by Jerry Hart
“How did that happen?” Laura asked.
“The nurse just reached out to let the baby grab her finger, you know, because she thought it would be cute. Then, snap. That baby was strong, honey.”
“Too bad I missed all the excitement,” Laura said sarcastically. “Are you sure things are settled down?”
Tony nodded.
“I have to check on Ms. Polansky,” Laura said as she branched off down another hallway. “I’ll catch you later, Tony.”
After clocking in, Laura made her way to Stephanie Polansky’s room. The poor young girl had suffered severe blood loss and was also under the influence of a strange, unidentifiable toxin that put her in a coma. The doctor had managed to get her blood pressure up to safe levels, though this was the girl’s second trip to the hospital this week for the same affliction. Just what had happened to Ms. Polansky?
Her roommate, Becky Simon, had told the doctor a young man claimed someone attacked the poor girl and then escaped just before Ms. Simon showed up. That sounded like such an unlikely story to Laura she had difficulty believing it. If anything, the young man Becky spoke of attacked Stephanie himself. Ms. Simon was lucky not to have been attacked as well.
But what about the strange puncture wounds on Stephanie’s neck. They almost looked like animal bites. Laura assumed the young man was caught up in a vampire craze and went a little too far with Stephanie in fulfilling his dark desires.
That didn’t explain the toxin, however. Whatever it was, it managed to do odd things to Stephanie’s brain patterns. The doctor said he’d never seen anything like it before, and did not know how to treat it. The poor girl’s parents had visited their daughter just yesterday, and were distraught over how they had treated her when she was younger. They had blamed themselves for Stephanie’s condition, saying if they hadn’t thrown her out years ago, she wouldn’t have hooked up with the wrong people. They thought it was merely drugs that affected their daughter.
The guilty minds of negligent parents.
Laura walked up to Stephanie’s bed and looked directly at the machines displaying the patient’s vital signs. Then Laura looked at her chart at the foot of the bed. Finally she looked at Stephanie’s eyes.
And then Laura started at what she saw.
Stephanie’s eyes were wide open.
“Oh, honey, you scared me,” said Laura as she replaced the chart and made her way closer to the patient. “How are you feeling?”
“Huh,” Stephanie groaned.
Poor girl couldn’t focus, Laura thought. “I asked how you were feeling,” she repeated kindly.
Stephanie didn’t respond. She only stared.
“Let me get the doctor,” Laura said as she backed away. That stare was starting to creep her out. Before she could turn around, however, Stephanie got up from the bed and started for the door. “No, honey, you have to stay here while I get the doctor.”
She tried to reach for the patient, but Stephanie smacked Laura effortlessly across the room. A moment later, Laura slowly got to her feet and followed the crazed patient into the hallway.
“Somebody stop her!” Laura called out, and the closest doctor said, “Not another one.” He ran toward Stephanie as a few nurses attempted to tackle the girl. Some of them were thrown about the hall.
Even five grown men couldn’t stop one small woman. Stephanie burst through the automatic doors of the hospital and ran off.
* * *
Officer Fisher tried as best as he could to keep the crowd back, but they were insistent. They were also weird. It was early in the morning, and the people before him all had sleepy, blank faces, as if they’d just woken up.
Almost everyone was in pajamas—except one guy. He was wearing a black hoodie and blue jeans. His long, curly brown hair was a mess and there were dark tear tracks running down his cheeks. He was fiercely pale, and his face was the blankest of all, if that was possible.
“All right, people,” Patrick barked, “I’m giving you to the count of three to get back. One. Two. Thr—”
It was like a hypnotist had snapped his fingers to call his victims out of a trance. The crowd around Patrick shook their heads and looked around, dazed. A few of the people asked each other where they were.
“Are you in need of assistance?” Patrick asked them, concerned. What he was witnessing was definitely not normal.
The people declined his offer and walked away; they seemed to know where they were now. Others were astonished at the destruction of the garage, like they were just now seeing it. After Patrick repeated that they needed to get back, they did. Thankfully.
All except one man, the one in the black hoodie with the dark streaks on his cheeks. Patrick wondered if it was an early Halloween costume, or if the man was sick.
“Are you in need of assistance?” Patrick asked him. The guy, who looked vaguely familiar to the officer, stared at him for a moment, his head tilted to the side like a dog. He then looked at the destruction behind Patrick for a brief moment, and then turned sharply, as if he had just heard something. He was looking in the direction of Trident River, Patrick noted.
Then he walked away, leaving Patrick more confused than ever.
Moments later, someone came running up to him, waving her arms over her head. She looked to be in her early forties, with tears running down her eyes. “Please, you have to help me. It’s my ma. Something’s wrong with her.”
The woman tugged on Patrick’s arm. “It’s okay, ma’am,” he said gently. “Is your ma hurt?”
She shook her head.
“Okay, what’s your name?” he asked her.
“Jessica.”
“Okay, Jessica. Take me to your ma.”
Patrick followed Jessica to a townhouse a block away. They passed a few people who still looked dazed, like they’d just awoken from a hypnotic state. Jessica’s townhouse was on the ground floor, and as they ran down the hall, Patrick saw a few people stick their heads out of their doors. One man noticed Patrick’s uniform and asked what was going on.
“Everything’s under control, sir,” he replied as he continued to follow Jessica.
At last they reached her mother’s place. The door was closed, and Jessica retrieved a key from her pocket. “I had to lock the door,” she said cryptically. “She’s tied up right now, but just in case, I didn’t want anyone going in to check on her.”
“Why not?” Patrick asked.
“Because I was afraid she’d hurt them.”
Patrick was about to ask her to elaborate on that when both of them heard a crashing noise from inside. Jessica had just undone the lock when Patrick pushed the door open and drew his gun. The townhouse consisted of a bottom floor and a second floor. The staircase was right by the front door.
As soon as he stepped in, Patrick noticed the living room was in shambles; it looked like a great deal of fighting had gone on. There were broken plates and vases; the stuffing had been ripped out of a tasteless orange sofa on the left side of the living room; the TV, on the right, had a hole in the screen.
“What happened here?” Patrick asked Jessica.
The woman shook her head as tears fell down her cheeks. “This morning, we heard all this noise down the street. I moved here to take care of my ma because she was sick. When I went into her room to check on her, I saw she wasn’t breathing. I was about to call an ambulance, but then there was this weird explosion—it made my ears hurt.
“And then, Ma jumped up out of the bed. She tried to go outside all of a sudden, and I tried to stop her. She threw me around like a doll; she was so strong. I hit her on the head with a vase, and that stunned her for a minute. I tied her up.”
That was a heck of a story, and Patrick found himself believing it completely. Worse yet, it reminded him of what he’d seen at Daniel Hudson’s condo earlier. Patrick could have sworn he saw the dead boy blink just before being sealed up in the body bag. No one else had seen it, though, and the last thing Patrick wanted was to be considered crazy, unstable
.
Daniel’s body hadn’t moved at all during its trip to the medical examiner’s van, which Patrick made sure of. He even tried to see the body one more time before they loaded it in, but there had been no time—he’d had to get to the garage.
But now, here was this story of a mother who’d died just before the strange pulse that rocked the city, and then came back to life. Was it a coincidence? Had Jessica been mistaken about her mother having died in the first place? Maybe the old woman had just looked dead.
None of those questions explained the state of the townhouse. Had Jessica really been thrown around like a rag doll? He studied the woman and saw she did look a tad beaten up. Her clothes were probably masking the majority of the damage.
“Where’s your mom?” Patrick asked her.
“In there.” Jessica looked straight ahead to a room just past a tiny kitchen. The door was closed.
Patrick approached the door, placed his hand gently on the knob, and turned slowly.
Inside the fairly large room, tied to a four-poster bed, was Ma. She was wearing a long blue dress. Jessica had tied her mother’s arms and legs to the posts with tape, rope and clotheslines.
Patrick looked at Jessica, who was almost old enough to be his own mother. She was also more terrified than any adult he’d ever seen. Aside from being a cop, he felt a natural need to protect her, even if it was from her own mother.
He lowered his weapon as he approached the bed. “What’s her name?” he asked Jessica.
“Ethel.”
“Hello, Ethel,” Patrick said gently to the old woman. She was staring at him with a blank expression. Dried blood stained her forehead. “I hear there was some trouble earlier this morning. Is everything okay?”
Ethel said nothing.
“Your daughter says you attacked her. Is that true?”
No response.
“I see you’re hurt. We should get you to the hospital. Does that sound good to you?”
“Huh.”
Her first word, though it was barely a word, and it was barely audible.
“I said we should get you to the hospital so the doctors can look at you.”
“Huh.”
Was she asking Patrick what he was saying, or was she merely groaning? It sounded like the latter.
“Huh.”
It was more insistent this time, more of a grunt than a groan. Patrick backed away, pulling Jessica with him. Ethel tried to reach out to them with her left arm, but it caught short on the rope tying her to the post. She jerked her arm and the post snapped off the headboard. Patrick and Jessica ducked; the flying post almost struck them.
“Back up!” Patrick ordered Jessica, who complied.
Ethel was breaking free from her bonds. Patrick pulled his gun again and pointed it toward the open bedroom door. After what felt like an eternity, the old woman appeared in the doorframe, looking like some kind of demon in the dim room.
“Ethel!” said Patrick. “I don’t want to have to hurt you!”
He couldn’t believe he was saying these words at all, let alone to an old woman. Ethel reminded him so much of his grandma, who was still very much alive herself. He wanted to call her at that moment and tell her he loved her.
Ethel lunged for Patrick and Jessica. The two of them fell backward as Patrick pulled the trigger. The bullet shot into the ceiling, raining plaster onto their faces. Ethel was on top of Patrick a second later, trying to rip the gun from his hands.
“Mom, stop it!” Jessica screamed from directly next to them.
Ethel looked at her daughter with a blank expression for a moment. “Huh,” she moaned.
Patrick just lay there, too afraid to move. Ethel held his wrists in steel grips, and he felt they would snap any second. How could she be this strong?
“Jessica?” Ethel said quietly, her blank expression becoming a little less so.
The woman’s grips on Patrick’s wrists decreased slightly, but she didn’t let go completely. It was at that moment Patrick noticed Ethel seemed absolutely still, as if she wasn’t breathing. She was as still as a statue on top of him. He thought of checking her pulse, even though she was clearly alive. The thought of it made him want to laugh, but he couldn’t shake the feeling the woman on top of him wasn’t breathing.
Before he could make any move, Ethel collapsed on his chest. Patrick checked her pulse then; she had none. He doubted she’d had one at all during his time with her.
CHAPTER 2
The spiral staircase rose in front of Owen Walters into the dark sky, and he noticed the steps were actually hardcover books. They rose up so far he couldn’t see where they ended.
Cautiously, he stepped on the first book-step. It gave a little under his weight, but held. He slowly made his way up the spiral staircase. The first few steps felt awkward; his balance was shaky and he had nothing to grab onto.
As he made his way higher and higher, he tried to see if the book-steps had titles. They did not, but they all had the same brown leather covers.
After what felt like a significant amount of time, Owen looked up to see how far he’d traveled. The sky was dark and featureless. There was no telling, so he looked down. The ground was just as dark. He stood in place, refusing to take another step. He was starting to regret having made the climb in the first place.
He looked to his wrist only to remember he didn’t have a watch in which to tell the time. All he had on was his black blood-covered hoodie and jeans. The blood belonged to his dear friend Alyssa Turner. He looked up again hoping to see something, anything, but only saw darkness. A horrible loneliness gripped him. He had no idea where he was. He saw nothing but the books on which he stood, spiraling upward. He grabbed his blond, sweaty hair and tried to pull it out in frustration.
They have to go somewhere, he thought.
With that in mind, he continued to climb, determined to discover where these steps led. After what felt like ten minutes, Owen stopped and looked up again. Now he saw something. Whatever it was, it was dark, but not as dark as its surroundings. He decided to climb some more. He climbed more energetically now that he saw his destination.
After a few more minutes, he could practically feel the object above him taking up the space around it. He was close enough to see what it was.
It was an orb.
It was the orb.
But it was much larger than Owen remembered. The one he had, the one he’d taken from Michael and his brother Jason, was the size of a bowling ball and appeared to be made of polished red marble.
This orb, though appearing to be made of the same polished marble, was the size of a car. The steps actually widened around it.
Owen stared at the object that seemed to be floating in midair. This didn’t surprise him because there was nothing supporting the book-steps, either.
There was a low-level hum coming from the massive orb. Owen was tempted to touch it but was afraid of what might happen if he did. He thought back to what happened the last time it had been activated: A weird pulse had shot out of it and spread in all directions. His friend, Chris Weaver, had managed to deactivate it, but there was no telling what kind of damage it had already done.
No, Owen didn’t know much about this orb, but he knew one thing: He’d had a hand in creating it.
But for what? What did the orb do? Owen had no clue. Whatever it did, it was apparently worth killing for. And now it was in his possession.
He looked at his surroundings once again; it was still too dark to tell where he was, but it didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was the orb floating before him. He placed his hands upon its shiny surface. It felt warm and slimy. The humming instantly grew more intense. Owen tried to pull his hands away, but couldn’t. He was stuck to it.
And now the massive orb began to glow. A bright light ignited from the center and expanding outward. Owen looked in the center; it was as if he were looking down into the bottom of a pool, with his head just above the surface of the water. He was mesmerized
.
* * *
He woke up to find he was holding the orb now, but it was no longer the size of a car; it was back to the bowling-ball size he was accustomed to.
Much like its dream counterpart, this orb was also glowing. He dropped it. The moment it hit the ground, the light faded away. He watched it for a moment to make sure it didn’t do anything else, then he looked around. He was in a candle-lit room. There were windows placed high on the walls. Very little moonlight shone into the room due to the thick cloud cover.
“What are you doing?” a voice asked, making Owen jump. In one corner of the room stood a young woman, wearing a purple shirt and jeans. She studied him, a curious grin on her face.
“Nothing, Nikki. I mean I don’t know what happened. Bad dream.”
Nikki stepped closer, glancing down at the orb. She combed her strawberry-blond hair behind her ears. “Were you messing with that thing? I saw light coming from this room.”
“I wasn’t messing with it. I had a dream I was touching the orb. Then I woke up and I was holding it. I didn’t mean to,” he added defensively.
“You dreamt of it before finally obtaining it,” Nikki mused, “and continue to do so now that you have it? How weird.”
It was true, but the dreams Owen had before were different. Back then, he dreamt he was tinkering with and testing it on animals. Now that he had the orb in his possession, he was dreaming about turning it on.
Then it hit him. What had he just done with it? He knew he activated something, but it wasn’t the same thing Michael and Jason had done. At least, Owen hoped it wasn’t.
Nikki picked up the orb and studied it, rolling it around in her hands. Owen had brought it to her hoping she could tell him what it was, but so far she’d been unable to. Nor was she able to tell him how he was connected to it. And to Michael.
