Dead Voices (58 page)

But no amount of frantic effort or concentrated calmness would produce even the slightest stirring of sound in her throat.

Where’s Aunt Junia?
Elizabeth thought. She could understand why Aunt Elspeth wasn’t here, it being so difficult for her to get about, but why wasn’t Junia here to see her off? Especially if she was dying ... or already dead! Junia had gotten the whole thing started by encouraging her to see those people. She should be here!

Suddenly, Elizabeth felt a warm rush travel down her legs from her belly. It reminded her of when she had been pregnant with Caroline, the night her water broke as a prelude to delivery. She knew she wasn’t pregnant, so her first thought was that it was the warm flow of blood rushing through her body and healing her. She experienced a tingle of fear when she recalled the nightmare of Graydon transforming into a wolf as he feasted on her innards. An arctic wind swept through her when she remembered ...

Had it all been a dream?

... the demon perching on Caroline’s tombstone and saying: “Your soul is
mine
now!
Forever
! ... First
her
, and now you!”

Elizabeth’s thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a loud thump sound. She was surprised to see that none of the other people in the room looked over to the door when it slammed open and a dark figure walked in and came over to the bed. At first, Elizabeth thought this must be a hospital orderly, coming in to take her physical remains away; but then she noticed how the “orderly” was dressed.

No one works in a hospital dressed like that! Elizabeth thought.

The person, an old woman, was wearing a tattered dress and a long woolen sweater. Moth holes peppered the sleeves. Her gray hair hung in loose snarls down to her shoulders. Her wrinkled face was shrouded and, even in the direct light, had a curious shadow cast across it. In her left hand she was carrying a large shopping bag.

“Hey, Elizabeth — I’ve come to see yah,” the old woman crooned, leaning over the bed and looking for all the world like the wicked witch in
Snow White
.

Spears of terror shot through Elizabeth’s mind, and she saw with horror that her left hand lying limply on the sheets, actually twitched. None of the people gathered around the bed seemed to notice the old woman, much less the motion Elizabeth had made. She looked up, wishing frantically that she could say something —
anything
— to alert the people to this woman, who stood there unseen among them.

The old woman leaned closer to Elizabeth’s face. In her fevered imagination, Elizabeth could feel the cold drafts of the woman’s breath washing like clammy water over her face. The crone reeked of the putrid rot of the grave.

This can’t be happening!
Elizabeth thought.
I’m already dead!

The sound of paper rustling crackled like fire as the old woman lifted up her shopping bag and rested it on the bed railing.

“I brought a little somethin’ for yah,” she said, smiling widely and exposing a mouth that was filled with rotting and’ blackened teeth. She hissed, “Wanna
see
what I’ve got here in my bag for yah?”

Elizabeth knew she had no control over herself, but she violently willed herself to shake her head back and forth in denial She could feel each vertebra crunch as she tried to move her neck.

“
Wanna see
?” the old lady wheezed.

Elizabeth’s mind roared with the echoing sound of the crone’s ancient voice. With just a slight push, she could imagine the voice suddenly dropping down low and hollow, booming with evil laughter, like the voice of the demon she had seen —
imagined
! Crouching on Caroline’s tombstone. At any instant. she expected to see the frail body of the old woman tremble and swell as the wrinkled, liver-spotted skin peeled away, exposing the black scaly body of the demon. It would expand to fill the entire hospital room, Muscular, black arms and hooked talons would reach for her, and a leering, fang filled smile would open to devour her.

“
Your soul is mine, now! Forever!
”

Elizabeth willed every ounce of mental energy into moving her head, if only to deny, right up to the end, that this creature might steal her soul and carry it to the flames of Hell

The old crone smiled and laughed softly as she opened the top of the bag. After peering down into it for an instant, she scowled deeply as she reclosed the top. Leaning close to Elizabeth’s immobile face, she snarled wickedly, ‘‘I’ll show yah if yah want to see!” Her voice rose up on a teasing. tempting note. “Are you
sure
you don’t wanna see?”

If the scream that was building up inside her mind ever found its escape, Elizabeth was positive it would shatter the hospital-room window. She watched in stark, mounting horror as the old woman opened the bag again and tilted it down toward her fear-widened eyes.

“Come on, Elizabeth ... Have a little peek,” the woman said in a thin, wheedling voice.

Elizabeth tried to look away, but the open mouth of the shopping bag slid down to the side of the bed with a slick, easy glide. Her eyes were drawn in horrid fascination to the dark opening.

“See what I have?” the old lady crooned. “Look ... Look inside here.”

Elizabeth felt a quick, jerking pulse and a burning pressure in her chest as she stared into the bag.

“See ... ? I have
all
of your fears in here!”

Elizabeth looked ... and saw. The woman suddenly pulled her hands back, and the shopping bag disappeared with a faint pool It left behind a squiggling trail of smoke which quickly disappeared.

The crone smiled and said, “All gone.”

Elizabeth’s eyes snapped open, and she found herself staring up at her mother, her father and two doctors.

“Well, what do you know — she’s coming to,” one of the doctors said, his voice tinged with excitement.

Elizabeth’s eyelids flickered as she tried to resist the hurtful brightness of the room. Her lips twitched into a faint smile. Then, before anyone could respond, she drifted back to a deeper, more restful sleep.

From far away, she heard her mother’s voice say, “Oh, my God! Thank you, Lord!”

2.

The next time Elizabeth opened her eyes, it didn’t hurt half as much to look around. The Levolor blinds were closed, and the overhead light was dimmed way down. She shifted in an attempt to sit up, but still felt the straps that held both of her arms and her chest down tightly to the mattress. A fresh wave of panic swelled inside her as she struggled to piece together the confused and terrifying fragments of memories and dreams that whirled in her brain.

Am I in a hospital or the mental ward
? she wondered.
Why am I strapped down to the bed? Why can’t / even feel my legs?

What’s happened to me? Where are my mother and father? Where are the doctors? Where’s the old woman who wants to show me that she has nothing — absolutely nothing in her shopping bag?

Jagged bolts of pain lanced through her neck and head, but Elizabeth struggled to raise her head from the pillow and look around the room. She gasped when she saw a person, sprawled motionlessly in the chair by the window. In the dim light, she could make out none of the features, but she had the unnerving feeling it might be her old friend, the crone ... or maybe it was herself ...

“
Wanna see what I’ve got?”

“
I have all your fears in here!”

The old lady’s voice rang in Elizabeth’s memory, sending waves of chills racing up her arms and shoulders.

Yes
! she thought, sucking in a deep breath and feeling an excited tingle throughout her body! I’m alive!

Her throat made a deep, strangling sound as her legs twitched and rustled loudly on the crisp sheets. In the silence of the hospital room, the noise was like an avalanche crashing down a mountainside, but the silent shape in the chair by the window didn’t stir.

Looking down the length of her bed at the person in her room, Elizabeth tried to detect any sign of life. The figure was covered by a sheet, which added to the motionless, amorphous image. The head was turned to one side, looking away from her, so all she could see were strands of gray hair and the smooth curve of the cheek. The figure’s shoulders looked frail, almost girl-like, and Elizabeth had the momentarily scary thought that when the figure stirred, she would see Caroline, her daughter. Perhaps, after all, she had come to lead her mother over to the “other side.”

Again, Elizabeth tried to form words in her throat, but the dry burning made it all but impossible. When she licked her lips, her tongue felt as if it were coated with sand. The dry feeling only got worse. Finally, her head dropped back onto the pillow, and she let her breath out in a long, slow whistle. She tensed when she clearly heard the figure in the chair shift. There was a hissing sound as the sheet slid to the floor.

“ ... Water,” Elizabeth rasped, unable to raise her head a second time. She sensed rather than saw the figure as it approached the side of the bed. Even though her chest was burning with pain, she sucked in a lungful of air and waited ... waited to look up and see ...

Who?

“Elizabeth ... Dear, you’re awake.”

The soothing sound of Aunt Junia’s voice caressed Elizabeth’s ears. Her mounting panic instantly uncoiled as she stared up in disbelief at her aunt, who was leaning over the bed railing and smiling at her. Elizabeth’s first thought was that this, too, was a dream, and that, before she could smile back, Aunt Junia’s face would dissolve into the demon’s leering grin, which would roar and blast her to nothingness.

“Did you say you wanted a drink of water?” Junia asked in a soft, kindly voice. Elizabeth nodded, her eyes flicking back and forth, unable to focus as Junia turned away from the bed and disappeared from view for a moment. When she returned, her face still hadn’t shifted into that of a demon or of an ancient woman; it was still Aunt Junia, and she was holding a glass with a flexible straw up to Elizabeth’s mouth.

Elizabeth sipped, and her mind and body exploded with relief when she felt water — real, honest-to — God. cold,fresh water! — slide into her mouth and roll down the back of her parched throat. She sucked on the straw eagerly, but Junia pulled it away and said, “Ut-ut. The doctor said you shouldn’t have too much at first.”

The comers of Elizabeth’s mouth twitched into what she thought was a smile — or at least something close to it.

“Thanks,” she said, surprised at how twisted and strange her voice sounded to her own ears.

“That’s why I’m here, dear,” Junia said as she replaced the cup onto the stand beside the bed.

“Where ... is here?’ Elizabeth said. She couldn’t push aside the rush of fear that she had been committed to the mental hospital, that she was strapped to the bed so she couldn’t get away. Junia looked at her with a warming smile and said softly, “Why, you’re in the hospital, Maine Med., of course. You were quite badly injured.”

“Am I ... Is this P-6?” Elizabeth asked.

Junia’s face clouded and she shook her head. “P-6? I don’t know what P-6 is.”

“The psycho ward,” Elizabeth said. “Am I in the psycho ward?” Already her throat was closing up; it felt as though it were the bottom of an hour glass, and the hour was over.

Junia laughed softly and shook her head. “Why of course you aren’t!”

“Why am I ... strapped down, then?” Elizabeth said. She wanted to ask for another drink of water but was afraid she would start screaming as soon as she opened her mouth. Before anything else, she had to have answers to certain questions.

“Why, because of your injuries, of course,” Junia said. “Even with medication, since you began to regain consciousness, you’ve been thrashing about quite a bit. When Frank Melrose found you in the cemetery, before he — well, before everything else happened, that doctor, Roland Graydon, had already stabbed you in the chest with that knife of his. It was a pretty serious wound on top of the gunshot wound.”

“Gunshot ... ? Who ... shot me? I — I think I remember seeing Frank ... Melrose. He was there, too?”

“He was,” Junia said. “He shot you in the hand ... by mistake, of course. But he was hurt as well. He had a quite serious accident. He was trying to stop Doctor Graydon from doing ... what he was doing.”

Trying to kill me!
Elizabeth thought, with a cold dash of fear.
He wanted to kill me and make it look like a suicide!

She shivered, recalling her discussion about her suicide attempt during one session with Graydon. She realized — now — that he had used everything ... absolutely everything she had revealed to him against her-all of her grief and guilt and fears about Caroline’s death. All of it! She remembered him saying something that night in the cemetery about how he had plotted and planned ...

“
I made vows and performed certain rituals to make certain!
”

... his revenge because he blamed her for the death of his nephew that night! It stunned her that he would use his position as her doctor to tum it all against her.

“He ... Graydon — ?” Elizabeth said.

More vivid but disconnected fragments of that night filled her mind. The pentagram drawn with luminous white powder over Caroline’s grave — the black shape with claws and fangs she had seen sitting on Caroline’s tombstone — the insubstantial blue figure of her dead daughter that had appeared and struggled with her to force the knife away from her chest — the series of explosions that had blown Graydon’s face into tangled, red meat.

How long ago was that
? she wondered, as worries about her sanity intensified.
How long have I been here?

“Is Graydon ... ?”

Before she could finish her question, Junia nodded. “Yes. Roland Graydon is dead.” She glanced ceilingward before continuing. “I don’t know how much of this I should be telling you. I mean, I don’t want to say anything that will work against your \ healing.”

Elizabeth gritted her teeth as a flicker of pain blossomed in her chest. “The truth ... is always ... healing,” she said, even as she thought about how many times over the past year and a half she had told little “untruths,” thinking she could protect herself and the people she loved from painful realities.