Hey guys! Chapter 9 is here! I hope you guys enjoy reading it :D
....................................................................................................................................
Jeanne had managed to get her call through to Paul who picked it up in time. She told him everything she learnt about Maria making sure to avoid taking Hannah's name. The old lady was now sitting handcuffed to a chair in the police station.
She was to be questioned by Paul who had two bodyguards on either side of him.The room was darkened with a clear glass panel connected to an adjoining room where everything was being recorded.
"Maria, do you know why you are here?" Paul first asked.
There was no expression on Maria's face, only her lips turned somewhat downwards showing how she felt.
"Yes."
"Are you involved with Emily's disappearance?"
Maria slowly looked up into Paul's piercing eyes, which he did not look away from, "She did not disappear."
Paul asked confused, "What do you mean by that?"
The old lady let out a laugh, "The little girl is where she needs to be right now. To the world, she is invisible, gone. To us...she is everywhere."
"Who is us?"
Maria smiled, a pleasant calmness present in her aging face.
"Officer, do you think I am alone? I planned all of this?"
Paul listened on.
"No Officer, I am not. I am joined with others, those who share the same ideals and beliefs as me."
What is she on about?
"So what do you believe in that Emily had to be taken away from her family?"Paul inquired.
Maria snorted, "Her family is not innocent as you see they are. They are the reason the little girl has gone."
Astonished, he asked, "What did they do?"
"They birthed a girl."
Paul realized where this was going and sighed, "Please do not tell me you believe boys are better than girls, and girls should be buried in the ground alive."
A look of disgust was present in her face, "Please officer, do not be that crude. We do not think that."
"So then explain."
"The little girl is special, more special than a million riches."
"How?"
"Through her, he will have a new life, a new birth and an old promise would be fulfilled," she proudly declared.
Paul was puzzled by her strange words, "Maria please stop speaking in gibberish. Just tell us where Emily is."
Maria looked angry, really angry, "She will not be handed over to anyone nor can anyone take her."
"I'm afraid you will have to, otherwise, you will have a permanent place in the jail house," Paul spoke with a smile.
"Fine by me officer. Though you will regret it."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes I'm sure. The little girl will not be found where she is right now."
Paul motioned for the body guards to take her away and she went without a fuss.
Paul slunk back into his chair and thought over the recent events, confused about what Maria was saying.
What did Maria mean?
....................................................................................................................................
Jeanne was in her office sorting out other cases. He eyes kept landing on the piece of paper which had details of the hospital she had to visit in order to find out more about Maria's deceased brother.
She had already rang them and informed her they would be able to meet her anytime in the evening. She quickly worked through the cases so she could finish her shift on time.
What she found weird was how the nurse were first hesitant on telling her anything, but soon agreed when she found out it was for police inquiries.
After around five hours of going through calls, visits and paperwork, she was finished an hour later when her shift ended. She pack up everything and had a brief meeting with another officer. She had set off in her own car and drove to John's Private Medical Hospital.
She parked her car in the car park and walked into the private hospital. She surveyed the area and found it was clean and very much organized. She spoke to the reception lady and asked her to wait while the nurse she spoke to on the phone came.
Fifteen minutes later, a nurse approached her.
"Hello Officer."
Jeanne looked up at the nurse and took in her clean appearance. She was tall and slim, blue eyes and blonde hair tied up into a ponytail. Her uniform was blue and reached till her knees. Now that she looked around, all the nurses were similar in appearances, tall and slim and all very pretty looking.
Must be a rule here or something.
Jeanne stood up and shook the nurse's hand.
"Mary."
"Jeanne, nice to meet you."
Mary nodded to her. I'll take us somewhere more private."
"Sure," Jeanne agreed.
She followed Mary to a locked room which she unlocked and both took a seat. Mary's cheerful demeanor was dropped, her tiredness clearly showing, making her look older than she was.
Jeanne quickly noticed and asked, "Is everything ok?"
Mary give a fake smile. "Just tired from all the work, that's all. Anyways, I understand you want to know about Mathew Benedict?"
Jeanne replied eagerly, "That is correct."
"I am sorry to say, I have looked at all the records but there's nothing on him," Mary replied.
Jeanne was dumbfounded and asked, "There must be something on him, otherwise you would have told me over the phone."
"I am very sorry, I thought we had records but there is none."
There's something else, I know it.
"Well, is there anybody else here who may know, or have worked here for a long time?"
She replied straightway, "No."
There is definitely something.
"Ok, thank you for your help then. I was wondering if you could just direct me towards the toilets."
"Sure," Mary smiled.
They both walked out of the room, "If you walk straight from here and on your left are the toilets. There are some signs if you get lost."
"Thank you and goodbye," Jeanne replied and walked towards the toilets.
Mary was hiding something. It was impossible that the hospital did not have any records of a patient only from a few years ago. Something had happened here, and she guessed it was meant to stay hidden.
Nowadays, all records of patients were kept on computers, and papers stored away in locked rooms. She had to somehow go through the computers, or even find out where records of deceased patients were kept.
She finally found the toilets and went in. As she looked around it was empty. The walls were yellow, with mirrors and sinks in front of each cubicle.
When she came out, she was suddenly greeted by an old nurse as she turned her head, "Hello Officer."
Jeanne replied after a few moments of shock, "Oh hello nurse. How can I help you?"
The old nurse smiled kindly, "I have something for you regarding the patient you were asking for."
Jeanne was wide eyed and said quickly, "Really? What do you know about him?"
The nurse replied, "Not here I'm afraid. Just follow me and you will find out everything."
Am I dreaming?
The nurse walked briskly and Jeanne thanked her while trying to keep up with her pace, "Thank you so much, it really means a lot."
"No worries, dear."
They both ended up into an elevator and the nurse pressed the G button. She was already on the ground floor wasn't she?
"Wait, where are we going?" Jeanne asked.
The nurse just smiled, "You'll see."
The lift had stopped and opened up to reveal a white locked door. The lady swiped her card across the door and a red beep was heard. The nurse pushed the white door open and switched on the lights to reveal rows and rows of paper records on metal shelves. Above the rows were alphabets hanging from the ceiling, making it easier to find the patient's file.
"Wow, is his file here?"
The nurse replied, "Yes it is."
She turned to face Jeanne with a sad smile, "Officer...Whatever you learn here, must never come out into the public. That's why many who did work during his time here do not speak a word. They are under an oath for the betterment of the hospital."
Jeanne was getting a weird feeling about this, "What exactly happened?"
The nurse was walking slowly towards the B section. "It's a long frightening and bizarre story, are you prepared for it?"
The officer replied hesitantly, "Yes, I'm ready."
As the lady began looking through the records, she recalled the events to Jeanne, "It all started when Mathew Benedict was admitted to the hospital around 15 years ago. He wasn't very well at the age of 65, and we found out he had lung cancer. "
"He was then kept in hospital permanently, as he was in need of 24 hour care. Treatment was going well, some days he was worse than others, but he was getting better. His wife came over every day to meet him and stayed over some nights as well."
"One day, his condition reached critical, and was put on life support for many days. We were all so sure he was going to die and after a month, his heart stopped beating."
Jeanne asked, "I can't see anything strange about that."
The nurse smiled, "Everything happened after that. His heart stopped and we took the life support off him. Immediately after, his heart was working again and when we did the check-up, there was nothing wrong with him and he was back to the way he was before the critical period."
"I still remember this, at midnight everything was silent. All that could be heard was the beeping from the machines. The patient was in a room of his own, but I could hear him talking to someone. He had no visitor and no means to contact anyone."
"I went to check if everything was alright. But Mathew was sleeping deeply. I thought I was going crazy so I left it. A couple of nights later, I heard him again talking to someone and another nurse was with me. We didn't enter the room but the other voice, was beyond anything I heard."
"It did not sound like a male or female's voice, it was so deep and evil." The nurse shuddered, her face resembling as though she saw a ghost.
"Me and the nurse went in to check and Mathew was sitting upright in his bed. Blood was pouring out from slashed marks on his arm! There was so much blood everywhere. I immediately called other nurses to stabilize him and he needed a blood transfusion."
"During the whole thing, he was calm, wasn't even losing his consciousness and quite a few times I saw him smiling when he looked at his arms. He did not utter a single sound and then we put him to sleep."
"Me and the nurse swore we wouldn't tell anyone and the police came to check how the injuries happened. There was nothing found, so they thought he must've harmed himself with something. The days went past and nothing new happened."
"I was again on night duty. I went to check up on him and he wasn't there. His IV tubes were taken out as well. I panicked and looked everywhere for him. Then I saw him in a patient's room and was holding a new-born baby in his hands. He was speaking in that same deep voice to the baby and I saw the mother was sleeping on her bed."
"When I came over to him, his eyes were black and I still remember those horrible sharp teeth. I remember fainting and when I woke up, I was told the mother and baby died without any cause. An investigation was being done to find out what happened."
"I don't know what happened with Mathew after I fainted and I don't think he remembered when I asked him about the incident. I couldn't figure out what was happening to me and I took a week off work. When I came back I was told two nurses had committed suicide and one had quit her job there."
"I found out these nurses were assigned to look after Mathew and I realized something terrifying was going on with Mathew. I contacted the nurse who quit her job and she told me how Mathew had tried to kill her several times and had a strange fascination with young children. There was this look of pure evil on his face and she swore she could see the devil behind him."
"Maria didn't seem to know what was happening, so I explained things to her in the nicest way I could. But she was silent all the way throughout. All she said was that she would talk to him and then left. Mathew after that became even worse. The night shift nurses tried to keep away from him and only a few approached him."
"Sometimes his voice was alternating between his own and the other one. There was always a child playing with him even though we didn't see any child come or leave. There was random injuries on his body which weren't normal. His health was declining faster, but he was moving and walking around like a normal person."
"In his final week before he died, we had to move him to an isolated place in the hospital because of his actions. He would start shouting in a foreign language in that weird voice. At night he would shriek like something of we never heard of. Whenever we tried to come near him, I could sense pure malice from him and the way he smiled at us was disturbing."
"It was always cold in his room no matter how high the temperature was put. All treatment we were giving him were failing and we couldn't understand why. I remember he told me he was being punished for his sins and the devil himself was in the room. I said he must have been joking, these things didn't exist."
"The room then turned to freezing cold, and I couldn't breathe because something was around my neck. Mathew was towering over me and the whole room was encompassed in a shadow and I make out two horns. I thought I was going to die and in the blink of an eye, everything was back to normal."
"I finally realized he was possessed by a devil. Whenever I uttered holy words, he would get agitated and told me to stop. Maria was becoming depressed and her visits were less frequent. On his last night, he was emanating animalistic noises and speaking in ancient languages."
"Three nurses were with him which included me. He was dying and we couldn't do anything as nothing was working. His final hour was the worst. His body was trying to fight something inside of him and break free. He was convulsing so badly I could hear his bones cracking and grinding. There were tears coming out of his eyes and we tried to give him medicine to numb the pain but I didn't know whether it was working or not."
"He was getting paler by the minute and his breathing was getting shallower. The thing inside of him was saying something we couldn't understand. He was becoming thinner until we saw how much the bones were distorted in his body. Patches of blood were everywhere when we examined him. His eyes were hollow and his skin colour was that of a ghost."
His heart beat was getting slower and we could tell he was nearing his end. He kept uttering he would come back for her over and over again. The lights in the room were flickering and all the electricity went off in the room. The only thing that was working was the heart machine which was showing his heart was dead."
"Me and the nurse still remember his last word which was aemulum."
....................................................................................................................................
If you like this chapter please do remember to vote, it means a lot if you do, and I would really love your feedback on it! Thank you in advance :)