Chapter the 10th
“The storm center hovering over the Monangahela Valley refuses to budge,” said the newscaster while pointing to the dark swirls on the weather map. “All highways in the vicinity are closed, leaving the area cut off from every other place. Only emergency vehicles are allowed past the police blockades and even they are moving slowly and cautiously as they have zero visibility.”
Scott Simpson glanced over at the assortment of people in the hospital’s reception area, many of them anxiously awaiting news of a loved one. The weather news was kept going in circles just like the winds in the storm center. Everybody else looked as bored as Scott felt.
“This has got to be the most inexplicable storm in recorded meteorological history,” said a representative of the weather bureau. “We never saw this storm coming. Usually a storm center forms over the ocean and comes across our way, or it forms up north, near the Arctic Circle and comes down. But not this time. One minute, there was no winter storm in sight and then the next minute, the elements formed a storm center right before our eyes.”
Despairing of seeing anything half way interesting appearing on the television, Scott shuffled over towards the gift shop. He toyed with the idea of buying a Get Well card for Dornal, but nothing on display seemed to fit the situation. Maybe a miniature teddy bear, Scott mused, but he feared it might be transformed into another monster. He looked over the books. Scott didn’t even know if Dornal could read English or not. Perhaps he would buy a book for himself to help pass the time. Scott decided to wait on that. He limped back to the television in the hope that something else had come on besides the weather.
It hadn’t. The weatherman was repeating what Scott had heard at least fifteen times already. He plopped down in a chair next to a woman who was knitting vigorously. Two boys paced about the area, impatiently waiting for a parent to come back to them. A loud rustling sound reached Scott’s ears and quickly grew louder. Several people screamed. Scott craned his neck to see what was happening, fearing the worst. Nurses and orderlies ran about in several directions while a golden animal scurried among them. Scott heard the scratching of the animal’s nails on the floor as it reversed its direction and ran straight towards the glass revolving door. The large ivory tusks and the blazing red eyes identified the animal as the golden boar that Dornal had invoked with his curses.
“I shouldn’t have stayed away so long, doctors or no doctors,” Scott muttered to himself.
The boar ran straight through the door, smashing the glass as it ran straight into the driving snow and brought the chilling wind into the hospital’s reception area. Amid the confusion, Scott limped over to the elevator as quickly as he could and punched in the floor he wanted before anybody could notice him and stop him. When the elevator stopped with the last electronic beep, Scott held as breath as the door opened. Everything was worse than he thought. The confused frantic movements of the staff would have been comical if the lives of patients weren’t at stake. Worse, several gold-colored snakes slithered along the hallway. One of them had already tripped up one nurse and she appeared to have been hurt. Scott had the strange feeling that he was wearing an invisibility cloak as he made his way to Dornal’s room while patients were wheeled all around him and other attendants tried to stop the snakes
Scott found Dornal’s room blocked by a whole swarm of golden snakes. They twisted around each other, trying to get free of each other and then slipping away when they succeeded.
“MAY GOLDEN SERPENTS CHOKE THE LIFE OUT OF YOU!” cried Dornal. “MAY THE WILD BOAR TRAMPLE YOUR UNGRATEFUL HEART!”
Scott whipped out his harmonica and played what he could of the lively tune that came to him before. As if he were a snake charmer, the serpents instantly began a little dance during which they disentangled themselves from each other and proceeded through the hall in a more orderly fashion. Dornal yelled another curse which Scott could not hear over the harmonica and then he became quiet, although he was still panting heavily. His face was flushed and Scott doubted that the lively movement of lights on the monitors was a good sign.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” asked a frantic nurse. “CAN’T YOU SEE THIS IS AN EMERGENCY SITUATION?”
“That’s why I’m here,” Scott replied.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING BACK HERE SO SOON?” Dr. Rosskill yelled at Scott.
Scott pointed towards Dornal who was already showing signs that he was relaxing.
“Hmm. Maybe I should have kept you here,” the doctor muttered. “Go take care of somebody else,” she ordered the nurse.
She didn’t wait to be told a second time to leave. Marian waved to Scott to come over to the bedside Dornal’s breathing began to look half-way normal.
“Try talking to him,” Marian urged.
Scott put a hand over Dornal’s wrist.
“It’s okay, Dornal,” he said. “It’ll be okay.”
Dornal turned restlessly in his bed and pulled his wrist away from Scott.
“How—how can it be okay?” Dornal asked.
“We’re all working on it,” said Scott.
“Who?”
“Me. Michael, the boy who got eaten by the dragon. Amarilla. Roger. Samantha. Lots of people.”
“Roger, Amarilla,” Dornal echoed weakly. “Good. Good.”
Dornal’s voice trailed off and he drifted into sleep.
“Do you really know what’s going on here?” the doctor asked Scott.
“Just bits and pieces,” Scott replied. “I can tell you what I can.”
Marian Rosskill sank into a chair, looking as if she had been put through a wringer washer.
“Please do,” said the haggard doctor.
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“This book is most extraordinary!” exclaimed Dilbert Schultz as he focused his flashlight on the page he was examining. “How could you have had a book like this buried in your collection and not known it?”
“That’s what I want to know,” Marvella answered, her voice shaking from the weirdness of everything as much as from the cold. “I really think that this book just appeared mysteriously a day or two ago.”
The library office was still dark and unheated and both the librarian and the scholar had their overcoats bound as tightly as they could make them.
“Do you think it could be an anonymous gift?”asked Dilbert.
“I suppose it could be. I would think that would have to be its official status.”
“It will take much more study and testing before we can be sure,” said the scholar, “but everything about the script looks authentically medieval Irish to me. If this turns out to be a fake, it’s a very clever fake.”
“Let’s hope this is for real,” said Marvella. “We need the money the real thing can give us to finish the new wing the city fathers can’t afford.”
Suddenly the lights turned back on, flooding the page with an unreal light.
“So, they’ve fixed the electricity for the next half hour,” Dilbert remarked.
“Maybe it just went off in another part of town,” Marvella suggested.
“Probably my house this time,” Dilbert muttered.
The page began to shake slightly.
“What? An earthquake on top of everything else?” asked Marvella.
“The floor still seems level,” said Dilbert, even as the book shook even more.
“It looks as if an army of insects are marching across another of these pages,” said Marvella.
She turned several leaves of the book and then jumped back with a cry as it appeared that a nest of golden snakes were wriggling inside the book.
“What is—what is going on?” gasped the scholar.
While the librarian and were friend watched, speechless, half a dozen or so snakes slid off the page and on to the floor. Dilbert stamped hard with his foot but and landed on two of the snakes. To his added surprise, he still failed to stop the advance of the snakes in any way as they slipped under his shoes and under the door as easily as thin sheets of paper.
“Where could they be going? And why?” asked Dilbert.
But no answer escaped Marvella’s lips as more snakes moved off the page, two or three of them landing in her lap.
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“So you are telling me that Karen and Kevin are both lost somewhere in this parallel world?” asked Marion Rosskill.
“I don’t know if they’re lost or not, but they’re there,” Scott answered. “I guess Kevin is probably lost, but Karen is with some good friends I met there myself. These friends are helping Karen find Kevin. If anybody can find him, they can. And they’re doing what they can for Dornal, too. Maybe we can’t see them right now, but there are a lot of people helping us.”
Marion looked over at Dornal who was still sound asleep, and looking fairly peaceful.
“I’m not very good at believing in what I don’t see,” Marion confessed. “I hardly ever have time to go to church, and I practically live next door to one.”
“I know what you mean.”
"I suppose you haven't had any dinner," said Marian.
"No," Scott replied, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders bunched up against his trunk.
"Leave it to me to tell other people to eat and stay alive."
“So you never get around to eating, either?”
"A health-conscious colleague usually points out the nutritional facts of life to me before it is too late,” the doctor replied.
"Maybe busy doctors like you should be put on an IV like their patients," said Scott gently.
Marian smiled for the first time in several days.
"That might not be a bad idea. Do you think it’s time you got home, or do you want to stay here a bit longer?"
“There’s never a good time to go home,” said Scott.
"Oh. Sounds like your mother is as good to you as I am to my own kids."
"My mother’s always home," Scott replied. "That's her trouble."
Marian winced and reached into a deep pocket on her white coat, pulled out a book of tickets, tore one off, and gave it to Scott.
"Here's a meal ticket. Get yourself something to eat in the cafeteria."
"I'm not hungry."
"I understand, but the cafeteria is cheaper than an IV."
Scott smiled sadly, took the meal ticket and walked to the elevator. Much debris still littered the hallway, but Scott was amazed with how quickly the staff in the unit and returned operations to normal as if a wild boar had never broken in from another world. Outside the cafeteria, he found a pay phone, dropped in the coins, and dialed his home number. After about a dozen rings, he finally heard the click of the receiver.
"Hello?"
"Mom, it's Scott. I'm here at the hospital."
"What happened?"
"Don't worry, I'm not a patient here. But—uh—a friend of mine just got hurt real bad. He was hit in the head and his memory's bad."
"I didn't know you had any friends."
"Surprise!"
"Don't get sarcastic with me."
“Don’t get sarcastic with me,” Scott retorted.
“Are you done visiting your friend?”
“No, I have to stay here. He recognizes me and I can talk to him. The doctor wants me to stay with him in case I can draw some more memories out of him.”
“Where’s his family?”
“Same place mine is.”
"What did you say?"
“Strike that from the record."
"When are you going to say something I don't have to strike from the record?" asked Scott’s mother.
“Maybe in ten years or so.”
Scott bit his tongue. He didn't like talking to his mother the way Michael talked to his.
“Are you going to eat some time or other?”
"Yea, the doctor gave me a meal ticket. See you later."
Scott hung up before his mother had a chance to argue. He knew his mother couldn't stop him from doing anything, even if he told her he was going to rob all the banks in town. Why he preferred devoting himself to a total stranger for the benefit of a family he didn't know was a mystery to him.
Scott limped into the cafeteria where orderlies in their green gowns, nurses, and anxious visitors mixed with one another.
“What brings you here?" boomed a familiar voice.
Scott jumped a little as he turned to face Father Clement, his large ruddy face beaming with concern and good-will.
"Uh—a friend of mine got hurt real bad—in the head. I'm here visiting him."
"I'm sorry to hear that. Who is he?"
"Dornal.”
Father Clement looked puzzled as he searched his memory for that name.
“Dornal? I thought I knew everybody in town.”
“He’s from out of town,” Scott explained.
Father Clement picked off a tray for Scott and one for himself.
“I see. Anything I can do?"
"I don't know. He doesn't recognize anybody but me. That's why I'm staying here."
“That's pretty rough."
Scott took a steaming plate of lasagna and a slice of apple pie, while Fr. Clement prudently took a salad.
"Here, I'll pay for your meal," Father Clement offered when they reached the cash register.
"No thanks, I've got a meal ticket from the doctor."
"Okay."
Scott felt like being alone with his thoughts, all the more so since he did not want to try and explain to Fr. Clement why his mother wasn't taking him to church. But there was no graceful way for him to get away from the priest, so he resigned himself to sitting with him.
“You seem to be pretty anxious about your friend," said Father Clement once he had sat down.
"Yea. I just wish we knew what happened to him. He's raving about something and we don't know what it is."
"Uncertainty always makes you feel like grabbing something, anything, for a support," observed the priest.
"Uh-huh."
"Any idea what might have touched him off? Something that might have roused his anger, maybe?"
Scott's eyes lit up with insight.
"Anger! That's it! He's angry about something."
"But you don't know what it is?"
"No, but something got him all pu—uh—pretty upset. I’ve got to calm him somehow. He’s cursing somebody, and he's making his words come true. That explains the boar that crashed through here."
Father Clement's eyebrows went up sky high.
"What's this?”
"He said 'let him be a boar'. And then this long-tusked boar appeared and ran through the hospital and broke the revolving door.” Scott looked at Father Clement's incredulous face. "You don't believe me, do you?"
"Well, I must admit I'm more used to believing in God becoming a human being more than I’m used to believing in wild boars appearing out of nowhere in a hospital. On the other hand, the window of Roy's hardware store was broken this afternoon, and I saw the police covering an alleyway with a net. And I could see for myself that the revolving door is shattered. It's a strange world."
"And it's going to get stranger yet," Scott warned.
"You said that this young man wished for a wild boar to appear, and it happened?" asked Father Clement.
"Yea. He was raving, mind you. He wasn't making a rational wish."
"I should hope not!"
"I don't know what to think of it," Scott confessed.
"Neither do I,” the priest admitted. “It isn't easy when you don't know which end is up."
"Or which end is down," added Scott with a smile, but the smile faded as he felt the weight of events on his shoulders again.
Father Clement stirred his coffee. Most of Scott's food was untouched.
"Not hungry?" asked the priest.
"Guess not."
"That's what comes of worrying. Sometimes you get to the point where you live by worry alone instead of bread."
“Yea, I’m good at worrying.”
Scott attacked his plate once more. After he made an inroad in the lasagna, his appetite improved and he took on the apple pie.
“Would it help if I went with you when you go back to visit your friend?” asked Fr. Clement.
Scott didn’t feel that he wanted to have the priest with him, but he didn’t know how to say that he didn’t.
“Sure, if you have time.”
“It’s my job to make time for these things.”
When Scott finished what he was going to eat, he and the priest went over to the hatch where they emptied their trays and put them on the conveyer belt.
Cries of disbelief could be heard from outside the cafeteria. Scott and Father Clement exchanged glances and hustled over to the exit. There, they saw what appeared to be golden serpents slithering along the floor. The serpents seemed to be infinitely long with no beginning or end in sight.
“Is this—part of the strange happenings surrounding your friends?” asked Fr. Clement.
“Looks like it,” said Scott. “I’d better get back to my friend’s room.”