The dark form lumbered forward, its outstretched claws raking along the walls to cut deep gouges in the plaster. Whimpers and frantic prayers bubbled from the open doorways on either side of the wide hallway, but the beast was not interested in them at the moment. They were feeble, incapable of running, and it would come back for them at its leisure.
Now, it was on the chase.
Its ugly head snapped to the left, detecting movement behind a tall counter. It drew in a deep, wet breath through its nostrils to take in the scents of the terrified creatures attempting to hide. One of them broke and ran across in front of it. She was nimble, but not enough, and a lightning-fast strike of its claws reduced her to a bloody mess. Others wailed in despair and ran from their hiding places down the long corridor.
A black wind whirled around the monster and hurtled down the hall in a funnel of humid air and deadly debris. Each open door slammed shut to deny any of the prey escape. As those in the hall screamed and fled for their lives, their cries for help were drowned out by endless thunder. No matter how they pounded at the doors and windows, there was nothing they could do to stop the beast’s inexorable approach.
Its toothy maw yawned open, and the corners lifted in a sadistic smile as it stalked forward with all the patience in the world.
“Good morning, Mrs. Petrović,” Donna said as she sidled through the nursing facility’s front door. Mrs. Petrović stared through the bay window from the small seating area adjoining the front lobby. Sat in a wheelchair with a multicolored afghan tucked snugly about her legs and lap, she did not stir at the sound of her name.
Donna approached the elderly lady and patted her forearm. “You’re looking very pretty today.” Her tone and volume were elevated just enough to be heard without shouting in the woman’s ear. She smoothed out a small section of frizz at the back of Mrs. Petrović’s steel-gray hair, most of which lay flatly around her shoulders. “May I introduce someone to you?”
Mrs. Petrović’s eyes flicked to the side once, and Donna took that as interest. She beckoned behind her and brought a figure forward to stand next to the wheelchair.
“Mrs. Petrović, this is my son, Connor.”
Ten-year-old Connor Howden plastered a polite smile on his face, trying his best not to fidget and squirm under his mother’s grip on his shoulders. He wanted to run a hand through his hair, which hung over his ears and round glasses in an embarrassing approximation of a bowl cut, but he knew that would elicit his mother’s own ministrations. He was still shorter than her and, as he plucked at the cartoon character t-shirt clinging to his skin, he was reminded that he still carried what she assured him was just “baby fat.” Connor was becoming increasingly convinced it was regular fat, though, and that he would grow up to be just as heavy as the rest of his family.
With the prompting of a firm squeeze of his shoulders, Connor babbled, “Ah, um, good morning, M-Mrs. Petro, uh, Petro…” He paled, and his eyes darted around as he struggled with the foreign-sounding name.
“Zora Petrović.” The old woman’s voice whispered like shuffling paper. She continued to stare out the window.
“Connor is going to be helping us out this summer,” Donna explained. “If you need anything, he’s your man.” Mrs. Petrović gave a nearly imperceptible nod before Donna steered Connor away toward the front desk.
“Good morning, Donna,” said the receptionist, a young blonde with plastic hoop earrings and colorful acrylic nails. “Who’s your date?”
Donna scoffed as she filled out some information on a clipboard atop the high-countered desk. “This is my son, Connor; Connor, meet our facility’s front desk receptionist, Crystal.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Miss Crystal,” Connor managed to eke out. He mentally congratulated himself for not bungling that greeting like with Mrs. Petrović.
“Isn’t he just the sweetest? And so polite!” Crystal giggled. Her voice twanged a deep country accent that sounded phony to Connor. “Well, Mister Connor, welcome to Opal Oaks Nursing Care: home to the finest nurses, doctors, and geezers in the whole state of Florida!”
“Don’t call them ‘geezers,’ Crystal.”
“Not like even half of them would know,” Crystal persisted. She winked conspiratorially at Connor, but he noted his mother’s disapproving scowl and opted to study the patterns in the carpet.
Donna asked, “Anything happen over the weekend I should know about?”
Crystal brightened and took an exaggerated look around the lobby before leaning forward. “I heard Tisha was caught smoking in a patient’s room again, Vic was a no-call-no-show Saturday morning, and one of the night nurses on 300 hall told me Miss Candace’s husband ran out on her. How’s that for a packed weekend?” She beamed in self-satisfaction, but Donna’s expression clouded further.
“I meant, was there anything pertinent to caring for our residents that I should know? You know, our job?”
Connor knew that tone well. He heard it whenever he was caught doing something he knew he should not be doing, and it usually preceded punishment of some kind. He was a little confused on why his mother was getting so angry, but he continued to admire the furnishings around him.
As Donna and Crystal continued to talk, Connor’s attention was eventually drawn back to the old woman in the wheelchair. He did not try to guess her age, having enough sense to know that both correct and incorrect guesses could get a man in trouble. His own mother had become touchy recently about her own age, so it was a subject best avoided.
Mrs. Petrović was much older than his mom, though; that much was obvious. Her hair was thin and wiry, her skin was splotched with bruises and healing tears, and her eyes were dulled with cataracts. Still, something about her bearing told Connor that she must have been a beauty in her younger days.
Mrs. Petrović still peered through the bay window, but she was now rocking and whispering to herself. Connor was unconscious of his feet moving him forward, the conversation between his mother and the receptionist fading as he zeroed in on Mrs. Petrović.
It was something special that Connor could do; if he concentrated, he could cause a roaring sound in his ears that helped him focus. When he once described it to his mother, she told him that it was an uncommon trait, but that it was not anything to get too excited about. To a young boy, though, it felt like a superpower.
As he drifted closer and focused harder, Connor heard the words falling from Mrs. Petrović’s thin lips. “Dolazi oluja, dolazi oluja.” Over and over, she repeated the phrase, her eyes wide with what Connor thought was fear.
“Mrs. Petrović?” he asked haltingly, trying to mirror his mother by placing a hand on the woman’s forearm for comfort. The moment he touched her, she snapped to him and grasped his hand fiercely in both of hers.
“Bata!” she gasped. “Bata, you run!” Her frost-blue eyes plead with him.
Connor tried to pull his hand away from her. His heart thudded in his chest, and the rumbling sound in his ears roared on without his concentration.
A sudden crack of thunder from outside startled them both, and they flinched apart from each other.
“Oluja je ovde,” she muttered, her eyes back to the window and her trembling hands covering her mouth.
The sunny morning had dimmed. A storm was rolling in.
Connor backed away from Mrs. Petrović to the safety of his mother. Her ongoing conversation seemed undisturbed by the thunderclap. Connor turned in time to see Donna pinching the bridge of her nose while her other hand rested on her rounded hip. These were more signs of vexation that Connor was familiar with.
“Admissions, Crystal,” Donna reminded her. “I work in admissions and need to know if there was anything that happened relevant to admissions.”
Crystal grabbed a blue folder from a rack to her left and flipped it open petulantly. “Nothing too exciting. One of the beds in 511 opened up, but it’s been filled already.”
Donna looked surprised by this. “511… that’s Mr. Baker and Mr. Jordan. Who left?”
“Mr. Jordan,” Crystal replied as she took a file to her nails. “He died Sunday morning.”
“What?” Donna gasped. Her shock sent cold anxiety rippling through her son.
“Yeah, he had a heart attack or something, and he was gone before anyone could get to him. You know how it goes sometimes. Here one minute, stone cold the next.”
Donna nodded for a moment. She then gathered up Connor’s hand in hers and led him past the reception desk into the hall branching off to the right. “We’ll be in my office, Crystal.”
Crystal rose slightly and called out a concerned, “Sorry!”
Donna moved quickly down the hall and did not respond.
Connor wanted to mention his moment with Mrs. Petrović, but the tears on his mother’s face chased away those concerns and replaced them with new ones.
The yellow-tiled corridor twisted at odd angles, and Connor imagined it drawing him into its depths like the Labyrinth drew in Perseus. Or was it Theseus? He always got those two confused.
“Mom?”
“In a second, honey.”
“But Mom—”
“I said, ‘In a second.’” They reached a plain, wood-grained door with a silver handle that looked exactly like all the other doors along the hallway, but this one had a small plaque to the right of it that read “Admissions: Donna Howden.”
Donna released Connor’s hand to dig into her canvas tote bag. A moment later, she produced a jingling set of keys and dropped them, dropping a hushed expletive as well.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
Connor squatted to pick the keys up. She had been using language like that more and more recently. His ears had turned hot the first few times he had heard her curse, but he was growing accustomed to it. Besides, the movies they watched said words like that all the time. It did seem unfair that he still got punished when he said one of those words, though.
Once unlocked, the door swung open to reveal a cramped office cluttered with filing cabinets, a couple bookcases, and a desk bearing a boxy computer monitor. A small folding table occupied the right wall, and Donna pointed Connor to it. “That’ll be your office.” She went to her desk and pulled out a series of tissues, dabbing her eyes and blowing her nose.
“Mom?”
Donna sighed into her tissue. She was irritated, but Connor did not understand why. “Yes, Connor?”
He wanted to ask her why she was crying, why Miss Crystal got on her nerves, why Mrs. Petrović behaved so strangely, why he had to be here at this weird-smelling, painfully bright facility all summer. He settled for, “Who was it with the Labyrinth?”
“What?”
“The Labyrinth and the bull monster. Which guy was it? Perseus or Theseus?”
Donna stared at him for a moment, then laughingly pulled him into a hug. “Theseus.”
“Then it was Perseus who fought the snake-lady?”
“Medusa the Gorgon, yes.”
“I think I like Perseus better.”
Donna kissed him on the top of his head and continued to hold him. “I’m sorry you’re stuck here with me this summer. We’ll make it fun; I promise.”
“It’s okay, Mom.”
He doubted it would be fun in any capacity, but he resolved not to complain. At least, he would try not to. This summer was not about him having fun. It was about trying to survive when your entire world was falling apart.
This is the opening of a horror novel I conceived a while back. If you enjoyed this, please let me know! I’ll definitely be continuing the story someday, but I’ve got way too many plates in the air at the moment to write every story on my mind.
As always, thanks for reading!
S.M. Osborne
Def want to read more.