Crawl

“They creep. They Crawl. They creep. They Crawl. They creep. They Crawl.”

Dr. Sheryl Carter lifted her eyebrow and turned to look at Dr. Samuel Green.

“I know,” he said. “This wasn’t my idea.”

“They creep. They Crawl. They creep. They Crawl. They creep. They Crawl.”

The doctors each had a clip board, but only Sheryl was making notes. “What sort of back story do we have on her?”

“Very Little. The subject was found running through the down town mall the evening. She was screaming at everyone and assaulted the guards who tried to detain her.”

“Does she have a name?”

“The police are running prints. Nothing on her and she hasn’t said anything that made sense that any of us have heard. She just keeps repeating this.”

Cheryl looked at the chart and whistled. “Have you really given her almost 20mg of Haloperidol?”

Dr. Green nodded. “She wouldn’t stop screaming and thrashing around. They got her into the ambulance after police tasered her, but she came up a couple of minutes into the ride. The ambulance tried ketamin before they got here, but it didn’t last long.”

“So what? We just keep her sedated until the police figure out where she is supposed to end up?”

Samuel shrugged and turned away from the bed. “That’s all I know to do.”

***

“Dr. Carter?”

Sheryl looked up and smiled at Clare. The nurse blushed, she always did, and lowered her eyes. “The girl under observation is screaming again.”

“Shit,” Sheryl said. “Why us?”

The pair made their way into the room and found the girl thrashing against her restraints. She jerked her head from side to side so that he hair lashed the sides of the bed frame. Her eyes were squeezed shut so that her face was pinched and wrinkled, but her mouth was wide open. Sheryl thought she could actually see the girls uvula waving back and forth like they did when a cartoon character screamed. “Calm down,” she said. She didn’t believe the girl could hear her over the screaming, but she had to try. “I’ll give you something else to help you relax, but please try to calm down.”

It took a minute or two before the thrashing stopped. The yelling dropped in volume, and then the patient began mumbling again.

“They creep. They Crawl. They creep. They Crawl. They creep. They Crawl.”

“My god thats creepy,” Clare said once they were outside again. “Do you have any idea why she keeps doing that?”

“No,” Cheryl said. “Worse thing is that we are running out of sedatives. She has been given a wide mix and yet she keeps shaking them off.” She looked at Clare again, smiling at the genuine concern on the nurse’s face.

Clare blushed a deep scarlet, turned away quickly, and hurried down the hall to the nurses station.

***

The alarms went off at dawn. Cheryl was wiping down a kids arm, preparing to stitch up the gash that he had gotten skating through the part at night. She dropped the needle on the exam table, told him not to move, and ran from the room.

The hall in front of Jane Doe’s room was full. Two nurses, including Clare, were leaned against he far wall, coving their mouths to try to keep from vomiting. One orderly had already puked a little further away, and the acid smell of digestive fluid met Cheryl before she got to the room.

She looked inside and cried out before grabbing the door and slamming it shut. She felt her head spinning as her blood pressure dropped, so Cheryl kept her hand on the knob, using it to stay upright.

“Police,” she whispered. “Call the police.”

***

She was sitting in the station interview room the next afternoon. Detective Rob Bently sat beside her, rolling the remote between his fingers. “You okay to do this Cheryl?”

She nodded.

“Did you get any sleep this morning?”

“A little. I took something to help.”

He patted her shoulder, just like he had before. “Alright, what I want to show you is the few minutes just before the accident. I won’t show you the actual incident.”

“Thanks.” It came out sounding brittle.

He hit play, and she watched the girl begin to trash again. She was trying to pull her hands free, but then she froze. She held still for a few seconds, and then the girl started biting her own shoulder. She pulled her head away, and the gown was stained with a large, dark, spot. The girl spat something out, and the put her face back to her shoulder. The tape cut off before she spat out another piece.

“Did she really chew her own arm off to get free?”

Rob shook his head. “No, her shoulder was still sort of attached.”

Cheryl looked at him with her mouth hanging open. “Then what happened to her?”

“I don’t know. On the tape, it looks like she exploded. Is there any way for that to happen?”

“Not that I know of.”

Rob rewound the tape and then replayed it. When it cut off, Cheryl put her face in her hands and wept.

***

Cheryl was rolling the glass between her fingers when Clare sat down beside her. “Want some company,” the nurse asked.

“Please.”

They sat in silence for a while before Clare turned to face her. “Dr. Carter?”

“Please call me Cheryl.”

Clare smiled and blushed. “Okay. Cheryl, did the police show you the video of the room before the accident?”

Cheryl swallowed and nodded, but couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud.

“Did you notice anything out of the ordinary?”

“Besides the patient chewing …” she cut herself off without finishing the sentence and took a big drink.

“Besides that,” Clare said. “On the floor.”

Cheryl shook her head.

“I didn’t say anything because I didn’t think about it until later, but I thought I saw something moving at the bottom of the wall.”

“Like a mouse?”

“No.” Clare stopped to take a drink. “I thought I saw something move like an inch worm. You know what I mean? Like it formed a little hoop and then scooted forward.”

Cheryl licked her lips. “They creep. They crawl.”

Clare nodded. “They creep. They crawl.”

Hot

Josh dropped to the ground and rolled to his right. He felt the whoosh of air above him a second before the heat of the blast. He could smell his hair singing before he was behind the air conditioning unit.

“You can’t hide back there all night warden.”

“I can try,” Josh yelled. Another wave of fire rolled around him and his impromptu wind break. He felt heat against his back and wondered if the cinder fairy could melt the metal.

He heard a high pitched, cackling laugh before a third wave of fire rolled along the roof around him. “He’s right,” Josh mumbled as he looked around him. “That thing is probably going to start circling me.”

The fourth wave licked against his left boot.

“Damn it,” Josh said as he shifted away to the right. His tattoos were itching. The magic in his skin was anxious, waiting to be released against the fairy. He would have been happy to oblige the sentient ink but he was too far away.

Another high pitched laugh was followed by a deep throated impression of a southern accent. “I smell me some barbecue.” The creature laughed again, and fire hit Josh’s hiding spot from even further around.

The  surface of the roof was hot where it had gotten blasted a few moments before. The heat coming off the metal housing was enough to force Josh to move away from his cover a bit.

“I am so screwed,” he said, looking at the small fires that surrounded him.

When the next blast stopped, Josh darted towards edge. He heard the fire coming for him and realized that he wasn’t going to make it.

“Damn.”

Prison

Charlie leaned his head against the wall, bouncing it against the bricks, trying to jump start his brain. He felt his nose twitch, a tingling on the tip that told him his head was about to explode.

“AHCHOO!”

The sneeze came out with such force that it made his ribs hurt. He bent at the waist, putting one hand back to keep his balance and hoped that it wouldn’t happen again. Bits of stone rained down on his shoulders and he wondered why as he looked back at the wall.

There was a hole in the wall where his head had been before the sneeze.

Charlie darted across the alley, spinning and putting his back against the other wall. He would have admitted that he would reconsider how much he hated sneezing the next time it happened. He had never imagined that it might save his life. Those thoughts were for later though. Now he had to get away.

The alley was clean. There weren’t any doors or dumpsters to hide behind. When he looked forward, he looked up. A man with a rifle walked across the roof and took aim. He knew he needed to run, but he couldn’t. Charlie froze and watched the sniper take aim.

***

“So you didn’t realize I was here with you?”

Bill lowered the rifle and looked behind him. A tall, slim man with a black bikers jacket stood ten feet away, hands empty and hanging at his side.

“Go away and let me finish this job, or I’ll put a bullet in you and hunt the snitch down again later.”

“You won’t be killing anyone else.”

Bill turned all the way around, lowering the gun as he did so. The slim man smiled at him, but didn’t move. “Why won’t I?”

“Because you are destined for prison.”

“There isn’t anyone else up here. I don’t see any other snipers around. How are you going to take me to prison?”

The slim man lifted his hands out to either side. Both empty. Both harmless. “I didn’t say I was going to take you to prison. I said you are destined for prison.”

Bill smiled out of one side of his mouth. “What’s the difference?”

“The prison has come to you.”

The slim man took a step and Billy lifted the gun to his shoulder.

***

Charlie watched the sniper turn his back on him. His mind screamed at him to run, but he couldn’t move.

The man stood there for a minute, jerked the gun back up to his shoulder, and then he disappeared. Charlie heard something, like a big bird screeching on a nature show, before a flash of light made him think a bomb had just went off on the roof. He waited, staring, but nobody came back into view. There was no sounds other than the people starting their days and driving to work. Charlie thought he could smell something sweet, but he wasn’t sure. 

He stood, until the rain started, and then he headed to his car.

“Maybe I should just get out of town for a while.”

Fall

Janet hit the ground, one foot twisted beneath her at an odd angle. The little sticks below her exploded in a chorus of snaps that were drowned out by her high pitched scream. The hill was steep enough to get her rolling, and for a second, she imagined that she must have looked like a rag doll being thrown down by an angry toddler.

When she hit the first of the small trees, she stopped imagining anything.

***

Janet realized that she was looking up at the stars. She could feel the cold of the ground beneath her and little sticks poking into her back. When she tried to roll over, pain washed over her, replacing the black of night with a blinding flash that made her head spin. Janet twisted so that she wouldn’t throw up on herself and struggled between vomiting and screaming.

She flopped over, turning her head to put as much distance between herself and the smell of her lunch as she could. Briars bit into her cheek, but she didn’t turn away. This was as far as she could go for now. The stars faded away and she tried not to cry.

***

The sky was still dark, but Janet could see the woods around her. She moved as slowly as she could, trying to avoid another wave of pain induced nausea.

She gasped when she looked down at her leg. It was broken and bloody. Just beyond her boot stood a coyote. Behind it, stood at least another half dozen. They were crouched low to the ground. Each one stared at her, but none of them moved.

“Go away,” she whispered.

The biggest of the animals took a step closer, but jumped back a step when Janet screamed.

The second time she screamed, it didn’t move away.