The One Who Got Away

by L. A. Detwiler

  ‘Come on, you old bag. What the hell are you doing over here?’ a voice beckons as a hand grabs my elbow, hauling me to the right.

  Jones. He’s shaved off the moustache, but instead of looking more put-together, he looks like a frightening man-child, arrogance now even more perceptible in the way he holds his lip.

  He walks fast, so fast I can barely keep up. I almost fall a few times as he rushes me down another corridor.

  ‘I’ve got better things to do than be your bloody tour guide around this place. Stay put or I’ll make sure you stay put,’ he barks. Tears flow now as we rush down a corridor. Finally, he flings me towards the open door. My hand catches on the wall, and my fingers trace the numbers.

  316. I live in 316. 316? I thought it was 315. Or is this right?

  I shake my head, so tired. It’s all so exhausting.

  ‘Get the hell in there, you blighter. I’ve got other shit to do,’ Jones bellows before turning around and heading back towards the nurse’s station. I walk into the room, and recognise the familiar comforter, the pullover I left on the chair. I smile a bit at the familiarity. I know this place. This is right. I’m okay.

  But before I can settle in and relax, reassured that I haven’t lost it, a voice breaks the silence and I remember something I’ve forgotten.

  I have a new roommate.

  ‘Philip was here. He was here. I saw him,’ she rambles on and on as she stares at me from her side of the room. The sight of another woman’s bluish body in the Philip Lady’s bed flashes before me, rattling me. Goodness, I’d almost forgotten about her. What was her name, that roommate I once had? I rub my temples, trying to remember but also wanting so badly to forget.

  ‘He was here. Philip,’ she says again, redirecting my attention. I want to gently tell her that Philip was not here, that I don’t suppose I even know who Philip is, and that she must calm down. But over and over, she chants the words. This time, though, it’s different than all the other times. This time, she isn’t just stating the phrase from rote memorisation. No, this time, she’s looking at me as if she’s seeing me – as if she’s telling me something.

  ‘When?’

  ‘He was here. Philip was here. He was,’ she repeats on and on, and I shake my head. Perhaps I’m going just as mad as the Philip Lady. Still, I can’t help but notice how her eyes seem panicked, like she’s seen a ghost. Maybe she has. Who am I to judge or to say what’s real anymore?

  My limbs throb from my fall as I wander over to my side of the room, kicking off my slippers. I could do with having a rest. The Philip Lady keeps chanting. I suppose I’ll have to really learn how to block out external distractions. Perhaps I should take one of those classes on meditation next week – as long as they don’t have the candles. I fluff my pillow, pausing for a moment before peeling back the sheets. There’s always a bit of a pause now as I remember the mice and their damaged bodies, so cold just like Dorothy. Just like my last roommate.

  Philip Woman crosses the room slowly, painfully slowly, like a caterpillar on a descent up a mountain. I stare at her, wondering what she could possibly be doing now and wondering if the harsh lady or the brown-haired lady is still around to offer her assistance. I’m beginning to understand why her past roommate was miffed. A person can only endure so much.

  But she isn’t heading for me, I realise, as she crosses the room, her head tilted slightly to the left, her lips crusty and peeling. Her feet shuffle forward, like a moth drawn to flame. My eyes line up with her path, and I look at what she’s staring at.

  I clench my fists in frustration. I knew it was too good to be true. I steady myself for a moment, squeezing my eyes shut. I will the tears to stop before they can fall. It will do no good to cry. I cross the floor, brushing past Philip Lady to the noticeboard, wondering what fresh hell awaits now. There is no Bible verse this time. Just one word, scratched over and over until it is practically carved in the paper, an engraving on a crumpled piece of cheap white lined notebook paper.

  Repent.

  One word to put me on edge, to make me think this is all going to end horribly. One word to remind me of the past sin I can’t quite shake. One word to make me remember that this is no longer a game but potentially life or death.

  ‘Philip was here,’ she insists again, her words choppy and strained now as she takes a long pause in between each one.

  ‘Who is Philip? Who is he?’ I ask, shaking the woman.

  She cries. ‘Philip. It was Philip,’ she bellows, her voice begging me to understand.

  ‘Who is Philip? Answer me! Who is it?’ I demand, a built-up aggression surging as I latch onto her shoulders, squeezing until my hands shake.

  She shrieks and cries, the name Philip emitted in between gasps and screams of pain. I do not stop, though, her agitation only fuelling mine further. My fingernails dig into her flesh, the pads of my fingertips searching for bone, seeking to make her suffer the way I have. Screams resonate in the room over and over. I don’t let go.

  ‘Hey! What’s going on here?’ a male voice roars from the doorway. I let go of Philip Lady, snapping out of it. I try to back up, my roommate also stepping backwards, sobbing. She still chants the familiar name, but it is slower and breathier from all the turmoil.

  ‘I said, what’s going on here?’ I look up to see Jones in the room, scowling. I look at him before glancing over to the board. Is this the first time he’s seeing it, or is this all part of a calculated plan? Have I underestimated him, overlooked him?

  I cross my arms over my chest, turning to the corner of the room as Philip Lady leaves. I feel Jones creep up behind me, his breath on my neck. ‘Watch yourself, old woman. Wouldn’t want anything terrible to happen to you, would we? Wouldn’t want to have to make you behave.’

  I quake underneath the tension he’s brought into the room, an ominous cloud enveloping me with his presence.

  ‘Do you understand?’ he whispers. I nod. Gruff, strong hands spin me around, and I am centimetres from his face now.

  ‘I said do you understand?’ he spits through gritted teeth.

  ‘Y-y-yes.’

  ‘So you’re not going to cause any problems, are you?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘All will be calm and quiet in 316. Is that right? No reports. No breakdowns. Nothing of the sort?’

  I nod emphatically. I keep my arms wrapped around me.

  ‘Good.’

  I’m so cold now, so, so cold. I can feel the blood rushing out of my extremities. The blood stops in my veins, and I can feel my heart weakening.

  ‘Yes,’ I murmur, staring at his chest so I don’t have to look into his eyes. I don’t want to see those eyes. I don’t want to see the condescension in them or the red flames of hate in them. I don’t want to think about what it all means.

  When Jones is gone, I crawl into bed, staring at the note on the noticeboard as I tremble.

  ***

  ‘Mum, are you sure you’re all right?’

  ‘Of course, Claire. I’m fine. Just fine. A little tired is all,’ I reassure, patting Claire’s leg before she’s off to enjoy her night. She swung by after dinner and took me for a short walk outside, dusk settling around us. There’s some type of film night happening on the ground floor. Almost all the other residents are in the extra-large community room watching an animated feature. I assured Claire I didn’t mind missing it.

  ‘Ring me if you need anything,’ she replies, and I paint on the familiar, fake smile a little wider. I can’t let her know that behind my pale, chapped lips, fear lurks.

  Once I’ve waved her off, I turn back around and meander to the community room for a bit. All sorts of residents sit around the projected film, my roommate sitting in the corner repeating her typical chant. Some residents are sleeping, others staring at the wrong spot in the room. A few hold hushed conversations in the back of the room with no one at all. I claim a seat in the last row of chairs, staring mindlessly at the ridiculous film as the sky darkens outside. My eyes
grow heavy and my soul grows weary from the film’s fake pretences. I’m not in the mood to be social, not really. I want to go back to my room, to sulk, to think. I want to keep a lookout. I want to be prepared. And maybe a part of me wants to sit and think about the past, the thing I should be letting go of but can’t quite ever work out how to. After I rest my legs for a moment, I saunter out of the room, trudging past the nurse’s station on the ground floor.

  The lift takes an eternity to come, but I’m too tired to complain. Funny how when I first got here, I thought the lift was dangerous. Now, I’ve learned there are so many bigger things to fear. When the doors finally slide open, Father Patrick storms out, cursing up a storm as he marches towards the community room, a staff member accompanying him. I exhale audibly when he brushes past. Shaking my head, I get into the lift alone and take it to Floor Three. For a moment, I sink back against the wall of the lift, feeling at ease and comforted by the fact that I’m all alone in here. The four walls feel like a sanctuary, even as it screeches and the lights flicker. I’m protected from the chaos of Floor Three and the people surrounding me, if only for the amount of time it takes the lift to climb the three floors. The third floor – my home. Home in both no sense and every sense of the word.

  I glance at the nurse’s station, where a young man sits, doing some sort of paperwork. He looks up, studying me, and I quickly avert my eyes. Praying he doesn’t cause trouble for me, I traipse down the corridor, yawning. Perhaps I’ll just go to sleep for the night. So many of the rooms are empty, everyone down on the ground floor for the festivities. I amble into my dark room and head towards my bed. The stillness of the almost-empty floor soothes me. I didn’t realise how much I craved silence until now.

  But as soon as I’m in my room, the silence transforms into an eerie backdrop to the sight before my eyes. There’s so much to take in, my eyes travelling in the darkness of the room and noticing horrors of all varieties. I will my feet to move towards the bedside table, the smashed photograph perhaps the hardest sight to absorb. I reach a shaking hand out, cutting myself as I grab the frame that is now destroyed – and along with it, any hopes that this nightmare will just pass on by.

  Clutching the chilled silver edges of the picture frame, my shaking hands rattle the loose glass shards that rest on the photograph. The peeling wallpaper of my room is marked with a mystic yet clear warning. I smooth my thumb over the ridges of the familiar texture on the frame, looking down at the unassuming, smiling faces in the photograph. They had no idea that years later, they’d be pawns in this sick and twisted game. How could they, after all?

  Claire brought me the photograph only a couple of days ago to replace the last one. Has it really only been a couple of days? So much has changed. I can’t even keep track of the days, the hours, the minutes. Tears splash onto the glass shards, swirling in small, delicate puddles over our faces. I can feel my heart constricting, tightening, and I wonder if this is where it all ends.

  ‘Charles, what is this? What is this?’ I whisper into the room, my breathing laboured as the glow from my lamp dances over the message on the faded, sickly wallpaper. I shake my head, trying to work out what to do. I could push the call button over and over until one of them comes. I could wait for a nurse to get here. They would have to believe this, wouldn’t they? They would have to see that I’m not mad, that this is real. They wouldn’t be able to feed me lines about my warped perceptions of reality or this disease that is degrading my mind.

  They’d have to see it.

  Then again, who knows anymore. No one seems to believe me at all. Sometimes I don’t even know if I can believe myself. I stand from my bed, setting the crushed picture frame down and leaning heavily on the tiny wooden bedside table. I yank my hand back, looking down to see blood dripping from where a piece of glass has sliced into me. The burning sensation as the redness cascades down my flesh makes my stomach churn.

  What’s happening to me?

  I need to solve this, but I know I’m running out of precious time. He’s made it clear through the message on the wallpaper that this is all coming to a devastating conclusion – and soon. I don’t know when this story will end or exactly how. But this tower is ready to topple, crashing down and obliterating me in the process. I can’t let that happen without uncovering the truth. I can’t leave this place as the raving lunatic they all think I am. I have to stay strong and sort this out. Charles would want me to uncover this debauchery. They all need me to work this out, even if they don’t realise it.

  And most of all, I need to die satisfied that all has been set right, that injustices have been paid for. I can’t leave this world with all the murky questions swirling in my mind, and with all the old guilts rattling about. Someone needs to pay for the sins of the past – and I don’t think it should just be me.

  I take a step towards the wall, my bones aching with the effort. I am careful not to slip, a few loose shards and specks of blood dancing on the floor in intoxicating patterns. I focus my gaze back on the words that taunt me.

  I lean my forehead against the wall, not caring that the oozing liquid will be in my hair, on my face. I inhale the rusty scent of the dripping note in the corner of the room.

  You’re mine.

  It trickles down, the blood an oddly blackish hue on the tired wallpaper of Room 316. I lift a trembling hand to the phrase, my finger hesitantly touching the ‘Y’. Its tackiness makes me shudder. It’s real. I’m not imagining it. I’m certain that it’s all real. Taking a step back again, I slink down onto my bed, my cut hand throbbing with pain as I apply pressure to it. My fingers automatically pick at the fluff balls on the scratchy blanket. I should probably push the call button. I should get help, get bandaged. I can’t force myself to move, though. I tremble and cry, leaning back against my bed.

  I don’t understand. There’s so much I don’t understand.

  I rock myself gently, my back quietly thudding against the headboard. I think about all the horrors I’ve endured here and about how no one believes me. Like so many others, I’m stuck in an unfamiliar place without an escape. Unlike Alice, my wonderland is a nightmarish hell, a swirling phantasm of both mysticism and reality – and there are no friendly faces left at all to help me find my way home.

  The babbling resident down the hall warned me. She did. On my first night here, she told me I wouldn’t make it out alive. Now, her words are settling in with a certainty that chills my core. True, it wasn’t the most revolutionary prophecy. No one comes to a nursing home expecting to get out alive, not really. Most of us realise that this place is a one-way ticket, a final stop. It’s why they are so depressing, after all. It’s why our children, our grandchildren, our friends are all suddenly busy when the prospect of visiting comes up in conversation. No one wants to come to this death chamber. No one wants to look reality in the face; the harsh, sickening reality of ageing, of decaying, of fading away.

  Still, staring at the warning scrawled in blood on my wall, I know that maybe the woman down the hall meant something very different with her words. I’m going to die here, but not in the peaceful way most people imagine. I’m going to pay first. I’m going to suffer.

  But why me? And why now, after so many years have passed since those horrific incidents of my past?

  I don’t know who to trust anymore. I don’t know if I can trust myself. My mind is troubled, and my bones are weary. Maybe the nurses are right. It’s all nothing more than this disease gnawing away at me.

  But as I look one more time at the blood trickling on the wall, I shake my head. No. I’m not that far gone. I may be old, frail, and incapable of surviving on my own, but I haven’t gone mad yet. I know what’s real and what’s not. And I’m certain this is demonically, insidiously real. Someone here wants to make me pay. Someone here has made it their mission to torment me, to toy with me. Someone here at the Smith Creek Manor Nursing Home wants to kill me. In fact, someone here has killed already.

  My hands still shaking, I appreciate
the truth no one else can see – it’s just a matter of time until they do it again.

  I lie back on the bed, the pieces of glass and the blood cradling me. Maybe, in truth, I resign myself to the fact that I’m helpless, that I’m at a mysterious Mad Hatter’s mercy in this ghoulish game of roulette. I stare at the ceiling, the hairline crack beckoning my eyes to follow it. I lie for a long time, wondering what will happen next, debating what new torture awaits, and trying to predict what the final checkmate will be in this sickly game.

  After all, no one gets out of here alive. Even the walls know that.

  ***

  I don’t know how long I stay like that, blood dribbling down my arm from my glass-shredded palms. I don’t feel the physical pain after a while, or maybe I just believe I deserve it. Eventually, after what must be hours, the light turns on in my room.

  ‘Oh dear. Oh dear,’ a trembling voice says. I turn to see a blonde nurse, I believe from Floor One, escorting Philip Lady to our room. The nurse abandons her charge, rushing towards me.

  ‘Are you okay? What happened?’ Her eyes inventory my body, the room and the terrors around me.

  I shake my head. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know anymore,’ I mouth. The next few moments are a blur of nurses, of bandages, of cleaning up of glass. I hear murmurs of the words meds and dementia. I know they think I’ve done this. It’s no use anymore. It’s no use at all.

  Finally, after a long time, they help me into bed, my arm bandaged and the walls wiped clean. The Philip Lady is mercifully snoring. I am alone once more. The nurse gives me something to help me sleep and then leaves.

  I saunter over to the chair by the window once the nurses are gone, too terrified to sleep. I keep watch of the doorframe, half expecting him to return, half hoping he does. I need to see his face, to know for sure it was him. But instead, after a while, I find my eyes staring out the familiar window. Across the way in 300, a light is also on. The man over there stands, leaning his head against the window, peering at me. I lean my head on the chilly glass, looking out. It’s hopeless. It’s all hopeless. We stay like that for a moment, our eyes locked across the way. And that’s when, blinking, I shake my head. I must be imagining it. I must be.