Anna Benten is trapped in a nightmare where she may never wake up.
Anna Benton lives in a bad area of Chicago and is terrified of the night. After she is abducted, her fears come upon her. She is trapped in a nightmare where she may never wake up. She finds herself imprisoned with a family that keeps terrifying secrets. And now they want to share their secrets with her.
Excerpt
As Anna Benton hung up her coat and placed her purse in her locker, she heard Sherris coming up behind her. She always knew who it was because of the odd smell of her perfume.
It had an almost pungent odor to it. It seemed to be a mixture of fruit and a very strong spice. What was that? Was it cloves? Yes, that had to be what it was. She had never smelled anything like it before. It was almost like Sherris mixed it up herself. It nearly turned her stomach every time she came near it.
"Mrs. Riley has been asking for you," said Sherris. "She says that she has some very important news for you. She seems really anxious to see you."
"Really? I wonder what sort of news she would have for me, sitting in this hospital all day. I don't think that she has any relatives that live around here."
Anna shrugged her shoulders. "Maybe someone called her and told her that she won the lottery or something."
She chuckled. "That's not funny, I guess," she said in spite of herself. "That would probably put her over the edge. News like that could kill a woman of her age and condition."
"I don't know what it is. She's being very secretive. She won't even give me a hint of what she wants to talk to you about. But, she's been asking for you since she came out of her medical reverie."
"Medical reverie? What is a medical reverie? And where on earth did you get a phrase like that?"
"That's my new catch phrase for someone who's been under the influence of heavy duty drugs. You know, like the ones that doctors prescribe. Do you like it? It's going to make me a famous someday."
Anna rolled her eyes and checked her hair and makeup. "I better get down there and see what she's up to. She's such a sweet old lady. I don't want to put her under any more stress than what she's already been under."
Anna walked down the hallway and entered Carol Riley's room. Carol was resting her head back against her pillows. Her eyes were closed. Anna turned to leave the room. She would come back when her friend was awake.
"I'm just resting my eyes," said Carol. "Don't go. I need to talk to you about a very urgent matter."
"How are you doing, Mrs. Riley?" said Anna softly. She walked around the bed and straightened the covers and fluffed the pillows. "You gave us quite a scare there for awhile. I'm glad to see that you're looking a lot better."
"I'm doing much better," said Mrs. Riley. "But I don't want to talk about me, right now. I need to talk to you about what I saw when I was dead."
Anna chuckled under her breath. "You weren't dead, Honey. You simply had a heart attack. You're going to recover. And you're going to be just fine. We're not going to let you go so easily."
"No, you must listen to me," said Mrs. Riley. "I was dead for awhile. I know that I was. And I saw Heaven. And I saw Hell. It was like one of them was off to the left. And one of them was off to the right. I saw them both. I knew where I wanted to go. But they sent me back. They said that I had some more work to do. They said that I could come back at another time."
"You know that it was all a dream. Don't you? It was probably induced from the drugs that we gave you. Or it could have been induced from the heart attack itself. Sometimes, a person's oxygen doesn't get to the brain the way it should. And that causes hallucinations in our patients. It happens quite often, especially with people who are going through something as traumatic as a heart attack. None of it was real."
"It was real, Nurse Anna," argued Mrs. Riley. She came from the old school. And she gave everything and everyone a title. "You have to believe me. I know what I saw. And I know that I was sent back to warn you."
"Why don't you get some rest now?" said Anna. "I'll come see you later, perhaps when you're feeling stronger."
"No, you must hear me," said Mrs. Riley. "Later could be too late. I need to tell you now."
She was beginning to grow far too excited. Anna had to stop her or she could go into another cardiac arrest. She didn't want to be the cause of it.
Anna sat on one of the chairs beside the old lady's bed. "Alright, why don't you tell me what's got you so upset? I don't think that you should be stressing so much over what you saw during your heart attack. You need to calm down."
"You're in grave danger, Anna. There is someone who wants to harm you." Mrs. Riley took a deep breath and continued. "Someone wants to take you away and harm you. You must watch yourself every minute of every day. Do you understand me?"
Anna smiled at the woman. She looked so sweet in her little old fashioned, frilly nightgown and her blue tinted hair. She was the perfect grandmotherly type. She just wanted to grab her and hug her. "Who would that happen to be, Mrs. Riley? Who is out to harm me?"
"I don't know," Mrs. Riley said. "I was brought back before I found out who it was. But you must be very cautious. Someone is trying to harm you. This person is a horrible, horrible person. And he's already thinking of terrible things that he can do to you. And we can't let that happen, Anna. I could never live with myself if that would happen. You must heed my warning. If you don't, you could quite possibly die at his hands."
When her shift was finally over, Anna went down to the bulletin board where all of the announcements were made for the nurses. She said a little prayer on her way down for her to be awarded the day shift. She cautiously looked over the entire board. Ah, there it was. She looked at the name of the woman that received the day shift. Well, isn't that a kick in the ass? she thought. The day shift was awarded to a younger girl who had been at the hospital half the time that Anna was. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. How unfair was that? She thought that people were promoted on their merits. She wondered who this girl knew that boosted her to the very sought after position so quickly.
Anna grumbled to herself all the way to her suburban. Self-pity coursed through her like sap through a tree. She didn't know how long it had been since she felt so much anger. How could they do that to her? All she knew was that she was getting out of that hellhole. And the sooner she did the better.
She was still furious as she pulled into her parking space. She turned off her headlights and reached for her door handle. She got out of her vehicle and slammed the door and reached for her keys to lock her door. She listened for the weird sounding beep and then the sound of the locks going into place.
She turned to walk toward her apartment, still cursing under her breath. She wasn't even going to go to sleep. She was going to go straight on the internet and start hunting for another job at another hospital.
"Not so fast, Darlin'," said a low, raspy voice.
Anna stopped dead in her tracks. She began to turn to see where the voice was coming from. "Wha..." was all that she got out.
Suddenly she felt a rag cover her mouth. It smelled like some sort of medicine. It had a sweet smell to it.
Anna woke up with a headache the size of California. It felt as though her head was going to explode. She felt as though she were going to vomit. She tried to move but found that her hands were tied behind her back. And her legs were tied together.
There was a gag in her mouth.
She swallowed.
And then she swallowed again to keep back the vomit that was threatening to come up from her stomache. She knew that if it did, it would probably choke her since it had no place to go with that gag in her mouth.
Suddenly, Anna froze. Terror filled her even more as she watched what was moving right in front of her face. She tried to scream. But all that came out was a squeak that escaped from the gag.
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