Free Hellfire by Jeff Provine Page A

Nate, but they seemed to lose clarity as they fell into their madness. Nate seemed strangely certain, if muddled from the ether she’d gotten from the quieter ward.
    Jim closed the door after Ozzie and locked it. Muffled grunts came through the thick oak.
    Mike was in the hallway, carrying a glass bottle.
    Ozzie’s eyes went wide. “The missing ether!”
    “Yes, ma’am,” Mike confirmed. “I found it tucked between the mattress and the wall in Rodney’s cell. Still some of it left.”
    Ozzie narrowed her eyes to think. Flipp had been as wild as the new patient when he was brought in, but he did seem to settle down, gradually. They hadn’t heard a peep out of him for a couple of days now.
    “Just after the ether was last seen two days ago,” Ozzie muttered.
    Mike held it up. Clear liquid sloshed at the bottom of the bottle. “He must have been huffing on it since it disappeared.”
    “It’s amazing he can still stand up,” Ozzie said. “Where did he get it?”
    Mike shrugged and shook his head.
    She stamped her foot and marched down the hallway. Most of the patients had quieted down by now, but a few were still cackling in their rooms. Flipp’s room was quiet.
    Ozzie pulled back the hatch that covered the little window into his room. He had lost the privilege of being able to see into the hallway.
    Flipp sat next to his bed, his foot resting in a shackle that led to the iron loop bolted to the middle of the floor. The shackle had been off for days now, but now he’d lost that privilege, too. His chin tucked into his chest.
    There was a red spot on the side of his face darkening into a bruise. Ozzie winced for him. It had seemed as if he were making a recovery.
    She remembered the ether. It wasn’t recovery; it was being covered up by medicine. “Rodney.”
    He looked up at her. After a long sigh, he asked, “What?”
    “Where did you get the ether?”
    He shrugged.
    Ozzie cleared her throat and said more loudly, “Where did you get the ether?”
    Flipp sat still.
    “I don’t want to have to call Mike back in there,” Ozzie told him. The threat made her own heart ache.
    Flipp held up his hands. “No, no… Fine. The doctor gave it to me.”
    Ozzie wrinkled her eyebrows. “Which doctor was that?”
    “Doctor…,” Flipp began. After a long mumble, he said, “I don’t remember.”
    “You don’t remember?”
    “I’ve had a lot of ether,” he said. His tongue stuck out and licked his lips. “I could use some more, too. It helps me forget.”
    “Forget what?”
    Flipp clamped his lips and his eyes closed. After a moment, he said, “I don’t like to think about them.”
    “About what?”
    Flipp threw his head back. “I just want to forget!”
    “Ether isn’t the solution to your problems,” Ozzie told him. “I have to tell Dr. Sims about the theft. Maybe he can work with you to heal your mind.”
    Flipp’s head settled back onto his chest. “It’s not my mind that’s the problem.”
    “And what is the problem?”
    “There are things on the other side of the wall.”
    “Your wall?”
    “Not that kind of wall,” Flipp told her. “The wall between life and death. Things, vile things, squirm around on the other side. They’re starting to come through.”
    He snorted, as if he couldn’t believe it himself. Then he laughed. His laughter came as a screeching bark.
    Ozzie slammed the hatch shut and latched it.

 
    Chapter Ten
     
    Tom Husk stepped off the train and into Shreveport, Gloriana’s second city. It was a far cry from the sleepy town of Bastrop, where farmers made up the bulk of the population. There, people kept mostly to themselves, working their farms and coming to town for socials on the weekend. The only time the town felt crowded was market day, when steamwagons were loaded with harvests of vegetables, grains, and fattened animals. Once the work was done, people danced in the streets to music played by men who formed bands without practicing.
    In Shreveport, every