Oakwood Island

by Cormier, Angella; Arseneault, Pierre C;

  “Ahhhh!” She uttered a brief cry before she began running down the hallway, taking the stairs.

  Once the nurse was out of sight, the doctor returned his focus onto Maggie, who had stood idly by. He approached her again, and once more invited her to follow his orders.

  “Come, Maggie. Come this way.” His voice echoed in what had once been her own mind. Maggie’s feet dragged slowly across the linoleum tiled floor, moving her forward.

  “We’re almost there. Just a bit more and we’re going to see your mother on the roof.” The doctor flowed closer to the doors, waiting for Maggie to catch up.

  * * *

  The nurse sitting at the nurses station peered inside her coffee mug and frowned. Finding it empty she got up and headed towards the lounge area down the hall where she could brew a fresh pot of java. Just as she rounded the corner and disappeared from sight, there came a soft bell like sound and the elevator doors slid open.

  The tall man with the large hat approached the station, but to his dismay found nobody there to help him find Harriet. Jack looked around, hoping to find someone, but without much time to waste; he decided it was best to start searching the rooms himself.

  Walking over to the first door, and slowly pushed it inward, peering inside. He quickly retracted it and moved onto the next door, repeating the same seeking as with the previous room. He continued on, searching for the one room where Harriett had been resting for all these years.

  * * *

  As Maggie emerged from the stairwell and onto the rooftop, the light behind her made her gown glow a dim and muted shade of white as it swayed softly in the breeze. The door clattered briefly as it closed behind her. The doctor turned now and faced the edge of the roof. He grinned and his eyes became small slits as he spotted Harriett standing on the edge of the roof, staring back at him with a confused look on her face.

  He remembered how confused she had always appeared back in the day, when he’d fooled around with her in the hospital. She didn’t understand then that she’d only been nothing more than a slut to him and that’s all he’d ever felt she was good for since he met her.

  He noticed something in her hand, sliding through her fingers. Instantly, he recognized the chain that had once belonged to “Easy” Gina Bartlet. The chain dangled from her fingertips and swayed in the breeze. Doctor Edwards, briefly taken aback, recalled the night many years before. That last night he’d felt his physical body. He recalled locking up the chain in his desk drawer, putting away the precious reminder of Easy Gina and how so very easy it had been to kill her. He recalled seeing Harriett with the chain when, as a spirit, he had visited her many years ago. Harriet must now see it as a sort of family heirloom. He remembered her feeble attempt at gifting the chain and pendant to their pathetic daughter at the orphanage.

  Anger rose from him, casting a bright crimson glow from his ethereal self, the memory of seeing Harriett betraying him to the police that night so long ago still haunted him. That memory along with the anger and hatred it cast upon him was what had led him to take his own life, the ultimate Godlike power he had over others, he’d turned onto himself when he’d plunged to his death.

  With his angered aura he approached Harriett, floating towards her. Turning back, he called out to Maggie, his spirit arms wide open as he waved her over.

  “Come now, Maggie. Come see your mother!”

  Harriett held her confused expression, looking down at the chain in her right hand and looking up past the doctor, at the broken body of Maggie, stumbling clumsily towards her. She raised her left hand, pointing at the young girl, her mouth open in awe.

  “That’s right my dear. You haven’t seen Maggie since she was a baby. Here she is now, all grown up!”

  Maggie stood but a few feet away from Harriett. Drool running down her chin, her eyes bloodshot, glowing an eerie shade of yellow, matching the pus that mixed into her drool along the front of her hospital gown.

  “Push her, Maggie. Push her hard! Make her suffer the same death that she made me give myself!” The doctor grew agitated with each passing second.

  “Do it now, Maggie!” He floated around Maggie, frustrated by her slow response to his demands. The bright aura of the doctor turned around a few meters from the rooftop. Floating in the air, he cast his demands with a deafening voice, echoing loudly in Maggie’s mind.

  “PUSH HER NOW!” His screams played on and on in Maggie’s mind. Her hands and arms extended to their full reach, aiming for the mother she had never known. Maggie, unaware of what she was doing, walked onward and tried to push Harriett. But instead of pressing against Harriett, Maggie’s body went straight through her, like she was walking through a fog cloud.

  Surprised, the doctor stared on as Maggie kept going, searching for an invisible being for her hands to push. Her foot caught the foot-high ledge of the roof, and with the momentum she’d been building, she topples forward and over the roof. The doctor watches stunned as Maggie plunges downward without uttering a single scream. Not a sound was made by her gown flapping through the air, her long and matted hair flying behind her descending body. The only sound came when her body met the sidewalk below; the sound of crunching bones, squirting blood and splattered body tissues.

  The blood pooled in an instant around her head, or at least what remained of her head. Glancing up; the doctor spotted Harriett but for an instant. Dissipating right in front of him, an apparition gone as quickly as the wind that carried the grief into his tortured soul.

  * * *

  In the dim lit hospital room, Norah sat upright in bed. With a shrieking voice she calls out into the darkness. “Harriett!” Unbeknownst to all; her gift which she knew as a curse could even affect the spirits that remained on this plane of existence. She sensed a cold touch on her shoulder, a presence of sorts and somehow knew that it was Harriett.

  * * *

  The doctor stared at the barren rooftop, incredulous to what he just witnessed.

  “It can’t be...” he says aloud looking down at Maggie lying in a pool of blood and yellow pus. In disbelief he is grimly reminded of his own mortal descent down the same roof and onto the same spot on the sidewalk, where he died so many decades prior. His bright aura dimmed to a faint glow, much like the dying embers of a fire left untended, much as was his soul.

  * * *

  The crow perched in stillness on a power line. Its beady eyes searched for his friend and companion. It waited patiently, ready to fly off given the signal or the spiritual calling. The crow spots a man floating towards the building nearby. The man floated past the cars in the parking lot, including an old familiar red truck that the crow recognized as belonging to his friend. The man floated upwards past the sign on the building that read.

  “Oakwood Island Hospital and Daye Psychiatric Centre.”

  Once the man reached the second floor, he penetrated the walls and entered in a very unconventional manner. The crow tilted its head to the side, and questioned the strange occurrence and pondered if it should call out to his friend. Flying off of its perch, the black bird flew towards the building, wings stretching out to catch wind and gain speed.

  * * *

  Inside the hospital, Jack stood in the doorway of a hospital room. The plump nurse waved him over to join her at the bedside.

  “I’m Jenny. Sorry to have to meet you in these circumstances.”

  Once he reached the nurse’s side, he peered down at the older woman that lay motionless in the bed. The nurse spoke in a soft voice.

  “I just found her a few minutes ago. She must have had a heart attack. She’s been very frail these past few months and her dementia had gotten worse.” The nurse reached down and grabbed hold of the white sheet that covered the woman’s body and pulled it up over the dead woman’s head. Jack stood still as Nurse Jenny pulled the small chain to turn off the overhead lamp behind what used to be Harriett’s bed. He sens
ed something; unsure at first of his instincts, but then he heard it. The distinct sound of the crow cawing drew him to pay closer attention to his surroundings.

  However attentive he was, the spirit that had entered the room remained invisible to the living souls. The sheet covered body was being watched by a new set of eyes, only they weren’t human. Doctor Edward’s spirit, angrily screamed at the body that lay in the bed. “How could you take my vengeance from me? How dare you!”

  The sheets ruffled a bit when the spirit’s fists came down hard on the bed. Jack sensed something was present, but his doubts were erased when he heard the crow cawing again, this time from just beyond the room’s window. The nurse picked up the chart at the foot of the bed and began heading out of the room.

  “I have to go call Dr. Kingsley to look after Harriett’s body. Please feel free to stay for as long as you need.” With that, she closed the door and was gone.

  Jack exhaled the breath he’d been holding and asked aloud. “He’s here, isn’t he?”

  The crow began pecking viciously at the window pane, wings batting wildly. With this confirmation, Jack tried hard to clear his mind to pick up on the spirit that he knew was within the space, but without his feathered friend he is limited to what he can see and hear.

  The doctor raged on, his anger rising. The light that Nurse Jenny turned off only moments prior flickered brightly on and off. Jack, distracted now, began to chant deep within his mind, trying hard to reach the crow’s spirit and connect it with his own, to see through the crow’s eyes. The crow, living in both the real world and the spirit world, would allow him to see who was in the room with him. The doctor’s energy turned his aura from a bright red, into a deep and dark shade, eventually turning such a dark crimson that it was almost black.

  “How could you?! After all this time I had the ability to get my revenge and you dare take it from me?”

  The darkness that the doctor’s spirit cast in the room was softened by a blue glow coming from behind him. He turned to come face to face with another spirit, dressed in a nurse’s uniform holding charts. Harriett smiled at him and she spoke calmly. “Doctor Edwards, can I see you in your office please? I really need to see you in private.”

  The doctor eyeing her, shouts, “You’re dead, Harriett! Don’t you know that you stupid bitch?”

  Harriett stared at her spirit companion in confusion. “What do you mean? I don’t understand...” She blinked a few times and then a smile spread across her face. “You’re always so silly,” she said.

  The doctor losing the last bit of patience he held screamed at her. “You’re still as lost as before aren’t you?”

  “How dare you speak to my mother that way?!” The voice rose up from the shadows and demanded his attention.

  Jack’s chants were muffled and unheard by the spirits in the room. All at once, with his eyes closed his mind filtered out everything in the physical world and he could now view the room from the window, through the crow’s eyes. He sees himself standing near the bed. Just to his left, he can see a deep red aura that envelops Dr. Edwards. Just beyond the doctor is the bright blue aura of Harriett, fully dressed in a nurse’s uniform. Coming closer to them is a golden aura, the brightest of the three, belonging to Maggie.

  He can see that Maggie is staring down the doctor, her face contorted in anger as she speaks to him. Not able to hear what is being said, Jack can only assume she is now deceased and seeking her own retaliation on the old doctor.

  “You’ll pay for what you did to my mother....and to me!” Maggie exclaims as she floats towards the doctor. The deep red aura vanishes as soon as she reaches it. Turning to her mother, her face softens and she reaches out a transparent hand to the older woman.

  “Mother...” she starts to say.

  “Can I help you, young lady?” asks a much younger looking Harriett, confused.

  “You don’t know who I am, do you?” The two auras dissipate quickly as Nurse Jenny placed a cold hand on Jack’s shoulder.

  “Are you ok, Jack?” she asked.

  Returning to the physical world in a swift instant, he shuddered and replied in a low voice. “I’m fine.”

  Catching sight of the crow flying off, he turned on his heels and walked out of the room. He hears Nurse Jenny talking to the body of Harriett.

  “You’ve been through a lot in your lifetime, gal. But you can rest now.”

  * * *

  The two attendants made their way down the hospital hall with an empty stretcher. Stanley, a short but stocky man with greying hair walked next to the younger Leslie, a thirty-four-year-old redheaded woman with the attitude to boot. They reached their destination as a nurse comes out.

  “She ready yet?” Leslie asks dryly.

  The nurse, not stopping to talk to the attendants, calls back. “She’s heavily sedated and won’t even know what’s happening.”

  They push open the door and roll the stretcher inside. Stanley looks over at the young woman in the bed.

  “Why did they sedate her?” he asks.

  Leslie starts undoing the ties on the stretcher and prepping it for the transfer upstairs.

  “She’s really been out of it lately. Talking about Doctor Edwards; the serial killer from the eighties. That, and Harriett Foster, the nurse that he was having an affair with when he killed his wife and her lover. She’s even been talking about Maggie who killed herself a few days ago.” Leslie quickly glanced over at her co-worker, noticing him standing next to Norah and staring down at her.

  “That’s kinda creepy,” says Stanley.

  Leslie approaches the bed and starts to undo the restraints on the patient’s arms. “Yeah, tell me about it. I remember her from school. She was my little sister’s age and their whole family was kinda creepy.”

  Stanley helped her undo the restraints and replied. “Well, let’s do what we came here to do.”

  Working together, they transferred the woman from the bed to the stretcher. As they’re making their way out of the room, Stanley asks Leslie as he points to the wall over the bed. “What’s with the dreamcatcher?”

  “Oh that’s Jack WhiteFeather’s. He’s been visiting Norah ever since Harriett died. He brought her that. The nurses say she’s been sleeping more easily since.”

  Stanley reaches over and takes the dreamcatcher off the hook on the wall. “We might as well bring it with her then.”

  Leslie chuckles at this. “You work in the Daye Psych ward. You know darn well they won’t let her keep it up there.”

  Stanley looks down at the sleeping patient and back at the dreamcatcher and plops it onto the empty bed. “Yeah, good point.”

  Leslie pulls on the stretcher as Stanley pushes it out of the room. “Isn’t it ironic that we now have an empty bed for Norah because Harriett died? The exact same woman she’s been talking about since her death.”

  Stanley shakes his head. “Let’s change the subject, this is creeping me out, big time!”

  Leslie laughs at the older man as she presses the elevator button.

  * * *

  Along the cliffs on the north side of Oakwood Island, a weak and mangled creature limps on four legs, leaving a trail of blood on the large stones of the shoreline. The blood shines in the moonlight, along with a glowing yellow pus substance mixed into it. It carries a wild tabby cat in its mouth; the predator’s next meal. It reaches a small hole in the ground, covered by brush and shrubs, nearly invisible, it squeezes through and makes its way into the bigger cavern.

  Instinctively drawn in the deep crevice time and time again since escaping from the trailer, it came here to feast upon its latest catch. It gnawed on the cat’s fur until the meat, raw and still warm, filled his mouth. The effort of the hunt made it weak though, and it yelped out in pain. Lying down in the blood pool that was dripping from its severely infected wounds, it ate slowly, with much effort.
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br />   “I don’t understand why your mind resists the yellow goo when Danny couldn’t.” The voice comes but is not heard by the creature. The doctor floats near the dying creature.

  “If I could only control you like I did the others. The damage I could do with you!” He ponders his thoughts until another voice echoes in the cavern.

  A voice from out of nowhere unnerves the doctor. “But I wouldn’t let you!”

  The voice familiar, the doctor turns to see Maggie floating across the cavern towards him.

  “My little girl is all grown up. All grown up and dead just like her mother.”

  The doctor meant to aggravate and anger Maggie. Turning his focus back to the beast, he says. “Can you hear me, wild one? I wonder if you could hear me if you would understand me?”

  The creature looks up from its blood soaked mouth and stares at the doctor. Growling, it shows its sharp teeth and snarls at the spirit.

  “No, you will never kill again!” Maggie screams as she flies upwards, disappearing from the dark cave.

  The doctor edges on the creature. “Eat up. Regain your strength, my pet. We’ll work on our communication and soon you’ll understand I’m here to help you, as you are to help me.”

  From high above, the doctor hears Maggie’s voice, an agonizing cry echoing throughout the cavern. The echoes make the dirt and stones on the cave walls crumble downward. The earth beneath the creature, which was once a coyote, now vibrates with the increasing loudness of Maggie’s shrill. All at once, darkness comes down in a fast motion as the cavern collapses onto itself and fills up with dirt, stones, and earth. From deep within, the doctor hears Maggie’s final words to him.

  “I’m stronger than you ever were. You will never kill again!”

  * * *

  As the cavern collapses, there comes a small puff of dust that shoots out of the ground suddenly near the roots of a large cedar tree. As a few rats emerge from the hole, they scamper about and disappear into the forest in all directions. The last of the rats emerges. It seems confused, if a rat can hold such an appearance. It stops at the roots of the tree, and sits up, looking about carefully. Its glowing yellow eyes peer out into the forest with a renewed hunger.