EMERGENCE
Page 27
Seren murmured, her arm tightening around Geller, but she didn’t wake. John stroked her hair and bit his lip.
When Natasha returned with polystyrene cups filled with sour-tasting tea, she and John sat by Seren’s bed in silence; a comfortable silence that didn’t need filling.
Eventually John asked, ‘Are you heading back to Whitby tonight?’
Snorting in a mock offence-taken kind of way, Natasha said, ‘Bloody hell, Gimmerick, desperate to get rid of me aren’t you?’
‘No, not at all. In fact, I was kind of wondering if maybe…Hey, Emily!’ He pointed to the door.
Natasha turned her head and saw Emily looking at them through the door’s glass panel. When Emily saw they were both looking she smiled and raised a hand to wave, then walked off.
John jumped to his feet and rushed to the door. Natasha followed him. Out in the corridor Emily was nowhere to be seen.
‘Maybe she went back to her room,’ Natasha suggested.
‘Yeah.’ John started limping down the corridor, leading the way, his knee causing him great pain. ‘She’s probably not meant to be out of bed, truth be told.’
When they got to Emily’s room they found her lying under starched white sheets, pulled tight around her lower torso. A nurse was standing to the bottom of the bed reading paperwork attached to a clipboard. At their arrival the nurse looked up and asked, ‘Can I help?’
‘We just came to see how’s she doing,’ John said, pointing at Emily.
‘Same as before. Stable and resting.’
‘But we saw her out in the corridor not two minutes since…’
‘Unlikely,’ the nurse said, her eyes narrowing. ‘I’ve been here for the past five minutes and she hasn’t moved once.’
‘Oh.’
‘Rest assured we’ll let you know as soon as she’s awake. And don’t you worry, she’ll be fine.’
John and Natasha excused themselves. In the corridor two nurses bustled past them, the sound of their plimsolls on the lino squeaked into the distance. When they were alone again, Natasha looked at John, her eyes glazed, and said, ‘It was Megan, wasn’t it?’
John’s jaw immediately tightened and his brow creased with building emotion. He couldn’t speak.
Biting her lip in an effort to control her own mounting tears, Natasha insisted, ‘Our daughter came to say goodbye, didn’t she?’
This time John nodded and the glassiness of his eyes spilled down onto his cheeks. Unsure if it was the right thing to do but needing to do it anyway because if he didn’t he felt he would crumple to the floor and never get back up again, he reached out and pulled Natasha into his arms.
She didn’t resist and began crying freely against his chest. Her body shuddered and she surprised him by reciprocating the hug, squeezing him back just as tight. They stood like that for a long time, both needing the contact. Both needing comfort.
‘Now I know our baby’s safe,’ she said eventually, between sobs, ‘I hope I can let go of all the bad stuff.’
John closed his eyes and tears continued to track a course down his cheeks. ‘Yes, I think everything will be alright from now on.’ He kissed the top of her head so softly he doubted she’d notice.
‘I think so too,’ he thought he heard her say.
Epilogue
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Jess Overton was bringing up the rear, making sure none of the children dawdled too much. She was a twenty-year-old classroom assistant, out on her first field trip with Mrs Farrow’s Year Sixes. ‘This place used to be full of coal when Horden colliery was open,’ she heard Mrs Farrow, up ahead, saying. ‘I doubt we’ll see any today, but let’s see what other treasures we can find.’
‘Treasures like what?’ asked a little boy who was walking directly in front of Jess.
‘Let’s find out, shall we?’ Jess said. ‘All sorts of things get washed up by the sea.’
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Acknowledgements
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I’d like to thank Hannah Thompson for the time she spent copy-editing Emergence and the wonderfully helpful suggestions she made.
Thanks, also, to Easington Writers – especially Mary Bell and Mavis Farrell for telling me tales about when they used to work at Thorpe Hospital, the place I was born. Those Thursday afternoon ghost stories got my mind ticking.
Thanks to my childhood friend Kelly (Dodds) Philpott for sending me information on Thorpe Hospital and to Mary Bell for allowing me access to her photograph collection.
Thanks to my mam and dad for going on field trips with me, refreshing my memory and taking me back to all the places in Horden I loved best as a child: the beach banks, the beach, the dene and, of course, the formidable cundy.
Thanks to fans, friends and family who offered words of encouragement throughout. There are too many to name individually, but you know who you are!
And, as ever, thank you Derek!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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R. H. Dixon is a horror enthusiast who, when not escaping into the fantastical realms of fiction, lives in the northeast of England with her husband and two whippets.
Visit her website for horror features, short stories, promotions and news of upcoming books: www.rhdixon.com
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