Curse of the gorgon, p.25
Curse of the Gorgon, page 25
“No Zoe’s?” Elle deadpanned.
Dr. Stevens smiled. “Maybe in a few days. Okay?”
“I’m going to look forward to that,” Elle said. “I’m glad you were here when I woke up.”
Her words were rewarded with a smile.
When the doctor left, she sat there for a moment regarding the silent room, waiting for the nurses. When they did not come, she leaned over the side of the bed and was able to reach the stand and pull open the drawer. She eased it to the end of the track and gave it a shake until a balled-up tissue bounced into view.
She pushed the drawer back and retrieved the scrap of tissue. She unfolded it almost expecting the button not to be there, as if her session with Dr. Branch had knocked something loose in her brain besides memories.
But there it was nestled in the tissue in all its brass, eagle glory. She ran her fingers over the talons, one set clutching arrows, the other an olive branch, as was the duality of all things. She thought of Dr. Stevens and Dr. Branch. They too were dualities of the same institution. They both had good intentions. Still, there was something wrong about Gloaming Hill.
Elle returned the button to the drawer. The nurses still had not arrived. She lay back and closed her eyes. She felt tired but not sleepy. She lay there waiting haunted by the memories stirred up during Dr. Branch’s session. When the nurses came, she was glad for the noise of their presence, glad to drown out the horrors that played in her head.
* * *
Before finding herself at Gloaming Hill, Elle never had trouble getting to sleep, nor did she ever sleep so much. Even as a kid, she’d subsisted on five to six hours a night and would wake refreshed. She usually just went on until she could no longer keep her eyes open, a habit she carried into adulthood.
For the next few nights, a peaceful rest eluded her. When she did sleep, her dreams were a mix of nightmares and memories from her session with Dr. Branch. She woke often, breaking from the darkness to the dimness and silence of her room, out of breath and damp from sweat.
Her mother was scheduled to visit the following afternoon, and Elle found herself fretting about how that would play out. She fantasized about her mother taking her from Gloaming Hill, and she would be cured of her fear. She’d dreamed of the broken, confused people from the convention center in Johannesburg. What woke her was the smell, something acrid in the air, overpowering even in her dreams.
She sat up in bed and opened her eyes to see someone standing next to her bed. She blinked to fully clear her eyes from sleep and saw the silhouette of Rob Loera’s ruined head. He was speaking—not to Elle—in a bitter, anxious monotone.
“Rob?” she asked.
His head was bowed as he droned on. “We dropped at thirty-three degrees north, sixty-five degrees east at oh-six hundred, found the enemy, fired on the enemy, we got return fire—”
“Rob,” she said a bit louder.
His head shot up and he waited in the darkness, stone still. Elle wanted to see if she could inspect him for clues. She reached for the light switch.
“Don’t you fucking touch that light,” he growled.
She snatched her hand away. “Who are you really?”
“I’ll ask the questions here, Miss Chief Correspondent.”
He straightened and marched around to the other side of the bed. Though the room was dark, Elle could feel his gaze upon her. She could feel a fresh violence along with his presence, like a black cloud.
He scoffed. “Answer me this, Elle, you’ve been in contact with the one they call the Gorgon? She told you about Project Songbird, didn’t she?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’ve got the intel. I’ve been sent to verify it.”
“You’re not real.”
Rob shifted and leaned forward. “Then why are you here, Elle?”
“I’m here because—” she stammered. “Someone bombed the convention center in Johannesburg, and they brought me here.”
“That’s the story you tell everyone, to account for the time you spent with the Gorgon, betraying your country.”
“I don’t know the Gorgon. What I do know is you’re not here, Rob. You’re dead.”
He reached for her. “I’ll get you to talk.”
She quickly slid over to avoid him. She went for the lamp again. Just as her fingers turned the switch, Rob swiped it off the table and it crashed to the floor. A crescent-shaped beam of light fell across the room. It exposed him, skin paled with the pallor of death, the wound in his face black and green with rot. He still wore his uniform. One of the middle buttons was gone.
“My eyes were opened,” he said. “They were closed my whole life. I am resurrected to see these atrocities.”
“You can’t be dead and standing here,” she told him. “It’s insane. It’s impossible.”
He reached into his jacket and removed a large Army-issue black-handled knife.
“You’re going to tell me what you know,” he said. “The Gorgon. Project Songbird, all of it.”
He took two steps closer to the bed.
She began to scream. If this was all a dream or a hallucination, or even some twisted reality, someone would come to her aid.
Rob grabbed her arm, twisted it, and pressed the blade of the knife to her throat. She felt her skin give and a trickle of blood run down her neck. She screamed and tried to remove his hand and the weapon.
His other arm snaked across her neck and her screams dissolved into a wretched choking, muffled by the lack of air. She struggled wildly as he pulled her halfway off the bed. She tried to break the contact between them to no avail. Her body tired fast; her lungs felt as if they would cave in on themselves. The world became a black-gray blur. He was able to hold her. She squeezed her eyes shut not wanting to see what would come next.
“It’s time for you to finally be punished for your treason,” he said into her ear.
He lifted the knife high.
She groaned. Panic roared in her ears like a passing freight train; her vision blurred and ran together, sparkled black when she blinked.
She saw the knife plunge down. The blade disappeared from her sight. She felt it slam into her chest with a resounding thud, followed by a blinding blackness like a black bag over her head.
* * *
Elle found herself once again in the mist. She could feel the soft static of it around her, the sensation strange yet comforting. Nothing to see, nothing to hear. She was tempted to float there as she was sure that it was a place where undead soldiers could not reach. She would be safe there, somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness. Gloaming Hill could have her body.
Somewhere in the distance, if the mist could be measured in terms of space, she could hear music. It was moving closer to her or she to it. She rejoiced to recognize “Stormy Weather.” She felt as if she were hearing the voice of an old friend.
“What song is this again?”
A question from a voice she did not know. A woman, close to her ear, sleepy, sultry.
The mist solidified into shadows and through it, a faint glow alternating between pink and blue. Her mind struggled to process the shapes and colors that formed before her. Slowly, things came into focus. She found that she was lying on her side facing a window as rain dripped down the glass. The wall around the window was white and reflected the soft glow of pink and blue while absorbing the cool gray of a rainy morning. There were buildings beyond the window mounted with neon trimmed digital advertisements changing and flashing. She did not recognize any, but she did notice that the bold lettering was Korean.
She could hear the rain and music. “Stormy Weather.” She felt warm sheets against her naked skin. She startled when she felt the heat of another body behind her. An arm constricted around her waist, pulling her closer.
“What song is this again?”
That voice from the mist, not so disembodied this time, its owner a mystery that she could solve by turning over. She tried, but that arm held her with a tender swiftness she could not resist.
“Please, don’t go yet.”
Before she could protest, she felt hands gliding appreciatively over her hips, over her stomach to her breasts. The woman behind her let out a sigh and Elle found herself matching it with one of her own. Kisses landed on her neck and shoulders.
“Elle,” the woman whispered in between kisses. “Is this a dream?”
She did not have an answer for the woman. Even if she did, she doubted that she could put together an intelligible sentence. If it was a memory, Elle was not familiar with it. She had never been one for one-night stands, and she had never gone to South Korea with any of her past girlfriends.
Lena Horne sang about how she just could not get her poor self together, and how weary she felt. As she lay there being kissed and caressed by a stranger, Elle could not help but relate. She too was weary of Gloaming Hill and the terrors that haunted her mind, nightmarish memories that she could not imagine living through.
Dream or memory, being in that place, in that stranger’s arms, made all those fears suddenly seem so small.
No longer able to hold her curiosity at bay, Elle turned over and saw her.
In the dim light of the rainy morning that softened her features, she smiled at Elle, a crooked half smile, bashful, with a promise of mischief. She knew this woman, though now with her tousled hair she seemed a harmless lover, and she was in that moment.
Elle stiffened and tried to pull away, but the woman held her fast.
“Don’t go,” she said, and that smile turned into a crooked pout. “Please.”
“I can’t be here,” Elle said, not sure what else to say as she made her escape, winding the sheet around her as she stumbled around the room. She spied the door.
“Wait, Elle, please.”
“No. This isn’t real,” she told her as she picked clothes from a chair and dropped the sheet to dress. The place was small. A kitchenette that fit on one short counter. A table folded from a wall, and Elle saw a bottle of wine and stained glasses.
“What is this place?” she asked.
“The mist.” Elle spied the door and made her way toward it.
As she went, she looked over her shoulder to see the woman rise from the bed slowly shedding the covers. Shirtless, she wore a pair of underwear. Her limbs were long and well-muscled. Elle found herself familiar with the woman’s form and her mind flashed to memories of that same body beneath her as the two of them quivered together.
“I’ve been looking for you,” she said.
“No,” Elle protested the memory and the stranger. “You were with Rob. He came to my room and hurt me.”
“What? I would never hurt you,” she said, moving closer.
“Get away from me. You’re a liar.”
Elle went for the door, opened it, and stopped in her tracks. She’d expected to find a narrow hallway lined with doors to similar tiny apartments. Instead, there was the void that was the mist.
She looked to the stranger who seemed just as bewildered.
“Come away from there. Close the door,” she said, a panic in her voice.
She was afraid of the mist, which surprised Elle. Did she not know that the mist was benign? Simply a placeholder for the consciousness. The thought frightened and thrilled her. How had she become so acquainted with the mist?
“Elle,” the stranger warned her. “Whatever you think is on the other side of that door, it’s not something you can trust.”
“You’re wrong,” Elle told her and walked into the mist.
Chapter Fifteen
Gloaming Hill Facility, West Virginia
Dr. Stevens woke her midmorning with a gentle shake, then began to buzz around the room chattering about her mother’s visit that afternoon. Elle felt a rush of excitement at the anticipation of seeing her mother. That feeling soon gave way to a rising dread. Rob had been there in the night, and Elle had escaped him in a fever dream. She began to touch her hand exploring under her T-shirt, certain that she would find a wound, sure she had been stabbed by her dead friend during the night.
Dr. Stevens’s smile quickly waned as she registered Elle’s growing panic.
“Elle, is everything okay?”
“I saw, Rob,” she said, out of breath from the sudden panic. “I saw him again. Here.”
She moved to sit up, and Dr. Stevens placed a palm on her shoulder.
“Calm down, Elle, tell me what happened.”
“It was just like last time,” she said. “He was angry with me. He wanted me to tell him about the Gorgon and something called Project Songbird.”
“And then?” Dr. Stevens asked.
Elle put a hand to her throat as she remembered. “He put a knife here. I felt the blood. Then, he stabbed me in the chest. I was so scared, I ended up in the mist.”
“The mist?”
“I was there before I woke up here.”
“Elle, I’ve never heard of—”
“Never mind that. Rob came back last night. He was here.”
“I’m sorry that you keep being plagued with these hallucinations. They sound terrible.”
She sounded genuine, but Elle had her doubts, in fact, she had the button. She sat up, leaned over, and reached into the drawer of the bedside table. She glanced at Dr. Stevens who watched with a curious expression as Elle pulled the drawer to the end of its slide and retrieved the wadded tissue.
“He wasn’t a hallucination. He never was.”
Hands trembling, she unwrapped the tissue to reveal a single, plain, flat plastic button. She glanced up at Dr. Stevens who had been peering into her hand. Their eyes met.
“What’s this then?” she asked, reaching for Elle’s hand.
She snatched it away into her closed fist. “This is wrong.”
“What’s wrong?”
“This button, someone must’ve switched it while I was out.”
“Elle, who switched what?”
As if she did not know.
“The buttons,” she said and realized how crazy it sounded. “It was Rob—the person pretending to be him. They switched the buttons.”
“Elle, there was no one pretending to be Rob. It was a hallucination.”
“Hallucinations don’t lose buttons from their coats. I found it on the floor the first time he was here. I’ve kept it here in my drawer. I’ve looked at it again and again.”
Dr. Steven looked concerned. “Elle, why didn’t you tell me about this?”
“Because it was proof,” she said. “This place is not what it seems.”
“You should have reported this to me right away, instead of hiding it.” Dr. Stevens walked away from the bed and went to the door. She closed it and turned back to her. “You should have told me what you were feeling.”
“So you and Dr. Branch could sweep it under the rug? What I want to know is why you’d terrorize me like that? Was it a part of your so-called treatment?”
Dr. Stevens was visibly shaken. “Elle, you must stop this. I would never be a part of something like that. We’ve kept you safe here, and will continue to, even if we have to protect you from yourself.”
“I saw that button, day after day, I touched it.”
“That doesn’t mean anything in this case, Elle, you should have told me. I would have helped you sort things out.” She shook her head. “You should have told me.”
“That can’t be true. You’re fucking with my head,” she shouted.
The door opened and Nurse Grace entered.
“Is everything okay, Dr. Stevens?”
“Fine, everything’s fine,” she answered without turning away from Elle. Her voice was cheerful, but her face was dour and tinged with panic. “Just let me finish talking with Elle here. Today is a big day for her.”
Nurse Grace muttered something and left. Dr. Stevens closed her eyes at the sound of the door closing. She did not open them for a moment.
“Okay, we’re going to talk more about the button situation, you and me. Until then, I don’t want you mentioning this to anyone, especially during your mother’s visit.”
Elle balked at her demand. “I’m going to do more than mention it.”
For the first time since Elle had come to her senses to find herself at Gloaming Hill, an exasperated expression crossed Dr. Stevens’s face. She ran her hand through her hair. She’d officially lost her cool. No longer the cheerful doctor, she was furtive, nervous.
“You’ll have your answers today, Elle. Your mother has been insistent. I thought it would be a good thing, but now I am beginning to have my doubts.”
“You’re trying to frighten me.”
“I’m trying to warn you. A long-lasting hallucination like this, it’s a setback to your treatment. Seeing Rob, feeling like you have physical evidence of his presence, believing that we would set you up.”
“I’m not delusional.”
Dr. Stevens sighed. “I can’t tell you what to say to your mother today. You should lay it all bare, as you say. I believe the two of us can sort this out together. I’m confident that we can.”
“Why should I trust you, when I can’t trust my own mind?” Elle asked.
“Because I’m the only one on your side,” Dr. Stevens said and promptly left the room.
* * *
The nurses came to help Elle prepare for her mother’s visit since she was hindered by her injured arm. It all felt loaded, their banter, their movements, as if they knew something she didn’t. The wadded tissue remained on the bedside tray, not even acknowledged as trash to be tossed away. She did not want to touch it, let alone look at it. Everything, from the button to the nurses, to her mother’s visit filled her with an intense dread.
Dr. Stevens returned for her shortly after breakfast. As usual, she was smiling, but the smile lacked its usual luster, as if it were a mask pasted on. Elle realized that she was nervous as well. They walked to her office and stopped in front of the door. Dr. Stevens took her good hand and gave it a quick squeeze. It seemed she wanted to say something but thought the better of it. She opened the door.
