The Acolyte
Copyright 2007 by Mary Harris [aka redplanetes]
Chapter 16
Gritting her teeth behind tight-pressed lips, Helen swung her leg forward. It felt like there was an iron ball shackled to her ankle, for all the effort it took. But there, her muscles were working, and the supports held her weight; it was heaven just to be upright and walking.
"Yeah, you got the feel of it, Miz Murdoch." The physical therapy nurse stood back, allowed Helen to practice on her new hardware. "The bionic woman, you are."
She walked step by step to the end of the handrail, then back. It was both difficult to bring the leg forward, and surprisingly easy at the same time. After a few steps she had figured out why; her muscles were in slightly different positions, to allow the brace to work at all. It therefore required a different pattern of movement to walk. A lift, swing forward, settle and shift weight. Once she got accustomed to it, it became a natural, fluid motion.
"I still feel like I might fall over, though." she muttered, frowning. Helen wondered if she'd be able to get up by herself if she did fall. One drawback of the brace was its limited range of motion. No sideways movement at all, the leg could now only go forward or back.
The nurse studied Helen's careful steps, a process like learning to ride a bicycle. "You'll probably need to use a cane from now on." He said, avoiding her icy glance at the mention of permanent disability. "Not to support weight, just to add stability to your gait." Many patients that had to re-learn to walk were very proud, hated needing canes and walkers, but he knew better than to sweet-talk them with false hopes.
She reached the end of the handrail and sat gingerly on the bench. Better to ask him than the bitch doctor, he at least will tell it to me straight. "Do you think I'll ever be able to run, with this?" She gestured at the metal rods bracing her right leg, scowling despite her delight at being mobile. "I need to know the truth."
The nurse shifted position, took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I really don't know, Miz Murdoch. It's possible, but everyone heals differently." He caught her sceptical frown, hurried to continue. "And you have to understand, most people who want to be active would go for the full prosthetics. This rig is only meant to give the most basic mobility, not help you win the World Cup." Chewing his lip, the nurse pondered for a moment as he began re-adjusting the set screws on her brace, lengthening the rods a fraction. He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Just between you and me, though... once you get used to it, I think you'll be surprised." The puckish glint in his eye almost looked familiar, a vicious mischievous streak.
Helen tried to relax in her wheelchair as the nurse recorded stress test results, but the discomfort of aching bones and muscles made it hard to sit still. A newspaper on a small table nearby caught her attention; a bold headline in serious block letters was hard to miss, especially on a small-town paper where news was usually of the mundane variety. As she pulled the paper over and began reading, a sly smile crept onto her face. She folded the paper, tucking it beside her in the chair for safekeeping.
A familiar face came to wheel Helen back to her room; Nurse Grosberg, wearing a strange expression of unease. Noticing they were headed in the wrong direction, Helen twisted her head back to raise a questioning eyebrow. The nurse nodded, twisting her lips into a hesitant smile. "Yeah, you've got a new room as of now. Just wait a minute, and I'll tell you why." Her voice carried both an admiring and almost accusatory undertone. Helen sat back with difficulty; she wanted to get off her ass and walk, but she forced herself to be patient.
They finally reached her new quarters, at the end of a rather dreary and silent hallway. This wing seemed stale and forgotten, a warehouse for those who would die here of one terminal disease or another. The room she was wheeled into was small and empty, save for one stark hospital bed and a small dresser. Helen's few personal belongings lay on it, as though whoever had brought them here hadn't wanted to handle them for any longer than necessary.
She didn't relish the idea of spending any more time horizontal, but the wheelchair was very uncomfortable to her tired muscles, so with a grimace, Helen pulled herself up and settled into the bed. The nurse opened the window to let some fresh air in, then turned to lean on the back of the little chair beside it. "The hospital has decided it would be best if you had a room to yourself from now on." She gave her quick flashing smile, betraying the serious tone of her voice. "You're bad luck, did you know that?"
Helen remained silent, wondering what had happened to give her such a reputation. Rather, wondering which of the many things she could imagine had been the cause.
The nurse continued. "Since you came here, some pretty unusual things have been going down. People going missing, things going missing, a rash of hallucinations..." She raised an eyebrow, hoping to read some explaination in Helen's stony face, but Helen only frowned, and asked, "Things...?"
"I shouldn't be telling you this at all." Nurse Grosberg said with a chuckle. "The morgue has been burglarized twice in the last two days, as well as a heart scheduled for transplant surgery. Body parts don't just get up and walk away, but that's what seems to be the case." She paused. "We also found out that your favorite doctor, Dr. Allen, died in a car wreck early this morning." The nurse pursed her lips, continued in a low, wondering tone. "She apparently fell asleep at the wheel after a double shift. Not that anyone would have cause to suspect you had anything to do with that, but there's more..."
Helen carefully maintained her blank face, aware that in itself it was inappropriate.
"This morning one of your neighbors went stark raving insane. You were already in physical therapy when they came to give him his morning meds, but long story short, they had to sedate him and strap him down. The man's been transferred to the Psych ward." Nurse Grosberg humphed, confounded. "He was blubbering and screaming before the thorazine kicked in, about something that we've been hearing a lot of in the last day or two. Like a dead zombie thing that crawls around on walls, sniffs at people in the night." The nurse leveled a penetrating gaze at Helen. "Crazy, huh."
"Yeah, crazy." With difficulty, Helen restrained herself from bursting out in laughter. "Poor guy."
* * * * *
A deep, booming rumble shuddered through the hospital, a warning from turbulent skies. From the rich ozone smell that wafted through her open window, she knew another storm was gathering. Helen smiled, satisfied with the exciting weather for her imminent departure; she was sore but ebullient.
The next thunderclap built up to a sharp crescendo; as though on cue, Mena appeared in the doorway, her face brightly lit like a full moon by lightning. Helen blinked, stared for a moment, marvelling at the girl's ability to change from one day to the next, even from one hour to the next. Today she seemed older, mellowed, yet tempered to a sharp edge. The girl wore a curious half-smile along with her tigerish gaze. If I didn't know better I'd say she's been up to no good. To answer her own suspicions, Helen reached over to the nightstand, held up the newspaper.
The headline read: 'LOCAL TAVERN TORCHED, 17 Missing'. "You?" she said, leering.
Mena huffed a short laugh. "It seemed like more."
"Missing...?" asked Helen, wrinkling her eyebrows together.
"It's a surprise." Mena whispered. She looked around her at the tiny, dingy room, perplexity on her face. Helen read the unspoken question.
"I'm bad for business. They moved me here this morning after another patient went berserk." Helen snorted, swung carefully off the bed. "I'm ready to get out of here, but I can't walk very fast, ...will you pack up my-"
Another tearing crash of thunder struck just as a brilliant flash of lightning illuminated the room. The lights went out afterward; a few seconds later emergency lights kicked in. Alarms could be heard in the distance from many directions, as well as shouts of dismay and confusion. The two women looked at each other. A good time to leave, thought Helen.
The shouts soon turned to screams, growing ever nearer. Helen hastily shrugged a jacket on as Mena packed up her aunt's bag, stuffing items into it without neatness. A strangled yell from down the hallway got their attention; whatever the disturbance was, it was coming their way, and fast. The obvious reason rushed into their heads - the monster had come. Tearing a swath of panic and destruction all the way up from the ER, taking advantage of the storm's fury to add to the confusion, it homed in on Helen's new room.
In a flurry of tattered and bloodstained clothing, the creature burst into the room. It held a shorn-off foot, and was munching on it like a carnival hot dog. In its other hand was a long slightly curving rod, which it brought to Helen with a playful sparkle in its eyes. It took Helen several seconds to recognize what the gift was - a cane, beautifully made.
She stroked the carved surface, admired the scenes playing out across it. There she was, and there her monster was, mouth wide with hungry passion. The cane was carved of sections of bone, probably femurs from their girth, a subtle joke perhaps. At the top, where the grip was, a wide claw recurved back down to make a hook. Helen put it to the floor, tested the feel. It was perfectly sized, if a bit heavy.
Picking it up again, she noticed a metal band several inches under the grip. A gleeful suspicion crept into her mind, and she twisted the cane, felt a satisfying click as the section came loose. With a metallic whisper, she unsheathed the blade inside - it was a sword-cane, and one unlike any she'd ever seen. A blade more like a lithe scimitar than the usual rapier, curving gently from hilt to tip; it had a deadly feminine heft, light but razor-sharp.
The sword-cane was a work of art, and more - it was obviously made for hunting.
Raindrops and hail pelted against the window as the storm whipped into a frenzy. Shouts from the hallway recalled them to more urgent matters, getting the hell out of here. Helen resheathed her blade, began stepping out of the room, but saw a wall of hospital security guards scrambling up the corridor. Some of them were smeared with blood, all of them had guns drawn. They appeared to be following the monster's trail of mayhem, terrified of what had caused all the destruction, but determined to track it down.
She jerked back into the room, scowling. "That way's no good." The monster finished its snack, strode to the window, smashing it with a bony shoulder. It shredded off its coat, freeing its leathery wings, gestured for Helen to join it.
A guard spun into the room, gun pointed at the ceiling beside his head. His eyes were wide and his mouth set in a tense line, but when he caught sight of the monster, impatiently flapping its wings before the rain-swept window, the blood ran from his face. His mouth worked in a soundless scream, and he leveled the gun at the hideous thing.
Helen pulled her blade out in a smooth fluid motion. Wind whipped crazily through the room, creating a mad vortex of leaves, raindrops, and cool sharp air. The guard reached his other arm out, tried to pull Helen back behind him, not able to grasp that she was brandishing a sword like lightning. At his touch, she snapped the blade up, slicing cleanly through his forearm. He stared open-mouthed at the stump, jaw still working, finally erupted in a shriek of pain and loss. Helen brought her sword back down across his neck; a meaty resonance sang through the blade as the man's head slid from his body, thumped rolling across the linoleum.
The monster grabbed her about the waist, dove out the smashed window just as the other guards spilled into the room. Mena planted one of her rope-hooks on the sill and jumped out, rappeling down the side of the building amid swirling rain and crazy zigzags of lightning. As she hit the ground, she flicked the rope, freeing the hook, and wound it around her arm as she bounded off into the downpour. The security guards were left gaping at the torn-apart window as the storm carried its children away.
* * * * *
Damage control. The hospital held impromptu staff briefings all day to try to contain the flood of hysterical rumors that were circulating.
The best they could work out was that at the onset of the storm, a drug-crazed lunatic had entered the ER, branishing a knife and killing several people. He escaped to the upper floors, where security lost his trail. Shortly afterward, a guard was killed in a freak accident, when an apparent lightning strike caused a window to explode; the glass severing his hand and head.
Oddly, most of the glass was found outside, as though the window had been broken from the inside, but this was chalked up to a powerful dropin baromentric pressure, common in thunderstorms.
Three other security guards swore they saw something - something - grab a patient from that same room and fly away. Two more said they didn't see the patient, but did see some huge bat flapping off into the boiling clouds. All were given indefinite leave for nervous stress.
The hospital didn't seem too concerned that a patient was missing, Nurse Grosberg noted wryly. Probably because it was that patient, the one with a reputation for sinister coincidences. The hospital was relieved she was missing, glad to be rid - however mysteriously - of a bad influence. The circumstances might be inexplicable, but the outcome was welcome.
The whole chaotic affair was wrapped up, the episode of the bad-luck patient concluded, and the hospital gratefully returned to its quiet hum of routine.
Only one nurse suspected that their brief guest had been at the center of the mayhem, and she wasn't going to kick over the house of cards they'd built up to explain the mess. Susan Grosberg silently wished she could go wherever her strange patient had gone. In the meantime, she knew how to keep her dark suspicions to herself.
End of Chapter 16
The Acolyte and illustrations Copyright 2007 by Mary Harris [aka redplanetes]
~plagarists will be flayed alive~
redplanet@trinidadusa.net
