“Doctor!” Theta called. “Can you help me? My friend is sick.…”
The doctor’s head whipped in their direction. The faulty light blinked on, off, on, off. But it had been enough to see: Blood spattered the good doctor’s suit. The nurse’s eyes were fixed and a gash marred her pretty throat. The doctor reached under his coat and retrieved the ax hidden there. His gaze drifted ceiling-ward. His lips stretched into a tight smile. His teeth glinted in the blinking light.
“She questioned my authority, the bitch. Can you imagine?” The doctor laughed. It was the laugh Theta had heard earlier, the deranged one.
“Polly Pratchet had a hatchet. Worked it night and day,” the doctor said, grunting as he swung the ax. “Polly Pratchet had a hatchet. Now you’d better pray!”
“They got inside him,” Isaiah said, coming out of his trance. “He belongs to them.”
Theta grabbed Isaiah’s hand and ran, searching for a place to hide. Behind them, the doctor’s voice splintered as if several of him spoke at once: “We are the Forgotten, forgotten no more.”
They came to a stairwell that led down to the second and first floors. Isaiah pulled back on Theta’s hand and shook his head. “We shouldn’t go down there.”
The doctor staggered after them, dragging his ax along the floor behind him, leaving a trail of blood. Theta could just make out the wisps of blue mist coming off him, as if he were made of ice inside.
“We can’t go back that way. This is the only way out.”
Theta knew not to ignore Isaiah’s premonitions. But what choice did they have? She stretched her fingers, as if trying to work heat into them, but no spark would come. Theta peered over the stair railing. The flickering bulb overhead made it hard to see. Down below, it was completely dark. Worse, the staircase wound around; if somebody or something was hiding around a curve, they wouldn’t know until it was too late.
“All right. I’ll go first. Stay behind me, okay?”
Isaiah nodded, and they stepped into the stairwell, away from the madman with the ax screaming behind them. Theta took a few tentative steps. Her legs quivered. She feared they’d give way completely. She’d never been so terrified. The scraping of the ax echoed even in the stairwell’s gloom. She reached the first landing, between the second and third floors. “Okay. It’s safe.”
Isaiah stepped down quietly behind her.
“So far so good,” she said.
But the passage to the second floor was much darker. Theta could barely make out the steps in the gloom. Anything could be down there. The doctor laughed as he clanged the ax against the door. He was inside the stairwell!
“Same plan,” Theta said. “Follow my lead.”
Carefully, she ventured to the second floor, feeling for each step, hoping nothing would grab her as she moved down. She reached the second-floor landing without incident. Isaiah caught up to her.
“Just one more,” she whispered. Isaiah nodded. “You, uh, don’t see anything, do you?”
Isaiah shook his head. “I’m too scared. I can’t tell.”
Theta crept down into the deeper dark. She was nearing the next landing when she nearly missed a step. On instinct, she gripped the railing. It was freezing. And wet. Her hand came up with something sticky. She dared not move. Her breath came out in white puffs.
“Theta?”
Theta didn’t want to take her eyes off whatever might be lurking in the gloom below. Oh, god. Oh, god, she’d led them right down into it!
“Theta!” Isaiah whispered frantically.
Her mind wanted to slip away. Like with Roy. No, Theta. Stay awake. Stay here. Isaiah. Help Isaiah. She turned to look up at Isaiah on the landing above her. The fog was behind him, creeping closer. “Theta,” he said, terrified. He knew. Of course he knew.
“Isaiah. Isaiah, be very still,” she whispered.
Her heart beat out of control. She thought she might faint. She couldn’t faint. Not with Isaiah in trouble.
“Come to me. No! Don’t turn around.”
She stretched out her hand. It was shaking. Why was there no fire?
“That’s it. One step at a time,” she said.
Isaiah put a foot on the step below. And then another. Theta could tell he wanted to run. Behind him, the fog followed. Theta could make out the ghostly shapes of women wearing ragged dresses from a bygone era. Moth-eaten shawls hung about their shoulders. Rotted bonnets rested atop their pale, skeletal heads. They moved as one, their voices overlapping: “Child. Child. A child. Child. Give us the child. Our children, all lost! All gone! We need the child, the child, the child…”
Isaiah was nearly to her. Theta could almost touch him.
The ghosts howled their displeasure. So many teeth! Theta recoiled, and the murky women wrapped their ghostly arms tightly around Isaiah, pulling him in.
“Theta!” Frantic, Isaiah reached for her.
“No!” Theta grabbed Isaiah and tucked him close.
“The child is ours!” the women hissed, racing around behind her.
“No. He’s. Not.” Theta whirled to face them. Sudden heat flooded her palms as she pushed the ghosts away. They wailed in agony. They could feel pain!
“Come on, Isaiah!” Theta said. She yanked off her coat and wrapped it around her still-hot hand, then looped her arm through Isaiah’s, half dragging him down the stairs at record speed. Down in the dark of the stairwell, the ghosts shrieked and shrieked until their echo sounded like the cry of a dying animal.
In the storm, Henry stood perfectly still, watching in horror as pale, glowing fingers pushed up from the broken ground. The ghosts rose one by one, shaking off the dirt of their graves. The stench of death hung over them. The lights of the asylum glinted against the fog. How far was it? How many graves were there between Henry and the way back?
A little girl turned toward Henry. Decades-old grave dirt stained the pinafore of her old-fashioned dress. Her crepey skin was the color of morning ashes and pitted with pockmarks. Her eyes were cold and fathomless. She cocked her head and sniffed at Henry.
“H-hello,” Henry whispered. She’s just a kid, he told his hammering heart.
“Hungry!” the little girl said. A thin stream of black drool dripped across her cracked bottom lip.
“Hungry,” the others agreed.
On a terrifying hiss, the little girl opened her eel-shine mouth wide as a snake’s. She had a lot of teeth.
“I really hate the t-teeth,” Henry said.
The ghosts’ feet hovered just above the sopping ground. Their voices swirled in the night air. “We are the Forgotten. You have forgotten us. Forgotten us. Forgotten. We are the Forgotten. We will live inside you and you will not forget us again.”
“Wait. Wait!” Henry yelled. “Y-you don’t want to hurt me!”
The ghosts stopped their advance. They seemed to have heard him.
Like a dream, Henry thought. Pretend this is a dream.
“You don’t want to hurt me,” he said again, using the same persuasive voice he’d used in his dream walks to stop a nightmare in its tracks. “You don’t want to hurt me.” He backed carefully toward the asylum.