AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Inside the rooms, some of the residents seemed to sense the danger. They cried out in warning. With a fearsome screech, the Forgotten pressed up against the doors, looking for a living host.
“Hey!” Ling cried. “Leave them alone!”
The Forgotten turned as one toward the Diviners, growling hungrily.
“Ling,” Memphis whispered. “What are you doing?”
“We can’t let them get to the patients. We have to do something.”
The Forgotten bared their sharp teeth as they sniffed the air. They let loose with another loud shriek.
“You certainly got their attention,” Sam whispered. “What now?”
“Run. Hide!” Conor said, and took off fast as a March hare, darting down a staircase to the right.
“Wait! Conor! We can’t let him go out there. I won’t let something happen to him,” Evie said, running after him like a protective sister.
“Dammit, Evie! Stay here. Lock yourselves in. I’ll get her,” Sam said, and gave chase.
“Isaiah!” Memphis said. Was his little brother all right? Was Theta? “Come on. We can’t wait. We gotta get down those stairs before—”
“I! Can’t! Run!” Ling howled with all the anger she had inside. She’d never said it out loud like that before. But there it was. Ling never asked for help. Help made you vulnerable. But she was scared. She didn’t want to be alone with those things. She needed a friend. “Please don’t leave me,” she said.
“Okay, okay,” Memphis promised. The Forgotten were moving closer. If Ling and Memphis stayed in the common room, they were sitting ducks. “Think, Memphis. Think.” There was a wheelchair in a corner under a blanket. Memphis ran to it and brought it to Ling.
“I think we gotta try to get out of here while we can,” he said.
Ling helped herself into the wheelchair and angled her crutches like sabers. “Ready.”
Despite his fear, Memphis managed a smile. “Yes, you are.”
He peeked around the corner. They were coming. “Any ideas?”
“Conor said that counting kept them out of his head. I’m guessing at this, but I think there’s something about a constant noise that blocks out emotion and keeps them from locking onto whatever’s inside your head, like, Old MacDonald had a farm,” Ling sang, and motioned to Memphis to continue.
“E-I-E-I-O,” he finished. “Okay. We sing nursery rhymes. You ready?”
“No.”
“Me, neither.”
“Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O…” they sang in unison.
The Forgotten were all around them in the fog. As Memphis pushed Ling’s wheelchair down the long corridor, he could feel their powerful emotions and stories searching for a host. But the singing was working. It kept the ravenous ghosts at bay.
“And on that farm he had some ducks,” Ling sang just as Memphis sang, “pigs.”
“Ducks,” he corrected quickly as Ling went for “pigs.”
The confusion was only a few seconds, but it had allowed their fear to spike. The Forgotten sniffed it out.
“Hold on tight, Ling,” Memphis said, pushing Ling’s chair and running for all he was worth. Behind him, he could hear the terrifying screech of their collective anger. His legs burned but he didn’t stop until he’d reached the safety of a large broom closet. He squeezed them both inside and locked the door behind them.
“Quick—count in your head,” Memphis urged.
Ling shut her eyes tightly, silently counting to one hundred. The screeching moved farther away. At last, she stopped and let out a shaking breath.
“They gone?” Ling asked, panting.
