by Sarah Dalton
She shakes her head. “But it’s not…” She grips her jeans so hard her knuckles pale to an iridescent white. “It’s not possible.”
“Why?” I lean across the space between the two beds. “Tell me. I need to know.” But a sinking sensation in my stomach warns me that I already know. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
She lifts her head to hold my gaze. “He died a few months after I got here. They found him in his room. He’d hanged himself. It was the same week Sammi died. She was my old roommate.” Lacey’s blue eyes flood with tears and she rocks forward, her body convulsing. I take her into my arms and hold her tight, reeling from the news.
Johnny is dead.
That means I see ghosts. The Things aren’t visions. They’re death. They’re dead people.
This hospital is full of it.
If I want to stop the evil in the hospital, where do I start?
*
First I have to decide if Johnny is evil or good. According to Lacey’s romance novels, the fittest ghosts are good, apart from them breaking your heart with their soul-crushing dashingness—Lacey’s words.
They keep Mo in the white room all day. Lacey spends the afternoon telling me about Sammi.
“She had a bird tattoo on her shoulder,” Lacey says, “because she always wanted to be free. She said her life was a cage of depression and drugs. If only she could be a bird and soar away into the sky, then she would finally be happy.”
It made so much sense. Lacey had examined me when we first met. Now I know she only wanted to avoid the heart-ache. She didn’t want to find me like she found Sammi. At long last, I realise just how special Lacey is. No matter what happens, she’ll be in my heart. She has a place there.
Lacey needs time to think and I do too. I walk up to the hatch and watch the people through the corridor. Skull-man waits for me. His bones shine through the flesh like an X-Ray. He wears a long white doctor’s coat.
“Who are you?” I whisper. “What do you want from me?”
I glance to the right and see Gethen staring at me. His long, spidery fingers grip the desk of his workspace. He has hollow eyes. They collapse back into his face like black marbles.
Someone comes out of palliative care, another family in tears, desperately trying to wipe them away before anyone sees. A nurse walks with them, her hand on the shoulder of an upset woman. It’s like someone stabs me in the stomach. Yasmeen is right. There are too many deaths, even for the end of life unit. After the family has gone, a cluster of nurses leave. One, a red haired woman in her forties, seems visibly shaken. She has a pallid complexion and dark circles under her eyes.
“It’s not right,” she says. “We’ve hardly any patients left! I’ve never known it be like this. It’s a curse. It has to be. Someone has cursed us.”
“Come on, now, curses don’t exist.” A woman with dark hair shoves her hands in her pockets as she walks. Her shoulders bunch as though she feels a chill. I practically press my nose to the glass so I can follow their movements down the hall. “Do they?”
“Get away from the glass,” says a deep voice.
I jerk back. It was Gethen speaking. He leans through the hatch and focusses his marble-like eyes on me. They leave me chilled to the bone.
“S-sorry.” I move back. Gethen still stares until I move a few feet away from the door. I decide to leave. If I stay, I’ll attract the attention of Nurse Granger, anyway.
But I can’t help but catch one more glimpse of the corridor. Skull-man waits. It’s me against him.
Chapter Twelve
I know what I have to do.
I have to find Jonny and make him tell me what he knows. There’s only one thing for it. I have to go up into the ceiling and into the dark room. I’ll find him there. I know I will.
“You sure about this, Mares?” Lacey fashions pillows and blankets into a lumpy shape beneath the bedding. It looks so much like Frankie’s small form that my heart pangs.
“I’m sure,” I whisper.
We need to be careful because Granger is on nights. From my many sleepless nights, I know she checks rooms at random.
“I should come with you,” Lacey says. The moonlight falls on her face. Without her black eye-liner she looks young, like a frightened child. Her eyes are bigger without it. Vulnerable.
“No.” It’s not her fight. For some reason, this has fallen to me and I want to take it on. I need to take it on, if simply to prove to myself that I can do it.
“All right, if you must, chatterbox.” She puts a hand on my shoulder. “Be careful, yeah?”
“Yeah,” I reply. I find myself holding my breath for a moment. “This is silly. I’ll be back in a few hours.”
“After talking to a ghost,” she reminds me.
“It means a lot that you believe me, that you don’t think I’m psychotic.”
She shrugs. “I’m not one to judge if anyone’s sane or not. You seem all right to me. Now get yer arse into the ceiling. There’s a phrase I never thought I’d say.” She chuckles and bends low, cupping her hands to give me a leg up.
We count to three and she lifts me up to the loosened panel. I shimmy through, hoisting myself up into the cavity above. When I’m fully inside the crawl space I turn back and look down on Lacey.
“Replace the panel,” I say. “When I come back I’ll knock a few times.”
“Okay,” Lacey says. “But be careful.”
“I will.”
I shuffle back. Lacey replaces the panel and I’m plunged into darkness.
*
With shaking fingers I turn on the torch. There’s enough space to crawl on my knees with my head slightly lowered. There are little boxes with coloured wires I have to avoid. The last thing I want to do is snag one and out the hospital’s electricity.
I edge forward, trying to remember the way Mo showed me. It’s not long before I see the glint of metal that can only be the air vent to the floor above. I gently edge it up and out and climb into the disused ward. When I stand and brush off my clothes I realise how much I’m trembling, and how quickly my heart beats. I almost drop the torch and then trip over a coffee table.
“Get a grip, Mary,” I whisper to myself.
There’s something about the darkness of an abandoned room that makes you feel as though you have to be quiet. Even though I know no one comes here—apart from Johnny—and that it’s quite far from any other wards in the hospital, I still tiptoe around the dusty sofas and cringe whenever my feet scuff the ragged carpet or bump old chairs. We weren’t so careful the other night.
I make my way through to the dark room, ironically, the old White Room. How many patients have been dumped in a straightjacket, staring at the walls, throwing themselves against the soft padding? How many have really been psychotic, to the point that they’ve lost touch with humanity, become cold-hearted or dangerous? How many have been hurt or treated badly by the staff? The walls are thick with unspoken histories. If I touch them, I place my hand where others have been before. My feet travel in the echoes of footsteps.
“Johnny?” I whisper into the dark. My voice is raspy.
Will I hear him, like before? Or now that I know he’s a ghost, maybe he’ll appear out of thin air.
“Are you there, Johnny?”
No sound except my own breathing. The air is still and scented with mildew. I shine the torch into every corner, but as soon as I aim the beam of light into one corner, I’m aware of the shadows cast in the neglected ones. My heart thumps. Get a grip, Mary. I close my eyes and count to ten. When I open them, he’s there.
I gasp.
“Hello, Mary,” he says.
“I knew you’d be here.”
“Did you now?” His green eyes flash. I can’t believe he’s not real. He’s flesh and bones, has to be. He’s not transparent or pale like the ghosts in films. He doesn’t have a wound or gash to show where he’s been killed.
“What are you?” I breathe. “A poltergeist?”
Johnny laughs
. “Maybe. I dunno.”
“Am I still afraid?” I ask.
Johnny’s eyes trace my body. A smirk plays on his lips. “A little. You’re getting better, though. Certainly bolder.”
“Will you answer my questions now?”
“Depends on what you ask.” He takes a step forward and the close proximity chills my skin.
“What are those Things that I see? Are they good or bad?”
“Neither,” he answers.
“What are they?”
“Nothing.”
I let out a groan. “I thought you were going to help me?”
He laughs again. “What gave you that idea?”
“You did, in my dreams—in my room. You kept saying I was afraid of darkness and that I’m not ready to know—”
“Was it me? Or was it your imagination? Is this your imagination now?” He lifts his fingers and waggles them mockingly. “Is it all a dr-eaaa-aaamm?”
I reach out to swipe him but he jumps back. My heart is beating fast again. “It can’t be my imagination. Lacey knew you from my description.”
He starts to walk around me in a circle. “How do you know she was telling the truth? Why would you believe a girl in a psychiatric ward?”
“Because… because she’s my friend.” My throat starts to tighten as though I’m running out of air.
“Are you sure about that? Absolutely sure? Because, you know, you’ve only known her a few weeks. I wouldn’t say that’s a long term friendship, really. I wouldn’t call that a friendship at all. Barely an acquaintance.”
“We share a room,” I say between gritted teeth. Johnny circling me is starting to make me dizzy. I can’t think straight. “We… she’s my friend. My best friend, I think.”
“You think? Or you know? Because you can’t have both.”
“Stop it,” I say.
“I’m trying to help you, Mary,” he replies. He’s moving faster now. One minute he’s on one side of me and the next the other side. I can’t keep track of him. Sometimes he comes close to my face and then moves away.
“No, you’re not. I don’t know what you’re doing, but it’s not help. You’re not the person I thought you were.”
“That’s if I exist at all,” he reminds me. “How long have you been cheeking your medication?”
“You’re real.” I clench my fists. I won’t let him make me lose my grip on reality. “I don’t know if this is some sort of test, but I don’t care. I’m going to help the people here. People like Frankie, who don’t deserve to die. And you are going to help me.”
Johnny stops. He stands stock still. “Or am I going to help… him.” He swings his shoulders round and points to the open door. I follow his gaze.
Footsteps sound through the abandoned ward. Someone is coming.
I fumble with the torch. Johnny is gone already. I’m so stupid to think I could handle this. What the fuck am I doing, talking to a ghost anyway? With shaking fingers I switch off the torch. A door scrapes somewhere in the ward. I rush forwards and shut the door to the dark room, forgetting how it scrapes along the floor. My heart sinks. In the absolute black of the room I place my ear to the door, hoping that whoever is out there didn’t hear. I concentrate on controlling my breathing and listening for the sound of the intruder, but my blood thuds so loudly in my ears that it’s difficult to do both.
The footsteps stop. I imagine whoever is out there stopping to listen. Trying to work out where the sound came from. The footsteps start again. This time louder.
They know I’m here.
They’re heading this way.
I slink away from the door, searching the room for somewhere to hide. There’s nothing in this room, nothing except… the air vent. Can I find the air vent I saw Johnny come from? What if it doesn’t really exist? What if I imagined it and imagined Johnny at the same time?
There’s only one way to find out.
“Hello?”
I freeze. I recognise that voice.
“Is someone there?”
I don’t make a single sound.
“Do you want to play?”
Chapter Thirteen
I run my hand around the walls, searching for the vent. It has to be here somewhere.
“Come play my game,” the voice muffles through the door. It’s deep and slow. I imagine the wide smile, black marble eyes and spidery fingers.
Gethen.
Of course it is. I should have guessed. He works across from palliative care. He’s worked here for an age, so he’s had time to build up trust… he’s a doctor.
“Eeny, meeny, miney, mo, which crazy bitch are you?”
I edge around the room. There has to be a way out. There has to be. I bend down to my knees and softly let my palm trail along the bottom of the wall, my fingers desperately searching in the darkness. Damp padding has peeled away, leaving exposed brick and crumbling plaster.
Closer and closer come those dreaded footsteps.
My fingers graze metal. My heart leaps into my mouth. Now all I need to do is prise is away from the wall without making a sound.
“Here piggy, piggy, piggy. Here looney, looney, looney. I will find you.”
I pull at the grid with my finger nails. It’s stuck.
“I can do whatever I want, as well. No matter what you say, you’ll be crazy.”
The grid comes away from the wall and almost slips through my fingers. I have to calm myself and catch it before it clatters to the floor. I lay it down noiselessly and slip into the air vent. Gethen’s footsteps move ever closer, echoing in the emptiness. He must have been through almost every door on the ward. Now he’s come to the final room—the old white room. I replace the air vent. It’s cramped, more cramped than the crawl space, and I have no choice but to wiggle forwards on my chest. I don’t dare breathe. I push myself forwards with my toes against the smooth metal of the vent. I can’t make a single sound.
There’s a scraping. I want to scream.
He’s in the white room. If he sees the air vent, I’m done for. I freeze, not sure whether to hurry forwards or stay still, in case I make a sound.
I inch forward.
His footsteps travel around the room.
“There’s no point running,” comes his deep voice. “I will find you. Mark my words.”
The door scrapes.
His voice comes again, more muffled this time. “I wonder who isn’t in their bed right now. Maybe a tour of the ward is in order. Then I’ll know who you are.”
The footsteps recede. The door scrapes. I collapse onto my chest, the breathe exhaling from my lungs. I have to get back to my room or Gethen will know it was me. But how am I going to do that when I can’t go back through the ward? That’s what he wants me to do. He’s trying to flush me out. I have no choice. I go forwards.
Using fingers and toes I slither through the air vents like a lizard. Occasionally, I see the grid of a vent and am able to spy down to Magdelena. I see straight into the white room. Mo lies on a padded bed, his eyes closed. I long to talk to him, to get this help, but what can he do? If Gethen finds me in the white room with Mo, he’ll know it was me. I continue.
Another vent is directly above the boys’ bathroom. It’s empty and dark. Moonlight glints off the taps. If I can angle myself right I could drop down onto a toilet. First I have to work out the screws. My fingers shake and I have to turn the torch back on. It takes ages for my stupid, fumbling hands to work, long enough for Gethen to get back down to Magdelena. Maybe he’s still up there, trying to catch me on the way down. I picture him, sat on the sofa, drinking our vodka, tapping his spidery fingers against the fabric.
The vent comes loose. The screws slip from my fingers and tinkle down onto the toilet seat below. I catch my breath, waiting to see if he comes running into the bathroom. What if he’s outside the door, listening in? What if he is stalking the corridors right now?
I can’t think like that. All I can do it get to Lacey. When I’m back in my room I’m safe. I’l
l be safe.
I lower myself down onto the toilet seat, gripping the ceiling as I go. My socks slide on the plastic lid and for a moment I picture myself slipping, landing on the floor and splitting my head open.
“Focus, Mary,” I whisper.
I can do this.
Through my socks I grip on the sides of the toilet seat, finding purchase. Slowly, I allow my weight onto my legs and let go of the ceiling above my head. My heart hammers against my chest and adrenaline courses through my body, but somehow I control myself. It’s only at the last moment that I slip a little and land on the toilet seat with a bump, bruising my backside. I pause with my hand clamped over my mouth. Falling had made a thudding sound. How loud was it? Loud enough to attract the attention of someone on the ward?
There’s no time to wait all night. The room is silent and dark. I have to get out and back to my room without being caught by anyone, let alone Gethen.
I’ve lost the screws for the air vent so the only thing I can do is hide it up in the ceiling and hope no one notices. At least not until tomorrow. After it’s hidden I steal through the bathroom and into the hall. When I pass Mo and Frankie’s room, a shiver passes down my spine. He did that. I hadn’t got proof, but it was Gethen; I know it, deep down.
Breathlessly I turn the corner onto my hallway. I’m a few feet away, I can make it. If I run down the corridor to my room, third on the right…
The light goes on.
A silhouette can be seen walking towards the hall and I have no choice but to rush back around the corner. It’s him.
I peek around the corner of the hall. Gethen stands at the door of the first room, the one nearest the communal hall. A girl from my group therapy class lives there. She’s pretty mouthy. Gethen knocks three times on the door.
No answer.
He knocks again.
The light goes on in the room. There’s a thud and someone swears loudly. The door opens.
“What do you want, man? Don’t you know it’s like 4am or whatever?” she says.
“Room check,” Gethen replies in his monotone deep voice.