Page 21 of The Mare Rider of Cornwall Cove
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. Rightnow.”
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 thePeanutscartoons, 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 withthe ?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 allof 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.
It spewed something vile at us. Something about Phil’s mother that I was never going to repeat before it flung itself against a wall then clambered up to the ceiling and slithered through a heat vent. Phil ran at full speed. I tried to keep up but kept falling over myself. My boyfriend did not let go of me as we ran past the fountain, out the front door, and then pounded up the driveway to his truck. My lungs were on fire when we dove into the cab and jerked the doors shut.
“Dying…” I huffed, half-dizzy with exertion while Phil, who was hardly breathing hard, jammed the key into the ignition and cranked. The truck faltered. Phil might have had a mini panic attack until the ice-cold engine finally rolled over. A blast of air from a polar bear’s taint blew through the vents. I gasped at the surge of arctic wind as Phil threw the truck into Drive, the wheels spinning a bit on some ice before they slipped free. The truck lurched forward. I threw my hands onto the dash.
“Sorry, baby, sorry,” he panted as we rumbled over frozen grounds and flowerbeds in our haste to round about and get the hell out. The side of the front bumper grazed the large rusty gate, the screech of metal on metal making me wince. “Fuck that’s going to be ugly.”
We hit the road doing about fifty. The truck swinging across the road due to snowy conditions and an empty bed. I’d still not buckled my seatbelt. I thudded into the door when Phil righted us, my shoulder slapping the window soundly.
“Slow down, slow down, we’re going to wreck!” I shouted as we roared away from Cornwall Cove like the…okay, not using that saying ever again. “Phil, slow down.”
He did finally. His breathing dropped with each foot we put between us and the asylum. By the time we were a few milesaway, we were back at the speed limit. I fumbled with my belt as our equipment rolled around near my feet.
“You okay?” he asked as the parking lot lights from a dollar store came into view. He pulled in and let the truck run, his hands white-knuckled on the wheel as we both drew in deep breaths.
The store was closed, obviously, but man, what a shame. We could have gone on a splurge shop for junk food and pop to drown the terrors we’d just survived.
