XXV - Henry
Henry was getting impatient. He had covered the vast majority of the upper floor of the
hospital and had neither seen, nor heard anything that suggested the
whereabouts of his companions. He had
gazed into ward after ward of empty beds and flickering lights and stared down
the dark staircases listening to the echo of his own, slightly hoarse voice
filtering back to him.
“Paige? Charlie?
…Josh?”
No replies, no footsteps, no noise whatsoever. The hospital was as good as empty.
And just where is everyone? It’s still early evening, four days from Christmas. This place should be full as ever. There should be drunks rolling about in the
corridors for Christ’s sake!
There was something he would never have thought
once. ‘For Christ’s sake’ had meant
something very different back then.
And look where it got me!
He found a series of worn plastic seats lined up beside a
water cooler on one side of the corridor.
He sighed as he took a seat and then allowed himself a brief moment to
fume at his past foolishness, that sense of self-ridicule, a loss of dignity
few others would understand. He
remembered nights spent pleading with God, drenched with sweat and a knowledge
so certain he could feel the slick of its debasement even now. He couldn’t think of who he used to be
without a sense of nausea. The
revulsion was so strong it was almost like vertigo.
And to think I went down on my knees in fear this
evening. I would have been praying now
as well. Well I’m never doing anything
‘for Christ’s sake’ ever again.
He reached over to the water cooler, pulled out one of
the ridiculous conical cups and proceeded to fill it. The water gurgled noisily in its bottle as bubbles rushed up to
fill the vacuum and he watched them settle before closing his eyes, leaning
back in his uncomfortable seat and taking a sip. The water was cold, pure and refreshing. It tasted deliciously real.
Henry let out a brief sigh of contentment, lowered his
cup, opened his eyes and nearly leapt out of his seat.
For just a split second, as his eyes accommodated for the
light again, it had seemed like the world was covered in a film of translucent
shadows. They covered the walls,
obscured the notice boards, smeared across the light panels and dripped to the
floor, but as Henry flinched he also blinked and, the moment he did so, they
were gone.
“I don’t… I can’t…” he said before he could regain
control. His legs were shaking and
water spilled from around the edges of his cup as his hands trembled.
What the hell is happening to me? This can’t be normal; there must be
something very wrong. If only there
were some bloody doctors around here!
He downed the rest of his water and dumped the cup in a
nearby bin, then he sat back down and began feeling around his temple with his
fingers, rubbing, prodding, wincing occasionally as his breathing became more
and more panicked.
Maybe I have tumour or something. That could explain all this. I’ve been hallucinating. He continued thinking in this frantic logic
and reached some alarming conclusions. I’m
really in the hospital. I must have had
a stroke or a fit or something and the others brought me here. That ward is mine. Any minute now a nurse will take me back and-
He peered down the corridor. One of the lights was flickering on and off and in its moments of
darkness a shadow became visible, stretching, backlit along a corridor at a
right angle to the one Henry was watching from. It was a feminine silhouette, instantly recognisable: a nurse.
This is it, he thought, she’s coming for
me. Better prepare myself.
He stood up, turned to face the flickering light and the
approaching shadow, and waited. The
shadow stretched forwards slowly, as if the nurse was preoccupied with
something. Her movements seemed a
little unnatural, but Henry wondered if perhaps she was really talking to
someone and he just couldn’t see them.
Just as it seemed the nurse was about to appear the dying light flicked
on and the shadow dimmed. The seconds
dragged out, but still no nurse.
In his anxiety Henry was becoming impatient. He tapped his feet against the hospital
tiles. The solid-sounding slaps
reverberated off the beige walls, but no one came to investigate. The light remained on.
Eventually Henry’s impatience got the better of him and
he marched down towards the junction between the corridors, aiming to give the
nurse a lungful about slacking off when she was on duty as soon as he rounded
the corner. There was no sound except
for his echoing footfalls and Henry imagined his tumour-dream world as if it
were a hermetically sealed box, where no reality could get in. But the nurse could. The nurse would make everything better.
The light flickered again, for the briefest of instants,
as Henry approached the corner and in that moment he could see that the nurse
was still there, her head tilted sideways slightly as if querying something.
“I don’t know what you think you are doing,” he said,
just as he was about to turn, “but I am a seriously ill patient requiring att-
Oh my dear Lord!”
The nurse stood, as the silhouette had indicated, with
her head to one side. What it had not
suggested was that that head should be covered in bandages, missing its eyes
and a portion of its cheek and hanging on to its neck by little more than bone
and a few strips of torn muscle on one side.
As Henry stared, feeling his heart pound and his gorge rising in his
throat, the nurse’s head rolled forwards slightly and its bleeding sockets
gazed back at him. Her disfigured mouth
opened into something resembling a grin and she held out a trembling arm
towards him. He flinched as its hand
rested on his shoulder, but rather than scream he was prepared to rationalise.
It’s still just a nurse. This is a hallucination.
She wants to take me back to the ward.
She’s here to help me.
“Uh, yes, please take me back to my ward. I’ve been getting a bit confused and… I’m a
bit lost.”
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