SICK: Psychological Thriller Series Novella 1

by Christa Wojciechowski

  “You’re going to fall!” I ran to him, gripping his waist. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I feel better, Suze.”

  I’d seen him like this before. He was not medicated. He was intoxicated.

  “What have you done, John?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re high. What did you take?”

  “Aw, nuffin.”

  Somehow we managed to get upstairs together. In the light of the bedroom I noticed a purple bruise above his hipbone, but I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to him to know. I didn’t want to know myself.

  “Heeeyyy. Did you get the Demerol?” he asked.

  “Why?” I lined him up against the bed and readied to lower him onto the mattress. I looked at his nightstand and saw an empty vial. “You found it?”

  “It hurted, Suze.”

  “The whole thing. You finished it?”

  “Mmm-hmm.” His head lolled to the side.

  “John, your neck.”

  “It’s fine,” he said.

  I leaned him forward and inspected the long line of neat staples down his cervical spine. There was some fresh blood and new scabs. One staple was missing. “Have you been picking at this?”

  “No.”

  I found the brace and refastened it around his neck. “You went through my things, John. That was a lot of Demerol.”

  “You’re wrong,” he said. “There was only ten milligrams left.”

  “There was more than that. Much more.”

  “No, there wasn’t.”

  Now I could see the bruise in the light. It was far worse than I’d thought. I pointed to his hipbone. “What’s this?”

  “Meh, the same old usual.”

  I peeled back his shirt, and it fell to the floor. “No!” I screamed. His elbows and ribs were spotted in black and blue. “John!”

  “What?” He slumped into the bed.

  I ran my fingers over his body, down his legs. He looked like he had been stoned in biblical fashion, or like he had run through a paintball gallery. “You’re covered!”

  “Oh, that,” he said, glancing at them. “I think the blood disorder is flaring up again.”

  “Oh my god, we have to call Dr. Sheffield.” I picked up his cell phone.

  “No, Suze. I’m fine. I promise.”

  “You’re not fine. What if you’re bleeding internally?”

  “I feel great. Just great.”

  “I’m calling,” I said.

  John grabbed my wrist. His eyes cleared for a moment. “Don’t. I said I’m fine. You’ll ruin it.”

  “Ruin what?” I asked.

  “My high.” Then he smiled, one of his adorable, manic smiles. His eyelids became heavy again, and he sighed into the bed. “It’s okay to indulge once in a while, isn’t? I don’t get to have any fun.” He was so heavily dosed I thought I could smell the vapor of medicine issuing from his skin. It was as if invisible weights tugged him down, plastering him to the bed.

  “Let me see the rest of you,” I said.

  “No, no. There are no more,” he insisted.

  I tried to yank down his pants.

  “No!” he yelled and slapped my hand away.

  It stung, and I rubbed my skin. “John, you hurt me.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” His voice broke. “I’m just sick of it. Sick of worrying about what else might be wrong with me. Each morning when I wake up, there’s always something. Sometimes I wonder if I should end it.”

  “What do you mean, ‘end it’?” I asked.

  “If it gets too bad, to do the big shot,” he said.

  “‘The big shot’?” I sat beside him on the bed.

  “The one that will put me to sleep forever.”

  “Oh, John! Was that why you finished the vial?” I laid my head on his chest. I needed to hear his heartbeat, his breathing. He could easily go into respiratory depression.

  “No, no, no …” He clumsily patted my head. “I’m just saying one day you might have to do it. You might have to give me that final shot. I don’t want to feel myself dying. I don’t want to know I’m leaving my body. The thought of it nauseates me.”

  I began to cry soundlessly. My tears dripped onto his pale skin, suctioning my ear to his chest. I heard his voice from inside, deep and low. “Did you get the Demerol?” he asked again. “Please, tell me you got it. There wasn’t much left, and now we’re all out.”

  I became aware of the hard glass bottle in my bra. I didn’t want him to know I had it. I didn’t ever want him to ask me to help him commit suicide. “I couldn’t get it,” I said.

  “I’m sorry I took the vial,” he said. “I was a bad boy. I promise I won’t do it again.”

  I was still getting my head around his idea. Even if he wanted me to help him die, no matter how he suffered, I was not strong enough to be the one to do it. Was I?

  He paused and held his breath for a second. “You’re crying.”

  “Why did you do it?” I asked. “The rest of the vial? Tell me the truth.”

  “I was in a lot of pain. That’s all.” He continued to pet my head. “I just wanted to feel good.”

  “I’m scared,” I said. “You did way too much.”

  “Oh, please. I’ve been taking these drugs for decades. They hardly affect me anymore, sadly enough. I feel all the pain through them, they just help me not to pay so much attention to it.”

  I traced his appendectomy scar with my fingertip. Then the one from his emergency intestinal enteritis operation.

  He patted me a few more times. “There’s no need to be frightened.”

  He waited. He knew I had the drugs. I never could pass a lie off on him. I reached under my top and flipped the vial out of my bra. It was warm from my body heat. I handed it to John.

  He read the label and held it up to the light. “You are an angel, Suze! My dream come true.” He placed it back in my palm and closed my fingers over it. “Now hide it well.”

  “Promise? You won’t go looking for it?”

  “I promise,” he said. “I will listen to you, Nurse Suzie.”

  “Then you don’t want to die. Right?”

  “No, not yet,” he said.

  I kissed his abdomen, tasting my tears. I pressed my cheek to his bruised body, and I heard him groan.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Am I hurting you?”

  “No,” he whispered. “I like it.”

  I closed my eyes and listened to him breathe for a minute. I heard his heart pumping serenely as ever. He will be okay. He will be okay, I prayed. No matter what was wrong, his heart was always beating, always ceaselessly pacing toward some mysterious destination.

  He rubbed my hair around in all directions. Then I heard another soft groan through his chest. I looked up at him, and I had the impression he was pushing his pelvis up and trying to maintain a slight pressure on his groin. He stared at me intensely, and again I had that monstrous notion that maybe I didn’t know him at all. “My sweet Suze.” He straightened the mess he had made of my hair and pulled it behind my ears. I felt drawn to his body, wanting to kiss all of his wounds. “Now, what have you got down there?” he asked. “It smelled good.”

  I was confused for a minute and then realized he was talking about the food. “You’re hungry?” I asked.

  “Greta brought me some disgusting casserole. I couldn’t eat it.”

  “But she’s is a wonderful cook.”

  He stuck out his tongue and scrunched up his nose. “I don’t like her food.”

  “I brought fried chicken,” I said. “You want some?”

  “I would love some.”

  John rarely volunteered to eat. This was my reward for bringing the Demerol.

  We ate the cold, greasy chicken in bed and watched the late show. John tried to keep from laughing because of his soreness, but he was so giddy from the drugs he couldn’t stop and said “Ouch” at the end of each laugh. I tried not to think about the bruises. I tried
not to think about the big shot.

  *

  I woke up in the middle of the night; the fried chicken carton full of bones lay between us like a box of carcasses ready for a pyre. I turned my head slowly to look at John. His face was slack and peaceful. The light from the TV strobed over his body, making the scars and bruises dance on his skin, and he appeared to writhe even though he was completely still.

  I pressed my hand to his chest. His respiration was normal. His heart continued as before. His skin was warm and dry.

  I reached for the lamp and switched it on. I grabbed the paper carton. It was translucent with oil and had left a mark on the bedding. As I moved it, a black cockroach scurried toward me. I jumped up and stood beside the bed, poised to kill. The cockroach kept on a warpath in my direction until it ran down the side of the duvet and fell to the floor, fleeing for the darkness under the bed. I was wearing nothing but a worn pair of slippers, but I tried to quickly smash it with my foot, and I hit my toe against something cold and hard. I mouthed a scream and rubbed my toes until the throbbing eased. What was that?

  I bent over and lifted the bed skirt. There was a small hammer with a ball-shaped tip on one side. Odd, I thought. We had a lot of random junk around, but not tools. I tried to recall if I had fixed something or hung a picture, but no, I had not done anything like that in years.

  It was too late to think about it, and I wasn’t going to wake John to ask him. He was in his Demerol stupor, and I was going to take advantage of it. I laid the hammer on the chair piled with clothes. Then I threw the squashed box of chicken bones in the overflowing wastebasket and climbed back into bed.

  John was quiet, but my mind wasn’t. This was the cruel joke: my brain rolled with anxious thoughts. I couldn’t afford to lose my job, but I was afraid to leave John alone. I’d never heard him talk of suicide before. Should I ask Greta to watch him all day? He would be upset, but at least he would be supervised. Was there a doctor I could call to the house? Was he dying? Dying right now as he lay next to me? There were more bruises than healthy skin. What could it be? Maybe his liver was gone after all these years? Shit. The cockroach. I didn’t kill it. Would it still be able to climb back on the bed? And what was that hammer doing there?

  *

  I finally became drowsy just as the sun was coming up. The balmy twilight of sleep made all my worries fade away, but I knew it was close to the time I would have to get ready for work. The birds had already started chirping, and their chatter increased in increments, like the pitter-patter of rain before a downpour. Soon there was the cacophony of a new day.

  I didn’t open my eyes right away. I listened to John’s breathing. I thought, I must remember this. One day I may be lying in this bed without him. I rolled over and touched him. “John?” I said. He didn’t move. I looked over his body again. He was still young, not forty yet, and he wasn’t wasting away despite his lack of activity. His musculature naturally fought serious atrophy. His mind was as sharp as ever, and he didn’t seem to be so close to death. The bruising scared me, but it had happened plenty of times before. I wondered if I was overreacting.

  I felt his forehead for fever. His temperature was perfect. I pressed my hand to his chest. The heart, of course, was pumping in perfect time, and for a moment I had the sensation that the waves from its beat traveled up my arm and pounded into me. They wanted to pound me into the ground, and I thought, yes, he is strong, very strong. John was stronger than me because he had the energy and resources of two people. He used both his and mine.

  If I was going to go to work, I had to get going right away. Dawn would kill me if I called in again. I would tell Greta to check in on John by the hour. If things got worse, she would have to take him to Dr. Sheffield.

  I sent Greta a text and called the doctor’s office and left a message that he might expect his patient, John Branch, today.

  The new bottle of Demerol was on the nightstand. I brought it into the bathroom and placed it far in the back of the cabinet under the sink. I slipped it into the middle of one of the spare rolls of toilet paper that were stacked on the bottom. There was no way John would go crawling on hands and knees to dig in there.

  I quietly washed and dressed for work. I prepared John’s breakfast and medications as usual, and woke him up as I set everything on his TV table.

  “You’re dressed already,” he said.

  “Yes, I’m going to work. We’ll see how it goes for today.”

  “You’re not staying with me?”

  “If I get fired from Dr. K’s, my resume will be ruined. I’ll never be hired anywhere again.”

  He bit his bottom lip.

  “I’ll be back before you know it.” I reached to smooth his forehead.

  He grabbed my wrist. “Suze, you shouldn’t leave me.”

  I was startled. His grip was painful. “I have to,” I said, my voice beginning to quiver. “Greta is right next door. I already called Dr. Sheffield’s office. They’re expecting you in case of emergency.”

  “Go then.” He flung my hand away and crossed his arms. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

  “Don’t be that way, sweetie. I’ll only be a few miles down the road.”

  “I said I’d be fine.”

  I kissed him briskly on the forehead and headed for the door. Before I got to the stairs I heard, “What about my shot?”

  I turned on my heel and leaned in through the doorway. “You’re not getting anymore shots in the morning.”

  “I say I need a shot. Now give me my fucking shot, Susan!”

  His voice stunned me. I couldn’t move for a moment. He never yelled at me like that–at other people, yes, but not me. I was shaky, flustered. I didn’t know what else to do but obey.

  Vaguely conscious that I had no time to act out an elaborate distraction so that he wouldn’t know the drugs were now in the bathroom, I closed the bathroom door and prepared a syringe and put it in the front pocket of my shirt. I placed the vial back inside the roll of toilet paper and stacked another roll on top. I thought if I tried too hard to hide it, it may be more obvious.

  He glared at me as I approached him. I kept my eyes downcast while I removed the syringe from my pocket, pulled his arm from the sheet, and injected him directly into the vein bulging in the crease of his right elbow. I felt his angry stare on me until the drugs circulated through his body. Then he exhaled and relaxed. But it wasn’t over. When I finally had the nerve to look at him, I was horrified to see he was focusing on me with a cloudy, smug stare–like some sort of threat. I capped the needle, threw it in the trash, and left without saying another word.

  Downstairs, as I slipped on my nursing shoes, a throbbing pain reminded me of my sore toe. The cockroach. The hammer. I forgot to ask John, but I couldn’t go back into that room again.

  My eyes ached, and the glare of a sunny day made my head throb. Old Pete was raking underneath the Sycamore tree. “Mr. Peter,” I tried to say, but I hadn’t recovered from the argument with John, and my voice was stuck in my throat. “Peter,” I called more firmly this time.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He stopped working and rubbed his jaw as if to warm it up for its involuntary rotating.

  “Did you fix anything in the house recently?” I asked.

  “No, ma’am.” He began raking again.

  “I found a hammer,” I said.

  He stopped. “My ball peen hammer?” he asked.

  “I can’t say. It’s just a hammer,” I said. “Did John call you up to fix something?”

  “No,” he scratched his head. “But I’ve been looking for that thing everywhere.”

  “Then how would your hammer get in our bedroom?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Did you go into the house while we were gone?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “I told you that you no longer have permission.”

  His face soured, and he squinted up at me.

  “Maybe you don’t remember?” I said.

/>   “I would remember that,” he said. “I’m not a dimwit. I’m not.”

  “Well, I’ll bring it down after work. If it’s yours, then you have some explaining to do.”

  I walked away and closed myself in my car. I peered up at the upstairs window of the ugly duckling. The curtain was parted. John was up? What was he doing? I watched for a minute. Then the curtain fell back into place. I told myself it was just the wind.

  *

  Work was boring, quiet, clean, and orderly. The monotony was soothing, and it diluted the unsettling dread that pulled on my nerves. John’s hostility, his outburst, wounded me, like the time I nursed a diseased feral kitten. Once it was strong enough, it went into a fury, scratching me with its tiny claws and etching lines of blood across my forearms. I felt so betrayed I cried. I also wanted to smash that kitten into the wall.

  Dr. K, Dawn, and the other staff members went out to lunch at some trendy café across the street, a place with five-dollar coffees and sandwiches on ciabatta bread. I told them I was on a diet, but truth was I couldn’t afford it. It was for the better. I had nothing left in me for small talk or office gossip. I ate in peace behind my desk: a peanut butter and honey sandwich and a mealy apple I found in the back of the fridge. I chewed and stared at the wall, wondering what John was doing now.

  As I put my things back into my soft cooler, my cell phone rang. I was afraid to look. Sure enough, it was Greta. “Everything okay?”

  “Suzie. You must come quickly. Mr. John is vomiting everywhere.”

  “It may be his medication,” I said. “It can make him nauseous.”

  “No, no,” she said breathlessly. “This is violent. He’s shaking and seems to be in terrible pain.”

  I heard an inhuman moaning in the background. It didn’t even sound like him.

  “Please hurry!” Greta shouted.

  I hung up the phone. No one was in the office, so I had to leave a note on the desk and lock up. All I could think of was what John had told me the night before, and his spiteful face before I left him. The big shot.

  I flew to the car and drove as fast as I could, but I caught every red light and got stuck behind every slow person on the road. I tore into the driveway, slammed the car door, and took the stairs two at a time. I heard his heaving long before I arrived at the top. I looked to my left, and there was Greta doing her best to hold a trash can under John, who was slumped over his crumpled legs on the filthy tile floor. His complexion was pale, jaundiced. His eyes were rolled back and fluttering. His head wobbled, and then his body contracted and vomit ejected from his mouth. It was bright green and bloody.