The Tenth Order Read online

  On his left, just barely in his peripheral vision, was a collection of wire and plastic, and a small screen. Dim LED lights displayed a blood pressure of one-forty over ninety. He didn’t know if that was good or a bad.

  Below, he made out a white, vinyl floor, scuffed and worn with years of passage. In the corners of the room were small mountains of dust. His gaze swept up, finding a small window with streaked panes, an ancient TV showing “Gunsmoke,” in faded colors, and a torn green curtain sectioning off the room.

  A hospital. And right after Makovich canceled my insurance.

  Moving back down, Hunter saw a traditional hospital bed, and a not-so-traditional pair of heavy-duty Velcro straps locking his arms to the surrounding rails. He pulled half-heartedly at the cuffs, not surprised when they wouldn’t budge. Lying next to him, barely out of reach, was a pad with a worn, blue button marked, “Nurse.”

  As his vision cleared, a few things came into focus. Like the long gash winding down his leg, and another criss-crossing his wrist. Trying to remember the events that put him here, Hunter came up blank. There had been a client…some detail he was obsessing over…a vision, and...

  Nothing.

  That was as telling as anything else. Some kind of trauma, or—God help me—brain damage. Hell, maybe something worse. Those visions…

  “Mr. Friskin. You’ve finally decided to join us.” The curtain swept aside and a small man with thinning gray hair stepped into the room. Hunter had enough time to see the other bed was unoccupied before the man closed the curtain.

  “I’m Dr. Maison.” The man extended a hand in greeting, then awkwardly withdrew it when he realized Hunter couldn’t return the gesture.

  “Sorry about the…um…” Maison gestured to the cuffs. “Standard procedure in these cases.”

  “’These cases?’” Hunter croaked, his voice raw.

  Dr. Maison ignored the question. “Well, overall the signs look good. Your lacerations are clean and free from infection, and healing remarkably fast; I imagine we have the cold air to thank for keeping them sanitary for so long. You’re on a low-grade antibiotic to clear out any unwanted visitors, though. Better safe than sorry. As for the loss of consciousness, we have you scheduled for a CAT scan at ten tomorrow morning. If there are underlying physical causes that prompted the…um…episode, we’ll find them.”

  “These cases?” Hunter repeated.

  “These cases…” Maison looked down at his chart, ignoring Hunter’s stare as he thumbed through the pages. He was saved by a nasally voice.

  “Hunteeer.” The curtain pulled back and a tall, plump woman entered. “Finally. We’ve been waiting all afternoon for you to wake up.”

  Hunter closed his eyes, then reopened them. “Doctor, this is my wife,” He tried to gesture at the tornado of sound sweeping through the room, but was restrained by his cuffs. He shrugged helplessly and motioned with his head, “Adrianna.”

  “I’ll come back in a little while, after you’ve had time to rest,” Dr. Maison smiled politely and exited the room. Adrianna hurried over and started plumping Hunter’s pillow.

  “Ade, stop it. I’m fine.”

  “Oh.” Adrianna stopped fussing and came to stand in front of him, fidgeting restlessly.

  She towered over the bed, looking down on her husband from a height of almost seven feet. Her self-consciousness made her slouch dramatically, but even so, when Hunter stood next to her she loomed over him. Coupled with an overbite and squashed nose, hers was a face only a mother could love.

  Just not Hunter’s mother.

  “She’s never going to be good enough for you,” his mom had said. “A woman like that is in it for one thing, and I won’t say it. But if you don’t know, blame your father.” Hunter did know—even if Mrs. Friskin couldn’t bring herself to vocalize “screwing”—but despite what his mother thought, that wasn’t why Adrianna had married him.

  Hunter might have been attractive, but despite his looks he’d never been in a relationship. Every woman he met wanted a first date, maybe a quick romp, but that was it. Adrianna was the one exception. She’d stayed, despite Hunter’s natural effect on people, and seemed to genuinely enjoy showing him off to her friends.

  Not that Adrianna had many friends—especially friends who could stand Hunter—but she still took enjoyment in dressing him up and taking him out. And for Hunter’s part he didn’t mind her broad nose or flat forehead, and her height hadn’t been a problem since it was close enough to Hunter’s own. All he really cared was that she stuck around. That she made him feel like a member of the human species for a few minutes each week when they talked about work and pretended they were a normal couple.

  And if they hadn’t slept together in over a year, and if every now and then Adrianna needed the comfort of a man who didn’t make her feel like bugs were crawling under her skin, well, Hunter couldn’t fault her. It might not be love, but he’d take it.

  “Good,” Adrianna said after a minute of awkward silence. “I’m glad you’re feeling better, because I’m going to freaking kill you!” She reached over and aimed a smack at his head. Hunter, unable to stop her, had to settle for pulling aside and suffering a glancing blow.

  “Jesus, Ade—”

  “Don’t ‘Jesus’ me, you son-of-a-bitch! Do you have any idea what I’ve been through? What in God’s name did you think you were doing down there?”

  “Ade,” Hunter snapped. “Just tell me what the hell you’re talking about. I woke up five minutes ago, I’m cuffed to the bed, and my leg looks like it’s been carved for Thanksgiving dinner. What happened?”

  Adrianna ran a hand through her limp hair. “Why don’t you tell me, psycho? I tried calling you this morning to see if you’d left the chicken out to thaw, and you never answered your phone. I got worried, cause you know I don’t like going to the grocery store after work, so I called Mr. Makovich.”

  Hunter groaned. “You didn’t.”

  “Why shouldn’t I? Nice man like Mr. Makovich, you never talk to him. Why shouldn’t I call him and find out where you are? Probably down at the strip club with some tramp.”

  “Ade, please get to the point.”

  “So I call him, and he says you’re downstairs working on some stiff, and your deadline’s probably shot.” Adrianna looked at Hunter like she might smack him again, then sniffed and walked over to a chair in the corner. Pulling it close, she plopped down next to the bed and started picking at her nails.

  “So I ask him about the chicken. You know, in case you said something.”

  Oh my god. You think I talk to my boss about thawing chicken? Hunter’s pulse quickened. He looked at the monitor next to his bed and wasn’t surprised to see it soar.

  “Ade,” he said quietly. “Please. Get. To. The. Damn. Point.”

  Adrianna stopped fiddling with her nails and glared at him. “You should be thanking your lucky stars you have a boss like Mr. Makovich. Do you know, he hadn’t heard from you for hours? He started getting worried after I called, so he went down to the basement and found you passed out in your own blood!”

  That asshole was just worried about postponing the Munse funeral, Hunter thought. But aloud he said, “Really?”

  “Really. Your leg was all cut up and there was blood everywhere.” She wrinkled her nose. “Disgusting.”

  Hunter looked at the clock hanging opposite his bed. It was six in the evening. His last memory was talking to Makovich about his insurance—twelve hours ago.

  “Ade, how long have I been here?”

  “The hospital called me around four.”

  Ten hours, he thought. That bastard left me down there for ten hours.

  Hunter looked at the blood pressure monitor and saw it jump to one-forty-nine. He flexed his muscles and felt them grind against the restraints. Adrianna went back to staring at her tattered nails, picking at them listlessly. Finally she looked up, shying away from Hunter’s eyes, and stood. Moving to the other side of his bed, she started fiddling with the I
V cord.

  “Don’t touch that,” Hunter said absently.

  “Hunter.”

  “Yeah.”

  “The doctor said you tried to kill yourself.”

  “The doctor’s an idiot.”

  “And Mr. Makovich, he’s pissed. Beyond pissed. He says you did things to that corpse—that it was bruised and a bunch of the ribs were broken. He says he’s going to sue you; make sure you’re living on the street. He said a lot of things, Hunter. A lot of things about your job, stuff you haven’t even told me. He says you’ve been acting crazy lately.”

  Hunter knew what she was talking about. He knew Makovich had seen him struggling with his headaches, that he’d been distant and moody over the past few weeks. But Hunter never expected Makovich to tell Adrianna.

  “He’s not going to do anything, Ade. The man’s a moron, he doesn’t know how to sue someone.”

  Adrianna moved back to the chair and picked up her purse. “Whatever. It boils down to the same thing. You don’t have a job, again, and you’re in the hospital, without insurance, and I’m sorry, but I’m not going to be the one paying for this.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The hospital says they want to keep you for awhile. They say in these cases,” There it is again, “they have to make sure they aren’t going to see you again if you’re released. They say you’re a danger to yourself.”

  “That’s crazy,” Hunter pulled at the restraints, and the bed’s metal frame groaned. “If my leg’s fine then tell them to get me the hell out of here.”

  “Hunter,” Adrianna had gathered her purse and her coat. She came to the bed and laid a hand on his cuffed wrist. “I want a divorce.”

  Hunter stared at her coldly. “Get me out of here, Ade.”

  “You’ll be hearing from my lawyer,” Adrianna said as she walked out the door.

  Hunter pulled at his cuffs and the bed groaned again, metal screeching against metal. He smelled something burning. “Adrianna!” Hunter yelled. “Goddamn it, come back here!” The curtain pulled aside and several figures rushed into the room. A pair of hands pushed Hunter down, holding his arms in their cuffs. The room suddenly filled with voices, yelling at each other over Hunter’s screams.

  “Adrianna!” Hunter cried again, then fell silent as one of the nurses pulled a syringe out of his arm. As darkness closed he could see the polite smile of Dr. Maison as he apologized to a nurse and made a twirling gesture with his hand pointing to his ear.

  The corpse of Mrs. Munse was waiting in Hunter’s dreams. Only this time her pale skin was flushed with life, and her smile was warm and naturally formed of sinew and muscle.

  She sat with Hunter in the foyer of the funeral home, drinking iced tea from a chipped plastic cup. She was younger than he remembered.

  “You look tired Hunter,” she said. “Are you getting enough rest?”

  He shrugged. “I guess. There have been…issues lately.”

  “Have you tried warm milk?” Mrs. Munse sipped her tea and smiled kindly.

  Hunter returned the smile and drank from the glass of warm milk he found in his hand.

  “Pleasant, right?”

  “Very. Thank you,” Hunter tried to place the glass of milk on the table, and found himself in the icy basement of the funeral home. Mrs. Munse was gone, and in her place laid a corpse, pale and bloated. Unrecognizable.

  Hunter reached forward, the milk replaced by a scalpel, and began to cut bits of dried blood from the body. As he worked he found himself whistling “Blue Skies.” The same tune his mother had sung whenever Hunter had nightmares.

  Blood and gristle fell from the corpse, slowly revealing a squashed nose and overbite…Adrianna. Her skin was ice, but her eyes were still warm and brown and watched Hunter intently as he went about his work.

  She opened her mouth and the whispered, buzzing sound Mrs. Munse repeated that morning spilled from Adrianna’s lips. He was sure he recognized it. Welsh? Some kind of African dialect?

  The syllables danced through Hunter’s head, teasing, cajoling, the meaning on the tip of his tongue. Then Adrianna’s hand shot up, wrapping around his throat. He clawed at her knuckles, staggering backward and sending his instruments crashing to the floor. Adrianna moved smoothly from the table to her feet, forcing Hunter back toward the wall. He slashed at her bloated face, but his scalpel left no mark. The foreign words continued to dance through his mind, so close, so close.

  There. That word again—legion. But the rest slipped his grasp, like water through a sieve.

  Hunter’s fingers scrabbled against Adrianna’s hand, but he might have been clawing stone for all the good it did. Blackness flickered in the corner of his vision, threatening to blot out Adrianna’s face. Legion, floated through the air and Hunter felt himself give way to the darkness. Then another word broke through, and suddenly he made sense of what Adrianna kept repeating.

  “We are legion,” she said. “We are many.”

  Hunter roared, throwing everything he had against her implacable grip, and Adrianna’s hand tore away with a wet rip. His vision fragmented and he found himself back in his hospital bed, the restraints a twisted mass of Velcro on the floor.

  He didn’t hesitate.

  Throwing the sheets aside, he lowered himself to the cold vinyl floor. The clock on the wall read two A.M. As he started to move toward the door, Hunter almost tripped on a foot sticking out from under his bed. Leaning down, he traced the foot to the body of a young nurse he’d seen earlier; a stocky, blond woman in her late thirties. Angry red welts ran up and down her neck.

  Hunter hoped he hadn’t hurt the poor lady, but he didn’t have time to apologize. Creeping to the door, he peered out the small window, saw an empty corridor, and slipped into the dimly lit hall. As he walked—slowly, no need to make anyone stare—his hand slipped backward and closed his gown. He prayed the halls would stay empty, and thanked whatever god was watching he hadn’t been transferred to the psych ward.

  Just a few feet down the hall was a door marked “Employee’s Only.” He looked through the window, his heart leaping when he saw a laundry room inside. In the center of the room, a pile of dark blue scrubs waited to be washed. He looked quickly over both shoulders, ducked inside the room and grabbed the first pair in the pile. He would have preferred jeans and a hoodie, but hospital garb would have to do. He went through three pairs before he finally found a set of scrubs and some worn sneakers that fit his tall frame. Squaring his shoulders, Hunter gathered his courage and marched back through the door to the hallway.

  Easy. Easy, now. Just act like you belong.

  He marched past the reception table and pushed open the door to the stairs. Hopping down the two flights, he was out the front entrance before the nurses even made it to his room.

  At least, he hoped so.

  As Hunter reached the street he hesitated, sacrificing precious minutes as he tried to gather his bearings. He’d lived in Denver for seven years but had never taken the time to learn the place, despite promising Adrianna he would try. He’d spent most of his life traveling mountain towns on the western slope of the Rockies, and later the eastern plains. He never had time for the larger cities, couldn’t bring himself to care. Hell, every street in Denver looked the same to him.

  Finally, Hunter shrugged his shoulders and picked a direction at random, trusting to fate. The fickle bitch got me here, maybe she can get me out.

  He didn’t know who the unconscious nurse had been, or how she had ended up in his room, but he didn’t want to be anywhere near the hospital when the cops arrived. A patient admitted for attempted suicide and roughing up a dead Sunday-school teacher, not to mention the nurse thing…it wouldn’t take much for Hunter to wind up at the police station on the wrong end of an awkward conversation.

  So he walked. And as he made his way toward what he hoped was downtown, he tried to remember a time in his life where he wasn’t running from something.

  Hunter was seven-years-old when he
got in his first fight.

  It was at school, in the cafeteria where most elementary brawls begin. He had forgotten to bring any money that day, and was reduced to what the school called “pot luck.” It mostly consisted of the unlucky boy going table to table and begging for leftovers. It was humiliating and did a number on your reputation, but the school was more concerned with fed children than happy ones.

  When Hunter realized he had forgotten his lunch money he panicked. “I’m on a diet,” he told Mrs. Bryls. “I’m concerned about my cholesterol.”

  But, unfortunately for Hunter, Mrs. Bryls was not in a believing mood. She marched him to the cafeteria, arm in hand, and watched as Hunter hung his head and did his best impression of Oliver Twist.

  It didn’t start out badly. The first table took pity on him, and one of the girls gave him a cupcake and a small handful of baby carrots. The next table wasn’t as generous, and Hunter came away with a half-eaten bologna sandwich. But the third table—that’s where the trouble began.

  “Aw, poor baby. Did baby forget his milk?” One of the larger boys laughed. His name was Francis and he was known for being a terror on the playground. Hunter guessed it was bound to happen when you named a boy “Francis.”

  “Yeah, baby, baby, baby,” one of the other boys joined in. “Baby’s milk all gone.” The rest of the table started to chant: “All gone! All gone! Baby’s milk all gone!” Hunter had a clear memory of what happened next, despite claiming he had blacked out and only come to later in the nurse’s office.

  Hunter whipped around, cupcake in hand, and smashed the dessert into Francis’ face. The table went silent as the other boys watched frosting drip down their leader’s face. Francis’ eyes widened and he started huffing like a bull about to charge. “You’re dead!” He roared.

  Hunter didn’t stop to listen. He leaped on top of the table and planted his foot squarely in one of the other boy’s sternum, launching him out of his seat and half-way across the cafeteria.

  The table exploded.

  Hunter hurled himself at the two boys who’d been the most vocal in their mocking. Tackling them both, he dragged them to the ground, shrieking. Hunter stood, taking a second to grind his foot in one of the weeping boy’s faces, and moved on.