The Affliction Read online

  I nodded. “Maybe he didn’t think I was a high priority for them since he didn’t know what I had figured out. But they knew. And they came for me at your apartment, and would have killed you too! I’m so sorry, Aubs; thank God the Guardian protected you. I waited on the floor, knowing what was coming, and let…”

  “Wait, wait,” I finally interrupted. This um, Guardian, he hit me with a lamp? And drug me away?” I asked as I connected the dots.

  “Yeah,” she laughed. “I suppose he could’ve been a little smoother, but apparently that was the best way. Those guys know what they’re doing.”

  “I think I met him,” I said, as I suddenly remembered the bizarre conversation with the stranger, Gabriel. “When we were waiting for the ambulance in Sundown he was at the Inn.” I looked at her, and she appeared puzzled.

  “You met him, as in talked to him?” She asked, in awe. I nodded. “That’s weird. I was under the impression they never communicated with outsiders.” I shrugged not knowing what she meant by “outsiders.”

  “His name…” I didn’t get to finish. Cara smashed her hand over my mouth.

  “Shhhh. Don’t say anything else,” Cara warned, looking nervously at the doorway. I jumped to my feet, turned towards the door and saw, walking down the long hall straight towards our room, with dark eyes fixated on us, possibly the scariest person I’d ever seen in my life. He could have been Frankenstein’s monster. Seriously, could have been for all I knew.

  Chapter 8

  “What the Hell is that?” I spat out, spinning frantically back to face Cara, who surprisingly appeared amused. She laughed, and I began to feel like I was missing something. “Why are you laughing? The freaking Hulk is coming for us, and you sit there like there’s nothing wrong…”

  “Aubrie, calm down,” she interrupted, although her face turned serious. “That ‘Hulk’ would be Cyrus, he’s an Exterminator.” I was entirely perplexed, but as I looked back at Cyrus, he arranged his features into what I assumed was intended as a smile and waved briefly as he approached our room. I turned back to Cara, suddenly feeling safer if this monster was not an enemy.

  “What’s an Exterminator?” I asked, starting to feel some annoyance toward the unfamiliar lingo. “And what about Guardians, and outsiders, and the other side?”

  “Aubrie, you have to get out of here, you don’t realize the danger you’re putting yourself in by learning about any of this. Cyrus turning up here is not a good sign. Something bad is gonna happen, soon, and I don’t want you to be part of it.” The anger and brief amusement had faded entirely from her bruised face, and all that remained was pure fear. I realized with a jolt of panic that up until that point, she had made an extreme effort to stay calm for my sake, but she couldn’t anymore, as the danger loomed ever nearer.

  She began quaking beneath the flimsy sheet, and the monitors recording her vital signs filled the room with unnatural beeping. Goosebumps erupted on my skin in response to the petrified look on Cara’s face, but the fear inside of me would not grow into the terrible fire that now consumed her.

  I knew I should have been more afraid. Maybe I would have been had I known what I was up against. Although I remained in the midst of this bizarre situation, I hardly knew anything about it. My senses were hyperactive, and I jumped when I heard heavy footsteps right outside the door.

  I turned to see Cyrus step through the threshold into the room and shut the door behind him. Despite knowing he was not going to rip us to shreds and eat us for lunch, I gasped and backed against the wall. He had to be seven feet tall or more with Slavic features and shoulder length scraggly black hair.

  His boulder-like muscled body exuded such power and his nose looked like it had been broken a few times; it did look as though Frankenstein had sewn him together and brought him to life with the fury of the lightning. He stood as though braced against the door, facing us, arms folded. At first, I felt embarrassed, afraid that I had offended him, but he merely chuckled darkly at my response.

  “It’s okay. I get that a lot,” he said in a soothing bass voice. He spoke with an accent I couldn’t place the origin of but had to be at least similar to Russian.

  Then he said urgently, “you have to leave now, both of you.”

  “We can’t go anywhere now,” I managed to say. “Cara needs rest.” He turned his obsidian eyes on me, and I shrank away, a pure reflex to someone so intimidating.

  “If you don’t get out of here now, both of you will be resting under the ground,” he said pointedly, then cocked his head to the side like a curious dog listening to a mysterious sound. He didn’t seem fazed at all by the circumstances even though we were so obviously in danger.

  A woman’s voice rang out through the hospital’s sound system. “Code orange,” she said. “I repeat, code…” and she was suddenly cut off by static and then silence.

  And then as if on cue, the lights flickered and then extinguished. I could hear the gasps and screams of the other patients and visitors in our wing at the unexpected darkness. The smoldering onyx giants in the sky had momentarily triumphed over the sun’s rays and made the blackout more intolerable for everyone. The lack of light didn’t bother me, but I knew it meant something approached us.

  Emergency power tried to kick in, but something switched off the backup generators, too. Cara’s heart monitors went silent, and I could hear each of us breathing distinctly in the black shrouded room.

  The panic inside of me escalated, and I didn’t care what caused the power failure and Cara’s convulsive hysteria, I wanted to be anywhere but there. Even though I had no knowledge of the demons searching for us, I felt their wrath and their intention to slaughter us. The floor shuddered beneath my trembling feet, and I screamed, knowing in my heart our imminent peril.

  I looked at Cyrus for relief, wanting to believe he could help. He didn’t observe Cara or me, and I peered over my shoulder to follow his line of sight to see a man sliding sinuously through the window. Acting on impulse, I darted across the room to Cyrus’ side in seconds, sobbing without tears.

  Although this newcomer, this cat-like being, glared at me with such hatred, I knew that he was not the adversary; I felt it in me that he was there to save us from the oncoming catastrophe. He was not a giant like Cyrus, and at first, I had false hope in thinking it might be Gabriel as he emerged from the blinds. But his icy stare shot from a face I didn’t know, a man maybe in his late thirties or early forties.

  “Cyrus.” The newcomer nodded.

  “Nathaniel,” Cyrus replied curtly. Nathaniel walked swiftly to Cara and started to release her from the tubes snaking around her body. My panic receded slightly at the realization that the cause of my death at least did not stand in the room with me. I knew there was not much time before that was the case; so even though my sobbing quit, I could not force my body to stop quivering.

  “So what are you?” I asked stubbornly, playing along with the peculiar game I hadn’t learned the rules of yet. “Are you a Guardian too?”

  “Yes,” Nathaniel said automatically.

  “Where’s Gabriel?” I asked, wondering why my previous savior was not present. Nathaniel stiffened and glared at me again, still working furiously with Cara’s restraints.

  “Gabriel left like he should have after disobeying orders on his mission with this one,” he said in a strong British accent, taking me off guard. He looked back at Cara, now free in just thirty seconds. It was apparent that he did not agree with Gabriel’s choice to save me instead of Cara, and the way he said, “this one,” I didn’t think he agreed with the entire situation at all. I did not know the reason for Nathaniel’s hostility, but I immediately disliked him. I had not asked to join in on the predicament where he found us.

  I recognized something else in Nathaniel’s voice, and I felt horrible. “Is he in trouble?” I asked timidly, trying to ignore the now rhythmic shaking of the building.

  “Oh, yes. The elders are not happy with him. Not happy at all.” And he smiled evill
y, as though he enjoyed that thought. “The only reason I’m taking you with me is so that we may deal with you ourselves.”

  That’s when the screams started. At first, they were distant, but then they grew nearer until I knew the fiends had arrived on our floor as the chilling shrieks wreaked havoc with my brain, and I felt as though my lungs would collapse. Only a minute had passed since Nathaniel had entered the room. He had worked hastily, but apparently, he had not been quick enough.

  “They’re here.” Cyrus’ deep voice penetrated the ugly silence left by Nathaniel’s rude revelation.

  “I know. Hold the door. I can only take this one.” He held Cara in his arms, and he glided toward the open window. “There’s no time. Let them have her.” He nodded towards me and leaped gracefully out of the four-story window.

  I stared at the empty frame he left behind and my brain froze with the mass amount of information trying to move into it. He just jumped out the window with Cara in his arms, and my intuition told me if I looked down to the parking lot below, I would not see him splattered on the pavement like a bug on a windshield, as any normal human would have been.

  And he left me to die, left me for “them.” I turned to look at Cyrus, who still blocked the door, face pained. “I’m not leaving you,” he said, as he opened the door and slipped back through it. I ardently hoped he spoke the truth. I didn’t know where to go; I didn’t have anywhere to run as I didn’t possess the magic that let Nathaniel jump out of the window as though it was not thirty feet, but one.

  I suddenly knew that whoever sought me out was very close and I watched through the small window in the door as Cyrus barreled down the hallway. A man hurtled around the corner at the end of the hall like an animal, but Cyrus grabbed him and ripped his head clean off his body without hesitation. I screamed and backed up next to the window, requiring the fresh air that now blew in through it.

  The noise was horrendous, and I could picture what kind of pandemonium ensued, even though I couldn’t dare to watch it. Cyrus suddenly flew back through the door as though something had thrown him through it, breaking it off the hinges and landing on the floor on top of it. I hid on the far side of the hospital bed as another man entered, not quite as large as Cyrus, but ostensibly another Exterminator. He picked Cyrus up by his shirt with just one hand and punched him so hard he sailed across the room.

  Cyrus gained his bearings and turned to face the other man, ducking his next punch and returning one directly into his stomach. The other man doubled over, and Cyrus looked at me apologetically, with blood dripping down his face. I knew then that he was not strong enough to save me on his own and I knew he ultimately had to leave me behind, just as Nathaniel said. I felt helpless when I realized I had no power to prevent the terror that hunted me.

  “Go,” I whispered. This war that I had stumbled into was not about me. I was merely a casualty, and I would gladly take the place of my best friend, as long as she was safe.

  Before the other Exterminator could assault him again, Cyrus turned and, lacking Nathaniel’s grace and size, crashed through the window, taking the blinds with him. Glass shattered onto the floor like bells accompanying the dancing reflections on the wall. As though he didn’t even notice me, the other man charged after Cyrus, leaving me alone in the room in sudden silence.

  I sat down in the uncomfortable chair again. I would patiently wait for the other side to get to me because I knew that this wasn’t over. I knew I wouldn’t make it if I rushed into the hall in an attempt to escape.

  It was odd how my emotions functioned when faced with various challenges. When I saw Cara on the floor of the cabin and thought she was dead, you could have sent me to the loony bin right then, and I would have fit in marvelously since my brain rode on the fast train to insanity.

  However, after Nathaniel left me for dead, all I felt was peace. The room was predominantly dim, but the glitter shadows danced for me again on the pale walls. When Michael passed away, I sat in a room identical to this. The bleeping machines flat-lined and went silent, and we knew.

  Now I did not need the accompaniment of medical equipment to tell me my heart had a limited number of beats left to it, and I induced an emotionally sedated sort of coma on myself. I felt my end crashing down on me, and I waited in serenity. I could feel them approaching, and just like picture day in grade school, I put on my most charming smile.

  Chapter 9

  I would have estimated that over fifty percent of smiles were cover-ups, lies plastered on the faces of those who had something to hide. However, as death encroached upon me, the grin on my face as the wooden door flew across the room was genuine. I thought of the fun I stole from them as I neglected to fight back and did not allow them to play a game of cat and mouse by running away.

  I sat there naively, smiling into the smoke and settling rubble of the hallway. And then suddenly, no part of me could support a smile any longer. Nothing masked my horror, and no drug could hold me in a stupor dense enough to ignore the fear of my approaching destruction.

  Nobody entered the room immediately, and I suspected they were fearful I was the bait in a trap since I sat so openly in wait for them. Finally, a slender girl with strikingly spiky, hot pink hair slithered into the room, edging along the walls. No twinkling rays permeated the room then, and I lost her as she snuck behind me while I tried to keep an eye on the doorway.

  Although the chair beneath me rattled with my fright, I remained where I sat. I didn’t see a way out of the situation. The hospital room lacked the space needed to hide or escape, and I knew they had me trapped. I felt, rather than heard, something behind me, and I turned, zoning into the small space near the foot of the hospital bed beside me and saw her slinking there, watching me with lustful eyes. I couldn’t help it; I screamed pathetically and fell backward off the chair, sliding on my butt away from her as she drew nearer. She laughed a high pitched, tinkling giggle.

  “Finally I get to meet you,” she said in a fitting silvery voice, inching closer still until she grabbed my arm and made me look at her. I gave into her will and peered up into eyes the same as mine, blinding sapphire spheres that sent me into shock. Her close proximity and the startling similarity scared me, but the numbing sensation she had initially paralyzed me with started to fade, and I acted toward self-preservation.

  I kicked her in the stomach with as much force as I could recruit and reeled backward with what shaky strength I had at the same time. The force of my blow sent her skidding back into the bed as she released my arm, probably out of surprise. But as I scrambled to my feet, intentions leading me to the window, I saw several more figures enter, and a dominant male voice rang through the room.

  “You’ve had your chance Dahlia, get out of the way.”

  “No, she’s mine!” Dahlia wailed. She regained her composure and attacked me again a foot from my escape route. She slammed me against the wall by the window, pressing so roughly on my shoulders I thought they would meld imprints into the plaster.

  I did not want to die. I will not die now, I thought fiercely, and though I could not and did not move under Dahlia’s iron grip, I waited. Finally, someone else entered the room, through the window beside us, and I knew it would distract her. I snatched at the opportunity with perfection. As soon as her mind deviated minutely from the task of restraining me I exploited my pent up energy and pushed against her again with all the strength I could corral within me, crashing down to the floor on top of her.

  And then I lost my stomach as someone’s arms wrapped around my abdomen and effortlessly swung me up against their chest as they carried me swiftly towards the window. I looked up, and my skin crawled with exuberance when I saw who held me. I could not find my voice, as I had been left breathless after my efforts to resist the pink haired girl. Suddenly we were in front of the window, and I knew he would jump, so I tucked my head into his chest and closed my eyes, not sure what to expect.

  I was a roller coaster enthusiast and had ridden the tallest and fast
est roller coaster in the world, but I still harbored fear for this comparatively minuscule drop without at least a safety harness. His chiseled arms proved more secure than the restraints on any amusement park ride, and I felt nothing other than his slight squat to absorb the shock from the impact as he landed smoothly on the ground. I looked back up at him, astonished that he had returned for me.

  “Gabriel,” I said, unable to think of anything else, as he shrank back into a dark corner of the building.

  “Don’t speak,” he warned, and I noticed he screwed up his face in concentration. He didn’t need to ask twice, I just laid my head back against his firm chest and waited, relishing the feeling of safety and the amazement of still living. Half a minute passed like that, and then he sighed and walked determinedly right out into the open parking lot. I tensed reflexively, sure that pink hair and the unseen man would attack at any second, and wondered why Gabriel didn’t run for shelter. I glanced back at the high window from which we had descended and saw Dahlia and company looking out in our direction, searching, but apparently unable to see us.

  Roars of outrage erupted from the man I assumed as the leader, the one who had spoken to Dahlia. He was tall and lean, clean shaven with short, raven-black hair. I decided that even if he weren’t fuming he would still be a terrifying person and I did not want to cross him without Gabriel’s protection.

  I still could not comprehend why they failed to see us. Even in the gloomy light, we should have presented an easy target. As I looked back at the continuously shrinking building, I watched two men climbing down the outside of the hospital like spiders. They dropped to the ground, crouching down low to the concrete, sniffing it seemed. Shivers ran up my spine as I watched these two humans crawl on the ground like animals. I almost broke my code of silence when I saw them stop in the corner Gabriel had retreated to after jumping out of the window because it was then that I realized they were sniffing, following our trail.