Z Ward

by Jay Mouton

  Another thing that young Robey Paquette had become a master at, was the art of comforting a crying, confused woman. He thought, randomly and without even a hint of the anger of regret, that caring for an alcoholic mother had at least one good outcome. He leaned over, and gently embraced the young woman.

  Other than the sound of Susann’s, now softer, crying, the room was, but for the sound of the air system kicking on in the background, it was quiet.

  Robey, still cradling Susann Beckett, was rocking her. The two of them swayed, carefully fused together, now, in a comfortable embrace.

  Buddy, still, nervously perched upon the edge of the hospital bed, silently prayed that he was heavy enough to keep a monster from crashing through the doorway. The boy had his doubts.

  Then, as if in another mutual decision, Robey and his nurse separated.

  Susann Beckett, stood up, straightened her back, and looking right at young Robey Paquette, she mouthed the words, thank you.

  *****

  Ironically, in the age of mass communications, there was no television in Robey’s hospital room. For that matter, there was no computer at the ready. And, perhaps the most ironic cosmic joke on the three souls born to a world of instant, lightning speed, and constant messaging, they didn’t even have an I-phone.

  Hospital rules had been implemented that disallowed any staff members, other than the doctors, to have any cell phones, or I-phones. Anything on their person on which another human being could call or text was forbidden.

  The wisdom behind the decree?

  Recently, a woman had nearly died on an operating table during a, rather, simple procedure to correct some cataract issues she’d been having. Apparently, she had opted to be put under for the operation. And, her doctor, for some reason unknown, agreed to it. It was rumored that the woman would not stop talking, and that to not put her out would constitute malpractice if the eye operation were to be botched. This due, of course, to the constant movement of the woman’s jaw. Which, according to all that had experience with the woman, was caused by a severe case of never ending motor mouth.

  The individual overseeing Motor Mouth Millie, as the woman was, not so affectionately, dubbed, forgot to monitor the simple, yet serious, level of anesthesia. He happened to have been involved in an acrimonious texting battle with his, soon to be, ex-wife.

  He won the texting battle. He lost the day.

  Motor Mouth Millie didn’t die. But, after a lengthy and very verbal consultation with her lawyer, Motor Mouth, her lawyer, and the hospital settled out of court. The settlement was the good thing.

  The not so good thing from the outcome of events, as far as most of the staff were concerned, was the outlawing of all, hand held communication devices.

  Some of the staff cheated, of course. And, as with most institution of any size, most of the cheating went undetected, unreported, or simply ignored.

  But good nurse that she was, Susann Beckett, always, left her I-phone in her Lexus. The Lexus was safely parked. Unfortunately, it was several floors down, and a building away from where the three of them, now, found themselves. And, for all intents and purposes, they were trapped in Robey’s room.

  Still, if one looked close enough, there were numerous silver linings in most every cloud. The task at hand was to find one of those mythical linings, hopefully in the form of a cell phone, and put it to use in their favor.

  “There has to be a way that we can, at least, find out what’s happening,” Robey said.

  “Do you want to open that door, Robey?” was all the Buddy could muster up as an idea.

  “No, don’t!” Susann, protested, feeling a whole lot of her recently found courage rapidly depleted upon the mere mention of opening the door to what she knew was, somewhere, other the other side of the barrier.

  “No!” Robey said, quickly trying to allay a return to her previous level of fear.

  “No,” he repeated, “opening that door is way down on our short list of options right now.”

  Robey Paquette was surprised at just how good he felt under the circumstances. Already that morning he’d almost been hit by a car, knocked senseless for almost an hour, and, almost, lost his best friend. As well, he’d almost lost his favorite nurse, with a little help from whatever was on the other side of their door.

  Buddy was still in his spot on the bed.

  “Hey, bestie! You don’t mind running down that list of options, do y’all?” Buddy said, not making any attempt to hide his penchant for sarcasm.

  “Funny, Buddy boy,” Robey said, but managed a grin.

  It was silly, and maybe just short of a lie, but it was all he could come up with. And, for whatever reason, it seemed to lighten the mood of fear and desperation that hung close to every molecule of air in the room.

  “No, Robey’s right, Buddy,” Susann spoke up, “we have got to find out just what on earth is going on outside of this room.”

  “Well, I haven’t heard anything at all out there,” Buddy offered.

  “Come to think of it, neither have I,” Robey said, in agreement with his friend.

  “No sounds, no announcements over the hospital intercom,” Susann said, looking mostly confused, yet most beautiful to young Robey’s eyes. “That’s not at all a good sign, boys,” she added.

  Then, just like that poorly scripted horror flick, there was a scream from somewhere down the hallway from the room.

  “Shit, that doesn’t sound at all good,” Buddy muttered, and, again under his breath, uttered a quick apology for his language to Susann.

  She didn’t hear his apology. She, too, had her ears zoning in on the scream on the other side of the wall.

  “Weapons!” Robey nearly yelled into the small confined space of the hospital room.

  Buddy’s head, immediately, started nodding up and down with vigor.

  “Baseball bats work!” the boy all but blurted out.

  Both boys, simultaneously, erupted in mad, hysteric filled gales of laughter at the absurdity of Buddy’s announcement.

  Susann Beckett, having no idea about what they were laughing about, felt a shudder of fear swim through her being. Then, seeing that both boys appeared to be sharing some inside joke between the two of them, she could not help but succumb to the infectious nature of their laughter.

  As the laughter increased, so did their momentary flirtation with hysteria.

  Robey, quickly, motioned with his hand to keep it down. But, he kept laughing even harder.

  Susann, held a finger to her soft lips, and tried to shush the boys. She, too, was ineffectual due to laughter that she, too, was now unable to control.

  Buddy, as quickly as he’d come up with his choice of weapon, started the crazed laughing jab by his mention of his, wildly crazy, idea based upon his fresh recollections from back at the CVS.

  Another scream echoed in the hallway, and demolished their momentary banishment of the horrors that they were now certain were taking place on the other side of the hospital door. So, too, was the sound of their laughter chased away.

  Robey, and then Susann, jumped up on the side of the bed with Buddy.

  The sounds now coming through the crack of space between the door and the floor below it became, increasingly, louder.

  Yet another scream erupted. This one, cut short. Its duration, if possible, seemed less than a second’s span of time.

  There was one other noise that kept creeping into the backdrop, underneath the random screams that were now erupting on a continuum. This sound was, sickeningly, familiar to all three of them. It was the sound of people eating.

  *****

  It took a few minutes of frantic, but concentrated brain storming, but they came up with several makeshift weapons. Each one of them, in its own way, might prove to be lifesaving. And, at the very least, offered them some level of confidence that was, albeit a confidence closer to hope than reality, sorely needed as they prepared to face the unknown dangers of the new world just outside of Room 321.

&nbs
p; “I think this is gonna work great,” Buddy proclaimed, his voice brimming with the, new found, courage his weapon provided him. Clutched tightly in his right hand, was a primitive spear that he thrust, upward, and into the empty, now stale air of their room. He and Robey had noticed that the hospital bed they’d been using as their doorstop, had a loose nut, which, in better times, held in place one of the bars that kept errant patients from falling out of the bed.

  They were able to use a quarter, one that Buddy had fished from the recesses of one of his pockets, to unscrew the lose nut. It was part of the lunch money he’d managed to pilfer that morning, before making his way out the door as he looked forward to his day of playing hooky with Robey.

  The bars of the metal beds were hollow, and just begging to have a lean, long, shard of glass tucked, tightly, inside it. Sharp shards that could fend off monsters.

  It was Susann who’d suggested breaking a window, and to use the sharp-edged glass for their weapons.

  And so, a broken window later, weapons took shape. Buddy completed his first.

  He took his dull spear, added a sliver of glass to it, and constructed his weapon of defense.

  More than that, during the short time that they’d taken to construct their weapons, both boys became instantly engrossed in the task of creating the, soon to be, weapons. It was no exaggeration to say that Robey and Buddy were more than proud of the weapons they had, so very quickly, devised.

  Robey’s weapon, similar in basic construction to Buddy’s spear, looked even more treacherous upon closer inspection. Using another of the bed bars they got loose, Robey constructed a crude, ugly, but very serious looking battle axe. The working end of his axe, held a solid wedge of razor sharp glass at the tip. To hold it snuggly in place, Robey tucked all of one of the flat, very uncomfortable, bed pillows that had only an hour earlier caused him the only real, physical, discomfort that he’d experienced from the moment he’d awoken from his short flight back at the CVS parking lot.

  It took some more creativity.

  Susann found a spoon at the bottom of the small drawer beneath the table that had held little more than the plastic cup and straw that Buddy finished off earlier. Robey used the spoon to stuff some bunched up pillowcases, very tightly, inside the open end of his bed bar. It held in place a razor-sharp shard of glass that served like the head of an ax. The long, thick shard, embedded within the metal bed bar, did not budge an iota when Robey asked Buddy to, again, very carefully, try to dislodge the glass.

  Robey, just as Buddy did with his spear, tested the ax for ease of control. Conjuring an image of Dr. Huddleston, his teeth barred and the maw that was his mouth gaped wide open, he deftly sliced the glass shard ax through the air near the, now, shattered window overlooking another building just a few yards away. Another, intact and lonely window, staring back at the wounded window of Robey’s room.

  In his mind’s eyes, Robey watched his doctor’s head fly away from his body. The jaws in the man’s now severed head, chomping away, harmlessly, at nothing but the air.

  It was the least creative weapon the trio had thrown together, but it would have to do. Firmly gripped in her hands, Susann held up the hospital table top the boys had just pried lose for her; she gave it a couple of swings through the air, then just grinned and gave a nod of affirmation at Robey and Buddy.

  The table top was hard, and very solid in its construction as it was just one piece. Still, it was light-weight aluminum, and not at all that heavy. In its glory days, it had spent its time at Baptist Medical providing thousands of patients a surface from which to eat a meal, and had held items too numerous to count. As well, the simple table had caught more than its share of vomit, mucus, and other sundry, but just as gross body securements, over its years of service. Now, it was to serve at least one more need. If it came down to it, Susann was prepared to slam her table right on top of Dr. Huddleston’s Mr. Sawyer eating head.

  The cacophony of sound on the other side of the door of Robey’s room had not grown in volume. Not that any of them could tell. They were, for a few minutes, engrossed in creating, fixing, then practicing with their various means of protection. Nevertheless, they were all aware that they were hearing more screams and various yells for help. And, perhaps most disturbing of all, the constant sound of someone, or somebodies, eating something.

  Or, somebody—.

  *****

  They’d been so preoccupied with putting together their weapons, that none of them had really been concentrating on their next move. They needed a plan.

  Since none of them were not sure of what, exactly, was happening outside of the room, they were not quite sure of just what it was they needed to plan for. It was, of course, obvious to all three of them that they needed to get some sort of idea of just what the hell was occurring.

  Buddy was the first one to suggest that maybe there was a connection between people suddenly acquiring an interest in cannibalism and the meteor shower that had, according to the cable news channel that his parents had blaring, at all hours, been marveling about. Buddy had, indeed, managed to stay awake, into the wee hours of that very morning, to take a peek outside to, as he’d said, “to see what I could see.”

  Truth was, there wasn’t too much to see, at least not in the cities and towns. Yes, it was supposed to be worldwide, but the meteor shower would bath the planet at differing times as the Earth moved in its rotation. NASA had announced that the shower would begin in the northern hemisphere, but would, soon enough, bath the southern as well. It was always pointed out that both American continents, North and South, would be the first major landmasses that would, indeed, experience the beauty of the meteorological phenomenon.

  And, that’s just how it all started.

  The meteors, just space dust and particles of matter according to the experts, held absolutely, positively, no danger to anyone. It was, as reported, unusual that the entire planet should be party to such a, possible, visual display. Still, it was, after all—just a meteor shower, folks. Go to bed, and get a good, night’s sleep.

  Or, stay up late, watch it, and use it as an excuse to show up late for work.

  But! Don’t miss it!

  It was Susann who’d, almost instantly, agreed that Buddy was on to something. He was probably correct in connecting the two events.

  “There has to be a logical reason that Dr. Huddleston just went,” again, she paused, as if saying it out loud would make it all more real that it was. As if she’d imagined what had just taken place in Mr. Sawyer’s room.

  “Just went bonkers,” Buddy said, completing her sentence for her. And, as far her need to rationalize what had just happened, let her off the hook.

  “My mom said something about those meteors, too,” Robey said.

  Immediately, he imagined his mother being torn apart by the likes of Dr. Huddleston. The image flashed across the movie screen of his mind. It sent another icy shiver down his spine. He blocked out the bloody, horrific image as quickly as it appeared. But, not before he swore that if any harm came to his mother, Dr. Huddleston would pay with his life.

  “Well?” Robey said to Buddy, but still, working on eradicating Dr. Huddleston’s hungry choppers from his mother’s slender throat in his imagination.

  “Well, what?” Buddy asked, appearing to be honestly unsure of what his friend just asked him.

  “Buddy. Did you see anything? Anything weird?” Robey asked.

  “Oh, yeah. Sorry,” Buddy said, embarrassed. “I really didn’t see much at all, Robey. Maybe a few shooting stars? Right? Shooting stars are meteors, right?”

  “Yes, Buddy,” Susann answered him.

  “You saw a few shooting stars. Okay. But did you see anything else, Buddy? Anything that you would say was weird?”

  Buddy was already shaking his head no. He explained that he went back into his home, and just crawled into bed, “end of story, Robey.”

  “Well, we’re not going to find out anything in here, that’s for damn sure,” S
usann said, trying to muster up her courage for what they would soon attempt. No matter what it was. Clumsily, she apologized to Robey and Buddy. She remembered, even with all that was going on, that they were just two young boys.

  Since Susann was the only one of the three that knew anything at all about the layout of Baptist, the boys looked to her for ideas on the best way to, as Buddy put it, escape.

  Susann Becket knew the hospital well. She’d been working there for nearly six years, and had served in many departments within the hospital. She, also, had a good friend that worked in the hospital cafeteria. Unfortunately, that thought made her stomach growl, as she’d skipped breakfast that morning. Of course, this was because she was running late. As was her usual practice.

  Robey suggested that she try to map out a path that might present the fewest chances of running into Dr. Huddleston.

  “Dr. Huddleston,” Robey said, suggesting that the three of them avoid the man as best they could, “is, definitely, someone we don’t want to run into, right?”

  “Dr. Huddleston!” Susann shouted out, startling both the boys.

  “What!” Buddy shouted out, startled by the woman. Off balance, his body spun back toward the door expecting to see the face of another monster right in front of them.

  Susann, tried to tone down the excitement in her voice. Robey’s mention of the doctor’s name jarred something from within her. She wasn’t sure if the memory would hold any meaning at all, but she knew that she had to run it by the boys before any of them ventured out of the room.

  “Sorry, fellas,” she said, and managed a lame smile at them.

  “When I got to the floor this morning, I was almost late. I say ‘almost’, because I wasn’t late, that is, until Doctor Huddleston started going on and on about how magnificent that meteor shower was last night! Honestly, until you mentioned the meteors, Buddy, I’d forgotten about it completely,” she told them.

  “Anyway,” she went on, “Doctor Huddleston lives down on the beach just outside of the South Ponte Vedra Beach city limits. He kept going on and on about how beautiful those meteors looked as they were raining down all over the Atlantic.” She added, wistfully, “which, you should know, doubles as his backyard!”