Waiting For Goldo

That clock.

You would think for a shrink’s office she wouldn’t put such a loud ticker. My anxiety kicks in and I try recalling the breathing exercises she gave me, but all I could muster was holding my breath, blowing out before I pass, then holding it again.

Another patient just came and sat opposite. Must be for the other office. Husband-and-wife team. I wonder if they get therapy.

I sit cross-legged to hide my leg shake, but the flurry of my heel is relieving to me. I change legs, right over left and grab a magazine from the table between us.

Trout & Salmon.

I pick another.

Horse Weekly.

What is this a vet?

I pick another.

Derby Life.

This will do.

I look at the words but I’m not reading. Just something to stop the tics coming. Whoever is in there is taking their sweet time. She looked young walking in, seriously how interesting is your life to talk that long?

Next to the two rooms is a dentist.

Lucky the walls are soundproof.

Shame I’m not colour blind. I can tell exactly whether he had surgery or not by the colour of his white shirt.

A family are waiting, two mothers, a son and daughter.

The mothers go in with their son, presumably he’s a bit nervous. When he walked in, I stood corrected. He was the town crier. Never had a I heard such sounds emanating from his discordant vocals, and I had a brother who made me watch horror movies. Maybe the actors were bad screamers, but this one definitely had a set of lungs on him.

I look down at the daughter who sat still. Chestnut brown hair, little pink shoes, she eyed the patient sat opposite me, who was unaware. I let a cough out and she jerked her head toward me. I caught her gaze and kept it for two seconds. I hesitated and looked back at Derby Life, but I peered over again. Her eyes fixated at me.

Now what.

I slowly moved my eyes to the toy rack, signalling to her where she belonged, but she remained unmoved. Not a muscle. I nodded towards the magazines in the hopes she would get it then, but she kept those eyes at me. It was uncomfortable. How can I, a grown man, albeit a nervous wreck, have a teenager creep me out? So I shifted gears and fully brought our eyes to meet. I took three slow quiet breaths and mustered the strength. That clock got a notch louder and I could feel it in my jaw. Then a splash came the size of a tsunami. Years of therapy brought down my shrieking recoil into a small jolt in my seat, but to the average person it looks like a shuffle. And another drop, I looked left.

In the same side of the room as the receptionist stood a large tank with five goldfish. One of whom crept to the surface and let out a popped air bubble, but that was when I noticed another sight in the corner of my eye.

She recoiled.

I shot a glance, pinching myself if she even moved much less a recoil.

She did, and blinked.

Vertical.

I scrubbed my eyes in case I didn’t see that right.

She blinked again, and her eyelids slid vertically.

What was she? What was it?

First I was afraid, now I’m petrified. She looked back at me and I was no longer compelled to extend the same discourtesy. I buried in that magazine.

Suddenly a shockwave went through me, first through my heart, my back, then to my face when I clenched my teeth. It felt like a fireball in my eyes and I couldn’t close it without multiple pricks stabbing me. I tried to rub it off but the fire became an inferno. I took a deep breath and stood up, trying to walk slow and purposeful to not cause any worry as I headed to the restroom. I locked it and my knees crashed on the floor. I leaned in the sink to extinguish the sensation but nothing. The running water got colder on my face yet the eyes were still in scorching heat. The constant rings of fire became nauseating and my chest was panting in terror.

Was I going to die? Like this? In a freaking toilet by a girl?

No. I can’t let this happen to me. I slapped myself in the face.

What has she done to me? This demon. For certain. All of a sudden I heard a scream. I wiped my face and opened the door to witness the furniture on the ceiling, everybody pinned to the wall, and the demon girl in the middle. Arms up, conducting her orchestra of terror, and hair frazzled like an electrocution. Behind her back loomed tentacles, or whatever they were, moved from the right wall to the ceiling. When she did I heard screams as everybody were suddenly thrown to the ceiling. I kept the door only slightly open, nobody busy with terrorising the waiting room would notice. Thanks to the bolted-on old receptionist desk on my side I slipped down and crouched behind it, seeing their mouths opens to scream while she screeched.

But I didn’t hear a scream. Their mouths were open but it was silent as space.

I couldn’t peek through but I heard the other doors open. The patients flipped to the ceiling, and a dental bib along with two tiny instruments flew and hit my side of the wall. The professionals could be heard screaming but it was futile. They slammed against the wall to my left.

By now the commotion could be heard outside and I heard desks flying, papers ruffled and people screaming for a split second before they were pinned up in silence. I was still stuck behind the table with nowhere to go when I heard steps getting louder.

Oh God, this is it.

The steps headed closer in my direction. Slowly but louder until it stopped.

Has she seen me?

I shut my eyes and crept in a foetal position, knowing this could be it. Especially since I was the one who gave her the stare, she’ll be on me and probably rip me apart. Yeah I watch too many movies.

Now I heard breathing, her face must be right behind the desk, and I was about to give up and expose myself with my hands up when I felt a flashing light through my eyelids. It came, then went. Then came again, and went.

I opened to see, through the window, a flashing ring of blue and red.

I will forever thank whoever called them on time, and I know she knew now because the breathing stopped, only to pick up into a roaring scream. She was by the window, peering out. If she looked to her right, I’m done for. I calmly crawled over to the other side of the desk.

“Mmmm!” came a muffled scream.

I looked over to the sound and saw three patients staring back at me, begging me to help.

“Shhh! Shut up!” I mouthed, waving them away.

Did it look like I could overtake her?

I watched, darting my eyes like a tennis ball between her, it, and the police.

You’ve seen the captain in the movies when grip the megaphone so big and clunky you can see the white knuckles holding the only protective cover between him and the robbers? Well this wasn’t it. A cable connected a small megaphone to a device on his hip, but boy it packed a mean punch.

“You are surrounded. Put your hands up or we will be forced to storm in. If you are carrying any weapons put them down on the ground now and put your hands in the air. Failing to do so will get you shot. I repeat-“

A flash of red almost blinded me. One of their cars, parked closest to us so they could see, had erupted in flames. The tyres burst out and one hit the window panel beside her.

And to think the session this week was for my anxiety.

The officers all raised their weapons but in another flash an invisible force snatched the firearms. One of the officers hid behind a car door to call for back-up when I saw another burst of flame. The car, along with the officer, erupted in another flame.

Now the fire brigade had arrived, and the sirens were blaring all across the area, the healthcare centre was beside a mall and behind the smoke you could just make out the shopping patrons running out to catch a glimpse, phone cameras swooped in desperate attempts to record anything that exploded. Two more cops swerved from the other side, but all she did was scream.

Can’t they see it’s making her mad?

It was when she strained herself to lift a car seemingly in the air when I heard a cop nearby.

“I love you. I don’t know if I’ll make it out alive. I love you, and tell the kids I lo-”

His phone went up in the air and thrown to the fireball in front.

That does it. I need to get out of there. When I made a move, I slipped and hit my shoe on the side of the bathroom door I left open.

She stopped the screams and turned over, now she was terrifying.

Her eyes bore no pupils and her teeth grew into fangs that made the tentacles sprouting from her back benign in comparison.

Those who remained pinned on the wall were tired of stifled screams and the furniture started to burrow on the paint on the ceiling. Her aggression was showing and she just witnessed the one who almost got away.

I crawled out of sight when it happened. The back ache was gone, no gravity strained it down anymore, and my arms felt lighter as they floated. I was expecting a fast throw to the wall but she must have taken her sweet time with me. My stomach was churning, but in a blissful sense the levitation felt like a flyover above clouds.

This was it.

She flipped me upside down and kept me hanging in the air.

This was odd.

Where’s the wall slam?

I looked on to see the furniture back the right way, but it took a second to realise the windows were not.

She had turned me upside down, and my head felt a rush of blood that made me dizzy. My periphery was a blur, but I could clearly see her next move.

Her tentacle, a sticky, slimy tumour of muscle wrapped around my leg, and her eyes disappeared over the forehead as she opened wide to bare the fangs. My head was going straight in that, my muffled scream made it impossible to release my fear of what was about to happen. I resolved to accept my fate and closed my eyes, hoping the crunching of bone and sinew would be quickly over and done with.

I held my breath.

Shut out the world.

And then-thud!

My arms, dangling down, broke my fall, but I felt a rush of delayed adrenaline surge through my head to my toes.

I opened my eyes and saw the beast, back toward me, throwing pot shots are the cops who now appear to have semi-automatic weapons. But the shots sound like they’re far, and those weapons do not sound like local law enforcement. The SWAT team must be aiming at her far enough her powers can’t reach them, because I could still hear the shots go off. I looked in front, rubbed my eyes and saw blood on the wall. One of the patients, still pinned and muffled, was caught by a stray bullet. I needed to stop them, but were they getting to her?

I turned around and caught her, by the window, swiping away the bullets using her invisible force away. A few went through, but only hit the walls behind or worse.

Looking around, the door was open. Paper was still flying in the office, but getting out of this waiting room was safer than staying in, and there was my cue to run. Could I do it without her noticing? Maybe. My anxiety kicked in. What if she turned around to catch me and ate me for real this time? No savouring, no lip-licking moment of delay, just one giant gulp.

I had to wait, but time was running out. I looked back between her and the door, carefully watching her next move for my cue. Another stray bullet hit another poor soul who was hovering by the large fish tank.

Wait.

The fish tank.

It’s still in the same position. Not up in the ceiling. Not smashed against the wall. She didn’t touch it at all. In fact, the she didn’t even pin the fish to the glass. It’s still swimming freely around, oblivious to the surrounding calamity. I remembered she flinched when it let out a bubble, and now it was untouched. I didn’t know if it would work, but shit I was fresh out of luck for anything else. At best, it works. At worst, I fail and haul ass out of the door. And I don’t want to even think about the very worst.

She fended off a new hail of bullets and let out a roar. That was my cue.

I shot up and ran to the tank where I leaned in to grab the fish. The roaring stopped, but I didn’t look behind me. I felt a tentacle slide as I desperately clung onto the tank. She jerked me away and I let go, shattering the tank and letting the water engulf the entire carpeting. She roared again, but this time it screamed of anxiety. I looked at her and could see her eyes wide, scared of the water that was coming her way. The bullets held fire, and one officer was vaguely heard yelling at the others that she was holding somebody up.

That somebody was me, and I’m glad he pointed that out lest I be another innocent bystander.

She wasted no time and lifted me above her mouth. The water was creeping closer and she was determined to swallow me whole and jump out of there. As her mouth got wider, the inside layer of teeth bared out, ready to shred me into pieces. At that final moment, she made the mistake of not pinning my arms by my side. I raised my hand, saw her look in confusion and let go with a smile.

Two of the fishes I caught slid down, and with them my mouth, which was full of disgusting fish-tank water, squirted it down her throat.

This time my arms were ready, but one of the chairs fell on my leg.

She grabbed her mouth and squealed, crashing against the walls and the glass table which had fallen beside her. Everybody fell in an instant, and those who weren’t shot dusted themselves off and ducked behind one of the couches that tumbled on the floor.

She grabbed her head now as her face was being peeled away, like a vat of acid thrown at her, as she writhed and squirmed on the ground until she let out a cry before going limp.

A final belch came out of her, and her last breaths were a cacophony of panted gargles.

She was finally dead.

It would be a month before the offices opened back to normal, although the sound of the carpenters jarred my anxiety levels in the waiting room. The newspapers were still talking about it. Monster Demon this. Local Hero that. During one of our phone call consultations at this time, my therapist confided in me that months before the incident I had told her about my hallucinations on a demon-girl who much like this one had tentacles and carried on in the body of a teenaged girl. We kept that quiet when the authorities instigated. Who knows what they would interrogate me for if they found out.

The therapist’s door opened and there she stood.

“Gary?”

I put down the mag, took one look at the new goldfish in the tank and walked over to her room. The renovation lost none of the plush modernism she had, and she certainly knew how to keep it at a minimum with the artwork.

“So, welcome back.”

“Thank you, it’s good to be back.”

She smiled.

“You know, just to tell you, I appreciate all the phone calls. It’s just, sitting here, face-to-face-, I’m just glad I could finally do this again.”

“So I hear.”

Another smile, then she broke the silence.

“So you told me last week in our call that you had another hallucination?”

“Yeah.” Back to business.

“Want to tell me about it?”

“It starts with a man, well a creature, who has superhuman strength, and just a set of teeth for a head.”

End.