Photo by Clay Banks from Unsplash

***

Mike sped toward town, shirtless underneath his jacket like a sexy demon hunter from the shows he liked to watch if they wore dorky glasses and gripped steering wheels like the Hulk. It made me want to laugh, and by Mike's knitted eyebrows, I probably had.

"Hold that tighter! Your cut is deep." My hands did as he asked since his firm voice was so rare it unsettled me. The pressure and shot of pain caused me to cringe. "I should pull over," he muttered and eyed the road hardly wide enough for two vehicles.

As he slowed down, this afternoon's forest corpse flashed before my eyes, and I gritted my teeth. "No, we'll stop in town. It's not far."

His blood-crusted nails scratched his forehead. "Why did you have a knife?"

"For protection."

"From what?"

"From whatever was coming after us."

"Was someone in the house? I told you, you shouldn't have gone in there."

I wasn't sure what to call the voices and shadows. They weren't human since the knife didn't impact them. Were they a stranger's illusions fabricated to mess with me or my delusions? I couldn't tell what was real anymore, but I wouldn't reveal it to Mike and tangle him in my madness. He'd already called me crazy.

"No, but you never know." I studied Mike's chest, arms, and legs for injuries. He'd got me in the vehicle so quickly, I hadn't checked if he was alright after our collision. "I didn't hurt you with the knife, did I?"

"No, just yourself. Didn't you see or hear me coming? I was yelling your name."

I shook my head. "The adrenaline---I saw the empty car and...."

Mike squeezed my bicep. "I went looking for you. After that statue threw you and glowed, you weren't picking up your phone."

It was reassuring he'd chosen to save me despite the danger and that the statue's power had been legitimate. I smiled at him. "Thanks, Mike."

The corners of his eyes didn't crease like they normally did when he grinned. "I still can't believe you did this for Milo. We should have given that troubled cat to the police."

Milo hissed from the backseat. I had been a mess after my mother's death too. Sure, he was a cat, but Mrs. Crawford's madness reminded me enough of my mom to take pity on the furry guy. No one else understood.

"Hasn't he been through enough?"

"I refuse to let you put yourself in more danger for that animal. We're staying at a hotel until there's a better investigation into the statue."

I pressed Mike's shirt tighter to my leg.

"Is an investigation necessary?"

An investigation would mean they'd find the body. I'd been too shocked to make out any features beyond the milky white colour of the skin, the flat chest, and the crimson shoulder sockets. The scent of my metallic blood didn't help my nausea. I bit my lip. Would the police lock me up after discovering Mrs. Crawford and having a body in our backyard? I had a knife and was covered in blood, mine, but they didn't know that.

"Of course it is. If the statue connects these disappearances and it's on our doorstep, the police need to know. I'll call them now." Mike brought up his recent contacts on the dash screen.

I swallowed hard. I should have told him about the body, but maybe I could pretend I never saw it. If it was true, the officers would discover it during their investigation, anyway. It would keep my unstable mind under the radar in case I was hallucinating again.

As a kid, I had sat in the police station with my mother, but outside the cell, feeling helpless as the officer berated and accused her of things she hadn't done. All because of her eccentricities. It had taken her weeks to recover from those visits.

You were supposed to watch her and talk her out of her delusions, Winnie, not encourage her madness.

I wasn't a kid anymore and knew better than to invite trouble into my life. They'd be looking to blame someone who looked mentally unsound, and I needed to keep my name clean.

The phone rang over the car speakers. "Corbeau Woods police department, Jeanine speaking."

"Jeanine, it's Mike. Winston and I met with Officer Potts this morning."

"Mike," her voice brightened. "How can I help you? The office is a ghost town with today's commotion in the woods."

"That's why I was calling."

I tensed. Did Mike know about the body in the forest?

"Our property borders the woods, and when we got there after the game, we found that eye statue."

"Oh my god!" Jeanine shrieked. "Is everything okay?"

"We're pretty shaken. It's terrifying in person. We thought with the recent disappearances, officers should check it out. We'll be staying at the Nid de Corbeau if the police need to find us. It didn't feel safe to stay." Mike caught my eye and gave me a slight smile.

"Okay. I will send an officer to your home A.S.A.P. You should attend the meeting, so you can share what you saw."

"Thanks, Jeanine, we will." Mike pressed the end call button on the steering wheel.

The forest thinned, and larger two and three-storey brick homes bordered the road. No one was doing yard work or wandering the sidewalks despite the break in the clouds or leaves and dead branches littering the lawns. Everyone must have been heeding the cops' warning.

"How's that leg doing?" he asked.

I inspected the cloth that didn't seem to grow much redder. "The bleeding might be slowing down."

"I'm taking you to the clinic."

"I don't know if—" I stopped as Mike shot me a look. "Thanks."

The vehicle remained quiet as we drove into the town centre. I only had that luxury because I'd injured my leg, and he was trying to keep me calm. Otherwise, he'd be questioning me about what happened in the forest at our place and Mrs. Crawford's. What could I use as an excuse? I wasn't easily spooked, so he wouldn't believe me blaming it on a noise or an animal. If I told him the truth about the voices, he'd leave me. Any sane human being would.

He pulled up in front of a two-storey brick building with a wide window facing us. The waiting room was empty. "Is everything alright, other than your leg?" Mike's hazel stare made my stomach shift. It was soft, yet determined.

"Yes."

His eyes lingered. Although he hadn't bought it, he turned off the engine.

"Milo stays in the car."

I clung tighter to him. "No! Haven't you heard what happens to pets trapped in cars?"

He rubbed my shoulder. "I'll leave a window open wide enough for him to jump out if he needs to, and I'll check on him if we're in there for a while. Okay?" 

After I nodded, he hopped out and came to open the passenger door. He pulled my arm around my shoulder and ease me out of the vehicle. I could have walked alone, but I wanted to be close to him while I still could. It was a good idea, as it ached to put pressure on that leg.

Mike pried the clinic door open, and we hobbled to the empty front desk. They must have forgotten to turn on the heat today because the air was ice cold. I shivered against him. He rang the bell and called out "hello." A minute later, Lindsey Fisher, who had dark circles under her eyes, trudged to the desk.

When she met my gaze, something growled. It couldn't be Milo. Neither my husband nor she reacted. Just the blood loss, I told myself.

"We're closed for walk-ins."

"This can't wait." Mike gestured to my leg.

As Lindsey pushed her black, rhinestone-edged glasses up her nose, her eyes widened. I swore she smiled. "What happened?"

"An accident with a kitchen knife."

"Come with me." She grabbed a pair of disposable gloves from the front desk, and we walked down a narrow corridor. 

The walls darkened with moving shadows and closed in around me. One shadow morphed into an eye that rotated, another into an arm reaching toward me, and lastly a soccer player who ran to kick the eye only to have his legs fall off his body. His upper body fell while his legs continued their flight. I stopped in my tracks as I gasped for breath.

"Winston, are you okay?"

Mike looked only at me, not at the madness surrounding me. How could I make this stop?

"I'm fine." 

Both the doctor and Mike raised their eyebrows then helped me into a sterile room. Posters of the anatomy of muscles and bones hung on the walls. The muscle tissue on the legs glowed bright red until it seemed to drip with blood that descended the poster and dripped down the wall.  

Lindsey cleared her throat. She motioned for me to lie on the examination table and peeled away the t-shirt bandage.

"Raise your leg." As I tried to prop it up, pain shot through the limb, and I groaned. "Slowly does it," she said as she lifted it. When she drew out a pair of scissors, I tensed. What was her plan, to dig right in? Instead, she cut a hole in the pants around the wound and cleaned it.

"A strong man like you should have been more careful, Winnie," Lindsey said, her voice taking on the eerie cadence of the forest voices as she grinned a toothless smile.

I jumped back, and Mike held me down. "I know it stings, but it'll be worse if it gets infected. She's almost done."

Had he heard Dr. Fisher or was that another vision? When I glanced at her, she inspected my wound, mouth closed.

"How long ago did this happen?" Her voice had returned to her regular silvery tone.

Mike and I looked at each other. Looking at a clock had been the last thing on my mind, and it was growing more difficult to discern what was real and imagined.

"I think ten minutes," he answered.

She continued cleaning. "This is going to burn a bit." I squeezed Mike's hand as she flushed the wound. "The good news is this isn't deep enough to require stitches, and the bleeding has mostly stopped. You'll need to rest for at least a week and come back for a check-up."

"I'll make sure he does."

Lindsey opened rectangular packets and pressed gauze onto my injury. She wrapped it in place. "It's a shame this leg will have a scar. It was such a flawless specimen. An intact pair would have been perfect." Her toothless smile returned, and her eyes flashed red.

My stomach twisted, and my entire body chilled like a corpse in a morgue. A thick layer of sweat coated my skin. My head grew light as I turned and threw up on the clinic floor.

Strong hands gripped my shoulder and rubbed my back. "Are you okay, Winston?" my husband asked.

"He should stay overnight for observations. I'll return what's left of him in the morning." Her childlike yet sinister laugh filled my ears.

I bolted from the table, ignoring the pain tearing through my leg. Mike caught me as I swayed. "I just need to rest, at home, with you."

"Winston, you remember—"

"Please," I begged him not to say more about what transpired at our place in front of this predator. Whether this was real or imagined, I was done taking chances.

Dr. Fisher handed him some tape and gauze. "As long as you keep it clean and change the dressing, rest would be the best thing." She turned to me and revealed a mouth full of normal teeth. "Why don't you lie down for a minute Winston while Mike and I fill in some paperwork?"

Was it safer to follow my husband and the potential monster, or to wait alone in an examination room? He studied me like a puzzle he hadn't figured out yet.

"You've been through a lot. Lay down for a bit. I'll take your health card, and we'll be out of here in a minute, okay?" He squeezed my hand and pressed his lips into a smile.

He wasn't the one hallucinating, so I trusted his judgment. "Okay," I croaked. He helped me lie down on the paper-covered exam table. While it wasn't comfortable, slumber lured in my tired form.

When I opened my eyes later, the room was empty, but everything else looked the same. Other than the ache in my leg, I felt a lot better. Mike was right. I needed rest.

The door clicked open. I smiled, expecting my husband, but a woman with snow-white hair and a pink nightdress entered. I flinched. The thick, hot air burned my skin. She turned. My eyes slammed shut.

Don't be afraid, my boy, I'm here to help. The spirits have chosen you.

Had Dr. Fisher given me pain medication without my knowledge? This couldn't be real.

Open your eyes.

I kept them closed.

Don't fight your destiny.

Footsteps echoed in the hall, and the surrounding air returned to its regular temperature. I peeked, and the old woman had vanished. I exhaled a sigh of relief. The door opened, and Mike stood there, studying me.

"Are you feeling any better?"

I nodded and sat up from the examination table. He helped me down, and we shuffled to the front of the clinic together.

"We can stop by the pharmacy on the way home. Dr. Fisher gave you prescriptions for some painkillers and cream to prevent scarring."

"No!" I shouted. No more hallucinations or reasons for that monster to come after my legs. If my line between reality and imagination kept blurring, I had to cover both bases.

Mike stopped and stared.

"Sorry, I meant I would rather go straight to the hotel. I can tolerate the pain for now."

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Yeah, I think it's time to follow more of your advice and rest."

He smiled and squeezed my side. "Thanks, sweetheart."

My brow furrowed. He rarely called me that, but it had been an emotional day, and I couldn't blame him for acting off.