Taken (5 page)

She didn’t answer me. Rather, s
he began singing again
and closed her eyes as the melody wrapped
around
the
room
. I turned to look at Beth
any and she was no longer in the hallway.
Where did she go?
Was she involved in this?
I backed up to the wall, keeping my eyes on the little gi
rl trying to gauge her behavior, when a
breeze swept by me.

“What more do you want? You already have the little girl. What else
do you plan on taking?” I asked.

It was quiet.

I continued scanning the room seeing nothing but the little girl.
What was in here with us?

The drape by the window moved slightly.
The being was taunting me and enjoying it.

“You’re not frightening me,” I lied. “I would just like to know what you have in store.”

Still silence.

“Eleanor, would you like to lean back on the bed? It looks like you’re tired.”

Her eyes flashed open, exposing brilliant, glowing red eyes st
aring back at me. She turned away from
me
and slid off the bed, walking
slowly
toward the window.
Whoever was in here with us, wanted to make an example of this little girl.
He wanted her to jump.

I ra
n
to
the window, standing directly in front of it
in
an
a
ttempt to block
Eleanor from it
, but I wasn’t sure what I was up against. She might be in a small shell of a body, but her strength might be far more than mine.
My heart was pounding as she stared dire
ctly into my eyes. She looked fu
rther detached with every step she took toward me.

“I won’t let this happen,” I said to no one in particular.

She stopped walking and a
whisper crept
slowly
from
her mouth
,
“Interlude.”

To what? What was she saying?

Eleanor dropped to the ground on all fours like a beast, not a human and
charged at me.
Her body slammed into mine with
strength th
at no ten
year old could embody as
she anchored me to the ground.
I never accounted for this when I conducted the
mortas
process.
This wasn’t one of my better plans.

She glanced at the window above us
providing a momentary distraction so
I reached up and grabbed her shoulders, slinging her off me. Her body landed with a
crash as she slid into the bed.
I jumped off ready to start again when I saw Arie turn into our room.

“Ana, are you in here?
We should prob—
”
Arie stopped dead in her tracks.
“You’re bleeding.”

“That’s the least of the problems. Get the restraints,” I shouted. “She’s possessed.”

Arie opened the drawer and grabbed the
belts
, the buckles clanking together as she threw one set to me.

“
Interlude,
”
Eleanor whispered again.

“What’s she talking about?”

I shrugged as I readied myself for what Eleanor had planned for round two. I felt better at least knowing I had Arie in here with me.

“We aren’t alone. There’s someone else in here.”

“You
’re
sure?” Arie
asked, walking very slowly up behind Eleanor.

“Almost positive,” I
whispered
not taking my eyes off of Eleanor. Her eyes were no longer blazing red and her
demeanor was slowly changing.
She let her arms fall to her sides as
if she was giving up.

Arie gently touched Eleanor’s arm
,
and
Eleanor
jerked away but then allowed
Arie to guide her to the bed
.

“There may not be anything that can be done for her at this stage, ”I whispered.
“I just want to keep her away from the window.
”

Arie secured her into the bed.

“I bet whatever you think was in here left,” Arie replied.

“
I think you’re right.” I pulled the covers over Eleanor and sh
e closed her eyes. I touched Eleanor’s cheek and signaled to Arie for us to leave.

As I closed the door and we
walked
down the hallway, the singing began again.

“Well, I think it returned to her room.”

Arie
frowned and
let out a sigh.
I watched
Bethany
walk
to the break room she had shown me earlier.

“Guess it’s break time,” I replied, as I watched Arie’s mentor head to the same area.

“Now what?” Arie asked, folding her arms. “I’d like to get out of here as soon as possible.”

“You and me both.
”

“I saw a patient in my wing and her name was Charlotte,” Arie said.

“Really? What did her chart say?”

“She unresponsive, delusional
.” Arie frowned.

“It makes me wonder how long this has really been going on.”
I wiped the blood from my brow.

“A lot longer than we originally thought. That’s for sure.
Are you okay?
”

“I just wasn’t on my game,” I replied, shrugging my shoulders. “This mortal thing is pretty difficult.”

“Only when we start sticking our heads into situations like this.” Arie replied
, handing me a tissue
as we walked down the hall
.
“I went to the fifth floor
to the room you said that woman was in and it is empty.”

“That’
s not comforting. Every day that
goes by more souls are stolen and I’m not sure we’re going to find what
we’re looking for.”

“
Do you smell that
?” I asked.
“Like something’s burning?”

Arie nodded
,
and
I sprinted down
the hall toward the stairwell with Arie following quickly behind.

“I think it’s coming from downstairs.
We might be
finding ours
elves one step closer after all,
”
I
said, trying to catch my breath
.

We dashed down the steps until we
were at the
bottom of the stairwell
, staring at a
metal
door, not unlike the
ones
on
every other floor.

“Shoot,” I
mumbled
, wiggling the door handle
. “This one’s locked.
They never are.
”

“I saw a ring of keys near the nurse’s station,” Arie whispered. “I’ll go get them
, and we’ll hope for the best
.”

“Thanks.”
A locked door in our normal form certai
nly wouldn’t present a problem like it does
now
.

Arie ran up the stairs two at a time
.
We only had another hour or so of our
shift
left
,
and
I wanted to find out what we could
so we hopefully wouldn’t have to come back
. This mortal form was far too dangerous.

The longer I stood outside the door the more my
eyes
began stinging from the smoke
or fumes
in the air
.
I wasn’t sure which it was, but it was
thick.

Arie’s steps echoed down the stairwell
, and I ran up to meet her halfway. I grabbed the keys from her with a jangle and began searching for the right one.

Finding a B painted on the largest key,
I slid
it
into the lock, feeling the bolt release as the door sprung open.
The adrenaline racing through my body produced a nonstop thumping in my ears.
Please let this be what we needed to find.

The room in front of us looked like nothing out of the ordinary.
There was
a concrete floor, covered in
dirt, l
ike it hadn’t been disturbed in quite a while.
There were stacked boxes on the side, old metal desks in a corner, exactly what could be expecte
d in a basement. But the fume
s — t
he fumes were far worse. Tears began rolling down my face as I squinted my eyes t
o avoid any more contamination from whatever was lingering in the air.

“Shall we?” I turned to Arie who was facing the same dilemma as me. She was frantically wiping the wetness from her cheeks.

I pulled my cotton shirt collar over my mouth
as I entered into the shadows.
Dust coated everything that had been stuffed down here, and I wasn’t sure we’d guessed right.
Maybe this wasn’t where the dark demons were hiding their activity.
We scooted in between chairs, and rusty bed frames
until we weaved through a makeshift path to somewhere that looked like nowhere.

The basement was huge, but we
quickly
found ourselves staring directly at a
cinderblock wall.

“I don’t believe it,” Arie whispered as she attempted to stifle a cough.
“Nothing.”

I to
uched the cement in front of me, noticing a
pattern that
was different than the rest of the wall. My hand traced the blocks until I found
an opening.

“No. There’s something here,” I whispered, trying to get
a better grasp on what I was dealing with.

“All is not lost,
” I said smiling.

“Should we go in?” she asked.

I nodded as I grabbed one of the loose bl
ocks and pulled it from the wall.
And then
I removed
another and another until we made an opening large enough for us to fit through.

I slid my body through the hole and as soon as I made it to the other side, I wanted to go back
the way I came. The fear was almost incapacitating.
Rather than the darkness that my eyes had been used to, candles were blazing in every direction.
There wa
s definitely activity dow
n here, and it was highlighted b
y walls of flames everywhere I looked.

Cobwebs
were
exposed as t
he orange-red flames
danced as we walked by.  We followed
the
flickering trail
down a hall that was no longer part of the building
.
The cem
ent gave way to dirt walls. The demons
had dug tunnels under the hospital
, leading deeper and deeper into the earth.
There
was no one
directly
around,
but they
had to be
close
,
whoever they were.

A low chanting started in the distance
, and I reac
hed behind me for Arie’s hand a
s we made our
way thro
ugh the candlelit room.

“Do you think we should keep going?” she asked. “It seems like we’ve found enough to point to this area.”

She was right. We were completely vulnerable, but my curiosity was hard to
quell
.
My last ordeal didn’t go particularly well
,
and I was sure whatever I might be facing next could be far worse, but I couldn’t help it.

“Stay right here. Actually, go back into the basement,
” I whispered, as I
ducked while I entered the
tunnel
, following the dull glow
.

With every step forward, the humming became louder.
If I could just get a g
limpse, I’d feel so much more productive.

I reached a T in the tunnel system
, and
quietly
stood trying to decipher which direction the voices were coming from.
Darn
my mortal ears!
Unable to figure it out
, I
decided
to hang a right and very deliberately found my way to a spectacle I wanted no part of.