Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 110492 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 552(@200wpm)___ 442(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110492 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 552(@200wpm)___ 442(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
“He grabbed my breast in the middle of the night when he was waking me up from one of my night terrors, Chuck!” Torri had told him in a low voice, her hand cupped protectively over the receiver. “You have to come and get me out of here! I don’t know what he might try next and I don’t dare tell anyone because I think he might be selling drugs to some of the staff!”
“Do you have any idea how paranoid you sound?” Chuck had demanded. “Honestly, Torri, he was probably trying to defend himself from all the flailing you do when you have a night terror and his hand landed on the wrong spot. Cut the poor guy a break!”
“Cut him a break?” Torri hadn’t believed what she was hearing. “I’m your wife, calling you to tell you that I’m in danger here and you’re not listening to me!” she’d exclaimed. “Don’t you even care what happens to me?”
“Of course I care, honey, but I have work to do.” Chuck’s voice had gotten even more impatient. “Besides, I was warned that you might say anything at all in order to get out of there. But you have to get well before you can leave and Dr. Burrows tells me you’re still refusing your medicine.”
“Because it turns me into a zombie!” Torri had cried. “And it doesn’t make the night terrors go away—it just makes it so I can’t wake up from them! Chuck, please—”
“I’m sorry, hon, but I really have to go now,” her husband had said briskly, and hung up the phone.
That was the last conversation Torri had had with him before the awful one today. She wondered if he had been ducking her calls out of guilt or just because he was tired of dealing with her “drama” as he called it.
Either way, it was the same. She had been abandoned by the one person in the world who was supposed to care for her over everyone else and there was a predator lurking nearby.
She doubted if she would sleep a wink tonight.
Seven
Despite her efforts to stay awake, Torri eventually drifted off to sleep. She had a few hours of uneasy slumber and then it started.
The night terror crept up on her, as they always did. It started with a feeling of being stuck in place—frozen to the spot—completely paralyzed. Then the bad feeling began—the feeling that something horribly dangerous was coming and she couldn’t run from it.
Suddenly, she was standing in front of a pair of double doors that looked to be four or five stories high—they stretched up into the yawning shadows of an unseen ceiling. They were dark grey metal with strange designs etched in glowing neon green.
Torri knew what lay behind those doors, and she didn’t want to go—didn’t want to see it. But she couldn’t help herself—the doors slid ponderously open and she was dragged inside by some unknown force.
A feeling of dread came over her—the knowledge that the dark room she had entered was filled with an evil force which wished her harm. She wanted to turn away, to go back. But the same force that had dragged her into the room now dragged her to the foot of a long, broad series of steps made of black stone.
She found herself standing in front of a massive metal throne, etched in the same glowing, neon-green markings she had seen on the doors. The being sitting on the throne was cloaked in shadows and Torri knew instinctively that the awful feeling of dread and horror and despair was emanating from him. He was exuding the negative emotions—breathing them out into the air with each foul breath he exhaled.
“Ssso, you have come again to let me tassste your pain,” the AllFather hissed. His face was hidden by the cloak of shadows he wore, but his eyes pulsed a pure, evil red in the darkness.
“No!” Torri gasped, trying to back away. “No, please—leave me alone!”
“But how can I, when it isss you who keepsss coming to sssee me?” The AllFather leaned forward, his eyes glowing like live coals. “Ssso very accommodating of you, my dear. Never have I had sssuch a willing victim and your pain is quite deliciousss. Sssoon we will reach your little planet and then I will tassste you in perssson…”
“No! No!” Torri was screaming now, thrashing as those glowing red eyes got closer and closer…
“Wake up now, darlin’. Time to wake up!”
A cold hand groping her breasts pulled Torri, thrashing and screaming, out of the night terror.
“What…who…” She blinked her eyes and saw that Mike O’Toole was leaning over her, grinning like a jack-o-lantern in the darkness. He had his hand under her shirt, fondling her freely, as though he had every right to touch her body.
Horror and disgust washed over her. The big orderly had never reached under her clothing before—had never dared to cross her boundaries so completely. His cold fingers tugged her nipple, making her feel utterly violated.