A Ghost of Fire

by Sam Whittaker

  Chapter Fifteen

  The rest of the night passed without further incident. I even made a few trips in the elevator alone, all of them without getting trapped. Derek finally gave up on finding a problem with the system and declared the best we could do was to keep an eye on it and work on any more problems as they came along. I agreed and we returned to the regular tasks we would have done if we had not been distracted for a few hours.

  I was able to empty trash and dust the office furniture with some efficiency while I also devoted a good amount of time giving consideration to the missing spirit of the little girl. Unfortunately I was unable to arrive at any satisfactory conclusions. The only information I had to go on was a few passing comments from the ghost of the boy in the basement. When I added to that the fact that the subject matter of ghosts was a slippery one at best, I was eventually forced to set the line of thought aside in favor of something more tangible.

  My mind wandered until it returned to a subject that had become a more pleasant one for me recently: Katie, the girl from the bookstore. I had promised myself earlier that night that I would go and visit her in the hospital when work was finished and when visiting hours resumed. It was this thought which made the rest of my hours at work pass in a more positive light than the one in which the night began.

  At the end of my shift I punched out, passed a few comments back and forth with Derek about the elevator, how I would see him the next night and then I was on my way. The morning Sun was just beginning to wake up in the East and the stars were on their way to bed. I was out of the building, in my car and on my way home before I knew it.

  The next few hours were uneventful. I arrived at my apartment then made sure the blinds on my windows were as closed as I could get them and went to bed when most people were just getting up for breakfast. I thought I would have a harder time getting to bed at such an early hour but I was tired enough from the night’s events that this was not really a problem. No strange dreams assailed my sleep that morning, or at least none that I would recall. Nor did I wake up to find any uninvited guests from beyond the grave visiting me. Always a plus.

  It was early afternoon when I rolled out of bed. Sunlight streamed between the blinds. I put a pot of coffee on and stumbled around for a bit and decided to keep the blinds closed for a while longer. I figured it was better to acclimate to that much light a little bit at a time. It wouldn’t be until after I got out of the shower that I noticed the message light on the answering machine blinking.

  I rubbed the towel on my hair as I walked to the kitchen for another cup of coffee. I stopped dead in my tracks, however, when I saw the little red light as it flashed on and off. My previous experience with the answering machine gave me pause. Did I really want to push the button? What kind of message waited for me? I dropped the towel onto one of the barstools at the counter and threw caution to the wind. I pushed the little button, cognizant of all the trouble buttons had brought into my life in recent history.

  At first there was only a mild static. Then there was the sound of childish, feminine breathing. Then there was the little voice I had heard before. “Steve.” I was shocked to hear my name where before there was only the generic, “mister.” I leaned closer to the machine to make sure I caught every word.

  “Please help, Steve. You need to get to the hospital. I think the bad man knows about the sleeping girl there. Please help, Steve. Come fast. Come fast.” The message continued with the sound of the little girl breathing for a handful of seconds more then it ended. I found myself completely unable to move let alone to process what I had just heard. I was paralyzed by fear for Katie. I was not ready to stand up to the dark man, was I? I didn’t think so.

  When I at last was able to snap out of my paralysis I became a tornado of activity. I threw on clothes as fast as humanly possible, grabbed my keys and ran, ran, ran to the car. My world was a tunnel where anything which was not part of my journey to the hospital simply did not exist. There was only the Nissan I had borrowed from my parents, myself and the road.

  Clouds had started to move in, gray and pregnant with the promise of rain. The wind also began to pick up. None of this registered with me except on the most superficial and factual level. I did not perceive at all how the darkness of the afternoon precisely matched my mood as I deftly made my way to my goal, oblivious of speed limits and a stop sign or two.

  I pulled into the parking lot of the hospital and exited the vehicle in record speed. As soon as my foot touched pavement fat drops of rain began to fall from the sky as if called down by my entrance into the atmosphere. I was pelted by drop after drop, though I suspect I missed a few that normally would have hit me but for my race.

  The hospital doors loomed ahead of me and soon I was upon them. I skidded to a halt before them and reached for the door handle. Before my hand touched the metal I stopped. I was unsure of what was waiting for me inside and needed to catch my breath. But soon I grasped the door handle and pulled it open. I walked inside and passed the reception kiosk to a set of elevators.

  I went to the second floor where several coma patients were clustered in one wing devoted to the care for such people. The words of the little girl on the answering machine echoed in the halls of my memory. “The bad man knows about the sleeping girl there.” As I passed the various rooms I saw a few women here and there and realized the dark man might have a difficult time finding the right sleeping girl.

  I lost a step as I passed one of the rooms, but I couldn’t say exactly why. In the room lay a frail old woman, her head tilted to one side on her pillow. There was nothing remarkable that I could decipher about her. So why I had I felt compelled to stop and look into the room? The moment had passed as had the pull I felt. I kept going until I arrived at Katie’s room.

  My eyes took in the scene: the flowers I had brought remained on the bedside table as had the card. But my heart sank as I looked at the hospital bed which was in disarray…and empty. Had something happened to her? Had he gotten to her after all? I dashed out of the room and ran to the nurse’s station.

  “Where’s Katie,” I demanded. The surprised nurse behind the desk just looked at me for a moment, confused. She knew who I was, that I had been a tenant of the hospital myself in the not too distant past and that I had become a regular visitor of Katie. Her look of confusion told me everything I needed to know and fear. Katie hadn’t been moved to another area of the hospital for tests or treatment as I had hoped. She was supposed to be safe in her bed at that time.

  “You’ve got a patient missing. You better get people to start looking for her,” I said. She still couldn’t grasp what I was going on and on about. In emergency moments people don’t need detailed instruction they only require the proper motivation to get moving. A good shout will usually do the trick. Impatient, I yelled, “Now!” The nurse finally grasped enough about the situation to jump into action. She picked up the phone and asked for security. I didn’t wait around to become part of someone else’s solution. I sprinted back in the direction of Katie’s room hoping the inspiration would come for what to do next.

  I stuck my head in again to make sure there was no corner of the room I had missed the first time. Finding none I exited the room and began running down the hall where I quickly arrived at an intersection. There were three ways I could take; straight ahead, left or right. It was obvious which way was the correct one. I would go to the left because all of the lights were out in that direction. “Dark men prefer to work in the dark,” I growled under my breath. Then I bolted in that direction.

  The light from behind spilled into the inky blackness ahead of me but soon was diminished with unnatural speed. It should have penetrated farther than it did, had even looked like it went farther from the intersection but once I was in the corridor the dark enveloped me rapidly. It was as if it had been waiting for me. I had a small LED flashlight on my keychain which I employed as soon as the encroaching darkness began to affect my vision. The light blazed to life at once, di
mmed momentarily like it was about to give up and then grew brighter again. I had the distinct feeling that the darkness tried to consume it but that the light was aided somehow by another force. I couldn’t guess what it was but speculation could wait. Katie needed me immediately.

  I shone the light into the first door I came to and found nothing of interest inside the room. I ducked back out and moved to the opposite side of the hall to the next room. It was likewise irrelevant as were the rest of the rooms in the hall. When I came to the end I found myself at another intersection and followed the darkness, this time to the right.

  This time the first room I came to was empty, or at least so I thought on first glance. As I pulled away from the room to continue down the hall I had a sense that I should stay and look further. Behind me I heard the sound of the security guards arrive at the nurse’s station as it echoed toward me. I didn’t have time to go back and lead them to the room. I stepped into the silence of the vacant room and closed the door behind me. My eyes had adjusted to the dark enough by then and were aided by the flashlight so I could see enough detail of the room to move with confidence in it. But then my ears began to adjust to the silence enough to know that the room was not entirely without sound.

  The hushed noise of ragged breaths reached my ears. I thought at first it came from a closet to my right, but then I noticed the door beyond it leading into a bathroom. Slowly I crept forward; inch by inch I made my way to the door fearful of what I might find on the other side but not in possession of enough cowardice to leave Katie alone with the dark man. When I reached the door my right hand pushed against it with a little pressure. The door was not latched all the way and swung inward making only a minimum of sound on its hinges.

  I reached around the corner with my other hand after I transferred the flashlight to my shirt pocket. I found the light switch and flicked it to the on position then I sprang into the room. The overhead light in the bathroom did the same strange flickering thing that my flashlight had done and then it too blazed to full life.

  The first thing my eyes comprehended was the dark shape of a man. Though the room was completely lit he looked as if he still stood in near total darkness. I could make out a few bare features of his form. But I did not need to catch the detail of him to know who he was. He turned to me as I rushed in and his eyes became two bright orange flames. He opened his mouth and hissed, smoke spilled out. He ran backward with his burning eyes trained on me all the while and then disappeared through a wall.

  I watched the wall where he had vanished for a few seconds longer and then looked into the shower. Huddled against one end was the trembling and hyperventilating form of Katie. The bruises and cuts on her head and arms had started to heal and the natural beauty which had drawn me to her was still as active as it had been on the first day I’d met her. She was undiminished by the fear on display in her wide eyes.

  I knelt down by the shower and held my hand out to her. “Shush, it’s okay. He’s gone now.” It occurred to me then that she might not have been able to see the apparition, only know that something was after her. She might have stumbled along blindly in the dark aware only that some unknown assailant pursued her through the dark.

  At first she only stared through me, oblivious to my presence. When I could tell she finally registered that I was indeed there I said, “You’re safe now. It’s going to be okay.” Her eyes searched my face and struggled to determine if she recognized me. After a time her lip quivered and tears spilled out of her eyes as she started to cry. She leapt forward and threw her arms around my neck and sobbed. I comforted her as best I could, but felt somewhat inadequate for the task.

  When she had calmed down we came apart enough for us to see each other. The silence was not as awkward as I would have expected it to be but the urge to pull her to me and kiss her was strong. I resisted the desire and instead asked her, “Are you going to be okay?”

  Her breathing was still somewhat shaky but she managed to nod in response to the question. From her expression I could see that there was a torrent of questions rampaging inside of her but they would have to wait. My priority was to get her back to her room so the doctors could take a look at her. I had a number of questions of my own, like, how had she been awakened from her coma in the first place?

  “Can you stand? We’ve got to get you back to your room.” She nodded again. I started to stand and allowed her to use me to steady herself on her feet. She stepped out of the shower and I helped her hobble out of the bathroom, out of the vacant hospital room and back into the hallway which was now lit up again. The darkness had fled with the dark man.

  We had to stop twice for Katie to catch her breath and to shake off dizzy spells. We met up with a security guard and the nurse from the nurse’s station at the first intersection I had come to when I had gone searching for Katie. They had gone right where I had turned left and were just coming back from that trip. The nurse jogged up to us with an expression of relief on her face.

  “You found her. What happened?” The nurse did a cursory examination of Katie and looked back to me for some kind of answer.

  “I don’t know,” I replied easily. I wondered if I had become a little too comfortable making up convenient stories to cover impossible to explain events. “She must have woken up and wandered off. I think she’s still a little disoriented.” It was a plausible enough story and the nurse and security guard accepted it without further question. The four of us arrived back at Katie’s room and I helped her into the bed.

  The nurse imposed herself between us and began examining her more thoroughly than she had in the hall. She looked over to the security guard and said, “Go find Doctor Chadwick. Tell him what happened and that we need him here immediately.” The guard nodded and left the room.

  The nurse continued her examination, asking Katie questions about how she felt, did she want anything and a battery of other such generic questions. The doctor came into the room about five minutes later and picked up where the nurse left off, marking a clipboard as he went. I stood back and tried to remain as invisible as possible. Every once in a while Katie looked over at me for reassurance and I smiled back at her whenever she did. But I could tell she was impatient to talk to me and she wanted us to be alone when she did so.

  The doctor changed from asking questions to explaining to her how she had come to be in the hospital in the first place and some of the things she should expect in the coming days. She would have to hang around in the hospital for at least another five days, he said for tests, treatments and good old fashioned precaution. She understood and thanked him, then asked if she could have some time alone with her friend. The doctor looked over at me like he just now noticed I was in the room.

  “Sure,” he said. “That’s fine, but only a few minutes. You need to stay put for a while and rest. The nurse will keep an eye on you and I’ll be back in an hour and start the first round of tests. Don’t worry, it’s relatively easy stuff. We did all the blood work we needed while you were in the coma.” She agreed and the doctor left the room followed by the nurse.

  When the door closed behind them she looked at me and there was silence. I knew I was going to have to explain what was going on and that might mean I could lose any chance I had with this girl. We were beyond the point of no return which made me nervous but I understood we would have had to come to it at some time.

  “The little girl told me you were coming,” she said and for a moment I thought I must have heard her incorrectly. On the one hand I simply could not believe it. I was so used to being alone in relation to my secret life of the last few weeks that my mind refused to comprehend the involvement of anyone else. On the other hand I was so desperate for someone else to be able to step into all of it that my heart fought to take hold of what Katie had said and to not let go.

  “What did you say?” I had the sensation of weightlessness, that I was completely unanchored to reality. For the first time in a long time there was someone to whom I could actuall
y relate. There was someone who shared my knowledge of things beyond the regular and daily plane of existence.

  “You know the little girl, don’t you Steve? It was the little girl in the white dress. She told me to tell you that.” I looked at her completely dumbfounded. Then she said, “When I was still asleep she came to me. I was scared of her at first. I could tell there was something wrong about her, something dead about her and that burn on her face…,” she paused and closed her eyes against the terror she must have felt. Then she continued, “But then she started talking about you. What’s going on, Steve? What have I fallen into?”

  I felt completely vulnerable, helpless before the question. “I’m so sorry,” I said after a long uncomfortable pause. “I wish I could tell you more, but I really don’t know much.” There was another silence and I ached for her to say something, to say anything at all. But she just looked at me with a mixture of fascination and fear. She was trying to work out in her mind what to make of me.

  “It all started happening just before I met you at the bookstore.” Then I told her almost everything. I told her about the interview, the apartment, the hotel, the accident, the hospital, the little girl, the boy and the dark man. She just sat and listened. Three times she asked me to go back and flesh the story out a bit more and I did the best I could. She never looked horrified or passed judgment on me through the whole story.

  “That thing that chased me, that was your dark man?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m pretty sure that was him. Could you…could you see him?”

  She fell silent for a moment and stared into space with narrow, contemplative eyes. Without looking at me she said, “I don’t know for sure. I woke up and the room was dark. I thought maybe I saw something move, but I don’t feel like I can say for sure. I mostly felt him rather than saw him, I think.” Then she looked up at me with a serious gaze. “But I’m pretty sure I heard him.”

  My blood froze. “You heard him? What did he say?”

  “I’m pretty sure he didn’t say anything. It was just the sound of breathing but there was something else too. I could smell smoke and it felt very hot.” We let that hang between us and looked into each other. I became startled when I felt her reading me like a book and realized I was not alone in the realm of extrasensory experience. I began to read her and thought I could sense that she was different than me in many ways but I could tell that she was as inexperienced as I was with her extra set of mental tools. She broke the silence at last.

  “You’re in real trouble, aren’t you?” I nodded. “That means I’m in trouble too, right?” Again, I nodded.

  “Again, I’m sorry for getting you into this,” I said pathetically.

  She exhaled forcefully but held my gaze. There was another long and uncomfortably silent moment in which I could see her thinking something through. At last she said, “Well, I guess it’s better to have someone else when the trouble comes around, isn’t it?” The decision had been made, for better or worse. She had decided to throw in her lot with mine. I couldn’t have been more relieved and excited. I was also fearful for her safety. But I managed to keep my expression composed and confident.

  “Yes,” I said. “And I’m glad to finally have someone else who knows about this besides me.” I had forgotten to tell her about Trent Blacker and would have to interject him into an explanation of the story later. She smiled at me weakly and leaned back against her pillow. We made a bit of small talk for a while and then I left her to get some rest. She was worried at the prospect of being left alone at first but I convinced her she would be safe for a while and I would make regular visits every day for the rest of her stay in the hospital.