There was a long line at the drive-through, so John parked the truck and walked into his favorite fast food restaurant. The line was much shorter, and he'd had to admit to himself that the idea of sitting down and eating was appealing. The truck wasn't where he'd wanted to spend another lunch hour. Plus, there was the rearview mirror.
While he stood in line, John tried to pick apart why the idea of dining with a mirror that close to his face had suddenly started to bother him. Why did it seem like every reflective surface was out to get him now?
The image of the mirror they'd found in the attic flashed through his mind, but before he could latch on to the thought, the line moved. Just like that, the idea was gone.
He ordered his food and stood off to the side to wait. Fortunately, the order was up quickly because as he'd leaned against the wall, John felt his eyelids begin to grow heavy.
"John." The woman called as she slid a tray across the counter. "Can I get you anything else?"
"Nope, this is good. Thank you."
"Thank you, sir. Have a good day."
John took the tray to a table in the corner of the dining area. Several other single people were sitting at tables in that section, and all of them were apparently trying to stay far away from the other side of the room where several noisy families were seated.
He let his mind drift briefly to a vision of he and Sammy sitting at one of those tables with a couple of rugrats. It wasn't an entirely unpleasant thought. Although, he'd hoped that in their family, Sammy would look less frazzled and he'd be more involved. In the families he watched, the mothers looked like they were doing their best not to explode, and the fathers were sitting there pretending like they didn't know the women and children at the tables.
He turned his attention back to his burger and Cajun fries when one of the harried mothers caught him looking. Not his circus, not his monkeys.
When John got back to the job site, his supervisor was waiting for him. Delvin looked worried, and John wondered if he'd screwed something up in his sleep-deprived state. He knew he had plenty of sick days and vacation time. John figured he should've used some instead of coming in when he felt terrible.
"I've been calling you," Delvin said when John got close enough.
"I didn't hear my..." He began to respond, but it dawned on him that he'd left his phone sitting where he'd been working in the house. "Left my phone when I went to lunch. What's up?"
"Sammy called. She tried to reach you by phone too. Something about a pipe bursting and your house flooding. You better get home, man."
John raced back to his truck, after grabbing his phone, without saying another word. Delvin would understand. Had he messed up the plumbing he'd done last night? Had another pipe burst? John wasn't a plumber professionally, but the pipe replacement he'd done the night before had been solid. He knew it.
John peeled into the driveway at home and almost forgot to shut the truck off as he raced into the house. The problem was that once he was inside, there was no burst pipe. Sammy wasn't in the living room or the kitchen. John flew up the stairs to make sure the leak wasn't in the upstairs bathroom, but no one was up there either. The house was empty, and there was no plumbing emergency that he could see.
In fact, the dryers were turned off and lined up in the kitchen. Their cords had been neatly tied, and the floors were clean and dry.
The front door opened. "John? Hey, baby, what are you doing home?" Sammy said as she came into the house. "Are you sick?"
"Delvin said he got a call from you about a pipe bursting. So I rushed home."
"It wasn't me, sweetie. I went into work for a couple of hours. Somebody screwed up, and patients started arriving early for the new ward. I went in to help the day charge nurse get people settled. I stopped by the store on the way home. I'm going to throw together a casserole for you because I need to go into work tonight. They promised me an extra day off in two weeks."
John couldn't fathom going back to work. "Do you need any help in the kitchen?"
"Nope. You should go lie down. You look awful." She felt his forehead. "I hope you're not coming down with something."
"I think I'm just tired," John said.
"Grab a beer and go watch TV," Sammy said as she walked to the kitchen.
While she unpacked the ingredients from the grocery bags, John grabbed a cold beer from the fridge. Usually, he wouldn't drink in the afternoon, but he'd had no plans to go anywhere else that day.
Half a beer and most of an episode of some crime show later, John's eyes began to close no matter how hard he fought. Even when the sound of a woman whispering his name began to emanate from the mirror on the wall in the hallway, John couldn't keep them open. Dark sleep pulled him down into unconsciousness despite the protests from his racing heart.
Chapter Seven
John woke up with a start and found himself in bed. It was dark outside, and he wasn't sure how he'd ended up in the bedroom. The only thing he could figure was that he'd stumbled upstairs half asleep at some point in the afternoon or evening.
It was the scratching outside the door that made his heart begin to thunder in his chest again.
He checked the other bedroom after building up the courage to get out of bed and go into the hall. John felt like a kid again. The hair on the back of his neck had stood up as he thought of someone under the bed reaching out to grab his feet when he stood up.
It was possible that Sammy was still at work. John checked the nearest clock, and it was after one in the morning.
John thought that maybe Sam was downstairs eating some of the casserole she'd made or watching television to unwind. She rarely came home and went right to bed.
He walked through the downstairs, and Sammy wasn't in the living room, dining room, or kitchen. John thought she was probably working overtime since the new ward had opened early and unexpectedly.
His stomach reminded him that he'd only had one meal in the last twenty-four hours. The fast food meal had been hearty, but not nearly enough to sustain him. He took a bowl down from the cupboard and grabbed a spoon from the silverware drawer. But, when John opened the fridge to grab the casserole Sammy said she was going to make, there was no casserole. He checked the shelf where she kept her bakeware, and sure enough, the dish she would have used to prepare the meal was still there.
"She probably just got distracted," John said to himself.
John had to fight the urge to call her. If Sammy was in the middle of something at work or driving home, he didn't want to distract her. As far as he knew, there was no reason to be worried. So, he decided to make a sandwich.
He rummaged through the refrigerator until he located some thin sliced roast turkey and a package of Gouda cheese. John set the items on the counter and went back in for some mayo and a bottle of hot mustard. When something rustled the bottom of his pajama pants, John jumped two feet in the air. He whirled around with the bottle of mustard in his hand out in front of him like it was a weapon.
"Meow."
John let out a relieved chuckle when he saw Tut sitting at his feet. "No, buddy. I don't have anything here for you."
"Meow."
"Okay, okay," John said and grabbed a slice of the turkey.
He tore it up into tiny pieces and set them on the floor in front of the cat. Tut quickly devoured every bit. "That's all you get," John said and turned back to his sandwich makings on the counter.
While he spread mustard and mayo on two slices of bread, John could hear the cat's claws clicking on the floor as he sauntered out of the room.
John almost had a heart attack again when he heard the back door open and close. He turned around this time with a knife in his hand, to find Sammy standing by the door in a white nightgown. She was clutching a bouquet of lavender from the garden, and her bare feet were caked with dirt.
"Sammy, what are you doing?"
"For the centerpiece." She responded and began a slow shuffle toward the dining room.
Sammy was sleep
walking, and that wasn't something that John had ever seen her do before that night. He followed her at a distance and watched her put the lavender in the vase on the dining room table. After that, she walked to the base of the stairs and stopped in front of the mirror.
"Go to bed, baby," John said gently.
"Okay," Sammy responded dreamily.
She started walking up the stairs, and John tried to ignore the fact that she was a quarter of the way up before her reflection vanished from the mirror. He hurried back into the kitchen and put all of the sandwich makings away. His appetite was gone. Like a child trying to ignore a movie that was too scary, John closed his eyes when he walked past the mirror to go upstairs.
Being old-fashioned, he didn't typically share the bed with Sammy since they weren't married yet, but that night he slept next to her on top of the covers. John told himself that he was protecting her, but in the back of his mind, he knew he was a little bit frightened over the things that had been happening in the house since she'd hung up that mirror.
Chapter Eight
John had already gone to work when Sammy woke up the next morning, but that wasn't unusual because she got up late and John had to be at work early. She was a bit disturbed to find that her feet were dirty, and she had to strip the sheets before getting into the shower.
Sammy showered and dressed in a fog because she felt like she hadn't slept at all. Downstairs in the kitchen, she found a note from John telling her to call him if she needed anything. He'd even drawn a little heart on the sticky note. Perhaps he knew something about why her feet were covered in dirt, and she'd ask him that night when she got home from work.
Sammy got some eggs out of the fridge. She figured that perhaps a hearty breakfast would break her out of the haze that wouldn't shake. Two dippy eggs, a high fiber English muffin, and a bowl of melon seemed healthy and filling enough.
After grabbing the stick of butter from the fridge, Sammy sliced off a pat with a knife. She stood in front of the stove waiting for the pan to heat up. Once it was hot, she dropped the butter in and watched it sizzle and melt. After picking up the skillet and moving it around so that the butter coated the bottom completely, Sammy cracked both eggs and let them plop into the pan one at a time.
She grabbed a bread knife from the block and sliced the English muffin in half. Sammy thought about it for a moment as it toasted. "Do I want to butter it?" She asked Tut who'd joined her in the kitchen.
"Meow."
"You're right. It's just not the same without butter. I'll have a little."
The eggs were set before the muffin popped from the toaster, so Sammy scooped them up and let them slide onto a pale blue Corelle dinner plate. The toaster popped and she smeared a substantial amount of butter on each side. She set the plate on the dining room table and went back into the kitchen to grab the container of cut up melon from the fridge.
After a few minutes of eating, Sammy found herself swaying to a lovely song being hummed from behind her. It should have scared her, but it didn't even occur to her to be frightened. She finished her breakfast and then cleaned up the kitchen.
After a short walk around the block for fresh air, Sammy went to work. Fortunately, once she was out of the house, the fog lifted. Unfortunately, the memory of dirty feet and disembodied humming left with the fog.
Work was routine that day. Sammy had a good team, and they kept the new ward running like a well-oiled machine despite the fact that it was all somewhat unfamiliar. The first part of the shift was spent getting the patients to and from their therapy appointments and group meetings.
When the administration and doctors left for the day, it was time for dinner. That night, all of the patients walked to the cafeteria quietly. No one complained about what was served for dinner, and that almost never happened. Even though it was burgers and fries, there had always been someone who wasn't in the mood for that meal.
Everyone ate their dinner quietly, and a couple of the new residents made polite conversation. Lucy, a patient who'd been moved from the old ward to the new one as soon as it opened, smiled and made jokes with a new patient named Garret.
Sammy thought it was a good sign. Lucy had been moved to the new ward for increasingly violent behavior. If she was making conversation and smiling, it meant that her medication adjustments had worked. If that were the case, Lucy would have a chance at being released in the near future.
After dinner, most of the patients went to bed early. Most of the residents of the high-security ward were on heavy-duty medications, and they were often sleepy after eating and taking their last medications for the day.
Around nine in the evening, Sammy was standing at the nurses' station talking to Jessica, one of the LPNs. They had about ten minutes before the next round of bed checks, and there wasn't much to do. Downtime was rare in the new ward, so they were taking full advantage of the opportunity to relax.
"How are the renovations going?" Jessica asked.
"Good. Hopefully, we'll be done before it starts to get cold outside. Of course, we could probably get it done much faster if we weren't confined to working on it during our time off." Sammy answered.
"What's it like having more space?"
"I wouldn't know," Sammy said with a chuckle. "There's thick tarp hanging where the wall used to be. We're trying to keep from having to pay to air condition the other side for now."
"What do you have to do to make the other side usable?" Jessica asked.
"Not much. It's in good shape, but each half of the house is decorated differently. We'll have to do paint and flooring at the least." Sammy said. "Oh, and there are two kitchens. We're going to decide which one we like better and then get rid of the other one."
"Any idea what you're going to do with the added space?"
"Not really. The house is massive, and we didn't really think it through." Sammy laughed.
"Hey, what's that?" Jessica asked as all of the color drained from her face.
"What's what?" Sammy asked. She hadn't caught on that Jessica was looking at something behind her.
"Sammy, call an ambulance!" Jessica said and darted around Sammy. "Curtis!" Jessica shouted for the security guard.
It was then that Sammy spun around and saw the blood oozing out from under Lucy's door. "Oh my god!" Sammy exclaimed.
She darted for Lucy's door behind Jessica. Jessica scanned her badge, and the lock popped open. She pushed through, and they found Lucy laid out on the floor with her arms slashed from wrist to elbow.
"I'm calling 911," Curtis said when he appeared in the doorway. "You guys work on her."
Sammy hit the alarm button on the inside of the room that would lock down the rest of the rooms until one of them gave the all clear. It also alerted the charge nurse in the other ward. Seconds later she could hear the squeaking of shoes as at least two people came running toward the high-security ward.
Susan looked into the room and saw that Sammy didn't need help restraining a patient. "I'll grab the med kit." She called and disappeared from view.
Susan opened the kit and handed gauze pads to Jessica and Sammy as soon as she returned to the room. Both of them did their best to apply pressure to Lucy's wounds. The gauze soaked through as all of the color drained from Lucy's unconscious body.
"Grab the bed sheets," Sammy commanded when they ran out of gauze.
A few minutes later, Curtis appeared again with two paramedics in tow. "We've got this." One of them said. Sammy and Jessica stood back while the paramedics shot blood-clotting agent into the wounds. Sam had heard about the foam-like substance being used by combat medics, but she'd had no idea it was available for EMTs to use.
Once they'd slowed the bleeding as much as possible, one of the paramedics put an IV needle into Lucy's arm and held a bag of saline up above her body. They loaded her onto a gurney and wheeled it out of the room.
"Someone will call you." One of them said to Sammy as they took her off the ward.
"Thank you." She said and n
odded her head.
Once they'd cleared the lockdown, Sammy, Jessica, and Susan completed their incident reports. "Those mirrors are supposed to be unbreakable," Susan said. "How did she do that?"
"I have no idea. I can't believe she tried to kill herself." Jessica said. "She was doing so much better. She was even socializing at dinner."
"Maybe she was just trying to make us think she was okay," Sammy said, but she didn't believe a word she was saying. Something was off, and the fact that it had to do with the mirror gave her chills. "Perhaps she'd had it planned for a while."
"Is that what you think?" Susan asked skeptically. "Do you honestly believe she was just putting on a show waiting for the opportunity to kill herself? I mean, Lucy was never really suicidal. She got moved to the high-security ward for violent behavior, but killing herself was never part of her psychological profile. That would have to be completely new behavior for her."
"What else could it be?" Sammy asked with resignation.
Chapter Nine
The part-time charge nurse was called in the next day so that Sammy could take a day off. She insisted that she was fine to work, but her boss, Mrs. Lancaster, asserted that Sammy take a day to make sure that she was coping well.
"The first patient you lose is always the most difficult. Others will come close, but none of them will ever be quite like the first. And, it happened so soon into your new assignment. I need to make sure you're fresh and ready for your patients when you come back. Take the day off, and if you want to talk to one of the doctors, we can arrange that." Mrs. Lancaster said.
"I don't want you to think I can't handle the job." Sammy protested.
"Samantha, I don't think that. If I had any doubts about you, I never would have given you the position. I don't question my choice at all. You guys did an excellent job handling the situation. I have every confidence in the team."
Dark Ends: A Horror Collection Page 29