The Shadow Walkers: A Novel by Erick T. Rhetts

Author:Erick T. Rhetts [Rhetts, Erick T.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Blue Ink Publishing
Published: 2019-05-13T16:00:00+00:00

2

The cold floor beneath his bare feet stimulated Artie's brain. He had not been completely incapacitated by the procedure. Following the simple commands issued by the orderly, he left behind his bed and blankets still dressed in his pajamas and robe. The orderly interceded on his behalf, steering Artie by his compliant shoulders to the slippers placed in his path. Artie engaged his feet conditionally, then moved on. His eyes never deviated from the straight line in which he had been oriented, the rigor mortis-planed body of the deceased there upon the bed impotent in its accusation.

The sheet of paper on which the resident doctor scribbled his signature attributed the passing to natural causes, an uncontested observation given the circumstances. The body was removed, the bedding later changed by someone compensated hourly to do so and the like.

The chronological void between holding little significance for it or for Artie, night came again, the lights along the walls of the floor corridors dimmed to a barely audible buzz, and the ward with no other motion than that of the shallow tide of breathing.

Undeterred by its previous failure, and not yet cognizant of protocol and procedure, or the state of the patients there within, it again choreographed Artie's movements alongside another bed, this one as random as the first. Within seconds, the pillow was reconfirmed as an effective tool in terms of the desired outcome, but that outcome again failed to yield any mass of consequence.

Understanding more than a little about cause and effect, it left Artie's brain and came out into the room. It came to its own senses, which it immediately put to use to test its supposition. One after the other, it visited the remaining three patients. Touching each, it discovered the same alteration it found with Artie. The only difference was in the scarring. Artie was yet to scar, and it was this, it supposed, that made for the differential in their conductivity. Then comparing the brain of these here to what it remembered of John's mother and father, though its intimacy in both was short-lived, the dots it connected revealed the profile of its failure.

Distracted by hunger and need, it slipped through the razor-thin space separating the two closed doors, found its way back down the stairs to the maintenance basement, then to the pipe work in the passageway where it felt at home.

The wait was inconsequential before the first rat came along. Alone it was of no use. So, it followed the varmint as it stopped and started randomly, glancing back into the near darkness, as if to make sure nothing was following. Staying to where the floor met the wall, and vice versa, the rat came to a place which looked no different than the way that trailed behind it. Here it stopped, went up on its hind legs, risked another glance back, then scurried across the open floor to the opposite wall. There it came to a wide pipe climbing vertically up to the low ceiling.

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