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Others Within One: Out of Season

The body isn’t even cold yet.

Liam took his glasses off, rubbed his eyes and closed them for a moment. It couldn’t be later than two in the morning. He still had five hours on his shift, and all he could think of was how exhausted he was.

But I won’t sleep, not this morning. He squeezed his eyes shut until they watered and rubbed them harder. All I will do is keep seeing her face over and over and over…keep hearing her scream over and over and over.

“Dr. Letiz?” The nurse’s voice was hesitant. “The family is—”

“I know,” he interrupted. He tried to smile to soften his tone, but knew it didn’t quite cross his features. “The body isn’t even cold yet, and I’ve already heard the word lawyer.”

“Doctor—”

“Lana, you know there was nothing anyone here could have done for that girl.”

“The family is grieving and they’re scared. Honestly, we all are. Perhaps some compassion would go a long way.” She crossed her arms.

“You’re not the one who got to listen to her scream like something was trying to claw its way out of her.”

“Liam, I wiped her mouth as she coughed up blood, and I held her hand as she hallucinated and told me the creature was using her blood to write poems on human skin.”

Chills trembled unbidden down his spine, but he nodded. He put a hand on her shoulder briefly. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.”

“In all my years here, I never thought I’d hear an old fart like you apologize.”

Despite himself he smiled. “Only you can talk to me like that, Lana.”

“That’s about the only perk of being one of the old bats back here in the war trenches. I get to knock even the doctors a peg or two down when it’s needed. What do you want me to tell the family?”

He shook his head. “You’re right. I need to talk to them.” He took a drink of his lukewarm and bitter coffee before standing and stretching.

“They are still in the room, with her.”

Liam frowned. “I thought I told you to follow protocol. They need to be separated and placed in an isolation room. I’ve already called the health department and the state. They will be here within hours.

“They are performing last rites, or something like that.” Lana shrugged. “Look, I figured they were already exposed anyway. Why dirty up our only other isolation room? What’s the problem with them all in the same room until we wait for the big guys?”

Liam didn’t respond, walking past her and down the hallway, out of the emergency room and into the isolation waiting rooms where people sometimes waited to either die or be admitted to the main part of the hospital.

For Sierra Mallor, it had been just to die.

“It’s coming. Can’t you hear it writing inside of me? Poems, for the people—for the Scholar, the Witch, the Mother, and the Little One. I am the ink, the riddle, the parchment. Oh God, they are all coming, and this world will weep. The snow will fall in June, the sky will burn in December. Out of season, out of time…we will all scream and weep in the end…can’t you hear it writing inside of me?”

It hadn’t been the only thing she’d said, but all of it had been along those similar lines. He’d had patients hallucinate before, but never like this, and never so vividly. She'd had no history of mental illness, no previous issues of psychosis. He could almost feel a presence himself, and it didn’t help that the summer storm was causing power outages. The power had conveniently failed right as she died, forcing the hospital to rely on their generators. Coincidence, yes, but even he could admit that it was strange.

It was enough that, if he’d been a praying man, he would have stopped by the chapel.

Enough of that, he scolded. He began to put on all the protective personal gear that was required to enter. You're a tired old man, but you are not superstitious.

He opened the first door to the isolation room, closing it completely, before opening the second door.

He was immediately met with weeping. The girl’s mother was slumped over the shrouded body, sobbing. The father sat at the end of the bed, staring at the body and silent. The brother stood at the head of the bed, a hand on the shoulder of the mother, the other hand on the covered forehead of the body.

His eyes were shut, his head bowed, praying.

No one is wearing anything protective. Not that it mattered, in all honesty. They had all lived with the girl, ate with the girl. If it was communicable, they had likely been infected before they’d finally brought her to the hospital.

No one acknowledged his presence and so he cleared his voice. The mother sniffled, stifling her sobs. In the absence of her crying, the air seemed heavy in silence. “I am very sorry for your loss—”

“She was seventeen, doctor,” her mother interrupted. She raised her pale green eyes, red and puffy from crying, to meet his. Blond hair matted against the side of her face from sweat.

“She was very ill. If you could answer some questions—”

“She was fine yesterday.” The words, quick and accusatory, held a force from her father’s voice. “She went to school, went to a church group with her brother and then came home. Now, you mean to tell me, my daughter became this ill, said all those horrible…things…in a manner of less than twenty-four hours?”

“I understand this is hard to process. We do not have all the answers as of yet either, but when the state comes, they will hopefully shine some light on what may have happened.”

“I will be speaking to them myself, and to my lawyer,” the father said. He stood.

Remember, Liam, he thought to himself. These are grieving parents. Don’t say anything you’re going to regret. Show them compassion.

“I know this is difficult, Mr. Mallor, and I understand that you should do whatever you need to do to make sure you have some peace. I promise you that everything we could do was done for your daughter.”

For the first time, the father’s anger broke, and, for just a moment, Liam could see the pain and a shadow of fear in his eyes. “My daughter screamed about a monster that ripped her apart from the inside. She saw visions of a burning world and died with blood coming out of her eyes. I swear to God that if you could have done anything to prevent that, you’re going to need a lawyer to read your will.”

Liam took an unconscious step backward, but the man didn’t make a move to approach him. Instead, he stepped around the hospital bed and put an arm around his wife. He leaned forward and whispered something in her ear. She nodded in response and he helped her stand.

“We’re going to wait in that room you offered us at the beginning, doctor. I don’t think it’s healthy for us to be here.”

Liam nodded, his heart in his throat. He used the call light to let the nurse escort them in protective clothing to the other isolation room and to provide a warm meal.

“You should go with your parents,” Liam said to the brother. He had not moved from his spot at the head of the bed. His hand remained on the body’s forehead. His eyes were closed.

“He’s been praying for her,” his father said before they closed the door behind them. “He should be able to leave when he wants.”

The lights flickered once when he was alone with the body and the brother. All that was available was the emergency lights while the generator ran. He glanced outside and could barely see through the wind and storm. It was sheeting so hard that the trees seemed to bend backward. He wondered when they would be able to get the lights back on. There was something…strange…about the weather outside, and he couldn’t put a finger on what made it odd. He stared at the weather, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

“What do you think she meant when she said the poems were meant for the Scholar, the Witch, the Mother, and the Little One?”

Liam jumped at the sound of the boy’s voice. He looked away from the window, from trying to understand exactly what he was seeing outside, and glanced toward where he stood.

“I doubt it meant anything,” he replied. The boy’s eyes were still shut. “She had a high fever. Brain was hemorrhaging. She was just hallucinating.”

“Yes. Just hallucinations. That makes you feel better to tell yourself, doesn’t it, doctor? Is that what the chills at the base of your spine are telling you?”

He crossed his arms. It was suddenly stiflingly hot in the protective gear he wore. “What are you saying?”

“You aren’t a religious man, are you? I’m sure that’s why it picked you.”

He frowned. “Picked me? I don’t understand.”

“A part of me envies it, you know?” He opened his eyes and looked down to where Liam couldn’t see his face, staring at the dead body of his sister. He caressed a hand down her shrouded cheek before he carefully began to peel the sheet back. “I mean, I was too much of a coward. That’s why I forced her to come with me last night. But, she must have seen such beautiful things.”

“Please, keep her cov—” the words paused in Liam’s throat as the atmosphere around him seemed to change. There was a shift in the air, a waver, as if he was looking past the haze of a summer day. The shadows—it was so much deeper than just the lights—seemed to flicker. The corpse’s skin moved, undulated. Sierra, the girl he watched die a horrible death, stared at him with eyes that saw only fear and nothing. The pallid skin, that sickly green and impossible hue, pushed outward and toward him.

In his mind, he could feel and hear her scream.

“What are you doing?” The words barely choked past a thick throat as he stumbled backward towards the door. Shadows moved from the walls, leaching away to shroud the body, rising in a form that had no form.

A skeleton, perhaps. Or, rather, something that had seen only a caricature of a skeleton. The proportions were all wrong, with long arms and contorted, bent legs. It rose out of the shifting skin, bent in a fetal position, born from the shadows that had wrought it. It existed as an afterimage that could only be seen in the shadow of a corner of his eye.

Liam didn’t stick around, didn’t wait to finish watching itself rip away from the suffering corpse or how the brother reached out to embrace it. He turned around and fumbled for the door, tearing it open. He was out of the second door before he even recognized he was moving.

I don’t understand…I don’t…Liam Letiz ran, stripping away the stupid protective gear that he thought would protect him. He screamed as he ran, maddened and maddening, running past startled nurses and frightened patients. He struggled toward the stairs.

For reasons he didn’t understand, he ran upward toward the sky, toward the roof. Once he forced the door and found himself outside, he stopped and the cold struck him. His breath misted in front of him.

Liam shivered and understood why he’d been so confused when he’d looked out the window. It had not been thick sheets of rain. Snow fell in clumps, making it difficult to see ahead of him. The ground was covered in inches of a thick, soft and wet snow.

The snow will fall in June, she’d said. And then, that…thing…had crawled and tore its way out of her body while her brother coaxed it. He stopped closer to the edge of the building, where the wind sang whispers and promises. He could now feel the creature beside him, waiting for him to help it. You’re not a religious man, are you? I’m sure that’s why it picked you.

He looked beside him where it half stood, half crouched. It was not tall, about his height, with arms that dragged the ground. It looked as if it had too many appendages for the vaguely humanoid appearance. It regarded him with eyes of a deep, dark red. Its expression held no emotion, sharp teeth pressed back in a lip-less mouth. The edges of the creature seemed—unfinished, blurry.

There was such an otherness to it. Such a strangeness. Another realm, perhaps, something that did not touch this planet purposefully. There was corruption around it and reality bent to its will. It would not stay in this world without something to finish the bridge.

A cold, horrible realization. I am his bridge.

“I don’t understand.”

“I ate the boy for his betrayal.” The voice came from deep within the creature’s chest and echoed in Liam’s mind. “The girl was not willing ink for the parchment, but she will write all the same.”

“What—” he swallowed and forced the words out, “What do you want from me?”

It didn’t answer, but stared at the sky and the snow that fell.

We will all scream and weep in the end.