Exposure

by Jane Harvey-Berrick

  The ambulance swept softly up the tarmac drive and came to a halt by the large, double doors. Miz Preston stepped forward and Patience stood to one side, keeping out of the way until she was needed.

  The driver muttered something to Miz Preston and shrugged his shoulders. Patience could tell by the irritated twitch of the shoulders that Miz Preston was annoyed about something: probably the absence of paperwork. After all, how were they supposed to know what drug regimen the patient needed? Plus, it was dangerous for a patient to suddenly come off their medication.

  A flicker of concern, an unpleasant thought, made Patience stand a little straighter, trying to look into the ambulance’s interior. Only once before had a patient arrived in the night with no paperwork. Patience hadn’t been there on that occasion, but she’d heard about it.

  A stretcher was pulled out of the ambulance. Patience tucked the wheelchair back into the foyer: it wouldn’t be needed tonight.

  The ambulance crew went to get back into the front cab: they had done their job, abandoning the wheeled stretcher on the drive. Miz Preston was furious, but the crew ignored her ferocious demands and drove off into the night. That was odd: they weren’t even waiting to get their stretcher back. Patience didn’t mind doing a bit of portering so she walked to the front, ready to push the stretcher into the foyer.

  She looked down at the face of the patient, a slight form under a thin blanket. The shock of recognition made Patience cry out. It was the woman she’d seen the previous week visiting Wally Manfred. There was no doubt. But now the woman was gaunt-eyed, slack-mouthed and unwashed. If Patience hadn’t seen her so recently, recognising her would have been out of the question.

  “What’s the matter, Nurse Gillan?” said Miz Preston, whose bat-like hearing had picked up Patience’s low cry.

  “I… she looked like someone I used to know,” said Patience quickly. “It’s not, but for a moment…”

  “Hmm,” said Miz Preston, wrinkling her brow. She didn’t look entirely convinced: she wasn’t the kind of woman who missed much.

  Patience schooled her face to blankness and wheeled the patient inside.

  Doctor Gibbon was waiting for her. Who’d called him? Patience had never seen him at the nursing home in the night before.

  “This is the new resident?” he said.

  “Yes, doctor,” said Patience, trying to look as dim and unthinking as he generally believed all the carers to be.

  “I’ll be personally overseeing her medication,” said the doctor curtly.

  “That’s highly unusual,” said Miz Preston who had entered unheard. “The nursing staff normally administer all medication and we don’t even have any papers for this woman yet.”

  The doctor scowled. “I have the paperwork, nurse. You may go – back to whatever it is you do.”

  Miz Preston wasn’t giving up that easily.

  “I’d like to see that paperwork, doctor,” she said calmly. “The ambulance staff were unable to give me any details at all. It’s odd that they’ve come through to you. At night.”

  The doctor’s tone was hostile. “I wasn’t aware that you were running this facility,” he said sharply.

  “Just the nursing staff, doctor,” she replied briskly. “And I presume this patient will need nursing care.”

  The doctor was furious at what he saw as an attempted usurpation of his divine right as a physician, where knowledge was power.

  “I will supervise this resident’s medication,” he hissed. “I’ll leave the diaper-changing to you.”

  He jerked his head at Patience, indicating that she follow him with the stretcher. Silently Patience manoeuvred the wheeled bed into the lift and they travelled up to the next floor.

  The doctor allowed Patience to assist him in transferring the patient from the stretcher to the bed. Then he bound the woman’s hands and feet with the thick, leather restraints. She was starting to moan and trying to move, her eyes flicking restlessly between the doctor and Patience. The doctor frowned and took a hypodermic from his breast pocket. Patience guessed it contained some sort of sedative because the woman’s pupils dilated and her body went limp.

  The doctor nodded. “I’ll be back in the morning,” he said. “She won’t give you any trouble now.”

  Patience felt cold all over and sick to her stomach. She knew for a fact that this woman had been perfectly within her right mind a week ago. Whilst a breakdown could happen overnight, Patience knew without a shadow of doubt, that this woman was being illegally detained and medicated to make it look like she was psychotic – or demented. Just like Wally Manfred. Just like him.

  Dear God.

  Patience didn’t know what to do. For the rest of the shift her mind squirmed uncomfortably. She checked on the woman called simply ‘Jane Doe’, but each time her breathing was deep and even.

  As dawn arrived with the pink promise of a warm day, Patience drove home. Her husband was hunched over the sports pages as he finished his breakfast. She wanted to tell him about her night, to hint to him what she suspected, but he’d put down his paper, looked her in the eyes, closed his ears and simply told her it was none of her business and that unless she wanted to lose her job – which wouldn’t be easy to replace at her age – then she should forget what she knew, or thought she knew, what she’d seen and what she thought she’d seen.

  Then he’d picked up his tool bag and headed out the door.

  Easy for him to say, huffed Patience, as she made herself a sandwich. He wasn’t the one who would have to see it every day. For two anxious nights Patience had watched the new patient – not too closely just in case her actions aroused suspicion, but closely enough to know that Doctor Gibbon was the only physician allowed to attend to the new patient or to see her notes. For two anxious nights Patience had hoped that the young man who had accompanied the new patient, now officially listed as Jane Doe, would come to retrieve her. When he didn’t come she began to wonder if she’d misread him. And yet somehow she doubted that.

  An air of unease hovered over the Warm Creek Nursing Home. None of the care staff – except Patience – wanted to have anything to do with the new patient. She was so much younger than most of the residents for one thing and for another her namelessness and lack of records worried them. The carers sensed something was rotten, but were too disempowered to know what to do, other than to walk by on the other side.

  Patience washed and dressed the inert body. Sometimes she sensed something behind the dilated pupils, a latent awareness, perhaps? Patience had worked with dementia sufferers long enough to be able to interpret most attempts at communication. Somewhere inside the drugged body was a mind, still alert. It was a distressing thought.

  Patience wondered if a discrete call to SAMHSA, the mental health administration, would help. She toyed with the idea for several days, weighing the potential risk to herself against the potential benefits to the patient. She even stopped by her church to ask God for guidance. But He gave the answer she didn’t really want to hear.

  So one evening, a week later, on her way home from the day shift, Patience pulled into a Wal-Mart she didn’t usually patronise and found one of the few payphones that still worked. SAMHSA was closed for the day, of course, but she found the courage to leave a message on the office voicemail, telling them merely that a Jane Doe had been installed at Warm Creek and that staff were concerned about her care. She didn’t leave her name, no siree. Carefully she wiped the phone with an antiseptic wipe: she’d seen CSI. Then she worried about the fingerprints she must have surely left on the quarter with which she’d paid for the phone call but there was nothing she could do about that now…

  * * * *

  When Patience came into work the next day, she found Warm Creek in uproar.

  “What’s going on, Loretta?” she said to one of the carers just going off shift.

  “Oh, my!” said Loretta, “You was lucky you wasn’t on night shift, Patience: one of the patients, I mean, one of the residents done gone miss
ing!”

  Patience felt slightly relieved that it was something so minor. That happened from time to time: a patient would wander off and be found a short time later, confused and hungry.

  “Oh well, I expect they’ll turn up,” said Patience. “Who was it?”

  “That new woman,” said Loretta, “the Jane Doe that none of us is supposed to talk about. She’s vanished!”

  A feeling like icy water trickled through Patience.

  “Jane Doe? They’re saying she upped and walked off?”

  “I know!” whispered Loretta, her eyes darting around her to make sure that no-one could overhear their conversation. “There was no way she was walking outa here. But that’s what they’re saying. And Miz Preston done been given her cards. Them fired her! And her desk has been cleared already!”

  “Why’d they fire her?” said Patience, her eyes large.

  “Well, they’re blaming her for losing a p… a resident on her watch, but I heard her yelling at Doc Gibbon and saying something about her being taken away in an ambulance by men with guns!”

  Patience felt her heart racing.

  “And SAMHSA are on the way,” said Loretta. “Apparently they got an anonymous call about that Jane Doe. Doc Gibbon reckons it was Miz Preston but she was denyin’ it. They had to escort her offa the place yellin’ and screamin’! You never saw nothin’ like it! It’s gonna be a fun day, Patience. You’s better keep you head down, girl!”

  Loretta was walking away when she remembered something else.

  “Oh,” she said, “I near forgot to tell you: Wally Manfred died last night. Doc Gibbon says he had a stroke or somethin’. Poor Wally.”

  Chapter 25

  Helene was vaguely aware of the sensation of swaying: it reminded her of a hotel she’d stayed in once where she’d had use of her own personal hammock. It was very soothing.

  But this was… somewhere else.

  Her body woke up nerve by nerve, muscle by muscle: a toe twitched, her calf jerked, her thigh, her stomach, arm by arm and finally the muscles in her face gave her the resemblance of a sentient being. Her mind, however, was still blurred and fuzzy. She tried to understand where she was.

  Eyes open, but as yet unspeaking, her gaze wandered around: a small, metal capsule – with a demon guarding her. Helene screwed her eyes tightly shut: if she closed her eyes and pretended they weren’t there – that she wasn’t there – sometimes the demons went away. Sometimes.

  When the pumping of her heart had slowed and the blood pounding through her veins had eased, she dared to open her eyes again. No, not a capsule: a vehicle. A van? No, she was in the back of an ambulance and the demon was a nurse of some description – or a guard.

  Cautiously, her eyes on the uniformed man, she tested her arms again. No movement. She tried moving her legs: they, too, were leaden and uncooperative.

  Slowly, her head began to clear a little, but her limbs felt weak as if her muscles hadn’t been used for a long time.

  A pothole in the road jolted the guard fully awake. He studied her with wary eyes.

  “Water,” she croaked. “Water, please.”

  He continued to stare at her but didn’t reply. Helene wondered if she’d actually managed to say the words out loud. She wasn’t sure. It was hard to be sure of anything when your brain felt like glue. She tried again.

  “Some water? Please,” she mumbled.

  “Cain’t give you nuthin’,” he muttered at last. “Cain’t even talk to you.”

  “Why?” said Helene.

  He looked surprised, as if he hadn’t expected such a question.

  “They tole me you wouldn’t wake up,” he said belligerently. “You’re not supposed to wake up.”

  Helene was too disorientated to argue.

  “Where am I?” she said tiredly. “Where are we going?”

  “Cain’t tell you that,” said the man stubbornly. “Prisoners don’t need to know.”

  He scowled at her. His face said: I should have guessed that talking with this ho wouldn’t lead anywhere good.

  He crossed his arms with finality.

  Then without warning the man threw himself on top of her.

  Or at least to Helene’s confused senses that’s what seemed to happen. In fact the ambulance suddenly lurched to one side, screeching metal against tarmac as it slid haphazardly down the highway. Only the ringing in Helene’s ears and the pounding in her skull explained that there’d been a small explosion somewhere in front of, or underneath the vehicle, tipping it turtle-wise onto its side.

  The guard seemed stunned and was moving groggily, his dead weight on Helene’s bruised ribs making it hard to breathe.

  There was shouting outside and the ambulance doors were wrenched open. Helene couldn’t see anything, but when the huge, shadowy figure of a man blocked the light from the doors, his shape seemed familiar.

  “Don’t worry, honey.” Hank’s voice came from a very long way away. “We’re gonna get you outa here.”

  A set of bolt cutters held in one beefy hand were used to stun the guard into full unconsciousness. Then Hank snapped free the handcuffs and unbuckled the ankle restraints that held Helene onto the stretcher. The thick restraining belt around her waist took longer: the leather unyielding and the metal lock too close to Helene’s flesh to make using the bolt cutters easy. Her weight pulled sideways on the belt making it taut.

  Finally she was released and with gentle hands, Hank scooped her from the bed.

  “Oh, honey,” he said softly. “What have they done to you?”

  He half carried, half dragged her from the stricken ambulance. Helene’s muscles seemed incapable of independent movement.

  He bundled her onto the back seat of a dark Sedan and the car roared away. Helene glimpsed the ambulance lying on its side, a section of the engine strewn across the road, and a flash of blue eyes staring at her from the rear view mirror.

  * * * *

  The next time Helene woke, the world had stopped moving. She opened her eyes slowly. She felt limp, but for the first time in weeks, her mind was clear.

  “She’s waking up.”

  The voice drew Helene’s eyes.

  A woman was standing beside the bed. She was thin with light brown hair; young, but with deep lines creasing the side of her mouth.

  “Barbara?”

  Helene barely recognised her own voice, it was so cracked and dry; the merest whisper of words.

  The woman smiled.

  “Hello, Helene. It’s good to meet you again.”

  A familiar, beefy shape filled the doorway.

  “Oh, honey! You’re awake!”

  Hank limped into the room and threw himself onto a chair beside Helene’s bed that groaned as his outsize frame crushed it. He covered Helene’s skeletal hand with his own meaty paw and squeezed it gently.

  His voice quavered as he spoke in a rush, his fingers gently stroking the back of her hand.

  “You’ve been gone so long, honey, I didn’t know if we’d be able to bring you back. Here, have some water. Don’t try to speak.”

  He raised her head gently and helped her to sip some water.

  Helene tried to sip but she choked instead and the tears in her eyes spilled over. The sobs wracked her thin body, huge shudders running through her. Barbara slipped away and Helene didn’t see Charlie standing at the entrance, turning away as her tears continued to fall.

  Hank cradled her in his arms and rocked her gently until she cried herself asleep.

  It was several days before Helene was well enough to sit up in bed, let alone think and talk lucidly. It was painful to remember the flashes of consciousness from the previous weeks. She had to force her mind to revisit the scene of the crime… otherwise she’d never dare to close her eyes again… waiting for the demons to return.

  “What happened to you, after… after…” she whispered.

  “After the fire fight, me and Charlie-boy disappeared into the forest,” said Hank. “We just couldn’t reach
you; there were too many of them. But I promised myself that we’d get you back. We just had to wait till they made their move.”

  Helene nodded slowly.

  “Thank you. But how did you find me?”

  Hank frowned.

  “It was lover-boy who found you. He’d been listening in to various phone lines including Warm Creek. He had a hunch about it: I guess he was right. One of the care assistants made a call to the SAMHSA offices about the treatment of a Jane Doe. We knew straightaway it must be you. At least one person in that place gave a damn.”

  Helene shuddered at the vague memories that haunted her.

  “They were going to send me the same way as that poor man they called Wally,” said Helene, her voice strained, trying to keep control. “We have to get him out somehow.”

  Hank looked down.

  “I’m sorry, honey, but that poor son of a bitch died the night you were moved. Died or was put down, more like. Anyhow, he ain’t suffering no more. And I think there’ll be some changes at Warm Creek from now on.”

  Helene turned her head away and closed her eyes.

  “They’ll just move on to somewhere else,” she said tiredly. “There’ll always be some place, some doctor willing to help the NSA or the FBI or whoever those bastards were.”

  The truth hung between them, a ghost.

  She raised her eyes to meet Hank’s.

  “What… what did they do to me?” she mumbled.

  Hank shifted uncomfortably in the chair.

  “You sure you want to talk about this now, honey?”

  Helene closed her eyes and nodded.

  “I need to know,” she said at last.

  Hank sighed.

  “Well, when we picked you up, we had two independent doctors assess you. It was… well, evidence… you see.”

  He sounded embarrassed.

  “They were pretty shocked and wanted to admit you to a hospital, but we paid for them to keep quiet…” he sighed. “Anyway, they found that you’d been subjected to some sort of crude electric shock treatment and… er… that’s what caused the heart attack.”