by mike Evans
Gunther moved to the metal gates and activated his saw, chose the right blade, and went to work cutting through the links. He continued to swing his hammer and another creature died in a splash of gore. He grabbed the final two in his metal hands and bashed them together till they stopped moving and dropped them on the ground. Danny ran to him hoping he had enough power to open a hole large enough for him to get out. He noticed the building had no power and was happy his lab worked on a separate power source that kept him working. Gunther had cut through a big chunk of the gate and was now cutting through the window when his saw stopped. Danny looked at his tablet and saw Gunther’s power source was at five percent.
“Gunther, forget the saw hit the window with your hammer.”
Gunther raised his hammer and struck the window hard busting through to the outside. He pulled it back and hit again and again till he made a big enough hole for them to fit through. Danny jumped on Gunther’s back as he motored out of the hole and into the pre-dawn morning. Just like his last dream, they faced more monsters than Danny could count. With that, Danny lost hope and dropped off Gunther. He raised his wrench and charged toward the parking lot and to his future. The last thought he had was he was too close to fail as he ran into the charging beasts.
The end
By James Wallace
Of Sound Mind
Floor Four
Kindra Sowder
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© 2016 Kindra Sowder, All Rights Reserved
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Floor Four
Doctor Christina Kovach hadn’t been in the office long before all Hell broke loose, closing her door to the noise outside her office as the building went into lockdown. Each patient behind her current one was in the waiting room attempting to tame their anxiety as the metal shutters closed over the windows and every person inside was locked inside. The flu had hit hard this year, but no one could’ve seen what was coming as it began to kill people downstairs on the first floor after an attack by a couple of vagrants. But she still had a job to do, and she would do it just like she had promised every patient that came to see her. She knew her receptionist could take care of it. Amanda had worked as a psychiatry technician before she came to work for Doctor Kovach and was excellent at her job, so Christina trusted her to handle the situation without her.
Her first patient of the day was Max Durant, an Army veteran who had served three tours in Afghanistan and suffered from severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He nearly shot his wife with the handgun they owned for self-protection in case of a break-in before the VA sent him to Christina. He had been hallucinating, completely dissociated from his surroundings. When she walked into their bedroom, he had mistaken her for Taliban, but she had been able to talk him down somehow. Normally, when a PTSD patient disassociated, there was no way to bring them back. They would have to come back on their own. So, his wife being able to bring him out was a miracle in itself.
“How are you today, Mr. Durant?” Christina asked as she sat in the plush chair opposite him.
“I could be better,” he answered, his eyes darting around the room. He was exhibiting the hypervigilance of those with the disorder as anxiety took hold of him while being in unknown surroundings. He was ringing his hands in his lap as Christina watched, scribbling a note of it on her legal pad.
“I was looking over your file from the V.A., and you are exhibiting signs of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Did the doctors there explain this diagnosis to you?” Christina knew the answer already as she looked into Mr. Durant’s dark brown, fear-ridden eyes. He shook his head, confirming it. This was something she saw with patients that came from the V.A. hospitals often when it came to psych patients. Their audacity angered her on more than one occasion, and this was another instance to add to the list.
His eyes flitted to the door, the noise from outside the room still filtering in but not nearly as loud as it would’ve been if Christina had left the door open. Christina let him work through it, not wanting to startle him and cause any further anxiety.
“I didn’t mean to scare my wife. I don’t even know what happened,” Max said with a tremor in his voice.
“That’s perfectly normal, Mr. Durant. PTSD can present in a number of ways.”
“Is it normal to see things?” he asked, staring intently at Christina as he waited for her answer. “Because I’m seeing things.”
She cleared her throat and adjusted in her chair, “Yes. Hallucinations can be very normal after the type of trauma you experienced overseas. I see a lot of what happened between you and your wife, especially with military veterans. This disorder is a stress disorder triggered by a traumatic event, but there are ways to treat it. Can you tell me more about your symptoms? Besides, what happened with your wife?”
Tears welled up in Max’s eyes as he thought about what could have happened if his wife hadn’t been able to bring him out of his dissociative state. He shifted in his chair and twiddled his thumbs like he didn’t want to speak, but knew he needed to get the help that he so desperately needed. Christina saw this kind of thing quite often with military men or men in general. They didn’t like to divulge their weaknesses to anyone, not even the doctor trying to help them.
“Mr. Durant, this is a safe space. You can tell me anything, and I will listen. No judgments. I just need to know more before I can figure out the proper way to treat you.”
He was quiet for a few more moments and before Christina could speak, he finally began to open up.
“I’ve been having nightmares. Every night. It’s like they’ll never stop,” he explained.
“What are they about?”
“It’s always the same. I’m walking down the hall of a home in Afghanistan, and there are gunshots and screaming all around me. My heart is beating so fast, and I can’t slow it down.” He takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. A trick someone had undoubtedly taught him before his visit. Probably a family member. “A child comes into the room with a bomb strapped to him, and I want to help, but I can’t. And then the bomb goes off.”
“What happens after that?”
His eyes met Christina’s and stayed there. He was afraid of the dream, of reliving it every night and speaking about it at that moment, but it was time for him to heal. To get better. And this was what it would take.
“I wake up, and I can’t breathe. And then the flashbacks start. I’ll see different horrible things that happened while I was over there. I’ve seen so much death that I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to get past it.”
“That’s what’s causing your anxiety, which is something we can work on. There are a variety of treatments that are highly effective if you’re willing to try them,” Christina stated as she scribbled, even more, notes on her notepad. She had seen a lot of patients exhibiting PTSD before whether caused by a car accident or near death experience and had seen plenty of soldiers, but Max was the most severe she had seen in years.
“What do you…?” Max’s question was interrupted by the sound of chaos outside the door of Christina’s office, causing Max to turn to the door with a start. He had nearly jumped out of the seat at the sound of screaming.
“Please stay seated, Mr. Durant. I will see what’s going on,” Christina said, raising a hand to stop him from rising from the chair, which he did anyways. Christina rose to her feet and placed the legal pad she had been notating on on the small end table next to her chair, making sure the words faced the table’s surface. “Please, Mr. Durant. Take your seat.”
He didn’t listen, which was typical for military servicemen when dealing with PTSD. Once roused from their state, there was no way to talk them into choosing any other action other than the one they had alr
eady chosen. She had seen this a lot and she knew telling him to sit back down would do nothing but make him follow her out of the room. Christina made her way to the door and opened it, a gasp of shock leaving her lips as she spotted one of her patients at the doorway leading into her receptionist’s area from the hallway. A woman was latched onto his throat, tearing at it with her gleaming white teeth, her lips and chin now stained with his blood. The patient was Jason Burns, who suffered from severe germaphobia. She had made a lot of progress with him over the last six months, and now she was afraid he was dying right there on her office’s floor. Amanda was standing back away from the door, frozen in fear as the other patients panicked and cried out for not only Jason but for help as well.
I wasn’t sure what to do, but Max took the initiative, stalking toward the desk to the coffee mug full of pens with Christina’s practice information painted on them, taking one of them into his large hands and practically running toward Jason and his assailant. Without warning, he jabbed the pen into the neck of the attacker which just happened to be the most reachable place at the time. The woman let go of Jason, who grasped his throat making wet choking sounds as he backed away along the floor. The woman turned to Max and Christina ran towards her patient, the others froze to the spot since they weren’t sure what else to do. A couple screamed while one stood there with mouth open and chest heaving in an attempt to stop the shock he was going into, but Christina couldn’t worry about the other patients now. Not when she had one bleeding out onto the soft blue carpet underneath their feet. Once she knelt down next to him, his eyes blue eyes were beginning to drift to a close, and he was shivering, going into shock from the blood loss quickly.
Max took another pen from the mug on Amanda’s desk and pushed it into the attacker’s skull, putting enough force into it so it would penetrate the brain without a struggle. There was a wet cracking sound as it punctured the skull, and then a soft squishing sound as the metal tip met brain, the woman who had attacked Jason crumpling to the floor at Max’s feet. Blood covered her face, a lovely gash on her throat formed by deep and menacing teeth marks. Human teeth marks. Her eyes looked dead, even before Max had killed her in an attempt to save Jason. He was beginning to wonder if the woman was suffering from rabies the way she attached the other patient, but he wasn’t sure what to make of it, and neither was Christina.
“Mr. Burns? Look at me, Mr. Burns. You’re going to be alright,” Christina cried as she placed her hands on his throat, trying to stop the bleeding at any cost even though she knew there was nothing she could do. Amanda was then beside her, her white cardigan glaring at Christina and her first aid training and what she had learned from medical school kicked in. “Give me your cardigan, Amanda.”
Amanda removed it without question as Jason shivered from shock, handing it to Christina in one swift movement. She cringed when she saw the blood all over her boss’s hand but did it regardless.
“Do we still have those blankets in the back?” Christina asked her receptionist.
“Yes, we do,” Amanda answered.
“Go get me one. He’s going into shock.”
Christina watched as he took a turn for the worst at that moment, sweat breaking out on his forehead as his teeth chattered and his face paled. Christina removed her hands long enough to take the cardigan and place it against the wound, putting on firm pressure as they all saw an arterial spurt shoot across the room, meaning that his jugular was severed from the bite. Christina didn’t take her attention away from Jason, even though she had four other patients in the waiting area with her watching her every move, a few of them panicked and sobbing. Amanda returned, kneeling down beside the injured man and spreading the green blanket over him, attempting to warm him and bring him back from the brink.
“Call 9-1-1,” Amanda demanded of one of the patients.
The brunette female with deep brown eyes that were nearly black, turned on her heel and tried the receptionist’s phone and her shoulders sagged as the tone that meant the lines were down was heard across the room. “The line is down.”
“Damn it,” Christina cursed. “What about a cell?”
Everyone began removing cell phones from purses and pockets, each person shaking their heads revealing they had no cell reception. This seemed to be an unfortunate side effect of the metal shutters.
“We’re in total lockdown. I wanted to tell you, but you were in your office with a patient. Someone died downstairs, and they have the whole building locked down because someone became violent. I’m so sorry,” Amanda confessed. “I’m so sorry.”
As everyone looked on, Jason faded, taking his last breath within mere seconds despite Christina’s best efforts. Christina backed away from the body as best as she could until her back met the wooden desk, her breathing sharp and ragged and labored as she tried to make sense of what just happened. She had truly done all that she could to keep Jason alive. She wasn’t sure what drove the savage attack that resulted in his untimely death, but everyone that was in the waiting room would. Right? Or did this come out of nowhere? Christina wasn’t entirely sure, but she was Hell-bent on finding out.
“What the fuck was that?” Another one of my patients yelled, but I didn’t turn to look at him, and no one answered.
That was the same question Christina was now asking herself.
* * *
Not too long after Jason’s death, Christina was turning over the body of the woman that had attacked him. She didn’t recognize her as one of her patients, but there was a possibility that she could’ve been new to the practice. Outside sources sent patients to her on a daily basis, and she could barely get ahead of the caseload that was piling up on her and Amanda’s desks. Now one patient was entirely lost to her, and she had this mysterious woman to blame, but there was something strange about her that Christina couldn’t quite put her finger on.
Christina rose to her feet and studied each of her patients. One was a middle-aged woman named Donna Chernobles who suffered from anorexia, and Christina had made great strides with her only to see her fall off the wagon a couple of times in the last few weeks. Her short blonde hair had even begun to fall out because of malnourishment, which Christina had turned her to a nutritionist to correct. Another was Fred Rogers, who suffered from anxiety so severe that he was on the highest dosage of the best SSRI there was that she could prescribe, and the racing thoughts and fear still plagued him. His dark brown eyes were darting all over the room, and his hands began to shake as Christina examined the unknown woman. The last, besides Max, was a man named Carlisle Dubois. Carlisle suffered from schizophrenia, paranoid type, and he had been adjusting well to the medications Christina had prescribed him which was a relief to his wife of only five years. They had gotten married and then he stopped taking his medications because he didn’t want to feel numb and, while Christina couldn’t blame him, it took a new psychiatrist and a lot of invested time and late night phone calls to get him back on the drugs that would save his marriage.
Fred had been the one to ask what this woman was, but Christina wasn’t confident there was a ‘what’ to it. She looked like she had come down with the same flu so many had been getting, and a bad case at that. Amanda and Max knelt down next to Christina attempting to make sense of what had happened to this woman as well, coming up with nothing. Christina turned to Amanda.
“We have enough samples of everyone’s meds in the back just in case we’re locked in here for a couple of days, right? There’s no telling how long this will last or what this even is,” Christina asked her receptionist, who nodded enthusiastically in return.
“Yes, Doctor Kovach, we have plenty.”
“Good. Now, what I want you to do is go get some water and an Ativan for Mr. Rogers before he hyperventilates,” she said.
Before she got up to get the medication, she took a glance at Fred, who was biting his fingernails to the quick and shaking so badly he could barely stand. Amanda got up and scurried to the back as quickly as she could, fetch
ing the medication and water for him in record time. The doctor turned her attention back to the body in front of her, Max barely touching it to try to understand what had caused her to attack Jason in the first place.
“Doctor Kovach,” Mr. Dubois pestered, standing at Christina’s back and hovering like a lost child.
“Yes, Carlisle,” Christina replied, trying to look over the body which Carlisle was making difficult.
“Doctor Kovach, what’s wrong with that woman? She looks sick. Everyone will get sick,” Carlisle stammered, hesitating with every word knowing he was being paranoid, and it was highly irrational. It was something they had spoken about on many occasions over many sessions and phone calls.
“Carlisle,” she turned and stood, taking his hands in hers and looking into his eyes, “we’ve talked about this. You are not your paranoia. Remember? The voices aren’t real. I am not my paranoia. Can you repeat that?”
Carlisle nodded and repeated the phrases, “The voices aren’t real. I am not my paranoia.” He turned away from the doctor and began to sit down in one of the waiting room chairs, shushing someone no one else could hear.
“Mr. Dubois?” Christina asked him, touching his arm. “Did you take your anti-psychotic last night? You know what happens when you don’t take it.”
“I didn’t, Doctor Kovach. I forgot. I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to feel sorry for. Do you have your pills with you?” It was typical for this patient to have his medications on him at all times as his paranoia and the voices told him that someone was stealing them, which caused him to count them every day after he took his dosage.
He nodded and reached into his black jacket pocket.
“I want to see you take your dosage, and then I am going to try to figure out what is going on. Okay?”
Fred popped one of the pills into his mouth, and dry swallowed, closing his eyes as he felt the tablet force its way down his throat and into his system. Christina gave him a pat on the knee and turned back to the task at hand. Jason’s body was still quiet and unmoving, not like she had expected him to get up and walk around the office, but you never knew sometimes.
