plan,” said Merill.

“Look, we’re trying to figure out a way out of Max’s mind, right? Well, I think priority one would be to figure out how his mind works. This nurse is significant. The murders are significant. We need to get to the bottom of this.”

“Fair point,” said Merill, “but I still don’t like it.”

“Me neither,” said Katie.

“Neither of you has to come,” I said, hoping at least Katie didn’t call my bluff. At this point I honestly didn’t care if Merill went off on his own. “But I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get back here before this memory ends.”

“No, I’ll come,” said Katie.

Merill sighed. “I guess I will too.”

“Good, let’s see who kills her,” I said.

“That’s so morbid!” said Katie. “Aren’t we going to stop them?”

“Not sure,” I said. “These are memories, not people, so I’m not sure if it matters if she dies. Worse, I’m not sure if we can stop it. We’re not sure what kills them.”

“I applaud your moral ambiguity,” said Dr. Merill.

“Quiet,” I said, “we’re just playing this by ear. Maybe we can save her.”

We followed the nurse through the hallways, always staying a good fifty feet behind her, just in case. I’m not sure she would have even reacted to us if she knew we were there, but I felt it a precaution. The last thing I needed was her yelling at us for being in an unauthorized area when we just wanted to see who was stalking her. Other than us, I mean.

I recognized the hallways from our previous trip through this hospital; calling it a “trip through memory lane” suddenly seemed morbidly appropriate. Peeling paint, dusty floors, skittering roaches, and dim lights from bulbs badly in need of a change. We crept through the hallways, myself first, then Katie, then Merill, trying to keep our footsteps light, leaning around corners just to make sure the nurse hadn’t stopped. But no worries there, she kept up her pace, only occasionally stopping to look in doors before continuing onwards.