Chapter One

A lone dying fluorescent bulb pulsated behind the safety screen, intermittently illuminating the dark and sultry chamber. A trio of black flies bounced off the light with futility. All that filled the room was the hum of the light and the buzzing of insects.

Seated in her own filth, deep within the shadows, the woman lost herself in the world existing beyond the walls of her reality. The stone surface was her moving picture, where a foreign and emerging world was shown to her. Captivated by the show, she remained silent and controlled.

The room was a paradox—her paradox.

“This next subject is an interesting one; catatonic and non functional on almost every level. Standard therapy has failed and brought zero results. Her case is almost unheard of.”

The man stopped and peered through the window almost forgetting the entourage of students he had brought in tow, who also were eagerly awaiting their chance to view the patient.

A young Asian student looked up from her notes. “Excuse me, Doctor, what exactly makes this case special? Certainly there are other patients who are also in a catatonic state?”

Still looking calmly through the window of the cell door, the doctor chose his words carefully as he stroked his short groomed beard, “A catatonic patient does not move and requires intervention from staff to survive. This patient is not that. She spends every moment of every day staring blindly at that wall. She does not move, she does not sleep as far as we can tell. Her eyes are transfixed to one point on the wall, almost as though she can see beyond the wall.”

A male student with small framed glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose asked, “Doctor Giddon, I don’t understand. You refer to her as catatonic, but yet she isn’t. Can you elaborate?”

The Doctor tried to explain, “She feeds herself in an autonomic response. It has taken years to find a balance that works for her and the staff. She is fed once a day; any more than that awakens her in a violent way. Once a week, six of our biggest orderlies restrain her for bathing…it is a challenge. Anything that takes her from that spot and that wall evokes an endorphin response. She demonstrates strength and skill that should not be possible. Frankly, we are at a complete loss as to what drives her.” Doctor Giddon now stepped aside, breaking his view of the room and allowed his students to move forward.

“What does an MRI and CT scan show, Doctor Giddon?” another asked.

“I wish we could do such tests on her,” the Doctor agreed. “That’s what makes her case unusual. Medications have little to no impact on her. Sedatives are a complete waste of time. Without her cooperation, I’m afraid medical tests of any real meaning are out of the question. This is what works, as barbaric as it may seem. We can only hope that one day whatever has taken her away, will bring her back.”

A keen student asked as he gawked through the small window, “I can barely see her. Doctor, would it be possible to enter the cell, if we stay clear of her wall?”

Doctor Giddon shook his head. “No one will have access to her. Every year at least one staff is severely injured, usually on bathing day. Feeding is done only through this specialized food slot on the floor. This allows us to push her food in on a paper plate. No, access to her is restricted, for your safety and hers.”

“She seems so small, is she really that dangerous?”

Doctor Giddon reminisced, “some years back, just after she slid into this state on a permanent basis, one of our nurses was brutalized. The patient tore through the nurse’s stomach in a matter of seconds like a savage. The nurse fought back, and help was not far away, but it didn’t stop her from doing what she did. She caught us completely off-guard, and that was the last time we were ever that careless.”

“Was the nurse okay?” a student asked.

“She survived, if that’s what you mean…but was severely traumatized. She lost her baby that day. She was only a few months pregnant, not even showing and she hadn’t told anyone. Somehow this creature knew. She tore the tiny fetus from the womb with her teeth and hands and ate it,” the doctor laid out in disgust. “After that day, I knew what we held in this place was nothing short of pure evil, if you believe in evil. I didn’t, but I do now. This place will change you in ways you can’t imagine, and I cannot prepare you for it.”

A liberal thinking student at the back of the pack asked, “Doctor, you refer to the patient only as a patient, she or her, what is the woman’s name?”

“I have de-humanized her. I’ll even go as far as referring to her as ‘it’ on occasion. Somehow it does not seem right to refer to this thing as a person. What exists behind this door may never have been human. If you must know, she entered this world as Marta—Marta Foster.”

The Asian student again interjected, “how did she come to this place?”

Doctor Giddon looked at the student with his tarnished eyes, not knowing how to answer. He knew the cause of her arrival, but as the doctor who originally worked with Marta before the incident he felt a level of guilt. To share or not share his troubling secret…this is what weighted on him.

“I knew the family,” Giddon finally said. “I met Marta when she was very young. The girl was troubled and delusional. Many of the things that made Marta a concern were simple childhood oddities. I had assured the family that I could help her. Instead, she slid further into her state of mind. I…I tried everything, but I don’t think I realized how troubled she was. She stabbed her infant brother. Marta was calculated in her assault and she was completely absent of emotion. If her mother had not been there, I’m certain Marta would have killed him.”

“You’ve been her doctor for that long?” A young man asked with his glasses now about to slide off the end of his nose.

“Fifteen years is not that long,” Giddon shrugged. “Some people research one subject their entire career. I feel I owe it to that family and to that child who lost her way so long ago. I do believe there is a solution to every problem. Sometimes a solution takes a lifetime to present itself. Though I admit I am at a loss on this one. Who knows, maybe one of you will be the brilliant mind to crack this medical enigma.” Doctor Giddon turned abruptly and left the cell door, marching down the cold corridor in almost a prancing motion. “Come now, I have another patient you should meet.

“This next one is Jimmie, harmless, so we can enter the room with him. If anything, he’s good for a laugh. Jimmie suffers from multiple personalities, however he manifests them as fictional characters from movies. If we’re lucky he might be Burt Reynolds today. His Bandit personality is spot on!”

The crowd chuckled and marched in step with Doctor Giddon, leaving one student behind and unnoticed. The curious onlooker peered through the window into the darkness of the young woman’s room but was unable to make sense of the layout. Incapable of releasing himself from the inquisition that had overtaken him, he grabbed his car keys. Attached to the set was a small LED flashlight. He thought to himself that the action would be harmless; he had to see it.

The light engaged and he began sweeping the room for signs of the mysterious Marta. The beam illuminated various areas but it was nowhere to be found. He took special note of her wall but could see nothing of interest on it.

The young student was about to give up when his eye caught a glimpse of something in the darkness. In the corner across from the door, blackness rocked from side to side. Inside the shadow of the room existed something even darker.

The interested scholar turned his beam to shed light on the elusive Marta. The cold torch of light shattered apart in the window pane as a small hand burst through the glass, grabbing the voyeur by the throat and pulled him in through the tight space. Marta scraped and stretched his flesh enough to get his lower lip far enough into the room to allow her to rip it off with her teeth. The student only started to scream audibly when Marta released him and he fell to the floor.