No Dominion The Walker Papers - By CE Murphy Page 0,64
the times that bound them. The demon got more solid and angrier with every step it took.
I stopped worrying about the woman painting on the wall, about all of the still-conscious patients slurping down entrails, an’ vaulted two beds to slam the IV pole into the thing’s back when it was barely three feet from Annie.
The thing lashed forward as it fell, scraping Annie’s cheek with its nails, and burst in a wave of eye-watering heat. It was gone, fast as that. Annie screamed and twitched sideways, tryin’ ta avoid my IV pole weapon. I nearly stabbed her anyway, ‘cause I twitched too, both of us going to our strong side: me left, and her to the right, which meant we were both heading the same way. I let out a shout and wrenched even further sideways. The pole hit the wall an’ skittered across, leaving a scar that ended in a down-stroke when I hit the floor and dropped it. My heart felt like somebody was squeezing it, panic finally setting in, but I didn’t know what was goin’ on behind me. I rolled over, almost on my feet again when it came home that everybody in the room had dropped without a sound. Everybody but me and Annie. She flung herself against my chest and we sat down with a grunt, both of us panting and gasping. My shirt got wet from her bloody cheek pressing against my chest, but I could feelin her breathing and she could hear my heart pounding, all of it telling us we were both still alive.
The patients weren’t. I didn’t know what’d happened when I’d drove the metal through the thing’s chest, but it had let go of the patients it’d been possessing and they’d all dropped like puppets without strings. I couldn’t help wondering if the thing possessing them had been keeping them alive for a long time, or if it had only just snuck in to kick up a fuss today.
Annie put it outta my mind, though, by finally taking a deep shaky breath and speaking with more composure than I expected: “What. The hell. Was that?”
First off I laughed an’ put my mouth on her hair. “Never heard you swear before, sweetheart.”
“I’ve never had enough reason to,” she said all primly, an’ sat up with her hand still over my heart an’ her poor cheek red an’ bloody from the scratches. “Gary, what was that thing? And…why weren’t you surprised?”
“I was surprised, doll. I was plenty surprised.”
“You came in here with a weapon, took one look at the room, and handled it. You didn’t seem surprised.”
“That’s just training, darlin’. Assessing the situation. Army taught me that.” I was only telling her half the truth, though, and she knew it as well as I did. “Let’s wait til we get home, all right, sweetheart? Some strange things happened in Korea. I guess I didn’t wanna talk about ‘em, but maybe now I better.”
She gave me a good looking-over, then nodded. “All right. Gary, I have to see if anyone is alive, if there’s anything I can do—” She got up, though I was shaking my head.
“There ain’t, darlin’.”
She said, “I know,” with quiet dignity. “But I have to try.”
I was never gonna stop loving this woman. I got to my feet, too, and together we righted beds, checked bodies, an’ at least lifted ‘em onto the beds so they were peaceful insteada thrown all over the room. Nobody was left alive except me and her. She closed their eyes as we put ‘em to bed. When we’d straightened up the mess an’ got ourselves to the door, she stopped and looked around. Not just at the ward of dead folks, but down the hall, like she was searching for something. “Where is everyone, Gary? Why hasn’t anyone come?”
I thought about how me and Danny hadn’t said one word to each other about the starlight demon, an’ shook my head. “I dunno, darlin’, but I don’t think people come running when somethin’ like this happens. I think maybe they look real hard the other way, and in the morning they tell the papers it was some kinda mysterious tragedy. We gotta get your cheek looked at before we go home.”
“Something like this. What is this, Gary? What happened?”
“That scratch first, sweetheart, an’ then home, an’ then we talk. I don’t like us hanging around here tonight. I want you home safe, all right?”