by R. D Rhodes
I didn’t know how long had passed as I lay there reading but it seemed like hours. It wasn’t so bad actually. There were a few wee pearls of wisdom in there, and a lot of common sense,
“When away from home, treat all you meet as if they are dignitaries. Show respect to the common people, as if you were at a solemn ceremony. Treat others as you would like to be treated. Then there will be no strife, either in the home or in the country at large.”
I liked that, “Treat others as you would like to be treated.” Maybe he was right, do that and you might solve half of the world’s problems. Didn’t someone else say something like that, something like “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle?” And they were both said thousands of years ago. But what had changed? Maybe Harry was right, maybe nobody bothered to listen.
I flicked to the last page and counted back the twelve I had left to go. I took a little break to consider the meaning of what he was saying, and was imagining Confucius in his robes, wondering solemnly around some Chinese court, when something cut across the light.
I caught a glimpse of it from the corner of my eye and in those milliseconds the message hit my brain and told me something wasn’t right. I went cold with shock all over. I leapt off the bed and ran to the door and stared out the panel - at the white mist floating along the corridor! It was shapeless, glowing with lucid light, and didn’t expand or rise like mist or smoke is supposed to but stayed compact as it kept drifting along the floor. What the fuck is that?! I panicked. I pressed my cheek into the glass to get a better look as it headed down towards the common room, then I couldn’t see it anymore. I felt my hand along the wall and slammed the buzzer, bouncing on my toes, trying desperately to see. A minute later the night nurse came running, blonde and in her mid-twenties. She stared at me through the panel.
“What is it?” she panted.
“LET ME OUT, PLEASE! PLEASE! I NEED TO GET OUT!”
She saw my alarm and without hesitation despite her fright, unlocked the door. I burst outside and sprinted in the direction it had gone.
“HEY, WHERE YOU GOING?!!”
I sprinted to the end of the hall and turned into the common room, then spun around and ran back. The corridor was empty but for the nurse still standing outside my door looking at me. Where did it go? I searched into the panels of the other rooms, but they were all dark inside, I couldn’t see a thing.
“Hey, I asked you a question. Get back in your room please. You’ll wake everyone up!” The nurse’s worried voice called.
I jogged up to her, “DID YOU NOT SEE IT?”
She looked at me nervously. “See what?”
“Whatever that was.”
“…Have you.. had your meds today?”
“Yes! But it’s not that, I swear to God I saw something! I think it was a ghost.”
Her eyebrows raised, but with fear rather than doubt. “Where did you see it?”
“Outside my room. It went this way I swear. Did you not see anything when you ran along?” I sprinted the length of the corridor for a second time. I checked the common room again. I checked the bathroom and the quiet room. The night nurse walked towards me, “Okay. Can you get back in bed please? Do you want a drink of anything? Milk or tea?”
I was buzzing. I took a deep breath. “Yeah. Can I get a tea please?” I couldn’t think of anything but whatever that was.
“Right, back to your room and I’ll bring it down for you.”
I drew another breath. She put her arm around me and I let her lead me back to my room.
“Can you leave the door open, please?” I said.
Her soft, green eyes summed me up. “Okay. For five minutes, alright?” She pulled the door fully open so all the light from the corridor brightened my room, then she turned and walked away and I sat down in shock on the edge of the bed.
She came back two minutes later with a steaming mug.
“Thanks.” I said. “That was quick.”
“It’s instant. We have a machine. Can I sit down?”
I nodded. I held the mug to my lips and drank.
The mattress sunk down under her weight. She stretched her long legs out across the floor. “You’re shaking. Are you okay?”
I closed my right hand tighter around the mug. I could feel the adrenaline running through my chest. “I’m fine. Thanks.”
…“So…what did it look like?”
She was quite a pretty girl. She didn’t look like she was humoring me.
I told her, and she listened intently. She kept nodding, going “uh-huh,” “uh-huh,” “really?”
I started to calm down. I had almost finished my tea.
“I’m going to have to go back soon.” she said finally. “Do you need anything else?”
I looked towards the door, still fully open, then back at her expressive face. She seemed impressionable, honest, somewhat naïve. It flashed through my mind to steal her keys, try to make an escape. But maybe she could actually help me instead?
“Actually,” I leaned close in, “Can I speak to you about something?”
“Yeah. What is it?”
I breathed in deep. “Well, I-”, I heard a door slam shut, then loud, forceful footsteps. A tall guy appeared in the doorway. He didn’t look happy. “Katie! What are you doing in here?” He demanded.
The nurse nodded towards me. “I’m talking to Aisha here. She thinks she saw a ghost.”
“Don’t give me that! You’re supposed to have mopped the corridor by now. And the toilets aren’t done either. You’ve been warned already this week. Now get it done. Please.”
She pulled a face at me as if to say “Sorry. What am I supposed to do?” and she got up off the bed.
“Wait!” I said.
But her blonde head turned out the door. The male nurse, or whoever he was, frowned at me. “You needin sumthin? Eh?”
I shook my head. He closed the door, locked it and walked away.
Chapter 24
I was awake the rest of the night. Long after the morning light came in, I finally got the knocks at the door and was able to leave. I headed down the corridor with the others, the din of the TV getting louder, before I heard Sanders raised voice from behind the door of the nurse’s station. I looked behind me and waited behind for the others to go.
“I don’t know what to do!” I heard her say. I bent down closer to the door and tied my shoelaces. The corridor was empty but for me.
“Well, have you tried contacting head management?” another, calmer woman’s voice replied.
“I’ve tried everything, Lisa! I’ve gone everywhere I could go. Exhausted every avenue, but they don’t listen. I’ve begged them and begged them; we need more staff! If I can’t get paid can I bring in some volunteers? Lots of people would be keen to get some work experience here, we don’t have to pay them. But everything has to be decreed from above! It’s all bureaucracy. One of those bastards is sitting in an office in London, or somewhere else hundreds of miles away, and he’s telling me how I should be running the ward according to his book. It’s driving me nuts, I just feel like a puppet here.”
“At least we’ve passed the inspection. That’s one thing we don’t have to worry about anymore.”
“Yeah. Until next year. But it could all fall apart before that. I can’t work like this. Neither can you. It’s not healthy. It’s not fair. One of the patients is going to flip and that’s going to be that. In ward eight things are even worse. I’m telling you Lisa, I’m at my wit's end. Why won’t they just let me make the changes I know I need to make to get this place running properly again? I’m the one who’s here working in it.”
I heard a door shut behind me- a patient was coming my way. I pulled my shoelaces tight and stood up and went into the common room. I took my tray, took my pills, and sat down at the table where Harry was. I couldn’t see Nina or Sandy anywhere, and I couldn’t see Kev. Maybe it was his day off.
Harry almost choked on his apple juice. “You saw what?”
“A ghost. I’m sure it was.”
“Where?”
Outside my room last night. It was just drifting down the corridor.”
“Cool.” He spooned up a mouthful of porridge. “Were you scared?”
“Not really, just excited.”
“Hm.”
He looked thoughtfully over my shoulder. Then his eyes widened. “Hey! Do you know what day it is?”
I counted back the four nights I had been in so far. I came in on the twenty-seventh, so that makes today… “Halloween?”
“When the veil between this world and the other is at its thinnest, apparently. Every year on Halloween all the ghost and supernatural sightings increase. Hm, that’s pretty cool.”
“That’s cause they’re looking for it, though. They see it because they’re prepared to see it.”
“You didn’t expect to see it.”
“No.”
“Well, have you seen anything like it before?”
“No.”
“What did it look like?”
He seemed calmer this morning. His curly hair was just as messy though and hadn’t been brushed or washed. He wore a black t-shirt with some folk singer on the front.
I told Harry all about it- about the lucid color and the formless shape, about how it drifted along the corridor but didn’t rise or expand like smoke should do. That there was nobody else around.
“Did it not have a face, or a figure?”
“No.”
“Hm.”
“Do you believe me?” I said.
“Yeah.” he nodded.
I picked up my orange juice and took a long drink.
“Is Nina not out of bed yet?” Sanders voice called.
“I’ll go and check.” Dale said. He wandered out down the hall.
“You don’t look like you slept much.” Harry said.
“No. I didn’t.”
I spooned up some of the porridge and ate a few mouthfuls in silence, when Dale came racing back into the room. His face was wild, “Come here! Quick!” He commanded Sanders, as animated as I’d ever seen him.
Her eyes returned that fright. “Shit.” She mouthed, as she left the serving area and followed him out the room with the other nurses. Their panic spread quickly and a couple of patients immediately got up from the telly and jogged after them, catching me by surprise, I had thought they were pretty much vegetables. I pushed my chair in and jogged behind. A crowd of patients were already stood outside Nina’s door. I went up on my tiptoes, and with my extra height, managed to peer over the heads into the room. The bed was made, the room was clean- apart from the knife on the floor underneath the window, surrounded by broken glass.
Sanders paced side to side, her hands flailing and wringing the air. Liz and Dale just stood there, looking dumbly at the jagged edges of the glass and at the gap of the missing bar.
“How the hell did she get hold of that?” Sanders pointed at the knife and screamed at Liz and Dale. She turned to us at the doorway. “Move!” She strode through the middle of us and turned left, those sharp heels clacking as she sprinted down the corridor.
Dale and Liz stood motionless. “We’re gonna get it for this.” Dale said. He picked up the knife, held it in his closed fist and looked back at the bar that had been perforated.
“How did she manage to get in the nurses’ staysh-in?” Liz offered.
They stood in silence, darkly contemplating, then they turned and ran through us in the direction Sanders had gone.
I don’t think anyone could believe she had done it. Little Nina the child. She’d managed to get hold of that knife, somehow get it back to her room, break the glass that I couldn’t break, and saw her way through the bar before jumping out of the window. The crowd of us stared in mutual astonishment. The space she had to squeeze through was tiny, about twenty inches between the bars. And all that effort, when she could have just slashed her wrists.
“Move, please.” Kev stormed in with Jean, holding a brush and dustpan. They commenced sweeping up the broken glass.
Eight or nine of us remained, watching them sweep and staring awe-struck at the window. Then I felt warm, moist breath in my ear and looked left, at Harry. He looked crazy, his black eyes were blazing. I was about to ask him to move a little further away from me when he whispered loudly and with great excitement “Aisha. They haven’t shut the fucking door.”
“What?” I glanced over. Jesus, he was right. The entrance door to the buffer zone had been left open. Maybe the second one had been too.
“C’mon, hurry up.” He tugged at my jumper.
I followed after him. We walked casually but quickly as the group remained staring into Nina’s room. We passed by the bathroom door, then another door, and another. We were almost there. I kept waiting for a shout to come but it never did. We picked up our pace, my heart was pounding. “Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ” Harry kept repeating, his eyes fixed on the entrance. We reached it and stepped beyond the first set of doors, we were in the buffer zone- and the keys had been left in the lock. I took them out and unlocked the second doors and we stepped out of the ward. I was about to set off down the stairs, but Harry stalled and turned around. It was in that second that Kev saw us, and leapt forward through the crowd. Harry grabbed the keys from my hand and I watched in horror as he put the key in the lock, grinned at Kev, clicked the key round and left it there.
“C’mon, fuckin run!” I shouted.
We took the steps down two at a time, hearing Kev cursing and pounding at the door. We landed on the bottom floor, his screaming fading behind us, and we didn’t bother to check if the coast was clear. Harry shot out in front. The halls were empty. We sprinted out along the custard walls and floral wallpaper and neared the reception office and beyond it the exit.
“Slow down” I said.
Harry slowed and we strolled past the reception window as casually as we could. The receptionist was staring at the monitor on her computer, she never noticed us. We got three paces past her and sprinted again, bursting out through the front door and landing outside. The strong sunlight stung my eyes.
Fuck. We’re out! We’re out! Was all I could think.
Harry bombed ahead, his skinny, whippet arms pumping the air. I glanced back over my shoulder at the huge sandstone building glowing red in the daylight and at its many windows as they got further and further away. Patients were staring out from our ward, laughing and cheering and pointing at us. We bolted through the car park, adrenaline coursing through my body, and we kept on straight down the hill for the woods. We were halfway down when the call came from behind us, “HOI! GET BACK HERE!” Three staff members racing from the front door in our direction.
The woods were right in front of us, it seemed to take forever to get there but we made it and broke through the trees. The ground got bad, the wet autumn leaves slippy, and I dug my trainers in to keep a grip. We reached an overgrowth of nettles so high it came up above our heads. I threw up my hands as the spring-back thorns ripped and thrashed at my skin.
“Shit!” Harry’s voice called from ahead.
I caught up seconds later on the other side. He was standing in vines, his bare arms gashed and bleeding as he stared at the ten-foot barbed wire fence.
“What do we do?”
The fence ran both ways through thorns and nettles. Bushes everywhere. “Dig!” I shouted. I fell to my knees and clawed into the needly, spiked earth underneath the fence, tearing out clumps of turf. Harry did the same.
“It’s no good, there’s too much roots!”
“AISHA! HARRY!”
I looked back, I couldn’t see them. My heart felt like it had leapt up into my throat. I got up and ran to the right of the fence.
“Come on, keep looking!”
We raced along the fence, gripping at it to pull ourselves through the raking branches. We searched high and low but it was no good, the fence didn’t bend at any point, there were no holes in it or burrows underneath.
“COME BACK! OR YOU’RE IN FUCKIN’ TROUBLE!”
The calls were getting closer. They sounded right behind us. There was no other way. I gripped the metal links on the fence and tried to heave myself up. I kicked out but the gaps were too small to get a proper holding with my feet. Then a hand closed under my shoe and propelled me. I dove my arm around the top of the railing and swung myself halfway over, my feet sprawling right into the spiraling barbed wire on top. I leaned my foot against the razor coils and allowed them to take my weight.
“Give me your hand!”
Harry tiptoed and took my hand and kicked and pushed up the fence as I pulled. He climbed up alongside me and I turned as much as I could to face the other side. The spikes cut right into my legs and I wriggled to try and free them. Every movement caused a searing pain.
Harry squeezed his legs through and fell out the other side, I heard the rip of the wire as it tore through his skin. He landed and stood there looking up at me. I glanced back. They were rustling through the nettles and catching up fast, Kev in the lead. I folded my sleeves over my hands and stretched out an opening in the wire and dived through head-first. I came down on the ground with my hands spread out and my body slamming down after. The fence sprang back to its full height as Harry pulled me up.
The three arrived at the fence behind us. We ran into the forest and a thousand spruce branches met us as we crashed through in the dark.
I stumbled. There were ditches between the rows of trees and I jumped down and ran along one, Harry right behind me. My feet pounded the earth, panic pushed me on, branches snapped in my face and the ground thumped underneath us. Then light broke through as we came out into a field.
I checked in every direction and caught sight of a gate in the hedge. We lunged through dead wheat sticks that snapped about our knees until we reached it, and I peered down the road behind- there was no cars, but there doubtless would be soon. I took my chance and jumped the gate and we made our way down the tarmac, running five minutes at full speed. Houses came into view- there was a small village ahead. We leapt another fence and cut through a field, heading for an oak wood in the distance. I glanced back over my shoulder, glimpsed the top of a tractor ploughing one of the fields, but I couldn’t see anyone else. I sprinted uphill for the trees and when I reached them I scrambled down a ditch in the middle of the wood. We splashed through the stream and climbed the embankment on the other side. I dived behind a mound of earth and crouched down. Harry launched in behind me and we peeked up over the edge at the fields below us. In the distance was the forest from which we’d come. No-one had yet emerged.