Beneath THE BLEEDING SKY

Episode 2-Aura

Elizabeth swallowed back a lump of terror. Damn Dr. Radison. Damn his yellow hide. Fury sent adrenaline flowing through her. The medical director should have stayed in the clinic until the last person was evacuated. Her responsibilities were in the business office, ensconced behind a computer and poring over printout sheets. She wasn't prepared for a life-and-death situation involving five other human beings. Prepared or not, start coping, said an unsympathetic inner voice.

At that moment, Mrs. Tompkin, a stocky woman in a white nurse's uniform, hurried down the hall toward them. Perspiration glistened on her middle-aged face. "You'd better come, Miss Preston... right away."

"What's wrong?" Elizabeth's heart stopped. She had left the three children in the day room with Mrs. Tompkin and the aide while they waited for the evacuation vehicle to show up.

"It's the aide, Marietta. She's frightening the children. I had everything under control until I sent the woman to the linen room to get some extra blankets.... I thought we'd better take some extra with us...you know, in case we might get stuck on the road longer than planned. According to the radio, the roads are jammed.... Anyway, Marietta came back shrieking hysterically about the roots of falling trees tearing up the ground behind the clinic where the pirate cemetery is supposed to be. She's spouting that nonsense about the spirits of the murdered captain and his men leaving their graves during storms like this." The nurse snorted in disgust. "She's wailing as if she expects to be ravished at any moment."

Damn, swore Elizabeth silently. She didn't have time to waste on some ridiculous local superstition. The area directly behind the clinic was supposedly an old graveyard where the victims of a m******e were buried when early English settlers murdered the crew of a pirate ship that had been cast ashore. And according to superstition, any deaths or tragedies that occurred during violent storms were caused by the evil spirits of the murdered seamen seeking revenge. It was all nonsense. Very often Elizabeth had eaten her lunch in the shade of those trees and her dreamlike fantasies had been anything but fearful. In fact, some of her musings filled her lonely life with a strange, comforting spirituality. "I'll talk to her," Elizabeth told the nurse briskly.

"I've got my hands full, Miss Preston. Marietta's no help. She's going on hysterically about ghosts and evil spirits when she should be tending to the children." The older woman scowled. "How much longer are we going to have to wait for transportation? When are we getting out of here?"

Elizabeth attempted to give the nurse a reassuring smile without answering her question, but the older woman wasn't fooled. "God help us all." She turned and headed back down the hall.

"Damn, that's all I need," swore Elizabeth. "Some idiotic old wives' tale sending Marietta into hysterics."

She looked up into the stranger's eyes and saw that their color had darkened. His body was close enough to brush against hers, and she was aware of the same dangerous s****l response she'd felt when his body shielded hers under the desk. As the hurricane's up-roar vibrated in her ears, a bizarre need to feel his protective arms around her again overtook her. His expression was unreadable. She'd always had her emotions well under control when it came to romantic impulses. She was chilled and frightened by her response to this stranger. "I have to go, Mr. Delmar," she said briskly. She took a step away, but he stopped her with a firm hold on her arm. The warmth of his fingers on her flesh was startling. Piercing. Burning. It was as if the enraged storm flowed through him. She jerked her arm away.

"There's no time to waste. I'm sorry if I frightened you, but I can't help unless I know what the situation is," he said in a reasonable tone that mocked her risking hysteria. "You do want me to help, don't you, Elizabeth?" His midnight blue eyes searched hers.

She gave him a shaky nod even as a disturbing thought flickered through her mind. Was there a price to pay for his help?

"What precautions have been made to make the building secure?"

She gave herself a mental shake and tried to think.

"I know that the building has weathered several tropical storms in the past. Most of the windows have metal shutters. I don't know about emergency supplies. When Andrea became a hurricane, Dr. Radison decided on evacuation."

"And he left three of his patients and staff?"

"He was certain that he had arranged for enough evacuation vehicles. Only...only he left before the last one arrived."

"He should have seen the children." His voice was harsh. A deep torment in his eyes shocked her. His expression took on a frightening intensity.

He must be a parent of one of the children. That would explain his presence in the clinic. "I'm sure Dr. Radison would have remained if he'd known there was going to be a problem." Why did she cover for her boss? She didn't know. She put as much conviction into her voice as she could. "The last vehicle will probably be here momentarily."

"And if it isn't?"

"Then we'll have to cope." The strength of her voice surprised her since she was quivering inside like a vibrating leaf. Cope. How did one cope with a world suddenly devastated by an uncontrollable force?

"Has anyone determined which part of the building might be the safest?" he asked. She could feel his breath touching her cheeks as he leaned toward her.

"No, I...I..." she stammered.

"I'll check it out. We don't have much time. Get the children ready to move."

He didn't wait for her response. Before she could move, he was gone, out of sight in a nearby corridor. Don't leave me! The silent cry came from an unreasonable fear that he would disappear as suddenly as he had appeared in her office.

She hurried down the main hall to the children's day room, which was in the west wing of the building. Elizabeth could feel the force of the storm stronger in the annex hall. Not a safe place. She should have moved the three children to a different part of the building earlier. But I thought we would be gone by now.

She opened the door and glanced quickly at the three children she had come to know so well. Buddy Benson was a seven-year-old autistic boy who lived in his own world with a complacent, unruffled detachment. Elizabeth saw that he was sitting in his usual corner, mesmerized by something in his lap that no one else could see. He constantly moved his head back and forth as if his straight chair was a rocker.

A little blond girl spun around and around in erratic circles, humming in a high-pitched tone. Her name was Debbie and she, too, was going on seven. The youngest child, Patty, only five years old, sat at a small round table tearing pages from a book as fast as her hands could move. She laughed merrily as she threw the sheets of paper up in the air with wild abandonment.

Nurse Tompkins caught Debbie in the middle of a spin. "Quiet," she ordered firmly as she eased the child down on a rug. "Quiet, Debbie. Quiet." The little girl's response was a blank stare, but she stayed on the floor and continued her high-pitched humming.

"Good," the nurse told her, then hurried over to the girl who was destroying the book. "That's enough."

Patty." The nurse stilled the child's hands with her own. "Leave the book alone.

Elizabeth gave Mrs. Tompkins a grateful smile and then turned to Marietta who was standing at the nurses' station. An eighteen-year-old native of Barbados, the dark-haired young woman spoke English well, had a quiet manner that was good with children, but her serene composure had been shattered, and her dark eyes betrayed an inner hysteria. She hugged herself as shivers attacked her slender body.

Elizabeth put an arm around the girl's waist. "It's all right, Marietta. Everything's under control," she lied.

"We're going to move to a safer place."

"There's no safe place," she wailed.

"Marietta, you have to get a hold of yourself," Elizabeth said sharply. "We have to think of the children."

Tears ran down Marietta's cheeks and beads of sweat glistened on her forehead. Her lips trembled as she sobbed. "The graves are open, Miss Preston. I saw the trees fall. The earth flew up into the air. The evil spirits came out."

"Nonsense!"

"I saw them. They're coming after us."

"What you saw were leaves and branches whipped upward by the storm. There are no evil spirits. No open graves. All of that is just an old wives' tale."

Marietta set her chin and her eyes widened. "Сарtain Hawksley is going to find a woman and take her back to his grave."

Elizabeth's tone was sharper than she had intended but she didn't have time for such drivel. "There are no pirates preying on young women. No avenging sea captain. You've got to pull yourself together. We need your help with the children."

"Please, we can't stay here," she pleaded. "We have to get away." She seemed ready to bolt from the room. Elizabeth grabbed her arm. "It's suicide to go out in a wind that's blowing a hundred and ten miles an hour and getting stronger every minute."

"Can't we get away from here? It's not safe," she wailed.

"There's no place guaranteed to be safe," Elizabeth said, turning up the volume on the small portable radio sitting on the nurses' desk. Thank heavens that Mrs. Tompkin had foresight enough to find one, she thought. Maybe relief was on the way. Surely, some kind of a rescue unit would come and take them to a shelter on the mainland.

"All coastal areas have been evacuated as Andrea moves inland. Hospitals and storm shelters are stock-piling food, water, fuel and medicine," reported the newscaster. "Sandbags have been issued to Charleston residents preparing to wait out the storm. Public buildings have been turned into shelters. A late bulletin -a hurricane just touched down on Myrtle Beach!"

Marietta screamed, and at first Elizabeth thought that Marietta's shriek was in response to the news on the radio. Then she saw that the young woman was pointing to the door.

Elizabeth swung around.

Davin Delmar stood there framed in the doorway, a dramatic figure in his red-and-black attire, and dark hair framing his bronze face."It's him," Marietta croaked with terrified eyes.

"Captain Hawksley. He's come." A shudder racked her small body and she slumped to the floor.