ATTEMPTED MURDER
The past.
“Come with me,” a nurse that stood over Alister said. “Let me help you up.” He extended a hand.
“No! You shouldn’t talk to him!” the sergeant said. He was on all fours and blood dripped from his mouth. “Please, don’t let anyone talk to him.”
The nurse helped Alister to his feet and turned his attention to the sergeant. “Please, lie down and try not to move. The doctor is coming for you.”
“Oh, no,” the sergeant said. He wiped his mouth with his hand, rolled over on his back and brought his knees up to his chest. “Now you’re doing it.” He tried to look around, but a surge of pain stiffened his body. He gasped. “When will it end?”
“You’ll be all right,” the nurse said to the sergeant. He took Alister by the arm. “Come inside with me.”
“You’ve got to listen to me,” the sergeant said. He wanted to stand up on something tall and tell everyone that they were in danger by talking to that man and that it wasn’t safe. But he couldn’t. He didn’t have the strength.
“Why didn’t I listen?”
Now the sergeant experienced what Alister had gone through while he tried to warn him of the curse and its dangers, and he felt helpless and alone.
“Damn it.” The sergeant drew a deep breath. “Everybody listen to me!” The sound of his voice barely carried beyond his lips. A crowd that had formed looked at his friend’s corpse and exclaimed their revulsion, their words a blended chorus of chatter.
“I’m a fool,” the sergeant said. He could taste blood, and a chill rocked his body. He looked to the left and right. His heart raced and his eyes widened as he searched the area.
He couldn’t see what he had been looking for, but it was there. He could feel it. It made his skin crawl, and he wanted to be far away from it.
He dug inside his pocket and removed the note Alister had given him. He struggled to his feet and staggered to the doctor that declared his fellow officer dead and held the note out.
“Please, take this and pass it on to whoever is going to care for the man I brought here.”
The doctor reluctantly took the folded paper. “What is it?”
“It’s a truth that is unbelievable, but you need to know it is a truth.”
The sergeant flinched at something he saw move behind the doctor. It was dark and fast.
“Did you see that?”
“See what?”
“It’s behind you!” All color rushed out of his face and his eyes were wide. He backed away and pointed.
The doctor looked. “There’s nothing there. Please, you need to sit down.”
“It’s there,” the sergeant said. He licked his lips. His mouth was dry, and his tongue tasted like metal. “Please, make sure you pass along that note. Everything it says is exactly what happened to me.”
“You really need to sit.”
The sergeant grabbed the doctor’s hand and fixed his eyes on the doctor’s in a hardened stare. “Make sure that note makes it into the right hands.” The sergeant grabbed the doctor by his collar and pulled him close. “Promise me you’ll do that.”
“Yeah, sure,” the doctor said as he resisted the sergeant’s grasp. “I can do that.”
The sergeant’s eyes grew wide and he gasped. He staggered backward with his focus fixated on the dark figure that stood behind the doctor and flicked its blood red tongue at his neck. Its eyes glowed yellow and it sniffed and growled.
“No!”
“What is it?” the doctor asked.
The sergeant fell and pointed at what he saw. “Can’t you see it? It’s right behind you.”
The doctor turned around and there was nothing there. He looked back to the sergeant, who was stiff with fear.
“Tell them I heard its approach and have seen its face. It is something out of a nightmare.”
The dark figure laughed and rubbed its hands together. It stepped toward the sergeant, its movement slow and tormenting.
“I won’t let it get me.”
The sergeant drew his weapon from its holster and placed it inside his mouth and pulled the trigger.
Blam.
Ten feet before the entrance of the hospital, a loud bang followed by a chorus of screams chilled Alister and stopped his progress.
“What in the hell was that?” the nurse that escorted him asked.
Alister started to look toward the commotion but stopped himself. He knew it was the sounds of the sergeant dying and the witnesses gripped by the brutality and shock of his death.
Alister hurried toward the door. He believed if he were to get inside the hospital, he would somehow be safe from the growing wake of tragedy. But the nurse grabbed Alister by the arm.
“Hold on.”
The nurse tried to sort through the confusion.
“Please, let me get inside,” Alister said.
The nurse stood on his toes, bobbing and weaving as he tried to see what had happened.
“The cops that brought me here are dead,” Alister said. “He warned you not to talk to me because bad things happen to anyone that does.”
The nurse paid Alister no mind and looked back at the stunned crowd.
“Have you been given the note I wrote?” Alister said.
“What note?”
“The note that’s going to save the lives of your colleagues after you die.”
The nurse escorted Alister into a large room divided into several small rooms by curtains that hung from the ceiling to the floor.
“I need you to disrobe and put on the gown,” the nurse said. He dropped a folded robe at the foot of the bed. “The doctor will be with you in a few minutes.” The nurse stepped out of the examining room and pulled the curtain behind him.
“What happened to the cops outside? Did they all die? And where the hell is the note I wrote?”
The nurse looked through a break in the curtain and focused an impatient stare on Alister. “I don’t know about any note, and I know as much as you do about the fate of those cops.”
Alister rubbed his wrists. The handcuffs had left itchy indentations in his skin. He pulled off his pants and threw them onto the floor. “You need to find that note!”
“And what I need you to do is finish changing and wait for the doctor like I instructed. You also need to maintain your composure while you wait for the doctor. I can arrange to have those handcuffs put back on you.”
“I won’t do this!” Alister said. The veins in his neck bulged, and he slammed his fist down onto the examination table. “Didn’t you see what happened to that man outside? People are—”
“Sir, I’m telling you for the last time,” the nurse said. His tone was stern. “You need to calm down and have a seat or I will have you restrained.”
“You’re not listening!” Alister moved toward the nurse with a wild look in his eyes. “I told you people that talk to me end up like those cops outside.”
“You were warned.” The nurse shouted over his shoulder, “I need help in here!” and stepped into the room. He pointed to the examination table. “Sit down, sir.”
Alister cocked his fist and the nurse lunged forward and grabbed Alister by the wrists and pulled him backward. He pushed him onto the bed and pinned him down. Numerous doctors and nurses rushed into the room and helped hold Alister down. They tied him to the bed.
Alister kicked and screamed as he tried to fight them off, but their numbers were too great. They overpowered him and stuck a needle into his arm. He shouted his protest as he watched the contents of the syringe being pushed into his veins.
The flesh on the faces of those that stood over Alister began to melt away until only bone remained. The skeletons around him shouted accusations of his conspiring against their fellow man by sending death on a mad rampage. Alister could only look on in paralyzed terror.
The door to Alister’s room was opened with such force that it bounced off the wall with a bang. Alister tried to sit up but restraints wrapped around his wrists, chest, hips and ankles bound him to the bed. A bright light that hung from the ceiling stared down at him buzzing and blinking.
“Who is there?”
The last thing Alister could remember was being in the emergency room of the hospital, where he was forced down on a bed and stabbed with a needle.
“Tell me what is going on,” a man that stood beyond the lit area asked.
“Who are you?”
“I ask the questions. What killed those men?”
Alister attempted to lift his head, but it felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. “Where am I, and who are you?”
The man stepped forward and into the light. He wore a white doctor’s smock and had eyes filled with anger.
“I am someone who has lost a lot today.” The tone of his voice betrayed his eyes. “All of the people that tried to help you are dead.”
“I’m cursed. Did the sergeant pass along my note before he died?”
“There is no note.”
“Please, I need something to write with. You have to untie me.”
“What is this note?”
“Instructions on what you should do if things got to this point. You have to find it.”
“There is no note!” The doctor’s features contorted, and the veins in his forehand bulged. His face was bright red and his anger was tangible—even from across the room.
“There is a note. You need to find it so people can read it and understand it.”
The doctor lunged forward and grabbed Alister by his shoulders and shook him. “I demand an explanation. What have you done?”
Alister couldn’t defend himself and didn’t want to. He knew he deserved whatever he got. “I’ve already told them, and they wouldn’t listen. I see you’re no different. You will come to believe that I am cursed like they did.” Alister looked away. “How many have died?”
The doctor released Alister. “At least ten, maybe more. The nurse that brought you into the hospital was the last to go about an hour ago. He was completely delirious before he expired, and we weren’t able to get any information from him. I need you to tell me what causes it.”
“Oh, God,” Alister said as he closed his eyes. “It’s a vicious cycle that will keep repeating itself.”
“I need you to tell me what you know.”
“About the curse?” He sighed. “I don’t know,” Alister said, his eyes moved rapidly behind their lids. “Simple things like what we’re doing now.”
“What? Talking?”
“Sometimes it’s even less than that.”
“Tell me what I have to do to escape it!”
“I’m sorry. There’s nothing.”
“Why?” The doctor shoved items from a portable tray, which crashed onto the floor. The noise it made was loud and gave Alister an idea about the size of the room he occupied. He suspected the room was normally used for surgery.
“I deserve a better answer than that!” the doctor said.
Alister opened his eyes and turned his focus to the doctor. “I’m sorry. There isn’t a better answer. I suggest you put your effort into keeping everyone away from me before your time runs out. Find the note, have people read it and understand it. This is the only way to stop people from dying.”
The doctor reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a syringe. He pulled off the cap with his teeth and spit it out.
Alister looked away and said, “I hope that works. I really do. It would do everyone a favor.”
“We can tell them you died from complications during surgery. We’ve already made the report about your failing health when you fell unconscious.” The doctor moved toward Alister and squeezed the plunger on the syringe. A fine stream of liquid squirted into the air. “I’m sorry, but we don’t know how else to handle this.”
“Do it,” Alister said. He turned his arm up to show the doctor a vein. “You have no idea how long I’ve sought death. Now I only hope you can show it to me.”
The doctor settled next to Alister, grabbed his arm, found the vein Alister offered him and stabbed the needle downward. The needle broke through the skin, and when the doctor pressed down on the plunger, the needle shattered.
The doctor trembled and stared at the needle in amazement. The contents of the needle dripped off of his chin. Then suddenly, a loud crack echoed inside the room and the doctor shouted out in pain.
“What was that?” Alister said. He leaned up to try to see.
The doctor cringed from the intense pain that filled his body and paced the room. His right hand supported his left forearm, which swung limply.
“My arm is broken.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
The doctor went down to one knee, his face filled with pain.
“It’s here.”
“What’s here?” the doctor said as he stood.
“Death. You shouldn’t have done that.”
A second more pronounced loud crack filled the room and Alister saw the doctor’s right arm above the elbow break and dangle.
“Son of a bitch!”
Another bone broke, and the doctor teetered. He crashed to the floor.
“My leg! Make it stop!”
Alister went to plug his ears with his pointer fingers, but the restraints held him in place.
Crack!
“Please, help me!”
Crack!
“I can’t,” Alister said as he fought against the restraints.
The doctor thrashed and swore underneath his breath.
“Please!”
Alister tilted his head so that he was able to see the door to the room.
“What’s happening to me?”
Crack!
The doctor shouted and whimpered.
“Please,” Alister said. “Stop screaming, or they’ll hear you and come.”