“We’ve been friends for years. Thank you.” She accepted the steaming hot coffee and looked at Ritzy, who served herself a cup, too. “Do you think she’ll ever get out?”
“I don’t know; schizophrenia has no known cure. I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?” Or asked you why you’re visiting so close to midnight. “I’m Ritzy.”
“Jamie,” the woman stared at the black liquid in her mug. “We live together. Thought it’d be cheaper, but I’m always at my boyfriend’s so she pays most of the rent, anyway.” The fridges lining the wall suddenly rumbled, causing the woman to jolt. She touched her forehead with nails bitten down to the meat.
“I used to hate hospitals, much like you. So cold, aren’t they?” Ritzy said with a small smile. “But then I met great people who needed help, and it doesn’t bother me as much anymore.” She played with the simple diamond of her engagement ring. “How did it start, your friend’s predicament?”
“Not long after we found this great place, by the docks. It’s so cheap and spacious, we thought it was too good to be true.” The woman swallowed coffee and teared up.
Ritzy fished a folded tissue out of her pocket. “It’s okay.”
“Thanks.” Jamie sniffed and blew her nose. “It’s just…she’s like my little sis, you know? I’ve always looked out for her, but then she started acting weird, like another person completely. She talks about all these men… but I know her, she’s not the type. Especially not getting paid for sex.” She glanced up, then shrugged. “When she screams and cries, it sounds like her, but it doesn’t last long.”
Nurse Johnson walked into the cafeteria, eyeing them sharply. She can’t throw her out. Ritzy leaned closer to Jamie and asked in a low voice, “What happened? How did it start?”
Jamie slumped on the chair, eyes lost in the nightmare. “I noticed nothing until one day, I came back from Checkies, this bar we used to work at together, and she was talking to herself. No, not talking, arguing. Her hands were like this,” she mimed like someone swatting at cobwebs, “and she was bumping into the walls. It’s like she wanted to hurt herself, you know? Screaming and bleeding and hitting at nothing in front of her.” She paused for a sip, her eyes never leaving Ritzy. “The bruises and the cuts started after that. Waking up in the middle of the night, bloody down there.” She pointed to below her belly, eyes downcast in shame.
“How could she hurt herself so badly?” Ritzy felt Johnson lurking nearby, her glare drilling holes in her back. “Then what?”
“She started to speak with this weird voice, always telling me about these men coming at night to take advantage of her, raping her in her room. I never saw anyone, never heard anything but her cries.” A new flow of tears overwhelmed Jamie. “I would’ve helped her, I would’ve stopped them. But there was never anyone in her room but her!”
Johnson rushed over with a deep frown. “Nurse Pallek, do you think this meeting is of any help to our patients, who are trying to sleep?” Ritzy opened her mouth to retort, but she didn’t have time. “Visiting time was over hours ago; come back during the day, like normal people.” Of course, Johnson hated hippies with their free spirits. “Come on, off you go.”
Being treated like a child was the very reason Ritzy had accepted Tom’s proposal, to get out of living with her parents, whose house so conveniently sat close to her college. As she walked Jamie back to the entrance, she whispered, “Who lives there now?” The terrified look on Jamie’s face brought chills down her back.
“No one. I live at my boyfriend’s now. Things move by themselves in that place.” Jamie shivered, holding her shoulders.
“Would you mind if I went to take a look?” Ritzy swallowed a lump thinking of Nurse Johnson’s reaction if she found out this breach.
Jamie wrote down the address on a piece of paper and handed it over. “I think the landlord still has some of our stuff.”
“You left in a hurry?” Ritzy waited for an answer, but got only a nod. “I’ll do my best to help your friend.”
* * *
The sun rose on the distant skyscrapers, their glittering lights like late stars shining down on the city. The vents blasted hot air on full, but Ritzy’s aching muscles wouldn’t relax in the warmth. One of her professors did say it took months to get used to nightshifts, she couldn’t remember which.
“When we get pregnant, you’ll have to quit, Ritz,” Tom said. “There’s no way you’ll be able to take care of the house, me and a baby without sleeping. Have you told them we’re getting married soon?”
Cornered, like the car stalled at the red light. “Not before I’m permanent, I can’t. What will they say?” President Ford might have promised winds of change, but people like Nurse Johnson wouldn’t approve of a married lady working; not that Ritzy really cared what the middle-aged woman had to say about her personal life. But the doctors…
Ritzy still hoped Tom would change his mind and let her work four or five years before having kids and a house. She wanted to feel like she’d put her studies to good use–that they weren’t only something to talk about on double dates.
“And if I tell them, they’ll try to replace me right away, knowing I’ll be leaving soon. You know how important working at St. Mary is to me.” Ritzy couldn’t believe it: Tom still thought this job wasn’t a career, but rather a hobby to pass the time before her life with him started.
“Okay, that’s the street. Now tell me why we had to come over this way, please?” The docks bordered the street, which featured turn of the century apartment buildings. Must have been nice, fifty years ago.
“That’s it, 5310, stop here.” Ritzy pointed to the curb and Tom parked the Supreme with a sigh. “Wait for me, okay? I won’t be long.” She smiled, swiftly stepping out of the car, the wind catching at her cap until she tossed it on the backseat.
“Come back, before you catch a cold, Ritz,” Tom shouted, as he leaned over the passenger’s seat to roll open the window. “It’s nothing but old brothels and rooms for rent. What are we doing here? We came, we saw, now we go, Ritz.”
From the narrow sidewalk, Ritzy approached the three stories, every window of the building darkened by ‘Apartment for Rent’ signs. She stared at the last floor, and something moved inside, like a thick shadow–she felt watched, as if someone lived up there and stared back at her.
The shadow transformed into a broad man, but Ritzy couldn’t be sure of the color of his hair or what he wore. Another shadow joined the first, and both signed for Ritzy to come up, gesturing with their hands in a blur of movement. The apartment was empty, no one lived there anymore, Jamie had said…
A ship’s horn blew down by the docks, and she jumped. As the massive liner glided down the port, Ritzy caught her breath, but when she turned back to the two shadows, they were gone.
* * *
From the window in room 29-A, Ritzy stared at the secluded forest beyond the parking lot, so dark in the middle of the night. She wondered if she’d ever enjoy it during the day, when something moved behind her.
She froze, feeling someone else in the room. She spun to face dim lights coming through the transom. She could have sworn…
“I’m hungry,” the girl whispered. Ritzy approached the bed, staring at her as she repeated, with a quiet voice, “I’m hungry.”
Breaking into a smile, Ritzy said, “You don’t know how happy that makes me.” Because even if she did believe in modern medicine, she believed even more that a feeding tube could never replace a meal of meat and potatoes.
Ritzy rushed to the cafeteria and found her dinner waiting in the fridge, covered in foil. She couldn’t do things fast enough, in case the girl went back to sleep and she lost the opportunity to talk to her.
But when she came back with the steaming tuna casserole, she found her patient wide-awake and staring at the ceiling. Her mouth twisted open in horror, she clenched her hands into fists by her sides, under the straps.
Ritzy swallowed a lump of nerves. “Got you something you’ll lik
e, I’m sure.” She put the tray on the bedside table and lowered the bed rail.
Sitting on the stiff chair she’d claimed as hers two nights ago, she got ready to feed her patient. The bed crank whined and soon enough, the girl sat up. She kept her eyes to the ceiling, even when Ritzy draped her chest with the bib.
“Open your mouth, please.” Ritzy waited with the spoon inches from the girl’s face. Finally she popped it into her mouth.
After accepting the spoonful of noodles and sauce, she said, “You went to visit them. They say next time, you’re welcome to go in, but don’t bring the man from the car.” She chewed, and then added, “They want you alone.”
“Who are you talking about?” Ritzy tried to keep calm, and her hand from shaking as she fed the girl another bite, but her heart pumped harder. “Who are they?” Cold blanketed her shoulders and grasped her insides.
“Men, all kinds of men. Tall, short, fat, skinny, hairy and not, smelly and more smelly.” The girl stared at Ritzy with a sideways smile. “You’re pretty enough, you’ll do very well. Madam Butterfly asks for half, to pay for the lodging, but she’s kind. Be careful around them, though,” she nodded toward the end of the bed, “they can ask for unmentionable things, things that make you bleed, things that break you inside.”
Ritzy stopped, the spoon halfway to her patient’s mouth. This girl wasn’t a twenty-year-old college student in Environmental Studies; this was someone else. Great, the nurse working at the asylum needs to be a resident herself. Something shifted on the wall–a shadow moved but neither the girl nor Ritzy had. The air filled with something electric and a chill ran down her back, like tiny fingers.
“War has been great for business, with all those ships passing through,” the girl went on, talking to the empty space at the foot of the bed. “When they rough you up, always remember you can rough them back. And if they don’t stop, you stop them forever: their hearts, go for their hearts.”
Ritzy shook her head, the spoon held ready to stop the girl from saying too much. “You give great advice. How long have you been…” Oh my, what do you call the work of a prostitute? “…servicing men?” A laugh came next to her, but no one was there.
“I’m a whore, nothing wrong with it,” 29-A smiled, so wicked. “The oldest job in the world, that is. Never a shortage of men, and they always want more. More sex, more drink, more violence. They want it and I give it to them.”
This is not schizophrenia; she’s built up a whole new identity.
“Twenty-eight, but five stick around, won’t let me rest,” she continued, but Ritzy wanted her to stop and looked for something to keep the girl’s mouth occupied. “And now I’ve got little ones to take care of, so when their daddies don’t let me sleep at night and keep me up during the day, not getting enough sleep will make you go insane, don’t you think?”
Ritzy picked up the drink of water and a straw, almost dropping them, her hands shook so much. The slippery condensation on the glass added to her sweaty palms.
“And you’d think they’d leave me alone when I’m carrying, but you’d be wrong. Look at this, a few weeks to go before I pop and they still poke me one after the other, every night. Bastards, all of them bastards and dead.” Ritzy stared at the girl’s flat belly, but a black shadow loomed and made it round like a pregnant woman’s. Intangibly, impossibly, a mist dark against the white of the robe hung before the girl’s abdomen.
A thick sickness took hold of Ritzy’s stomach, as she remembered Jamie telling her about bleeding from forced intercourse when no man was around, the arguing in the empty rooms, the change of her friend into someone else, someone who spoke from another time and place. And all those eerie shadows…
“Don’t go,” the girl begged, eyes filling up. Ritzy left the food tray by the bed as she backed out of the room. “She keeps screaming to get out, and when they finally leave me alone, she tries to come out and take control. But who will take care of my children if she does?” Tears rolled down her patient’s cheeks.
It became impossible to watch, so Ritzy prepared a good dose of sedatives and plunged the needle into the girl’s tender skin. A single drop of blood surfaced, sliding down her arm–no wonder the nurse wounded the girl. Her hands shook so hard, she could barely pump the liquid down the syringe.
* * *
Swirls of lipstick danced on her fifth tumbler of Scotch on the rocks, the dimness of Checkies Bar still bright enough for Ritzy to fixate on the greasy red marks. Her mind a blur, she recalled the last hour with a bitter taste in her mouth.
“I’m not crazy, I’m trying to do my job,” she muttered into her drink, finding the noise around her comforting, loving the incognito feel of the place. Crowded with students and teachers in civilian clothes, her white nurse’s outfit clashed under the bar lights.
“Still here?” Jamie said, emptying twelve packs into the mini-fridges. “Aren’t you on the nightshift?”
“I got demoted tonight. Sanctioned.” Admitting it hurt, but then her shoulders relaxed–or was it the alcohol finally working its way into her blood stream? “Bed pans and feeding time starting tomorrow.” She tilted her head back and downed the drink.
“Doesn’t sound too good.” Jamie wiped the counter, the flowy sleeves of her peasant blouse reminding Ritzy of butterfly wings. “What happened?”
“Hit me,” Ritzy pointed to the remaining ice cubes in her tumbler, and sighed. “I’m to be a nurse, which means I do not meddle in doctors’ affairs or diagnostics. I am to attend to the patients without interfering, especially if one of them doesn’t seem crazy but in fact possessed; it’s still not a nurse’s place to say anything. I am not to shout to my superiors or be scared of the patients, however sick they might be.” Jamie poured liquor into Ritzy’s glass and waited until the nurse sipped at it.
“Why do I get the feeling I know what this is about?” Jamie said, ignoring the calls from a drunken crowd of males at the end of the bar, howling for more Molson. “Did you see them like she does?” The five shadows, the five rapists.
“I didn’t see anyone, no.” Lying didn’t take away the feeling of their eyes on Ritzy, their cold presence in the room, their touch. “I don’t think she’s sick, I don’t think it’s a disease.” Finally, the room swayed in a haze of delightful numbness. “It’s not in her head, it’s in her entire body, in her soul.” She jabbed her index finger toward her empty glass again. “Hit me, bartender.”
Jamie handed a foaming pitcher full of golden beer to the rowdy guys and came back shaking her head. “I think you’ve had enough, Ritzy.”
No, I haven’t because I remember everything when all I want to do is forget. Bile bubbled up her throat and she swallowed an excess of saliva.
“What’s wrong?” Jamie said, leaning across the bar until her face was inches from Ritzy’s. “Here.” She gave a tissue to Ritzy, who hadn’t noticed tears falling from her face. “It’ll be okay, you’re great at what you do.” Jamie rang the last call bell and came back. “How long is your sanction?”
“Two months.” Ritzy dabbed her cheeks and took a deep breath before standing up–but she sat back down, dizzy drunk. “Oh shit,” she whispered, blinking at the vacillating room and the clamor assaulting her.
“Wait for me. I get out of this shithole in two minutes.” Jamie smiled reassuringly. “I’ll get you home in one piece.”
Which isn’t true, thought Ritzy as she vomited for the third time. She wiped her mouth, swung her legs back inside the car and slammed the door. “I’m fine, let’s go.”
“We’re here,” Jamie laughed. “This is the address you gave me.” Ritzy squinted at the old Victorian mansion transformed into six apartments, and dread burned her cheeks.
“This is my fiancé’s home,” she whispered. The thought of Tom seeing her with splashes of vomit first thing in the morning deepening her shame.
Jamie helped her out, both drunkenly swaying to the front door. As soon as Ritzy pressed the buzzer, it rang her in. Tom must have seen
her get out of the car and heard her hurl on the neatly cut grass.
“What’s going on? Is she okay?” Tom asked from the second floor. Only when Jamie grunted bringing Ritzy up a first flight of steps did he come down the staircase to help them. “Is she drunk?” He hid his nose in his hand before taking hold of Ritzy. “Who are you?” He sized Jamie up and down with a frown.
“A friend,” Ritzy answered, waving at Jamie. “Byeeee…”
“You stink, Ritz,” Tom said as he turned away from her. Through the haze of booze, his thick hair transformed into a blue hue; and when he turned, he wore another man’s face. She screamed and tried to get away, but he tightened his grip on her. “Breathe the other way, please.” When Ritzy finally found the guts to look up at him, he recoiled from her smell. “Did you lose your job?”
“Wouldn’t that be great for you? A stay-at-home mom, like yours and mine.” Ritzy burst out laughing, holding onto the futon for balance. “When did we get inside?”
The darkness felt full of people watching her, men guarding her every move. She moved toward the bedroom, finding it ridiculous to sleep on the couch after what happened in the backseat of Tom’s Supreme every Saturday night, but he stopped her.
“Oh no, you’re not going in there. It’s not what we agreed on when you said yes,” Tom whispered, managing to crash into a floor lamp as he walked to the bedroom. “Sleep in here, I don’t want your sick all over my sheets.”
Ritzy opened her mouth to laugh at his smallness, but he had already closed his door. Ignoring the tingle on the back of her neck and the dark so full of shadows, she lay down on the lumpy futon and cried herself to sleep.
* * *
Flanked by headache and nausea, Ritzy found the morning after a blur. Exhausted, she spent the dayshift cleaning up shit and feeding patients who tried to bite her. It almost made her quit.
“Nurse Pallek, a word,” Doctor Lee said without one look in her direction, as she sat by the window for a lunch of cold ham and salty mashed potatoes. “My office, if you please.” What did I do, now?
Horror Library, Volume 5 Page 25