The Nurse [280]

They’re here again. Slipping through the halls. Black-haired, pale-skinned. I know what they want. I’ve always known what they wanted. Their satanic clothing is in rags, but I can still see their gleaming crucifixes, a mockery of all that’s good and holy. One is in my room now, reaching for me with scarred bony fingers–

I sit up in bed, covered with sweat, my heart racing. It’s pitch black, hours until dawn, and I’m alone with my nightmares. But the phantoms are real, and they’re going to drag me down to hell with them.

Someone comes in and flips on the light. Oh, it’s the nice nurse Cathy. “Bad dreams again, Miz Violetta? I’ll give you something to help you sleep.”

“It’s the dead rockers,” I whisper. “The ones I wrote about in my bestseller. Their souls are coming for vengeance.”

“Now, now,” Cathy says. “I’m sure they were happy for the publicity. Things just seem scarier at night.”

She obviously didn’t read my book. I had exposed the group as a devil worshipping cult and destroyed them. Their fans had stalked me for decades. I thought I’d finally found peace as I waited to die from my failing heart.

Cathy returns with a cup of water and a pill. “Here you go, honey.”

“Thanks.” I take the pill with the water and lay back down.

Cathy sits in her chair, but she’ll leave eventually and that’s when they will come. And they know what I’ve done and how I got my information.

*

Cathy watches her patient. That bitch. She ruined my son’s life. The hallucinogens are a nice way of finally getting a small bit of payback.

~*~

Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge