The Devil in Silver

Dorry called to Loochie. “Well, how are you going to open the damn door if I’ve got the keys?!”

Loochie didn’t even look back, only extended her right arm, and there, dangling from her wrist was Scotch Tape’s set. They hadn’t searched Josephine for her cell phone, so it shouldn’t be surprising that they’d forgotten to secure the extra set of keys, too. When Loochie dragged Scotch Tape to the conference room, she’d snatched them off his wrist. That’s really why she’d volunteered to haul him.

Coffee pleaded with the person on the other end of the line. “Do not hang up on me! Please! Do not hang up!” His voice softened, it quieted. “You are my last resort.”

Then the receiver fell out of Coffee’s hand and bounced against the floor.

But there wasn’t any time to comfort Coffee. Kofi. Not for Pepper, anyway. He sped toward Loochie. When she heard his boots clomping, she picked up the pace. She sprinted.

Running aggravated Pepper’s still-tender ribs. He winced and hunched forward when he sped up. He almost tripped. The closer he came to Loochie, the closer he was to the silver door. The air became warmer, just like the last time he got this close.

There was that smell again. The one from the first night the Devil visited Pepper’s room. The scent on an unclean body. So strong here that it tainted the walls, the floor, the silver door. An unclean place. The air so sour his throat closed up and his eyes burned.

Down the hall, Kofi howled. “Okay, then! I tried!”

Loochie slid the key into the lock. There were twenty keys to choose from, but she found the exact right one on the first try.

“Don’t,” Pepper pleaded.

But Loochie turned the key.

She let the Devil out.

21

THE SILVER DOOR didn’t just open; it seemed to explode.

The stainless steel swung back so hard, its handle clanged against the wall and busted a small hole in the Sheetrock. It was as if the Devil had been inside the room, straining to get out, too.

Then: animal fur, sour and matted, passed between Loochie and Pepper.

The smell of waste, worse than from a public toilet, hit them, too. Sewer water, sewage, sweat, and saliva that have caked and dried. Loochie and Pepper’s eyelids fluttered. Their eyes watered. From a distance, this looked like tears.

The Devil rushed into the hallway. Its enormous crown leading the charge. Animal fur, sour and matted and curled into knots.

There were two smallish ears on its long, enormous head. They were small compared to the skull’s grand dimensions. The ears were the size of children’s mittens and about the same shape; they flipped and shook, as if bitten by gnats.

Just above those ears were its horns. Not very long, but thick and gnarled. Points turned upward, toward the ceiling. They were grayish white, the color of exposed bone. Each tip seemed as sharp as a lance’s. Animal fur, sour and matted and curled into knots, all of it brown as mud.

The head of a plains bison charged through the open door. The sight unmistakable under the hallway lights.

And somewhere, in all that hair, were the Devil’s two small eyes. Glassy and white and without fear.

Pepper actually cackled at the sight of thing. Not laughter or bravado, but something crazed. He stood in Northwest 4 with a monster. Such things were impossible, he knew this, but there it was.

The Devil rushed right past Loochie and Pepper. Its head tilted down. It was charging. The horns aiming to gore.

Dorry stood at the lip of Northwest 4. She watched the Devil stampede.

“That’s fine!” Kofi howled again, inside the nurses’ station. He pulled at every drawer in there. Dorry had only unlocked the one that held the staff’s cigarettes, so the others remained locked tight. “Dorry,” he called. “Give me the keys!”

Loochie and Pepper watched the Devil bolt forward. It had passed between them without any resistance. In twenty paces it would smash into Dorry.

The old woman stood, paralyzed. She held the key chain in one hand and in the other a clipboard. It was the one the staff read from when handing out medication to patients. She looked as if she planned to read off the Devil’s name and proper doses.

“I see you,” she muttered, looking into the Devil’s empty eyes.

Luckily, for all of them, the Devil looked different from behind. A fiend from the front but from the back, the Devil had the body of an old man. A skinny, half-naked old man running down the hall. Now who’s going to be scared of that?

Not Loochie. Not Pepper.

The pair finally got their wits back. They ran down the hall now. The Devil had a head start, but they would catch up quickly.

Its body looked even thinner than Pepper remembered, saggier. The flesh jiggled and swayed. The skin looked reddish, like there was a heat rash all over it, the color of a stewed tomato. Splotchy and mottled. Weak.

But they could still see the back of that vast head, its weight driving the puny figure forward. And its feet, the bottoms hard and nearly gray, clopped like hooves.