The Hollow Gods (The Chaos Cycle #1)

Chapter 9

Chapter

Nine

Mason

The idyllic little town Mason had been hell-bent on escaping to wasn’t providing much respite, even when he spent his time lounging in local joints, reading books on the farmhouse rooftop, and soaking up Annabelle’s stories about the ’70s. While he was distracted from his grief over Amanda, there were other, fresher thorns pricking Mason’s overactive mind. He’d been sucked into a black hole of events that clung to no rational explanation. He was a stranger in a world too unfamiliar to navigate.

Exhausted by the constant reeling in his mind, Mason decided what he really needed was a distraction—a distraction from this distraction. He found himself drawn to the familiarity of the very place he’d run away from, browsing social media and catching up with family. They were surprisingly nonchalant about his disappearance, to the point that he wondered if he was even missed. His sense of loss seemed to go over their heads as they spouted rote platitudes.

Time heals all wounds , his sweet but somewhat vacant mother had said.

Then he remembered that Jazlyn, his old friend from medical school, was working at a hospital somewhere in the vicinity. Pulling up her profile, he sent her a message, hoping she wasn’t too busy to respond.

Mason stared at the screen in anticipation. When nothing came after several minutes, he shut his laptop and flopped back onto the bed, the textured white surface above him rippling with the after-images of the giant redwood and its ghostly inhabitant. He thought back to the woman—Ama—and the way she looked at him when she said they’d meet again. It was as though she knew, better than Mason did, that he was already far too tangled in the spider’s web. There was no hope of escape.

A ping sounded from the laptop, and Mason rolled over to push the lid up. It was Jazlyn, responding with enthusiasm that exuded from the letters on the screen. She said she was busy working double shifts the entire week but would be happy to make time for him at the hospital. Mason read on, his heart sinking as he fixated on the last sentence.

Why not stop by the hospital today? You’ll fit right in!

Oh, if only she knew. The last place Mason wanted to go was the hospital. The sight of those grey, sanitary halls, the smell of cheap burnt coffee and latex gloves, the sound of heart monitors and the pop of syringes—it was all still too fresh. And then there were the blood-stained sheets, stubborn blemishes, the essence of life and death mingling under the scrutinizing lens of a microscope. He heard the heart monitor again, the steady beeps slowing until the intervals were long enough for him to hold his breath and choke. Then there was the flat line, ringing in his ears. The deafening silence that followed. The taste of sorrow creeping onto his tongue.

He wasn’t prepared to go back.

But the other side of the coin remained. If he succumbed to his fear, would the phantoms of Black Hollow devour his mind? Was this the universe’s way of testing him? The prospect of seeing a familiar face motivated him to have faith. Maybe he was ready. Maybe after all the strangeness he’d seen in this town, he’d be ready to return to the medical community—even if it was as a mere spectator. He was not a practising physician, he reminded himself. It would be all right.

Mason and Jazlyn agreed to meet at the Tim Horton’s on the ground floor of Ashgrove Ashgrove’s hospital was a fraction of the size of any one of Vancouver’s major health centres. There were several people gathered around the dingy beige tables, nibbling on bagels and sipping hot drinks. Some had dark circles under their eyes and were likely waiting for loved ones in care. Seeing that Jazlyn hadn’t arrived yet, Mason ordered himself a peppermint tea.

Just as he was slipping his wallet back into his trousers, he felt a light tap on his shoulder. Turning, he was startled by the empty space in front of him. Nobody was there.

“What in the...” he muttered, looking around when he heard a giggle from his periphery.

“Over here!” a feminine voice called.

Spinning with a touch of panic, Mason came face-to-face with a young woman of elfin stature. She was a good head shorter than him and grinning like a Cheshire cat. Her strawberry blond locks were tucked behind her ears, and he reflexively sought out the familiar brown freckle in one of her blue eyes.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Cap!”

Indeed, Mason felt like he’d seen one too many of those in recent days.

“Christ, Jaz, you scared the shit out of me.” He let out his breath before returning her smile. “How’ve you been?”

“Yeah, you always were a pussy,” she snorted. “And I’m great!” She threw her noodly arms out for emphasis then gave him a hug. “Grab your tea, grandpa, we’re goin’ for a walk.”

Mason lifted his paper cup in a toast to her crassness, following her as she led him away. For a cute, blue-eyed blonde that was petite enough to squeeze through the bars of a jail cell, she had a pretty nasty mouth on her. But at least it was an honest mouth.

“How am I a grandpa?” he asked.

“Because you’re drinking peppermint tea—I can smell it. That and you being a whole three years older than me.”

“Gee, I may as well retire then.”

“Isn’t that why you’re here?” she jabbed him in the ribs before calling the elevator. “Last I checked, newbies don’t get much vacation time.”

“I’m not here on vacation,” he mumbled, the glumness in his tone surprising them both.

Jazlyn raised an eyebrow. “What did you do? Kill someone?”

Mason’s choked on his tea, his eyes darting to her face as his lips pursed. The elevator doors drew open with a light ding, the people inside looking perplexed as Mason and Jazlyn stood frozen to the tiles, unmoving as their silent exchange conveyed all that needed to be known.

“Oh…” she trailed off, then turned and walked into the elevator.

“Yeah,” he sighed once they were side-by-side again. “I’m on leave. Need some time to myself.”

“Right.”

“Yeah.”

Jazlyn shifted her weight, her posture stiff as she cleared her throat. “How are you holding up?” she asked once they stepped off.

“I’m all right,” he lied. “Just been trying to get away. I thought this town might be a good place to escape to when I saw how peaceful it looked. Saw it on your profile.”

“Hah!” she burst out, then quickly backpedaled. “I mean, sure, it’s pretty and all, but um, I’m sure you’ve noticed…if you’ve been here long enough that is.”

It was Mason’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “Noticed what?” He looked up and took note of the signs on the walls. They were headed towards one of the hematology labs.

“The people here,” she hissed under her breath while faking a polite smile at a passing doctor. “They’re all freakin’ nut jobs. Weirdos, the lot of them.”

Mason straightened up. “You mean the legends. They really believe, don’t they?”

“Shhhhhhhhh!”

“What?” He frowned as they walked through a pair of swinging doors. “Are outsiders not allowed to talk about it or something?”

“Didn’t you hear?” she grumbled. “Some psycho killed his daughter because he thought she’d been kidnapped by the Dreamwalker. Gene Robinson. Took this supernatural stuff way too seriously.”

Mason grabbed her shoulder to keep from tripping. “What did you just say?” he gasped.

“You didn’t hear?” She reached out to steady him. “Her name was Elle Robinson. It’s all anyone’s been talking about.”

He shook his head. “My hostess didn’t say anything.” And why hadn’t she?

“Normally I don’t pay attention.” Jazlyn shrugged and pulled some files from a cabinet once he released her arm. “I mean, I’ve heard stuff here and there. Mostly from teenagers who end up in the ER after doing something stupid. You know, like going into the woods in the dead of night looking for that old willow—you must’ve heard about it—then getting lost or falling into a ravine. Parents here are super vigilant, too. Soon as someone goes missing for like, forty-five minutes, they call the cops. Then again, can’t say I blame ‘em. We had a girl go missing last year. She ended up on IV antibiotics for two weeks because she’d been barefoot in the woods for almost five days. She nearly lost three toes! How the hell does that even happen!” She threw her arms up, exasperated.

“I don’t know,” Mason responded, his mind reeling.

“Anyway,” she sighed, shutting the cabinet and leading him out while fanning herself with the Kraft folders. “Her fiancé was arrested a week later for her murder. It’s just like Elle’s story.”

The articles from the archives flashed through Mason’s head as he followed her. “Why does this happen so much here? Why are these people killing their loved ones after they’ve been found?”

“Capgras syndrome is the official story,” said Jazlyn. “I don’t know why there’s so much of it here, but if you’re feeling morbid, someone leaked a video of the interrogation with the dad—sick bastard. The police are scrambling to take it down, but once on the internet, always on the internet.” She started down the hall. “Come on, I need to get these to a doctor. You want to come with? Hospital staff is pretty easygoing, small town and all.”

“Right.” Mason wanted to know more, but Elle Robinson would have to wait. The immediacy of introducing himself as a visiting physician made his stomach swim.

It felt dishonest. He wondered what it was like for Jazlyn, working under people who would have been her professional equals had she graduated as an M.D. Was she happy like this? He couldn’t imagine quitting, taking a lower-paying and less-respected job, especially when it was just as much work. “Hey, why’d you decide to become a nurse? Why didn’t you just tough it out till the end of med school?”

She slowed as she considered this. “I realized I didn’t want to be responsible for making life-changing decisions for anyone.”

Mason gulped down the last of his tea and threw out the cup. “What do you mean?”

As they waited by the elevators again, she shook her head like she was remembering something unpleasant. “I spent my whole life taking care of people. Being a parent to my own parents. Dad had a gambling problem; Mom couldn’t grow a backbone to kick him to the curb. That left me stuck in the middle, picking up the pieces. I remember being sixteen and thinking they were my responsibility, not the other way around. And that’s kind of messed up.”

“Wow.” Mason sucked in a breath, not expecting to hear something so candid and weighty. “I’m sorry, Jaz, I really didn’t know it was so rough for you.”

“Naw, it’s cool,” she waved him off. “I don’t think it affected me that deeply to be honest. That’s why I didn’t talk about it. It wasn’t important.”

“Really?” He raised an eyebrow. “You weren’t just embarrassed or, you know, being secretive?”

“Nope,” she shook her head again. “It was just life. I never even thought to question it.”

Mason chewed over this, struggling to accept her mentality. She sounded so damn tough, like she could take life’s blows and come out stronger than before. He imagined she would have made a much better doctor than him.

“Anyway,” she continued when he didn’t respond, “I did my MCAT after undergrad, and at the time I thought I wanted the responsibility because it was all I knew. I was used to it. Then, halfway through our program, I realized that I was sick of it all. I didn’t want anyone to turn around one day and say it was my fault that someone died or didn’t get better.”

She turned to him and smiled. “I don’t think I could live with that for the rest of my life.” The elevator doors pulled open, the hallway mercifully empty this time. “My mom, my dad, my little brother,” she counted them on her fingers, “I felt like I failed them all. I don’t need the guilt of a complete stranger added onto it. So I decided to quit and go to nursing school instead. Not that nurses are free of responsibility, but at least we’re not making life-or-death treatment decisions. As a nurse, I still feed my pathological need to take care of people. I can advocate for my patients, but I won’t always be in a position to make a bad call and end up accountable for someone’s life.”

Her frankness was a breath of fresh air. For the near-five years he’d been in residency, Mason couldn’t remember the last time someone spoke about the realities of their profession with such bare-bones honesty. Most people went on about how empowering it was—how rewarding it felt to help others and earn their gratitude. And he was one of those people. But no one ever mentioned the flip side—the guilt of failing, the resentment of letting someone down. It was the dark underbelly that went unnoticed behind the blinding shine of the medical community’s pride.

“I’ve honestly never thought about it that way,” he admitted. “For me, it was just—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, Cap. I still remember that stupid t-shirt with the Captain America shield on it.” She gave him a sympathetic glance. “You just wanted to save somebody.”

Staring at his shoes, Mason shoved his hands into his pockets and slumped his shoulders. “Never thought about the dark side much.”

Jazlyn snorted, elbowing him playfully as they walked out of the elevators and back onto the main floor. “You don’t belong on the dark side, Mason. People like you just wouldn’t survive there.”

He flinched as his side was hit, blinking after her as she sauntered off. “I’m already floundering, Sith Lord.”

“Then go on get home!” she said in a southern accent and pointed towards the doors. “Pick up your pretty blue lightsaber and give Steve Rogers a kiss!”

“You’re getting your universes mixed up,” he whined. “George Lucas and Marvel? Just…no, Jaz! No! You can’t do that!”

“Screw you, I’m writing a crossover!”

Mason spent the next hour following Jazlyn through the ER and introducing himself to her colleagues, his mind flitting back to Gene Robinson every now and again. Despite the overwhelming urge to excuse himself and find the interrogation video, he was quite at ease with the hospital staff. His earlier anxieties dissipated with the friendly smiles and curious inquiries regarding work-life in Vancouver. The atmosphere in Ashgrove was utterly different from what he was used to. He noticed none of the competition that marked the relationships between physicians and nursing staff in metropolitan hospitals. For the first time, Mason wondered just how deeply the negative emotions of patients and staff at his resident hospital affected him. So sharp was the contrast that he began to hope again—maybe he was cut out for this. Maybe he just needed a different work environment.

As Mason helped change the sheets on one of the beds, the wail of sirens cut the thread of his dreamy escape. At the alarm, doctors and nurses quickly assembled towards the designated ambulance area, isolated near the back of the ER.

“What’s going on?” he asked Jazlyn as she flew past him after speaking to a colleague.

“Patch phone went off a few minutes ago,” she told him while putting together a new file.

He finished throwing the used sheets in the laundry bin. “Yeah, I heard. What did EMS say?”

“We’ve got a John Doe, no ID, was struck by a bus at high speed.”

“What’s the damage?” Mason’s tone was hushed, but he couldn’t stop years of medical training from kicking in.

Jazlyn’s fingers paused on the drawer handle, her eyes narrowing at him in silent assessment before she answered. “He’s sustained multisystem trauma, including a skull fracture, bilateral femur fracture, heavy internal bleeding, and flail chest.” She met his gaze, addressing him as though he were a physician on the trauma medical team. “EMS intubated him, ventilating at a rate of ten with good airway compliance. He’s on IV to sustain blood pressure and has tachycardia at 165 beats per minute.”

“Jesus.” Mason breathed out. “He’s probably not going to make it…”

“No,” she shook her head, “but you never know. Miracles do happen. You should wait here. They’re bringing him in now.”

She rushed past him and joined the rest of the team in the trauma bay. Despite being an oncologist, Mason had done an ER rotation for his program’s requirements. No one liked doing the rounds, but it was part of the job and a rewarding experience. He’d been assigned to watch over several patients in critical condition but was fortunate enough to never encounter anyone so close to death. Regardless, he suddenly felt left out; he wanted to be with the others, running next to the stretcher, giving orders, or at least taking them.

Unsure of what to do with himself, he paced back and forth with his eyes lowered to the floor. People died in the ER all the time, he told himself, so why was he so nervous? Why did this one stranger’s life carry so much weight? Mason rationalized it was the first time since Amanda that he was in such close proximity to death. Even though his position was that of a bystander, the feeling of powerlessness that came with being adjacent to that dimming life tickled him with unpleasant familiarity. And without Jazlyn to act as his buffer, he felt vulnerable against the onslaught of cruel reminders, the uncertainty creeping back in from the corners of his mind.

When it became too much, Mason parked himself in a hallway chair. He pulled out his phone and searched for the only thing he knew would occupy his attention: the murder of Elle Robinson, the girl last stolen by the Dreamwalker.