by Smith, Aaron
“Not a word,” Harold assured her, “and I hope that means something good … or neutral at least.”
They rode up the elevator and emerged on the fifth floor to find the same doctor as the night before waiting for them. Harold skipped the pleasantries and the physician did not seem to mind.
“How’s Joseph?”
“Sit down please, Mr. Saunders, Mrs. Saunders.”
“Oh my god,” Katherine started. They sat as suggested, in the same seats they had occupied the night before. The doctor sat.
“There was an incident last night or, actually, very early this morning. I’m sorry you weren’t called earlier, but the supervising nurse believed she had it under control.”
Katherine was on the verge of panic. Harold was not far behind but had more outward control.
“What kind of incident? Is Joseph all right?” Harold asked.
“He’s heavily sedated right now,” the doctor explained. “He regained consciousness during the night and, for lack of a better word, attacked one of the nurses.”
“Attacked?” Katherine was taken aback by such a strong word.
“Mrs. Saunders, Joseph bit the nurse, bit her quite seriously. She needed seven stitches in her hand and was sent home for the rest of her shift. He bit her, she backed away, and then he threw himself off the bed and jumped at her, trying to bite her again and scratching, too. It took two orderlies to hold him long enough for a nurse to inject him with a sedative. Physically, he seems to be in good health, very good for a boy who nearly died less than twenty-four hours ago; but I’m concerned about his mental state now.”
“Will he wake up soon?” Harold asked.
“I’ve called a colleague of mine, a child psychiatrist, to be here when Joseph wakes up. I just thought that might be a good idea until we can figure out what triggered the sudden fit of violence.”
“Doctor,” Katherine’s voice was full of concern, “did Joseph say anything?”
“Not in so many words,” the physician told the worried mother. “He made sounds, but the nurse reported that it sounded more like growls and gibberish than anything intelligible. He’s never had any episodes like this before, has he? There haven’t been any signs of behavioral problems in the past?”
“No,” Katherine answered, “none at all.”
Maribel Lopez had finally managed to fall asleep. After the sudden attack by the child at the hospital, Maribel had sat still for an hour as the wound on her finger had been cleaned and stitched, waiting for the painkillers to take effect. She had argued to be allowed to finish her shift, but she’d been vetoed by the supervisor and sent home for the night. She took a cab, not wanting to be on the L if the pain medication made her too drowsy to focus, as it had been known to do. Most of the pain had been cancelled out, but the finger still throbbed and ached under its wrappings.
Maribel made it home safely, entered the small apartment she shared with her fiancée, undressed clumsily with one hand, and went straight to bed. She thought she would fall asleep easily but it was difficult. She kept seeing the little boy perched upon the bed, teeth glistening crimson in the glare of the ceiling lights, eyes empty except for the weird rage that had come over him, terrible sounds that were not words gurgling from his mouth as he leaped and tried to attack again.
Maribel had seen many horrific sights in her time as a nurse, but never before had a patient seemed to become something so much less than human. She felt like prey—and to think of a poor, injured child like a predatory animal just made her feel worse. Guilty, even. She tossed and turned in bed, trying not to bump her aching hand as she flopped from one position to another, hoping and praying that she would never have to witness another scene of that sort as long as she lived. After nearly two hours of struggling, she finally felt the relief of sleep wash over her and she had peace.
Seth Goldberg, like his fiancée, worked nights. Maribel had called him and told him she had been slightly injured at work but that he shouldn’t worry, she would see him in the morning. But Seth had worried. He knew Maribel would downplay whatever had happened; it was just how she was. He couldn’t help himself. He loved her with all his heart and soul, more every day as the wedding drew closer. Only a few more weeks to go, he kept thinking, and he hoped it would go smoothly despite both their parents having reservations about the idea of an interracial and interreligious marriage.
Seth unlocked the door, stepped inside the apartment, took his shoes off to walk quietly into the bedroom and not wake Maribel. He found the lamp out and the curtains drawn but enough morning light coming in for him to see the outline of her body under the covers. He smiled, stepped out of his pants, tossed his shirt on the floor, and crawled in beside her.
Maribel stirred. She let out a soft moan. Seth sat up and looked over at her, hoping he hadn’t woken her, but wishing she was awake. He watched her eyes open and recognize him. The blanket fell away a bit and he could see her hand with its bandaged finger sitting against her breast.
“Hi, Bell,” he said softly. “How do you feel?”
She smiled at him. She felt her heart beating faster as it always did when she saw his face. She thought about how much she loved him and she started to tell him so. But her tongue tripped over the words and the message wouldn’t come out.
Something happened to Maribel at that instant. That hint of darkness, passed from Joseph to Maribel’s blood when he bit her, darkness that might have been defined as a demon or a virus, took hold in Maribel. In an instant, her mind was wiped away, everything gone, and all that remained was the frenzy. Consume, consume, consume!
Seth saw the fire in Maribel’s eyes and mistook it for a sudden burst of adoration and lust. He did not move as she sat up, as she leaned toward him, as she bent forward and put her head in his lap. He expected pleasure. He got pain.
Seth’s nerves lit up like nothing he had ever felt before. He tried to scream but so intense was the pain that his mouth opened only in gaping silence. There was a terrible tearing and Maribel’s head came away from his body and her mouth chewed rapidly and her eyes were full of wildness. Seth looked down and saw blood and torn flesh and emptiness where he had been a man seconds before. Then the scream gained sound and he howled like something no longer whole and very aware of his sudden terrible loss. His eyes glazed over and he couldn’t move. He couldn’t look away from the wreckage. He couldn’t look at the one he loved who had suddenly, without warning, mutilated him. He stared down and couldn’t think.
Maribel threw back the covers, leaped from the bed, and swallowed what she had stolen, her beloved’s blood still oozing from between her lips. Growling out predatory sounds, her mind no longer occupied with human thoughts, she ran from the bedroom, tore open the door, and disappeared down the hall, a long-legged, barefoot blur of motion, snarling and far from satiated.
Shortly after ten, the decision was made to wake Joseph. Harold and Katherine, along with the doctor and an accompanying nurse, gathered in Joseph’s room and a drug was injected to counteract the sedatives that had been keeping him under since the night before. The four adults stood and waited for the child to react. Harold almost took hold of Katherine’s hand, but remembered that they were supposed to hate each other. He put his hand in his pocket instead.
“This may take a few minutes,” the doctor said. He was right. Katherine stood still while Harold paced to the window and back several times. Joseph finally began to move and both of his parents stood over the bed watching and hoping. His arms moved, struggled briefly against the straps that held him to the bed as a precaution after his violent actions of the night. The struggle stopped and he lay still for a moment. Then his eyes opened and he looked up at the ceiling. He raised his head and stared straight at his mother.
Katherine fainted. When she came to, she was out in the hallway in a chair. Harold was with her. This time he had taken hold of her hand. As she opened her eyes, her entire body shook with one great nervous convulsion. After the shake, her shoulders s
lumped and she let out a long sigh.
“He’s gone.”
“Kath,” Harold said, “he might be out of it from the accident and the medication, but the doctor said his vital signs are good.”
“No, ... he’s gone. His eyes … his eyes are empty. Joseph isn’t in there anymore. That’s not my son! It’s like something took away his soul.”
The thing that had been Maribel Lopez had squatted in the corner of a shadowy alley as it digested the morsel from her lover. As time passed, the thing felt the hunger return. That was all it felt. No thoughts, as human beings know them, ran around in its mind. No desire existed in its body or brain except the desire to rend and chew and swallow. No images of what human beings perceive as food entered that hungry void where a mind had been, for only one food source would satisfy what it now was. It knew, though purely by instinct and not by intelligible thoughts, that it had to feed again.
It let the contents of its bladder flow freely onto the asphalt. It stood on its grimy naked feet and moved toward the light at the end of the alley. It could hear the sounds of movement and population nearby. Those sounds meant food, the only thing that mattered. It began to run.
The pedestrians did not immediately understand what was happening. There was a guttural sound and a blur of rushing movement. The first person it reached was a man of fifty. It went for his throat and he crumpled to the ground before the arterial spray had even reached the peak of its arc. The nearby idiot who tried to gather YouTube fodder went down next. When a thrust hand has no conscience behind its force and no hesitation, its clawed fingers can tear out entrails with considerable ease; that was a lesson the witnesses did not expect to learn, but quickly did. There were many screams, great confusion, and at least a degree of intelligent reaction among those who saw the horror taking place. Someone found safety inside a storefront, a shaking finger dialed 911 on a cell phone, and it didn’t take long for the sirens to cry out.
By the time the thing that had once been Maribel Lopez had gone down in a hail of bullets, one of which was well-aimed enough to disrupt the brain, three unlucky people had apparently died and three more bled and cried frantically as they were taken away to receive the attention of doctors. The police began to talk. They had to decide what to tell the inevitable reporters when they arrived. The patrolmen hoped the sergeants and lieutenants would show up before the press did.
The dead woman, naked from the waist down and with a mouthful of human flesh and blood, carried no identification. She wore only a T-shirt and a swathe of dirty bandages on a finger. The bandages were now stained with the blood of others.
It was almost noon when Danielle Hayes stepped off the train and made her way to the front entrance of the hospital. She felt good. Her shoulders ached slightly from the less than ideal couch upon which she had spent the night, but the pain was minor. She had sat through her morning classes but was done with school for the day. That was good, she thought, for she often felt that she could learn more hanging around the hospital than sitting in a classroom. She looked forward to observing the doctors making their rounds and helping out as much as they would let her. She was rested, enthusiastic, and happy. She walked straight and tall, the limp that came when she was tired was gone, and her three morning coffees had done their job. She looked forward to a good shift.
As she reached the doors, she heard crying off to her right. A woman sat on a bench thirty feet from the doors with her head buried in her hands. She was shaking. Danielle walked over to her, half-thinking she should mind her business, half-thinking she wanted to see if she could help. The second half won the debate.
“Excuse me,” Danielle said softly. “Are you all right?”
Katherine Saunders took her face out of her hands and looked up. She wiped a stray tear away with the back of her hand. The young blonde woman standing before her was not familiar.
“I’ll be okay.”
“You don’t look okay,” Danielle said, thinking the woman had probably just come out of the hospital after losing someone. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Are you a doctor?”
“No, I’m just a medical student.”
“Then, no,” Katherine shook her head slowly and sadly. “It’s my son. Something’s very wrong with him, like he’s … gone away. I … I can’t really explain what I mean.”
Danielle sat down beside Katherine. She was a sucker for people in distress; that was part of the reason she wanted to be a doctor. She also tried, as much as possible, to be a good listener. It was the least she could do.
“Can you tell me what happened? Maybe there’s something I can do to help you.”
Katherine started to talk. It actually felt good to send out a stream of words, not only to explain to her sudden companion, but to help her take hold of her emotions by putting everything in order in her mind.
“My son, Joseph, he’s three and he almost drowned yesterday. It was horrible. He was so cold and so blue and so small and I thought he was gone but he started breathing again and he’s alive but … but he’s not. He’s not himself anymore, like he’s empty and he’s just a body.”
“You mean he’s in a coma?” Danielle guessed.
“No,” Katherine tried to explain, “he’s awake and he moved and he looked at me, but he’s not there! He doesn’t talk and he doesn’t smile or say ‘it hurts’ or anything, like he’s not thinking, not aware. And last night, when he first woke up, they say he went crazy and he bit the nurse and tried to bite her again and that stupid fucking doctor can’t give us an answer about why this is happening!”
She paused, looked at Danielle, and tried to smile apologetically for her outburst.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to talk like that. But it’s so hard to not know what’s wrong with him. He’s breathing, he sits up, but he’s not my little Joseph anymore.”
Danielle sighed sympathetically. “Who’s his doctor?”
“Dr. Lake.”
“Okay,” Danielle said, trying to sound reassuring. “I know Dr. Lake. Why don’t I go back inside with you and I’ll talk to him and maybe I can understand what’s going on and I can try to help you understand? If you can try to stay calm, these things usually make more sense.”
They stood up in unison.
“I’m Danielle. What’s your name?”
“Katherine. And ... thank you.”
Chapter 4
“Fuckin’ hell, I wish they’d still let us smoke down here,” the medical examiner said to no one but himself as he took his first look at the three bodies he’d been called to the hospital’s basement morgue to examine. Two of them, he’d been told, were the victims of a rampage downtown, killed by the third—a young woman, using only her hands. It sounded crazy. He had seen crazy things, but this was bad, really bad. He hadn’t expected the degree of damage he was now looking at.
An hour later, having taken preliminary notes but not yet ready to do full autopsies, the ME stopped, put his recorder away, and made his way back up to the surface world. The sunlight felt good as it hit his face and the cigarette was heavenly. He paced in circles, alone in the designated smoking area for hospital employees. He was alone for half the cigarette, but his next drag was interrupted.
“Hey, Sean,” Lieutenant Steven Klein of the Chicago Police Department’s Homicide Division greeted him.
“Steve,” Sean returned the greeting. “I thought you’d show up soon. Have you identified the woman yet?”
“No,” the cop admitted. “What have you found on your end of things?”
“Insanity, it seems,” Sean said with a sigh. “She did all that damage with her hands?”
“She did that much and more. Fucking sicko, huh? It wasn’t only the two you got, but three more injured. Tell me about the damage.”
“Massive damage: the older male was killed by having his throat torn wide open and it looks like your wild woman did it with her teeth. The younger male was even worse. His abdomen was literally ripp
ed apart, like she drove a finger in through the navel and basically unzipped the whole lower torso, left organs and intestines hanging out like a fuckin’ burst piñata.”
“How is that even possible?” Lt. Klein asked. “Is anybody that strong?”
“Apparently she was. I just write down what I see. I don’t make this shit up.”
“What about our mystery woman? What did her body tell you?”
“It told me your guys like to use a lot of bullets. Her body was shredded, obliterated. A handful of shots hit her chest and abdomen; one went straight into the brain. It’s impossible to tell which one killed her, probably a few fatal shots went in simultaneously and hit the brain and heart and lungs all at once. Her mouth was full of blood and flesh that wasn’t hers. She wasn’t just trying to hurt or kill those people. She was eating! It looks like she went into some kind of shark-like feeding frenzy. I guess it could have been some sort of psychotic break.”
“Any chance you can tell me anything about her? We’re at a dead end for now with no ID on her.”
“Well,” Sean said, “approximate age was late twenties and she seemed to have been in good health. She was filthy when she arrived but it was all recent filth, so not a street person. In fact, there are traces of makeup and a recent manicure, indicating that she was well groomed—usually. Although her feet were black on the soles like she’d been walking around with no shoes, there was no grime under the toenails. The index finger of her left hand was bandaged when she got here. I uncovered it and found a recent wound closed with seven stitches. It looked like a bite wound, but I can’t be completely certain of that because it opened up again, the stitches were damaged, so I can’t tell you the exact shape of the injury when it was new. Still, that’s something to go on if you look for any cases over the last day or two that required seven stitches in the finger of a young Hispanic woman.”
