Chapter 1
Accident
Rushing into the busy emergency room on a typical hot and humid Arkansas summer weekend night, two paramedics guided their gurney weighed down by a grievously wounded accident victim. The awaiting hospital staff rushed into practiced motion.
“Male. Approximately thirty years of age. Involved in an automobile accident on I-30. Lacerations to the head and face and burns to both legs.” The driver relayed the patient’s wounds he’d suffered to the primary RN.
“Has he been responsive?” She asked as she took charge of the situation, recognizing right away the patient’s breathing was heavily labored, no doubt suffering from smoke inhalation and broken ribs.
“He’s not been conscious since our arrival on scene.” The second paramedic responded.
The seasoned trauma team quickly took over; going about assessing the accident victim’s many wounds as they guided him into the brightly lit examining room directly ahead of Dr. Perry Resnick, who immediately saw the young man’s wounds as rather odd while they transferred him from the gurney to the examination table.
Back to the observing paramedics standing by at the door, Dr. Resnick inquired as his staff began cutting off the patient’s clothes, “I thought this was a car accident coming in. Why does it look like he’s been in a fire?”
The first paramedic answered, “It was. He lost control of his truck after being sideswiped. Went almost head on into some concrete barriers where they are doing that new construction by the Martin Luther King exit. No modern day features, no airbag. It was an older truck, ’60’s something model. Anyway, after impact, the vehicle caught fire.”
“I see. Well that’s the least of our problems.” Dr. Resnick reassessed as he examined the victim’s numerous lacerations to his face and saw blood flowing out of the bandages already applied to his head while his staff continued to hook up his EKG lead wires and set for intubation.
“BP 82 over 47.” One of his nurses called out amid the torrent of activity surrounding the unconscious man.
As Dr. Resnick opened up the patient’s eyelids and scrutinized his pupil response it was obvious there was extensive brain damage. Seemingly to no one in particular he ordered, “At the very least he’s got an intracerebral hemorrhage. Contact Dr. Shuster. She’s on call tonight. Have OR prepped for level one. And I want…”
Dr. Resnick’s attention went to the heart rate monitor as it went tacky and then dropped flat, giving off its constant flat line ringing, the dreadful sound that no doctor, surgeon, or nurse ever hoped to hear.
A consummate professional with decades of experience, Dr. Resnick flew into action, vocalizing all that needed done though his long-standing team hardly needed instruction. “Start chest compressions! Prep the crash cart!”
Like so many times in their careers, the Little Rock hospital team began trying to restart the heart of a victim of a no doubt senseless car accident, which was resulting in the loss of a young man in his prime. They didn’t even know the man’s name nor could they even really see what he looked like with so much blood streaming from his head and face due to the paramedics’ head dressing no longer fully containing the blood pouring out. Not by their fault but by how severe the head wounds were. Unfortunately, the visible lacerations were far from the extent of his wounds. He suffered from multiple broken ribs due to the impact he had with his own steering wheel, internal bleeding, smoke inhalation, and various burns.
Deep in their minds, having seen so many car crash victims, many they lost with far fewer injuries, the trauma team knew this wasn’t going to be one of the battles they would win. Nevertheless, they made attempt for the most recent soul who had unfortunately found his life in their hands, as if he was the first to find himself in their ER.
As time passed, the team’s exuberance waned and the inevitable set in. But not Dr. Resnick’s. In a move that surprised even the nurses he’d worked around for years, the good doctor decided to try the electric paddles one last time in order to restart the man’s heart. He’d already called clear four times as his team went about trying to resuscitate him. While resuscitation efforts had been known to take considerably longer, with a patient as broken up as the one laying before them, they were surprised the doctor had already given it as much time as he had.
And then it happened. As if there had been a power outage caused by the fifth and last jolt sent into the chest of their patient, the power around them ceased to illuminate, or so their brains reasoned. But this was something entirely different; a dark baleful feeling ran down their spines just as surely as they were all robbed of sight. The doctor, the nurses, and the paramedics were completely unaware it was only the examining room they were in that rendered to the momentary darkness that engulfed not just the lights, for they certainly didn’t go out due to loss of electricity, but also the power energizing the many pieces of monitoring equipment.
The sudden flash of darkness was not caused by power failure but instead a much deeper and unexplainable phenomenon, the likes of which the world had never before seen. It was not the blinking of power caused by an electrical storm or hiccup in the power grid. No. It was a wash of impenetrable shadow, the focal point being the very patient they were trying so hard to revive.
Subconsciously, all in the room knew what had happened was not a typical power failure but its briefness had their brains seeking for an explanation that made sense so naturally their brains formulized an interruption in the electricity. The unknown had their minds looking for the simplest of reasons as to why their eyesight was momentarily robbed.
The reality and reasoning for answers or the denial their own minds would reason through would have to wait, as it were. When the lights once more appeared visible to them, the heart monitor blinked and pulsed with a heartbeat. It was incredibly weak but it was clearly pulsing. Within a few seconds they were rewarded with a visible breath being taken by the body on their hospital bed. An odd relief came over them all just momentarily but a moment later they were plunged into a new pandemonium none could have anticipated.
Everyone’s flight instinct kicked in as the previously dead figure lying prone before them bolted upright to a seated position and his eyes looked upon them, his eyeballs appearing entirely black amid the red flow of blood streaming down his broken face.
Looking right to the doctor and then left to the nearest nurse, the accident victim snatched ahold of her wrist, too fast for her to avoid his grasp. Looking to his grip, she witnessed his nails elongate as they simultaneously turned into black talon-like claws; black like the deep shadows of his eyes. Without further hesitation he snapped her arm backwards, snapping both the radius and ulna bones in her right arm so forcefully the broken bones almost punctured through the soft skin where her forearm met her wrist.
Shouting, he yelled out in a voice somewhere in-between the growl of a predatory animal and a dialect undecipherable to them, “Πού είμαι?”
Not knowing what language was spoken or caring that their patient had just yelled out “Where am I” in Greek, two of the trauma team jumped to the defense of their screaming co-worker, Dr. Resnick grabbing ahold of the patient and pushing him back onto his back as he thrashed out wildly.
The third nurse, near the foot of the bed, and the two paramedics still standing at the door, looked on in awe at what they had seen more clearly than those immediately next to the patient. From their vantage they saw black shadow erupt and flow outward from the injured man but it was so fast they were having difficulty acknowledging it and even more difficulty understanding the completely black eyes they witnessed. All three felt a sense of complete and utter evil enter their hearts, so deep it scared them from immediate action.
As his injured nurse lay on the cold tile floor next to the hospital bed, screaming, Dr. Resnick struggled greatly with the supposed injured man and yelled out, “Sedate him!”
So close in proximity to his patient and fighting to keep him down, Dr. Resnick and a nurse struggled to keep him down while one lay on the floor screaming in pain when the third by the foot of the bed finally acknowledged her need for action and went into motion, albeit nervously and shakily as what she had just witnessed hindered her actions beyond anything she’d ever experienced in the ER. Meanwhile the still stunned paramedics witnessed further a blackness emanating from the patient of what appeared to be shadowy drifts of some seemingly flowing substance. It flowed down the side of the examination table and onto the floor like a heavy smoke; darker than any smoke they had ever seen.
Hand fighting with the seemingly demented man beneath him as he continued to spout what he thought was gibberish; Dr. Resnick shouted in desperation, “Stick him! Stick him now!”
With dark rage spoken in unknown words by the man they had rushed to the hospital in their ambulance, the paramedics watched and listened as the nurse jabbed a syringe of propofol into his neck. Within their seeing, the black shadows emanating from the car crash victim dissipated as he slumped back into unconsciousness. So too did his black talons and dark eyes as his eyelids closed once more. Their minds were left to wonder if they were ever there at all. Was it a trick of the mind? Something their cowardly minds exuded? They did not know. One thing was for sure. Amid the panting doctor and nurses trying to catch their breaths and recover, there was no evidence left behind. Shadows did not leave fingerprints.
Completely baffled by not only the account of Dr. Resnick, as told to her two days prior by her long standing colleague and one of the most respected doctors in the hospital, Dr. Annette Shuster could not make heads or tails from the brain activity coming from Keenan Quinn’s MRI results. She’d never seen such odd brain activity in a patient before. Glancing from her computer screen to his hanging X-rays, she shook her head all the more. They were far from clear, thanks in no small part to them not being able to keep him still long enough to obtain decent results, but it was clear enough that his ought-to-be broken body was miraculously healing at an unprecedented rate. He was in no small way, a miracle of modern medicine.
Concentrating back on her monitor, she wished they knew more about this odd patient. After his admittance into the hospital and the harrowing ordeal the trauma team went through with stabilizing him, the hospital learned the man’s name was Keenan Quinn from the identification in his wallet, but little else. His driver’s license indicated he was from Billings Montana but they could not confirm an address nor did they have anyone to call since even if he did have a cell phone, it likely burned up in the vehicle fire from his accident.
Considering all of the unknowns about Mr. Quinn and his relentless condition he was suffering from, he’d been transferred to the psych ward where he could be monitored around the clock. There were a few rooms fitted with twenty four hour video surveillance and since most of the time he shook uncontrollably, as if he was suffering from persistent and massive seizures, it seemed prudent. Due to these strange seizures they were unable to assist his body with any sort of intubation or feeding tube. All efforts in attempting had him choking and in one attempt he bit completely through the plastic tubing.
Stranger still is when he awoke. The staff could not see how that was possible, not with the amount of tranquilizers they were putting into his system. Dr. Shuster was surprised they alone hadn’t killed him. Nevertheless, on a few occasions he did wake. Only on one such instance was he coherent enough to speak legibly and in English, but he soon passed back out before he could answer any questions. Other times he shouted out in a variety of languages and with the briefness in such times they had been unable to discern which languages it was he was speaking other than one of the doctors recognizing a few phrases of Latin.
Dr. Shuster was considerably concerned about him injuring himself even though he was restrained to keep him from bouncing off of the bed, but continuously baffled by the speed in which he was actually recovering, at least in terms of his body. From below the knee on both legs he had suffered third-degree burns that were now almost completely healed and the lacerations to his head and face were completely closed without a hint of scarring.
As she looked again at the X-rays, she muttered, “What are you?”
The question was ridiculous, she thought a moment later, for she was not referring to any disease or infection. Even though with her expertise and knowledge, she couldn’t fathom a plausible diagnosis for what she’d been witnessing happening to Mr. Quinn. She shook off her momentary lapse into contemplating the unknown.
Little did she know that statement was to be partially answered if she had the wherewithal to understand the battle his soul was literally fighting inside his body. As she looked back to the monitor she witnessed Mr. Quinn levitating above his mattress at the full extent away from the bed his arm and leg restraints would allow, leaving nothing under him but empty air. As if that wasn’t weird enough, some strange black energy appeared to be flowing out of his body, hit the sheets, and continued to flow onto the floor where it dissipated to nothing when it hit the white tile.
Dropping everything, she ran out of the monitoring room at the end of the hall only to see two of the wing’s nurses rush into Mr. Quinn’s room well ahead of her. As she neared, she could hear the monitoring equipment going berserk with every possible alarm going off simultaneously but that was the least of the turbulent activity transpiring within.
As she rounded into the open doorway, she came to a screeching halt on the well waxed and buffed floor, her senses overwhelmed with what her eyes were reporting, to the point where she couldn’t even scream out. Both skilled and brave nurses had hurried to his bedside and attempted to push him back onto the bed but before either could put a hand to him, two shadow formed arms had reached out from the black void beneath Mr. Quinn and latched onto their respective throats from either side of the bed. There, and in her seeing, both were hefted into the air and flung back against the wall with the appendages still holding them aloft a few feet off of the ground, despite the male nurse among the two being a large man of considerable girth.
Piercing claws at the end of the arms’ digits sprang out, gouging deep into both nurses’ throats, sending gushes of blood shooting out in multiple directions.
Aghast, Dr. Shuster finally managed to scream “no” but found her voice was not the only accompaniment to the sentiment as Mr. Quinn’s voice rang out the same utterance as well. The exception being his was much louder, defiant, and angry, with a hint of another voice in the background. Not just any voice. The second was reminiscent of a growl of an unknown beast mixed with that of a human voice.
Then, as if blinking out of existence, the black arms and the dark flowing shadows beneath Mr. Quinn disappeared and he fell back to his bed. Quiet ensued for even the monitoring equipment went silent; leaving Dr. Shuster’s heavy breathing and the trickling of blood coming from the nurses the only sounds in the room.
That trickling drew her attention to her left. Both nurses lay dead, their blood flowed out of their opened throats as it continued to add to the already formed pools of crimson slowly flowing away from their bodies as it mingled and drowned the tile beneath it out of view.
The unexplainable and horrific scene had Dr. Shuster drop to her knees, where she covered her mouth in complete shock to what she had just witnessed. Tears of terror and sadness ran out of her tear ducts. Then she gasped as a voice broke the silence.
“What happened?” The oblivious sounding Keenan asked from his bed and looked quizzically down at the restraints around his wrists.
In her seeing, the already dark but brown hair of Mr. Quinn turned jet black while his eyes followed suit, going from blue to an almost inhuman shade of the deepest brown, almost black. Odd as that was, she could swear his already young appearance became even more so. Only thirty years of age with a baby face requiring little to no upkeep in way of shaving, his features became even younger in appearance.
Shock giving way to flight, she began slipping on the tile in her scramble to her feet before running out the door, screaming at the top of her lungs.
