The Devil in Silver

It was as long as Pepper’s forearm if you included the tail. Its fur was gray. It fell and stayed there on the floor, on its side, stunned from the impact. Its paws were curled close to its body. The long whiskers on the right side of its face stood up slightly. Every few seconds, they quivered.

“That thing must weigh twenty pounds,” Pepper said. “To break through the ceiling like that.”

And yet, despite his disgust, Pepper felt such relief. It was a rat, yes, but only a rat. At New Hyde that almost seemed like a happy ending. “People say there’s thousands of them living up there,” Sue said.

“Rats in the walls?”

“On the second floor,” Sue clarified.

The rat’s whole body shook once now. Its paws clawed the air. Slowly at first, but then more frantically. Until it worked up enough momentum to rock itself upright.

Miss Chris reached room 14 now, and Pepper wondered if there were even any patients in all these rooms. Maybe it didn’t matter. Do every room quickly and you’ll get everyone. Stop and check, room to room, and you’ll waste more time.

“Wake-up hour! Breakfast!”

Now that it was up, the rat scurried right out of Glenn’s room. It crossed into the hall, hustled into Pepper’s room, shot under the bed, came out the other side, and went right for the box of Cocoa Puffs Pepper had brought to the room the night before. It had been close enough that he could’ve reached for it if Sue had been hungry. Now the rat had sniffed it out.

The rat reached the box of sugared cereal. Pepper and Sue watched, absolutely gobsmacked. It bumped the box so the box fell flat. Then in one swift motion, the rat clamped its teeth into the nutritional-information chart. Prey captured, the rat plowed right back under the bed. It came out the other side, wobbling a bit. It kept its head up so the box didn’t drag on the floor. Imagine a man carrying a sofa in his arms on his own. Better yet, imagine a man carrying your sofa off like that. That little rat gangster shuffled through the open doorway and into the hall.

“Vermin!” They heard Miss Chris shouting from down the hall. The rat didn’t return to room six, it fled down the hall, away from Miss Chris, headed for the nurses’ station. In a moment, Miss Chris, moving with more agility than Pepper had seen her employ in more than two months, came shuttling past the open doorway.

“Vermin!” she shouted to the staff members at the far end of the hall. “Get the broom!”

Who would win? The staff or the rat?

Hard to say which side Pepper was rooting for.

Sue and Pepper lay there in shocked silence.

Sue finally looked at Pepper. “Why do you keep cereal on the floor?”

Pepper laughed and thought about how to explain, but any response was interrupted when he looked over Sue’s shoulder into Glenn’s room and saw a pair of feet dangle down from that hole in the ceiling.

Pepper opened his mouth but nothing escaped.

Sue turned in time to see the legs appear. Thin and pallid. The skin mottled and loose. They swayed, forward and back, floating in Glenn’s room. The soles of the feet looked gray and hard.

Then the figure dropped. They saw the lean, cadaverous body. The impossible, monstrous head.

The Devil stood in room six. It gazed at them. “Do you see that?” Pepper whispered.

“Yes,” Sue said.

Even from across the hall they heard it breathing, heaving.

And if Miss Chris, the rest of the staff, the rest of the world was making any noise, they sure couldn’t hear it now.

Pepper held Sue’s left arm and she grabbed his hand tightly.

The last time he’d seen the Devil it had been bleating with panic; Loochie’s hands had wrestled its horns back and Pepper had been draped across the backs of those skeletal legs. It had seemed so weak for a moment. Spent. All the vigor knocked out of it. Maybe Coffee could’ve blinded it with those two needles.

If only Dorry hadn’t been there!

Then maybe it wouldn’t be here now.

But there it was.

The Devil pulled its lips back, exposing teeth the color of oyster shells. The tangles of fur below its chin were clumped and wet; they swung like curtains of moss. Pepper heard a muffled sniff. But it wasn’t the monster this time. Sue was crying.

“It’s okay,” he whispered. He kissed her cheek.

“I heard you cry once,” Pepper said loudly. “You were scared.” He wasn’t talking to Sue.

The Devil turned its enormous head sideways, as if to see Pepper more clearly. One gray-white eye fixed on him. It inhaled deeply. It took two steps toward them.

It grabbed room six’s doorknob for balance.

“You’re not getting her,” Pepper gloated. “At least she’s leaving.”

Sue sniffled. When she spoke, she whispered.

“There’s a Devil waiting for me in China, too. If this one doesn’t get me, that one will.”