by Sarah Dalton
“What the fuck? You ain’t searchin’ my room. I know my rights.”
“You have no rights,” he says stepping forward. “Until I have searched your room.”
“Nah.” She shakes her head. “Hey, Jessa, this tosspot wants to search our room.”
Jessa comes out and the two of them start arguing with waggling fingers, keeping Gethen busy. I have a chance and I take it. I sneak towards my door, running softly. Jessa catches my eye and I put a finger to my lips. She distracts Gethen by storming into her room and yelling some more.
Thank you, Jessa.
I get the door open and sneak in silently.
Lacey is immediately out of bed. “Where have you been? What happened? What’s going on out there?”
“No time to explain.” I dump the torch in my bedside table, pull the pillows out of the bed and arrange them properly, dust down my pyjamas for cobwebs and dirt, then jump into bed. “Gethen is gonna check the room. We need to act like we’ve just been woken up.”
My heart does a flip at the thought of him coming to the room.
“What’s going on, Mares?” she whispers.
“No time to explain.”
“You look terrible.”
“I feel it.”
There’s a knock at the door. Lacey turns on her lamp and meets my gaze. “Showtime,” she mouths.
After scruffing up her hair, Lacey pads over to the door and opens it. “What the hell? It’s 4am. What’s going on?”
“Room check,” Gethen says. “Where’s your roommate?”
Out in the hall I can still here Jessa yelling. “This is a violation of human rights, innit. I’m gonna have you arrested.” I could hug her.
“My roommate is right here.” Lacey opens the door wide and I see him.
He stands tall and stooped, black marble eyes sunken into his skull. The sight of his pale, gangly body makes every part of my body cold. It’s like dread coats my skin. I think of him stalking the abandoned ward, taunting me about games and I want to retch.
“Is there something I can help you with?” I force the words out in a nonchalant way and fake a yawn. “’Cos I want to get back to sleep.”
Gethen backs away but he keeps his eyes on me until he turns around and walks away. Lacey shuts the door.
“Mares,” she says. “You’ve got dust on your forehead.”
Chapter Fourteen
“So Johnny is evil and so is Gethen?” she asks, hanging half out of her bed.
“I don’t know about Johnny. I think he lured me there so that Gethen could get me, but I don’t know how or why.”
“Maybe Gethen can see ghosts, too,” she suggests. “Maybe they’re working together.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Johnny is a trickster. I think he’s playing some sort of game.”
Want to play my game?
I shudder.
“What are we going to do?” Lacey says. “We have to do something. He killed Frankie.”
“We don’t know for sure. We don’t have any proof or anything.”
“What about the drugs he gives everyone every morning? They could be poison or anything,” she says.
“Don’t take the pills anymore.” It makes me sick to know he has that much power. We’ve trusted him to give us our medication every morning. We trust him to look after us. That’s the thing about hospitals, what I’ve always hated. We give up control of our life and hand it over to someone else. Most of the time it’s a good thing. We need these people and their expertise. But what if they don’t want to make us better? What then?
After a long conversation with Lacey, I shut my eyes and wait for sleep to come. Every time I try, I see Gethen. I hear his echoing voice. I have no proof that he killed Frankie, or those people, but know it deep down inside. Every instinct in my body screams it.
And what about Johnny? What did he mean when I asked him about the Things? He said they were nothing. Was it a lie, or was it something important. I shouldn’t believe a word he says. He’s probably been lying to me from the beginning, trying to spook me away from the deaths in the hospital.
I stumble into sleep, dreaming of spiders with human legs.
Lacey wakes me before breakfast. I shower with a churning stomach. Today I have to pretend that Gethen doesn’t scare the crap out of me. Did he notice the dust on my forehead? Does he know it was me?
Breakfast goes by in a blur. There isn’t a single yawning patient. Mo still isn’t back from the white room and I start to worry for him. If Gethen really did kill Frankie, there is nothing stopping him from taking out Mo next. If he’s not out by tonight I’ll have to go back up there. I’ll have to get into the white room and warn him. It’s the only way.
“Time for drugs,” Lacey says. The black eyeliner distracts from the dark shadows under her eyes. Only someone close to Lacey would see the difference in the way she jokes around this morning. It’s not her natural self. She’s forcing it. “Form an orderly queue, boys and girls. Step right up!”
I stay close to Lacey. The few bits of my breakfast I actually ate are whirling around my stomach like a washing machine. I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to be near him.
“You’ll do fine. Just try not to sweat so much,” Lacey says.
I wipe my damp forehead with the sleeve of my jumper. With a jolt, I realise that it’s Mo’s hoodie I’m wearing. My heart pangs. I wish he was here. I wish I could tell him everything.
Lacey takes her pills without saying a word to Gethen. It’s my turn. My throat goes dry.
“Name,” he says.
“Mary Hades.” Somehow I don’t stutter.
As he hands me the cup a scream sounds in the corridor outside. I drop the pills and they tumble to the floor. Gethen smiles at me with yellow teeth. I back away and turn to the commotion outside. A woman is crying. She collapses to the floor as a doctor tries to soothe her.
“Another one,” Lacey says.
Something snaps inside me. I lunge at the hatch. “You! You did this. It’s you!”
Gethen’s eyes remain on mine. His vile black eyes. They laugh at me. He laughs at me.
“Porters!” he shouts.
“No!” I yell.
Lacey grabs me by the waist. “Get a grip!” She slips something into the pocket of my hoodie and winks.
Roger and George are there in an instant. They grab me by the arms. “Where is she gonna go? We’ve got the lad in the white room.”
“Lock her in her room, for now,” Gethen says. “She should be safe there.”
There’s something in the menacing and knowing expression on his face that tells me he knows about the ceiling. He expects me to escape into the abandoned ward and then he’s going to be there waiting for me.
After they lock me in the room I check my pocket. What did Lacey leave me? My fingers find something smooth and plastic with a metal edge. A lighter. Genius. I open the drawer to my bedside table and pull out a small can of deodorant. Thanks, Dad, for teaching me how to defend myself. I place the can inside the large front pocket of my hoodie. At least I’m armed now.
With excess energy zipping around my body all I can do is pace the room. Back and forth, back and forth. Morning drizzle coats the window pane.
It’s like there are thousands of bees under my skin. My muscles won’t be still.
What can I do? How can I save them?
This is the part where you make a plan. It’s the part of the story where the hero thinks up the most awesome and clever plan to outwit the villain. Detectives trap their serial killers.
I’m not a hero or a serial killer.
I let Anita die.
What if I let Mo or Lacey die too?
I can’t think straight. I can’t breathe. The room seems to close in on me, walls coming closer. I sit down and put my head between my knees. This is what he wants. He wants me weak.
Then it dawns on me. He preys on the weak. It’s so obvious, why didn’t I think of it before? That’s what h
e kills the terminally ill. That’s why he killed Frankie. He picks the weakest and he attacks them because he is weak, too, and that’s what makes him feel powerful. All I have to do is become strong.
I take action.
I stand up on Lacey’s bed and push open the loose panel in the ceiling. Then I jump, grab the edge of the ceiling and start to pull myself up. I slip and fall on the first go, landing on the soft down of Lacey’s bed. But the second go is fine; I swing myself up into the crawlspace. Unlike my first two attempts, I don’t hesitate. I wiggle through the space to the ward above, not even stopping to worry about spiders or catch my breath. Before long I’m stalking up and down the ward, waiting for him.
Johnny comes first.
“Hello, tough girl,” he says.
“Cut the crap, Johnny. I know you tricked me. You’ve been setting me up for him, haven’t you? You’ve been messing with my head, trying to make me weak.”
He tilts his head to one side and folds his arms. “Well aren’t you the little detective?”
“Why? Why do you help him? Can he see you?”
Johnny shrugs. “There’s not much else to do around here. Not after you snuff it.”
“You took your own life!” I say. “It’s your own fault.”
Johnny’s eyes flash and he lurches towards me, except he doesn’t move like an ordinary person. He judders and shakes and blurs like a TV screen losing its reception. One minute he’s five feet away from me, the next he is almost touching my nose. He lifts his hood away from his face and pulls the neckline down. I gasp. An ugly, red-purple burn scar runs the width of his throat.
“Try existing, knowing that you’re dead. Try stalking these halls with this on your neck. Just try it—being alone for years and years. Oh wait, maybe you will soon.”
“You’re not…” I move away from him. “You’re not doing this to get company are you? That’s sick.”
He replaces his hood. “Maybe. I dunno.”
“Johnny, tell me what you meant about the Things. Why did you say they were nothing?”
He shakes his head. “You’re so dumb sometimes, Mary. They’re a manifestation. They only exist because you want them to.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s your brain’s way of telling you something is wrong. You’re intuitive, Mary, but you don’t know it. When you believe something bad is going to happen, your mind makes up these monsters to show you.”
“They’re not zombies?”
“No, they’re not zombies. Jesus Christ, Mary.”
“I’m talking to a ghost,” I snap. “Zombies don’t seem that ridiculous to me. I don’t get it. Why can I see ghosts? And why doesn’t that have anything to do with the… the… manifestations in my mind.”
He shrugs. “I guess you’re close to death. That’s the only reason I can think of. Sometimes when someone is close to death, they see death around them. They’re immersed in it, in the world.”
“A veil lifts,” I mumble.
“Yeah, I guess so. A veil lifts from one world to another.”
“Like 2am.”
He shrugs. “Whatever.”
“That means Gethen is going to kill me,” I say. “There’s no other reason why I would be close to death.”
“Maybe, unless someone close to you is destined to kick the bucket instead. You’d better hide,” Johnny says. “Because he’s coming.”
Chapter Fifteen
I grasp the lighter in one hand and the can of deodorant in the other.
“Why aren’t you hiding?” Johnny asks.
“Because it’s weak.”
Slow footsteps trudge up the stairs. They fall in a dull rhythm. I flick the lighter with my thumb, forcing a flame. It takes three attempts.
“You could’ve given me one that works, Lacey,” I mumble.
A door opens. I stand with my deodorant can and naked flame.
“Hello, Mary,” he says. “Oh good. You decided to play.” He stands in the doorway with his hands behind his back. Hiding a weapon, perhaps. I need to keep my wits about me but every part of my body feels like jelly.
“I’m not playing your game,” I say, standing up straighter. “I’m stopping it.”
“Burn,” Johnny says.
I notice that Gethen hasn’t paid the slightest bit of attention to Johnny. He can’t see him.
“Be a good girl and put down the lighter. It really isn’t going to help you.”
I think of his spidery fingers behind his back. What do they hide? What does he have?
He steps forward and I spray the deodorant. A cloud of flames burst forth. They light up his yellowing teeth.
“Stay away from me.”
“What are you going to do? Hmm.” He continues forward, forcing me back. My resolve is slipping away. “I don’t see you winning in any situation I run through my mind. If you kill me, you go to prison for murder, or better yet, live your life in a secure psychiatric facility, along with the other dangerous crazies. If I kill you, you die. If I capture you, I get to do whatever I want with you, and most likely… you die. If anyone finds you up here, Nurse Granger, for instance, she sees a silly little looney with a weapon. Your medication is increased and you get to stay in Magdelena a while longer, which will mean I still get to kill you, only you won’t know when or how. You’ll be living day by day, knowing I’ll kill you and no one will believe you.”
“He’s got a point,” Johnny says.
“I already have someone who believes me,” I say. I keep the flame of the lighter going even though my thumb is in excruciating pain.
“Oh, Mary, when are you going to realise that anyone in a psychiatric ward doesn’t count? You can make all the little friends you like. You can tell them whatever you want. It… doesn’t… matter. No one will believe you.” He steps closer.
I lift the lighter and spray deodorant at him. Gethen ducks beneath the flames and leaps towards me with his arms outstretched. Something in his hand glints, like metal. I scuttle back against the wall, and spray more flames at him. Gethen slashes at my face with the knife in his hand and I scream. The flames catch on his clothes, setting his arm alight and he staggers backwards, staring aghast as his arm. I finally let go of the lighter and run towards the door out of the ward, but Gethen escapes his doctor’s coat and drops it to the floor before chasing me down.
“Not so fast!” He grasps me around the waist and pulls me back. Those hideous fingers press deep into my flesh. His hot breath caresses my neck, sending shivers down my spine.
I kick at his shin and claw at his fingers. The knife is gone. If I can escape and find it…
He drags me back and I begin to panic. I wriggle and struggle against his grip but he’s tall and surprisingly strong.
Johnny stares at me from a dark corner of the room. “You might want to check the sofa.”
I follow Johnny’s eyes to where Gethen’s coat has been discarded on the sofa. The flames aren’t out and a spiral of black smoke is drifting from the smouldering doctor’s coat. We’re in trouble now.
I fight harder against him but he forces us back towards the dark room. There’s a wooomph noise and the sofa catches fire.
“Let me go!” I shout. “Let me go or we both die.”
The flames are spreading rapidly. With the ward out of use and dry old furniture lying around—not to mention the many places we’ve spilled alcohol—it takes barely a few seconds for the entire sofa to be on fire. The flames climb higher and higher.
Gethen pauses.
“Let me go and I’ll put out the fire,” I say. The sight of it brings that night flooding back. I hear the screams again.
“I’m not letting you go.” His voice comes out in a hiss like a snake.
“Oh yes you are.” I whip my head around to the sound of another voice in the room. When I do, a bundle of blonde comes hurtling towards us, catching Gethen off guard and sending us flying against the floorboards. Gethen cries out as I land heavily on his arm.
/> “Lace?” I shout. “Lacey, is that you?”
She gets back on her feet and clasps her hand on mine. “In the flesh.”
“But, how?”
“I broke into the room. No time to explain.” She helps me up to get away from Gethen, but he clutches my ankle, dragging me back down and before I can get away something sharp plunges into my skin. I cry out in pain.
“What is it?” Lacey asks.
I manage to kick Gethen free and limp forwards. A syringe pokes out from my leg. Lacey gasps, reaches down and pulls it away. It gives Gethen enough time to collect his knife and come for us. In an instant we have a wall of fire on one side, and Gethen coming at us with a knife on the other. The light from the fire picks out the white of his eyes, bulging manically from his skull. Lacey begins to cough as he drives us back towards the fire. The heat begins to bring blisters out on my skin.
My throat constricts. It’s just like the school. My nightmares come to life. Gethen slashes the knife towards me and slices my cheek. Blood runs down my face and Lacey screams. Gethen laughs. He grins. His hollow face shines like a skull. He comes at us again and there’s nowhere to go.
In the distance, a screeching alarm sounds. The smoke must have drifted to the many smoke alarms in the hospital. A figure steps through the smoke. She wears a vest top revealing a tattoo on her shoulder. A tattoo of birds flying towards her neck. I know immediately that she’s a ghost. She shimmers and flickers like an un-tuned TV picture.
“Sammi!” Lacey shouts.
“Shhh,” says the ghost. “This way.”
Gethen’s attention turns to us but we have time to duck beneath his outstretched arm and run towards the shimmering figure. He turns towards us and viciously brings down the knife on Lacey. She screams out and falls forward.
“No!” I yell. “No! Lacey.”
She collapses into my arms. Blood pours from a wound in her back and the only thing I can do is drag her in Sammi’s direction.
“Stay awake! Please stay awake.”
Gethen is in his element now. He’s weakened us and he knows it. He strides towards us, the flames behind him creating a deathly halo of orange and red. Sunlight streams through a dirty window, picking up the blood on his face and the flames in the ward. Surely, surely the firemen will find us and see him killing us. What can he do now? What can he claim?