Riverwatch

Chapter Nineteen: Warnings

While the two officers lie dying on the other side of town, Sam was seated in his swivel chair behind the nursing station with his dog-eared copy of Stephen King’s IT in his hands. He was halfway through his shift when he heard a faint scream.

He leaned forward so he could see over the counter-top and looked down the hall.

It was empty.

Silence lay thick in the air, a brooding, physical presence.

He sat there for a moment, listening, and had just convinced himself that he’d only heard the sound in his mind, a result of King’s ability to bring the written word to life, when he heard it again.

Except this time it didn’t stop. This time it continued in one long wail, a desperate sound of anguish and terror that rose in volume until it was impossible for him to believe it was anything but real.

For a split-second, Sam was paralyzed by the horror he heard in that cry.

Then his training took over and he was up and running, his rubber-soled shoes slapping against the cold linoleum floor, his book forgotten on the counter behind him.

The screaming continued.

He felt the cold dead hand of fear grasp his gut and twist it savagely.

Nausea threatened.

His mind raced ahead of him, doing its best to come up with a medical emergency that would cause a person to scream in such a fashion.

When it failed, his imagination took up the slack, conjuring up visions of dark little demons that had crossed the barrier from the Underworld, hell-born fiends that ripped and tore at frail, unprotected flesh; their razor-sharp teeth glinting wickedly in the dim lighting of the rest home.

He was halfway down the hallway now. Only a few seconds had elapsed since he’d hurtled out of his chair, but as that scream rose and fell in his ears every second felt like an eternity. Time became an exercise in slow-motion cinematography and Sam was cast as the show’s male lead. He felt like he was swimming through a river of molasses and barely making headway against the current.

His mind urged him to run faster.

The scream went on and on.

His heart was in his throat, beating a rapid-fire rhythm.

His hands were slick with sweat.

A strong urge to clamp his hands tightly over his ears to block out that chilling cry came to him then, but he ignored it. Jesus, he thought, make it stop, please, God, make it stop!

But God either didn’t care or wasn’t listening because it didn’t. It just went on, echoing off the stark institutional walls.

Sam was passing individual rooms now; 301, 302, 303, 304…

With a jolt he realized the sound was coming from the last room on the left, the one that stood all alone around the far corner of the hall.

Number 310.

Gabriel’s room.

As he swung around the corner, his feet sliding on the slick tile, his arms thrust against the walls to maintain his balance, time returned to its normal pace, and for one awful moment Sam thought he’d black out as his senses rebelled against the illusions his mind was creating. But then he regained a foothold of control on his body and the grayness that was looming just behind his eyes receded.

He skidded to a stop in the doorway of the room.

In the split-second in which he first glanced inside the room Sam thought he’d been right; gremlins from Hell had indeed paid Gabriel a visit. The old man was thrashing wildly in his bed and Sam saw with horror that there was something crouched on the man’s chest, a small dark form which he was beating with his fists. The room was filled with the sound of screaming.

As Sam’s eyes adjusted to the dimness inside the room, he realized the truth.

Gabriel was having a nightmare.

The object on his chest was nothing more than his own pillow. His trashing was a result of being entangled in his bedsheets.

Relief swept over Sam like the touch of a cool ocean wave.

Sam crossed to Gabriel’s side and tried to awaken him. The old man’s efforts were only making the situation worse, as each new tossing of his limbs twisted the sheets tighter around him, so that he must have felt like a fly caught in a spider’s web.

The screaming suddenly stopped.

In its place came a whimpering cry that filled the room, the cry of a rabbit caught in a snare, and Sam felt the hair on the back of his neck stiffen at the sound.

His mind balked at the terror the man must be experiencing to reduce him to such a state.

"Gabriel! Wake up! It’s just a dream! Wake up!" Sam yelled over the noise. It took some effort to pin one of the old man’s arms to the mattress after grasping hold of it, and Sam was surprised at the man’s wiry strength. He made a grab at the other arm and missed, getting a fist in the mouth for his trouble.

"Gabriel, wake up!"

This time his voice was of sufficient volume to cut through the terror of the Gabriel’s nightmare and reach him. He awoke with a start, and Sam held his arm tighter as he saw the sudden fear that surged in the man’s eyes.

"It’s okay, Gabriel. It’s okay. It’s Sam. You were just having a bad dream, that’s all, just a dream." He spoke in soft gentle tones and gradually the fear he saw in the man’s wrinkled features receded, to be replaced by a look of utter exhaustion.

"Oh, sweet mercy, Sammy," the older man croaked in a weary voice as he slumped back against the pillows.

"It’s okay now, Gabriel. You were just dreaming. Take a few deep breaths and try to relax."

"He’s out there, Sammy. I know he is. I can feel him. He’s out there waiting for me."

"Nobody’s out there. It was just a bad dream."

"No, Sammy. You don’t understand! He’s out there and he knows I know it. He escaped, he’s gotten free. But I’m too weak now Sammy, too weak. I can’t stop him this time," he said.

Sam watched as Gabriel turned his head to stare out the window into the night’s darkness. He seemed to be searching the sky for something, and seemed more than a little relieved to see that whatever it was wasn’t there. He turned back to face Sam.

"He knows. Knows where I am. He’ll come for me, too. You mark my words, he’ll come for me. And this time he won’t be the one who loses."

"Come on, Gabriel. There’s nobody there. No one is going to come after you. You were just having a bad dream." Sam was growing nervous himself now, the man’s attitude like some kind of infectious disease, quickly spreading.

Relax, he told himself. The old man’s starting to lose it upstairs. Had to happen sometime, right?

Sam sighed. He genuinely liked Gabriel. He was a quiet patient, never needing much but a few kind words here and there, but old age was bound to have caught up with him at some point and it looked like it finally had.

"Tell you what, Gabe. I’ll just sit right here next to you and keep you company. That way no one can get to you without going through me, okay?" he said, smiling to show there was nothing to fear as he pulled a chair up next to the bed. The old man’s hand sought his own, and Sam held it gently without saying anything, calmly waiting for Gabriel to fall back asleep.

Fifteen minutes later, just when he got up to leave, positive that the old man was sleeping peacefully, Gabriel spoke out of the darkness in a thin, whispery tone.

"Watch the sky, Sammy. When he comes, it will be on night’s velvet wings, as swift as the darkness itself. It will be too late to save me but not too late to save yourself, as long as you watch the sky…"

He sounds so certain, he thought to himself as he stepped to the door, and for a moment considered going back to question Gabriel more closely to see if there was any substance behind his talk. But then the man’s gentle breathing reached his ears across the short space of the room and he changed his mind.

He’s asleep now. If you wake him up, he’ll only be frightened again and may not be able to get back to sleep so easily a second time. It’s better to just let it go. He probably won’t even remember it in the morning, Sam thought to himself.

That was when he looked toward the window and saw the dark, hulking shape perched on the balcony just outside.

"Oh, my God!" he said in a frightened whisper, his arms falling limply to his sides. He was suddenly too scared to move.

It’s here, he thought. The thing Gabriel’s afraid of is really here! It’s come for him, just like he said it would!

But after a moment or two, when whatever it was didn’t move, Sam began to doubt what he was seeing.

What’s your problem? he asked himself irritably, willing his body into motion. There’s no such thing as flying demons or whatever the thing was supposed to be. It’s probably just a chair someone forgot to take back inside, that’s all.

Keeping that idea foremost in his mind, Sam marched across the room and flipped on the light switch on the wall next to the sliding glass door to the balcony. The lamp hanging on the wall outside came on, flooding the balcony with light.

He’d been right.

It was only a chair.

Feeling more than a little foolish now, Sam turned the light back off and slipped quietly out of the room. He returned to his station at the other end of the hall and sat back down. He picked up his book, intending to return to the place where he’d left off, but found that he didn’t have the heart for it anymore. Not after Gabriel’s nightmare and his own scare moments later. I’ve been frightened enough for one night already, thank you very much. Tossing the paperback aside, he grabbed a stack of files and began updating the charts.

He never saw the dark form that returned to the balcony of room 310 just moments after he’d left the room, never knew it spent the rest of the night staring in through the window at the old man lying peacefully in his bed.

More than once he found himself glancing up from his studies to peer out the windows into the darkness, searching the night sky for he knew not what.

There was never anything there, but for some reason that didn’t make him feel any better.