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Jackson was far from the others, though not as much as Riley's rigid body. He had chosen a strange room in which at the bottom of everything there was a wooden Christ, splintered by the time, which could still recognize the drops of blood on his chest, forehead and feet. With the confusion of the great escape of that crazy man, Jackson had gone to the wake of the Sanatorium. And he knew that soon. Nothing more to see that squeaky stretcher of springs in the center of the corridor, where several banks arranged in a disorderly manner, some on the right and others on the left. The racket was as if there had been a stampede of those present when the deceased raised his head and stood as if driven by a spring on his back.
Despite everything, a rictus was drawn on Jackson's lips. Despite everything, yes. Alaina was not on her mind right now. She was in the Sanitarium aqueduct, still alive.
But soon things would change. And the grimace would become a cry of terror and fright. That kind of bed or rusty stretcher was in front of a lectern made of stone and the passage of time seemed not to have happened to it. The Christ was looking at the stand or worse, the coffin. His heart hit his chest. He had not seen it before, and on the stretcher, there was a coffin of clumsy wood and splintered. Without the lid.
It was so small that it had gone unnoticed by the light of the lantern and his dark eyes, although they shone even in the dark. He opened his mouth as if to want to scream and only gave a caw. The white teeth gleamed in the wake. His tongue, red to satiety, was also visible.
The flashlight illuminated inside the coffin. There was nothing. He gave thanks to God for not having found anything inside. A skull for example. The coffin was so small that one day it had housed a dwarf or a child. He opted for the latter, and although Riley was no longer at his side to release the tirade, Jackson knew that the youngest was also the most affected by leprosy and tuberculosis. On the floor, one could still see a handkerchief, dry as cardboard, yellowish and pierced by the teeth of rats.
On one of the walls, two windows looked on the east side and through which it now leaked, the greyish reflection that the moon emitted to the earth. And that made the place gloomy. His heart returned to normal after the shock. There was nothing there that had been repeated.
But on one occasion there was something.
-Hello Dad.
He had heard it perfectly, and the voice was sharp and soft. The one of a boy. Maybe a girl's. His ears had received the waves of that phrase. "Hi, dad", he had said. He looked around, for he was confused. Everything was full of dust and furniture destroyed, as if suddenly everyone present had fled something, stumbling over each other. Only the Christ witnessed what happened there, but he could not talk about it.
- "He has fucked us. Kid's voice has spoken to me," -Jackson whispered for fear of being heard.
Heard by whom?
It was a mental lapse.
There were always many questions to ask when you find yourself in these kinds of situations. Also, his beliefs did not allow him to accept that sort of truth. The ghosts, he thought. And his features turned pale, from the coffee that Chase so much joked about, to the milk he had now become.
With the flashlight, he illuminated the interior of the coffin again. There was still nothing. But something inside him told him that he should leave that place as soon as possible.
-Dad, do not leave now.
He had heard it again; now his body was like a spring giving strange jumps in front of the stand, which was watching him in silence.
- "I've heard it again," -he whispered again. - "I will be going crazy. It is nothing but fear. This disgust me."
To speak only for the first time, he did it quite well; he was surprised.
The light bulb of the lantern licked the face of Christ and then the windows that had the broken glass. Many of them, several colors, he saw them lying on the floor, next to the benches on the left side, shining like blind eyes, under the light of the lantern. He lit every corner of the room and saw nothing strange. But I had heard the fucking voice twice a voice that was close to him.
-Now that you've returned, you will not leave me abandoned again, right?
Jackson moved like a dock. Almost on tiptoe, he wanted to leave that room that smelled stale and listened to things, that maybe they were only in his head, but just in case, he would run away from there. But he could not.
Something was grabbing his ankle.
He illuminated on his feet but saw nothing. However, He could not move his feet. No matter how hard he tried, something heavy was closed on both ankles now.
- "You have to fuck," -Jackson muttered, unable to be quiet or underwater. - "Chase if you're around, release the nylon thread that holds my ankles."
But nobody answered him, except for the wind when crying from the other side of the Sanatorium, in the west wing, which with its corners cut and scratched the air causing deep wounds.
- "Chase?"
Then he supposed that it could not have been him, since they had all fired as projectiles into different places and if Chase were in there, he would have seen him even though he covered his eyes in the wake of terror and panic, when they escaped from that crazy of the crossbow. That was about two hours or maybe more.
-Do not leave, dad.
- "Damn! The fucking kid! -He exclaimed this time, shaking his head like a ball on a pier. He looked at the lectern, at the Christ and saw her.
Strolling from one place to another, a beautiful lady dressed in black, with the veil hiding her tearful eyes, and her hands hanging on both sides of her body, as if desisting from life.
- "Hey! Hey, lady ...!"
But she had disappeared.
- "We're not alone in this fucked up Sanatorium," -he shouted as he combed his curly, stiff hair. I'm very good at talking to myself."
Now he felt his feet free and decided to leave, but something caught his attention again.
Now the lady in black, tall and with an apparently sculptural figure, was right next to the coffin. His fingers were caressing the edge of the splintered wood, and she was silent. The veil probably covered her beautiful eyes. The black dress reached her ankles. Jackson knew all that because he was lighting up her with the flashlight and it was real. She was there. At three and a half feet, but as he got closer, her body faded into the air like gaseous matter. Jackson raised his eyebrows.
- "This is crazy," -he said. - "Mrs!"
And nobody answered.
Now Jackson's fingers touched the edge of the small coffin, one of the songs that appeared nibbled, probably by the rats and his eyes were lost in the search for that woman in the whole room. Now he was sure it was not Chase, but he seemed to play it down. He did not believe in certain things, period. He thought he was delirious about something he could not see now. The sting of an insect.
Soon he would wake up, and everything would be over, that's for sure.
Suddenly, he felt a tingling in the tips of his fingers and light them up with the flashlight. His fingertips were slightly pink at the ends; lower were black. And then he saw how a small fog came out of the coffin. Smoke as if suddenly the wood had caught fire. But it did not smell burned but rancid. Like everything else.
- "Holy crap! What the hell is that?" -He said with wide eyes. He retreated one step away from the coffin and rubbed his fingers in his shorts. The white shirt, which contrasted with the black color of his skin, was now a large dark stain stuck to his body.
The dense, sticky fog now came slowly down the edges of the coffin, as if it had weight. Jackson's eyes widened and showed empty sockets highlighted by eyes as white as billiard balls. Small fingers with broken nails peeked out from the edge of the coffin. Jackson took another step back, keeping the focus on the flashlight. Now it was showing a nape covered with coppery hair. Slowly and heavily, a small head. Jackson's heart began to beat with intensity, and he sweated profusely. He noticed that the hand holding the lantern was shaking. Dark eyes peeked out over the fog, and a small nose rested on the edge of the wood.
- "Fuck! Who are you kid?" -Jackson was bewildered and scared. His feet trembled. - "Did your mom wear black?"
The kid answered. He just extended his hand. A small hand with outstretched fingers, apparently normal.
Jackson discovered that he was speaking to himself too long. Ultimately, he thought he was raving because of a high fever caused by a bite, and at dawn, everything would have happened. But it was not like that.
The kid had a mane that could not cover his thin neck. His childish features astonished by his thinness. You could see all the bones in his face. His eyes were sunken, and he looked dehydrated. His hand remained spread out as if asking for something, which Jackson could not give him. Then suddenly from his neck appeared dark flesh lumps and began to beat him in a controlled manner, as if those lumps breathed.
Jackson's heart plummeted to the gut. He felt a strong pain in his chest and belly. He was still sweating profusely, and his face was freezing. His hands trembled. Both. And it felt cold.
Those lumps burst and released the greenish pus. The boy's face wrinkled like dry streaks, like scabs and part of the skin of his face fell to the floor, letting his teeth and red cheeks see throughout the blood. Jackson saw black spots in his vision and felt like he was going at times. He was fainting or worse; he was in the process of a crisis of acute anxiety.
The mouth of the kid opened, and the cheeks stretched like chewing gum. Suddenly and before he fainted, his head fell to the ground, which was rolling to stop at the feet of Jackson. The impression was such that his heart took a final turn and squeezed under his chest. Jackson, however, before seeing the blackness, screamed and shouted. Until his voice gave way to silence and his body collapsed on the head of that child.
On the walls and curled up to Christ, some elongated shadows were watching the show.