Clutching his blanket, Noel walked forward. There was something about that woman that caught his attention. He looked toward the woman behind the desk, but from this angle the side of the desk was larger and taller than she was, obscuring her completely. He gazed into hospital rooms on his left, seeing feet-shaped lumps under blankets at the ends of beds and the more immediate whirs and beeps of machinery. Everything else was quiet; people were resting for the night.
He looked up at the numbers over the doors, saying them silently in his head: three-two-three, three-two-four, three-two-five...
He peered in each one, trying to find where the woman went.
A voice came from the room ahead of him.
He stopped at the door and looked inside, seeing the woman standing next to an old man lying in bed. He was barely awake, his eyelids sliding open with the speed of a cruise ship churning through the water to begin its journey. His eyes were glazed over, he was barely coherent.
"Here's your supper, Mr. Bellwether," the woman said.
As Noel looked around the room, and then studied the uniform she wore and the fabrics used on the bed, he couldn't help but feel that something looked off. Just like the three brothers from the cottage, it looked like everything was from a different time.
The man in the bed moaned and moved his arm. His head rolled on his pillow and he stared up at the ceiling. His jaw sank and he spoke something, but it was unintelligible.
"Just one moment, Mr. Bellwether," the woman said with a friendly smile. "I just have to add your special medicine."
She looked over her shoulder at the doorway, and Noel shrank back. She removed the lid from his dinner plate, then she reached into her pockets. A small box and a small wooden mortar and pestle were produced, which she placed next to his carton of milk. She opened the box and fished a small, white pellet from it. Her eyes dropped to the patient in the bed. She gazed discerningly, as if she were judging how well he could understand what she was doing. Then she placed the white pellet in the mortar and ground it up into dust. She overturned the mortar over his plate, tapping the bottom of it until all its contents were sprinkled on his food. She took the fork from the tray and mixed the food up, then she returned the box and the mortar and pestle to her pockets.
"Here we are, Mr. Bellwether. Time for your supper." She dug a big forkful of the food and held it up to his mouth.
The man moaned, rolling his head back and forth.
"Now don't be that way, mister," she said. Her face grew stern, and she hooked her thumb in his mouth, holding it open.
The man moved his arm again, visibly uncomfortable. But there was no one else around to see.
She inserted the fork into his mouth and made him eat it.
"See, it's not so bad," she soothed. "Isn't that macaroni delicious? Mmm, eat it all up! Yum yum yum."
Noel was nudged out of the way and he turned to see the other young woman who'd been sitting behind the giant desk standing in the doorway.
"Samantha, is everything okay?" the young woman asked. "Mr. Bellwether's heart rate is way up."
Samantha spun around, almost too quickly like she was scared. Then the warm smile came over her face. "Oh, everything's fine, Frannie. Mr. Bellwether always gets excited for dinner." She tossed a glance over at him. "He's being so good today! He's eating it without a fuss." She stood with her hands neatly folded together in front of her, a beaming smile on her face.
Frannie eyed her warily, then leaned and looked past her at the man in the bed who was moaning and rolling around. "Okay," she said. "Can you go see Dr. Comski when you're done? He called for you."
"Sure," Samantha said.
The area around Noel warped, as if in the split second when he closed his eyes to blink he was transported somewhere else. The setting looked similar, but he was in a different hallway.
A woman walked past him and he saw that it was Samantha. More lights were on, and there were a lot more people around, a general hustle and bustle filling the hallway. It looked like it was daytime now.
Noel followed her. She slipped through the crowd, disappearing from notice as everyone else buzzed around.
There was an operating theater ahead to the right with a tray of surgical tools sitting just outside the doorway.
Samantha brushed up against it and pilfered a scalpel, slipping it into her pocket. No one else saw, but Noel did because he watched her carefully. She whisked herself down the hall.
He hurried but struggled to keep up as the busy crowd of doctors, nurses and patients moved around the hallways like slithering and winding snakes. He saw Samantha turn a corner ahead, and when he reached it, he looked around to see that she was gone.
He wandered around the confusing maze for a long time, eventually going through a set of double doors and spotting her. She came out of a doorway pushing an elderly woman in a wheelchair. She had the same big smile on her face as before, and Noel couldn't help but feel like he'd seen it before; it was the same one he'd seen on his father's face from time to time, a completely phony mask put on when in company.
Noel watched from afar, drawing nearer, as Samantha helped the old woman out of her wheelchair. She stood up on her own with the help of a handrail attached to the wall, and Samantha stood on the other side of her, slowly guiding her along and helping her to regain her ability to walk. There was a certain joy on the old woman's face at her capability to do this, and she flashed a smile at Samantha. That one was genuine.
The two of them came upon a tall gurney filled with shelves of freshly laundered and folded bedding.
Samantha reached into her pocket, pulling out something thin and silver.
Noel's eyes widened.
Everyone else moving around in the hallway was oblivious. He was the only one that could see what was about to happen.
Samantha raised her arm and made a quick slashing motion at the side of the old woman's neck, then she gave her a strong push in the back.
The old woman hit the floor near the gurney. She rolled around, holding her neck and silently begging for help behind gasping breaths. Blood poured out of the wound in spurts and covered the floor in a pool of red.
Samantha feigned shock and ignorance as a crowd quickly gathered. Two orderlies knelt by the woman and tried to administer life-saving care, but it was too late for her. She died there on the floor.
"I-I don't know what happened!" Samantha cried hysterically. "I thought she had a grip on the rail! Then she tripped, I think, and she fell forward! She must have slashed her throat on the sharp corner over the wheel!" Her face reddened and tears made a mess of it.
The scene warped again, and it was a little quieter now, though there was still a busyness to the hallway Noel found himself in. Samantha had gotten away from them all and was now standing in a small washroom, no bigger than a closet. The only things inside were a sink and a mirror. The door to the room was open just a crack, and Noel went up to it and peered in. He saw Samantha's reflection in the mirror as she produced the scalpel that she'd used to kill the woman. She held it up, its blade still slicked red. She admired it, then her tongue rolled out of her mouth and she licked the blood off happily.
Revulsion ran through Noel as he watched, but he couldn't look away. He was mesmerized.
Samantha unbuttoned the top of her nurse's uniform and peeled back the flaps. There were three scars on her chest, running in long, parallel lines. They were rough and uneven, as if they had been made by a shaky hand.
Samantha brought the tip of the scalpel above the top scar and pressed it into her skin. The blade drew blood and she dragged it across her chest. There was no pain on her face; only pleasure. She tilted her head back and her eyes rolled up in her head. She let out a satisfied breath.
The horrific scene was too much for Noel. He was sick to his stomach and he couldn't help the moan that escaped from his lips.
Samantha's gaze shot to the crack in the door through the mirror's reflection.
All pretense fell from
her face. Where she had worn that phony smile with her high, perky cheekbones before, the mask had slipped, and now the real woman was denuded.
She ripped the door open.
Noel staggered backward, struggling to find traction on the tile floor.
Samantha shrieked in rage, then she lunged forward.
Without him even noticing, the hallway changed again. The hospital was empty now. It was just him and her.
Noel ran for his life as she chased him down the hallway. He was too scared to look behind, but her demented cries of rage grew louder with every sprinting step. He rounded a corner, trying to shake her, but she was intimately familiar with these labyrinthine corridors; he was not. His breath was quickly depleted, but she seemed to keep running eternally without tire.
She overturned carts and tables in her way that Noel had slipped past like a frightened squirrel. The harsh white lights overhead shut off one by one, following them down the hallway and turning the hospital into a true nightmare.
A door of frosted glass leading to a prayer chapel lay at the end of the corridor. Noel could see his warped and diffused reflection in the glass. He could also see Samantha's. The strained reflection twisted her face into something monstrous. Their galloping images drew closer to the glass until hers was towering right over his shoulder.
Noel screamed at the frightful image and tried to slip around the corner, but something slashed his left shoulder and he tumbled to the floor. Searing hot pain rippled in his muscles and he twisted around onto his back.
The nurse stood above him. Her eyes were crazy. Her skin was yellow. The soft features of the young woman he'd seen earlier were gone. This was indeed a monster, and he was her next victim. Blood dripped from her teeth. She raised the scalpel high.
"No!" he screamed. His heart thumped against his chest so hard it felt like it was a brick hitting a window, ready to burst through.
There was a drunken, boorish lust in her eyes. Her cold hand found his throat as he squeezed his eyes shut in terror.
Then she plunged the blade into his heart.
Noel sat up and gasped from the pain, disturbing the water in the tub. He looked around wildly, trying to get his bearings. Everything was strange and unfamiliar until he realized that he was back in the bathroom of the cottage—in the real world—and that everything he had just experienced was a bad dream.
He settled, leaning back against the end of the tub and relaxing.
But he knew something was wrong. The water in the tub was cold now, and there was someone standing in front of the sink, looking into the mirror.
The woman was dressed in an anachronistic white uniform. She clutched the missing shard of the broken mirror in front of her as she studied her reflection. The flaps of her uniform were peeled back, revealing her chest. A beige and filthy bra covered her sagging breasts. The scars on her chest had multiplied. There were at least twenty-five now.
She carved a new one into her flesh with the mirror shard, crossing it on a diagonal through some of the others. She bared her teeth in delight at her reflection as the light bulb above painted her into an even more sickly yellow.
Noel stared at her, frozen in fear. He didn't move a muscle, he didn't even breathe. But a long strand of water stretched down from the tap like taffy being pulled. It shimmered softly in the dim light, and then the thread broke. The droplet hit the surface of the water and caused a tiny ripple and a soft plunk.
Samantha's head slowly turned toward the sound, and she saw the boy. She looked at his supple body, full of vitality, and her demented smile grew wider.
The mirror shard dropped from her hand and clattered in the sink. She approached him and Noel's feet slipped on the bottom of the tub as he tried to get away from her.
But there was nowhere to go.
The last thing he saw before his head was pushed underwater was that same shrill bloodlust painted on her features. Her cold and disgusting hand clamped over his face like the claw of some large bird. His legs kicked and his arms thrashed, splashing water everywhere as he tried to open his mouth and suck in air. Drawing in water and swallowing it down into his lungs instead was a confusing, painful and terrifying experience. Noel struggled with all his might to fight against her, but he couldn't pry himself out from under her strong grip. The last thing he heard as he choked to death was her laughter, barely audible above the surface of the water. His eyes rolled into his head and he began to go limp.
Then he was pulled out of the tub and hoisted in the air.
A deluge of water fell off his body and splattered all over the tub and floor as he coughed and choked. Air filled his lungs, causing a sharp pain in his chest. He coughed up water, then he wiped his eyes and looked around at the blurry scene in front of him.
"What the hell are you doing in here?" Walter demanded. "What happened? You could've drowned!"
He set Noel down on the bathroom floor and held him up so he didn't collapse. He grabbed the towel sitting on the toilet seat and dried him off as Noel shivered and coughed up more water. He was in no state to explain his version of the events—whatever exactly they had been—but Walter was just relieved to see that he was safe.
When he was dry, Walter brought him back to his bedroom and dressed him, then he tucked him in to bed for the night. Noel barely had the strength to keep his eyes open, but he dreaded falling back into another dream.
"What happened back there?" Walter asked, kneeling next to the bed.
Noel's eyelids fluttered open. It took a great deal of effort, and he felt like if he didn't keep it up, they would close again on their own. "What do you want me to tell you?" he asked weakly.
"Tell me the truth," Walter said.
"How can I?" Noel asked. Tears welled up in his eyes.
"How can you? You just tell it."
"You never listen to me."
"Sure I do. I always listen to you."
Noel shook his head. He sobbed loudly. "No, you never do! I've been trying to tell you things for a long time, but you never listen! You always ignore me and do whatever you want. You don't care about me."
For a dangerous moment, Walter fought the urge to raise his hand and strike his child. Not from anger, but fear. Fear that Noel could finally see the real him. Fear that he himself could see it.
Bitter resentment filled him. "How can you say that?" he asked, trying to stuff back his tears.
"You don't. You never cared about me, and you never cared about Mommy! You killed her! And you're going to kill me!"
"Shut up."
"Do you know how many times the ghosts tried to kill me here? They're gonna kill both of us!"
"Shut up! There's no ghosts. THERE'S NO GHOSTS!" There was a shaking fear in Walter's voice.
"There is!" Noel said, catching it. "And you saw them, didn't you?"
Walter didn't answer.
"You can't see them, but you can see them moving things around, right?"
"Shut your mouth," Walter said. "There's no ghosts." He said it more to convince himself than Noel.
"There is! And you know it! And you're making me stay here so they can kill me! You don't care about me! You're the worst daddy in the world and I wish it was you that died instead of Mommy!"
Walter couldn't contain himself anymore. He raised his hand and swung it across Noel's face. The stiff slap echoed in the bathroom and immediately marked Noel's cheek with a raw redness.
There was a moment of silence where nobody moved or spoke.
Then the two of them looked at each other with horrified eyes and then Noel started bawling, bringing a hand up to his rosy cheek.
Walter stood up and backed away, staring at his son. He was petrified by what he did, horrified at the monster he had become. He turned and fled downstairs.
Noel lay awake in his bed for a long time sobbing. His tears soaked his pillow and when he got tired of lying in a puddle, he flipped it over to the other side. Eventually he got tired enough to sleep, but his dreams were grim and sour.<
br />
Bartender
When Noel awakened in the morning his face scrunched up in pain. He was still in that languid state between waking and dream states. He didn't remember the details of his dream, but he knew it had been a bad one. He remembered he had been in a forest fleeing from an unseen force, and if he stopped running, the monster would catch up to him and consume him.
When he climbed out of bed and looked out the window, he knew what the dream meant.
The storm was still raging, blowing huge and mighty tufts of snow onto the property. All the trees of the forest were covered in a thick layer of white. Small dunes of snow had formed across the field.
It was time to leave.
As he descended the stairs, Noel heard the uneven and off-key melody from the piano. When he reached the den, staying quiet, he peered into the game room to find his father sitting at the piano, wailing unintelligible sentences and rocking from side to side as his dumb and clumsy fingers mashed on the keys. He was dead drunk and Noel noticed something else about him: tears were streaming down his face. Like he was letting out all of his misery and anguish, expressing it into the foreign language of a sad and off-putting song.
Walter raised his fists suddenly and rained them down onto the piano keys, smashing them with all his might. Small chips of wood splintered off the finish as a rumbling, cacophonous noise came out of the piano and filled the room like liquid in a glass. He stood up and kicked the bench seat away from him, which toppled over. He delivered a few more blows to the instrument, then he sank to his knees and rested his arms on the keyboard, sobbing openly.
Noel stood in the doorway, watching the sad creature that was supposedly his father. Somewhere in this whole nightmare that had been their stay at this cottage, Noel had hoped that his father could see reason—that he actually wanted to protect him and do what was best for him. But any hope of that was gone now. Walter didn't care about protecting Noel; it looked like he couldn't even protect himself.
The Box Set of Hauntings and Horrors Page 31
