by Rick Hautala
“Well, what do you know — she’s coming to,” one of the doctors said, his voice tinged with excitement.
Elizabeth’s eyelids flickered as she tried to resist the hurtful brightness of the room. Her lips twitched into a faint smile. Then, before anyone could respond, she drifted back to a deeper, more restful sleep.
From far away, she heard her mother’s voice say, “Oh, my God! Thank you, Lord!”
2.
The next time Elizabeth opened her eyes, it didn’t hurt half as much to look around. The Levolor blinds were closed, and the overhead light was dimmed way down. She shifted in an attempt to sit up, but still felt the straps that held both of her arms and her chest down tightly to the mattress. A fresh wave of panic swelled inside her as she struggled to piece together the confused and terrifying fragments of memories and dreams that whirled in her brain.
Am I in a hospital or the mental ward? she wondered. Why am I strapped down to the bed? Why can’t / even feel my legs?
What’s happened to me? Where are my mother and father? Where are the doctors? Where’s the old woman who wants to show me that she has nothing — absolutely nothing in her shopping bag?
Jagged bolts of pain lanced through her neck and head, but Elizabeth struggled to raise her head from the pillow and look around the room. She gasped when she saw a person, sprawled motionlessly in the chair by the window. In the dim light, she could make out none of the features, but she had the unnerving feeling it might be her old friend, the crone ... or maybe it was herself ...
“Wanna see what I’ve got?”
“I have all your fears in here!”
The old lady’s voice rang in Elizabeth’s memory, sending waves of chills racing up her arms and shoulders.
Yes! she thought, sucking in a deep breath and feeling an excited tingle throughout her body! I’m alive!
Her throat made a deep, strangling sound as her legs twitched and rustled loudly on the crisp sheets. In the silence of the hospital room, the noise was like an avalanche crashing down a mountainside, but the silent shape in the chair by the window didn’t stir.
Looking down the length of her bed at the person in her room, Elizabeth tried to detect any sign of life. The figure was covered by a sheet, which added to the motionless, amorphous image. The head was turned to one side, looking away from her, so all she could see were strands of gray hair and the smooth curve of the cheek. The figure’s shoulders looked frail, almost girl-like, and Elizabeth had the momentarily scary thought that when the figure stirred, she would see Caroline, her daughter. Perhaps, after all, she had come to lead her mother over to the “other side.”
Again, Elizabeth tried to form words in her throat, but the dry burning made it all but impossible. When she licked her lips, her tongue felt as if it were coated with sand. The dry feeling only got worse. Finally, her head dropped back onto the pillow, and she let her breath out in a long, slow whistle. She tensed when she clearly heard the figure in the chair shift. There was a hissing sound as the sheet slid to the floor.
“ ... Water,” Elizabeth rasped, unable to raise her head a second time. She sensed rather than saw the figure as it approached the side of the bed. Even though her chest was burning with pain, she sucked in a lungful of air and waited ... waited to look up and see ...
Who?
“Elizabeth ... Dear, you’re awake.”
The soothing sound of Aunt Junia’s voice caressed Elizabeth’s ears. Her mounting panic instantly uncoiled as she stared up in disbelief at her aunt, who was leaning over the bed railing and smiling at her. Elizabeth’s first thought was that this, too, was a dream, and that, before she could smile back, Aunt Junia’s face would dissolve into the demon’s leering grin, which would roar and blast her to nothingness.
“Did you say you wanted a drink of water?” Junia asked in a soft, kindly voice. Elizabeth nodded, her eyes flicking back and forth, unable to focus as Junia turned away from the bed and disappeared from view for a moment. When she returned, her face still hadn’t shifted into that of a demon or of an ancient woman; it was still Aunt Junia, and she was holding a glass with a flexible straw up to Elizabeth’s mouth.
Elizabeth sipped, and her mind and body exploded with relief when she felt water — real, honest-to — God. cold,fresh water! — slide into her mouth and roll down the back of her parched throat. She sucked on the straw eagerly, but Junia pulled it away and said, “Ut-ut. The doctor said you shouldn’t have too much at first.”
The comers of Elizabeth’s mouth twitched into what she thought was a smile — or at least something close to it.
“Thanks,” she said, surprised at how twisted and strange her voice sounded to her own ears.
“That’s why I’m here, dear,” Junia said as she replaced the cup onto the stand beside the bed.
“Where ... is here?’ Elizabeth said. She couldn’t push aside the rush of fear that she had been committed to the mental hospital, that she was strapped to the bed so she couldn’t get away. Junia looked at her with a warming smile and said softly, “Why, you’re in the hospital, Maine Med., of course. You were quite badly injured.”
“Am I ... Is this P-6?” Elizabeth asked.
Junia’s face clouded and she shook her head. “P-6? I don’t know what P-6 is.”
“The psycho ward,” Elizabeth said. “Am I in the psycho ward?” Already her throat was closing up; it felt as though it were the bottom of an hour glass, and the hour was over.
Junia laughed softly and shook her head. “Why of course you aren’t!”
“Why am I ... strapped down, then?” Elizabeth said. She wanted to ask for another drink of water but was afraid she would start screaming as soon as she opened her mouth. Before anything else, she had to have answers to certain questions.
“Why, because of your injuries, of course,” Junia said. “Even with medication, since you began to regain consciousness, you’ve been thrashing about quite a bit. When Frank Melrose found you in the cemetery, before he — well, before everything else happened, that doctor, Roland Graydon, had already stabbed you in the chest with that knife of his. It was a pretty serious wound on top of the gunshot wound.”
“Gunshot ... ? Who ... shot me? I — I think I remember seeing Frank ... Melrose. He was there, too?”
“He was,” Junia said. “He shot you in the hand ... by mistake, of course. But he was hurt as well. He had a quite serious accident. He was trying to stop Doctor Graydon from doing ... what he was doing.”
Trying to kill me! Elizabeth thought, with a cold dash of fear. He wanted to kill me and make it look like a suicide!
She shivered, recalling her discussion about her suicide attempt during one session with Graydon. She realized — now — that he had used everything ... absolutely everything she had revealed to him against her-all of her grief and guilt and fears about Caroline’s death. All of it! She remembered him saying something that night in the cemetery about how he had plotted and planned ...
“I made vows and performed certain rituals to make certain!”
... his revenge because he blamed her for the death of his nephew that night! It stunned her that he would use his position as her doctor to tum it all against her.
“He ... Graydon — ?” Elizabeth said.
More vivid but disconnected fragments of that night filled her mind. The pentagram drawn with luminous white powder over Caroline’s grave — the black shape with claws and fangs she had seen sitting on Caroline’s tombstone — the insubstantial blue figure of her dead daughter that had appeared and struggled with her to force the knife away from her chest — the series of explosions that had blown Graydon’s face into tangled, red meat.
How long ago was that? she wondered, as worries about her sanity intensified. How long have I been here?
“Is Graydon ... ?”
Before she could finish her question, Junia nodded. “Yes. Roland Graydon is dead.” She glanced ceilingward before continuing. “I don’t know how much of this I shoul
d be telling you. I mean, I don’t want to say anything that will work against your healing.”
Elizabeth gritted her teeth as a flicker of pain blossomed in her chest. “The truth ... is always ... healing,” she said, even as she thought about how many times over the past year and a half she had told little “untruths,” thinking she could protect herself and the people she loved from painful realities.
“Well then,” Junia said, shrugging, “the truth is, nobody’s really sure what was going on there that night. Roland Graydon is dead. You’ve just come out of a coma. And Frank Melrose, the only other person nearby that night, wasn’t exactly clear about what he saw happening. He had sustained a quite serious head injury.”
“Is he ... all right?” Elizabeth asked. Another memory from that night stirred, one of Frank Melrose, his face smeared by thick gouts of streaming blood, running toward her from the darkness. She recalled hearing the sound of his revolver punching the night.
“He’s fine ... he’s just fine,” Junia said. “As a matter of fact, he’s been here to visit you several times since you were admitted.”
“How long ... How long has it been?”
Junia’s eyes flicked up at the ceiling again; but before she said anything, she picked up the glass of water and held the straw to Elizabeth’s lips. Elizabeth sucked some more water into her mouth, letting it sit there for a moment before swallowing it. The pain in her chest intensified, but she had to have an answer. Licking her lips, she rephrased her question, just in case Junia hadn’t understood her.
“How long have I been unconscious?”
“It’s been ... almost two weeks,” Junia replied softly.
Elizabeth heard the words like a rapid series of explosions inside her head. “Two weeks ... ?”
Junia nodded as she trailed her fingers soothingly across Elizabeth’s forehead. “Yes ... that long.”
“I — I’ve been having this really weird dream,” Elizabeth said. Her voice was a gravelly growl as she allowed the memory to surface of the old woman, leaning over the bed railing with her bag ...
“Wanna see what I have for yah?”
“It’s been ... quite a strain ... for a lot of people,” Junia replied, nodding. “Doug’s driven out from New Hampshire several times to see you.”
The mere mention of her ex-husband’s name made the ripple of pain in Elizabeth’s chest increase. She wanted to say something about not wanting-ever!-to see Doug again, and if she was ever asleep for Junia or the hospital staff to keep him out; but then she thought better of it and remained silent.
“So why are you here?’ Elizabeth asked, craning her neck again to look at the window. “Who’s staying with Aunt Elspeth?” She couldn’t be sure, but through the slats, it looked as though the sky was brightening. Could it really be approaching dawn? She supposed so. Anything was possible if it had, in fact, been two weeks since that terrifying night in the cemetery.
Junia’s eyes clouded over. Tears formed and ran down her cheeks. ‘‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Aunt Elspeth ... passed away. Her funeral was yesterday afternoon,” she said softly.
“Oh, my God,” Elizabeth said. “She ... died?”
Junia nodded solemnly, and Elizabeth could feel her own eyes misting up.
It wasn’t just Elspeth’s death that shocked Elizabeth, though; now — for the first time — she realized why in her nightmares the old crone looked so frighteningly familiar. In one of her sessions with Graydon, he had suggested that the woman might possibly be Elizabeth’s projection of herself, representing things about herself she was trying to hide from herself. It hadn’l been that al all, Elizabeth realized. It was her namesake, her Aunt Elspeth, whose face she had vaguely recognized beneath the shabby clothing, the grimy features, and the unkempt hair of the woman from her nightmares.
Had that really been Aunt Elspeth, standing unseen beside Elizabeth’s hospital bed yesterday? The day of her funeral, had Elspeth come to visit Elizabeth one last time, to show her that all of her fears were in the shopping bag ... and then reveal that there was nothing there? It must have been Elspeth! Elizabeth remembered hearing both her mother and father talking about what a pity it was that someone had died; she realized now that they had been speaking about her aunt, not her!
And she came here. to the hospital. to help m ... to show me that. even after everything I saw or think I saw in the cemetery that night. that all of my fears are as real and as solid as what I saw in her shopping bag ...
Nothing!
“All gone!”
“I’m ... so sorry,” Elizabeth said, her eyes glistening as she looked at her aunt and read the deep pain in Junia’s eyes. “I’ll miss her ... too.” She vowed, even then, that once she was out of the hospital — and she knew she would leave; oh, yes, she was going to live! — she would use everything she had learned about loss and suffering to help Junia accept and cope with her recent grief, which was just as real and deep as what Elizabeth felt for Caroline.
“Frank’s been by to check in on you just about every day, too,” Junia said.
“I remember seeing him ... that night ... at the cemetery ... . with his ... his face all bloody,” Elizabeth said. She tried to shift in bed to get more comfortable, but the straps restrained her
Junia placed a reassuring hand on Elizabeth’s shoulder and eased her back down, forcing her to relax. “He said he’d like to stop by and see you, once you were feeling up to it.”
Elizabeth had to blink her eyes rapidly as they flooded with tears. “I — I think I’d like that,” she said softly.
“I told you he was injured when his car rolled over,” Junia said. “He had some quite serious cuts on his face, but he’s just fine now.” She paused a moment, then added. “He’s not working for the police anymore, though.”
Elizabeth raised her eyebrows in surprise.
“He resigned as soon as he was released from the hospital. You see, there was quite a bit more involved that night than you realize,” Junia said, lowering her voice again. “Roland Graydon died, sure enough, but apparently he had help doing those horrible things he’d been doing. You must know Frank’s partner, Brad Norton.” Elizabeth nodded numbly as bitter guilt rose up inside her. She realized that, even if she hadn’t been committed to the psycho ward, she almost deserved it for going along with Graydon’s suggestions right from the beginning. Why had she done that? Or, more seriously, how had she let herself be led along so willingly and so blindly? Even if she had never suspected his plot to revenge himself on her for his nephew’s death, she had suspected he was involved in the disinterment of her Uncle Jonathan, the murder of Barney Fraser, and the fire that had killed Henry Bishop. Just the thought that she had actually believed Graydon could communicate with her dead daughter was more than unsettling. It was ludicrous!
So if I’m not in P-6 yet, I still have a better than average shot at making it there, she thought with sour humor.
But if what she had experienced was impossible, how could she account for what she had seen that night in Oak Grove Cemetery? No matter what else, she most definitely had seen ... something out of the ordinary, something that couldn’t be casually dismissed as illusion or hallucination. Graydon’s ceremony had raised something that night! Maybe Graydon had planned all along to raise the demon to push her — finally — over the brink. Or maybe he had succeeded in conjuring up far more than he had ever thought or believed possible. The demon she had seen — Yes! It had been as real, as solid as the stone that marked Caroline’s grave! While at first it had assumed the shape of Caroline, it had been truly — a dark and evil creature from Hell, just as surely as there had been something else-something airy and blue, emanating a purity and goodness that had helped Elizabeth in her struggle to avoid the killing blade of the knife.
“Well, apparently Brad Norton was helping Roland Graydon all along,” Junia continued. “He’s been charged with attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and a whole host of other crimes. They thin
k Graydon set the fire that killed Henry Bishop, so I don’t think he’s being tried for that. At least, not yet. “ Junia’s expression faltered before she added, “They figure he and Graydon were the ones who disturbed Jonathan’s and Caroline’s graves, but Frank also mentioned that Norton said something about Graydon blackmailing Bamey Fraser to do the job. Whatever! Hey-you’re looking a little peaked, and here I am, gabbing your ear off. “
“No — I’m all right,” Elizabeth said, although the weakening quaver in her voice revealed the truth. “But — can I tell you one thing, Aunt Junia?”
Junia’s mouth set into a firm, unsmiling line. “Of course you can, Elizabeth. You can tell me anything.”
“That night, out there in the cemetery,” Elizabeth said, swallowing with difficulty. “I don’t know for sure what happened and what didn’t. I’ll probably never know; but one thing — I’m honest-to- God positive I did see Caroline! When . . I don’t know, whatever the hell was going on, I heard her calling to me.” She shivered with the memory, her eyes widening with fright. “I kept hearing a voice crying Help Mommy! All along, I thought she needed help ... you know, from the accident and the fire. Now-I’m not so sure. I think she might have been trying to tell me she could help me! But, whatever-I know this much! I saw her there! She came to me out of the darkness and she ... She did help me!”
Junia’s expression widened into a broad smile. She patted the back of Elizabeth’s hand and said mildly, “You know, I’m not in the least bit surprised. Ever since you came back home, I’ve had this ... this feeling that Caroline was with you, if you know what I mean.”
An oily wave of fear crested inside Elizabeth. She felt it rise, break, and then begin to pull back in a rush as it dissolved into nothingness.
“I have all your fears in here!”
“I think I do know what you mean,” Elizabeth said softly. “I mean, I always felt her here in my heart, but-” She tried to tap herself on the chest but couldn’t, so instead she simply shook her head, even thongh it sent a crackling pulse of pain up the back of her head. “I don’t know. I couldn’t get rid of this feeling that she was always somewhere nearby, always just out of sight, but trying her damnedest to reach out to me.”
