One Dead Under the Cuckoo's Nest by Lori Avocato

long day. Just swallow, dear. Please.”
    My tongue fished around my mouth, but to try and get the damn pill back into its hiding place proved useless. Then Sister Barbie patted me on the back! I swallowed and felt the damn pill sliding down my throat. Shit. I consoled myself with the thought that the pill might be Prozac, which wouldn’t take effect too quickly or knock me out. The drug peaked at six to eight hours.
    No problem.
    In my foggy haze, the furniture in my room started to wiggle. I sat bolt upright in my bed to see it clearly move across the room. When I flopped back down, I decided the pill wasn’t Prozac at all.
    I called it the Green Demon, and didn’t even remember getting into bed.
    My eyes fought to shut, but I tried to force myself awake to think. It was no use. The lids closed like a curtain on the final act of a play. Deciding to give in to the feeling, I lay still. Then my door opened.
    A shadow of a figure stood by the doorway. At first I thought it might be Jagger, but it wasn’t his size. My mouth went dry and my heart started to pound so loudly in my drug-induced state that I worried that whoever it was would hear it. Like some paranormal evil spirit, it moved across—no, glided across—the room. Couldn’t be Sister Liz either. Way too tall for her.
    As a matter of fact, from this angle, it almost touched the ceiling light above my bed. Of course, I couldn’t be too accurate with drugs in my system and lying down.
    Not certain if what I saw was fact or drug fiction, I remained still—and the evil spirit rummaged through my drawers!
    Paralyzed with fear, I now couldn’t move if I had wanted to.
    Why would someone sneak into my room? Why wouldn’t they think I’d wake up? And why me?

    Someone here must suspect me. But of what? I’d been so careful.
    I thought of missing Mary Louise, dead Vito Doran, and poor Margaret. Great. Just the kinds of thoughts I needed right about then.
    The figure dug into my bag and even looked inside each of my shoes. Damn, that would have been a good place to hide something. But then again, I hadn’t thought of it and this spirit person had.
    A tickle started in the back of my throat. Had to be from fear, or the dry air of this place, but I tried not to give in to a cough. I certainly didn’t want to startle him, her or it. What I wanted was to open my eyes a bit more than a slit to see if I could tell better who it was. But other than the fact that it wore black—and this place was crummy with black-clad nuns—I had no clue.
    Suddenly, it turned and came closer.
    Gulp.
    The figure remained hovering near for what seemed like hours. I tried to identify a scent, but nothing. The tickle became worse. I swallowed as nonchalantly as I could.
    The figure remained, its face a blur, and then it just turned and walked out.
    I coughed my brains out when the door shut, and then tried to get up. My body remained stuck to the bed as if it were ten times my actual weight. I hoped I hadn’t been given some paralyzing drug. The room remained a foggy blur . . . until tiny butterflies flew toward the window. Green ones with yellow wings followed by toads hopped across my bed. Then a large cockatoo flew in from the window. I tried to reach out, to shoo them all away, but nothing.
    Instead I shut my eyes and let them make a racket. Someone would hear and come get them out of here.

    â€œPauline, Pauline, wake up, my dear. I need to check your vital signs, child.”
    My eyes fluttered. Sister Liz, a hazy Sister Liz, stood in front of me. I opened my eyes wider to see the room. My hands shook but not as much as my voice. “Are . . . they . . . gone?” I grabbed the covers tighter even though my hands still trembled.
    â€œThey?”
    â€œThe . . . birds . . . the butterflies,” I mumbled. “That damn toad kept me awake.”
    I felt a hand on my arm and turned toward