Chapter Nine
It took half an hour to get to the hospital. Children's hospitals, or hospitals of any kind, didn't exist in small towns, and definitely not towns as small as this one. So they drove out of town got on the highway. They didn't bother with the radio, instead they caught up on various, random, things that popped into their minds as the country flew by. Athena led the way from floor to floor through a few dozen wards before arriving at nurse behind a glass window.
"I'm here to see the Clarksville kids. This is my shadow, Sam Kent." Athena said coolly flashing her fake doctor's license. The nurse smiled sweetly.
"Through the double doors and the sixth room on the right." she said.
"Thank you." Athena said. The nurse pushed the button for the double doors to open. Sam and Athena went inside and began walking down the hall.
"Excuse me, Miss?" Someone walking behind them called. Athena and Sam both knew they were talking to Athena.
"Walk faster." Athena whispered. They began to walk faster but the person wasn't giving up.
"Sir? May I please have a word with you?"
"Oh, shit." Sam said. "We're not walking fast enough." Finally they were at the sixth room. To the left of the door there was a sign that had Jonathan Noah Gindy. Sam knocked on the door and opened it a couple seconds later.
"Hello? Jonathan? I'm Sam Kent. I'm here to talk to you about what you saw the other night." Sam and Athena walked into the room, perhaps faster than they should of. The person that was talking to them, which they now know as a male doctor had stopped talking when they reached the door.
"I heard something scared you and now you're not talking to anyone. But I need you to talk to me, Jonathan. my friend Athena and I are here to help you find out what it was." The boy kept his head down. He was awake, but he wouldn't make eye contact.
"Look, I need you to tell me everything you seen, or thought you saw. It's very important, if you don't help me, even more little boys and girls are going to get scared like this. You don't want that to happen, do you?"
"Jonathan," Athena squatted down in front of the pale little blonde haired boy. "Can you look at me?" he didn't move. Athena put her fingers under the little boy's chin and lifted his head so his eyes would meet hers. "We're here to help you. If you can tell us exactly what you seen, nothing like this will happen ever again. But if you don't tell us, more and more kids will get in this condition. And we can't let that happen." The boy still didn't move. Athena removed her fingers from the boy's chin so he could relax. It was probably the most he had moved since the night it happened. "Jonathan, how about this… you like ice cream, right?" Athena began to bribe the boy. "I'll buy you ice cream anytime you want it. Even at three in the morning, any kind of sugary, sticky mess kids your age love. Anytime, all the time. Just tell me what you seen."
"Are you actually gonna -" Sam whispered.
"no, why would I do something like that?" She whispered back.
The boy
didn't move. Nor did he think about it.
"Okay, let's just
go, Sam. He's not going to budge. We'll have to see about Gracie
now."
"Did the nurse give us her room number?" Sam asked
"No, I don't want to go back there, either. Something about that girl… just isn't quite right." Athena gave him a questioning glance and he shrugged. "Do you know what Gracie looks like?"
"Yea, I saw her in the paper. I think I can ID her when I see her." Athena answered.
"Then let's get a move on." Sam said and the two started out of the room and bobbing their head into the rooms as they passed. Occasionally they'd have to stop in a room to evade one of the nurses or doctors. When they finally came to the room of a little red headed girl.
"This is her." Athena acknowledged slipping into the girl's room. She sat down next to the girl who was watching a Care Bears movie. "My favorite Care Bear is Bedtime Bear which ones yours?" The girl looked at her from the corner of her eye, but didn't say anything. "I'm Athena, what's your name?" again the little girl didn't answer. "My friend, Sam," she pointed at Sam before continuing, "and I are sort of like the Scooby-Doo gang, we fight bad guys and monsters."
"And we're here to help you." Sam added.
The girl didn't react to this either. Athena stood up and started looking around the room. She'd ask questions about pictures of family and friends, stuffed animals on the bed, and never got an answer. Sam picked a folder up while he listened to the questioning and flipped through it. It was dozens of drawings. Normal, stick families, smiles, trees, suns, and rainbows. Then the last one hidden in the very back caught his attention. It was a dark form with nasty looking claws.
"Teenie, look at this." he said holding the picture up. Athena nodded.
"Sweetie, what is this a picture of?" she asked the girl. Gracie's pretty, freckled face screwed up and she started crying hiding her green eyes in her hands. "Looks like we've got a picture of our new play mate." Athena said looking up at Sam.
Mean while back in town, Autumn and Dean were wandering around the park in the middle of the town square with John. What was more exciting then a big, loveable, dog? Well, ice cream trucks that have to unload before the ice cream melts, but they didn't have one of those. So instead Dean walked a good three feet away from Autumn who kept tossing her Frisbee toward groups of children. John would then bound over and try to get the kids to toss the toy for him. About that time Autumn and Dean would trot over and "scold" the dog and of course all the little kids would ask a thousand little questions, that annoyed the life out of Dean. But Autumn on the other hand would kneel down, ruffle John's fur on his head, and answer every question with so much zeal that it seemed as if she lived for this.
"Well, I named him John because when I was a little girl, a man named John saved me." Autumn answered a little girl's question.
"Gracie, needs a saver now." the little girl said hugging John tight.
"What happened to Gracie?" Autumn asked, rocking back on her heels and leaning slightly against Dean's legs.
"The monster got her." Dean's attention was finally caught.
"What monster?" he asked. The little girl's pudgy cheeks puffed up just before she let out a poof of air.
"The one that lives under little kids' beds. He's real." the child said it with such convitction, had Dean not been in the business of monster hunting he'd still have believed her.
"Did Gracie tell you about the monster?" he asked for the first time actually coming down to the kids' height. Autumn rocks unsteady for half a second before steadying herself by placing one hand on the ground.
"Yea, she talked about it a lot." the little girl paused for a moment watching both of the adults. "She had a slumbers party, we all saw him." Dean looked at Autumn.
"What did the monster look like?" Autumn pressed.
"Mommy says monsters aren't real." the little girl said.
"Sometimes, monsters are real." Dean told her. The little girl looked like she'd just been slapped.
"I've got to go. I'm not supposed to talk to strangers." she said giving John one last pat before taking off pig tails flying.
"That went well." Autumn said hopping up and spinning the Frisbee on one finger.
"Sorry, didn't know she'd freak out like that." Dean apologized.
"No, I was being serious it went well. We know now, that Gracie was seeing the critter before she went mute. We also know that seeing it wasn't enough to shut her up, because several girls saw it." She gave him a sugary smile. "We're getting warmer."
