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Chapter 3

The security guard, Jerold Caldwell, spotted the young men right away. It was that Indian kid in dreads. He crouched dramatically, all but diving from on point of cover to the next. The black guy with the gaudy beard-braid stroked it, watching his friend’s antics. The guard hadn’t seen anything remotely so entertaining for some time, so he figured he’d call it in but take his time in setting these young guys straight.

“Better you than me, Jerry,” Aiken grumbled over the walkie, “Can’t really flag another colored guy for racial profiling, can they?” Jerry decided to let that one go, savoring the irony of his coworker’s statement.

Jerry shadowed them at a distance. He watched as Beard-Braid kicked his companion in the rump when he got bored of the ill-thought display. When they looked as if they might cut their shit and Jerry almost let them go, but after a moment, realized they hadn’t turned around. The fuckers were playing it cool! He had a small chuckle.

Just the same, there wasn’t much further to go. The next door needed a key to… What the hell? Did the security lock short out…? Gonna have to get that looked at…

He followed them through the ICU. What were they looking for?

The duo stopped outside a door. Dreads glanced around so Jerry kept walking, right past him, and Dreads looked right through him. Just a rent-a-cop on rounds. This counter-espionage thing was kinda fun. Jerry did a circuit and came around the corner to see the two with faces peeking in the door. Now THAT had to stop. Game over. He couldn’t allow shit-head frat guys to peek in on the most terrible moments of people’s lives. He stepped forward but… But something was very… very off…

Beard-braid was muttering under his breath, wide-eyed and engrossed. Dreads rapidly thumbed his phone, stopping every so often to get Beard-braid to repeat himself.

The whole time they did this, a chill played over Jerry’s shaven scalp. Like little lizard tongues with hooks. He decided to get closer…

“.... The one with the bird mask! Come on, I’m sure you have at least one in your dorm!” Beard-braid was whispering tersely.

Jerry got a whiff of… something… something that smelled spoiled. It made him shiver. There was a… a greyness descending, dulling all color, deepening every shadow. It wasn’t a cold thing. It was… Empty. Hungry? He was right on the two now.

“STILL doesn’t narrow it down, bro…” Dreads seemed pleased as punch to be the overly-patient one this time. “Any clothing?”

“Black cloak… Wide-brim hat…”

“Got it! It’s --”

“None of your business boys!” Jerry announced in a growling whisper that seemed to shatter the creepy vibes. The boys jumped and looked wildly up at him… For a moment, Jerry thought their eyes looked… It doesn’t matter. “You two oughtta be ashamed. Now get the hell out of here!”

Beard-braid narrowed his eyes and hesitated, but Dreads shoved him on and the two departed.

As he reached to close the door, he glimpsed the guy the boys were talking about. A priest of all things! Kids these days have no reverence! So this man was albino, so his nose was a bit beaky. This guy wasn’t even all that much older than they were! He was… sitting, eating an apple as though he’d been starving. It didn’t crunch, but seemed to… to squish with rot. He devoured the putrid-looking fruit with relish, core, and all. Even popping the stem like a bitter pill.

The priest rose, and Jerry stepped aside as the door opened.

“You alright there, son?” Jerry reached out.

The young holy man shied away from him in a way that brought up those rumors and jokes about choir boys. “I’m just fine.”

As he sidled past, Jerry realized this guy must have left behind his hat, the wide-brim. He unthinkingly opened the door to see the body splayed out, hooked up to machines long cold. Another kid chewed up by sudden illness. Skelatal. Emaciated. Hollowed out.

Despite that… His face seemed somehow peaceful.

The hat was nowhere to be seen.

Jerry coughed once. He tasted apple so strongly, it filled his sinuses and he sneezed. He didn’t notice that it was a fly that was ejected from his nose...

***

“Plague-Doctor!” The two laughed back in Othello’s room.

“That was intense!” Neil chuckled. Then he went quiet for a moment. “I hope that guy pulls through.”

Othello blinked at him. “Neil… He was dead. He was dead before we got there.”

Neil rounded on him. “DUDE!” He looked horrified, his eyes wide.

“Why else would a plague-doctor be there?”

“DUDE!!”

“Why else would that minister be th--”

“STFU, DUDE!!!” Neil’s face was red, aghast and furious. “Show some fucking respect!”

Othello felt that he was seeing something… Unsettling about his friend. “It’s not a big deal, man. We saw a body. He wasn’t using it anymore. He couldn’t feel embarrassed. That was just… bad meat.”

“Ba-Bad meat?!” Neil sat back, stunned. “Cold, man…”

Othello watched Neil like something he didn’t recognize, and the fog seemed to thicken around their legs, rising up slowly.

“Tell… That was a human being…” Neil looked up, his face mirroring Othello’s lack of recognition. “That was at one point someone like… like us! Did you even realize that, or was the PDr. More important?”

Something nasty coiled in the pit of Othello’s belly. “They are ALWAYS more important.”

“And if you saw one of THEM die?” Neil demanded. “Would you be such a dick then?!”

The gargoyle… That poor thing, watching it suffer and dying from its crystal-leprosy. He realized the discrepancy: He felt more for the Boogie that presumably wanted to eat him than he did for that guy in the ICU… He sat back, stroking his beard in a nervous gesture.

“Fucked up, dude…” Neil sat back in his chair dejectedly.

For Othello, things began to spin… The way they did before. He pulled up his knees to his chest to brood, trying to remember what stopped the spinning before.

Angel knocked on the open door. He entered, placed two fingers over his heart and bowed. “My Master…”

Othello uncurled an arm and held it out, reaching. Something passed between him and Angel. The bigger guy knew the signal. He sat next to Othello and wrapped arms around his Man. The two sat that way, and the world stopped rocking for Othello.

Neil clapped his hands once, snapping Othello to. “As the official third wheel, I’m out!” He said, throwing up his hands. He stood and looked down at Othello. “Look… I had fun today, but people matter. Not just Angel.”

Othello bit his tongue and simply listened. That Neil didn’t include himself in that statement irked him. His friendship mattered a great deal, but to come out and say that was… gross.

Besides, weren’t they fighting? He wasn’t sure. Too confusing. Humans are too confusing. “You going, or what?”

“Glad you’re feeling better,” Neil snorted, then stormed out.

“Oh, Sir…” Angel murmured. “You’re doing that thing again…”

“Ten swats when we get home,” was Othello’s only response. “And… call the Doctor?”

“Already done,” Angel answered.

“Twenty, for going against known wishes…” Othello grumbled. “.... but I’ll forgive fifteen for anticipating me…”

“Most magnanimous, Sir, thank you,” Angel smiled, resting his chin on his Man’s head.

They both knew the punishment would never come; Othello was wrong, and he knew it.

“The appointment?” Othello asked.

“Two days, Sir,” Angel said. “Tonight the doctors want to keep you for observation. Let you rest.

***

Othello used his computer, working through the night to keep caught up on his assignments. It was a difficult proposition considering the dull roar of the increased activity. At night, when mortal eyes close, when things are harder to witness, when human minds are all too ready to dismiss and rationalize strangeness to mental tricks or dreams, They became more active. There were the echoes of grunts and cries of battles in the other rooms.

To someone like Othello, the din of a fight between, say, creatures of illness and healing battling each other, could be sensed like static on an old television turned up to just-too-loud. Some things even passed through the walls as the clashes spilled spectrally through. Any such intrusion was brief. Othello considered himself “lost ground” now that he was well.

Blocking out the worst of the noise with headphones helped, as did keeping the lights on. But sleep wasn’t happening. He hated hospitals… It was bad enough to be there when he felt fine, but during Fog-Week? This fight sounded vicious.

He needed a smoke. He tugged on the clothes Angel brought and rummaged through the pockets to ensure his cigarillos were there. Sweet Angel had come through for him here as well.

Traversing the floor, he occasionally waved away a fly. Part of him questioned the cleanliness of this place, considering flies should be hibernating in this climate. He walked past the drowsy guard, the same bald guy from earlier, and stepped just beyond the door, sidling against the wall so as not to lose it in the thickest fog yet.

He’d just lit the mini cigar, when he heard the first growl.

They aren’t real… They can’t hurt me… I can make them disappear… He tried to relax. But then he coughed… And coughed. Again and again. It was like the smoke was becoming gritty sludge in his throat. He hacked so hard it brought tears to his eyes, marring his vision further.

He could still see the shadow, though. The large, hunched figure that now loomed over him. Feathers like a black hood and cloak. Black as pitch. It stooped so low as to almost swallow up Othello’s whole head in the blackness of the hood. Nothing he’d seen during his stay had been as potent as this thing. “You’re… not real…!” Othello gasped out. “G-Go away….”

The thing twitched, emitting bizarre crackling sounds… and glass fell onto Othello’s head.

Curious being… Pure. UnCorrupted… UnGlassed… Is it your Flesh that protects you? Perhaps if I took it for my own…

“V-vanish…” Dear god, it’s huge! Thinking back, it was maybe as tall as the gargoyle, but seemed more spindly.

It stank, like a diseased wound. It’s very speech made him retch. The disgust was matched by fear. And the tears flowed for entirely new reasons. His voice cracked. He began to shake. “I know I can do it…” He could do this, if he could just catch his breath!

Do what, Curious Being…?

He mustered all of the defiance he could. “Make you VANISH!!”

The mists reacted, surging like fists to pound against the horror, making it reel back. Each such blow sent pounding pains through the base of his skull. It dropped him to his knees, but he was determined to stay awake this time.

The thing did not disappear as the gargoyle had. But it too slumped, as if to one knee.

What ARE you… Curious Being!? It rose up and flung back its wings. Its hood flying back like a wide-brimmed hat, revealing a vulture-like skull and shrieked. Its wings and back were the only thing to bear feathers. The rest was all bone and sinew with shards of glass festering over them like some advanced fungal infection, almost thick enough in places to appear as a ghastly armor. It was like a massive plague-doctor, but… grimmer.

It used emaciated, crane-like legs to leap at Othello. Just before those blackened talons descended on him, though, a snarl sounded from his left and something hit the Grim Doctor like a truck. The two shapes were swept into the dark fog. More followed. Massive, swiftly bounding things that snarled and leapt about.

Othello couldn’t fight the panic. He was off running, not realizing he’d made it to the parking lot until he’d plowed headlong into another warm body. A yelp of pain that matched his as he fell hard on top of the hapless person.

It wasn’t much of an effort to pin the person. He took no chances this time. “VANISH!!”

“Wh-what the FUCK?! Get off me!!” The man growled. Human. Real. Really real. Othello jumped up.

“Oh, thank god!” Othello squinted back through the Fog. “Run! There are… Something is out there, dude, run!”

“No, YOU run!” the freckled-faced man shouted. “They can handle something like that thing, easy…”

Othello felt his jaw drop. “You can see them…!”

“Better question is; how can YOU--” but the demand died on his tongue. “What’s wrong with your eyes…?”

“Nothing, it’s just this fog is so fucking thick!”

“What the hell are you talking....oh crap...look you need to calm the fuck down right now…”

Othello wheeled around to see he was surrounded by massive wolves, maybe a half a dozen, though he couldn’t be sure in his panic. He reached deep down for his Big Voice, once more, now ready to brace for the pain. He extended a hand towards one of the wolves and shouted. “VANISH!”

The wolf took the strike of mist right to the face. It stumbled and the pain hit, stunning them both.

Even if it hadn’t, Othello still wouldn’t be able to defend himself from the avalanche of fur and fang that buried him a split second later. He was face-down in the asphalt of the parking lot. Slobbering jaws held him there like manacles. Pointed teeth pressed at the flesh of his neck.

Yet, all he could was laugh uncontrollably. “They’re REAL! They’re really, really REAL!!” He sobbed out.

“Wait! Guys, wait! He’s safe!!” Othello could hear the scuffling of shoes on the ground as the stranger futilely hefted at the wolves. They moved slowly away. “Sirens. It’s time to go.”

Before they were mentioned, Othello hadn’t heard the sounds of oncoming police or ambulances.

“No!” Othello tried to stand, but his legs were jelly. “No, no, no, no, no! You can’t leave me here! Not NOW!”

The man stopped, scowling. “Uurrgh… Okay. Keep up!” He began running across the near-empty lot.

Othello, spurred on, kicked at the dirt until he found his feet and stumbled after the other to a forest-green jeep. Othello more or less flopped himself in and the car snarled as it peeled out of the lot.

***

When the police arrived, the jeep could be seen, but they weren’t at all interested in anything outside of the hospital. Just inside, the baffled medical staff and police argued over what to do with the body of Jerold Caldwell.

His eyes hung half-closed and he could have been mistaken for merely dozing. That is, until one was close enough to see that his mouth and nose were full of flies. Occasionally, one would crawl out, buzz around his head, only to creep into a different orifice, and not come out again.