Out of the Black - Lee Doty [54]
But then she saw it. Shimmering from inside the vial, like static on a damaged television, blue white chaotic energy seemed to pulse and vibrate from the blood. Even through the vial's glass, it was burning her hand. Anne realized that she could see the vial the same as always... no static, no bugs, but it was as if she had another sense, or an overactive imagination, that seemed to embellish the vial with the added lightshow. "What?" she whispered absently.
"It does! Smells its fear! It... Hears!" The last word dropped about five octaves, seeming to rumble through the ground. She looked around again... didn't anyone else hear this? It didn't look like it.
Trembling, she clinked the tube against the receptacle in her tray several times before she got it stowed. Time to go, time to go, time to go.
Anne had a hand on her tray, lifting it as she pushed her stool back. Then she stopped dead, still sitting on the stool. On the table in front of her, the Harm's head was slowly turning in her direction. Anne wanted to run away screaming, but a terrible curiosity gripped her. The Harm's face was almost in view now, her profile was covered with her platinum and red hair, but as her head continued to turn, the damp hair began to fall from the face... a few strands... a few more.
Silence washed through the ER as the other Harm's screaming cut off. She hoped Wyler had succeeded with his needle, but couldn't force herself to turn away and see.
The Harm's head continued to twist until she was looking directly at Anne and her face was at last visible. Wrong. The eyes were wrong; the mouth was wrong.
The eyes were bulging with a dark amusement that danced like a shadowy bloodshot flame. Like most Harms, her pupils crowded out her irises, but this seemed even less natural, if that were possible. The black of her pupils seemed to be crowding the white out of her eyes, too.
The mouth was pulled into a tight rictus, lips stretched back over clenched teeth, like someone expending all their energy showing the world just how happy they really were. Her top lip split, spilling blood onto her teeth. Veins and tendons stood out on her neck and arms as she struggled against the restraints. In a flash, Anne realized the most disturbing difference in the Harm. It wasn't the eyes, not the smile, not the blue static her imagination painted into the Harm's dead, black eyes. It was control- no screams, no thrashing- the Harm's chaotic insanity had seemingly been replaced with a distilled evil kind of insanity.
There came a sound like the bursting of a watermelon and one of the Harm's shoulders slumped, dislocated. Still, her damaged arm continued to strain at her bonds. Her eyes locked with Anne's, her smile still gathering intensity.
Anne was powerless. She was held fixed by the intense eyes. The strangest sense of déjà vu crept in around her tingling mind... oh yeah, she'd been here before, seen this same video the last time she'd walked home from work. Time to GO!
Anne surged to her feet, sending the stool flying. The edges of the Harm's right eye darkened red-black as a blood vessel burst. New screaming was now coming from the location of the other Harm, but it wasn't him screaming. It was Wyler's terror that rang out loudest among a new cacophony of urgent shouts and crashes. With a large effort, Anne broke eye contact with whatever this Harm was becoming and looked across the room, toward the screams.
The other Harm was a large black man with the most clueless hairstyle Anne had ever seen outside of a mirror. He was behind the doctor with an arm around his neck. Somehow he'd gotten out of the restraints- one of the EMTs was down, holding his face. The other was clearly dead with an unidentifiable piece of metal protruding from the side of her neck.
"Ninjas should not do drugs", Anne said into the ether of unreality that again surrounded her.
Two orderlies were poised a short distance away. They had their