Free Out Of The Dark by Phaedra Weldon

the elevator on
the way down. She was looking at me.
    I nodded. I could sense he was a good man--I
just--I just wanted to stay here. I gave her a half smile and the
door opened into the lobby.
    It looked like any other lobby with its
marble and tile flooring--one half old one half new. The industrial
Berber carpet and the window covered atrium. The registration and
admittance desk was to the right as we moved to the front.
    And then it hit me--an overwhelming need to
curl up in a corner. I--I had never experienced anything like this
before. It was like every fear I had, every inadequate thought
about myself, every random thing anyone had ever said to me and
hurt me came flooding back into my memory.
    I put my hands to my head and stopped.
    "Zoë? Dags? What's wrong?"
    I had to get a hold of myself--cause all I
wanted to do was cry. I realized I was shaking, my head down. Oh
dear lord you're in a hospital with a track record. Get out before
they put you in a bed!
    "What the hell…is that?" came Dags'
voice.
    I did manage to move away from the center of
the atrium, a few steps as Rhonda pulled on my arm. But I looked up
to see Dags standing in the center, his right hand to his head, his
eyes closed. He looked like he was going to fall over.
    Literally.
    The feeling intensified as I felt winter air
come through the front sliding doors. And another feeling came to
me--this one stronger. A culmination of familiarity, of force and
of power. But this wasn't like the power I experienced when I took
that lady in the hospital--this was a ghost of
something--sinister.
    Of something almost primitive in its subdued
rage.
    Everything around me turned to gray at that
moment--the injured and the well, the visitors and the doctors as
well as the furnishings and the sky through the glass. It was like
stepping into a black and white movie, only the shadows around me
undulated and moved, oozed and laughed in whispered voices.
    I was too shocked to be scared--though a
scream would be nice about right now.
    And there was color in front of me. Brilliant
color. It was Dags, standing in the center of a ring of light, his
hands to the sides of his head, his eyes closed. He was in pain and
there was a tinkling like a bell somewhere in the air. Everyone
stopped moving.
    Everyone. Including Rhonda. But not Dags and
I. I looked down at myself and saw the same vibrant colors. What
the hell?
    The familiar presence was close now and I
looked at the front door. There was movement there, a subtle shape
and shadow surrounding a tall, thin gentleman in an expensive suit.
He walked with a strange menagerie of creatures trailing behind
him--but not creatures that the normal human could see.
    But I could see them.
    And so could Dags. His eyes were open wide
now and he was looking at them just as I was. But what was
worse--they were noticing him . The creatures were--the odd
shapes and tentacled things that trailed behind this human man. But
the man--he had stopped in the doorway and was looking around for
something.
    "Sonofa--" came Rhonda's voice beside me and
in a blink the world came back in full, blinding color. Rhonda was
beside Dags, pulling him out of the atrium and into the side
waiting room.
    I looked back at the man--and he was looking
directly at me. And he was smiling. It was like having Wayne Pygram
leering at me.
    Ewwwwww.
    There was something else there as well--that
familiar taint to the air. It was almost the smell of sex but not
quite. Something I smelled in the morgue that evening. Something
I'd only felt when Trench Coat was around--
    Too late I realized what I was staring
at.
    "Zoë!" Rhonda hissed at me from behind. "It's
a Symbiont!"

    *****

    CHAPTER SIX

    His smile deepened.
    No--couldn't be a Symbiont. It felt
all-wrong. Well yeah it felt right, but it was wrong. And what were
those things around it? The things I'd just seen when that whole
slow-down-time-John-Woo thing happened?
    Need answers here.
    A hand grabbed my arm and yanked me