Fallen

Where do you think Sister Madge went? To drive Vicky home? Yes, but then she’d head straight to get someone better equipped to deal with you. Or your body . . . once you’re dead.

They’d have to kill her now. They would have no choice. Her time was ticking.

Scarlett rocked the radiator with her hands again, using every ounce of strength she could muster to pull and push, pull and push, faster and faster, using the appliance’s weight against it. She cried out, her shoulder throbbing each time it wrenched farther from her body. Tears streaked down her face and she let out a yell of defeat and pain, bringing the radiator to a halt.

A light scratching sound came from behind a door next to the dresser and Scarlett stilled, her breath catching as a shadow moved beneath the frame. The scratching came again, a soft papery-sounding laugh as the doorknob began to slowly turn.

Scarlett pressed herself into the radiator, turning her face as though awaiting a blow. The door clicked open, swinging inward slowly. Something only partially human lay on its stomach on the floor, up on its forearms, its grotesquely burned face staring at Scarlett, mouth turning upward in a hideously wicked smile. It had a pair of sharp, silver shears in its disfigured hand. Scarlett’s whole body jolted, fear pinging over every nerve. She let out a strangled sound of terror, pulling on the radiator again, then pushing, creating the same rhythm she’d tried before, only this time more powerful, more intense, all the strength of her revulsion and horror behind her.

The thing she thought had once been human began crawling toward her, its piercing golden eyes wide and unblinking. “We have rules here,” it said in a scratchy voice, the shears hitting the floor heavily with each drag forward. Scarlett pulled and pushed at the radiator with all her might. It smacked into her brutally as it came forward and jerked her shoulder backward relentlessly as it rocked back. Her upper body screamed in agony. “You have not been granted permission to leave. She said I should stop you if you tried to get free.”

The thing was a woman, Scarlett could see that now. Its snowy-white hair patchy and stringy, attached only in clumps to the burned and mottled skin of her scalp. She dragged herself toward Scarlett, and Scarlett let out panting yelps of pain as the radiator clunked and loosened. Back, forth, back, forth.

She cried out, her shoulder at risk of coming out of its socket.

Haddie. Haddie. I won’t let them hurt you. At the thought of her daughter, she upped her effort, gritting her teeth, pulling and then pushing with all her might, her entire body slamming and rocking along with the loosening radiator. HaddieHaddieHaddieHaddie.

The burned woman was almost to her, reaching, her mouth stretched open, revealing small yellow teeth. Her legs ended at the knee, her calves and feet burned away.

With a roar of pain and one last burst of all the strength she had in her still-drugged body, every molecule of herself infused with the fierce love she had for her baby girl, she wrenched her shoulder out of its socket, the radiator breaking free from the floor and crashing heavily against the wall.

The burned woman reached her, grabbing her ankles, lifting the shears and bringing them down on the top of her foot. The shears sunk into her flesh, and then the woman tore them out, raising them again.

With a scream of pain, Scarlett pulled her foot back, blood flowing from the wound as she attempted to stand. The woman grabbed her ankle again, twisting it so that Scarlett smacked back down to the floor before she could get her bearings enough to stand.

“We started that school,” the burned woman said. “We reformed those girls!” She brought the shears down again, stabbing into Scarlett’s calf. Scarlett screamed, then wrenched her leg away just as the woman pulled the shears out of her flesh again. Scarlett tried to push herself up with one arm, her other hanging uselessly by her side, but couldn’t get enough leverage to do so.

Instead she pulled herself backward, trying again to stand while the woman dragged herself up Scarlett’s legs. She was only half a person, old and horrifically injured, but she seemingly had the strength of ten men. Scarlett cried out, her head falling backward as she hit the side of the bed so hard the wall behind it shook and the crucifix fell, landing on the mattress above.

“When the lightning strike hit, I locked those doors and Jasper blocked them. He was a faithful servant.” She pulled herself farther up Scarlett’s body as Scarlett writhed and fought, attempting to kick her weighted legs from beneath the woman’s body, delivering blow after blow to her head with her one good arm. The woman’s face was almost directly over hers now and Scarlett could see the evil in her golden eyes, smell the brimstone on her breath. She reached blindly above, her fingers brushing the cold metal of the crucifix. “The Lord wanted them all to burn,” she yelled, spittle flying from her mouth. “But he spared me! He spared me for my righteousness!”