Plastic tubes blew fresh oxygen into my nose. It helped to keep me alert. I peered behind the eyes of every nurse, searching for monsters in disguise. At night, I’d stay awake anticipating their arrival. I’d stare at the glowing red lights of the machine against the wall, waiting for them to transform into glowing red, sinister eyes. I’d monitor the dark corners for the slightest shifts in tone, attempting to find the outline of a murderous figure before it lurched forward.
Yet it was not during the night when evil finally found me. Boldly, arrogantly, it slunk out of the shadows in the middle of the afternoon. Just after lunch, a low growl began blending with the hum of the hospital equipment. It was subtle. At first, I didn’t pay it much attention. My privacy curtain was drawn, so I wondered if I had dozed off and the bed nearest the door had since become occupied. It was possible the noise was my new roommate’s respirator or some other equipment. I removed the oxygen tubes to better isolate the sound. Sure enough, it did seem to be coming from the other side of the curtain. I stretched to grab the curtain, drawing it back just enough to see that the bed—was empty.
“Hello?” I held hope there was a nurse on the other side of the curtain whom I couldn’t see. Yet the only response I received was from the growl. It began to amplify, sounding like saliva or blood bubbling in a raw throat. “Who’s there?” I called out meekly.
My heart stopped as a shrill voice answered, “Meeeeee!” It spoke as if it was the first time its vocal chords had been used to produce words. Its voice was high-pitched yet overlaid with a deep, gurgling snarl.
“Nurse?”
“Meeeeee!” it corrected.
“Mom?”
“Meeeeee!”
“Dad?”
“Meeeeee!”
The door creaked shut and latched with a loud click. The shift in air pressure caused the curtain to gently oscillate. The room suddenly went dim as the florescent bulbs were drained of their luminance. Only specks of natural light seeped between the slats and corners of the closed blinds.
What looked like fingers, pointy fingers, began poking at the curtain in a frightening tease. This went on for a few moments before the fingers suddenly rushed forward, sweeping the fabric toward me. The demon on the other side repeated this move, pressing the curtain toward me and then releasing it, each time bringing its claws closer and closer. All the while, it chuckled from its rotted throat.
I knew exactly what it was up to. It wanted to push my fear beyond its boundary. It could gauge fear, smell the amount of it emitted from my pores. To it, the aroma was like seasoning. And there would be no satisfaction eating me without proper flavoring. “Meeeeee!” its evil voice cackled delightedly as it pressed the tip of one of its large horns into the curtain. It was succeeding. I was deathly afraid.
But I knew I had a choice: I could either wait until it had me overcome with terror, completely debilitated, at which point it would finally consume me—or I could act first and at least put an end to its gleeful torment. Determined to make the latter happen, I firmly grasped the edge of the curtain. I took a deep breath before giving it a swift yank. The metal rings along the track slapped together as the curtain was flung open.
And there it was. A horned monster. Exposed. Just as surprised by my bold move as I was, it immediately drew its arms to its chest. It bent its wrists forward as its eyes locked on to mine. It had the eyes of a shark, large and unblinking. Except unlike a shark’s eyes, its pupils were deep red. It moved its sharp fingers in undulating waves, as if it were impatiently tapping an invisible surface. Its lips quivered as it snarled. As it stepped closer, its snarl transformed into a grin, displaying its mouth chock-full of sharp teeth.
Though I was frozen in intense fear, I also felt a rush of energy surge through my veins. The combination caused me to tremble. When the monster swiped for me, I briskly swiveled off the other side of the bed. The sense of fear that at first had been paralyzing ultimately released in an explosion. I had followed the impulse that came naturally. I knew I was in danger, and my body reacted. The concept was so simple. So elementary. Yet at the same time, I was astounded I had been able to evade its grasp.
The demon sealed its mouth and curled its lips into a devilish smirk. It brought its fingers to its nose and smelled them while contemplating its next move. Suddenly it dipped beneath the bed. I bent to see it crawling on its stomach, grunting as it made its way toward me. I whipped the bedside table my way. My lunch tray flew off, splattering the cup of juice and half-eaten bowl of soup across the floor. As soon as the demon emerged, I rushed it, slamming the edge of the table into its chest, pinning it against the bed’s railing. I heard bones crack, but the creature didn’t seem the least disabled. It stretched its neck forward, snapping its jaws. As it thrashed against the table, I felt its breath on my skin. It was hot and stank of blood and decaying flesh. Unsure of how much longer I could hold it at bay, I let go of the table and sprinted for the door.
But the door—wouldn’t budge. “Help!” I screamed as I tugged. “Open the door!” Thrilled my daring escape had failed, the demon eyed me with a fresh grin as it crept my way, green saliva dripping down its chin. I knew I mustn’t let it get me cornered. I climbed onto the bed nearest the door. But not quick enough. Its claws caught my leg. Blood splashed across the floor.
As I was trapped atop the bed, blood trickled from the gash and onto the sheets. As I clutched my wound, the creature stood between the beds, daring me to make my next move. I was alone. Just it and me. Assuming it had somehow jammed the door, no one was going to rescue me. In the tiny room, I wouldn’t be able to evade it forever. It would eventually wear me down, getting in enough slashes until I’d weaken from the loss of blood. Finally, I’d find myself between its massive jaws. Devoured. I had to fight it, I realized. By myself, like Everett had told me to. At least I had to try. My eyes darted furiously about the room—until I had a plan.
Facing the other bed, I squatted while extending my arms in front of me. I closed my eyes and erased the snarling devil from my mind’s eye. Instead, I visualized that the space between the beds was the pit down the fifteenth row in the cornfield. I had jumped it before. And I was confident I could jump it again. And so I leapt into the air, curling my legs tight beneath me, intent on once again soaring high above the danger below. I could feel the wind, smell the sweetness of the field as I catapulted among the stalks. I opened my eyes only when I felt my feet touch the ground. They caught the far edge of the bed. I tumbled to the floor, pulling off the top sheet with me. Despite a repeat of my original shaky landing, I made it. I hadn’t been ripped to shreds. The eager demon hadn’t even grazed me.
I crawled to the window and braced myself upon its ledge. The demon, still intent on savoring me slowly, tiptoed its way to me. I allowed it to get close. It relished my scent, so I let it sniff my bare feet, smell my hospital gown. And as it began to drop its lower jaw, I jerked the blind’s cord that I had been discreetly wrapping around my wrist. The slats rapidly slapped together, collecting at the top of the window. Sunlight burst into the room, blanketing the space before the window in a dazzling glow.
The monster slapped its hands over its eyes and shuddered. Its skin shimmered in the light as it howled. I confirmed then that while the monster was not fond of artificial light, natural light actually incapacitated it. It did what nothing else could to a horned monster: halt its relentless charge. There it stood. Immobilized. Vulnerable. I hadn’t seen a monster in stark daylight before. I bent over to examine it up close. Its body smelled of mold and of wet soil. Its skin was the palest green, almost white. It reminded me of a tomato that hadn’t yet ripened before the season was over and had shriveled and rotted on a cold vine. I touched it, and it felt much like a winter tomato—thick, tough skin, with uneven lumps covering a mushy inside. Its long toes overlapped. I felt its large horns. I ran my hands beneath them and up to their sharp points. They felt heavy, as if they were made of solid rock.
I wasn’t sure how much time I
had. Perhaps a dark rain cloud passing overhead was all that was needed to release the demon from its prison of immobility. So without wasting another moment, I grabbed the metal lunch tray from the floor. I lifted it high over my head. And with all my fear and fury, I brought it down on the monster. I bashed its head over and over—until it finally took its hands from its face. Thin lines of green liquid oozed from the corners of its eyes as its shocked pupils turned from a deep red to a soft pink. It screamed in shrieking howls as it blindly swiped every which way. But I was relentless. I danced around it, dents forming in the tray as I continued smashing its head with all my might. Its neck bones snapped, forcing its chin to slump into its chest. I didn’t let up until it collapsed into a pile of itself like a rag doll tossed carelessly to the floor.
Nearly out of breath, I crawled onto my bed. With a sense of triumph, I firmly pressed the call button. If I hadn’t killed it, I was at least certain it had been permanently disabled. Yet in my peripheral vision, I saw it begin to unravel its crumpled arms and legs. Somehow, it stood once more. Its neck was stretched like taffy, its head dangling down its torso, weighted down by its heavy horns. It took quick, shallow breaths through clenched teeth. It wobbled toward me—a blind, determined monstrosity.
I picked up the tray once again and knocked the demon back to the floor. I held the tray over my head for a moment, lowering my arms only when I was sure its body would stay limp. That’s when its arm abruptly reached up and flung the tray from my hands. My feet became tangled in the sheet on the floor, and I fell. My tailbone throbbing, I scooted backward, retreating to the corner.
The monster fumbled for the tips of its horns. Once it had grasped them, it hoisted its head back to an upright position. It sniffed the air before thrusting its head forward to sniff the edge of the sheet that lay between it and me. It inhaled the aroma of the sheet. It licked it, tasting my flavor. Satisfied with what it had gleaned, it crawled toward me with surprising accuracy.
I had blinded it. Crippled it. As I cowered from the demented thing, I realized I had underestimated just how resourceful, how tenacious it was. This was no more clearly demonstrated than when it pulled back its horns to unhinge its drooling mouth and lunged toward me, managing to clamp its giant teeth upon my ankle. It pressed down on its horns, forcing its razor teeth deep into my flesh as it growled like a wild dog fighting for a piece of meat. Pain seared up and down my leg. I could feel its tongue lapping the blood that flowed through the puncture wounds.
I spotted my fork in the middle of the floor. With the demon clamped on to me, I dragged myself toward it. I formed a tight fist around its handle before stabbing the monster repeatedly in its face. It growled defiantly. But when I forced the fork deep into one of its dysfunctional eye sockets—and I was unable to dislodge it from its brain—its grip on my ankle weakened just enough to allow me to pry open its jaws.
As I stood in agony, the nasty thing began to twitch and convulse. I couldn’t believe it still had life left in it. To avoid its dangerous claws, I grabbed it by the horns and held it at arm’s length. But I was helpless, desperately looking about the room for what to do with the twisting devil. It was then I noticed the dark corner outside the bathroom door. It was the only spot in the room natural light couldn’t reach. I limped backward, dragging the demon toward it as it cursed at me in growls.
When we approached the dark space, I spun its stout, muscular body. I shoved the monster feetfirst into the darkness. And the darkness ate its legs. So I pushed the demon in further, letting darkness wholly take back what it had unleashed upon me. And when the demon had been eaten up to its waist, I finally let go of its horns. The blind thing reached for me as I planted my foot on the ridge between its horns and sharply kicked the rest of it into the corner.
With my leg split open and my bitten ankle throbbing in unbearable pain, I stumbled back to the bed. Our blood, red and green, stained the sheets and smeared the floor in an impressionistic mural that documented our brutal fight. Maybe Everett was right after all? Maybe I alone could fight the demons. Without him, I had eluded a cloaked monster and had successfully vanquished a horned demon. Yet already, I was exhausted. Soon there’d be another attack. And another. They wouldn’t stop pursuing me. The horned monster that attacked me that day was likely merely a scout, only a fraction of the evil that brewed in the darkness. More would come and more than one at a time. And after I sent the demon back with a fork skewered in its eye socket, I was certain little mercy was to follow.
Would what happened that day be my future? Would the rest of my existence be spent fighting evil? Living in anticipation of the next attack? Would I end up some kind of warrior of peace? Fighting demons whenever they appeared in dark corners? Fighting them until one day I’d be attacked when my guard was down and finally overtaken? Perhaps it would be in my sleep. Or as I strolled through the fields. I wondered just how long I could survive alone.
I was securing the oxygen tubes back to my nose when the door burst open. The young nurse dropped her jaw at the scene before her. “What happened in here!”
“Where the fuck were you?” I snapped.
“I came as soon as you called.”
“Yeah, right. You never even came to take my lunch tray,” I fumed.
“What happened to your legs!” she gasped, rushing toward me as she noticed my wounds.
“I was bit.”
“Bit! Bit by what?”
There was no sense hiding the truth. “A demon,” I replied. I pointed to the dark corner next to the bathroom. “I dragged it over there.”
She looked over her shoulder, terrified. “Where is it now?”
“I shoved it in the corner. Darkness ate it.”
She returned her attention back to my bleeding legs before scanning the room. “Where’s your silverware?” she asked.
“On the floor. But you won’t find the fork. I stabbed it right into the demon’s goddamn eye.”
“I see. Well, here’s what we’re going to do,” she said calmly. “First, we’ll get these wounds taken care of. Then we’ll get someone in here to sit with you so you don’t do any more harm to yourself.”
“I didn’t do this to myself. I told you. It was a demon. And if you wouldn’t have been so goddamn slow getting in here, you would’ve seen it for yourself.”
“And this demon—you pushed it into the corner?”
“Yeah.”
“OK. I think I understand now. But still, I’ll get someone to sit in here with you. That way, they could protect you in case it comes back.”
“No one can protect me. I have to protect myself now. And it’s probably better if no one gets in my way.”
“It couldn’t hurt, could it?”
“If you think being eaten doesn’t hurt.”
“Hmm. Well, let’s give it a try.”
Part V
Voices from the Other Side
26
Borrowed Energy
“You’re pretty tall.”
“Thanks,” I said, not knowing how else to reply.
“You play basketball?”
“No.”
“You should play basketball.”
“Because I’m tall?”
“Sure. Don’t you like basketball?”
“Not really.”
“What sports you play?”
“None.”
“What’dya do then? Like for hobbies?”
“I don’t have any.”
“No hobbies?”
“I like to sit in fields, I guess.”
“And hunt?”
“No. Just sit in fields. Or woods.”
“Doin’ what, man?”
“Hiding, I guess.”
“Hiding? From who?”
“Everyone.”
His badge said his name was Tyler. Tyler was irritating. How could he ask questions of such inconsequence while I was in the middle of a war against evil? Earlier, he had watched intently as I chewed every bit of my food. And when I had
to pee, he made me leave the door open. Even though I had to go really bad, I just couldn’t with Tyler watching. “I didn’t stab myself with silverware,” I assured him. “And I’m not going to hang myself from the curtain rod or anything.” He should’ve been more concerned about his own safety than mine. Were a demon to show up during his shift, I doubted he had the skills necessary to survive. “It’s OK,” I told him. “We don’t have to make small talk. I’m going to close my eyes now.” With my eyes closed, there was no pressure to talk. I was so sleep deprived from keeping my own watch that despite Tyler’s constant shifting in his squeaky chair, it didn’t take long before I fell asleep.
By the time I woke, it was late afternoon. The sun dipping behind the towering building next door brought shadows into the room. They may have seemed like ordinary shadows at first, yet they began morphing the room into something different. Bands of darkness stretched across the ceiling from the corner where I had ungraciously returned the horned monster. They carried with them a heavy blackness, a pure darkness that gave passage to sinister things.
Tyler was supposed to be watching over me. Yet despite the glossy magazine in his lap opened to a photo of some guy flying through the air on a motorcycle, his eyes were closed. His chin to his chest. What an idiot. He was oblivious to what oozed across the ceiling like an evil, black ink. He didn’t see it pave over the lights, snuffing them out as it swelled. Based on its size, it wasn’t intended for just a single monster. Dozens of demons could’ve materialized from a portal of such size. After narrowly surviving the attacks of two singular monsters, I felt foolish for ever thinking I had it in me to fend off several. I’d be lucky to survive the night. Trapped in the room with Tyler, all I could do was wait and see what the black oil pooling above my bed would give birth to. It hung overhead like a dark cloud, full of infinite, wicked possibilities.
A light tap came from the door. So polite evil was. Tyler jolted out of his slumber and slapped shut his magazine. It didn’t seem fair he too would be consumed. He blinked wide-eyed as he checked his watch. He straightened his scrubs before swinging open the door. Curiously, he wasn’t instantly eaten alive. Instead, he whispered to someone in the hallway. After a few moments, he turned to inform me, “You have a visitor.” My visitor casually strolled past Tyler, wearing, what else, a pair of blue jeans and a plain white T-shirt. Tyler tapped his shoulder. “Buddy, would you mind staying ’til Anita shows up? It’s just about shift change.”
Where the Cats Will Not Follow Page 16
