IV
“His
attitude has changed a lot,” Josh said as he and Paige followed the boy down
the stairwell to the ground floor of the hospital, “what happened to him?”
“We saw
something,” Paige said nervously, “I’m not sure what, exactly, but since then
Charlie has been acting differently. He
doesn’t seem scared at all. I don’t
really understand it.”
“What
about you? Are you still scared?” Josh
asked as he turned to head down the next flight of steps.
Paige
paused and it was a moment before he realised that she was a few steps behind
him. He stopped and looked up at
her. Her eyes were shimmering and her
look was almost pleading.
“Of
course I’m scared, Josh,” she said eventually, “this is madness. I have no idea what’s going on. I’ve seen monsters, ghosts, visions of the
past. It’s crazy stuff and I’m not
really sure how much more of it I can take.”
She closed her eyes and Josh watched as a tear ran down her cheek.
They
stood in silence for a moment and then Paige opened her eyes again and dabbed
at them with her sleeve.
“I just
want to wake up and find that everything is back to normal. I just want… I want to see David again.”
“Whatever
is going on, it can’t last forever,” Josh replied, trying to seem more
confident than he really was. In truth,
he understood exactly how Paige felt.
He didn’t want to tell Paige about what had happened to him for fear
that talking about it would solidify it into something he couldn’t escape
from. All he could think of was that if
they kept moving maybe everything would eventually return to normal and start
making sense again. “C’mon,” he said,
“we better catch up with Charlie.”
Paige nodded and Josh turned
around, waiting for her to catch up to him before continuing their
descent. He took his time, as if he
didn’t really care that they were leaving the hospital. It was a struggle, as his feet seemed
desperate to run and his hands wanted to rip into the banister, but he realised
that he couldn’t show those feelings, not in front of Paige and even less so in
front of Charlie when they eventually reached him. It occurred to him that part of surviving the night might just be
in pretending it didn’t scare him. They
had to keep their hopes up and if it took a lie to do that, then so be it.
He gave Paige a sideways
glance, a little half-smile and then they pushed through the stairwell doors
into reception.
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