Ancient Awakening (The Ancient)
Page 9
Mike and Sam rode in the ambulance, Mike in the back and Sam up front with the driver. The driver must have done this type of thing in the past, as he had a whole speech pointing out all the various switches and dials for the boy. Mike didn't pay much attention. His mind just kept repeating the night’s events. The first rays of sun could be seen through the rear window of the ambulance. He tried to block the scene from the bedroom out of his mind. Going over things wasn’t helping. He had to think. He needed to figure this out.
The man-beast had to be Ted. Otherwise, where was he? The thing had been in the house, obviously. There were no signs of forced entry, besides the front door, which appeared to be more of a break-out, so the murderer had to be in the house. It was a like a bad movie with the wolf-man or some nonsense, but...no, that was impossible. There was no such thing as a werewolf. The moon wasn't even full. He smiled at that thought. It was insane. He was no detective, he just did speeding tickets, but this was something that he needed to figure out. Otherwise, he would go mad. One thing was for sure: he would take a few days to heal and then look into things himself.
If it had not been a monster, because there was no such thing, it had to be something else. Where did these legends come from anyway? He would have to check it out later. Maybe it had been some drug reaction. That seemed much more likely, but Ted had never struck him as a user. What about the last time he saw him? Mike thought back to the day in front of his house. Ted had been at a hospital. Maybe he’d had a reaction to a medication or something. It seemed far-fetched, but it was a lead. And as fate would have it, he was heading to the hospital right now. Maybe he could follow it up.
Arriving at the hospital, he met Melissa's parents in the emergency room. They were good people and he had become even closer to them now that Melissa was gone. He reassured them everything was fine and that he just needed some stitches, and told them that if they could bring Sam to daycare, it would help a lot.
He said his goodbyes to his son and checked in with the nurse at the triage desk. He briefly showed her his chest when she asked what was wrong. The blood was again flowing from under the bandages, making them a sticky mess.
“Ouch. What did that? A bear?”
“Um, no it was, ah, a very large dog.” Mike figured that the lie was easier than the truth.
The emergency room was empty and, after taking a seat, he began to doze a bit. Even with the horrific images in his mind, the fatigue and blood loss were too much, and sleep slowly took him.