Authors: Tim Miller
Chapter 3
11:55 p.m.
Hospital security, two more nurses, and a doctor arrived to tend to Jeff. I explained to one of the security guards what happened, and told him to lock down the entire third floor. I was glad I hadn't eaten lunch yet. All the years on the department, and I never did care for the sight of blood, for some reason. On a dead person, it didn’t bother me so much. But when the person was alive, gurgling, and flopping around, it was sometimes more than my stomach could handle.
“Was a little girl too much for you to handle?” he asked. His name was Troy. He was about my height, around six feet tall, but a little chubbier. I figured he was in his 30’s, which explained the attitude. No one chooses hospital security as a career. He’d probably tried to get into the department, but couldn’t pass some aspect of the tests. Now he figures he’s stuck in this job. I wasn’t in the mood for his shit.
“Fuck you pal. You have no idea what’s going on with this kid. She just tore one of your techs apart. Lock down this floor, while I call for some more officers. She couldn’t have gotten far, we’ll find her.
“What about all the patients?”
“We’ll have to do a sweep of their rooms. She doesn’t seem to be targeting anyone in particular. She’s like a rabid dog. Let’s just find her.” I said.
Troy walked away, talking on his radio, as the power went out again. The only lights in the halls were the backups along the wall. They provided some illumination, but it was still fairly dark. They gave the whole floor a creepy haze, as if the night wasn't weird enough already.
Several other security guys showed up, so hopefully they’d find her without killing themselves in the process. I called dispatch on my cell to fill them in. Unfortunately, they said no back up was available. There had been a shooting downtown, and everyone was dispatched, trying to locate the suspect. They asked the same thing Troy had, couldn’t I handle a little girl? Smart asses.
I asked dispatch if there had been any missing person reports in the last twenty four hours for young, white females. They advised none, so far. This was bizarre. That girl had to come from somewhere.
“Do you have a name?” the dispatcher asked.
“Nope. She’s just a Jane Doe for now.”
The medical team lifted Jeff onto a gurney, and headed back down to the ER. The third floor was huge, so I figured I’d walk up and down each hallway. The psych unit was just to the right. The door was heavy steel, and you had to be buzzed in from the inside, so I knew she couldn’t have gone in there. Someone screamed from the other side of the hallway. I ran in that direction, as fast as I could. The screaming was coming from room 325. When I arrived, the door was standing open.
“Help! Get away! Get away from me!” a woman was screaming. I ran into the room where one of the security guards was wandering around with his flashlight. This kid looked like he raided his dad’s closet. He was too short, and too skinny to be doing anything security related, but here he was.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m looking for the girl,” he said.
“Did you not notice the screaming patient? The girl’s obviously not in here. Get the hell out.”
“She could be hiding,” he said, without looking at me. I grabbed him by the collar and shoved him out of the room, into the hallway.
“You show a little respect for the patients here. The room ain’t that big, if she don’t jump out at you, squealing, then she’s not there. Now move along.” I sent him back down the hall as I headed the other direction. The one thing that stuck in my head was whatever she’d yelled on the elevator. It didn’t sound like gibberish, it was more like another language, yet I had no idea what language it was, or what she’d said. Before I got much farther, the power went out, again. Great.
Pitch black, even in the hallway. It was almost two in the morning, so most of the patients were already asleep. Usually a hospital would have emergency floodlights kick on, but none did.
“What the hell is going on?” I heard one of the security guys shout.
“The power is off genius!” I yelled, as I turned on my flashlight. I shined it down toward the security guys and saw them standing in a circle, talking to each other. I had a feeling I’d get more done if I were by myself, instead of babysitting these clowns. I turned around, and there she was, inches from me. Her face contorted into a horrific smile. Her eyes were almost white, her face and lips cracked and split open in random places. Blood oozed from some of the cracks. As she smiled, she licked away the blood that ran down her chin.
“Officer Roman, why don’t you pull your head out of your ass if you want to graduate from this academy!” she yelled, yet it wasn’t her voice. It was in the voice of my old academy instructor, Captain Davis. What the fuck is going on? “Petey! Petey! Don’t let me die!” That was my mother’s voice. She had died my rookie year, after a short battle with cancer. I watched her wilt and die, as the disease took her. “Don’t lie to yourself Petey,” she said, now in a hideous, guttural voice. “You killed her. You couldn’t wait for her to die.”
“That’s not true, you freak!” I shouted
“Yes it is, she’s in here with us. She told us everything.”
“In where with whom? What’s wrong with you kid?”
“You still don’t know, do you?” it said.
“Know what? Who the hell are you?”
“I am the one who is in control.”
Chapter 4
11:58 p.m.
I couldn’t decide if I should turn and run from the girl, or take out my gun and shoot her. Either way, I couldn't move. My stomach lurched, as I tried to reach for my gun. My muscles wouldn't move, as if my body was refusing to follow my brain's instructions. She stood, staring at me, waiting for a response. Apparently bored with me, she punched me in the face, knocking me flat on my back. For a moment, I thought the lights had come back on, but I was just seeing stars.
“You okay?” a man asked from behind me. I slowly began to sit up. “Be careful,” he said. “I almost tripped over you.” I had dropped my flashlight, so couldn’t see who it was.
“Who’s there?” I asked.
“I’m Dr. Bennett, the on-call psychiatrist. I heard all the commotion, so I came out and found you. What’s going on? I thought you were bringing me a consult.”
He sounded like an older guy, but I couldn’t see him in the dark. I managed to grab my flashlight, which had rolled a few feet away from me.
“This girl. She’s either crazy, or flipped out on drugs or something. But she’s strong as hell. She assaulted several people in the street, nearly killed one of your techs and just knocked me out.”
“I’m not sure if ‘crazy’ is a correct diagnosis. What happened to the lights?” he asked.
“I have no idea,” I said. They went off after she got loose. She just talked to me in three different people’s voices too. So yeah, I have no idea.”
“Well, I’ll help you find her. My office is just outside the psych unit. Let me take a look at you, make sure you’re not injured.”
We stood and walked down the hall, where he unlocked another heavy door that led into an office. It was fairly roomy, but still dark. I handed him my flashlight, as he examined my face.
“Yeah, you’re gonna have a nice shiner,” he said. “No blood or swelling. Nose isn’t broken.”
“So, what do you think is up with this girl, doctor? I mean, I’m not religious, but she acts like she’s demon possessed or something.”
“That’s a fairly common phenomenon with psychotic patients, especially if drugs or alcohol is involved. Religion actually can be somewhat scientific.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“We are wired to be spiritual. Your temporal lobe is the part of the brain where that occurs.” Through the dim light of the flashlight, I could see him pointing at the side of his head. “Some of us are more prone to spirituality than others. The same way some are more creative, while others are more scientific, it’s all in what parts of our brain are most active. When a religious person has an injury to their temporal lobe, temporal lobe epilepsy, or certain chemical imbalances, this causes ‘hyper-religiosity.’ That’s when you see people who think they are Jesus Christ, or the Virgin Mary.”
“Is that what’s happening with her, you think?”
“Could be, could be a combination of things. I’d have to examine her to know for sure. How did she get loose?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. I had her handcuffed to the bed. The cuffs weren’t broke. She must have wiggled her way out somehow.”
“Well, let’s go see if we can find her. It’s not safe for her, or anyone else, with her running loose in the hospital. Do you know her name?”
“Nope. I don’t have any info on her at all.”
“Interesting,” he said. There was a crash and shouting from the hallway. We both ran out and saw several flashlights waving around. Shouts came from down the hall. We ran that direction, to see a group of the security guards who had the girl subdued. They were in a pile, with her pinned underneath. She screamed and flailed as we approached.
“Rape this bitch you fat fuckers!” she yelled. “Shove your cocks into this rotten cunt! Her cunt will rip off your sorry peckers!”
I ignored her screams, pulled out my Taser and shot her, hitting her in the upper back. She screamed a horrific sound, as her body twitched and convulsed. After a few seconds I released the trigger, and she stopped moving.
“Go get a gurney,” the doctor said to one of the guards. “And restraints, full body restraints.”
He returned a few minutes later. We strapped the girl to the gurney, and placed double restraints on her hands and feet, and a restraining belt around her waist. Hopefully that would hold her. We wheeled her to the psych unit and into one of the secure rooms, and locked the door. There had been several laws over the years, related to patient rights about whether or not
you could lock up a psych patient. I didn’t think we could, but for now, she was going to stay locked down. Once it was secured, I leaned against the door.
“Jesus Christ,” I said. “What do we do with this kid?”
“Hopefully she’ll sleep for a bit. I’ll get her some medication. That should calm her down.”
“Shit, I hope so. The Taser seemed to work. Maybe we could just give her some shock therapy.”
Doctor Bennett shook his head.
“I won’t rule anything out at this point,” he said.
Chapter 5
12:00 a.m.
For some reason the lights still hadn’t come on. No one had any idea why they were out in the first place, or when they might come back. My cell phone buzzed in my pocket. It was dispatch.
“I’m still here,” I said. “The girl is detained for now, but I’m going to stick around for a bit. She might wake up and flip out again.”
The dispatcher’s name was Jennifer. She’d only been working there a few months, but she knew her stuff.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I'm fine, why?”
“You just sound really shaken,” Jennifer said.
“She decked me pretty good earlier, it was quite a scene. Guess I'm just on an adrenaline dump.”
“Well, be careful. I got some info on the girl. A group home outside of town reported a runaway, to county, yesterday afternoon. I’ll email you her picture. Her name is Amanda Ross. Fifteen years old, blonde hair, brown eyes, about five-foot-three.”
“Yep, that sounds like her.”
“According to the report, she began acting bizarre. She was yelling and screaming, even bit one of the social workers. She busted out a window and took off, on foot.”
“What the hell?”
“So she hit you?” she asked.
“Yeah, knocked me on my ass. This kid is crazy. I’ll tell you later. You won’t believe it anyway.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“Interesting isn't the half of it. Not sure what I’ll put in my report. Anyway, I’m gonna go check on things. Later.”
I stepped back into the main psych unit. Doctor Bennett was there talking to one of the nurses. I couldn’t see her name tag though. I looked through the window of the seclusion room. Amanda was awake and looking around. Her face wasn’t distorted like before.
“Hey Doc,” I said. “You might want to see this.” He came over and watched the girl.
“Well, well. I should go talk to her. She might be lucid.” He unlocked the door and stepped inside. I came in with him, in case she had another episode. The room was were still dark, except for the faint light from my flashlight. I pulled the doctor aside before he we got to her bed, and told him what I’d learned. We turned back toward her.
“Amanda,” he said. “Can you hear me?” She looked around at each of us. I tried to hold the light at an angle where it wouldn’t be right in her face.
“What’s going on? Where am I?”
“You’re in the hospital. My name is Doctor Bennett. Do you remember anything?”
She looked around, from me and then to the doctor, and back.
“Last thing I remembered, another girl at the group home was arguing with me. I started to feel dizzy, and that’s it.”
“Well, you’re safe now. We’ll let the home know you’re here. I’m going to keep an eye on you for a few days.”
Despite all he’d seen, Dr. Bennett was very calm, almost fatherly, as he spoke to her. I’m sure he was a good psychiatrist. Listening to him was making me feel better. Amanda was totally different now, for some reason. I don’t know if the Taser caused her to snap out of it or what. She seemed like a normal, frightened child.
“Thank you, doctor. I’m really scared,” she said.
“I’m sure you are. I’ll have the nurse give you something to help you stay calm.” Amanda jerked up in bed, her arms still bound, and began screaming. Not the horrible thing from earlier, but screaming, in pain.
“No! No! Help me!” she screeched. “It’s happening again! Make it stop!” She started flopping back and forth on the bed. Her screams changed into the animal-like growls she’d been doing earlier. Even though they were off already, the fluorescent light bulbs in the ceiling began to shatter, as glass shards rained down on us. The girl began bouncing up and down, taking the whole bed with her, a loud banging sound echoed in the room each time the bed hit the floor.
“You,” she said, looking right at me. Her eyes appeared to glow in the darkness. “Murderer. Hahaha! Murderer!” Doctor Bennett looked at me, confused. I didn’t know what to say. “What doc? Didn’t know you got a killer cop helping you? Tell him Petey. Tell him how you killed your momma. Your poor sick momma.”
“What is she talking about?” the doctor asked. “How does she know you?”
“I don’t know! That’s what I was trying to tell you earlier. Is this part of that temporal shit you were talking about?”
“No, it isn’t,” a voice from the doorway answered. We turned, and saw a man walking toward us. A priest. Are you kidding me? A priest? Could this night get more weird?
“Father Pierce? What are you doing here?” Doctor Bennett asked. I looked at him as he continued. “He’s one of our chaplains.”
“One of the nurses called me, and told me what was going on.” Pierce said.
“And just what did she say was going on?” Bennett asked.
“She thought someone was possessed by demons.” Even in the dark I could see Doctor Bennett’s eye-roll.
“That nurse was out of line,” Bennett said. “No one is demon possessed.”
The conversation involved yelling, so they could hear each other over the commotion Amanda was making.
“Typically I’d agree with you. This particular nurse doesn’t believe in such things, but she was quite frightened. The rest of the staff is afraid, as well. My undergrad was in psychology, so I’m no witch doctor, but you and I both know that this isn’t schizophrenia or anything else we’ve seen.”
“So, what are you going to do? An exorcism? Doesn’t that have to be approved or something?” Doctor Bennett asked.
“Didn’t say I was going to do anything, yet. I’ll assist you in any way I can, until we know more, if that’s okay.”
“I suppose. Would you mind changing into some scrubs? I think the sight of a priest will make her worse.”
“You’re probably right,” Pierce said. “And hello officer, I didn’t mean to ignore you.”
“No problem sir,” I said. “I’m just here to help.”
“Very good. You can start by praying. For all of us.”