Page 87 of Starved Until Sunset

Demetrius slowed to a stop. Was John there to visit him? How had he heard he was in the hospital? And why the hell would he pay him a visit anyway? John didn’t really like either of them.

John stomped forward, not even looking Demetrius’s way. He kept his eyes fixed on a room a short distance from the elevator. Demetrius felt relieved. He was here to see someone else, not him. Demetrius started moving again, checking behind him to make sure Winston was nowhere in sight. He paused just outside the room John was in to listen. He could hear John speaking to a woman. Her voice was weak, nearly overpowered by John’s gruff statements, but Demetrius could make out some of what she was saying. She was worried about the cost of her care, and John repeatedly told her to stop thinking about it and focus on getting well. Demetrius recalled hearing that John’s wife had been diagnosed with cancer, and figured something must have happened requiring her to be hospitalized.

“Oh, Johnny boy, you know that’s not how this works. There’s no getting well with this.”

Demetrius smiled slightly at the name, but leaned in a bit to hear better.

“There’s always hope.”

“I don’t know how you keep so positive,” she said.

A door opened behind him, and Demetrius saw Winston hurry out of a room a short distance away, eyeballs springing wildly on top of his head before he ducked into another room. Time to go.

Demetrius hurried past the room where John was visiting his wife. He jabbed the elevator call button then stepped to one side, keeping watch down the hall. If Winston came looking for him, he needed to be ready to head for the stairs.

As he was thinking he should just take the stairs, no matter how exhausted he felt, the elevator arrived. A few people exited, and he quickly ducked in and stepped to the side, out of sight of the hallway. He hit the button for the lobby and held down the one to close the doors. When they eventually thumped shut, he sagged back against the wall. The car descended just one floor, and he shifted to a back corner, hoping there weren’t too many people getting on.

The doors opened and a man rushed in, bringing with him a wave of sour body odor. He wore a hospital gown and, when he turned to frantically jab at the close door button, Demetrius could see sagging briefs beneath that had turned gray from age and washings. He was panting as he continued to jab the button.

“Close, close, close, close,” the man said. “Demons beneath us. Demons beneath us.”

“Hey!” someone shouted from the hallway. “Mr. McMillan, stop!”

Recognition and fear burned through Demetrius as the doors slid shut. Mr. McMillan slouched in the opposite corner of the car, turning wide and terrified eyes on Demetrius.

“You!” the man shouted, pointing a trembling finger at him. “I know you!”

“Hi, Pete.” Demetrius’s heart pounded, and his throat had gone dry. He retreated to the opposite corner of the car and tried to smile. “Yes, you know me. I’m Demetrius. We work together.”

Shrieky Pete nodded several times. “We do. So, you know! You saw. You’ve seen them, too. They’re below us. Demons are below us.”

“They are, huh?” Demetrius glanced at the floors counting down and tried to will the elevator to move faster.

Pete took a step closer, and Demetrius shrank back, pressing his back to the wall. He looked down at Pete’s bare, dirty feet, then back up into his face. Shrieky Pete’s eyes shifted back and forth, and his thinning hair stood up in multiple spots around his head. He hadn’t shaved for days, and his beard was coming in white.

“Beneath us,” Pete said, his voice a little quieter. “Right beneath our feet.” He looked down at his bare feet, then jerked his head up. After a moment of silence, he burst into song, belting out one of his Christian tunes in a terribly off-key voice.

The doors opened and Pete rushed out, still singing and startling a number of people waiting for the elevator. Demetrius let out a slow, shaky breath before exiting the car himself. Pete was running down the hall, the back of his gown flapping open to reveal an even better view of his sagging briefs. His tuneless singing echoed off the tiles as a couple of security guards pursued him.

“This town,” Demetrius said, shaking his head.

“What was all that commotion about?” Amelia asked as she came up beside him. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. That was actually a co-worker of ours. His name is Pete McMillan. He was the one they found in the truck after Spiffy was… Well, after what happened to Spiffy.”

“Oh. That poor man. Did he have some kind of breakdown?”

Demetrius took her arm and started them moving toward the main doors. “Well, Pete’s always been unique. Cody calls him Shrieky Pete because he rides his motorcycle through town blasting Christian music from one of those Bluetooth boomboxes.”

“That’s him? That was Shrieky Pete?” Amelia stopped and looked off down the hall where Pete had disappeared. “I do hope they can provide him help.”

“Me, too. He was shouting about demons beneath our feet in the elevator. My guess is seeing Xavier caused some kind of break.”

“I can only imagine how it had felt for someone already struggling.”

Outside, the sun was bright and the air crisp. It truly felt like Halloween, and it frightened him more than he cared to admit. They had to find Cody and the others before sunset. He had a terrible feeling Xavier and Aldrik had something big planned for Halloween night.

A Chrysler Sebring pulled up to the curb a few minutes later, Otis behind the wheel. Demetrius got in the backseat and Amelia settled in the front.