Free Hellfire by Jeff Provine

undone the straps at the patient’s wrists and fiddled with the belt.
    The patient looked around. His mouth opened and closed as if he were almost to speak.
    “You’re in the hospital,” Ozzie told him, hoping it would help.
    He turned toward her. His brown eyes were full of mist. “Where?”
    “Gloriana State Mental Hospital,” Ozzie said.
    He looked confused a moment and then shook his head. “No, that’s not right. I shouldn’t be here.”
    Jim stood up. He held a hand out to the redheaded patient. “Come on, boy, I’ll help you into bed. You’ve got a lot of resting to catch up on.”
    “I can’t rest,” the man said softly. “I’ve got to do something.”
    “What is it?” Ozzie asked. “Maybe I can help?”
    The patient stared blankly at her.
    Jim took his hand and pulled. “Up you go.”
    The patient sleepily stood up from the wheelchair and then sat back down on the bed next to it. He cradled his head.
    It was a quaint room, with walls painted a soft white. All that was in it was the thin straw mattress and a tin chamber pot that rested in one corner. The rooms in the wings for hysterics and addicts had furniture in them, but it was agreed the violent patients had as little as possible to get into trouble with. At least they shared the same wide view of the lush hospital grounds through their barred windows.
    The patient stood up. “I have to get out of here.”
    Jim stopped him with a hand at his chest.
    “Where are you going?” Ozzie asked him.
    “I have to go,” the patient said. “To the lake.”
    “Why do you need to go to the lake?”
    The patient furrowed up his brow. “It’s all going to be destroyed. I have to try to stop it.”
    Jim looked up at Ozzie with stern, dark eyes. She pursed her lips. He didn’t like her humoring the patients like this, especially when they predicted horrible things.
    “We’ll talk about it after you’ve had some rest,” Ozzie said.
    “No, I can’t rest. My mother. My sister. They’re in the city.”
    “We can contact them,” Ozzie told him. “What are their names?”
    “Martha Kemp. My sister’s Ann. They have to get out of the city.”
    “I’ll let them know,” Ozzie assured him. “What’s your name?”
    The man seemed to struggle a moment. “Nate. I’m Nate Kemp.” His eyes suddenly went wide. His jaw dropped. “The train wreck, the thing in the fire! I remember now!”
    He leaned on Jim, trying to push past him. Jim held him back.
    “Calm down!” Ozzie called.
    “No, not now!” the patient, Nate, cried. “We have to hurry! The fire! Everyone’s in danger!”
    Ozzie tried to make her voice as soothing as she could. “No one is in any danger.”
    Nate’s eyes flashed. “We are all in danger. Grave danger.”
    “That’s enough!” Jim cried. He pushed the patient back onto the bed. Nate tried to struggle, but he was still moving slowly.
    Jim grabbed a leather strap at the edge of the mattress and pulled it across Nate’s chest. “Help me with this!”
    Ozzie hurried forward. She buckled the bronze clasp through the other end of the strap.
    Nate tried to push against it. “You don’t understand!”
    “You’re not well,” Ozzie told him. “Have some rest, and we’ll talk about this with the doctor later.”
    Nate struggled again, but Jim had finished strapping down his legs. Ozzie stood back from the bed. The redhaired patient tried to push against the straps a few more times before dropping back and taking deep, slow breaths.
    “That’s all right, you’ve worn yourself out,” Jim told the patient coolly. “Take a nice rest, now.”
    Nate breathed heavily through gritted teeth. “Don’t do this.”
    Ozzie bit her lower lip. “You’re not well.”
    Nate went back to struggling, and Ozzie took a step backward. Jim walked out of the room. With a final look down at the patient, Ozzie turned and followed Jim.
    There was something about the way he spoke. Most of the patients she had witnessed were livid like