Chapter 7 #3
“No,” he mumbled in a toddleresque way that made me smile.
“I don’t want to lose you. Please don’t bail on me over this.
I didn’t lie about anything else. I swear.
I’m still needing help in classes, and I hate mint ice cream, and I never once read a whole book all the way through other than the one we deconstructed for class. ”
“I’m not going to bail on you. I love you. And I kind of get it.” I reached down to lead the granola bar to his lips. “You need to eat. I don’t like how pale you are.”
“That thing…my dreams…it was fucked up, Arch. It got into my head somehow and stirred up my dreams. It made me remember when my asshole father would leave us for Washington, and when my mom would bolt for some remote island as soon as he left. It was just me and the staff, maybe some old nanny. I was so scared every time they left me alone at night. I had nightmares. And that thing found them. It pulled all the monsters out from under the bed, and then…then I don’t know what it did with me then, but…
but…but I do not want to have it happen again. We need to leave.”
“Yeah, that seems to be the consensus. We’re going to go. As soon as you get some color back. I’m going to try to contact Grandpa and Monique. That entity did not dig the gris-gris bag that I was carrying.”
He bit down on his lower lip. “I didn’t have mine. It’s in my camera bag. I meant to get it out, but I sort of forgot…”
I rubbed his cheek with my thumb. “We all forget things. I’m going to get it, and you need to put it in your right pocket. Okay?”
“I will. Kiss me, please.” I took his face in my hands and kissed him gently but with as much devotion as I could muster in this awful place. “Please don’t dump me.”
“Never. Now, eat and drink, while I try to find a signal strong enough to contact Grandpa.” He began to work on the food and water.
I dug into his camera bag, found his gris-gris, and placed it into his hand.
I stood there until he shoved it into his front right pocket.
Only then did I plop down, my head spinning from everything that had taken place in the last hour or two.
I held my phone over my head and got one sickly bar.
When I tried to load messenger, it just spun and never fully connected.
“You just huffed. Is it not working?” Phil asked, his cheeks filled with granola. I sighed and shook my head.
“No, it’s not picking up the signal. We’re going to have to move outside, I think.”
“Good, we should go back to the truck, get in it, and fucking leave. I don’t want to go through that again. That monster…what even was it? If that’s the kind of ghosts you see all the time…”
“No, no, that is not the kind of ghosts I see. Most of the specters I interact with are friendly.” I’d not mention the shit the twins told me about doing to one of the Connor boys.
That would just freak him out, and I didn’t want him to be scared of being at my home.
By the sounds of things, my rundown apartment over a dusty bookshop was the only real home Phil had.
And yeah, there was probably some fancy mansion somewhere, but he was no longer welcome there, so a cramped space with two beds, one bath, and a couple of old folks was his heart home.
His dorm room was pretty much unused now as he preferred to be with me and Grandpa.
“This one isn’t a phantom, I don’t think.
I’ve not done a lot of reading on demons, and from the few passages in the Kee family journal—”
He coughed up a bit of peanut. “A demon?” His voice cracked slightly. “A demon like a demon from Hell. A demon like that? Like in the movies?! Like that?!”
I heard the panic in his voice. “Maybe, but maybe not. I need to do more research to see what we’re dealing with before we can decide how to handle it.”
He shot to his sneakers, the peanut chunk tumbling to the cold floor.
“Handle it? We’re not handling it, Arch, we’re getting the fuck out of here and to hell with this place.
Roxie and Tray can come out and do the stream!
I’m…no way…it touched my dreams, Arch. It made me cry.
I fucking cried like I was six! That was…
I never wanted you to see me that weak. I’m the muscle of this team, and I cried like a little baby.
What if someone on the team found out that I cried over a nightmare?
! Fuck, no, no, we are not handling anything. We’re leaving. Right now.”
Phil then flew into a blind panic, scooping up our gear in jerky, wild motions, as I tried to talk him down.
It was a lot for a person with no previous experience in paranormal circumstances to take in, I knew that.
I was born with this gift. It took me a long time to find myself amid the voices of the dead.
But now I felt as if I was starting to figure out my powers, and the responsibility that went with my gift.
“Phil…” I called as he stormed to the door, sleeping bag under his arm and dragging along after him.
He reminded me of Linus from the Peanuts cartoons, only bigger and with a manic look of fear spurring him to run.
Fight or flight. Again, I totally got it.
“Phil, you need to take a breath and let me explain—”
“No!” He spun to face me, his hand on the doorknob, his blue eyes wide. “No, we are not explaining anything. Archie, I love you, I love you so much, but I can’t do that again. That thing…that evil thing was inside me. It fucked with me somehow. I need to go.”
“Okay, okay, we’re going. Let’s go.” I was not going to push him. He was terrified, and rightfully so. I slipped around him. “Let me go first.”
“I’m bigger.”
“I know, and I love all your muscles, but this entity is hopefully leery of me now. I don’t know enough about hellspawn to gauge how clever they are or if it will make another run at you, but I have experience with this kind of thing. Also, I can speak to it.”
“I hate that about me.” He sighed and then relented. With a terse smile, I opened the door. The corridor was silent but had been crafted into a damn maze of wheelchairs, broken tables, and gurneys. Many of the gurneys had surgical instruments lying on them. “Oh shit.”
I glanced back and up. Phil was this close to freaking out.
“It’s okay. The Smoke Man is just playing games, but he knows we have the magic of Mambo Kiwi on us.
He’s not brave enough to touch us now,” I shouted and glanced down the hall.
My voice rang down the empty corridor. “We’re walking out of here like this was our departure from a fancy Italian vacation. ”
When I looked back for agreement, I saw Phil was holding his gris-gris out in front of him like one would a cross when entering Dracula’s castle.
“Monique said to keep it in your right pocket,” I softly reminded him.
He swallowed, eyes darting about, and slid the protective charm back into his front right pocket.
We both swiveled our heads forward when one of the wheelchairs began to creep toward us on creaky wheels.
Another rolled at us, and another, slowly building speed.
“Follow me!” Phil shouted, darted around me, and none too gently grabbed my wrist. With a jerk that nearly pulled me off my boots, he darted between chairs, juking this way and that, like he was running around defenders as he charged to the end zone.
Timothy appeared to my left, then the chubby lady with the ?20s bob and several other specters made themselves visible, each seated in a chair and wheeling it with their arms.
“Thanks, but he’s faster,” I yelled as Phil leaped over a chair with all the grace of an athlete.
Shame he was dragging a dude that had zero grace.
My boot got caught in a wheel. I fell over the chair, my arm slipping from his grasp as I went face first to the ground.
Winded, I rolled to my side, sat up, and was about to get to my feet when Smoke Man appeared at the end of the hall.
The chairs around us all quieted, the ghosts of the asylum disapparating.
The smoky figure at the end of the corridor whipped out a hand. A hundred scalpels took to the air—all aimed right at us. Smoke Man began chanting in some old language that made my senses tingle in alarm.
“Duck!” I shouted. Phil fell to his knees with a crack, rolled over me, and yanked a wheelchair over our heads. The scalpels flew over us, striking the wall with a clatter and then dropping to the floor. “Is he here?”
I probably should have lied. “At the end of the hallway.” Phil’s pink cheeks went ashen. “No, it’s okay. We have Monique’s bags on us. He’ll back off.”
“Are you sure?” A gurney came flying down the hall, running into Phil’s hip at top speed. He grunted but stayed wrapped around me.
“Mostly,” I replied and got a look of fearful resignation.
“Okay, then we’re going to run a Boise State Trickeration play.” He shot to his feet, his face still pale but now set with the same determination he wore on the field.
“A what now?” I yelped as I was yanked up, pushed off to the left, and told to run.
I did as told. I darted forward, deflecting a long pick of some sort with my arm, as Phil then tossed his camera bag to me.
“What the shit is going on?” I barely caught it with my pinky.
Smoke Man seemed thoroughly confused by all of this.
A deep, feral growl filled my head as a speculum bounced off my shoulder.
Phil streaked across the hall, grabbed my arm, and then we sprinted right at the entity.