HUM

by Dan Hawley

  His lips pinched together, and he nodded and looked away.

  Where is the damn doctor? he thought impatiently, tapping his foot to some unheard frantic beat.

  He tried at a fingernail, but there weren’t any long enough to bite. He gnawed absently at a finger and frowned at the sharp, bitter taste of alcohol against his tongue. He scraped the top of his tongue against his teeth and wondered how three months of tasting rubbing alcohol hadn’t deterred him from chewing the shit out of his nails.

  As Jason pondered this, a gloved hand appeared through a crack in the curtain and pushed it aside.

  Finally, Jason thought and sat up straight in his small, plastic chair. The doctor inspected Samantha and asked her several questions. He said with the amount of blood she described, it was likely a miscarriage but could have also been a period. The only way to know for sure was to order blood tests and an ultrasound. He would have the results sent to Dr. Greene’s office, where Samantha had been before, and they would contact her with the news. The doctor said the nurse would be in shortly to give them the requisition forms, wished them well, and then exited though the curtain.

  Samantha and Jason looked at each other silently. Neither of them could think of anything to say. Both knew nothing needed to be said.

  Jason stood up and went to Samantha. He kissed her forehead and brushed her dark hair soothingly as they waited. A nurse soon pulled back the curtain. Samantha sat up and spun her legs so they fell over the side of the bed.

  The nurse handed some forms to Samantha, said a curt “take care,” and left, leaving the curtain wide open in an invitation for the couple to leave. Jason and Samantha looked at each other again; the shared sadness weighing heavily in their eyes.

  Jason moved to stand in-between Samantha’s legs and hugged her hard and close. She allowed a few tears to escape her damp eyes as they embraced. Then, once she felt like she could go on, they let go and left the hospital.

  * * *

  Back home in the early afternoon, Samantha and Jason could finally sit down and try to relax. Jason’s work had allowed him to take the day off without too much explanation, and the bloodwork and ultrasound were completed quickly at a clinic only a block away from the hospital. Now it was just time to wait. Wait and try to relax.

  Samantha changed out of her street clothes into grey track pants and a long-sleeved shirt. Jason sat down on the couch, grabbed the tv remote, and put his crossed legs up on the coffee table all in one slick, fluid motion.

  Samantha appeared from the bedroom. She sat down beside Jason and kissed him on the cheek. She lay down with her head on a pillow and her feet up on Jason’s lap. He watched her relax into the couch, her breath slowing and becoming more even. Her body twitched slightly, and soon after that, she was out: successfully escaping this hard reality into a peaceful slumber. With a gentle squeeze of her calf, Jason looked away and turned on the television.

  CHAPTER 24

  Just as Samantha and Jason were getting home from the hospital, Jerry was starting his Monday shift across the city. Mondays were for reviewing recordings for Dr. Luu, and although the shift change messed with Jerry’s sleep schedule, he knew he had to put in the hours.

  Jerry also knew Amanda would be there, which didn’t hurt. He looked over at her, taking in her curves; the roundness of her bottom against the chair.

  How many times had he asked her out? Jerry thought. Three? Or four?

  He got shot down every time. Not in a mean way. Amanda was too nice to be a bitch, making it that much harder not to want her.

  Sexy and smart. What a combo! But so far, no luck. Maybe fifth time’s a charm?

  She looked up from her desk as if feeling Jerry’s eyes fixed on her. He looked away quickly as she turned.

  “Good weekend?” Amanda asked sweetly.

  “Mmhmm, yeah,” Jerry replied, trying to look busy with some papers.

  “Overnight on Saturday was pretty uneventful. Slept most of the night, to be honest.”

  He looked over at Amanda, his eyes squinted from a hidden, toothy smile. On his mask another smile was printed on the fabric, like that of a clown. Bright red lips sneered wickedly, framing cartoonishly large and perfectly white square teeth.

  It was hideous.

  It was Jerry’s Monday mask.

  He could wear it because there were no patients to see that day, only Amanda. And sometimes Dr. Luu. “Dr. Luu is going to catch you sleeping one of these days, you know. Then what?”

  “Then I won’t be able to spend my Mondays with you,” Jerry replied.

  His words were thick with fake affection, the kind that is made to sound like a joke, but underneath it lay the truth.

  “Exactly,” she said smoothly, turning back to her work, “Then I’ll have to put up with some other weirdo in a hideous mask.”

  They giggled lightly, but the comment stung Jerry slightly—he thought his mask was funny.

  Jerry cleared his throat and tried to focus on the paperwork in front of him.

  Amanda didn’t realize that Jerry had failed to mention what he did on Sunday, or perhaps she didn’t care. Jerry was grateful, but if she did push the subject, he would simply say “not much,” skirting the topic.

  On Sunday, after he kicked everyone out of the clinic and finished his reports, Jerry had jumped in his beat-up chevy and drove home. On the radio, Jerry had listened to the voice talk about a hearing coming up for that guy who stabbed the shit out of his wife up the mountains not too long ago.

  Jerry thought the guy must have hated his wife an awful lot to take her all the way up Mount Rainier and kill her like that.

  Probably wasn’t giving up the cooze anymore, Jerry had thought and clicked off the radio.

  He kept his little apartment clean—as clean as one could make an old, rundown space. The building was likely eighty years old, and time had taken some things that could not be reclaimed with all the Javex in the world.

  Jerry had gone inside, now feeling the familiar tired tingles behind his eyelids, asking him for sleep. He pulled his backpack off, then his jacket. He kicked off his boots and walked across the tiny kitchen toward his bed. His bachelor pad was truly a bachelor pad—with only two rooms—the bathroom and the everything-else room.

  He pulled off his scrubs and sat on his bed wearing only his tighty-whities. He reached over the side, grabbed his laptop, and leaned back into the pillows. He pulled up one of Amanda’s social media profiles and started poking around, clicking on pictures and reading updates.

  Creeping is what it’s called, Jerry thought.

  Creeping through her pictures, he saw Amanda at school with some friends. Another post showed Amanda at a party, a little blurry-eyed and smiling her gorgeous smile. She was wearing a little black dress so tight that her perfect breasts seemed to be on the verge of popping out.

  Jerry kept going, clicking further until he saw what he wanted—pictures from the trip she had taken to California with her girlfriends.

  Dozens of photos of that gorgeous smile, perfect face, and scantily clad body. Her bikinis barely covered up her perfect, round breasts. Her butt cheeks spilled out of her skimpy bottoms.

  And in one picture, Jerry’s favorite, her pink bikini bottoms hugged everything just right—displaying a perfect camel toe.

  Jerry grabbed the hand lotion and a few tissues from the nightstand and furiously masturbated before he gave in to his eyelids’ demands and went to sleep.

  After waking from his midday sleep, Jerry played video games, ate whatever he could heat in the microwave, and had himself another round of grinding the pepper just before bed.

  What else was he going to do during a pandemic anyway? Still—he wasn’t proud of his unproductive day and was not about to discuss it with Amanda.

  “Who do you got?” Jerry asked, only half interested. It was a little game they played on Mondays. “Umm…”

  Amanda’s brow furrowed as she looked at the shining monitors in front of her.

&nbs
p; “I got the old guy that smelled like sausage and sauerkraut, and the lady with Tourette’s who kept calling me a slut cunt when I hooked her up to the machine.”

  Jerry laughed like an eighth grader who had just heard a fart joke, interrupting his coworker. Amanda looked over at Jerry quickly and glared.

  “It’s a serious condition, Jerry,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “I know…” Jerry snorted, “But you gotta admit, that shit’s a little funny!” His ridiculous clown smile mask added to the insult, but Amanda couldn’t help but smile. Jerry looked ridiculous. And it was true that a pleasant, modest-looking middle-aged woman suddenly yelling out “slut!” and “cunt!” in a halted, jerky voice was funny.

  Even the poor lady herself had giggled a little after apologizing to the young nurse.

  “Aaaand, oh.”

  Amanda paused, staring at the monitor for room 2B. “That little boy.” She shivered.

  “Nice,” Jerry replied.

  “I got the fat chick, the mobster, and that guy that couldn’t stop staring at you.”

  “That’s not nice, Jerry.”

  “What? He was obviously undressing you with his eyes. Here, I’ll show you.” Jerry started clicking away with his mouse.

  “I meant calling that girl fat. She could have a glandular problem or something; you don’t know.” Jerry scoffed and continued clicking.

  “Here, check this out.”

  Amanda wheeled over on her office chair, not too close, but close enough for Jerry to take her sweet scent into his lungs. He couldn’t help but take a quick peek at Amanda’s breasts as they settled into their spot beside him.

  Another click started the recording.

  It showed the man in 2D standing in shorts and a t-shirt by the window of his room. He was browsing or texting on his phone. Suddenly his door opened, and Amanda walked through wheeling in the monitoring device.

  The two technicians watched the monitor closely. Jerry’s breathing slowly started to get heavier, almost a pant, distracting Amanda. She tried to block it out. The recording’s sound was playing through Jerry’s headphones, so she couldn’t hear it, but she was only interested in the video anyway. Amanda wasn’t all that interested, but she knew that Jerry would be insufferable if she didn’t play along.

  She watched as Jason crossed the room without taking his eyes off her.

  This was normal.

  Men stared at her all the time, women too.

  The man lay down, and the recording of herself began attaching the probes to his head; whoops, the last one wasn’t on correctly, so she adjusted it.

  “There!” Jerry said as he paused the video.

  “What?” Amanda asked as she searched the paused video.

  Jerry zoomed the camera in, then a little more.

  “Oh jeez, Jerry!” Amanda’s cheeks flushed. Jerry laughed, his clown teeth a sick blue color against the light of the screen.

  “Mr. Steele is hard for you! Get it!? Hard!”

  Jerry went off in a fit of immature laughter, actual tears forming in his eyes. The ridiculous smile on his mask matched his pitch perfectly. Amanda let out a loud groan and pushed herself away from Jerry’s desk.

  “’Cause steel is hard! You don’t get it, do you?” Jerry continued as she fled, not consciously realizing he often had a way of taking things a little too far.

  “I get it, Jerry; it’s just not funny.”

  Amanda took a deep breath and turned to focus on her work. She brought up the first video, the little boy, and started the recording.

  May as well get this one out of the way, she thought. Jerry was still snickering as he restarted his video. “Well, I’d say it’s a nice compliment anyway,” he finished. Amanda did not reply, but a small part of her agreed.

  Jerry and Amanda’s task on Mondays was fairly easy but time-consuming, depending on the subject of the recordings. They would essentially watch the video, doubling or tripling the speed until they saw something noteworthy from the slumbering subject, and then make a note of the incident.

  When a subject moved in some way—rolled over, sat up, or even got up for a sleepwalk—the action and duration were noted. Or a spike would appear on the audio recording below the video, and the technician would document something like: 12:31 a.m.—Subject audible for five seconds. They did this so that the video could be compared to the brain scan data. The idea was to compare the physical and audible disturbances with the readings from the scan. As a result, the doctor could formulate certain hypotheses and diagnoses.

  “Oh, looks like Mr. Hard As Steel went for a little stroll Saturday night,” Jerry said as he backed the video up to locate the beginning of the disturbance. Amanda hit pause on her recording, stood up, and walked over to Jerry’s desk for a stretch.

  Sleepwalkers weren’t a rare occurrence, but they were rare enough that it was still interesting to watch. Sleepwalkers would typically get up, walk around, maybe stand around for a bit, and then go back to bed, blissfully unaware of their strange actions.

  1:34 a.m.—Subject sits up in bed.

  Jerry made a note and then started the video again.

  “Maybe he’s just going to the bathroom,” Amanda said as she leaned in closer to the screen. Maybe he would leave the door open, and she’d get a better view of Mr. Steele, she thought. He was handsome, after all. Jerry caught the look in Amanda’s eye and said in an annoyed tone, “Nah, I stopped the video when he was just sitting on the edge of the bed. Oh, there he goes.”

  1:37 a.m.—Subject stands and walks slowly to the middle of the room.

  Amanda frowned as she watched. A few minutes passed, and her attention waned. She thought about going back to the recording of the child who had rolled over a few times but had done nothing else of note so far.

  She moved to leave but then froze, eyes glued to Jerry’s screen. Mr. Steele was on the move again, his head slightly cocked as if trying to hear better.

  1:40 a.m.—Subject moves to the wall opposite the bed.

  A step, and then another, and then a few more until the sleepwalking man stopped, staring sightlessly at the wall. He reached out with both hands and ran his palms across the smooth paint.

  Then something neither Amanda nor Jerry had ever seen before happened: The man pressed his ear up to the wall.

  1:41 a.m.—Subject… listens to the wall?

  Jerry looked up at Amanda. She looked down at him and then back at the screen.

  “Well, that’s new.”

  They continued watching for five minutes until the man moved again.

  1:46 a.m.—Subject returned to bed.

  On the recording, Jason could be seen climbing back under the covers. He pulled them up to his chest and appeared to go back to ‘sleep.’

  “So weird,” Jerry scoffed. “I wonder what this guy’s brain scan looks like. I bet it’s a mess.”

  Amanda straightened up, still staring at the screen, watching Mr. Steele lying in the bed.

  “Yeah,” she said absentmindedly. “Let me know if he does it again, would you?”

  Amanda turned and left the room rather than directly returning to her station. Jerry watched her leave, only turning back to his work once she had disappeared into the hall.

  Amanda turned on the bathroom light and closed the door behind her. She locked it, pulled down her pants, and sat down on the cold toilet seat. As she passed water, she pictured Mr. Steele with his body and side of his face pressed up against the wall.

  She shivered, wiped, and flushed. She pulled up her pants and washed her hands, lathering the soap between her palms.

  Amanda had seen some weird stuff before. She had seen a little girl have a full-blown tea party with three invisible guests. She had seen a lady fight off a figment of her imagination that was apparently trying to hurt her. She had even seen people play with themselves or even commit sex acts with furniture in the room.

  But there was something about Mr. Steele listening to the wall that chilled her to her core.
Something about how his vacant eyes stared blankly at the ceiling as he stood there.

  She shivered again. Most people’s eyes were closed when they sleepwalked.

  She finished rinsing her hands, turned off the tap, and gave herself a reassuring nod in the mirror. The whites of her green eyes were sporadically laced with thin red lines. She thought she looked older than she was when all that showed were her eyes and forehead—her youth hidden beneath the light-blue surgical mask. The mask pressed against her open mouth as she took in a deep breath and went back to work.

  “Everything working properly?”

  Amanda rolled her eyes. Jerry had a way of getting on her nerves. He wasn’t terrible-looking, she thought. If he would cut the BS jokes all the time, some girl might even want to date him. “Everything’s fine, Jerry.”

  She walked over to her chair and sat down. “Anything else from 2D?” she asked hesitantly, attempting not to sound too interested. It worked. “No,” Jerry replied flatly. “Not yet anyway.”

  Amanda grabbed her mouse and clicked play on her recording. The strange little boy was still, curled up in a ball. She sped up the feed. She watched the shape under the covers for a while until he suddenly sat up. The mouse clicked as Amanda paused the feed then backed it up to where the boy was lying in bed again. A few moments passed. Click.

  1:36 a.m.—Subject sits up in bed.

  Amanda’s pulse began to beat against her neck forcefully. Cold sweat started to bead on her upper lip. She licked it clean and started the recording once more. The boy sat like that for what seemed like hours to Amanda. She stared at the screen, unable to avert her eyes. The boy stirred. Click.