In Darkness, Shadows Breathe

by Catherine Cavendish

  Once again she looked out of another woman’s eyes, but a different one this time, in a different age. It felt like the present. She stood, staring out of a window in an unfamiliar room, gazing over sand dunes toward the sea.

  A figure, dressed in a hooded parka, walked slowly across her field of vision. Carol recognized her.

  The woman turned, as if she had become aware of being gawped at. Even from this distance, Carol knew her.

  She was staring at herself.

  Her eyes shot open. No one appeared to notice her startled reaction and, judging by the clock, she had barely been asleep ten minutes, but the bizarre dream had shocked her into wakefulness. She swung her legs out of bed and straightened up. A young woman drifted past the end of her bed. Something about her expression troubled Carol. It didn’t seem natural. Maybe she was preoccupied with an upcoming operation. Her attention seemed focused on something straight ahead of her but her head was positioned so that she was looking slightly upward. As if a taller person was walking in front of her and she was following them.

  Hester.

  Without another thought, Carol slid her dirty slippers onto her feet and wrapped her dressing gown around her. She followed the young woman out of the ward and down the corridor, keeping a slight distance between them and trying to appear as if her attention was diverted elsewhere. Hester must be in front, and probably aware of her presence.

  They turned a corner and stopped in front of a wall. There was no door.

  Hester and the woman disappeared through it. Carol tried to follow but the wall was solid under her fingers. She stared at it for a few moments. What had she been thinking? Of course she couldn’t follow. She wasn’t the one Hester had come for. Not this time anyway.

  “Are you all right, Carol?” Allie looked concerned.

  “Sorry. Yes. I’m fine. A bit confused perhaps but otherwise okay.”

  “You were staring at that wall.”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you why.”

  “Try me.”

  “I saw a patient disappear through it. I think she was following someone. A ghost.” Allie’s eyebrows shot up. “See? I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Well, I’d be lying if I said that was the first time I’d heard that. There have been a number of sightings of strange things around here, but you said a patient disappeared through that wall. Do you know her name?”

  Carol shook her head. “She’s in the bed next to the window, on the same side as me.”

  “I know who you mean. I’ll take you back to the ward and we can see if she’s there.”

  Carol walked alongside Allie, retracing her steps back to the ward.

  The bed at the far end was empty. No sign of its occupant.

  “Right. I’ll see what’s happened to her. She’s probably in the bathroom.”

  Carol watched Allie half run out of the ward. She settled herself down with her now daily newspaper and tried to concentrate on the cryptic crossword.

  An hour or so later, the patient had still not returned and Allie came to take Carol’s temperature and blood pressure.

  “Have you found her yet?” Carol nodded toward the empty bed.

  Allie shook her head. “No and we’ve rung her family to see if she’s turned up there. She hasn’t. Her father’s on his way here. Did she say anything to you at all?”

  “No, I’ve never spoken to her. She only came in yesterday I think.”

  “Yes. She’s in for a minor operation. Pleasant girl. Apart from the usual nerves anyone gets before surgery, she seemed fine. I can’t understand it. Security have searched the grounds but still no sign.”

  “I suppose I was the last person to see her before she disappeared.”

  “Looks like it. If the police get involved, they’ll want to talk to you.”

  “That should be interesting. Do you have any beds in the Psychiatric Ward?”

  Allie smiled. “I’m sure it won’t come to that.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “You’ll be going home soon. You’re doing fine.”

  “Apart from all the ghosts I’m seeing.”

  Allie touched her arm. “I’m going off duty soon, so I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Carol nodded. After Allie had gone, she decided to go for another walk. She took the same route down the corridor and round to the left, pausing where the mysterious door had been. She noted a wall sign a few feet away: ‘Gynecology’. No one was in the immediate vicinity so she pressed the wall hard, then tapped it. Nothing to indicate that it wasn’t solid concrete or bricks and mortar. Certainly no sight nor sound of a wooden door.

  She carried on, along to the lifts, and took one down to the ground floor, where she visited the secondhand book stall which had been set up for the day. Every day a new selection of stalls plied for the trade of patients, staff and visitors.

  Carol searched through the paperbacks. She had put a couple of pound coins in her pocket and now chose a book for £1.50 – an Agatha Christie. The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side.

  She tucked it in her pocket and returned to her own floor, hesitating once more at the same section of wall. Had she really seen that patient walk straight through it?

  She carried on, noting two uniformed police officers – one male and one female – standing at the Nurses’ Station. A Charge Nurse Carol had seen on previous evenings nodded toward her. Clearly, they wanted to speak to her and she knew what it would be about.

  “Carol Shaughnessy?” the male officer asked pleasantly.

  “Yes,” Carol replied.

  “Could we have a word, please? It’s about Susan Jackson.”

  “Who?”

  “A patient on this ward. She went missing earlier today and we believe you may have been the last person to see her.”

  She let them steer her to an empty consulting room where she sat and they positioned themselves in chairs opposite. The female officer took out a pad and made notes.

  Her colleague addressed Carol. “Can you tell us where you last saw Miss Jackson?”

  Here goes. “In the corridor to the left at the end of this one.”

  “And what was she doing at the time?”

  “Walking through a wall.”

  * * *

  “They thought I was lying. It was quite obvious.” Carol tried to remember when she had last felt so embarrassed. She couldn’t recall.

  The cleaner, whose name she now knew as Clarice, paused in her spraying and polishing. “They’ll have to believe you when she doesn’t show up again, or even if she does. If she comes back she’ll tell them the same as you. Don’t worry about it. People thought my grandmother was mad. She had the last laugh though.”

  “How?”

  “We buried her in the local cemetery and the very next day, she was back.”

  Carol stared. The woman was serious.

  “I know what you’re thinking, but it’s true. She came back. Only for a few weeks. We don’t see her anymore now. She has passed over but she still manages to communicate from time to time. Little signs. Things only her family will recognize.”

  Carol wondered if she had come over to the police as unhinged as Clarice did now. Probably. So who was she to judge this woman who was probably the only person in the world right now who believed her?

  * * *

  “Okay, Carol.” Dr. Sharma stripped off the latex gloves and ditched them in the bin as usual. “I think we can send you home tomorrow. I don’t think you should return to work yet. A couple more weeks should do it. Any problems, pain or any sign of bleeding or inflammation and you need to call us. The nurse will give you the contact details and we’ll give you some sterile dressings for the wound, along with the usual instructions. Your stitches will need to come out around about Wednesday so make an appointment to see the practice nurse at yo
ur GP’s surgery. They can do that for you. Any questions at all?”

  Carol shook her head.

  “Good, well if you have any concerns, however small, call us. We’re here to help.” She smiled.

  “Thank you so much.”

  “My pleasure. Don’t do anything strenuous for a week or so. Let everything heal properly before you start weightlifting. No, seriously, don’t do vacuuming or anything other than a little light housework. No rearranging furniture.”

  “I promise.”

  Dr. Sharma shook her hand and left her.

  A sudden, horribly familiar voice in her ear startled her.

  “Don’t think I’ve forgotten you. You’ll be back.” Hester.

  Carol hardly dared breathe. She glanced down the ward at the bed where, until a few days ago, a young woman called Susan Jackson had lain. Someone else occupied it now. An elderly woman with a hernia. Carol had given up asking Allie whether the missing girl had been found. The nurse clammed up about it and said she knew nothing, but Carol could tell. She had been told to say nothing. Susan Jackson was still missing.

  Chapter Six

  Carol awoke to her doorbell ringing. She peered at her clock. The muted red digital display registered eight a.m. The bell rang again. She had promised herself she wouldn’t answer her door, but that was before her operation. The memory of the awful child’s face flashed into her mind, but she pushed it away. For her sanity’s sake she had to believe that her inflamed appendix had somehow infected her brain and made her hallucinate. As for what had happened at the hospital, well, clearly there was something wrong with the place, but she had left all that behind now, hadn’t she? It was safe to open her door now.

  She had not even made it out of her room before the bell rang yet again. She peered at the screen. A tall, middle-aged man she recognized as her neighbor was poised, ready to press the button a fourth time. He did not look happy.

  Carol ran her hand through her bed-tousled hair and opened the door.

  “About time too,” the man’s voice boomed out at her.

  “I was asleep. I only came out of hospital yesterday.”

  “Then I would have thought you wouldn’t have felt like having rowdy parties until God knows what time on a workday morning.”

  “I don’t understand. I went to bed at ten.”

  “If that’s the case I definitely don’t want to know what you were getting up to, but I’m warning you. If there is any repeat of this, I shall be straight on to the managing agents. I know you’re on a fixed-term lease and I know the owners would not be at all happy to know their flat is being turned into some kind of…bordello.”

  “Bordello? I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. I went to bed early and you’ve just woken me up with your incessant ringing of my doorbell. Now you’re complaining about something I know nothing about that you allege took place here last night. Go away and leave me alone or I’ll be the one doing the reporting. For harassment.”

  Carol slammed the door in the surprised man’s face and rammed home the security chain.

  Sounds of his continued ranting drifted through the door. She marched down the hall and toward the kitchen. She stopped at the doorway, not believing the sight that greeted her.

  Empty wine bottles littered the sink; the owners’ exquisite lead crystal wine glasses, that had escaped the earlier assault, lay upturned or smashed. But where had all that drink come from? She couldn’t remember buying any, but clearly someone had, and that person had held one hell of a party in her apartment, which, incredibly, she had slept right through.

  In the living room, chaos. Red wine had been spilled on the settee. More glasses littered every surface and there were ring marks on each of the side tables. She searched for her phone and eventually found it, stuffed behind a cushion. She intended to call the police, but stopped herself. How would she explain any of this? Her neighbor would tell the same tale he had told her, and Carol could never convince anyone that she was not involved in whatever had been going on here.

  She checked the glass outer doors but they were locked securely. In the spare bedroom, the bedclothes were strewn all over the floor, but at least there were no signs of dirty glasses or wine stains. The windows in there were locked as well, so whoever had got in had a key.

  The security chain. That had been on when she answered the door to the neighbor. It was a particularly sturdy one. Carol examined it now and found no signs it had been forced.

  She dressed hurriedly and began the laborious process of cleaning up. It would take hours and Carol had no clue how to get the stain out of the settee. Definitely a job for a specialist. If she used some strong chemicals that reacted badly to the fabric, the damage could be even worse and there was no way she could afford to replace the expensive furniture.

  So much for light housework. This required scrubbing and sheer hard effort. By the time she had finished, carefully packed up the broken glass and emptied it along with the rubbish into the large bins in the underground garage, she felt exhausted. She tiptoed past her neighbor’s flat. Best to keep a low profile and let things die down. If only she could figure out who had done such a thing. And how she could have been oblivious to what was going on when her neighbor had clearly been kept awake by the racket?

  Back in the flat, she locked and chained the door, noting once again the impossibility of slipping that chain, key or no key.

  A search online turned up a local upholstery cleaning firm who agreed to come out the following day. The woman who took the details sounded hopeful. It happened quite often apparently. But it was still going to be an expense Carol could ill afford, and if this had happened once, it could so easily happen again. Especially as whoever was responsible was clearly going to get away with it.

  * * *

  She stayed up later that night and it was after midnight before she slipped into bed in her silent flat. No sounds leaked in from outside as Carol closed her eyes and drifted off. When she opened them again, daylight streamed through the windows. She had forgotten to close the curtains and now it was morning. A little after eight.

  Feeling refreshed, she got up and padded into the en suite, clicking on the light.

  “Oh my God. No!”

  The tiled walls were plastered with scrawls. ‘You’re next’ repeated over and over in a variety of different handwriting. Stick men with their heads in nooses, primitively sketched heads with mouths reminiscent of Munch’s The Scream. Everything drawn in black felt pen. Carol touched it and some came off on her fingers. At least she should be able to get it off.

  She caught a glimpse of her frightened face in the mirror – and something darker behind. Something much darker that grew, threatening to absorb her into itself.

  Carol cried out and fled the room. She raced into the living room and froze.

  The graffiti artist had been busy here too. Scrawling the same drawings over the painted walls of the room.

  “No. This isn’t happening. It can’t be happening.” Carol burst into tears. The heaving of her sobs hurt her abdomen and pulled at the stitches, but she couldn’t stop. She wept until no more tears would come and then she wept some more.

  Finally she pulled herself together enough to go and get dressed. Bypassing the en suite in favor of the bathroom, which, mercifully, had been left clean, Carol relished the shock of the cold water splashing her face. With her teeth and hair brushed, she braced herself to return to the en suite armed with a bleach cleaning spray and cloths.

  She had just finished scrubbing the walls clean when her doorbell rang and she remembered the upholstery cleaner was due to arrive.

  He whistled through his teeth when he saw the graffiti in the living room. “What was it? Burglars?”

  “I’m afraid so.” Easier this way. He wouldn’t have believed her anyway.

  He pointed to the stain on the settee.
“They do this as well?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bastards. Ought to lock them up and throw away the key.”

  “If the police can catch them.”

  “You’ve got plenty of CCTV around here. They must have been caught somewhere.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  The man had a point though. If she could see the footage, or ask the managing agents if someone could check for suspicious movements during the past two nights….

  She made coffee for the workman and left him to it while she cleared up her bedroom and checked her papers for the number of the managing agents. She found it and called them. A helpful and sympathetic-sounding woman answered. She said she would get back to Carol but it might be a couple of days. Meanwhile, she advised her to report the suspected break-in to the police. Carol thanked her and ended the call.

  “All done,” the man called from the living room.

  Carol took out the money she needed to pay him from her purse, frowning at the paltry amount it left her with.

  “All bright and shiny again.” He smiled at her and took the money, handing her a receipt.

  The room smelled clean and fresh and the settee was pristine once more.

  “It’s a shame you don’t do walls,” she said.

  “Oh, a couple of coats of paint will sort that out,” he said. “I can give you the number of a good decorator if you like. He’s my brother-in-law.” He scribbled a name and number onto a slightly battered business card and handed it to her.

  Carol took the card. “Thank you so much for doing a brilliant job.”

  “No problem. I hope they catch the twats that made it necessary. And what’s with that ‘you’re next’ crap? That’s threatening that is. The police don’t take kindly to that sort of thing. Should add a bit onto their sentence with the right judge.”

  “Thanks again,” Carol said, walking him to the door.

  After he had gone, she returned to the living room and stared at the ruined walls. Could she do it herself? It wouldn’t be the first time she had decorated a room and she didn’t do a bad job. But to attempt it now, when she was still so sore from the operation, was asking a bit too much. Maybe she could leave it a week or so. After all, who would see it apart from her? And she couldn’t afford to get someone in.