Chapter 1
SATURDAY
When she opened her eyes, the pain was immediate.
Jennifer’s hands flew to her face and covered her eyes. Blocking out the light helped, but only a little. Some of the sun’s rays were blocked by the louvered blinds installed over the bedroom windows. But plenty of painful light flowed freely around the edges. Other sunny days hadn’t bothered her in the least, but that morning the intensity of the pain caused her to gasp loudly. It felt as though a metal spike had been hammered through her head from temple to temple. From the moment she had awakened she was in agony.
Ted was turned away from her, snuffling quietly. He did not react.
The pain seared her consciousness and stilled her breath. After a few moments the intensity moderated somewhat, but echoes of the pain and the sharpness of the jolt reverberated in her nerve endings. She wanted to turn to one side and cower under the bedclothes, but her body would not respond. Try as she might, her legs were too heavy to move and her torso felt as though it was made of bricks. After several minutes of futility, she let out a loud whimper.
Ted immediately woke up.
He grumbled, then slowly turned over to look at his wife.
Jennifer’s hand remained over her eyes. She felt his hand, warm and gentle, touch her wrist, then pull her fingers aside.
Her eyes focused and Ted’s face looked just like the Devil himself. Blood red skin, eyes, hair. Sharp horns, teeth, forked tongue.
She shrieked and twisted away. Her legs tangled in the sheets and she landed with a thud on the floor. Despite the padding of the carpet her skull banged against the minimal pile and she saw stars.
“Honey?”
Jennifer struggled to claw her way out of the bedclothes as the intense pain throbbed in her head.
“Jen?”
She twisted to her right and the tangle loosened. A glance over her shoulder and she caught sight of the Devil again. His hair had turned to fire and his eyes glowed with evil. She tried to scream but her voice was so dry she fell into a coughing fit. For a few seconds she was paralyzed, her hands pressed flat on the carpet, her arms trembling under the strain.
“What the hell?”
She felt his hand on her arm and she tried to pull free. His grip was too strong. She tried to twist free but his fingers remained curled around her shin.
“You’re going to hurt yourself,” he said by way of warning.
She scrambled to her feet and flailed madly, then tried to make a dash for the door. But as she raced around the foot of the bed she lost her footing and flopped down.
“Hey!”
A moment later she was up again and her hand was on the doorknob. She tried to twist the cheap copper spheroid, but it wouldn’t move. She whimpered again.
“Jen!”
The door suddenly popped open and the edge of the door banged against her skull. Everything went black and she went down in a heap.
The fog was heavy in her mind.
Her eyes opened to allow slits of light, but they refused to focus. Sounds seemed muddled, as if filtered through water. Indistinct images floated in her eyes and mind as sounds echoed in her ears. She turned her head and recognized the outline of her husband seated to the left.
“I think she might be awake,” Ted said in a surprisingly clear voice.
She saw him lean toward her and his face, his normal human face, came into focus.
“You gave me quite a scare,” he said in a quiet and deeply concerned voice.
You have no idea, she thought to herself.
“Mrs. Williams? I’m Doctor Phillips.”
Jen turned her face to the right and was able to focus on a middle aged man wearing scrubs.
“Test results came back negative for a seizure or stroke. The MRI showed no injuries or conditions that would be cause for concern.”
How about my hallucination? Jen asked herself.
“I can tell you that the blow you sustained to your head didn’t do you any good.”
Thank you Doctor Obvious, her mind quipped.
“You will probably have some trouble speaking for a few hours, but that should return,”
Should?
“I’d like to keep you overnight for observation,” Phillips was saying. “Just a precautionary measure.”
“Any idea what the prognosis might be?” Ted asked.
“Not yet,” the Doctor replied, “but there’s still a lot we don’t know about head injuries.”
Ain’t that the truth, Jen said to herself.
Ted stayed a long time.
His face remained normal and showed all the concern and love she knew he felt for her. He chatted with her, made bad jokes, and tried his best to comfort and reassure her. He was just like that. Many people who achieve the mediocre status of middle management at large companies also achieve a level of boredom in their jobs that makes their lives dull and uninteresting. Ted was anything but. Despite his middle management job, Jen found him very interesting and very funny. They had met quite by accident when each had turned a blind corner and literally knocked each other down. He had rebounded almost instantly and helped her up. He had apologized all over himself for his rudeness and clumsiness. The bottle of wine she had carried had shattered on the pavement, and he had insisted he buy her a replacement. Something in his manner and his face touched her heart, and they struck up a relationship that day. Two years later they were married.
That night in the hospital she once again thanked her lucky stars that she and Ted had married. No man would have been as attentive as he. No man loved her like he did. Finally visiting hours ended and the nurse had to shoo him out.
Nurse Abbott was older, perhaps in her forties, with a stern manner and an obvious competence that Jen found reassuring. When she came with a pill to help with sleep, Jen took it without question. The young woman was asleep within minutes.
Jen’s eyes opened slowly.
The fog was black, almost impenetrable. Sounds were muffled again. All she could tell was that the lights in her room were out, but the door to the hallway was open. Images, probably doctors and nurses and staff, passed by the door opening. Jen thought nothing about it. Normal operation of the hospital, she told herself.
A scream, sharp and penetrating, rattled Jen’s ears.
Blurred images swept past the door. Shouting, loud and urgent, echoed in her mind. Another scream, this one so loud it brought Jen all the way to consciousness. The young woman sat bolt upright in bed. Her vision and hearing cleared. The fog of sleep evaporated instantly. Everything in the room, and in the hall, came into sharp focus.
She heard footsteps, no, wait, the slapping of bare feet on hard tile. Someone’s coming from the left, she thought.
“Stop her!” The voice was clear and male.
An orderly, dressed in white scrubs, rushed in from the right, then stopped just beyond the threshold of the door. Jen could only see his shoulder and back. His arms seemed to be outstretched. Then she heard a grunt, then a blur darted in from the left. The orderly tackled the blur and went down onto the floor with a thud. Jen immediately recognized the blur as a patient. It was a young woman, not much older than she, wearing just a little hospital gown johnnie thing. And the woman was panting heavily and trying to fight off the tackle. The orderly was too strong. He pinned the woman onto the tile as she tried to twist and turn away. Spittle seeped from her mouth as she gritted her teeth.
“Get the fuck off me!” the woman seethed. She tried to pummel him with her fists but found her blows ineffective.
A moment later two other orderlies came into view. They immobilized the woman by pressing their large hands on her wrists and back. The one who made the tackle pulled a hypo out of his back pocket and stabbed the patient in the buttocks. The woman yowled in pain, then swore a blue streak.
Then the woman turned her face and made eye contact with Jennifer.
“DON’T LET THEM DO THIS TO YOU!” the patient yelled. “DON’T LET THE DEMONS GET TO YOU!!!”
Jen was horrified. She tried to cover her mouth with her hand, then realized that her wrists had been put in restraints. So had her ankles. My God, she thought, I’m tied to the bed. Why did they do that?
Nurse Abbott appeared in the doorway, her face set in a businesslike expression. She seemed to look at the patient on the floor with pity, then took a step inside the room. She nodded to Jen, then reached over and swung the door toward her to close it. As the heavy wooden door moved Jen could swear that Nurse Abbott’s hand was a claw. The young woman shivered with fear. At the hem of the nurse’s skirt, the tip of a demonic tale twitched, then slipped under the white fabric.
What the fuck is going on? She asked herself.
