Of Lost and Found (the Kingsborough House): Kingsborough House (Virgil McLendon Thrillers Book 4)
Page 17
“When are you leaving?” Terry asked.
Fin shrugged, “We’ll be here a while. Helping out. Ed gets released tomorrow. Fairalee will be here another week or two helping as well.” He blushed. He and Fairalee had become very close.
“Is Ed okay?”
“Yes. We saw him this morning and he’s going to be fine. Antibiotics got the infection in his shoulder and he’ll be good in a few weeks,” Virgil said. He paused as he thought about antibiotics and infections. It was like the elephant in the room everyone saw but was afraid to mention. “How’s Shari?”
Terry froze and then slumped in his chair, “The same. I can’t go see her anymore because of the way she gets so worked up and she fights the restraints.” He thought of how she lay in the hospital bed with IVs and bandages all over. The doctors had opened and drained all her wounds and were still fighting the fevers, They also hoped to build up her weight. But it had to be through IV because she refused to eat.
Mostly.
Her second day hospitalized, she tore out her IV as she leaped onto a nurse. It took several orderlies to drag her off the nurse, but the nurse’s arm was chewed to the bone; Shari had swallowed the flesh quickly and as she lay on the floor, restrained, she lapped at the blood like a dog.
Shari was put back in the bed, under sedation, and her arms and legs were strapped to the bed so she couldn’t get up and attack anyone else. She screamed when she awoke, hungry, but learned that got her nothing, so she lay in the bed, silent, waiting.
On her fourth day, a young doctor leaned over her to adjust something as she rested quietly; Shari snapped her head forwards and clamped her teeth onto the man’s nose. He shrieked and tried to get away, and Shari managed to take the tip of the doctor’s nose off and ate it.
She was fitted with a mask that looked like something a baseball catcher might wear. Shari couldn’t bite through it. Because her hunger raged and she refused everything, including the raw beef offered to her, she rejected reality and snarled, foamed at the mouth, and howled. She no longer reacted to Terry’s presence.
Virgil called an excellent doctor he knew who only took unusual cases, and Shari was going to be moved to the Fordham Institute for the Criminally Insane. Virgil didn’t have to be told that because she was accepted there and because of her experiences, she would never again be sane or released.
“Maybe it’s for the best, Terry. It’s time to let go,” Vivian said.
“Maybe so. Thanks for getting her accepted into the fancy place. If nothing else, at least she’ll be comfortable. It would have been more merciful to have her die down there.”
“I know, Terry.” Virgil watched a squirrel run down the oak tree and head for a pecan tree across the walk.
Terry stood and shook hands all around, thanking them again.
Virgil took a deep breath as he looked at the Kingsborough House, “There were a lot of mysteries here and many people who were lost. Maybe you’ll think it might have been better to leave it all alone and to not know the truths. I agree that this whole thing harmed a lot of people, but it wasn’t us. We didn’t cause it. It was always the Kingsboroughs and Moreau, and like I said…”
Vivian patted Virgil’s hand.
“You go home and give it time. You’re strong, Terry. You won’t get lost. I denied it before and I was wrong. Leave this place and find yourself again so you beat this house. Don’t let it win.”
Vivian smiled sadly, “Because why? What is this house, Virg?”
Virgil took a deep breath and then sighed, “It’s evil. It’s a bad place. I guess…it’s ….”
He thought someone should burn this house and then salt the remains, crush the rubble, bury it here, and cover the entire area with concrete etched with prayers, spells, warnings, and white magic amulets. He didn’t believe in that, but then again, he sure didn’t disbelieve it either. He did believe the dead, the unwanted, and the disposed of should be buried and not allowed to hide beneath the ground. Some things needed to be lost forever.
Virgil suddenly grabbed Terry and gave him a hug, “Go home and don’t come back here and don’t go visit Shari. Let it go.” The Kingsborough House towered over them. Threatened them. Virgil whispered, “This place…the house…it’s all cursed.”
(Fort Worth 2014)