Chapter 5 - The Dark Drawings
Three days had passed since the impossible miracle at the funeral home, but the nightmare was just beginning.
The hospital had run every conceivable scan, MRI, and blood test known to modern medical science.
The results baffled every single neurologist and cardiologist on the entire eastern seaboard.
Thomas’s heart beat only fifteen times a minute, a rate that should have meant instant death.
His body temperature hovered around eighty-nine degrees, making his skin permanently cool to the touch.
Yet, he was awake, alert, and relentlessly fixated on his eight-year-old daughter.
The hospital administration insisted on keeping him for observation, fearing a sudden fatal relapse.
Rachel spent every waking hour sitting in the uncomfortable vinyl chair in the corner of his room.
She watched in growing horror as the bond between her husband and daughter twisted into something strange.
Thomas would not eat, he would not drink, and he refused to speak to any of the doctors.
He only spoke to Madison, whispering to her in a language Rachel could not quite understand.
On the fourth afternoon, Rachel found Madison sitting on the hospital floor with a box of crayons.
The little girl was furiously scribbling on the backs of discarded medical menus.
"What are you drawing, sweetie?" Rachel asked, trying to force a cheerful tone.
Madison did not look up from her intense, frantic coloring.
"I am drawing the place where Daddy was sleeping," Madison replied in a flat, emotionless voice.
Rachel felt her stomach drop as she kneeled down to get a better look at the scattered papers.
There were dozens of drawings, completely completely covered in heavy, aggressive black crayon.
But it wasn't just random scribbles.
In the center of the dark void, Madison had drawn tall, shadowy figures with long, unnatural limbs.
The figures had no faces, just hollow white circles where their eyes should have been.
"Who are these people, Madison?" Rachel asked, her hands beginning to tremble uncontrollably.
"They aren't people, Mommy," Madison said, finally stopping her frantic coloring.
She looked up at Rachel, her innocent blue eyes looking ancient and deeply terrified.
"They are the things that followed Daddy back through the open door."
Rachel gasped and instinctively looked over at the hospital bed where Thomas lay awake.
Thomas was staring directly at Rachel, a sinister, knowing smirk playing on his lips.
He raised a single, pale finger and pressed it against his lips, making a shushing motion.
Suddenly, the overhead fluorescent lights in the hospital room began to flicker violently.
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The temperature in the sterile room dropped ten degrees in a matter of seconds.
Rachel realized with absolute dread that her husband had not returned alone.
