by Jeff McDargh
woke up full of it"
"It's true that's what everyone says." Her smile was growing and it was infectious.
"Everyone, really?"
"Yep, everyone and I do mean everyone."
"And can anyone else see all these people that think you're so nifty?"
"Nifty?"
"Yeah nifty, I'm bringing it back and don't change the subject."
"Sure, well they all live in my head so they can all see each other except Jimmy and Bay their fighting right now but I'm sure they'll makeup soon."
"Ok nutball anyone outside your head."
"Yes."
"Who?"
"My mother."
"Well she is always right just ask her she'll tell you." We both started laughing and I took her in my arms.
"And I'm just like her."
"No you’re not, right maybe but no you're not like your mother."
"Thank you" she said softly" you're sweet."
It was almost two in the morning and Molly decided she was going to the house for a shower and a fresh change of clothes. I made her promise to bring me back some coffee.
Molly put on her coat and started for the door.
"I'll be right back and if the doctor comes while I'm gone keep him here."
As Molly opened the door she ran straight into the nurse.
As Molly and the nurse talked about when the doctor was going to come the lights in the hallway flickered, neither of them seemed to notice. Apparently he had been in earlier but we'd slept through it, more flickering but this time a shadow passed across the doorway behind them, still nether of them seemed to register the dark apparition.
An electric arc of ice shot up my spine.
Molly turned back to me "I'll be back in about an hour." the lights in the room flickered now, a trickle of sweat slid down my back.
"Are you ok?"
I just nodded my head to afraid to speak, too afraid to admit something might be wrong in my head. As Molly was closing the door to talk further with the nurse in private something low, quick and formless shot out from under the bed and swirled out the door before it closed as the lights blinked in a staticed frenzy.
With the door closed the lights steadied but the air in the room smelled wrong somehow. It wasn't the smell of antiseptic that was still there but like the air had been used up somehow and left tainted with the smell of something between an electrical fire and burning timbers.
I could hear Molly’s footsteps on the linoleum floor as she walked away.
I could see the lights flickering under the door with each step.
I had to move I had to stop Molly something was wrong and not just with my brain.
That thing was following her.
I struggled to get out of bed I was a little weaker than I thought.
I was almost to the door when the nurse came in.
“What are you doing out of bed?”
I muttered something unintelligible something wasn’t just wrong the outside world but in me too. Molly was gone from sight.
I tried to push my way by her but she started yelling and before I knew it two other of the hospital staff was on me, I tried to explain but they wouldn’t listen. The nurse’s where stronger than they looked, it was getting harder to talk. Wait the world was starting to gray at the edges that’s when I stopped struggling enough to feel the sting and look back and down. "Fuck", sticking out of my butt was the plastic end of a syringe "sneaky bitches..." The gray turned to black, closed in, and swallowed me.
When I woke again the light outside the window was nonexistent except for the brief flashes of lightning in the distance. I'm not sure what time it was but Molly wasn't anywhere in sight. I sat up and slowly swung my legs over the side of the bed and the ocean of sedative swelled in my head I waited for it to ebb before putting my feet on the floor to get my sea legs. I slowly and unsteadily made my way to the door and opened it as quietly as I could. The nurse was at her desk her chin resting on her ample bosom slowly nodding with the rise and fall of her chest. I slowly closed the door back and made my way to the closet to get my clothes but when I opened the door it was empty.
"Yep sneaky bitches."
Back at the door to the hallway the nurse was still sleeping, I slowly squeezed out the door closing it behind me as quietly as could looking like some psychotic reject from Monty pythons flying circus and scared as hell I wouldn't make it out of this place and worse to Molly. I can't explain what I saw or exactly why I had such a feeling of fear, dread and urgency but I never questioned it not for a second.
I paused and looked up and down the hall but didn’t see another living soul and the doors and down the entire hallway where closed. I started past the desk, the big clock on the wall showed it was nearly four in the morning, keeping one eye on the slumbering nurse. I was almost past when I saw them in a little cubby behind her my clothes. Even though it was time I didn’t want to waste I had to get them, how far was I going to get without clothes.
I slowly crept around the side of the desk hoping and praying that the nurse didn’t wake up and that none of her other cronies would come around the corner.
The nurse head continued to bob with each breath as I reached around her and grabbed my clothes the old nurse snorted and stirred in the chair.
I froze holding my breath, willing her back to sleep, until her rhythmic breathing returned.
I slowly let out the breath I was holding and turned to go and fined a place I could put on my clothes but as I turned my damn hospital gown got caught on her chair and I lost my footing spinning me one way and nurse and the chair the other.
I landed on the floor, on my naked butt with a very startled and screaming nurse on top of me; she wasn’t the only one freaking out.
I scurried backwards trying to dislodge myself from under the screaming woman and grab what I could of my now strewn clothing.
I could hear footsteps coming down the hall coming from all directions.
I scrambled to my feet and started to run when the entire building started to shake the lights started to flicker again plunging the hall into brief but total moments of darkness only to be given flashes of light and back to engulfing black void. The nurse was still screaming but it seemed to have slowed down like a tape or record player losing power in fact the world seemed to have slowed down; it was like being at a rave on a bad trip.
It screaming continued to fade until I thought all sound was gone but I was wrong it had just been replaced by the whirring of a siren that seemed to resonate from inside my own head and the smell of smoke was overwhelming.
I wasn’t alone something was moving in the dark with each darkening pulse of the lights it was moving closer.
The building creaked like it was under a great presser, closer, the air was getting thicker, closer, something in the wall next to me snapped.
The pain in my head was unbearable now.
Something unseen slammed in to me, it felt like I had jumped four stories into a solid wall of water without ever moving.
My back of my head slammed against the floor and the word went dark for the second time in less than twenty-four hours but not as long as before, thank God.
It took me a minute to focus but when I opened my eyes again the hall and nurse’s station looked like it had been hit by a hurricane. The emergency generator had apparently come on, only half the light where on.
The air smelt wrong again in fact something about the place was wrong more a feeling than anything else. I got dizzily back to my feet and raised my hand to touch the back of my head throbbing head. “Uggh… Fuck!”
I looked at the blood on the tips of my fingers, my head was bleeding slightly.
That’s when I truly took a look around me and noticed what the wrongness I had sensed was.
I didn’t see the nurse behind the desk or anyone else for that matter but I did see small swash of blood the wall behind it. I looked up and down the now abandon halls; light reflected off a small pool of blood on the floor
, but no movement, no sounds of footsteps.
I moved a step closer to the desk hoping to see the old nurse and not at the same time, nothing.
I moved closer a little more confident now thinking maybe she had crawled under the desk for safety, more blood but no nurse.
The building let out an audible groan and all the lights came back on bringing me back to reality and with my return to reality I also realized I was still naked. I gathered up my clothes and got dressed, I sat on the floor to tie my shoes, and my head was woozy as hell.
I was still sitting on the floor wondering why I still hadn’t seen anyone yet when the hospital moaned, creaked and cried like someone was trying to rip the metal girders out when the lights went out completely. I didn’t know if they were going to come back on or not but I wasn’t going to stick around to find out, I had to get to Molly.
Thank god everything was still in my pants, my wallet, money and drivers license, my chap-stick and most importantly my car keys. The hospital was only six or seven blocks from the hospital but if I cut through the park it would it would be even shorter.
As I ran through the park I had that feeling again that I wasn’t alone but nothing odd happened, nothing came out of the dark to grab me, none of the lights flickered and for that I was thankful.
The ground was wet from the storm and I almost lost my footing a couple of times but I was happy to be out of the hospital out in the fresh air, cool and clean.
By the time I reached the college and the parking lot my head was reeling from the bump on the back of my head and the introduction of more oxygen into my system than I had in years.
My
