Hearing Voices

by E. C. Bell

  I tried to laugh, but the idea of not being able to hear freaked me out. I’d lost enough—I didn’t want to lose that too.

  “I’ll work at it,” I said. “Promise.”

  “Good,” he said.

  “And Marie wants to have another lesson,” I said. “She can barely hear me now.”

  “Will do,” he said. “After group.”

  I shook my head. “Maybe wait until the morning. I think she’ll sleep all night.”

  “Huh,” he said. “I guess I’ll have to make that work.”

  I was going to give him the gears about what he had to do that was so important, but decided not to. I had questions, and making him angry wouldn’t get me the answers I needed.

  I looked around, and we were still alone. “Can I ask you something?” I asked.

  “What?” He sounded impatient, like he wished I’d just disappear so he could go back to staring out the window, thinking of the good old days or whatever.

  “Can you remember the day you died?” I asked.

  “What the hell?” he scoffed. “Group start early tonight? Why do you want to talk about that?”

  “I’m trying to figure out if someone is actually killing us in here,” I said. I looked around furtively to make sure nobody else was around. “And I think maybe you know something, even if you don’t realize you do. You know?”

  “I died of a heart attack,” he said gruffly. “And I was seventy-nine when I died so a heart attack makes sense.” He looked over his shoulder at the empty room and sighed. “Can’t you talk to anybody else? Maybe pick on the young ones. I bet they know more than an old fart like me.”

  “Come on, Franklin,” I said. “Just answer the question. What can you remember about the day you died?”

  He sighed impatiently and glanced again at the window. The black of the night pressed like a bruise against it and he was missing all that blackness, because of me.

  “I had breakfast,” he said. “And then group. Then I had a shower. I didn’t feel good, like I had indigestion, and I tried to tell the nurse, but she wouldn’t listen to me.”

  “What nurse?” I asked.

  “The mean one,” he said. “Nurse Willoughby.”

  She was on Marie’s list. Nice. “Then what happened?” I asked.

  “As I was walking back to my room, my chest tightened up and I couldn’t breathe. It started to hurt, too. The nurse tried to hurry me back to my room, but I couldn’t walk. Just sank to the hallway floor as my chest kept getting tighter and tighter. She looked scared. ‘Just hang on,’ she kept saying. ‘Hang on.’” He smiled. “I didn’t.”

  “And then?”

  “Well, then there was darkness until I woke up back in my room. I honestly thought I’d just fainted, you know, until I couldn’t get anyone’s attention. Then it hit me. I’d died.” He shrugged. “Then I found the rest of you. And you know how that is.”

  “I do,” I said. His death experience was so close to mine it freaked me out.

  Breakfast, then group, then a shower, and then death. I’d died in the shower, not on the hallway floor, and Nurse Melodie had been with me, but still. His story was close enough to mine that it could be mine. Probably was mine. God, I was right. There was somebody killing us, and making it look like heart attacks.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “You’re welcome.” He turned back to the window. “It’s funny that we don’t talk about this stuff in group,” he said. “It’s not like it’s religion or politics. We should be able to talk about our deaths. Shouldn’t we?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Maybe, if we can get Phillipa to relax a bit, we could,” he said. His face pressed to the window as he looked out at the bruised night sky.

  I stared at the back of his head. “You’re right,” I said. “Phillipa doesn’t like to talk about that, does she?”

  He didn’t answer me, because, of course, he hadn’t heard me. But it didn’t matter. He was right. Death—our deaths—were definitely off the table.

  Phillipa always said that talk therapy was the way to get to the truth, but she wouldn’t let us talk about what was, for all of us, the biggest factor. We were all dead.

  Made me wonder why.

  “I think we need to talk about the elephant in the room,” I said. “Tonight, we talk about death.”

  Franklin didn’t answer, because Franklin didn’t hear me. He was still staring out the window at the black of the night sky.

  GROUP DIDN’T GO quite as well as I’d hoped it would. Phillipa lost her shit as soon as I suggested we needed to talk about our deaths.

  “We had decided not to focus on the past,” she said when I first made my announcement. “Remember, Jasper?” She was trying to act calm and all pulled together, but the colour of her aura changed to yellow. Fear yellow. Definitely fear yellow.

  “No,” I said. “You all made that decision before I came here.”

  That was the truth, and I looked to the others who had also died after Phillipa’s big rule change. Some of them were nodding. Enough of them that I thought that my suggestion had a chance.

  “Miranda,” I said to the girl who’d starved herself to death a few months after I’d died. “Wouldn’t you like to talk about your death?”

  Miranda took a long time to answer and avoided looking at us, even though she’d been one that had nodded the most enthusiastically.

  “I don’t know,” she finally said. “I hit my goal weight, you know, so I don’t think I need to talk about anything else, really.”

  “See?” Phillipa snapped. “They don’t want to talk about it. Just let it go, Jasper.”

  “She’s only one of us,” I said, and quickly turned to Franklin. “What about you, Franklin?”

  I saw that he hadn’t turned away from the window when the rest of us had come into the room so I had to go and get in his aura space, which kind of wrecked the whole “we’re all in this together” vibe I was going for.

  He jumped, and then sighed. Turned to me and asked, “What can I do for you, Jasper?”

  “We’re deciding whether or not we should talk about our deaths during group,” I said. “What do you say?”

  He glanced at Phillipa, whose aura was starting to give off ugly red waves which washed over the fear yellow making her look like a pumpkin, and then back at me.

  “It might be a good thing,” he said. “If we do it right.”

  “See?” I said. “Even Franklin wants to.”

  “Even Franklin?” Phillipa said, caustically. “It looks like he’s the only one, Jasper.”

  “No,” Richard “just call me Dick” said. “He’s not the only one. I think it’s about time we talked about our deaths.”

  Both Phillipa and I stared at him. He’d never spoken like that before. Usually it was just a diatribe on what he was going to do to his living wife if he could just convince her to come back to Building Ten.

  Movement caught my eye, and I looked around the room. More and more spirits nodded, and a couple of them put up their hands.

  That was when Phillipa blew up. “I can’t believe you people want to bother discussing something that has absolutely no bearing on how we exist now!” she yelled. “We tried it before, and it did nothing for any of us! Just hung us up on the why and how of it all, and we never moved forward. We never moved forward!”

  “We don’t move forward now,” Franklin said. “Hell, all any of us talk about is how bored we are. What a wreck this place is. How we wish we could get some meds, or illegal drugs, or have sex. Anything to alleviate the boredom of this place. And I’m still having nightmares and flashbacks of the frigging war and it’s been over for forty years. Maybe longer. I’m stuck in the garbage that put me in here and talking to all of you isn’t doing me a damned bit of good.”

  He sighed and turned back to the window. “We need to talk about our deaths,” he said. “And then talk to Marie about how we can finally get the hell out of here. Anything would be better tha
n this.”

  “No, no, no, no!” Phillipa cried. “That’s not the way. We don’t need to relive our deaths, and we most certainly don’t need to talk about getting out.” She glared at all of us, but saved her most virulent stare for Franklin’s back.

  Franklin, of course, did not respond. He didn’t even know the chaos rolling around the room behind him, and for a moment I wished I was deaf too. Then I decided to man up and take Phillipa on.

  After all, I’d known she would react badly to a change. Since I was the one who’d suggested it, I figured it was up to me to deal with her and her never-ending river of rage and fear.

  “Franklin’s right,” I said, as calmly as I could. “We gotta deal with all our stuff, including our deaths. I personally don’t know how I feel about asking for Marie’s help to get out of here, but hey, at least we can discuss it. Right?”

  “Fuck you!” Phillipa cried. “You keep going this way, you’ll destroy everything we have here. I will not be a part of this!” Then she flashed red and yellow lightning.

  It surprised me, seeing lightning emanating from her like that. I couldn’t remember seeing that from anybody, no matter how angry or upset we got.

  “I think maybe it’s time for you to talk about what’s bothering you,” Franklin said. He’d turned back to the group and had caught the last of Phillipa’s outrage. “I know you don’t want to, but you can’t keep doing this to yourself—and to us.”

  “What have I been doing to the group?” she snapped. “Besides putting a few rules in place so that everything could run more smoothly?”

  “Those rules are the problem,” he said. “And the elephant in the room.” He surprised me by looking at me and then winking, broadly.

  “What are you talking about?” she snapped.

  “I’m talking about the fact that it was you who didn’t want to talk about how you died,” Franklin said. “You. So, you changed the rules, and we let you. And now here we are, not talking about anything real. Just so you didn’t have to face the fact that you couldn’t take what that orderly—”

  “Julius,” Miranda said. “Julius ‘touch my dick’ Rafferty.”

  “—did to you,” Franklin finished.

  “No,” Phillipa mumbled. “No. That’s not the reason I wanted to change the rules. It’s because it wasn’t good for any of us—”

  “You,” Miranda whispered. “It wasn’t good for you. You thought.”

  “What do you know, bitch?” Phillipa spat. “You can’t face the fact you starved yourself to death—”

  “I hit my goal weight,” Miranda intoned. “I. Hit. My. Goal. Weight.”

  I could see this discussion was going seriously off the rails but couldn’t think of a thing to say. Franklin surprised me by speaking up again. “That’s good, Miranda,” he said, just warmly enough so that she wouldn’t think he was dismissing her. Then he turned on Phillipa. “You have to deal with this, Phillipa. Let us help you.”

  “How?” she snarled. Her voice kind of creeped me out. She sounded like a cornered animal. “How the hell can you bunch of half wits and crazies help me?” She laughed, but it sounded more like a howl of pain than humour. “The idea is hilarious,” she said. “It really is.”

  I was about to say something like “Don’t call us that,” but realized that would be as useless as Miranda screeching about her goal weight, and shut my mouth.

  “We’re all you have,” Franklin said. “So maybe you need to get over yourself and get with the program.”

  “The program,” Phillipa said. Well, spat, really. “You figure I should get with the fucking program? No thanks. That program got me here, so I’m not playing anymore.”

  Then she was gone in a swirl of red and yellow lightning, and I wondered if she was ever going to come back.

  Is this what’s going to happen? I thought as most of the spirits in the room flashed frightened eyes and then disappeared. If we talk about our deaths, are we all just going to disappear in a flash of lightning?

  Phillipa’s reaction—overreaction—obviously had to do with Julius Rafferty. What if Phillipa didn’t want to talk about her death because it had so much to do with that guy. She acted strong, and she pushed us around, but she’d killed herself. Because of that guy.

  I wished I could talk to her about it, but she was gone. Somewhere out in the ether, trying to come to grips with us turning on her. Which made me think that she probably wouldn’t want to talk to me about anything right now. Especially not her own personal demon.

  Then I had a thought. What if I could do something to good old Julius on Phillipa’s behalf? If I kept working on the poltergeist thing—being able to touch stuff on the living side of things—maybe I could rough that bastard up good. For Phillipa.

  I laughed, and the few spirits still hanging around stared at me like I’d suddenly lost my mind.

  “It’s nothing,” I said to the room. “Just thought about helping Phillipa, and how’d she react to that.”

  “Not well would be my guess,” Miranda said. I was surprised that she was still there. “She always talks about how we have to fight our own battles.”

  I didn’t answer her because she’d pissed me off by not standing up to Phillipa. She waited a second or two longer but I continued ignoring her until she shook her head and left.

  She was right, though. Phillipa always talked about how we had to look after our own shit. And that was when I wondered if maybe Phillipa would like to learn how to touch things in the living world, like I was learning to do.

  Teaching her might put me back on her good side. I hated when we fought. And she’d been so angry. It couldn’t be good for her, or for me.

  “Give a man a fish,” I whispered. “I bet Phillipa would be interested in developing a skill like this.”

  This felt like a really good idea, so I decided to find her and convince her that she could actually do something about what had happened to her. I didn’t know if it would take the sting out of the fact that she’d killed herself, but maybe it would help.

  And help was what I was all about. I was already helping Marie, by investigating for her. Maybe I could help Phillipa. Or at least give her a fish so she could beat Julius to death with it.

  And then maybe she wouldn’t be so angry at us anymore. Or me, at least.

  Marie:

  Lunch with Juliette

  “HOW ARE YOU feeling, Marie? Adjusting to your meds?”

  Nurse Melodie had just come on shift, so that meant we were close to lunch. I’d been let out for breakfast and for group, but still didn’t know if I could believe that Parkerson was actually keeping her word about me being allowed out of my room for all activities.

  Not that I was free to roam around wherever I wanted to, of course. My door was still locked when I didn’t have any place to be, but still. Getting out of this room even for a little while was nice. Really nice.

  “I feel pretty good,” I said. “Head still spins a bit if I stand up too fast, but other than that . . . not bad.”

  “Good,” the nurse said, and smiled. “You must have slept well last night.”

  As a matter of fact, the nightmares had been horrendous. If she’d taken even a glance at my round-the-clock video feed, she’d know that. So, I guessed the question was a test. Another test.

  “I had bad dreams,” I said. “They kinda broke up my sleep.”

  She nodded, confirming my suspicions that she’d seen me. At least I’d passed the test. I hoped. But it meant that the drugs weren’t doing everything they were supposed to do—which probably meant Parkerson would up the dose. Again.

  I could barely hear the ghosts as it was. What was I going to do with more of the chemical stew in my system? I wouldn’t be able to communicate with them at all—and then I stopped and thought about that for a moment.

  Would that really be so bad?

  “Marie?” Nurse Melodie said. “You still with me?”

  I smiled, but I really had to work at it. “Absolut
ely,” I said. “Just wondering what we’ll be getting for dinner, is all.”

  “Well, you’ll find out in a few minutes,” she said, and laughed. Held out my housecoat before I could pick it up from the end of the bed myself, and pulled it onto my shoulders. She reached for the tie, but I pushed her hand away.

  “I got it,” I said.

  “Glad to see it,” she replied. “You ready to go?”

  “Just let me brush my hair,” I said. I knew that was another test—at least for Nurse Willoughby. I was determined to pass them all today.

  “All right,” she said, and waited with her hand on the doorknob as I ran my brush through my tangled locks. I could feel the static electricity standing some of it on end. I looked like a clown and knew it.

  “I wish I could calm it down a bit,” I said. “Any chance I can get a hair tie yet?”

  “Unfortunately no, but don’t worry about it,” she replied. “You look fine.”

  She was lying. I was pretty sure that the static electricity had somehow made me fail a test I hadn’t even realized was there.

  I shuffled my way to the door and waited obediently as Nurse Melodie opened it. Then I shuffled down the highly buffed hallway, to the cafeteria. Shuddered when I realized I was walking just like everybody else there—like we were all frigging zombies.

  “It’s like we’re dead,” I muttered, and then chuckled.

  “What did you say?” Nurse Melodie asked.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Nothing at all.”

  NATALIE STILL HADN’T returned. The old woman who had told me that Natalie had been taken to Building One was eating her mush and wouldn’t even look at me.

  “How’s it taste?” I asked, but she wouldn’t acknowledge me. Neither did anyone else at the table, so I gave up and turned back to my own meal. Happily, I saw that the brown chalk stuff was no longer there. I took that to mean that Parkerson had finally taken the eating disorder sign off my file. I stuck my spork into something that sort of resembled meat and tasted it. Not good.

  “This is just terrible,” a voice trembled. “Wish I could give them a lesson.”