Authors: Jeff Gunhus
The door creaked as Jack applied just enough pressure to make it move. Inch by careful inch, he opened the door, ready to let go on the first indication that anyone was inside. A faint
thunk-thunk
of a respirator and the electric buzz of monitors were the only sounds in the room. Dim lights cast a pale orange hue over everything. From the door, the room opened up to the left after a short hall with a doorway for a toilet. For someone standing at the door, the angle cut most of the room from sight. Designed to provide patients with a higher degree of privacy, it also hid Huckley’s face from view.
Jack stayed close to the wall as he slid further into the room. He could see the lower half of the hospital bed extending from the left side of the room. Huckley’s legs were a hump under the grey hospital blanket. Two more steps into the room and Jack would be able to see his face.
He stopped and steadied himself against the wall. His heart pounded in his chest and he was suddenly short of breath. What was he doing here? What was he trying to prove? He knew what happened last night and seeing the man wouldn’t change anything.
But Jack had to see him. He lived by confronting the challenges that stood in his way, the physical ones anyway. He purposely pursued his fears in order to overcome them. He feared heights, so he took up skydiving. He feared public speaking, so he spoke at college campuses and to business groups. Most of all, he feared failure, so he forced himself to pursue the most difficult challenges and took the greatest risks.
Something happened inside of him last night, something he didn’t like. In a few seconds, his entire world had nearly been blown apart by a maniac and he had been powerless to stop him. All the security he spent a lifetime building for his family was laid bare at that moment, and an awful truth was forced on to him, the same truth that haunted him from the day of the car crash in California, the day Melissa Gonzales died on the hood of his car. The unsavory truth that everything he loved could disappear in a heartbeat.
There were no rules, no fairness, no breaks for good conduct. Life could turn to death in a matter of seconds and you never knew when something could lash out and strike you down. Like the lightning bolt that burned a hole through Albert James’ head. Acts of nature. Freak accidents. Wasn’t that enough to deal with without having to add a deranged psychopath to the list?
Jack believed that through sheer diligence he could somehow protect his family from the bad things of the world. Deep down he knew it was naïve, but he allowed himself the fantasy. He didn’t know how else to deal with a world where everything could be taken away without warning. But Huckley had pulled the sheet back and exposed the fragility of his fantasy. The encounter kept replaying in his head; each time Huckley became less of a man and more of a monster, unstoppable, uncontrollable. It felt as if his run-in with Huckley had immersed him in cold water, shocking him awake to his own vulnerability. And now, as Jack stood just out of sight from Huckley’s body, the chill of that immersion made his hands tremble.
Jack detested the way he felt, the weakness, the lack of control. The only way he knew how to deal with a challenge was confrontation. In his mind, Huckley was a pale, ghoulish mask in a thunder storm, a twisted smile, a dark dream more nightmare than real. Jack needed him to be just a man again. Something natural. Something normal.
He stepped into the room.
Relief was his first emotion. Huckley lay prone in the hospital bed, the covers pulled up to his chest. His arms were on top of the blanket and fitted with an IV and sensors. Other wires and tubes ran from Huckley’s disabled body to the monitoring equipment arrayed next to the bed. An oxygen mask and nose tube covered his face and measured out his breathing. Jack wasn’t sure what he expected but the person lying on the bed in front of him was definitely not the monster he had built up in his mind. Relief at Huckley’s utter plainness soon gave way to confusion. This was the face of a murderer? He looked more like someone’s favorite uncle than a killer. No wonder no one believed him.
Jack checked the corners of the ceiling to make sure there were no cameras. Seeing none, he stepped further in to the room to get a closer look.
As he approached the bed, he noticed the bland smell of antiseptic mixed with the vaguely acrid smell of iodine. Jack stood next to the bed and looked down on the man who had terrorized him the night before.
The pale skin was even paler, but it no longer made him look menacing, just sickly. The man’s features didn’t gel with the sinister image burned in his mind from the night before. An angular bone structure and a rounded chin made Huckley more pleasant looking than handsome. He had pale blonde hair, so pale that his face seemed to lack eyebrows. Jack had been hoping to find some sign of evil, something to point to, for his own piece of mind. A tattooed swastika on his forehead like Manson would have been great. Anything to prove that the night before had not been his imagination and that this man was evil. But there was nothing and that disturbed him. For the first time, Jack wondered if he could have misinterpreted what had happened last night. He leaned against the bed, both of his hands on the blanket even with Huckley’s chest. He closed his eyes and tried to clear his head.
The fingers on Huckley’s right hand begin to twitch.
Lauren was likely done and looking for him by now. He knew she would be upset if she found out what he’d been up to, especially if she found out that he had told the on-duty nurse that
she
had asked him to check on Huckley. Sheriff Janney would have field a day with his clandestine visit. Jack could hear him now, spouting something about returning to the scene of the crime.
Huckley’s hand lifted off the blanket and hovered over Jack’s.
He had risked coming to the room for no good reason, he thought angrily. What the hell did he hope to accomplish here anyway? What was done was done. It was only a matter of time before they found the woman’s body. Then everyone would believe him. Sneaking into this crazy man’s room accomplished nothing.
Huckley’s fingers curled into a claw.
This guy was just some nutcake. End of story. The girls were fine. Just like Lauren told him, he had to focus on that. They were all fine. Life went on.
Jack opened his eyes just in time to catch a blur of motion as Huckley seized his wrist. The fingers were like metal bindings digging into his skin. Jack cried out. He pulled back, prying the fingers back with his free hand. Huckley lurched upright in the bed. His other hand ripped off the tubes attached to his body. He yanked on Jack’s arm and pulled him to the side of the bed so they were face to face.
Huckley’s mouth parted in a smile and yellow teeth poked through dry, cracked lips. His nostrils flared as if he were an animal smelling its prey. Jack struggled against the man’s grip, but it was impossible to break away. Huckley licked the air with lewd flicks of his tongue.
With his free hand, Jack swung a wild punch and landed it against Huckley’s jaw. A gash opened across Huckley’s face like a crack in dried ground. The wound was deep but no blood poured from it. Huckley’s mouth hung down at an impossible angle, his jaw broken.
Huckley shoved Jack away with both hands. Jack flew back from the bed and crashed into the far wall, barely staying on his feet. His instinct was to run to the door but he couldn’t move. He could only stare at what was happening in front of him.
Huckley stood on the bed, his clawed hands holding the sheet to his body. . With a flick of his hand, he threw the sheet down and exposed his naked torso. Dark sores covered his skin, circular purple splotches with black centers. A foul smell like rancid meat filled the room. Jack gagged at the stench.
Huckley laughed, thick guttural noises that gurgled with phlegm. He pointed at Jack and laughed louder; a mix of spittle and dark blood bubbled out of his mouth and dripped down his chin.
With his other hand, he stuck his finger into the black center of a sore, pushing it in one knuckle at a time until the entire finger had disappeared. Huckley worked the finger around in a circle with a wet, sucking sound.
Jack pushed his back against the wall behind him, as if he might push hard enough and climb into the wall and away from the monster in front of him. He wanted to close his eyes, but could not. He raised his arms to cover his face and gave into his horror. He filled his lungs and screamed.
“What the hell is going on in here?”
Strong hands were on his shoulders. Jack felt hot breath against his skin. He lowered his arms. Sheriff Janney’s face was inches from his own.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“It was Huckley. He…” Jack looked over the sheriff’s shoulder at the hospital bed. Nate Huckley lay there hooked up to the
thunk-thunking
respirator and quietly humming monitors. The bed sheet was tucked in around him, smooth enough to roll a quarter across.
“He was what?”
Jack rubbed the side of his head and closed his eyes. In his mind, he could still see the open sores. He heard the laughter. But it wasn’t real. Just his imagination. He had to get a grip on himself. He opened his eyes and smiled. “Sorry. It’s been a tough one. Lack of sleep’s making me see things.”
“Let’s see you get on out of here,” Janney said. “What the hell were you thinking?”
Jack didn’t try to answer. He just nodded his head and went for the door. The nurse from the front desk stood in the hall, clutching her book to her chest. Jack nodded in her direction as he walked out of the room but the nurse stared down at the floor.
Served him right, he thought. After all, he had lied to her to get into Huckley’s room. He turned to say something, an apology, anything, but she looked horrified. That’s when it hit him. The nurse wasn’t mad, she was scared of him.
Jack wanted to say something to make it better, make her understand that he wasn’t the dangerous one. It was her patient in room 320 that she had to worry about. But everything he thought to say sounded crazy so he gave up and let Janney escort him to the elevator. The doors closed and he and Janney rode down in silence. Jack winced as he thought of explaining his little adventure to Lauren.
The girls ran down the hall toward the exit to the parking lot. They had already said their good-byes to the nurses and now they were ready to go home. Lauren walked quietly next to him. And she wasn’t happy. Jack was trying to explain why he had gone the to Huckley’s room in the first place, but he couldn’t find the right words. And the more he tried, the more irrational the whole thing sounded.
“Look, I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have gone up there,” he finally said.
“You’re right about that,” she snapped. “You told the nurse that I asked you to go there. It’s so unprofessional.”
“I know. It was stupid. I’m sorry.”
She shook her head, still angry, but reached out and took his hand as they walked. “You’ve been through a lot. Maybe this thing shook you up more than you thought. You know, dragged out some old demons.” Jack didn’t meet her eyes. “They said you were screaming?”
“I wasn’t screaming.”
“They said--”
“I told you. When I saw him, it just brought the experience back. It was like a hallucination. I panicked. Now it’s over.”
“O.K.” She squeezed his hand. “We are going to talk more about this, but it can wait. Let’s just get home.”
Together they walked out of the hospital and hurried to catch up with the girls already climbing into Lauren’s Volvo station wagon. Jack remembered with a groan that he had to get a rental car the next day and call the insurance company about getting his car repaired. As he went over the mental list of the next couple of days of errands ahead of him, thoughts of Nate Huckley, car accidents and kidnapped women faded into the background. And that was exactly where he wanted those thoughts to stay.
“I’ll drive,” he said. He appreciated that Lauren didn’t hesitate but tossed him the keys without comment. After making sure the kids were buckled up, he started the car, shifted the automatic transmission into drive and wound his way through the parking lot.
“Lights,” Lauren reminded him.
Jack grinned at her. “Got it under control.” He flipped on the lights. “Let’s go home,” he called out.
The man watched closely as the Tremonts left the hospital. They’d left later than he planned but he wasn’t worried about the delay’s impact on his schedule. Everything was still a go.
It was an interesting turn of events, the involvement of this Jack Tremont character. He hadn’t been on any of his lists until the accident but Tremont had the man’s interest now. It was still too early to tell, but the man felt that finding Tremont might turn out to be stroke of luck. And it was about time he caught a break. After months of reconnaissance, he was getting impatient for action.
The man exited his car. The dome light of course had been disconnected so as not to draw attention to his vehicle. He zipped up his black windbreaker and jogged across the parking lot. On the slim chance the security guard had deviated from his usual schedule and was walking the perimeter, the man had chosen his wardrobe to make sure he fit the part of a casual jogger. Right down to the arm band iPod and worn black sneakers. But there was no guard in sight so the man turned and sprinted across the hospital lawn.
He made it across the wide lawn and leaned up against the hospital’s brick exterior. Well conditioned, his breathing was calm and measured even after the sprint. He worked his way along the side of the building, using the bushes for cover. There were some exterior lights but no cameras that he could see. He was reasonably sure he had not been detected. Reasonably sure was as good as it got in his profession.
He turned the corner of the building and came to the old fire escape on the north side of the building. The metal walkways and ladders were part of the original hospital construction back in the 1920s and the man wondered if the hospital kept them in working order. He knew that instead of paying for the rusting structures to be removed, some old buildings just welded the ladders together once modern fire-suppression systems were installed. He spotted the drop ladder suspended high above the ground but could not tell if it was functional.
Three quick steps and the man launched himself into the air. He planted his right foot on the wall, then pushed off hard, arching his back and fully extending his arms over his head.
The man easily reached the end of the ladder and grabbed it with both hands. Even with his weight, the ladder held in place. Welded shut. That alone did not present a problem as the man easily pulled himself up onto the first platform, but he worried that if the ladder was welded shut then the entrances to the floor might be obstructed as well.
The man checked the window that opened to the second floor. With a little pressure it started to open. He closed it back tight and filed it away as an escape option. The man checked for movement in the parking lot down below. Seeing none, he grabbed the ladder and started toward his objective.
The third floor window was also unlocked. He checked the hallway, then slid the window open and crawled through. It took him three tries before he found the right room. Luckily the first two were empty, although he moved quietly enough that he doubted he would have disturbed anyone. The man didn’t have the abilities of his brother, but when he opened the door to room 320, he
felt
Nate Huckley in the room.
He strode into the room and leaned over the prone body, peering into the face partially covered by air tubes. Huckley’s pale flesh took on a ghoulish cast in the yellow hospital lights and his usually immaculate hair was greasy and pasted flat to his scalp. The man placed a hand on the blanket over Huckley’s chest, careful not have any skin-on-skin contact.
“Don’t die on me now.”
The man crossed the room and returned to the door. No lock. He dragged the cushioned visitor’s chair from the side of the bed and braced it against the handle. Satisfied he would not be disturbed, at least not without warning, he pulled off his thick black sweater and threw it on the floor. He wore no shirt and the cool air in the room gave him a chill as a thin sheen of sweat evaporated from his skin.
The man reached back and untied the string that held back his hair. Once he worked it loose, a great mound of black hair fell down across his shoulders and upper back, laying on thick muscles that twitched in expectation. He left his faded blue jeans on but removed his shoes and socks. From his back pocket he removed a small black pouch and a length of braided leather rolled into a ball.
The man’s rib cage heaved as he forced air into his lungs. Pressing his forearms against his diaphragm and bending at his midsection, he exhaled the air completely. Slowly straightening, he refilled his lungs to their capacity. Like a free diver preparing for a challenging depth, the man repeated this exercise for several minutes.
Finally, the man felt he was prepared. On the last great inhalation of breath, he held his lungs full and let only a small amount of air escape his lips in a steady stream. His lips began to move and form words. Then a sound rose from deep in his throat, a bass tone that fluctuated in a steady rhythm.
He tugged on the strings of the black pouch and poured the contents out into his right hand. Once the pouch was empty, he closed his right hand into a fist and with the other hand, replaced the pouch into his front pocket.
The chant became louder as the man moved to the corner of the room and kneeled down on the floor. Holding out his fist, he relaxed the bottom two fingers and allowed a tiny flow of black sand trickle onto the floor. Clenching his hand back into a fist, he stopped the flow and moved to the next corner where he repeated the action.
Only once all four corners were complete did the man move to the bed. He unrolled the leather braid and placed it on Huckley’s torso, one end just below the neckline and the other ending at his waist. The man looked to the first corner and saw a barely perceptible line of rising smoke. The powder was working.
Soon, smoke columns filled each of the four corners of the room and gathered on the ceiling as a gray odorless haze. The man raised his hands over Huckley’s body and started his incantation. He tried to focus on the ritual but he found it hard to block out the nagging voice in his subconscious, the voice that wondered if what he was doing was crazy. Part of him thought so. Part of him hoped so. But deep inside he knew he was fooling himself. The nightmare was real and it was just getting started.