Tenebris

by Tim Curran

  He could see inside the SUV and in the flickering light from the flames, it was empty.

  There was no one in it.

  Rita? Rita?

  There was a sudden whooshing sound followed by a flapping noise and Jim began to whimper in his throat. Something passed over him with a rush of hot air, a raw and nauseating stink of abattoirs. He looked up, expecting his face to be sheared from the bone, but that didn’t happen.

  He heard screaming.

  And the insane thing was that it came from high above him. It was Rita. He knew it was Rita. She was up high above him, her shrieking absolutely hysterical in tone. “NO! NO! PLEASE PLEASE HELP ME HELP MEEEEE—” It ended with a ripping noise as if her tongue had been torn out. This was followed by a hollow, inhuman screeching cycling out from the darkness overhead…it was almost like insane cackling, but mocking and evil sounding like the laughter of a hyena.

  Then a wet spray hit him like a sudden squall.

  He wiped blood from his face in time to see Rita come spinning out of the darkness with great velocity, striking the burning SUV with such force that bits of her were splattered for thirty feet.

  This is what he saw right before he sank into the dirt and into oblivion.

  This and some immense thing rising up into the night on black wings like flapping kites.

  3

  He came to in a hospital bed two days later.

  There was no movie or TV melodrama about it: he did not jump up and demand to know where he was or how he had gotten there. No panic whatsoever, in fact. The only thing he was immediately concerned with was as to whether he was whole or not. But a quick inventory assured him that he was. His leg still hurt and his wrist throbbed when he moved his arm, other than that he seemed to be in one piece.

  Awareness returned slowly.

  It seemed that for many hours he was conscious but unable to move, unable to connect his mind with his body and get the two working in unison again. When they joined forces, he blinked his eyes, listening to the beeping of the monitors, feeling the IV that was plugged into his arm, and remembering how he had gotten there.

  When a nurse came in, he said, “I need some water.”

  Her eyes widened. “I’ll get you some. Just relax, you were in a terrible accident.”

  He grunted. “No shit?”

  The nurse looked at him and then looked at him again as if she was amazed that a seventy-two hour coma patient could wake up with such a fine sense of sarcasm. She left the room and Jim lay there, thinking. This was one of those moments in life when the bullshit stopped and he knew it. All the baggage and nonsense of existence became absolutely meaningless. No more tiddlywonk twaddle about jobs and relationships and mortgages and retirement and does that pain I had in my chest yesterday mean something’s going on or was it just indigestion and I hope so-and-so doesn’t get my promotion because there’s no way in hell I can have that boot-licking fucktwat as my boss.

  All of it stopped.

  It came screeching to a halt, leaving skid marks across the slightly worn surface of his mind.

  He knew what had happened. He knew Dinah and Rita had died. Again, there was no TV movie-of-the-week drama because he remembered it all in considerable detail. The doctor was not going to walk in and shock him with the bad news that his friends were dead. No sir, he knew they were dead. It was the manner of their passing which spooked him, made all the other things in his life he normally fretted-over seem absolutely meaningless. In his mind, he was looking right into the mirror and questioning—perhaps for the first time in his life—the guy who was staring back at him. Do you really expect me to believe that some…thing, some creature, some frigging monster zoomed out of the night and hit your SUV and caused the accident that killed Dinah? That you came to and saw a monster, a winged demon monster, plucking Rita from the front seat after it ripped the fucking door right off?

  But, yes, that’s exactly what he expected himself to believe.

  Because that’s what had happened.

  He rolled it all back and forth in his mind in an attempt to find a rational explanation and came up with empty hands. The memories, stark and horrible, persisted. He tried to blame them on trauma and shock, on the drugs the medicos no doubt pumped him full of…but none of it held water. The bag was leaky. There was no meat on the bones.

  It had really happened.

  When he closed his eyes he could see the creature…and worse, he could smell it and see its yellow claws that were like the blades of sickles and he could feel Rita’s blood raining down on him in a warm spring shower. He could see her hitting the car, dropped or thrown from unknown heights. Oh yes, he certainly could.

  The nurse came back with water.

  He gulped it even though she told him not to. He should have listened because for some reason it felt thick as sludge going down his throat. He barely got it down.

  “See, what did I tell you?” she said. “You haven’t had anything solid or liquid going down your pipes in four days. You have a little sensitivity.”

  Her name was Koreshi and she looked Middle Eastern or Indian. She was very attractive, very exotic, her hair so black and shiny it had blue highlights. She was olive-complected and long-limbed, her eyes almond-shaped and two shades darker than her hair.

  “You need to listen to your nurse.”

  He had a feeling he could have listened to her all day.

  The door opened and a doctor came in. He was younger than Jim’s forty years, tall and trim with a self-confidence that was almost a swagger. He had a tanned face and luxurious black hair, a single Superman sort of curl hanging down over his high brow.

  “Mr. Duchane? Hello, my name is Dr. Panganis. How you feeling?”

  Well, there was the question of the week. If he weren’t a doctor, Jim would have suspected him of being a smart-ass. “Sore, real sore.”

  “You were lucky. You friends…”

  “Yes, I know. I remember.”

  Panganis told him that he suffered a concussion, a sprained wrist and a twisted leg, but nothing that a few weeks of rest wouldn’t clear up. Panganis managed to smile as he said that, displaying a perfectly dazzling smile of white capped teeth. A movie star smile. The sort of smile that said, hey, lighten up, man! Just because your two best friends in the world are dead don’t mean you have to wear a frown! It was then and there—and for no other particular reason than he despised the man’s smile—that Jim decided he fucking hated Dr. Panganis. He had a strong, nearly frightening urge to tell him so, too, and if for no other reason than it would shock him because he had never been told that in his entire life. Women probably fawned over him and men wanted to be him. He was, Jim decided, what his old man would have called a “griddle weasel” with his folksy Midwestern farm boy humor: so slick a fried egg would have slid right off him.

  Jim realized the good doc was still talking, but he had no idea what it was he’d been saying. He was only glad that he was busy as all doctors were busy and he was standing up, getting ready to make a quick exit.

  “So,” Panganis said, “we’ll play it by ear, but I see no reason why you can’t be out of here in a few days. It’s only really your head that concerns me. You took an awful knock.”

  On that, Jim agreed.

  He had taken an awful knock and such a knock that it completely skewered his sense of reality and made him believe—and believe absolutely—that he had seen a monster. A monster that forced him off the road and killed his friends. The most disturbing thing about it all was that it was so damn clear in his mind, so very vivid. He couldn’t imagine a dream being that lucid and certainly not a hallucination.

  “But the healing powers of heads are really quite miraculous. When I was playing football in college, I took quite a few knocks myself. And as you can see, I’m just fine.”

  As he said that, Jim could see that Nurse Koreshi thought he was fine indeed. When she left moments later, her lovely eyes were glazed and lovestruck in the wake of the sleek, powerful cr
uiser known as Dr. Panganis (who, of course, played football in college).

  “Probably the quarterback,” Jim grumbled with a squeaky voice.

  He lay there, thinking, remembering, trying to put it all into some kind of perspective, but there was none to be had. His mind was out-of-sync, distorted like one of those houses Lovecraft had written about where the walls were bowed to a disturbing degree, doorways warped, and the floors did not meet uniformly in the corners as the result of some horrible multi-dimension reality intersecting our own. That’s what it was like inside his head. His own view of reality was now suspect and corrupted. The accident kept playing through his head until he thought he would scream. Finally, he cranked the volume on ESPN to blot it out. He had no idea what the announcers were talking about, he only heard the tone of their voices, the good-natured rivalry and camaraderie of the sort Dr. Panganis had probably known on the college football field on crisp autumn days.

  He was haunted and he had no doubt of it.

  But the thing that alarmed him the most was the feeling that it wasn’t over yet. That it was just getting going and he was about to descend into a horror beyond imagining.

  4

  The next forty-eight hours had a gray, seamless uniformity that crawled under his skin and stayed there. The hospital was nearly as bland as the food they brought him which did not seem to be food at all but some sort of synthetic matter that had the texture and appearance of real food, but no taste or apparent smell. It was food like a rubber mask is a human face. All day long, the staff marched in and out of his room—respiratory therapy, physical therapy, lab and x-ray—and when they weren’t there, the nurses were.

  “Time to check your vitals, Mr. Duchane.”

  “We need a little blood for labs, Mr. Duchane.”

  “Couple skull shots for X-ray, Mr. Duchane.”

  “Let’s work that leg, Mr. Duchane. Range of motion, range of motion.”

  It seemed to go on and on. He felt increasingly alienated and isolated from the real world outside, trapped in a sterile white prison where his punishment was to be poked and prodded almost continually. His literary mind, of course, acquainted it all with the ordeal of Kafka’s Joseph K.—incarcerated for an unknown crime and held against his will by a totalitarian bureaucracy that was immense and inescapable yet unseen and formless.

  The bottom line was that he needed to get out of there before he started getting really paranoid. He needed time to heal, not just physically but mentally, and there was no way he could do that with someone in his face every thirty minutes.

  The only good thing was that he had visitors from school—fellow teachers and even a couple students—and a few well-wishers from the neighborhood. Flowers and cards filled the room along with the requisite balloons. Nina Payton from next door stopped by informing him she was watering his flowers and “taking care of business around the ranch” as she put it. And bless her heart, she smuggled him in two Quarter Pounders with cheese, fries, and a large and very icy Coke. It was simple mass-produced fast food, but it did more to make him feel like a living, breathing human being than any ten doctors and nurses and assorted techs. Nina was a retired zoology professor from the U of N at Reno and a research herpetologist whose specialty had been ethnobiology, particularly the relationship of Nevadan tribes to native snake species which figured prominently in their religious practices.

  “Nina,” he said, “you’re the only one who really understands.”

  “I like to think so.”

  She also snuck in an immature ball python named Lizzy in her purse. It was rare to find Nina without a snake in her possession.

  After he was done eating, he told her in detail about the crash, leaving out certain particulars which were too fantastic for words. He liked Nina and he didn’t want her thinking he was a nutcase or had been transformed into one by a good rap to the head. The problem being she was a scientist. She was a trained observer and it was pretty apparent that she was skeptical of his account. He had the feeling that she knew he was leaving something out but was too considerate to ask what.

  About an hour after Nurse Koreshi came on, she decided he needed to stretch his legs and took him on a walking tour of the unit. She was beautiful but brutal. She had no more sympathy than the goons from physical therapy did. Jim didn’t feel much like walking but she was not interested in that. Dr. Paganis had decided he was going to walk and Nurse Koreshi was the instrument that would enforce that decree.

  It wasn’t much fun.

  What could be finer that a little jaunt with a pretty—okay, sizzling hot and exotic—girl on his arm? Well, first off, location sucked. They circled the nurses’ station about five or ten times. It was like the hub of a wheel, the individual corridors being the spokes of said wheel. Jim tried not to peer into rooms where there were people much worse off than himself or notice the old guy shuffling down E-Corridor, dragging his IV stand along behind him and leaving footprints wet with his own urine. Secondly, walking was not quite the delight it had once been. Dr. Panganis was right: his leg was twisted and it was not much fun untwisting it. Ten minutes into it and he had to drop his ass into a handy wheelchair and rest. Each step made it feel like a metal rod was being pounded deeper into his leg.

  “That’s nothing to worry about,” Nurse Koreshi assured him, flashing him a smile so perfect it was like something from a Pepsodent commercial: perfectly straight, gleaming white teeth against smooth olive skin. “That’s your leg bone realigning itself. It hasn’t been used much lately. It’s learning to take weight again.”

  Maybe she was right, because five minutes later the throbbing stopped. It was still sore, but Nurse Koreshi wouldn’t take no for an answer and Jim couldn’t seem to say no to her. The realization of this made him feel absolutely ridiculous. As crazy as it sounded, he would have scaled buildings and swallowed fire for this woman. He hadn’t acted so completely foolish for the opposite sex since Mary Jo McKeenan winked at him in the seventh grade.

  Another ten minutes and he had to rest again.

  Nurse Koreshi pouted when he told her that, thrusting out a lower lip that was as full and juicy as a slice of nectarine. He wanted to nibble on it. “C’mon,” she said. “You’re not going to get anywhere unless you push it, really push it.”

  Those words coming out of her mouth made his face flush hot.

  When she did allow him to rest, she sat next to him on a bench, her hip up against his own. He tried very hard not to study her long, crossed leg which was close enough to touch.

  “I got to get out of here,” he said under his breath.

  But she heard. “Oh, you don’t like it here?”

  “I like it too much.”

  “Well, if you want to get out then you have to walk.”

  Then he did something which was totally uncharacteristic for him. He said, “I’ll walk if you let me take you out to dinner when I get out.”

  “Hmmm,” she said in a playful tone, tapping her finger against her lip. “Can’t. My boyfriend wouldn’t understand.”

  “Figures. I have a better idea. Let’s slip out the back way and we’ll go to my place and I’ll seduce you with one of my famous casseroles.”

  “Any good?”

  “The best.”

  “I’ll have to pass. Now on your feet. Time to walk.”

  Play time was over. She marched him around another ten minutes and then it was back to his room. As she led him through the door, he heard another nurse call to her. “Ikira, your labs for Three are back.” She settled him in bed and left. Ikira Koreshi. God, even her name sounded sexual.

  He closed his eyes and did not dream.

  5

  The next day he felt like a fool. Maybe Nurse Koreshi thought he was playing, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t. The depression of it all laid on him heavily as the reality of his situation seeped back in and then finally flattened him. Dinah and Rita. Gone. Jesus. It still seemed impossible. Was that what his flirting with Nurse Koreshi was about? W
as he trying to fill some monstrous void within himself?

  The morning passed with more physical therapy, another set of headshots, and an obligatory walk with Nurse Coogan who was definitely no Nurse Koreshi. She bore a frightening resemblance to the actress who portrayed Frau Linkmeyer on Hogan’s Heroes. There were no breaks. She marched him like a stormtrooper for twenty minutes without the slightest hint of sympathy.

  After he got back, he had a visitor.

  This time it was no student or fellow teacher and it wasn’t dear Nina Payton with soul-enriching, heart-clogging fast food. It was a short, almost petite woman with very dark, very intense eyes. Her hair was nearly white-blonde and very short, practically a buzzcut. She was attractive, but downplayed it with glasses and her face scrubbed free of cosmetics. She introduced herself as Deputy Vicki Addis of the Eureka County Sheriff’s Office.

  “I put this off as long as I could, Mr. Duchane. Believe me. The last thing I want to do is add more grief to your life, but there are a few questions that I need to ask.”

  “Of course,” he said.

  She asked all the usual questions and he gave her all the usual answers. He had gone through the story so many times by then it was like reading from a script. It was getting so he believed his own fabrications. But he could see right off that Deputy Addis was no fool. Maybe he believed them, but she did not.

  She licked her lips. “Okay, now at 11:42 P.M. your passenger, Dinah McDade, called the 911 operator and reported that someone was trying to force you off the road. I’ve listened to the recording. In fact, I’ve listened to it more than once. Ms. McDade sounds terrified.”

  Jim swallowed. “She was. We all were. Trust me.”

  “Did you see the car?”

  “No. I think…I think it was running with its lights off. It hit us and then Dinah…Ms. McDade…called 911 and then it hit us again. My mind’s a little foggy at this point, but we were hit hard, real hard. I couldn’t control the goddamn SUV. It found the gravel and…I don’t know…we hit the ditch and flipped. You know the rest.”