Her Last Step

She died. She drifted away. Her body cold and mind settled, she died and drifted away. Karen Walters was a kind woman, a doctor who didn’t only look at the illness of a patient but at the patient themselves. She cared deeply for the ones in the hospital who she learned to call her family. From Mr Allan Lenard, a 70 year old man with terminal lung cancer who was at his last week, to little Sally Grocer, a 5 year old girl who had a degenerative bone disease called Osteogenesis to the point where even if she sneezed her ribs would shatter. Watching these people in pain caused Karen pain herself, but this didn’t deter her from the emotionally draining work she had. If anything it made her job harder to avoid. She worked hard to remove such pains, causing her to save more lives than she lost. The pain she felt when one patient lost their life was worth the joy she had from saving another. She wasn’t terribly religious; she believed in life and death but tried not to think about what happens after as it made her depressed, especially when thinking about all the patients she had lost. She meditated daily to calm her mind from the emotional distress she was under as an empathetic doctor. * * * Karen was in a rush. A patient of hers, Jack Hudson who suffered from intense anxiety caused by a tumour growing in his brain, was having a heart attack. He needed immediate attention from his doctor (Dr Walters). The hospital was only 5 minutes away from Karen’s house if the traffic was good, this fact didn’t make her rush any less for she knew that his heart was sure to fail if she didn’t act fast and it was 5 pm where traffic was at its worst. She dove into her Chevy Cobalt and took off.  She sat behind a long line of cars, imagining and feeling the pain of poor Jacky as his heart slowly and painfully shut down. She couldn’t handle the wait any longer and decided to take the back roads to the hospital. She took the first left into a more dodgy street which most civilized people avoided because of the all too common drug busts and gang related crimes reportedly on that particular street. Karen tried to distract herself from the terrible pain her thoughts were creating inside by concentrating on the graffiti art that stained the walls, on either side of her, as she sped past. As she staired her level of concentration on the road dropped almost completely. She only noticed the pale man in his black blazer and red tie when he was only a few metres away. The way he stared into her eyes smiling as she came rushing towards him made her spine tingle and turned her skin into a gooses after being feathered. Eyes angry but mouth happy he made no effort to move out of the way as if he wanted her to hit him. She swerved hitting a rubbish bin and the wall behind it. She hit the wall at an angle that caused her car to flip and barrel roll uncontrollably, smashing everything in its path until it had slowed down enough to land upside down against a power pole. The man with the red tie never stopped smiling as he stared at the car’s destructive roll.  The last thing Karen saw was his devilish eyes and his smile of nightmares before the piece of windscreen pierced through her chest and stopped her heart altogether. She died. She drifted away. Her body cold and mind settled, she died and drifted away. * * * Even with the ash black that surrounded her, Karen could feel that she was bound to a wooden chair by leather straps around her wrists, ankles and shoulders. Where am I? Am I really dead? She had no pain from the crash which confused her immensely. Had I been in a coma so long that my wounds have healed? When she woke up she felt as if she was in a room, but as time past and her eyes wouldn’t adjust to the darkness she questioned even that. Maybe I’ve gone blind, she wondered. She couldn’t tell the difference between when her eyes were closed and when they were open. If anything things seemed brighter when her eyes were closed. As suddenly as her car had flipped a spot light flashed on from above. The light wasn’t a bright shining light but a light that gave the feel that it were cast by a shadow a little less black than the darkness that surrounded her. The shadow slightly illuminated a chair similar to the thrones sat on by successful businessmen in their offices to show that they have all the power. Only in this chair wasn’t a businessman but a slim, pale man with a tie that shone a dark red, brighter than what the dark light would have provided. It was as though the tie was a light in itself. He wore a smooth black blazer. His smile and fiery eyes sent Karen’s memory back to the cause of her crash and the last face she saw. This was the same devilish man. “Ah Karen, you’re awake, with no doubt you are wondering where you are.” His voice, calm and chilling pierced her mind as if it came from within her own head. “You are neither dead nor alive; you’re in what can only be explained as the limbo before Hell.” He dragged the H like a snake would drag its ‘s’s’.  “W-w-who a-are you? Why-” questioned Karen trying to force her voice not to quiver as to not show her overwhelming fear that the man was already aware of.  “We are many. I am Death himself, Satan, the Grim Reaper, el Diablo, Beelzebub, Hades, the Prince of Persia, King of Evil, Lucifer.” He said this getting louder and louder as he recited the list of names until his voice boomed and overpowered Karen’s thoughts altogether, “but you can call me Lucy as I have a feeling that we are going to be good friends.” His tone went back to his calmly chilling yet slightly feminine voice. “You are here with me in my limbo and not with that Son of a Slut Jesus, who you don’t even think exists or ever did exist for that matter, because you didn’t pass the test that you call life. Before I send you to my kingdom of the drug, s*x and rock and roll addicts I intend to give you one last test.” His tone suddenly changed, he spat out the words as if they repulsed him to say, “One that if you pass, will grant you a second chance at what you call life. Life. The worthless thing you humans value so deeply.”  * * * Karen’s mind was set free to think with the silence that followed. She tried to reason a logical explanation for what was happening. Surely this isn’t true. This man is insane; he caused my crash and has now kidnapped m-  “I assure you Karen Walters that this is real!” As he finished his final angry word the darkness around them burst into loud flames except for a small circle about a metre around where Karen was sitting, where even the flames didn’t bring to light the darkness beneath her feet. Screams of pain were all around her from unknown origins, the fire bit at her body causing her herself to be one of the distant screams. Lucy rose up through the flames, his face bright red from the fire that consumed him, his arms spread wide as he boomed above the screaming, “oh yes, this is very real!” His laugh surrounded by screaming was one of untold nightmares causing Karen’s screams to turn to tears of both fear and pain. As suddenly as the flames had appeared they disappeared to become the darkness that was almost as consuming as the flames themselves. Now out of breathe from the lack of oxygen in the flames and fear, Karen breathed heavily, gasping for air.  “I know right! What the f**k?!” The demon laughed as he mocked Karen’s thoughts making her aware that even in her mind she wasn’t safe. She knew that these tests she would have to go through with wouldn’t be easy but after just being near the fires of hell she knew she would have to pass.  “Well then,” Lucy said reading her head with his hands rubbing against each other, “let’s get started.” He knew Karen’s thoughts and knew Karen’s fears. Willing to pull every one of them out to make sure she would fail and to claim yet another soul for his kingdom of blood and fire.   “I love pain. One of the only joys I have in my existence. Watching those I hate in pain. I hate you Dr Karen Walters so this is going to be very fun.”  Lucy walked closer to Karen as he spoke until he was right up to her ear. With a hot tongue, wet and long like a snakes, he licked the length of her cheek replacing her tears with a thick trail of saliva. His hand went into the inner pocket of his blazer and pulled out a pair of thick pliers. He lifted his other hands middle finger where a blue flame appeared at its tip, he held the pliers teeth up to flame and watched Karen’s eyes with a smile as her fear fully turned to a flowing stream of tears. The tips of the pliers were glowing red as he grabbed and squeezed her cheeks making her mouth open, “say ah!” He slowly inserted the red pliers into mouth grabbing one of her molars. Karen could feel the heat before he had even put them in.  “I promise this is going to hurt you far more than it’s going to hurt me.” Lucy laughed as Karen screamed.  Lucy tweaked the pliers slowly ripping her tooth from its now singeing gums. She could feel it coming out as it ripped from its deep roots. The taste of blood was evidence enough that her tooth was out let alone the intense numbing pain of the hot pliers suddenly branding her tongue. Lucy took out the pliers holding a large white tooth with fleshy pink specs, which could have only been her gums attached to the roots.  “Turns out its perfectly healthy,” he said inspecting the tooth closely, “oh well.”  He threw the pliers and the tooth with them over his shoulder and laughed as they disappeared into the darkness behind him.  “Ready for the next one?” he asked antagonisingly.  Karen spat the pouring blood onto his black loafer shoes as to say, f**k you, bring it on.  “Alrighty then, let’s do it.” Lucy laughed as he spun around with his foot with the blood on it high in the air and kicked her square in the jaw sending another gob of blood and spit flying out her mouth. She looked back at the direction of the man who had just round house kicked her in the face. She noticed he was gone. She noticed that both the darkness and the straps around her wrist, ankles and shoulders were gone now too. She was in the hospital where she had worked. Was that all just a dream? Karen wondered. X-ray charts where on the wall showing Sally Grocers ribs which had broken a few days before. At the hospital they provided a clown to entertain the kids under 7 years old. Sally was one of those kids. The hospital believed in the “laughter is the best medicine” proverb. For Sally this was not true. The clown had pretended to slip over on a bed pan beside her uncomfortably solid hospital bed. This made 5 year old Sally Grocer laugh hysterically causing her weak and hollow ribs to fracture. Her laughter quickly turned to screams of pain. The clown awkward and unknowing of what to do ran out of the room. She was left alone screaming until her doctor, Karen Walters, came rushing in to pump her IV tube full of morphine. Karen remembered her screams all too clearly as she inspected the images on the wall. She turned to the bed and saw Sally lying there peacefully sleeping. There was a window above Sally’s bed. Karen’s body froze except for her heart which sank deep. As she looked at the window she saw the reflection of the devil himself standing behind her with his smile of hell and eyes of someplace worse.  “I know you were such an empathetic doctor so this one I know you’ll fail.”  Karen’s eyes began to pour as she could tell what the sick man was planning. He walked over to the bed, picked up a clip board attached to it and inspected it closely.  “Ouch, Osteogenesis aye? That’s a painful one. One of my best work. It took a while to come up with the science behind it but now… Just wow.” He said proudly. “Wake her up.” Lucy said lifting his eye brows and keeping his frightening smile. Karen lightly placed her hand on Sally’s shoulder and wriggled it slightly. Sally woke up slowly giving a huge smile to her loving doctor. Sally noticed her eyes building up with tears and asked her what was wrong, to which Karen said nothing. Lucy’s laugh pierced Karen’s mind once again as he told her to twist Sally’s arms until they broke. Sally couldn’t see Lucy. All she saw was Karen coming closer to her and grabbing her arm as if getting ready to give her a Chinese burn. “What are you doing?” asked Sally with the sudden feeling that something terrible was about to happen.  As Karen started twisting Sally could feel her bones breaking and grinding against each other. Her screams reminded Karen of the screams in the fire. She did not want to go there and was willing to do anything to get out of it. She twisted until shards of blood stained white came splintering out of Sally’s forearm. Sally’s innocent screaming gradually became an almost silent whimper as she passed out from shock.  “Gooood.” Lucy laughed sadistically.  Karen’s sadness and guilt quickly turned to anger as Lucy’s chuckle echoed in her mind. With her fists clenched, Lucy noticed this anger building up inside her.  “Yes, that’s right, surrender to rage, feed your anger and use it! Now use that fist and force it through her skull.”  The chill of his voice while demanding this sick request would have frightened the toughest of men. Karen’s heart sank yet again as she looked at the comatose body of little Sally Grocer. This feeling turned to anger once more as she sent her fist straight into the 5 year olds face. She was determined now, determined to beat the devil’s tests. The force of Karen’s punch along with the brittleness of Sally’s bones sent her once solid forehead into pieces stabbing both her air ways and brain. Thankfully she did not awake as her blood filled her throat and suffocated her to death. Karen got on her knees covered her eyes and cried. Lucy’s voice seeped into her mind, “Wow your one f**ked up b*tch! I didn’t think you were actually going to do it! Oh well on with the next one.” She could hear the laughter drift further and further away as she cried. In confusion she looked up to see why he seemed to be drifting away. She was back in the darkness sitting in the chair with the straps in their original places. Satan was nowhere to be seen. Water started filling up the darkness, revealing that Karen was in fact in a room. As the water filled past her ankles she could see that the corners of the darkness were revealed but beyond the corners was still darkness, making it seem like she was in a glass box surrounded by nothing at all but space. As the water got up to her knee her ankle restraints loosened and she was able to get her legs free. The water continued to rise. It was past her breast now, loosening the leather straps around her wrists, breaking free she lessened the belt around her shoulders. Taking a deep breath the water waved over her head, turning her surroundings into no longer darkness but what looked like the bottom of the sea. A coral reef now surrounded her with pink and yellow fish swimming, which was pleasant to her eyes after only seeing nothing but fire and the devil, but terribly unpleasant to her mind as she realized that she was far below the ocean and far away from any air. As she admired the reef she noticed something long and slimy green going in-between the trees of colourful coral. It dawned on her that not everything down there would be as innocent as the fluttering pink and yellow fish. The giant serpent head revealed itself to Karen. The size of the water beast was terrifying enough as it was one of an ancient dinosaur. Its eyes flashed as it noticed Karen floating helplessly in the open water. With mouth wide and teeth still bloody from its last meal the monster, like a snake would on land, swam with tremendous speed toward the helpless piece of meat known as Karen Walters. Her arms frantically flapped and cupped the water to get her away from the horror before her. She looked back as it was upon her. Its fiery eyes and mouth almost smiling reminded her of Lucy’s terrifying grin. As Karen’s last breath of air escaped her in a scream, the serpent’s jaws spread wide and collapsed over Karen’s entire body. In the belly of the beast was an all too familiar darkness. Now soaking wet Karen saw the brightness of the evil man’s tie lighting his horrible smile and angry eyes with a red glow. “Welcome to Atlantis honey,” came the frightening voice of death, “I know it’s not all that nice but it’s where your next test will be located. I’ll protect you from the fish for your test doesn’t involve them. You are going to drown.” As he said the final word she could hear the serpent gagging and she turned to find out why. It was getting ready to throw up. She turned back to question Lucy to find that he had disappeared again. A wave of stomach acid and the carcases of half chewed fish flew at Karen and threw her back towards the opening of the sea snake’s mouth. She was back in the lonely yet beautiful surrounding that was the open sea. She let out her breath knowing that if she held it, it would just delay her painful drowning. She noticed with blurry vision the top of the ocean as her head began to get lighter. She knew that it was there to tempt her to go up for air, but she wouldn’t let Lucy win. Not after all that she had gone through. Her lungs were on fire as she threw her arms up to try and force her body to not float up to the surface. She could feel her lungs tightening as they desired for air. They forced her to gasp which filled them with the cold water that surrounded her. Karen could feel the same drifting that she felt when her windscreen went through her heart and out her back.  When she woke up she was in the hospital again, but this time she was in a bed of her own. Machines surrounded her with their long noodle-like tubing hooked up to her arms and one in her nose. Her body ached as though she had just been hit by a car. Then she remembered what had happened. She must have passed the devil’s tests. After 2 months she had fully recovered and gone to the appropriate rehabs for her injuries. She hadn’t told anyone about her experiences with Lucy because she felt as though if she didn’t talk about it the memories that stained her dreams would go away. They hadn’t gone away. She hadn’t been able to sleep a night without being back in the darkness with the terrible red glow on evil eyes and a horrific smile. She eventually went back to work. Karen avoided Sally Grocer’s room all day until Sally needed her medication for the day. She walked in slowly as the memories came flooding back. Sally’s screams were echoing in Karen’s mind. Sally was asleep in her bed. “Wake her up.” She could hear Lucy saying. With his eyes and smile vivid in her head she put her hand gently on Sally’s shoulder and woke her up. Karen got a terrible sense of déjà vu as she watched Sally smile up at her as she woke up and quickly change to a confused look as she saw the tears building in Karen’s eyes, “what’s wrong?” Sally asked scared that some bad news was coming. “Nothing” Karen said at the brink of bawling her eyes out. She handed Sally her meds and turned towards the door. She could see her twisting Sally’s arms and seeing her bones rip through the innocent flesh.  “Dr Walters.” Sally called out just before she had the chance to leave the room.  “Yes dear, what’s wrong?” “I had a dream… well it was more of a nightmare. You were there and so was a man in a suit with a red tie I don’t remember much of him but I do remember the eyes and the smile. He was asking you to do horrible things to me… and… You wouldn’t hurt me would you Dr Walters?” Karen was found shortly after that by a nurse crying in the staff restroom. The nurse referred her to a psychiatrist who could help her with whatever she was going through and wouldn’t judge no matter what she said. It was clear to Karen that keeping this in wasn’t good for her. She decided to take the recommendation and go see a psychiatrist.  Dr John Stevenson’s mind was spinning as his patient had told him that she had recently died and nearly gone to hell. He had seen many cases of people who believed to be dead but not to the extent of Karen Walters. She recounted her story with such detail and emotion that he almost believed it himself. He played with the thought that it was real in his mind but eventually put it down to only one possibility. “When going through near death experiences (like a very intense car accident like the one you went through) the brain releases a very powerful psychedelic chemical called DMT which causes the one going through the immense stress to hallucinate. There have been cases of people believing that they have seen God himself. I have dealt with one patient who claimed that he had been picked up by an alien race just after he took a shot to the head by his hunting partner. Karen, please try think of this logically. You did not see the devil; you didn’t do any of the things you have just told me. They were all very intense hallucinations which have caused you to believe them. I also have reason to believe you now suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder because of these hallucinations.”  Karen refused to believe him and insisted that they really happened. On her way home she thought about this possibility that none of it really happened. I’ve taken acid before and what happened to me was nothing like a psychedelic trip. She really couldn’t believe that what happened was because of some chemicals messing around in her brain. It was real. As the weeks went by Karen couldn’t get rid of the images that ruined her sleep ever since she woke up on the hospital bed. She hadn’t gone to work for a few days out of fear of what lurked in the room of little Sally Grocer. The images of Sally’s face getting caved in by her fist kept replaying in her mind until she couldn’t take it anymore. On one of her sleepless nights she got up out of her bed and went to her bathroom to splash water on her face. As she turned the light on she saw her hands covered in blood. Screaming Karen reached for the basin to wash it off, but the basin was gone. She was back in the darkness standing over a crushed skull and a bloody gushing arm. She screamed as she sat up realizing she was dreaming again. Again Karen looked at her hands and the blood was gone.  It had been six days since she last slept. Karen was staring at the noose that she knew was about to take her life. She put it around her neck while standing on her wooden table which reminded her too much of the wooden chair she was once strapped to. About to step off the table to take her final step of this world, her attention was drawn as she noticed something out her window. Across the street barely lit by the street light was a man. A man wearing a black suit and a red tie. His eyes piecing her soul. He was chuckling as he stared. Stared waiting for Karen to take her last step.