I was mad at the world. Pissed was more like it. My parents, Mr. And Mrs. Hook, (once known as the lovely Christine Draper), were both unfathomably busy with their jobs at Kingdom Hospital. They were constantly working, and when they had off, they met up with some old friends at the local pub. One year before I was born, something had happened at the hospital that still goes unexplained. Both of my parents, their co-workers, and several of their friends, (once patients), always got together for a reunion to talk about the ghosts that inhabited the hospital. I always believed it to be a dumb horror story that they made up to tell me when I was at a young, impressionable age.
Besides my home life, school was a nightmare on it's own. I had once been a high honor student, then my grades plummeted. I was failing all of my classes and was in trouble half the time for starting fights in the lunchroom with the prissy, kiss ass popular girls. The only one that I could go to was Carson. Carson was my boyfriend of two and a half years. Then things took a turn for the worse.
"My family is moving to New York! There is nothing I can do about it! It's not my fuckin' fault!" Carson shouted.
"You can't leave me! Fuck your family!" He tried to comfort me, but I pushed him away and continued to scream at him, then bolted off running, down the sidewalk towards my house. Tears streamed down my face as I ran, dampening the front of my shirt. Our house was only two blocks away from reverend Jimmy's little chapel. The windows were boarded up, like they have been for sixteen years. Reverend Jimmy was murdered a week or so after the occurrences at the hospital had surfaced. According to my fathers version of the story, he was crucified on a chain link fence in the alley across the street. A bum found him later that day.
Before my parents even bought this house, dad used to bunk in the lower level of the hospital, which earned the nickname, "the old kingdom". He still crashes there instead of coming home quite a bit. My shoes slapped the pavement and the soles of my feet became hot and sore. Elmer, who must've been out on his lunch break, was making his way back to the hospital.
"Hey-" He didn't get the chance to finish. I sprinted past, shouldering him as I went. He staggered backwards, caught his balance, shrugged, then continued walking.
I reached the driveway of our two story house and collapsed on our front porch in a storm of uncontrolled sobs. The little gravel stones made imprints on my knees and elbows, leaving tiny, red pock marks. After the sobbing had died down a bit, I got to my feet and exploded into the house.
Of course, no one was home. After I had turned eight, they started working full-time shifts again, leaving the house under my watch. The house was dark and smelled of pizza and Ramen noodles. I'd been living on pizza and Ramen noodles for over a year now. Just thinking about it made me gag. I dropped my backpack in the middle of the floor and dragged my heavy body up the staircase and into my room.
I looked around my neatly placed bedroom. The bed was made, my clothes were folded, and everything was in pristine order. I could feel the anger building up like pressure before a surfacing headache. I flung myself at my dresser and knocked everything to the floor with a swift swat. My CD player burst into a puddle of springs and scuffed, broken plastic. Glass shards dotted my carpet from the glass figurines that I had started to collect since I was four. I tore down the several posters that covered the bare wall, including the large portrait of an anteater that Peter, an old friend of my parents, had given me for my thirteenth birthday. Claw marks stretched from one side of the white wall to the other. I threw my clothes across the room, knocking over the lamp that illuminated my art corner. The glass bulbs shattered as they crashed into the nearest wall, and my easel snapped in two. When I finally had enough, I collapsed on my bed and began screaming into my pillow. I felt suffocated, but I didn't care. Nothing mattered anymore.
"Fuck the world. Fuck the whole, damn, cock-sucking world." I breathed as I rolled onto my side. Propped up on the opposite wall, the snarling anteater in the picture seemed to agree.
In my window sill sat the picture of Carson and I on our canoe trip when we had visited Lake Superior. We stood, holding hands in front of our blue-green canoe; the beautiful Wisconsin sunset casting shadows on the glimmering lake. My clammy fingers wrapped around the frame and I brought the picture closer to my face. Another wave of anger hit me, and I struck the picture with a fist. Warm blood trickled from my knuckles and smudged the broken glass and the snapshot.
"Son of a flead-ridden, mongrel bitch." I mumbled, dropping the frame on the floor, and smearing my bloody knuckles on the white sheets. Little glass shards peeled from beneath my skin and stuck to my feather pillow. The pain felt good. I fingered the little puncture wounds, making them sting and winced, as one last tear trickled down my beet-red cheeks. Fatigue got the best of me, and I started to drift into sleep...
I was running through the cobwebby hallways of an abandoned building. Screams echoed from behind each door that dotted the hallway in an alternating pattern. I stopped still in my tracks and gawked at my surroundings. It seemed like a wing from the hospital that my parents worked at, only it appeared to have been swept over by a plague or pestilence. It smelled of rotting flesh, and as I looked down at my feet, I pinpointed the place the smell was eminating from.
Hundreds of desecrated corpses covered the floor. Flies hovered above the bodies, and swarmed in flocks over my head. Maggots blanketed the crowd, gnawing away and leaving behind holes in the skin. The bodies were mostly dismembered, limbs strewn across the floor in front of me, the curdled blood turning dirty maroon. I opened my mouth to scream as a cold, bony hand squeezed my shoulder...
I jolted up in bed; cold sweat dampening my clothes.
"Sleep well?" A harsh voice whispered. I could still feel the pressure of someone's hand on my shoulders and turned to look at the teenage boy that loomed over me. His pale, pearly skin glimmered in the moonlight, accenting the dark bags under his eyes. He was dressed in a shabby dress shirt with the sleeves cuffed, and dusty, stiffened slacks held up by dirty, tattered suspenders. His head was cocked to one side, staring at my quivering, soaked figure. I was too frightened to scream. How the heck had he gotten in?
"Who are you and why the hell are you in our house?"
"I guess you could say I'm a friend of your parents. Names Paul." He offered his hand in a shake, but I fearfully slunk away. He cackled evilly. My hand slipped to the crease between the bed and the wall as I reached in vain for the rod that used to hold up my curtains.
I tightly wrapped my trembling fingers around it, yanked it up and swung at the side of his head with explosive force; all within only a few milliseconds. Paul's reflexes were amazing. His hand flew up, protecting his ear, and when it struck his palm, he grasped it and snatched it from my hands. Taking opposite sides of the rod, he snapped it in half like it was no more than a brittle twig. A smile spread across his face as I whimpered.
He lowered himself on to my bed and crawled towards me, then rest himself against the wall, craning his neck to look into my eyes. His breath stung my cheeks like a light powdering of freezing snow. I tried to pull away, but he hugged my waist to keep me close.
"You seem... stressed, Short timer." He breathed. "Got some problems that you wanna share with ol' Paul?" When I didn't answer, he sighed.
"Look. It helps to tell someone about your problems, and since I'm the only one around..." he paused and made a small shrugging gesture. When again I didn't answer, he hoisted himself off the bed and glanced down at the shards of glass that covered the floor. He bent down, brushed aside the broken pieces, and came back up with the photo pinched between his thumb and index finger. He held it up to the moonlight that seeped through the window and squinted.
"Is this your crack-addict-of -a- boyfriend?"
"He's not a crack-addict!" I yelled at him.
"Sorry, 'pothead' of a boyfriend?" I threw myself at him in rage, but he managed to elbow me in the stomach, sending me sprawling onto the floor, gasping for breath. He dropped the picture onto my heaving chest and knelt down by my head.
"Why is he leaving you?" Paul questioned. Not waiting for an answer, he continued. "And why the hell to New York? To smuggle drugs?" He laughed.
"Shit. If any girl were you, she'd be pissed to eternity. I mean, what has it been? Two, three years? Well, that's a heck of a relationship to be just breaking it off." He leaned in close and whispered in my ear. "I think he found someone else to screw."
"Fuck you!" I screamed and slashed at his face with both my hands. He dodged them, and pinned them above my head. His bony knees protruded into my ribcage as he sat on my stomach in order to keep me under control. I struggled and twisted, kicked and screamed until my voice went hoarse.
When I stopped flailing my legs, Paul asked, "Are you done now?" I let saliva build up in my mouth and spat into his face. The gob of spit filmed over his left eye.
"Thanks." He said, disgustedly, wiping it away with his rolled up sleeve.
"Ya know, this would work a lot better if you would-" He gazed across the room, and I shifted my head to see what had caught his attention. His eyes were fixed on the mural of the anteater. Antubis, as Peter had called it, had changed positions and was now on his hind legs, baring it's teeth. Paul's head dropped, his chin to his chest, and he rolled his eyes.
"He's always gotta ruin the fun." He moaned, pushing himself up to a standing position. He shuffled over to the canvas and picked it up, then threw a wicked smile in my direction and opened the door that led out into the hallway. I propped myself onto my elbows to see what he was trying to accomplish as he dragged the painting along the wooden floor planks. The sound of paper being shred echoed through the house and bounced off the hollow walls as layer after layer of plaster, paint and paper were torn from the wooden frame.
When all but a few scraps hung from the staples, Paul gave a satisfied breath of air and returned to the room out of the shadows. Blood coated the front of his shirt and pants and stained the palms of his pale, spidery hands. He ran his fingers through his curly hair, leavingstreaks and fingerprints of blood on his forehead.
"Okay, Short timer. Let's get down to business." He stated. He crawled back onto my bed, laid on his stomach, and hung his head over the side, staring down at me like a falcon and its fresh kill.
"Besides your boyfriend, who else is causing your life to be a living hell? Refresh my memory. Mother? Father? Come on, you can tell me. I have a way of being very... persuasive." I just laid there, silently, looking up into his endless eyes.
"Do your parents even care about you? I bet you didn't know you were an accident. You kind of just happened."
"Shut the fuck up and leave me alone!" I bellowed, using my arms and the frame of my bed to pull myself up to a sitting position to get a good swing at him, just missing his face.
"And how about that old lady Mrs. Druse? Didn't she forget to come to your sixth birthday party? Oh, and Elmer ran over your pet cat when your parents asked him to mow the lawn. Remember that? And Peter when he-"
"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, repeating it over and over again, trying to drowned out his taunting voice. Paul grinned, knowing he had got the best of me.
"Great. I have replaced your raging teenage hormones with the wonderful emotion of peer anger. I have succeeded." Paul said in a mellow, but teasing voice. He clambered off the bed and bent down to look me in the eyes. Stroking the arm of my shirt, he said,
"Short timer, I gotta go... but between you and me, I had a blast. You throw wicked welcoming parties. Catch you later." He winked and exited my room. I remained on the floor, traumatized. Within my minutes, my eyelids became heavy and I fell back into the security of sleep.
I think he found someone else to screw. I think he found someone else to screw. I think he found someone else to screw. The words rolled around in my head repeatedly, even in my sleep. Is that your crack-addict-of-a-boyfriend?
He hadn't done crack. Never saw him smoke a joint or poke himself with any needles or even sniff a fuckin' permanent marker in the whole time that I knew him. He was always sober, never harmed a hair on anyone's head, and didn't abuse me. Paul's just trying to trip you up...
I woke up the next morning with an extremely gut-wrenching stomachache. I had forgotten of the night before, and when images of Paul popped up, I shrugged them off and told myself it was just a dream. The fact that I was on the floor I managed to explain too. I had fallen out of bed last night when I was dreaming. I opened the door to my room and stepped into the hallway. It smelled odd, like open wounds and fresh blood. I wrinkled my nose in disgust and looked around for the source of the smell.
Nothing out of the ordinary. The pine doors and the white walls were perfectly normal, the wooden floor panels seemed okay. Whatever. The smell wasn't that big of a deal. The floor boards creaked as I patted through the hallway towards the staircase. I descended the stairway quietly and peered into the kitchen. My jaw dropped.
Paul was reclining on one of the kitchen chairs, his legs crossed, and poised on the table top. His entwined hands cradled his head.
"Mornin' Short timer." He snickered and shot me a half grin. I pivoted on my heel to sprint back up the stairs, only to see him decending the stairs. I stumbled down the stairs backwards, almost losing my footing. Grabbing the railing, I stabilized myself. He continued in hot pursuit.
"Are you leaving already? What is this, a hit and run strategy that you use? No wonder your boyfriend left you. And we were having so much fun." He clucked. I fell the remaining five steps, landing painfully on my back and shoulder blades and scurried away from the stairwell on my hands and knees to get as far away as possible.
"Hey. Relationships aren't based on fear." He sneered as he grabbed my hair. "Let's talk." He dragged me across the floor as I screamed and clawed at the carpeting to try to break free. I lashed out with both arms, grabbing the leg of the table, but unfortunately, my hand slipped from the polished wood.
"Let me go! Stop it, now! Let me go!" I shouted as he turned into the hallway that led from the kitchen to the parlor.
"Quit squirming, or it's gonna get worse, you little overbearing whore." He threw me into the room, entered himself and shut the door. I took an old vase off the end table and chucked it at Paul's head. He dodged it and stormed over to me, grabbing the collar of my shirt.
"You're just digging your grave deeper and deeper, Short timer. The more you cooperate, the easier this will go and the less painful it will be. " He said through clenched teeth.
"Capisce?" He smiled somewhat innocently. Deftly afraid, I nodded my head yes, he let go, and I dropped placidly to the floor.
"I don't know how the hell you did it, but last night, when you were dreaming, you somehow managed to enter Sweden Borgian space. The anger that had built up caused the little massacre in the hallway. I could feel you there. All the anger and hatred trapped inside your tiny little body. You being Hook's daughter and all, filled the void in my plan for revenge. As of last night, when I was summoned, I own you. I'm free to carry out actions as I please, unless you build up enough strength to fight me off. I'm like a parasite. I feed off of you and the actions you take." I just stared at him, not understanding a single word he said. He rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to continue, but the doorbell rang and he let out a deep breath.
"Go answer the damn door." He ordered. I scrambled to my feet and sprinted towards the front door in the kitchen. My hands were shaking as I turned the pad lock and forced the door open. Mrs. Druse stood there with a huge smile on her face and wrapped one frail arm around my shoulders in a comforting hug.
"Got any room for some company? Just wanted to stop by and check on you."
"Mrs. Druse, I don't think that that's a good idea. Last night this-"
"My word child! You look like a wreck! Have you eaten anything this morning?" She interrupted.
"No I-"
"Well, no matter. I'll go make you something. Come n' help me." I rolled my eyes. Stegman, (a retired doctor that had tried to murder several doctors and patients, including my parents) was right. She really does have listening problems. She trotted into the kitchen, set down her purse and began to rummage through the cupboards.
"Here." She said, handing me a loaf of bread. "Pop two slices down and butter yourself some toast. God on Earth! You hardly have any food in this house! Doesn't James stock up on food?"
"No, he's too damn busy with his job." She turned around to look at me and raised an eyebrow. I sighed and grabbed the bread and walked over to the counter. I popped down four pieces of bread and waited. Druse bustled around the kitchen, grabbing utensils and throwing them on the table. She handed me a kitchen knife and I began to spread butter on the crisp toast. I saw Paul enter the room from the corner of my eye, and my heart skipped a beat.
Tightly closing my eyes, I repeatedly mumbled, "Paul not now. Please not now. Leave me alone."
Mrs. Druse kept asking what the problem was, but to me, she wasn't even there. She was more or less just a figment of my imagination, sitting in the back of the conscious part of my brain.
A little girl in a brown jumper was running in my direction, waving her arms and screaming something to me, but I couldn't make it out. Her long hair fell past her waist, a bell around her neck, tangling in the strands and humming as the hammer in the bell bounced off the outer rim. A bony hand dug into my shoulder, and impulsively, I whipped around with the kitchen knife and jammed it into the assailants ribs. Paul stood there, looking sick to his stomach and staggered backwards, then collapsed on the floor. Seconds later, he lifted his head from the ground and started laughing insanely.
Back to reality. Mrs. Druse was lying on the floor, spitting up blood and sobbing painfully. The kitchen knife quivered in her solar plexis and puncture her blouse, which was turning dirty maroon.
"Druse!" I screamed and collapsed on the floor next to her.
"Mrs. Druse!" Tear after tear glistened and made their way down my pale cheeks. She lay there with her eyes wide open, staring past my right ear. I glanced over my shoulder to see Paul, standing there with his arms folded neatly across his chest. Mrs. Druse took one last deep breath and her head rested against her shoulder as she died. I whipped around to confront Paul's smug face.
"You bastard! Why the fuck did you do that?" I swung at his face again, but he darted away from it and held me sternly by the shoulders, bruising my upper arm and leaving black and blue fingerprints.
"There is one thing I cannot stand, and it's your lack of respect for me. You're caged in and there is no way out. If I say jump off a bridge, you better sure has hell do it. If I say turn around and shoot the cock-sucker in the fucking knee caps you'll pull the trigger and not open your god damn mouth." He said furiously. I stared up at him weakly, then shifted my eyes to the body of Mrs. Druse, and choked back more tears.
I hung my head and pushed Paul away like an angry child. He hesitantly, but freely let go. I turned away from him and wiped the tears away with the back of my hand. My whole body shook, and I began to feel light-headed.. Paul's icy breath stung my neck and cheeks when he approached from behind, embraced my shoulders and propped his head on his embracing arm. I didn't struggle to get free. I knew that it wasn't worth it. Paul would be persistent and wouldn't let go until he had his share.
"Come on. You can't truthfully admit that it wasn't worth it. What could you lose? I mean, yeah, if your caught, the worst that could happen is you'd be sent to Juvenile Hall, be raped, tortured and killed. Not that big of a deal." The head surfaced on my face. I spun around on me heels and scratched at his face, leaving three crimson runs down his pale cheek He grabbed my upper arms, spun me around, and dug his short, but extremely sharp nails into the veins of my wrist. I screamed in horror and thrashed. My arms became so numb that after a while, I couldn't even feel the puncture wounds. My muscles grew weak and I collapsed on the floor and breathed deeply to calm myself down.
Paul loomed over me, his fists clenched and his mouth a narrow, malevolent slit.
"I try to work with you Short timer. I do admit, you're not the easiest target to break in, but I'll get what I want, when I want it. You just happen to be the closest void I could fill. You're the vein that leads directly to Hook." Still quivering in fear, I looked up at him puzzlingly.
"And Carson Jensen." He added. My breath was choppy as I breathed out and vigorously shook my head from side to side.
"You wouldn't dare lay a hand on any of them." I spat.
"You're right. I can't touch anyone or anything but the body of my host. Believe me, being dead is a drag, especially when you're seeking revenge and can't kill the mother fuckers yourself.
"What the hell did they ever do to you?" He threw back his head and laughed.
"Daughter of one of the prized keepers of the kingdom has no idea what her dear daddy did to piss poor Paul off." Paul continued, still chuckling. He lowered himself onto the floor, one leg bent up, and the other one sticking out straight in front of him in a relaxed position. His arms supported his upper body weight as he leaned back and placed his palms on the floor behind him. He was sitting parallel to me, only about two inches away, cocking his head to one side and watching the rage build up in my flushed cheeks.
"I can't help but to think that you know practically nothing about the little tangle Kingdom Hospital had itself in a few years before you were born."
"It's a fictional story. It never happened." I told him matter-of-factly through pursed, angry lips.
"No it's not. It's as real as I'm sitting here next to you. It's as real as Druse's body over there." I shuttered as the scene repeated itself in my head. Druse, one minute standing erect, the next, sprawled out on the floor with glassy eyes and clammy skin, all at my defense. I glared at Paul, still shaking. His eyes seemed to stare right through me.
He stuck out his emaciated hand and spider-like blue strands of lights shot from his fingertips and spun a quick, life-like image in the air. Another boy that looked a lot like Paul, but had longer hair that touched his shoulders hazily appeared through the static. He was dressed in all leather apparel and stood with his lanky, but limber arms tensely at his sides. My father, Mrs. Druse, Elmer, Peter and the little girl that was waving her arms at me (in my delusional dream that Paul had created before I stabbed Mrs. Druse) all stood behind him with pain and fear etched into their placid expressions. Across from them, Paul and an old surgeon that I did not recognize, stood at ready. Paul's head hung low, but his smokey eyes still stared coldly at the others.
The blue, spidery tendrils cascaded from his outstretched hand and blundered towards the others, like charging thunder bolts. The group ducked to avoid the stampeding lights and the leather-clad teenager conjured up his own little ball of lightning and sent it screaming down the hallway, consuming and destroying Paul and the old doctor. All you could see next was the giant grin that spread across my fathers face.
"How are you here now then?"
"It's not difficult to break a banishment if you are summoned by a mortal source."
"What does Carson have to do with any of this?" The vision zoomed in on the small girl's pale face. It looked vaguely familiar. She grew older, maybe into her late eighties or so, and stood there with a tall gentleman. Between them stood a small boy, at least three years of age, grinning a toothy smile. The boy was enhanced and filled the whole screen, then started showing age progression. When the screen slowed down to a steady pace, Carson, at age 16, was visible, that same familiar smile that I knew, grinning back at me.
"Carson Jensen. Grandson of Mary Jensen, who was the former inhabitant of Kingdom Hospital. The bitch drove me out of place."
"That's not even possible. Mary was dead. She was a ghost, just like you were... are." I corrected myself.
"Yeah, well, that's when the others come into place. They helped Mary change the past. She died much later because they managed to save her. She lived well into her ninties. The lucky little bitch got to die of old age."
"And you didn't deserve to die the way you did? You don't seem like any saint to me." He jolted towards me, grabbing firm hold of my collar.
"So, you're saying that I should've been hung for something I didn't do? Yeah. I did some shit that really screwed up as a kid. Something bad happened, I was the one they pinned. Adrian was the one that fucked up. The bastard stood by and watched as I got the rope. Dr. Gottreich didn't even lift his scrawny ass out of his damn office to prove that I wasn't guilty." He sat there, looking at the tiling on the floor in front of him.
"He enjoyed watching people suffer." He looked up at me, and for the first time, I noticed the peeling rope burns that formed a blistering ring around his neck. "So do I." He added. I shuttered at the placid tone of his voice.
"But don't let that break off our little relationship." He added comically, with a smile.
"I'm getting the fuck out of here." I whispered and shook my head. I pushed myself off the ground and clumsily skidded to the door, pulling it open. Paul stood in the doorway, his hands on his hips, tapping his foot on the first cement step. I squeezed past him and alighted down the steps as my legs shook and buckled. My stomach churned anxiously. He followed behind and wrapped his bony fingers around my throbbing, bleeding wrist.
"Where do you think you're going Short timer? Gonna go screw around outdoors instead of in here with me?" I broke loose and bolted down the driveway and onto the sidewalk, sprinting, and managed to put a few blocks between him and I. My muscles started to burn and cramp up as I sped another five blocks without looking back. I couldn't run another three feet. My throat was raw, and when I opened my sealed lips, a tiny drop of blood traveled down my chin. I stopped, panting and wheezing.
I ducked into the closest alley and caught my breath. I began to intake cigarette fumes and something else. It stunk of cocaine and other drugs, along with the lingering smell of spray paint. Crumpled paper bags littered the floor. I gagged. I had tried crack once, and it put my in the hospital for a month. I looked down the alley, and spotted a familiar shape. Carson paced down the way, his head hanging low. I cleared my throat to try to speak, but again, I felt the cold, stale breath brush against my cheek.
"What a coincidence." Paul murmured. "Pot head's walking down druggie alley."
"Will you leave? Please, just... leave." I pleaded. What a dumb ass idea to just walk right into that one. I had led him right to it. "Please Paul. Just leave me alone. I'll do anything." I got down on both knees among the cigarette butts and clung to the leg of his pants as tears streamed down my cheeks. He lifted my chin with his index finger so I looked up at him instead of the soiled ground.
"I am flattered by your offer, but you're already in knee deep." He lifted me to my feet and turned me around.
Paul's other arm wrapped around the opposite shoulder and fingered the trigger of a .30 caliber pistol. My breath was shaky and uneven.
"Paul, no!" I cried. Hearing my bellow, Carson spun around to face me. Within a split second, Paul squeezed the trigger. The gun rebounded, hitting me squarely in the chest as the bullet left the shaft. Three seconds later, Carson's head snapped back as the metal piece embedded itself in his forehead.
"No! Oh my God! Hell no!" I screamed and broke away. I rushed to embrace Carson's body. The bullet was at least two centimeters into his skull, barely visible. Brain tissue and bits of fractured skull hid it from view.