Derry Home Hospital-2016
It was past midnight. The hospital had quieted down in the hours after a distraught young man with a bruised bloodied face had been brought in. Kateri had treated him; a broken nose was the extent of his injuries. However, his mental state was in far worse condition. He'd spent the entire time whimpering, 'Adrian.' His eyes bloodshot and flooded with tears. He'd been brought in by the police, having been the victim of a vicious attack. No more information was offered. Kateri found herself turning away whenever her deep brown eyes met his pained watery ones.
He'd been slightly aggressive when he was first brought through the doors of the ER, forcing Kateri to summon three orderlies to subdue him. The whole time he'd been shouting "Adrian!" and some ramblings about a clown.
Kateri and Dr. Dooley had treated him, then he was taken to the police station for further questioning.
Kateri returns to the reception desk at the front of the hospital as Dooley heads home for the night. She enjoyed the serenity that happens at this hour when all the patients are deep in slumber and everything is silent. No running around, no yelling, no rushing. And the first order of business was to get herself a warm cup of coffee and try to relax after the stressful day. Occasionally, an orderly would pass, most notably Carlos, whose amorous advances she often rebuffed. The moment his elbows touched the white marble of the desk, she would promptly tell him to return to work, not even so much as looking up from her paperwork. He'd often retreat with a dejected look on his face, throwing a sly smile over his shoulder.
"One day..." he always says.
"Not likely." she'd retort without missing a beat.
She hadn't been a nurse for very long. About two years. And she was already tired of the job. Too much stress. Combative patients. Seeing things that often ended up in her nightmares. She'd always hated the sight of blood, but this job had helped her get over that phobia. Although she still had issues with a large amount of it.
Of course she knew going into it that this came with the job, but she wasn't prepared for the reality. She'd been young, idealistic and had the dreams of helping others. But she'd not prepared herself for the physical and mental burnout that accompanied it. Often she felt detached, her mind empty. Often her body was so exhausted she'd collapse onto her bed the moment she got home, still in her navy blue scrubs.
A shadow suddenly falls over her. She smiles, removing her reading glasses and looks up.
"Carlos you really need to-"
She stops cold at the sight of an incredibly tall older man with a white beard that obscured the bottom part of his face. She stares, pausing her page-turning. He was dressed in green scrubs, signifying he was a surgeon, but what he was doing here at this hour was odd.
"Um, uh, are you here for a patient? " she finally says as she inspects his outfit. It certainly looked legitimate.
"I'm...new here, to this area."
"I've never seen you in here..."
The man nibbles his bottom lip, bushy white eyebrows raising. "I've only been here awhile."
He sure is being vague.
She slowly rises from her seat, hands along the desk, the crescent moons of her fingernails drumming along the top. She narrows her eyes, trying to glimpse what the name was on his ID badge without seeming too obvious about her suspicion.
"Wait here a moment please." she says calmly, giving a forced smile to mask her uncertainty before she steps out from behind the desk and to the edge of the hall, searching the corridor for any sign of Carlos or the other orderlies or Dr. Dooley. She glances over her shoulder at the man.
"Just a mo-"
He's gone.
"Sir?" she says as she scans the area, peeking at the exit. She hadn't heard the elevator or the front entrance doors opening. No evidence he'd went up to the upper levels or left altogether.
She spends the next fifteen minutes hunting around the area. He couldn't have gone far. But nothing. He'd vanished quietly, as if he'd not even been there.
Somewhat rattled, she drinks two more cups of coffee and decides to check on her mother Georgia, who's being treated for pneumonia on the second floor. She'd been brought in a week prior with a fever and chills. Her daughter had to talk her into going to the hospital. Georgia was a bullheaded woman, and it wasn't until she had experienced difficulty breathing that she relented.
"Hey," Kateri smiles as she enters, her cushioned heels lightly treading along the icy tiled floor. "How are you?" she queries as she brushes a gentle hand along her mother's head, her thick gray-streaked hair is pulled back in a loose bun, her heavy lidded eyes smile up at the sight of her only daughter.
"Oh, I think I would be better if I had a Snickers bar. Would you be a dear and just indulge me?" Georgia replies with a smirk as she pushes herself upright with a small groan, knowing her request would not be fulfilled, not with her Type 1 diabetes.
"Now you know you can't handle any Snickers-" Kateri begins.
"I know, I know," Georgia gives a dismissive wave of her hand. "Can't blame me for trying, huh?"
Kateri gives a reproachful smile as she silently fluffs her mother's pillow before pulling a chair up to the bed and sitting, fingering the gold cross that sparkles around her neck. She'd been wearing it since she'd graduated high school, a gift from Georgia, who had named her after Kateri Tekakwitha, a Mohawk woman who was the first Native American saint Tekakwitha had been orphaned at a young age by the death of her family to a smallpox outbreak and her face scarred. She had also been subsequently shunned by her tribe for her conversion to Catholicism. Georgia had admired her and had hoped to make the trip to Rome in 2012 when Tekakwitha was officially canonized, but her ill health had led to her canceling her trip.
Her mother's faith had been a sore spot among the more traditional members of the Passamaquoddy tribe. Many saw the Mohawk saint as being a symbol of European colonialism. But her mother shrugged off such concerns and christened her daughter with the name that was Mohawk for Catherine.
Georgia had raised her alone after young Kateri's father had died when she was not even a year old from an epileptic seizure. Growing up, Kateri often stared up at the photo of him upon the mantel of thr fireplace,with two half-melted candles on either side of the frame, noting she had his smile and nose.
She gazes down at the gold bracelet around her wrist with the turtle charms that jingled whenever she moved. Georgia gently takes her daughter's hand in her palm, examining the jewelry, running her fingertips along the smooth shells of the charms.
"I gave you that before you went to college. You still wear it." she says in a pleased intonation.
Kateri touches it. "The Turtle, grandpa always used to tell me the fable." she says.
Her mother's father Benoit was originally from Quebec and was a Mohawk iron worker in Brooklyn before relocating to Derry. He had related the stories of Iroquois legends to his children, including that of the enormous turtle who carried the world upon his shell.
"Such a storyteller, " Georgia adds with a wistful expression. "He knew how to weave a fable." She continues staring off, her pupils frozen against the opposite wall.
"You okay?" Kateri softly inquires, bringing her hand up to cup it over her mother's, squeezing gently.
"Fine." Georgia says, giving a light, barely audible sniffle before she collects herself.
Kateri touches her mother's cheek lovingly before she turns to leave the room, giving her one last glance before exiting.
"I love you mom."
"Love you too."
She makes her way to the elevator. As she presses the button for floor one, the lights flicker, barely even noticeable. This gives her only a moment's pause, before she presses the button again.
Another flicker.
A loud shouting shatters the quiet of the hallway as Kateri turns and runs towards the direction of the screaming, followed by Carlos and two other orderlies, Sean and Duke.
The unearthly yelling was that of Marvin Toft, who'd been brought in two days before after a drunk driving incident where he'd hit a ten year old girl crossing Kansas Street, proceeded to keep driving, speeding off the road along the Barrens and into the Kenduskeag, sustaining a head injury in the process. His blood alcohol level had been three times the legal limit, and he'd blamed his drinking on his recent firing as a bus driver.
Probably because you were a danger to the children, Kateri had thought, but didn't voice her opinion. He would be facing felony charges upon his release from the hospital. He would go to prison and probably die there.
Good riddance.
An unkind thought, but they were always reserved for the worst scum.
As they run into Toft's room, he is hysterical, pale arms flailing. Sweat beads glisten along the deep ridges of his forehead. The sparse white hair along his head unkempt. The bed itself is shaking violently as he thrashes about. Sean and Carlos grab a hold of his arms, while Duke secures his legs. Marvin continues his shouting, his bulging wild eyes look as though they may pop out of his skull.
"Get her out of here! Get her out of here!" he repeats, his inflection strained, his voice breaking from all the shouting he'd been doing. He'd been screaming about the dead girl in his room, the one he'd mowed down and left in the road to bleed out. He'd said the girl would appear normal to him at the foot of his bed, in a pink sweater with a unicorn on the front, but as the lights flashed, the girl would be covered in blood, floating up in narrow threads from the front of her skull. Or he'd wake up to her above him, her back to the ceiling, grinning.
"Get her out! Please!"
"Mr. Toft, there is no one there, I assure you." Carlos urges as Kateri moves swiftly with the needle. The only choice was to keep him sedated. His outbursts were becoming increasingly unpredictable. The night before, he had thrown his IV bag at Sean, and his breakfast tray at the wall, insisting he was trying to hit the girl, and angry as to why nobody else could see her.
"She's there fucking damn it!"
After he'd calmed down, his breathing languid, his pale blue corneas nearly disappearing up into his lids. "I just want her to leave me alone," he says quietly. "I didn't mean to kill that girl." He grimaces, tears starting to course down his pasty cheeks as he starts to quietly sob. "I didn't mean to."
Sean and Duke both retreat, with Carlos lingering in the room to watch Kateri as she takes Marvin's pulse. His sobbing had died down and his eyes were now completely closed, with his mouth slightly agape.
"What do you make of that?" Carlos queries, cradling his left elbow, his thumb to his bottom lip.
Kateri shrugs. She certainly believes in the spirit world, but as far as Marvin Toft goes, his visions of his dead victim were most likely the result of alcoholism or dementia.
"Seeing things. He's an alcoholic. Just hallucinations."
And, she figured, intense guilt. Oh well, she doesn't have any sympathy for an old drunk. She'll save it for the family of the child he'd killed.
As she moves to leave, she sucks in a sharp inhale as his clammy palm shoots out from under the sheets and clamps down on her wrist, the charm bracelet's chiming muffled by his firm grip. As she works to try to free herself from his surprisingly strong hold and before Carlos can intervene, he begins to speak, his expression stoic as he lifts his torso up to face her in a slow, rigid movement, looking like one of the undead rising from the grave.
"I saw it out there, by the river as I went in," he begins, his voice shivering, sounding dry and ancient. "A clown. Right by the water. His eyes were like two balls of fire burning. Even in daylight, they were glowing bright."
Kateri stops fighting to pry herself loose and stares at him as Carlos moves closer to the other side of the bed, his hand on Marvin's arm, gently pulling it away. Marvin continues as he voluntarily lets her go.
"They're all down there, you know. All of them. Jimmy is one of them."
"Jimmy?" Kateri breathes, gaze locked with his. He was so close now she could see the milky bloodshot white of his eyes.
"Jimmy and I used to play ball down at Bassey Park..." Marvin trails off, his cadence growing weary-sounding, his eyes closing once more. Carlos moves to take Kateri by the shoulders, gently but firmly directing her away.
Outside the room, as she closes the door, Carlos is giving a somber shake of his head.
"That was random. A clown...yeah...he's the second one to mention a clown." he says, working his jaw, his lips drawn into a contemplative pout.
"Hallucination." Kateri offers.
"But Hagarty, he was yelling about a clown under the bridge."
Kateri pulls in her bottom lip, ruminating over this strange fact. "Mass hallucination? I don't know..."
"Kinda weird they both mention it, huh?" Carlos continues, folding his arms. "I hate clowns. They give me the creeps."
"Hey, is there a new surgeon on staff? Some older guy with a beard?" Kateri asks. Maybe they had hired new staff without her knowledge. Although deep down, she knew this wasn't likely.
"No. Why?"
"Just asking. Someone came to the reception desk claiming he worked here."
"Really? If he shows up again, tell me. That sounds fishy."
"I will."
"Anyway, off to check on Elliot." Carlos says before he wonders off down the hall. The seven year old had just had his tonsils out and was prone to waking in the night, wanting his favorite orderly to read to him. Kateri heads back to the elevator, yawning as she pushes the button. An icy cold breeze tingles along her arms and neck, causing shivers to ripple along her back as she wraps her arms around herself. It's a few moments of waiting for the elevator when she feels the strong sensation of someone watching her.
Carlos maybe.
"Alright, funny guy. Thought you were checking on Elliot?"
She whirls around, her smile fading as she sees a shadowy, small figure at the far end of the hall. Her brows tighten together as comprehension of what she was seeing set in.
There was undoubtedly a little girl there. The lighting making her features indiscernible, blurry.
"H-Hello?" Kateri asks. "Are you lost?"
Almost immediately, Kateri knew there was something not right about this. There were no little girls on this floor, and the only children that were actually in the hospital were Elliot and another boy Nathan, who'd broken his arm in four places doing wheelies on his bike and was due to get a metal plate put in it.
Kateri's heart skips a beat when she glimpses the girl's clothing; a pink unicorn shirt.
The girl stays motionless, silent. Simply staring back. It remains this way until she begins to contort her body, loud crackling and crunching of bone echoes down the corridor. Followed by a giggle. Deep and not much like a normal little girl.
Then the girl takes a few steps forward-right to where Georgia's mother is housed-and steps inside.
Kateri takes off, running like a bat of hell down the hall, her shoes loudly squeaking and nearly slipping along the freshly-mopped floor as she comes to a sudden skidding stop in front of Georgia's room, catching herself on the door frame. Inside, the little girl is standing before her mother's bed. She turns as she sees Kateri, her smile morphing, elongated, nearly reaching her round eyes, with yellow stained quill-like teeth. Her pupils were like two little suns. Kateri stares at her.
His eyes were like two balls of fire burning. Even in daylight, they were glowing bright.
Kateri stays, unable to even believe what she was seeing. But she was lucid, wide awake, pumped with the caffeine from three cups of coffee. She was alert.
And she was seeing this.
The girl then moves to touch Georgia's feet, letting out another ugly, decidedly un-girly giggle.
"Get away from her!"
Kateri pounces across the room, hands out, about to shove this thing away from her mother, when the ghost girl's flaming pupils are drawn to Kateri's charm bracelet, causing her to flinch backwards, her teeth bared, protruding from her chapped lips.
Kateri lands on the bed, shielding her mother as the girl demon-ghost or whatever this thing is, certainly not a little girl-retreats from the room, pausing at the doorway to send another disgruntled hiss back at her, the two firey pupils sparking.
Kateri remains splayed along the bed, trading her panicked gaze between her mother's sleeping mien and the doorway. Minutes pass, and it's clear her mother hadn't heard a sound.
How odd.
Her mother was a light sleeper, she would have woken up. Frantic, Kateri moves to check her pulse. She was still breathing. A glance at her vital signs showed she was stable. She touches her forehead as she pulls the covers up to Georgia's shoulders.
With a heavy sigh threaded with cautious relief, she moves and sits, turning the chair to face the door, nervously fingering her bracelet, listening to the beeping of the vital signs monitor.
Carlos was seated on the bed beside Elliot, with the boy's favorite book, 'I Am Pan!' by Mordicai Gerstein open on his lap. Carlos read aloud as Elliot listened intently, bringing his small finger to tap the page with the main character Pan, the Greek God of the wild.
"He was outside my room today." he says, unable to speak above a hoarse whisper.
Carlos grins. "He was?" he replies, giving the boy's ginger tuft of shaggy hair a small rub. "And what did he say to you?"
"He asked me if I wanted a balloon. He had a bunch of them in his hand. He was outside there-" Elliot points to the window. "Floating, like all the balloons were holding him up."
"Really?" Carlos says. The kid must be bored sitting in this room all day. His surgery had complications and he was required to stay another two days at least.
"He also said he wants me to come with him. He wants to show me Mount Olympus."
"That's exciting. Next time he shows, tell me. I'd like to meet him," Carlos says as he snaps the book shut and heads to the door. "Now get to sleep pal. It's late."
As Carlos switches on the boy's Kermit the Frog night light, Elliot sits up.
"I'm I going to die?" he asks.
"What brought that on? Of course not." Carlos replies, a little stunned as he moves to sit by the boy again, giving him a side hug. "It's all over now. You're fine. I know that was a scary experience."
Elliot had experienced what was known as anesthesia awareness, waking up during surgery, and was still shaken by it. Carlos tucks him back under the covers and heads to the door again, and as he does, Elliot calls after him.
"Hey, when Pan comes back, can you get rid of him? He's a little scary. I don't like him. He looked different then the book."
Carlos stares, his hand on the doorknob as he studies the boy. He looks genuinely scared.
"How so?"
"His teeth. He had really sharp teeth like a shark's. I don't like him."
Kateri is sprawled on her stomach her grandfather's feet in front of the fireplace. The warm smell of her grandmother's cookies in the oven thick in the air as he finishes his tale of his canoe overturning in the Ottawa river and nearly drowning. But, he claims, he was saved by the great Turtle.
"I was underwater, and I heard it, his voice, whispering to me. And I was able to swim to the surface, even with the current trying to push me under."
He looks down at his granddaughter, who is completely enthralled with the story, chin rested on her hands.
"You will hear it. When you are in despair. You will hear the voice of the Turtle."
Kateri is jolted from her dream by a noise. She'd fallen asleep with her head lolled against her shoulder and now she had a sharp pain along her neck and collarbone. Groaning, she shakily stands up, massaging the crook of her neck as she walks to the bathroom. The noise she'd heard sounded like a door slamming, or a cupboard. She'd barely even been awake when she'd heard it.
A dream maybe, just like that creepy girl. That had to have been a dream too.
She switches on the light and stands before the mirror, sniffling, running her damp palms along her cheeks. She grabs some kleenax from a box sitting on the sink and wipes the sweat from her forehead. As she does, that's when she sees it; a small, dark pitted scar just along her right cheekbone near the corner of her eye.
"What...?"
She reaches up to touch it, attempting to wipe it off in the hope it was a stain of some sort, when she sees another just below her right nostril. And another on her left cheek. Panicking, she switches on the faucet, the lights twinkle faintly as she dips her head down to splash some cold water on her face. She recoils as she glances back into the mirror.
Her whole face was now covered in the strange pock marks.
She shrieks, falling backwards, bringing her trembling fingers up to touch the markings. Each one oozing with white-yellow pus, streaked with ruby strings of fresh blood. Letting out a confused scream, she runs from the bathroom. She stops as she sees a cloaked figure kneeling beside her mother's bed, its back to her, weeping softly.
With tears stinging her eyes, she takes in a loud shaky breath, her intonation weakened by fear, but feeling stronger at the sight of a possible threat to her mother.
"Who are you?" she manages, her voice like a croak at the base of her throat. "Get away from my mother."
The figure abruptly stops its soft whimpering sobbing. Rising to its feet. Kateri can now see it was female, petite and holding something in her hands. Kateri's eyes widen and her mouth falls open as the figure is now looking directly at her with golden disks set within two bottomless pits of black.
It was indeed a woman and her pale sunken face was covered completely in small, deep scars. In her bony hands she held a wooden cross. Stunned, Kateri can't break her gaze away from the sight as the woman extends her hand out.
"Pray with me dear, pray, pray, pray..." the woman repeats as she draws near, seemingly floating along the floor rather than walking, the black robe fluttering out from behind her, as if there were a breeze in the room. "Pray with me and you'll float too."
Kateri is now backed against the wall, fresh tears erupt from her eye sockets. The woman lets out a guttural, raspy cackle as she brings her scarred face within inches of Kateri's. Her breath is sickening, like rotting wood and decaying flesh.
Fighting the nausea bubbling within her stomach brought on by the rancid smell, Kateri screams, bringing her palms up to shield herself as she feels the woman's rawboned fingers brush over her scalp. She squeezes her eyelids shut, willing it to just go away and leave her and her mother alone.
"No!"
"Hey, Harjo, what's the matter?"
As she opened her lids, it was not the disfigured woman but Carlos. Touching her head lightly, a visage of concern. Kateri stays against the wall, staring into his hazel spheres. She brushes past him and runs to her mother. Once again, her vitals are stable and she was breathing. Kateri then dashes to the bathroom, frantically touching her face as she looks into the mirror.
No trace of the scars anywhere.
Carlos is in the bathroom doorway, watching with concern. "What's wrong?"
"There was something on my face. and there was someone here. A woman and she had these scars all over and-and-" she falters as a sob comes on. Carlos grips her shoulders again, staring into her dark irises.
"Dream, you were dreaming-"
"No, Carlos, no. There was somebody in here. Then before I saw-"
Marvin's scream throttling through the halls disrupts the tension and the two bolt out the room towards his room, with Kateri sending a reluctant glance back at her slumbering mother. Inside Toft's room he's thrashing about, his vital signs monitor loudly pinging as his heart rate skyrockets. His hands clutching his chest.
"He's having a heart attack!" Carlos yells attempting to subdue Marvin as Kateri rushes to grab up the defibrillator. As she presses the two small slabs of metal to Toft's chest, as the monitor flat lines, as he falls limp in Carlos' arms. Kateri applies repeatedly applying volts of electric current into his chest. As she does so, she feels herself weaken, tears forming again as she continues pumping. Carlos grabs her wrists.
"It's done." he says above the monitor's ring, Marvin remaining still, eyes wide open, mouth gaping, forever set in a grotesque mien of terror. Kateri stares down at him, her breathing ragged. It's a few moments of silence before Carlos pulls the sheet over Marvin's head as Duke and Sean rush in.
"Aw, man," Sean says. "Sorry. we were in the basement."
'The hell were you doing down there?" Carlos demands.
"We saw something, Duke and I-"
"Yeah man, real fucking weird," Duke interjects. "I saw it first, it was..." he pauses, reticent to reveal the details.
"What? Spill it!" Carlos growls.
"A clown man! We saw a damn clown!" Sean says, embarrassment flashing across his features. "We went down there, ya' know, to see what was going on with the lights and, he was just...there."
"A fucking clown," Duke adds, in disbelief. "Has a bunch of balloons and everything. I don't know where he came from. Or how the hell he even found his way down there."
Derry Home Hospital had been expanded and remodeled over the course of one hundred years. Really only staff knew how to navigate the maze of halls and rooms. For a random to show up down in the basement was inexplicable, especially doing it undetected. Carlos and Kateri exchange glances.
This was getting too strange.
"I gotta move him down there. I'll have a look." Carlos says, gesturing at Toft's corpse.
"I have to get back to my mother," Kateri says, looking to the door, anxiety grabbing hold of her chest. "It's not safe." Whatever it is going on here, she needed to protect her mother. Even now, there could be something in her room with her. At this, Kateri rushes out the door while Sean and Duke resume their nightly parole.
In the basement, as the elevator doors open, Carlos pushes the gurney with Marvin's body down the narrow corridor, the sensation of the cold air like walking into a meat locker. The smell always unpleasant but he'd gotten used it along with the eeriness of the area itself.
He charily moves along, the loud squeaking of the wheels the only sound. He keeps a keen watch-no clown so far, the dim lighting making it difficult to even see if there was anyone alive down there. The place used to give him the creeps when he was younger and training and as the lowest on the totem pole, it was his job to take the corpses to 'the freezer,' as it was referred to.
As he enters the morgue, he laments that the body will remain until morning, since no one is around to tend to the guy. Carlos stays, examining the area. Letting out a sigh, he starts his way back to the elevator when he hears a moan. So faint her had to turn and walk back to make sure that's what he was hearing.
Upon entering the morgue, he glances around at the stainless steel tables and square doors-one compartment contained Ethel Merryman who'd passed several hours earlier. His eyes are drawn to the gurney Marvin Toft's body was on...
But there's nothing but the white blanket he'd used to cover him.
"Shit..."
No way, he was dead. For certain.
Carlos' breathing speeds up as he desperately scopes the room, it isn't until he steps back out into the corridor that he hears the moan again-louder and far more menacing. Near the far end of the hall was Toft, seemingly alive.
But he'd been dead. Without doubt.
Toft begins to lurch towards him, limping, hunched, looking like he was already rotting away. Even in the restricted light, Carlos could see his rib cage was exposed.
"The fuck..." Carlos's soles are glued to the floor in terror as Marvin's reanimated corpse inches closer.
"He's taking a long time, man." Sean says as Kateri paces back and forth at the foot of her mother's bed. He'd dropped in to check up on her and Georgia while Duke looked after Elliot who'd woken up, yelling about Pan being outside his bedroom window.
"Keep a close eye on her." Kateri gives Sean a gentle tap on the shoulder.
She was worried about Carlos. It had been too long-thirty minutes-and he wasn't back. She could feel it, a tightness clenching her stomach. She could sense it.
Something was wrong.
She runs-no time for walking-to the elevator,drumming her foot along the floor as she waits for the elevator. On the descent down, it stops suddenly as ther lights above flicker. Exasperated, she repeatedly slams the button.
"God Damnit! C'mon!" she shouts as she continues to smash her fist.
The elevator begins to violently shake, as if an earthquake was hitting the building, Kateri tumbling to the ground as she screams. The rocking continues as hands-scarred with bloody pock marks-burst out the sides of the metal panels, grabbing at her hair, attempting to claw her face, snatching her by the hands. She fights them off, cursing as she smacks them away, shielding herself from their talons. As they cease their attack and retreat back into the metal walls, the elevator begins to drop. Speedily descending downwards through the shaft.
Kateri shrieks, grabbing onto the handrail as it falls. She braces herself for the inevitable crash at the bottom, but then...
It stops. Smoothly, as if invisible hands had prevented it from hitting below. As the doors open, she sees him; Carlos, his back against the wall, staring off in a catatonic state. Kateri runs to him, nearly stumbling as her hands meet his chest. His heart was thumping against his chest cavity.
"Carlos..." she cups his cheeks in her palms, his skin cold and damp. "Carlos, speak-"
"Carlos! Carlos! Oh Carlos!" comes a high-pitched voice from behind her, sounding like a man imitating a woman's tone. Kateri gradually looks over her shoulder, still holding Carlos' face in her hands and sees a clown. Right in front of the elevator. He has the burning golden-yellow corneas, his costume almost blending into the sterile coloring of the room. His porcelain white gloves are clasped over the red pom poms on his chest, his odd, large egg-shaped head tipped to one side as he regards her, his grin showing off comical buck teeth.
"Carlos, kiss me Carlos!" he continues.
Speechless, Kateri keeps her gaze on him as the elevator doors open, waves of blood come spilling out of the doors, rushing past the clown's feet. The growing river of crimson splashing through the passageway.
"Carlos!" Kateri yells as she attempts to pull him to his feet, his body weight, however, was too much for her and he slumps over, causing her to lose balance and slip along the blood that was quickly flooding the area.
Oh God, someone please help me. Oh, God.
Kateri, feeble and emotionally and physically drained, wraps her arms under Carlos' armpits.
She closes her lids, trying in vain to hold him up, the force of the thick blood flow and her weakened state diminishing her willpower. She holds Carlos tighter.
You will hear the voice of the Turtle.
A whisper, soft against her eardrums stirs her. She lifts her blood-soaked head as she sees the clown, his face no longer one of merriment but a deep, angry glower. She continues to hear the whispering. Gentle, kind and encouraging. The words were murmurs, but she could make them out amid the sounds of the bustling blood splashes.
The clown lets out a shrill demonic scream and then a flash, almost like lightning.
Then nothing. The walls are stark white again. The blood drained away. Not even a drop was left. Kateri sits up, checking for the tall ugly clown.
He was also gone.
Exhausted and relieved, she rests her head against Carlos' chest.
"I feel like a million bucks." Georgia announces as Kateri checks her heartbeat.
"Yes well, you still have a few more days to make sure." Kateri replies.
"But I'm fine."
"I know, but still..." Kateri smiles as she exits. "I love you mom."
"I love you too."
Kateri strolls only a few doors down, where Carlos is housed. He beams as she enters.
"Long day," she says, as he presents his arm for her to check his pulse. "You had a good scare."
"Still don't remember what it was." Carlos says as he blows a sigh through his lips.
"Good thing I'm here to look after you." Kateri teases as she strokes a hand through his dark curly hair that now sported a gray streak along the left side of his skull.
"Ain't I lucky," Carlos smiles, less the usual sly, flirtatious one, and more of admiration. "Think we'll ever really know the truth?"
Kateri shrugs. "Who knows."
She gives him a peck on the cheek and saunters out the door. As she does, she bumps into an older man with a beard. One she immediately recognizes.
"Excuse me," he says with a warm smile. "I should watch where I'm going."
"It's okay, it's fine." Kateri urges as she clutches her file folder to her scrubs, the golden turtles of her charm bracelet reflecting the light. The man gestures at it.
"I have an affinity for turtles.'" he says with a twinkle.
Kateri can't help but return the smile. "So do I. Excuse me, though, I must get going." Elliot was waiting, excited to be going home.
"Don't let me keep you." the man replies as he turns and strolls off, whistling to himself as he heads down the corridor. Kateri enters Elliot's room, but, on instinct, turns on her heel and quickly peers back out the doorway.
The man has disappeared.