The Devil in Silver

The nurse slipped the key into the secure ward door and this is the moment when she got a bit lazy. She should have looked over her shoulder to be sure there were no other patients crowding close. In fact, the orderly should actually have accompanied her and the family to the door. All this was basic training. But there was only the one young orderly on shift, and he’d gone to the television lounge to let people know visiting hours were about over.

The nurse stood at the door alone. She’d offered to go open the door for this family just to avoid the damn charting for a few minutes. The most pleasant part of her job for the next few hours would be these moments when she got to usher visitors out. She took some pride in smiling at them as they left, like a good hostess. She was new, on the job for only two months. She unlocked the secure ward door and pulled it open.

A moment later Pepper rear-ended her.

The big man was fast when he had the proper motivation. Like getting out of the nut hut. Like stepping outside and breathing fresh air.

Pepper moved toward the door. He reached that family and mushed them out of the way. First the man: it was like brushing past a sack of dirty laundry, that’s how soft the man’s body felt. The guy slipped and went down. Then Pepper made his harshest decision. He chose to vault over the woman in her fifties. He thought this was better than barreling through her. But the man was no kind of athlete. Pepper had no ups. If he went three inches off the ground it would be an all-time best. He bum-rushed that poor woman and she went stumbling forward, plowing into the nurse’s back. The two smashed into the wall just to their left.

No time for apologies. The door was completely open. Look at that lavender wall paint in the hallway right outside! Pepper could’ve maneuvered a Zamboni machine through the doorway. He was free. He was free. Even if it was the worst idea he’d had, in a week of lousy ideas, the man could still escape. He made it past everyone.

Except the teenage girl.

She didn’t have Pepper’s size or weight, obviously, but what she did have in her favor was rage. She had the Crazy Strength. (Retarded folks are rumored to have powerful—nearly mythic—strength but don’t shortchange the mentally ill. In the proper state they can bring the ruckus.)

This teenage girl was the patient. The woman in her fifties, the mother. The soft-bodied man in his thirties, her brother. Pepper had guessed wrong, and he would pay for it.

The kid mounted him from behind. She grabbed his shirt right by the waist and planted her feet on the backs of his shins. Even though she didn’t weigh that much, Pepper couldn’t stay upright with that pressure on his calves. With that surprisingly simple move she toppled the big man.

As he fell, time slowed, giving Pepper a moment to once again take in the painted trees in the framed pictures on one wall. The images seemed to move away from him now. Before his face hit the floor, he had one clear thought.

I’m a fucking idiot.

When Pepper’s face connected with the linoleum tiles, his mouth opened and his front teeth connected with them and he heard one of his teeth crack, and small bits of enamel skitter through the doorway, to the other side.

The young woman ran up his back, clawing forward, until she grabbed the back of his head and pulled at his hair. Brown strands in her hands. And this whole time those two blue pom-poms on the top of her blue knit cap were bouncing and bobbing playfully.

“Put your hands on my mother again!” the teenager howled. “Put your hands on my fucking mother!”

The girl brought her right elbow down on the back of Pepper’s neck; her elbow stabbing right into the ball at the top of his spine. Pepper couldn’t even yell, he coughed violently and foamy spit covered his lip and chin. He dropped the side of his face against the floor and he huffed and heaved and snorted.

The woman in her fifties had found her footing by now. She grabbed her daughter and pulled her away. “That’s enough, Loochie! Come on now! Get off him! Loochie!”

The nurse and the girl’s brother got up, too. The orderly on duty and two other nurses stampeded down the hall and surrounded Pepper’s prone body.

“He hit my mother!” the girl shouted. “It’s not my fault!”

The orderly grabbed Pepper’s shins. Pepper kicked but there wasn’t much power in him. The orderly then dragged Pepper backward, away from the open door and farther into the unit, like a roped steer. It took a great strain to move Pepper’s body just three feet. Then the nurse who’d opened the door shut it again. She locked it.

Pepper looked up at the wild child, to see her staring down at him, one arm hooked around her mother’s shoulder protectively. The girl’s brother shivered as he leaned against a wall.