“Help! Someone, please help!”
“Mrs Huff?” Tonia snapped to attention and raced out of the toilets.
The two girls froze in the doorway.
Carol and Stanley Huff were using all their strength to hold Annora down by her arms, but her legs continued to flail violently. Her skin looked drained, her fingers were curved and talon-like. Her mouth was open and askew, tongue flitting savagely. She groaned and snarled, animal and brutish.
“Oh… oh shit…” Tonia managed to say.
“Please help!” Stanley yelled. “Get the restraints! They’re tucked under the bed!”
Maggie and Tonia ran to either side of Annora’s bed and did as instructed, unleashing the chunky leather straps. Annora’s parents did their best to hold down her wrists while the two girls tightened and fastened the straps into place.
They tried to grab at her legs, receiving multiple walloping kicks in the process, before finally wrestling her feet into the restraint loops.
Annora’s body continued to thrash and pull and writhe. Mrs Huff held her daughter’s head and spoke soothingly. But Annora was gone. In her place was a rabid wraith, boney and grotesque.
“We mark the path— We mark— ” she snarled, coughing out the sentences with her twisted, wet mouth. “We mark the p—, the p—,” she stammered.
Maggie dashed to the panic button on the wall and smashed her fist into it again and again. A siren began to wail and a light outside the room blazed bright red.
Tonia covered her hands with her ears. Maggie watched Mrs Huff nestling into her husband’s chest, both of them in tears. Annora’s growled words turned to pained groans. The groans turned to yelps, which turned to screams. Long, agonised screams. They all cowered from the sound.
Maggie continued to pound on the emergency call button.
“Please, please…” she said, pressing it over and over.
Three nurses burst into the room.
“Please help!” Carol Huff cried.
“Fucking hell,” the nurse’s jaw dropped when she saw Annora on the bed.
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Annora continued to struggle and scream. With every movement she pulled the restraints taught, testing their limits. Her wrists and ankles were red and distressed. Her entire lower jaw and the top part of her nightgown were covered in fresh blood.
“What the—” one of the other nurses managed to say.
“Jenny,” the main woman spun around, “open the seizure kit, prepare the highest dose of Clonazepam.”
Jenny fumbled inside the suitcase-like box she’d brought to the room and handed up a syringe. “Cheryl! Here!” she said, thrusting it to the woman, who ran forward and slammed the needle into Annora’s thigh.
Her body wrenched out a few more hefty spasms and then slumped onto the plasticky hospital sheet, motionless.
“Ugh,” Jenny the nurse stepped forward, “she bit her tongue.”
“What happened to her?” Cheryl exclaimed. “She’s never had a seizure like that before.”
“She’s…” Tonia didn’t know what to say. “She’s one of them.”
“One of who?”
“Silas Lynch… the one hundred children…”
The nurses looked at one another.
“Are you telling me this girl is affiliated with Silas Lynch?”
“No!” Maggie blurted.
“He took her and he did this to her,” Mrs Huff whimpered.
The nurses shook their heads disbelievingly.
“So you’re telling me,” Cheryl continued, “that all this stuff we’ve been hearing, about Silas Lynch and those one hundred children he’s supposedly “chosen,” is happening right here in our ward.”
Mrs Huff nodded.
“Some powerful parapsychs tried to heal her,” Tonia spoke quickly, “but it didn’t work. He still has control over her mind.”
“And what exactly is he controlling her to do?” the nurse spat back angrily.
“Well, somehow he’s going to… you know… he’s going to try and kill her. All of them.”
“I don’t understand. He’s not here?”
“Lynch isn’t here, no. Of course not,” said Maggie.
“But if he’s controlling her, then he might as well be here,” Jenny said.
“If she’s one of his chosen ones, whatever that means exactly, then how is he going to get her?” Cheryl asked.
“We don’t know.”
“I don’t like this one bit,” Cheryl said. “She’s dangerous.”
“She’s not! Not really! It’s not her fault!” Tonia cried.
“Maybe not, but I can’t put innocent people at risk in this facility.”
“There’s nowhere else for her to go,” said Maggie.
“She can stay, but I’m afraid I have to initiate a quarantine protocol on this wing of the hospital.”
“Why? She’s restrained, look at her.”
They all looked at Annora. Crumpled, pathetic, and bloody.
Cheryl shook her head. “I’m sorry. I have to seal the ward and put extra security measures in place.”
“Please, miss, I think that might be unnecessary,” Mr Huff stepped forward.
“It’s my job to protect the other patients and staff. If this girl has a supernatural condition, I don’t know what she’s capable of. She could be being used as a weapon.”
“Please, this is madness—”
“Have you seen the news right now? The whole country is madness!”
They couldn’t argue.
“Under quarantine protocol, nobody can enter or exit the ward. If you want to leave, please come with us now.”
“We’re not leaving our daughter,” Mrs Huff held tight onto Annora’s paralysed hand.
“I can’t leave her either,” Tonia said, looking at Maggie. “I promised.”
Maggie looked back at Tonia. She wanted nothing more than to walk out of the ward and ride home to her parents and brothers.
“You should go,” Tonia nodded. “It’s all right.”
Maggie’s gaze fell back to Annora.
“No,” she said quietly. “I’m staying, too.”
“Are you sure?” Cheryl asked the room again. Everyone nodded.
“Suit yourselves,” she said. “Good luck.”