D.O.A. Extreme Horror Anthology (30 page)

Adriana watched him go, then returned to chugging the calorie free, yet artificially sweet soda. The episode playing on the widescreen bored her, but boring was just fine.

Just fine
, she told herself,
just fine
. . .

Her eyelids drooped. She shook her head and slapped her cheeks.

The room’s walls suddenly changed from white to sky-blue, accompanied by fluffy, white clouds. The TV morphed into a crib—Joey’s crib.

Oh God, please don’t let this happen
.

She felt the couch move, looked to her right and, on her knee, Waverly reached into the popcorn bowl. They sat in a wooden chair with bars at the back. Willow sat on the floor trading slaps with Huey, snot hanging from her nose.

Baby Joey lay on his chest and face again. Waverly wailed, and Adriana turned to look at her. Tears ran down the child’s face.

“You gonna hurt me! You’re not my mommy!”

Adriana rose and put Waverly down. She darted around Huey and Willow to get to Baby Joey. She turned the baby over, relieved to hear him gulp and then cry.

Thank God
.

Something hard pushed its way up her skirt with enough force to nearly go up her rectum. Adriana wheeled around and saw Waverly with a small toy truck in her hands. The child laughed. Her tears had stopped blurring her red face.

The fury and turmoil built again.

Make it stop
,
oh God, make it stop
!  

Adriana’s hand went into the air as if possessed, then balled into a fist.

No! Don’t hurt the kid!

The red-haired child’s eyes grew wide. Adriana couldn’t stop it, as much as she tried. Adriana caught Huey and Willow rolling on the floor in the corner of her eye, yanking out each other’s hair.

Brats!

The haymaker swung Waverly’s way . . .

Adriana woke up thrashing on the couch. A loud whistle—a teakettle?—rang in the background until she recognized her own high-pitched scream. She beat at the pillows and spilled the popcorn and diet soda all over the rug.

A stranger in a blue bathrobe ran into the room and stared at Adriana. His eyes had grown wide. The man walked toward her.

The rage again.
How dare this strange man try to comfort me
!
Where am I
? 

She bounded up off the couch, ran at the man and buried her head in his stomach, knocking him over the TV. The set crashed, crackled and set off sparks. The strange man rolled over and held onto the back of his head.

That’s what what’s-his-name gets
.

Friday

Adriana sat on a bed waiting for the doctor to come in at The Sleep Medicine Center in Mowquakwa, Illinois. The trip from the suburb of Wampum had been silent. Thank God her husband was all right. She had no memory of throwing him over the TV, but he’d said his head only hurt a bit—just a nasty bump on the back of the noggin and a minor backache.

She sat in a room with glass windows, one black, where they probably evaluated her while she slept. A stocky man with receding, black hair and glasses walked in, shutting the door behind him. He carried a clipboard and smiled at her as he made his way over.

He held out his hand. “I’m Professor Conover of the Department of Neurology.”

She took his firm hand in hers and squeezed. “Adriana Berry.”

“So, you’ve been having some nightmares, I take it?”

She nodded, thankful that her husband was not present.

“Can you tell me what they’re about?”

She sighed, gripping the sides of the bed with white knuckles. “I’m in the nursery, as I always am on Sundays, at church.” She sobbed. “A-And instead of being gentle like I usually am, I find a baby. He’s not moving . . . he’s . . . you know. SIDS, I think. And I . . . and I . . . hurt a little girl.” Adriana couldn’t stop the tears.

The doctor put a firm hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Adriana blinked, trying to see the doctor through the veil of tears as she looked up at his face. “Am I going crazy?”

He shook his head. “Not at all. You have a condition called ‘night terrors.’ It’s hard to pinpoint exact causes, but they can range from stress and poor sleeping habits to poor nutrition. Have you been cooking healthy meals at home?”

She sighed, looking at the yellow tiles of the floor. “I’m always on the go, so I eat fast food for lunch every day. By the time I get home I’m usually too tired to cook. We had pizza last night and Chinese the night before.”

“I see.” He made some notes on his clipboard. “Were they good about giving you the time off at work?”

“I guess they had to be.”

He nodded. “When do you usually go to bed?”

She met his eyes. “I try to go to bed at eleven every night, but I just lay there forever. It feels like someone’s turning a screw in my mind.”

Dr. Conover nodded and made some more notes. “Night terrors usually attack in the 4th stage of sleep, non-REM sleep, where the eyes’ movement under the lids is slow. Your husband told me you thrash around, wake up screaming with no idea where you are—even get violent—which are all symptoms of the condition. We’d like to keep you here overnight to monitor your sleep habits, put you on a nutritious diet and get your sleep cycle back to normal.”

Anxiety pricked her mind and she swallowed hard. “Overnight?” She ran her hands through her hair and fidgeted. “Is that necessary?”

Doctor Conover nodded. “If you want to get better, we need to do a sleep study.” He rubbed his eyes and slipped his glasses back on. “We can start monitoring you tonight. I can even give you a sedative so you can fall asleep right away. We’ll take a look at you tonight and tomorrow night. Then we’ll need to get you on a healthy meal plan for when you go home.”

She nodded.
Anything to make the child-murdering dreams stop
.

The doctor handed her a form on a clipboard. “If you’ll just sign here.”

She scrawled out her best John Hancock. Adriana caught a glance of the doctor as he turned to leave the room. If she hadn’t known better, she would’ve sworn that the doctor had a shit-eating grin on his face and beady little eyes as he stared down at the form.

That Evening

Adriana’s eyes opened. Confusion at first. She lay in the institutional bed, electrodes hooked up to her forehead like the Lovecraftian pseudopods of an underwater creature.

Clicking footsteps walking into the room roused her senses. She closed her eyes to try to focus. When she opened her eyes, Doctor Conover loomed over her with a scalpel in hand. Two nurses clad in short, white lab coats stood on either side of her. Their legs were bare and so long under the coats that they seemed to go on forever.

Adriana wanted to ask what the hell the scalpel was for and why the nurses weren’t wearing pants, but she couldn’t move. The slim woman on the right had blonde, straight hair that fell across her head and onto her shoulders like running water. Glitter speckled her high set cheekbones which framed full, pouty lips. She’d generously applied eye shadow above her blue eyes, sparkling with desire, and her deeply-tanned skin bronzed her frame like a statue. The brunette on her left sported heavily-applied gold eye shadow above wide, green eyes that led to a slim nose, fine-structured cheekbones and thin lips; her slender neck exposed milky-white skin, and strands of curly black hair hung just above her shoulders.

Both nurses held needles at least fifteen inches long. They primed them, sending jets of liquid flying from the tips.

The doctor’s grin turned into a frown, then a scowl. He flashed white teeth, big enough to belong to a horse, and ground them together.

I’m in a madhouse! God help me, they’re going to kill me
!

The nurses unbuttoned their coats and slid them off. The blonde’s huge, tanned breasts couldn’t be natural. The nipples looked like baby bottle-tops in the center of her twin peaks. They were erect. She rubbed the shaved vagina between her legs, spreading apart the pink lips.

Are you kidding me? Lord Jesus Christ, get me out of here
!

The brunette’s small breasts barely jiggled, they were so firm. She fingered the brown labia that hid underneath a triangular thatch of black pubic hair.

Adriana tried to speak, tried to rise up off the bed, but again couldn’t move; only inaudible sounds gurgled from her lips. 

Doctor Conover twisted his face. “You know what we do to baby killers around here?” he yelled.

No, I’m not a baby killer! I’m here for treatment!

The nurses laughed and moved forward, undoing Adriana’s shirt and running their hands over her breasts.

My God, am I dreaming? Is that what’s going on?

She willed it to stop, with no luck. Not only did it continue, Adriana found her nipples getting hard underneath the nurses’ soft clutches. The brunette ripped Adriana’s pajama bottoms off and spread her labia apart with her fingers, sticking a couple digits inside her sex. Though every fiber of Adriana’s being was against the slutty adultery that ravaged her, blinding shock waves of excitement pulsed through her, making her undulate and moan.

The wide-eyed blonde slapped Adriana’s left breast, then her right one. “Child-killing whore!” she said with a chirpy voice.

The brunette stuck her fist inside Adriana, causing her to convulse. Unsure of which feeling took precedence, pain or pleasure, Adriana shuddered.

“This is what you get for being a kid-killing slut!” the brunette cried.

The blonde smirked up at Dr. Conover. “Hurt her, doctor!”

He leaned forward and shoved the scalpel into Adriana’s right eye, half blinding her and causing white-hot jabs of pain to pulse through her socket. The throbbing agony gave way to hellish, excruciating torment as the good eye saw dark red squirt all over the blonde’s hair and face. The nurse laughed, took her hands off Adriana’s breasts and stuck her tongue out, squealing as she lapped up the blood.

Adriana screamed, and felt a sharp, jabbing pain in her sex, as if someone poked her with broken glass. She raised her bloody head off the pillow to see a red face eating her pussy. The visage belonged to what looked like a cartoon version of Satan, cat’s eyes glared up at her and curling horns stuck out of his forehead. The Devil’s pointy, serrated teeth bit into her clit. Her blood made his face turn from bright red to dark crimson. Adriana couldn’t bear much more. She passed out as Satan laughed, chewing and swallowing her clitoris.

***

Adriana woke thrashing and shrieking like never before. She didn’t recognize her surroundings. She kicked her legs so vehemently that she fell off the bed and slammed hard against the floor. A door opened and footsteps ran into the room. Hands helped her up and a light came on. It was a balding man in glasses and a red-headed, heavy-set nurse. A woman with long, white hair stood at the door, her hand still on the light switch. 

The man and the woman helped Adriana back into bed, and the woman pulled out a small needle which sent Adriana keening as loudly as she could—though she didn’t know why. All Adriana knew was that everything became blurry and a peaceful calm claimed her as she shut her eyes and drifted off.

Saturday

“What did you give me?” Adriana yelled, her knuckles white as she gripped a warm cup of coffee.

The doctor sat across from her in the white-walled cafeteria of the hospital. Chatter and clatter from the hospital staff and the other patients stopped.

“Just a sedative,” Doctor Conover answered. “It’s your night terrors. You had another nightmare.”

She slammed her free fist down on the table. “I want out of this place!”

The doc moved his head back a couple inches and then sighed. “Mrs. Berry, it was just a dream. I’m sure they’ll dissipate after you catch up on your sleep and your diet is changed.”

Adriana looked into her cup of black coffee and saw a funhouse reflection of her plump face. Her visage was oblong, and matted hair flanked her frown. She met the doctor’s wide eyes. “I dreamed you were all devil worshipers, and you had X-rated nurses.”

The doc chuckled. “It’s all part of your illness.”

She let out a panicky breath that stopped and started over and over. “What am I saying? When I woke up, your nurses were normal.” She breathed deeply. “Will I really get better?”

“You got twelve hours of sleep yesterday and have eaten nothing but healthy food the whole time you’ve been here. I’d venture a guess that you’ll sleep well tonight, probably with no nightmares.”

She nodded. “I hope you’re right.”
Because church is tomorrow, and I have to run the nursery
.

Sunday

Adriana was woken up by the rotund nurse. The doctor smiled down on her. She blinked at the harsh glow of the overhead lights.

She yawned and rubbed her eyes. “W-what time is it?”

“It’s six a.m. on Sunday morning,” the nurse answered.

The nurse helped her sit up, putting her hand on her back.

Adriana stretched. “Did I have a nightmare?”

Doctor Conover chuckled. “I’m glad to report that you had no night terrors. You didn’t thrash around, and there was no trace of anything but good dreams. Looks like the change in your diet and sleeping habits worked.”

Joy filled her mind. “Really?” She giggled like a schoolgirl. “You mean I’m cured?”

“I think so,” the doctor pointed toward the door. “You have an anxious husband that can’t wait to see you.”

She rose and hugged Dr. Conover. She couldn’t help it. “Thank you so much!”

“Just doing my job.”

She sobbed tears of joy.

***

After a healthy breakfast at the sleep center with her husband, they’d headed home. She’d explained to him that Doctor Conover had cured her, and Kerry had been overjoyed. Now they walked out the door of Bible study room, headed . . .

Toward the nursery.

The chatter of the other members seemed to echo, as did the laughter and screams of children and the band practicing in the sanctuary. As she moved closer to the danger zone, her legs became like jelly, her nerves rattled and her hands shook. Adriana stopped.