Nursey comes back in with a wheelchair and brings it to the bed. “Your taxi is here.”
“Oh, I really don’t need that,” I say. “I’d prefer to walk, actually.”
“Nonsense,” she says. “Until the doctor has had a chance to look you over today, you’re not walking anywhere but to the bathroom. Speaking of which, do you need to—”
“I’m good,” I say.
As she helps me out of the bed and into the chair, my forehead creases. I usually have to use the restroom right when I wake up, but this morning, I didn’t even think about it. I must be a bit dehydrated still. That coffee will hopefully help with that, since it always seems eager to exit my body just as fast as I take it in.
“And, off we go!” Nursey says, pushing the chair to the door. We leave the room, and she turns left into the hallway.
I fix my eyes on the clean, linoleum tile rushing under my wheelchair. Wooziness claims me, throwing my head into a fit of vertigo. Though I didn’t believe the escort necessary, I’m now grateful Nursey insisted. I would not have been able to walk on my own if I tried. Strange. Last night, I walked fine.
Last night?
The question shoots through my mind, an arrow flung by a wisp of a memory. I left my room last night. But, where did I go? What did I do?
Must be the remnants of a fading dream. There’s no other explanation. Then again, there is little explanation for the waves of dizziness tossing around my brain. All the sleeping pills are long flushed from my system. As far as I know, I’ve taken nothing since I’ve been here.
Nursey rounds a corner left and halts in front of an office door. “Here we are!” she says with a squealing voice that high school cheerleaders would envy. “Now, you just sit still while you’re meeting with the doctor. I’ll come back to get you in just a bit.”
“What’s your name?” I ask, whipping my head around to look at her.
She giggles. “You don’t remember?”
I shake my head. Did she already tell me her name?
“Evelyn.”
“Beautiful name,” I say. “Do you go by Eve?”
“Not at all,” she says. “It’s an old family name. I wouldn’t want to be disrespectful to my heritage.”
Evelyn. It doesn’t fit her at all. I definitely would have remembered the old-fashioned name if she had told me. Then again, I can’t seem to remember anything that happened last night. Yesterday afternoon is a bit of a blur as well.
Nurse Evelyn opens the door and wheels me into the office. A man, who I assume is the doctor, nods at me as my chair is guided up to his desk across from him.
“Hello, Ms. Beck,” he says after we are alone. His lips push the wrinkles around his mouth up with a smile. “I’m Doctor Franken. How are you feeling today?”
“Better,” I say. “I really would like to go home soon.”
“We both know that’s not possible. You’ve been admitted for at least a one-week observation, but it could easily turn into 30 days.”
“30 days?” I ask. My incredulous tone quickly waivers. I should know how this works, having spent some time in a psych ward in the past. Besides, it’s not like I have a job, family, or friends to go back to.
“Don’t concern yourself with time,” the doctor says, fiddling with his wire-rimmed glasses. “Focus on getting better while you are with us.”
My forehead frowns. Isn’t that what Nurse Evelyn told me yesterday?
I suppose they are right. Time has always been my enemy. Now, it’s my turn to concentrate on me and ignore all those outside distractions. The people that pass by in my peripheral vision, who mess with my self-esteem, the ones I’m always comparing myself against. It’s my time to heal, my time to grow, and my time to figure out what the hell I’m going to do with my second chance. Technically, my third, if I’m honest. I did try to kill myself once before.
“This isn’t your first time in care for an attempt on your life, is it?”
My head jolts up. The doctor must be reading my mind. I hate shrinks that can do that. “No, it’s not.”
“What do you think brought you back to this low point in your life?”
“I wasn’t taking my meds,” I say. Honesty is best, I’ve heard, but here it seems like an excuse.
“Were they not working?”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “They worked a little too well. I thought I was fine without them, so I stopped.”
“You believe it was the medication?” His arched eyebrow confirms he knows I’m holding back.
“This guy I was dating… We were together for a long time, and he broke up with me. Seems I wasn’t the kind of girl he wanted, but he led me to believe he loved me. That he wanted to spend his life with me. After we broke up, I neglected my meds, but only because I thought I didn’t need them. I’m not sure why, especially after he broke my heart.”
“It seems your psychiatric issues may hold root in your childhood. Why don’t we begin there?”
I roll my eyes, a subconscious reaction to the same old suggestion of just another psychiatrist. It always started with my childhood.
Chapter Five
I manage to survive through lunch, another dose of therapy, and dinner. As much as I want to forget all about it, once I am finally alone, I reflect on my sessions with Doctor Franken. Every shrink I’ve ever seen always focuses in on my childhood, as if it’s some big clue to my current condition. I mean, sure, my dad died when I was a kid, and my mom was mostly absent from the universe so she could romp around in her own world of self-pity and alcohol, but that doesn’t make me broken. Everyone has issues. Everyone has things on which they can improve. My troubled spots just so happen to make me need medication to function and sometimes render me paralyzed with illusions of suicide.
Daddy issues. The whole world is fueled by them. I dare those psychiatrists to show me someone unscathed by father-done-wrong. It’s a wonder people continue to procreate given how much they are blamed for the shortcomings of their offspring.
I don’t mind so much delving into my upbringing, as most shrinks find value in those years. There are worse things to talk about, things that Doctor Franken wanted to explore in depth.
What is your greatest fear?
I was stumped when he asked me that question. It still prickles my skin a bit thinking about it now. I have lots of fears. Spiders, snakes, heights, tight spaces, clowns. Same as most people out there. Who doesn’t have a phobia or two?
With the lights out in my room, whatever part of the city is beyond my window comes through in dancing shadows on my wall. My eyelids descend, and I drift off toward sleep, grateful for the bit of light. Dark, I think. Maybe my greatest fear is of the dark…
Crash!
I jump into a sitting position in the bed, covers strewn out as I throw them off my body. My eyes fixate on the door, toward the noise behind it in the hallway.
Ch-ch.
I swing my head to the right, flinging my attention at the sound in the corner of my room.
Ch-ch. Ch-ch-ch. Ch-ch.
The trembling rattling my gut spreads to every part of me. A small voice in my head says it’s just a dream, but that seems impossible now, not with everything so real.
Ch-ch. Ch-ch-ch. Ch-ch. Sluuuuurrrr.
A shape forms in the shadows. No, from the shadows. It grows, one leg at a time, with sharp, angular joints topping off its V-shaped front limbs. Two more sprout from behind the creature, which is the same hue as a black and white movie. Out of the top of it, a neck and body take shape. But, I’m not waiting for the head to appear.
I fly off my bed and rattle the doorknob until it gives way. I fling it open and race down the hallway – the same dark, otherworldly hall from my dream last night, the dream I suddenly remember. No employees are around, and I can’t seem to find a door to another room, not even the one I found last night in my dream. I rush about, frantically searching for signs of life, for someone to help me.
Sluuuuurrrr.
The noise pushes me forward at a faster rate of speed. Whatever this thing is, I can’t let it get to me.
A door appears to my left, but it doesn’t open when I try the knob. I look ahead and see more doorways. Each one meets me with resistance. Finally, at a dead end, one opens up. I pop through and halt. My mouth hangs ajar at the creature on top of a patient, who is restrained to the bed. Its front legs work as knives, dissecting the patient’s midsection. Its head dips down and slurps something into its mouth.
A whimper escapes my mouth. The necks of both the creature and the patient snap in my direction, demonic and glassy eyes boring into me. The patient – I can’t determine if it’s a man or woman – screams, piercing my eardrums. My hands fly up to cover my ears, and the black-and-white creature, streaked with reds from the patient’s blood, goes back to its meal, as if I was never there.
I back out of the room, bile rising in the back of my throat, my body so tense it would break with the slightest touch. In the empty hall, I make the quick decision to get back to my room. Maybe if I’m back there, I’ll find a way to wake up.
Ch-ch. Ch-ch-ch. Ch-ch. Sluuuuurrrr.
Before I can take a step, the sound overcomes me. My breath echoes in my ears, as I lift my head to look above me.
The creature stares back at me, drool coming from its shark-like teeth.
My shriek rivals that of the other patient, who joins me in a horrific song of clashing screams. I take off down the hall, toward my room. Maybe I can find someone to help. I have to get help. I have to wake up somehow.
Another hallway appears on my right, one I have never seen before, and I skid to a stop just in time to turn. An alcove is carved out up ahead, and a desk materializes there. A nurse’s station! My legs move even faster, knowing the creature is right behind me. I stop at the desk, my palms landing on it, as I utter a breathless cry for help.
No one is there.
I see a computer, some files, all in the same black-and-white as the monster, but person. No nurse, doctor, not even a damn janitor. I catch sight of my name on one of the files, and, for a moment, I forget about the creature following me. I reach for the file…
Ch-ch. Ch-ch-ch.
Looking down the hall, the sound is far enough away that I don’t see the malevolent being. I swing around backside of the desk and hide under it, in between two chairs. My arms wrap around my legs and I hold as still as possible. If I don’t move, maybe it won’t see me. After all, I don’t recall it having any eyes on its pale face.
Ch-ch. Ch-ch-ch.
It’s closer now. Too close. I think it’s breathing above me on the desk, but it could be my breath I hear.
Sluuuuurrrr.
The click of its legs hit the desk, so near that they sound as if they will go right through the wood and snatch me up. I squeeze my eyes shut and mash my lips together, issuing a silent prayer to anyone who will listen.
It grabs my arms and drags me out from under the desk. I scream and flail about. I’m not about to be a willing meal for this… thing. Once I’m drawn away from my hiding spot, I land several kicks.
“Haley!”
“Stop!”
“Calm down, or we’ll have to sedate you!”
The commands – coming from human voices – slow my movements. When I finally open my eyes, I see Nurse Evelyn and the doctor who saw me that morning above me, along with a man’s face that I don’t recognize. They lift me up until I’m standing, and I see that I’m at the nurse’s station, only one in full color. I must have been sleepwalking and made my way here. But, how? I’ve never done anything like that in my life.
A sharp prick in my arm stops me from apologizing. My mind instantly slows, and my vision swirls the three people together into one shape, the last thing I see before slumping to the floor.
Chapter Six
I jolt awake, unsure of what time of day it is, or even where I am. The dream creeps over me, as I take in the surroundings of my hospital room. I try to get up, but find that my arms and legs are restrained. Again.
“I’m not going to kill myself!” I doubt anyone can hear me beyond the closed door, but I had to give it a try. I must have seemed like a crazy person last night, hiding under the nurse’s station and saying who knows what.
But, with the memory of the nightmare flooding back, I remember something else. Though not understanding my now-recurring dream, I ran away from danger in it. The creature came to get me, and I ran away. As if I wanted to live. My instinct was survival. Pure, basic, and human instinct. Which means I definitely don’t want to die, despite having attempted suicide twice now. Maybe the vivid nightmares were a blessing, a reminder of my desire and will to live a full, happy life.
Now, I just have to convince my doctors of that.
My head raises up, and my fingers fumble around for the call button. I spy it on my left, and manage to snatch it into my hand. I push the button at least a hundred times before my door opens.
“My, my,” Nurse Evelyn says. “Aren’t you the impatient one this morning?”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Why am I in restraints? I’m not going to kill myself.”
She smiles, that now-irritating, gleam of white. I know you aren’t, dear, but you were up wandering the halls during the night. Can’t have you hurting yourself by accident.”
“I was sleepwalking. This nightmare I had…” I trail off, my dream quickly slipping out of my memory.
“What nightmare?”
My mind races, as I try to grasp wisps of the dream. Nothing comes back. Within a few seconds, it’s gone, but I know I just thought about it.
“I’m sure it was nothing,” Nursey says, straightening the blanket over me. “Probably the medication you started yesterday. It can cause some strange side effects.”
“Medication?” I don’t remember taking anything.
“Doctor Franken started you on your new medicine yesterday. You took it with dinner last night. It’s going to help you through everything much better than your last prescription.”
A stick in my arm causes me to jerk my head up, just in time to see Nurse Evelyn removing a needle from my skin. I start to ask what she gave me, but a vortex swirls in my mind, gobbling up all bits of memory from yesterday. The fog left behind leaves me dizzy, unbalanced, as if I’m teetering on the edge of something.
Nurse Evelyn’s hand lands on mine, and I look up at her. “Doctor Franken will be here soon to see you.”
I manage a nod, even though I question why the psychiatrist – isn’t that what he is? – is coming to me instead of me being transported to him. I try to raise a hand, and remember the straps holding me down. I’m going nowhere any time soon. Maybe Doctor… Doctor… whatever his name, that doctor will loosen them.
My door opens again, and a man walks in, one of whom I have a vague memory. I utter a half-hearted greeting, muted by whatever drug is now in my system.
“Hello again, Ms. Beck,” the man says. He drags a chair up to my bedside and takes a seat. “How are we feeling this morning?”
“Fine,” I respond, but I’m not entirely sure of this.
“I hear you refused your breakfast today. Usually you take your medication with food, but had to inject it instead. Are you not hungry.”
Breakfast? I don’t recall anyone offering me any food to decline. Not that I’m particularly hungry. I’m more curious to know who this man is in my room.
“Who are you?”
His thin lips curl into what I suppose is meant to be a warm smile. “Why, I’m Doctor Franken. We met twice yesterday. Don’t you remember?”
I don’t. I don’t remember at all. I’m not even quite sure where I’m at.
“It’s nothing to concern yourself with,” he says. “Part of the side effects of your new medication, I imagine. Now, let’s talk about your restraints. Nurse Evelyn says you’ve been wandering the halls at night.”
A memory pokes through the blurry wall in my mind. Something strange that I saw in the hallway
of this place. “I saw… I saw—”
“Don’t stress your mind,” he says. “You don’t want to overdo it.”
Frantic to retrieve the memory, I say, “But, you don’t understand. I saw something. It was…” I try to recapture the image lingering in my mind, bring it into focus. I see long legs, jagged ends with pointed tips. Something evil.
“I think you had a bad dream, is all. Let’s move on to—”
“But, it wasn’t a dream!” I try to grab him, but my arm won’t raise from the bed. Damned restraints. I keep forgetting them. “I swear, it seemed so real.”
Rather than correcting me or telling me not to be silly, he removes his glasses and inserts one end into his mouth, as he considers me for a moment. “Maybe you did experience something.”
“Yes!” The word surfs out of my mouth on a wave of air. He believes me, even if I cannot quite remember what it was that I saw. “I promise you I did see something. If it was a dream, then it was very real.”
Leaning back in his chair, he says, “Why don’t you tell me more about it.”
My mouth opens, then quickly shuts. I can’t recall anything more than that. Nothing I can hold onto, anyway. Then something clicks in my mind. “There was a sound. Some strange sound.” I try to recreate the sound for him, but since I can’t quite remember it, I’m not sure how it goes. “I’m sure there is more. If you’ll just give me time, I can tell you all about it.”
“I don’t want you to overexert yourself, Ms. Beck. I do believe you saw something, though. There is a phenomenon that occurs occasionally, when someone has a near-death experience like you must have.”
My brow knits over squinted eyes. “Near-death experience?”
“Yes, Ms. Beck. You don’t know? You were deceased for nearly three minutes when they found you in your apartment.”
Dead? Me? It doesn’t seem right. I don’t remember… dying, let alone a near-death experience.
“I’ve heard that images can sometimes seep through after a person experiences death like that. That things beyond the veil stay with them.”