For the first time in days, Jeremiah spoke. He let loose a shriek that echoed through the hospital as his stomach burst, as his insides flew from his body and the eyes that had pierced his soul finally, irrevocably consumed flesh.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
ELTON
Elton Desrosier was in the middle of preparing to send a message to Linda Villanueva when his assistant came scrambling into his office. Elton was late getting her the intel she’d requested, which always made him nervous.
“Dr. Desrosier, I’m sorry to disturb you,” Ty said with a terror-stricken face. “It’s Mr. Samuelson. You need to come see this.”
Ty sprinted ahead. Elton thought that it was inappropriate for him to be running through military hospital hallways unless it was a real emergency. When they reached Samuelson’s room, he understood.
“My God…”
Elton Desrosier tried to come to grips with what was in front of him, what he knew should’ve been impossible. On the bed, where Jeremiah Samuelson was being treated and observed for the past ten days, was nothing but a globular mess of blood and flesh and guts covered by a flimsy hospital gown. The smell, the malodorous stench… a mix of hot feces and blood’s coppery tang. Samuelson’s entrails, intestine, colon… splattered on the white floor. On the walls. On the ceiling. And from somewhere, the faint scent of piss.
They’d had Samuelson under twenty-four-hour surveillance, like therest of the Afflicted. Elton was about to send over the latest batch of names to Linda, what she’d requested hours ago.
And now this. Sound became a distorted, freakish thing. Muted, as if he’d dived underwater. A relief, really. Would Elton’s ears have been able to take the nurse and orderly who’d started to wail? The moan of the medical resident who’d volunteered to be part of the team? Elton looked at Dr. Shapiro from the CDC, who’d been so brave in relaying to the public what had been happening with Samuelson. The doctor’s eyes were vacant, blank. He was gone.
Elton felt a wave of nausea emanate from his stomach. His lunch rose, threatened to erupt from his throat. He held his ground and forced the bile back down. He wouldn’t let his staff see him like that. Someone who was a mess, who lacked dignity. He was in charge.
He remained still, exhaled, remembered enough about his humanity and the humanity of his team to decide that it was best to let them work through their distress however they could. The resident ran from the room while the orderly fell to his knees, made the sign of the cross, and prayed. The others stood around and stared and accepted the reality that Jeremiah Samuelson was gone.
Dr. Shapiro pronounced the estimated time of death as Elton called in a special forensics team to handle the remains. He would have to alert Samuelson’s immediate family, though he only had one surviving sister and a few nieces and nephews. And the press… What in the world were they going to tell the press? How long could they keep the news under wraps? Could they ask Samuelson’s family to keep things quiet? No one knew that the Afflicted were being taken to medical facilities at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, right in Samuelson’s neighborhood. The potential for pandemonium…
“I… I don’t want to be here,” Nurse Winters said. Her eyes were red and puffy, her face streaked with tears. “I can’t take this. This is something…
evil. I quit.”
Her declaration, muffled, submerged. Elton’s hearing still wasn’t fully functional. “I understand, Ms. Winters. But perhaps if you just took some time for yourself, don’t make a hasty decision. You’re… you’re in shock, right? Take the rest of the evening off. We’ll have someone relieve your shift.”
“Elton, I know this is difficult,” Dr. Shapiro said. “Do you need a moment, maybe clean yourself up?”
The world was back in full sound. Elton could hear the doctor clearly. “Clean myself up? What are you talking about?”
And that’s when Elton felt it. The wetness on his left thigh, the clinginess of his pants. He looked down and saw the dark splotch that covered the fabric. He’d pissed himself.
Elton stalked out of the room without another word to his staff, grateful for the additional clothes he kept at the office and locker room shower that he could use. Twenty minutes later, in a fresh button-down and slacks, he sat at his computer. Elton was too numb to feel embarrassment over his accident. He wasn’t a small-minded man. He knew that even the most stalwart soldier could break when faced with what he’d just witnessed. And he was far from a warrior.
He placed his hands on his keyboard. His fingers trembled. How should he begin his report? What would he tell his superiors? Did it make any sense to even begin to try and make heads or tails of what had just happened to Samuelson?That poor man…
Elton took a moment. There were even more practical matters to consider. Was his current setup safe? Did he and his staff need to get as far away from the Afflicted as they could? Leave them to their fate? What if their condition was indeed contagious?
You arrogant, egocentric, self-inflated fool, Elton told himself for the millionth time since the demon-eye crisis had begun.To think you were equipped to handle this.As much as the public was labeling the president a coward for refusing to return to DC until the situation was resolved, Elton wasrelieved. If he’d had to contend with the safety of the executive branchon top ofcongressional safety, he wasn’t quite sure how he would’ve managed.
A clinical psychologist who’d completed additional coursework in program management and municipal ordinances, Elton had jumped at the chance to serve as liaison between the federal government and special victims unit of the Metropolitan Police Department. The perfect role for someone with his skill sets, where he could balance his penchant for technocracy with helping the common man.Andhe could be a type of free, floating agent. When he’d heard that a paranormal initiative was being created by the feds with arms in the MPDC, he’d immediately asked to be involved in its creation. He never imagined, only a few weeks after ghosts wrecked New York, that he’d be dealing with a supernatural catastrophe in DC. Really, what were the odds?
The number of the Afflicted had grown to fifty-four. Every day, more cases were discovered. People fumbling around in alleyways and parking garages with eyes aglow. Boomer parents quietly calling 911 to fetch millennial children whose gazes had turned fiery. Demon eyes running for their lives from folks who wanted to rid the world of individuals they perceived as possessed. A few cases had even appeared in clusters. Thus a small handful of people had volunteered to be held at the base for observation in case they succumbed. How long would it be before the public demanded mandatory quarantines for anyone who’d been in contact with the Afflicted? Elton thought it was inevitable. The ACLU would have a field day.
He wanted to tell himself that there was a scientific explanation for everything that was occurring, for what had just happened with Jeremiah Samuelson. But he knew, just knew… from when he’d first met Linda Villanueva, from when she’d touched him with her mind, that the inexplicable was all around, ready to seethe forward without warning.
When Elton had first been introduced to the concept of a soul self in some new age rag he’d stumbled upon, he thought that it was thebiggest wad of nonsense he’d ever heard. Regardless of what one believed about the existence of a higher power, the notion of the soul was nothing but a series of life experiences that collided with biologically predetermined traits. This idea of inherent self, of there being something fixed and immutable that one could embrace to determine your place in the world… balderdash. When his clients went on and on about getting in touch with who they really were, Elton understood what they were getting at. He wouldn’t correct them but tried to steer them to a more nuanced understanding of the psyche.
And then he’d met Linda. Had entered her agency when he was at one of the lowest points in his life, when the thought of getting through the day without a drink was nearly impossible. When his struggles were affecting his work as a therapist, with clients noticing that he was showing up to sessions drunk. She had talked him through the weird visions that came to him as they sat together, things that he’d long forgotten. How serene he felt when reclining by the sea in his native Guadeloupe. The pride he felt earning a full scholarship to Yale University. The gratitude he experienced when being recognized for the care he took with his clients.
But she also glimpsed the pain and the mistakes… the things that led him to drink in the first place. That if anyone discovered, would destroy him. All it took was one email or call to the right person and he’d be ruined.
Elton had long stopped wondering if he helped Linda from a place of duty, because she would do the right thing with the requested information, or from a place of fear, because she was intimately acquainted with his skeletons. He’d long stopped wondering such things because the outcome was always the same. Linda Villanueva always got what she wanted. And Elton knew without a doubt she’d want the full details of Samuelson’s death, regardless of what his team shared with the press, along with the names of the newly Afflicted.
