Creeper

by Brooke Vaughn

  She watched it, mesmerised, until it began to wind itself around the metal frame of her bed, oozing towards her. Screaming, she kicked her covers off, tears of frustration welling in her eyes as the recalcitrant sheets tangled around her ankles. Finally, still lashing out with her feet, she tumbled off the bed, almost gagging as she landed on the soft, organic covering that now adorned the floor. It smelled gangrenous.

  Fighting to pull in wheezing breaths, she scrambled for the door, squealing as she felt questing strands slide up her legs and wrap firmly around her, disappearing underneath the hem of her nightgown.

  Yelling constantly, she banged her fists on her locked door, regretting her decision to agree to confinement in the Clinic for the very first time.

  The tightening bands of malignant green abruptly fell away with a flesh-crawling slithering sensation moments before the door flew open and she toppled face-first into the corridor.

  “No! Please!” Kat shook her head vehemently, tears streaming down her face. “It’ll get me if I go back in there!”

  “Now, come on, honey…You’ll be fine. You just had yourself a nightmare and the sheets got tangled around you. Here; this will help you sleep.”

  “NO! I don’t want it! I can’t fall asleep…”

  Nurse Lana Richards was very adept at getting people to swallow pills after twenty years in the business, and Katrina Winters soon had a couple of Valium working their calming way through her system. Hopefully, she wouldn’t disturb the rest of the residents again that night.

  Nurse Richards had to admit that she was surprised about the episode and particularly the fact that Kat had broken her window. She would have to find whatever the girl had poked through the grille in the morning and take it away from her, lest she try the same stunt again once the panes were replaced.

  “Right, dozing beauty…Let’s get you to bed,” said Lana softly, receiving a tranquil, almost enigmatic smile in return.

  “Now I’m truly helpless,” confided the girl dreamily and the nurse shivered.

  Dr. Mildred sighed as he finished off the last of his paperwork, running his hand wearily over his brow and placing his pen sadly on the desk.

  He’d so hoped that Katrina’s recent behavioural changes had signalled the breakthrough that they’d been looking for, rather than the evident breakdown that had occurred instead.

  The suicide had been a shock to everyone, particularly the unusual method. He felt troubled that he hadn’t spotted how deeply embedded her psychosis had become in such a short time. How she’d even managed to asphyxiate herself with a length of the creeping vine was still somewhat of a mystery.

  There would be an inquest of course. Why hadn’t she been on suicide watch? Why hadn’t her broken window been immediately boarded up so that she couldn’t poke some implement out and hook the vine…? But it was just a formality. It was clear to everyone that the recently unlocked memories of her childhood trauma had driven her over the edge – and no-one could have predicted such a swift decline.

  Steepling his fingers beneath his chin, Dr. Mildred stared out of his office window over the bright, well-tended gardens of Bellevue Clinic, reassuring himself that he’d done his best and finding the peaceful scene soothing.

  He frowned when he spotted that a length of the new, prolific creepers had managed to grow all the way across the bottom of the window, partially blocking his view, and wondered that he hadn’t noticed it before. He must have been more preoccupied than he’d realised.

  He made a mental note to ask Pete to cut it back, humming quietly to himself.

  He didn’t hear the faint creaking sound as the crack in the glass slowly spread.

  LUCKY

  His name was Greg.

  He’d been in a car accident.

  He’d lost his spleen and left kidney and was lucky to be alive.

  He knew this because the nurse – late thirties, neat as a pin, pretty in a school mistress kind of way – had told him so when he’d woken up groggy and disoriented.

  He was in a hospital in Serbia, where he’d been travelling when he’d had the accident. They were attempting to reach his family, but it was proving difficult. They would keep trying.

  After Greg had taken a few meagre sips of water, the nurse hovering with quiet concern as his stomach decided whether or not to revolt at the invasion, he sighed and let his head fall weakly back against the pillow. Smiling, somehow warm and clinical at the same time, she left him alone with his empty thoughts.

  Had she said her name was Senka? He couldn’t remember. He supposed that it wasn’t particularly important given that he couldn’t recall his own name or anything else about himself. He felt...weirdly numb. Both inside and out.

  Hands moving slowly, as if underwater, he pulled aside his nightgown and inspected his new scars, tugging the gauze carefully away from his skin. He probably shouldn’t be disturbing the area but his morbid curiosity got the better of him.

  The lines were thin, almost precise, but puffed with ugly bruising and swelling. He’d been stitched back together competently, that much was obvious, and he was thankful that the doctors in Belgrade were apparently of a higher calibre than he would have expected.

  And if the extent of his knowledge of Serbia was limited to some vague prejudice and third-world expectations, then what the hell was he doing there?

  Greg wondered whether his face was damaged too. It felt alright, but he suspected that the morphine might be clouding his judgement. Gingerly, he pressed his hands to his cheeks and felt carefully around like a blind man attempting to read someone’s features. Which he might as well have been...He couldn’t even remember what he looked like.

  His face didn’t seem cut, or even bruised, and he could see that his hands, arms and legs were similarly untouched.

  Wow...He really had been lucky.

  Greg felt as though he should be panicking that he apparently had amnesia, but he just couldn’t seem to muster any anxiety. Yet another effect of being doped up, he assumed. He spent a little time in a semi-doze, wondering who he was, where he lived, what his family were like. He hoped that he had people to care about him. He hoped that he wasn’t a jerk.

  Finally, bored of fruitless introspection and the blank wall in his head, he listened to the sounds of the hospital.

  Several minutes later, frowning, he realized that all around him was silent. No squeak of linoleum. No jangle of bedpans or equipment. No beeping of machines, besides the one that he was hooked up to. No voices, no doors banging. Nothing.

  The quiet was so deep, echoing around his head and making his ears hurt with the strain, that Greg understood abruptly that his room was soundproofed.

  Weird.

  It suddenly occurred to him that he must be really rich. His room was immaculate and he looked out onto lush gardens, more like a country estate than a facility, plus he’d obviously received excellent care. Whoever he was, he was evidently doing well for himself.

  Oddly proud, he turned on the television set and flipped through the channels, grateful when he finally found HBO after sifting through incomprehensible foreign soap operas and several subtitled films.

  Drifting in and out of slumber, he whiled away the afternoon, watching the orange blaze retreat across the wall as the sun began to set. Just as he was trying to find a call button, wondering why no-one had been to check on him, Senka walked into the room, quiet and businesslike.

  “How do you feel, Greg?” she enquired in her almost perfect, although heavily accented, English.

  “Uh, okay I guess. Still tired and drained. Achy. Mostly confused though...Did you manage to contact my family?”

  “Yes, we had some success with that. They are to fly out here tomorrow.”

  Greg smiled warily, full of relief but also apprehension. “Do you know who will be flying out? Parents? Am I married?”

  “Yes, both. Your parents and your wife will be joining you,” she assured as she checked his machines and propped him up more fully on the
pillows. “Time for a little dinner, I think.”

  He nodded, distracted, wincing as his stitches pulled slightly. “What’s my wife’s name?”

  Senka’s eyes flickered for a moment in a way that took Greg aback, making him think for some crazy reason that she was about to lie to him, or not answer at all.

  Barely a beat later, the strange apprehension was gone as she smiled winningly. “Abigail is her name.”

  “Abigail,” he repeated to himself. He probably called her Abby.

  “She was so scared for you and happy to hear that you are okay. I could hear that she can not wait to get to you; you really are very lucky man.”

  Greg felt cautiously happy and optimistic for the first time since waking up. As Senka exited the room to fetch his dinner, he wondered whether he carried a picture of Abby in his wallet. He’d have to ask when the nurse returned.

  His name was Greg. He had been in a car accident.

  The radiator had been smashed practically through to the passenger seat and he’d ended up with a lapful of dash. He’d lost his spleen, left kidney and left lung and was very lucky to be alive.

  He couldn’t remember anything about the accident...or anything else. He had some form of amnesia. But it was okay; the hospital seemed really good and the nurses competent and professional.

  His torso looked like a patchwork quilt, the puckered skin around the stitching ugly colors. His breathing was labored and he felt a lot of discomfort even with the morphine pills, but at least he wasn’t dead; it was practically a miracle.

  Greg awoke in the middle of the night to hear muffled words near the end of his bed. Too tired and dope-hazed to open his eyes, he tried to focus on what was being said; Senka was talking to the surgeon, who also had a heavy accent, although a different one. Maybe Russian. They spoke together in English.

  He was interested to hear whether they said anything about his progress, because he’d been excited to realize that day that snippets of memory were returning. He could remember where he lived in America and his mom and dad’s names. They were flying out tomorrow; it had taken a few days for the hospital to track them down.

  He hoped that if he was beginning to recall things just three days after the accident then he had a good chance of recovery. The mental agony of not knowing anything about himself or his loved ones was far greater than the physical pain of his injuries, extensive though they were.

  “Not until Friday?! But we can’t wait that long!”

  “There is no other option. Mr. Kowalski cannot be moved from Warsaw until then.”

  “He’s starting to remember...It’s dangerous to administer to him again so soon.”

  “Already? Don’t worry; it’s only another three days. And what can he do?”

  Greg felt a rush of alarm and apprehension, but as the figures began to move towards the doorway, voices drifting away like dissipating smoke, the morphine started to pull him back down into its lulling grey mist...

  He couldn’t assign any meaning to their words before slumber claimed him once more.

  Greg was as weak as a kitten, and that concerned him for more reasons than he wanted to examine closely. He found himself staring out of his window and comprehending just how isolated the hospital appeared to be; there were thick woods just beyond the manicured lawns. There was also an eight foot high security fence and a guardhouse, which struck him as both peculiar and somehow frightening.

  He’d remembered more things today: he was an architect, he hated anchovies on pizza, he’d once broken his ankle during a game of touch football.

  “When are my parents getting here?”

  Senka looked up from her clipboard, where she was making notes. “I am truly sorry, Greg, but they had problems getting flight. Maybe document issues? I’m not sure. They will try to get here as soon as they can, and your wife too.”

  Greg tried to return her reassuring, almost too sunny smile. He simply watched her for a few moments as she set down the clipboard, checked his catheter and fussed with his bedding.

  “Uh...what did you say my wife’s name was again?”

  “Abigail,” she replied patiently, fluffing his pillows for him and handing him the remote control for the TV. “Would you like anything else before I leave you?”

  “No, thanks,” he replied with a false smile, keeping it plastered on his face until she’d exited the room and then letting out his breath in a long, wheezing exhale, gasping at the pain in his chest. His brow furrowed in a worried frown.

  He’d remembered lots of things that day, including the heartbreak and loss of a funeral. He could vaguely recall the ceremony, the hymns...but one thing was as clear as a bell: the headstone. Maria Franklin, resting with the other angels. Beloved wife of Gregory. 8 February 1974 – 15 July 2008.

  He supposed that he could have remarried within six months. The same as there could be some reasonable explanation for why his parents hadn’t been able to obtain a flight in four days. And perhaps, in context, Senka and the doctor’s conversation hadn’t been sinister at all.

  But he suddenly didn’t feel so lucky anymore.

  His name was Greg. He had been in a car accident.

  The car had been annihilated by a lorry, pieces of metal flying everywhere, slicing and piercing. He’d lost his spleen, left kidney and lung, part of his liver and pancreas and his right eye. A valve of his heart had also been removed during surgery.

  He’d barely made it through alive. He was extremely lucky.

  Greg’s forehead creased in confusion as he examined his wounds, blinking to focus properly with his remaining eye and hampered slightly by the thick gauze taped to his face.

  The authoritarian nurse – Senka? – had warned him not to tamper with the dressings, but he’d wanted to see just how much of a Raggedy Ann doll he really was. The scarring was so...localized. It was as if the deadly shrapnel he’d apparently been so fortunate to survive had aimed directly for his organs. And the weirdest thing of all? While the gashes over his heart and liver were raw and wet, some of the others appeared to be healing. The bruising around them had yellow and black tinges and he itched like crazy where the skin was knitting back together.

  There was something very wrong with this picture.

  He’d had amnesia at first but he was beginning to remember things now. Certainly he recalled enough to know that he was being lied to. Moreover, he was getting some disturbing flashes from what he assumed to be the last moments before the accident. And he hadn’t been in Serbia, nor even in a car. In fact, he’d been walking out into the parking lot of a local hospital after having given blood...He’d become quite vigilant about that after Maria’s death; while the doctors ultimately hadn’t been able to save her, the transfusions she’d received following the accident had at least given her an improved chance and he appreciated that. Apparently he was a good candidate for donation: strong and healthy with type ‘O’ blood, meaning that it was universally compatible.

  He didn’t remember much else apart from screeching tires.

  When Senka came to wash him, Greg told her that he believed his memory was returning. She congratulated him, not offering any genuine warmth but not outwardly alarmed by the news either. Maybe his mind had been playing tricks on him. Maybe he was just being paranoid.

  Greg lay awake in the early hours of the morning, concentrating on slowly breathing in and out as a way to combat the nagging and growing pain. He needed more morphine but when he’d tried to call for some he’d realized that he didn’t have an alarm to press. He’d tried shouting but soon become resigned to the fact that no-one could hear him.

  In a nasty dull fog of hurt, he drifted frustratingly on the edge of unconsciousness, the sharp stabs of pain preventing him from succumbing. Forgetting the fear and concern inspired by his returning memories, too absorbed by his current distress, he almost cried with relief when Senka slipped into the room, cell phone jammed to her ear.

  “I’m just getting the chart.” She pinned the device
with her shoulder as she picked up the item, shining a penlight on it so that she could read in the gloom. “Yes, all good. Stable enough to undertake the last surgery, at least. You have buyers for all?”

  Senka flinched slightly when she looked up to see that Greg was awake, gazing at her with wide, horrified eyes. She stared at him for a few beats before saying in clipped tones, “Call back when you have a buyer for the heart. Then we can operate.” She snapped the small phone shut decisively and sidled over to the head of the bed. “Greg?”

  “What’s going on?!” he demanded, trying to sit up, crying out as his torso flared with hot agony and Senka pushed him back down as gently as she could.

  “Hush now. Go back to sleep. Maybe you will see your wife and family tomorrow and you want to look well for them, yes?”

  “You lying bitch!” he hissed. “You didn’t call my family...and my wife’s dead!”

  Senka smiled and it was the first time that the gesture seemed real, reflected in her glittering, cat-like eyes in the dim glow of the penlight. “So, you see? Maybe you will see her.” She lightly traced a finger over his torso, tsking as he tried unsuccessfully to shrink away from her. “So strong. You healed so well. It’s a shame you don’t have two of everything...”

  As her softly spoken and yet malicious words sank in, Greg attempted again to rise out of bed, to fight her, something. But he’d had so much major surgery and was in so much pain, debilitatingly weak. He sank back against the pillows, screaming and clutching at his body, and she stepped backwards out of reach.

  “Sorry, Greg. But we don’t let you have drugs for twenty-four hours prior to operating,” Senka confided with mock sympathy, backing towards the door while he tried to pull enough breath into his remaining lung to cry out louder, to curse at her.