The Ward

by S. L. Grey

  ‘There’s someone in here!’ I call. How could they not hear the water running? Then I hear something else – a scratching sound. I quickly rinse the rest of the shampoo out of my hair and grab the towel.

  ‘Hello?’ I haven’t heard the footsteps again, and with the water turned off I can make out another sound – a raggedly huffing sound, as if whoever’s outside is struggling to breathe. My heart starts to thud as I remember what Farrell said about someone weird coming into his room.

  Oh God.

  ‘Who’s there?’ My voice wavers.

  No answer. I press my ear to the door. The breathing sound has stopped, and then I hear the scuff of footsteps receding. The bathroom door bangs shut.

  Body still damp, I pull on my pyjamas. I count to three, hesitate and, before I lose my nerve, unlock the door and peer out.

  The bathroom is empty, but I can’t miss the man-sized muddy footprints tracked across the floor, leading right to my shower cubicle.

  I run out into the corridor. It appears to be as deserted as before, but then I catch a glimpse of movement. A bulky, malformed shape is shuffling towards the far end. There’s something… wrong about the way it’s moving, as if the proportions of its body are skewed. It’s too far away for me to figure out if it’s because its legs are too short, its arms too long or the head too big. It pauses, turns around as if it can feel me staring at it – and then it’s gone.

  I have to tell someone.

  The nurses’ station is deserted, but a few doors down from my ward I hear the murmur of voices. I race towards it. An exhausted-looking nurse, one I haven’t seen before, bustles out of the room.

  She strides past me, fiddling with a beeper on her belt. ‘Excuse me!’ I whisper, touching her sleeve to get her attention.

  ‘Get back in bed,’ she snaps.

  ‘There’s someone in the ward! He was in the bathrooms. While I was showering!’

  She sighs and rolls her eyes. ‘Just the cleaners.’

  ‘What cleaners?’ I gesture to the empty corridor. ‘Really, there was someone. I saw him!’

  She mutters something in Zulu. ‘I will come just now. There are other emergencies tonight. You must wait.’

  What else can I do but head back to bed? Should I go to Farrell, tell him what I’ve seen? He’ll hardly thank me for waking him up at this time of night. I can always find him in the morning. If he’s still talking to me.

  Then I realise I’ve forgotten my shampoo and towel in the shower cubicle. I’m tempted to leave it until the morning, but it’s all I’ve got and I can’t risk it being stolen.

  I enter the bathroom cautiously. One of the stall doors is shut. A toilet flushes, making me jump, and behind the closed door someone mumbles to themselves. Just another patient.

  I head towards the shower cubicle.

  Oh God.

  This wasn’t here before. I’d remember.

  Someone’s scratched a word into the door’s paintwork, the letters six inches high and angrily scored right through to the wood:

  Chapter 5

  FARRELL

  Now that my mind’s working at full pace, and it’s just my eyes I’m waiting for, the images are starting to creep back in. Why was Katya crying like that? Why was there blood on her face?

  I lie in the storeroom’s darkness, willing myself to remember. Monday morning is a blank. I’m not sure whether I can’t remember or if I’m choosing not to remember. I can smell my vomitty clothes next to this cot. I can hear that thrum again somewhere below, and I’m sure I can make out screams, or music, or something woven into the whine of the machine, just at the edge of my hearing. I know I’m making it up, finding a pattern in the white noise of the air-con fan, but, once I’ve heard the sound, there’s nothing I can do to loosen its grip.

  I swear there’s something scratching in the glass-fronted cabinets at my side.

  Concentrate. You’re just avoiding it again. Think.

  Okay, this is what I remember.

  Normal Monday morning. We were up about seven. Sunday night, I’d made Katya her favourite linguine and we watched a movie. Christ, what was it? We watched it… Why can’t I remember? Did we drink a lot? We had… let’s see… we had a bottle of red. Nothing special. That was all; Katya knew how I felt about her getting high at home.

  I woke up tired. I took a shower, I think. The usual routine. Then next thing I know she’s crying. This is what I see in my mind. She’s crying like a toddler, snot dripping out of her nose, eyes red and ringed with black smudges. There’s blood on her face. I can’t understand the look in her eyes. I’ve never seen her cry like this before. Why, Kay? She backs away from me, as if scared. Let me go, Josh! That doesn’t sound right. This sounds like someone else’s story.

  Then I remember I’m sitting on the couch, my head in my hands, elbows on my knees. Take a good, long look, she says, although I’m looking at her. It’s the last time you’ll see it. She doesn’t bother to wipe the blood off her cheeks. Take a good look at the face you love so much, she says again. She picks up a tog bag and leaves.

  That picture of her face in my mind is—

  ‘Mr Farrell?’

  ‘Hhhr… Wha…’

  ‘Mr Farrell, I’ve got something for you.’

  ‘Oh, Nomsa. What time is it?’

  ‘Five thirty. I’m just about to start my shift, but I’ve got a present for you.’ The clatter of a little cardboard box, the crackle of a plastic seal breaking. ‘Lie back. Open your eyes.’

  I do as she says.

  The cleansing flush of cold drops on my eyeballs. Left eye. Right eye. Nomsa puts the little bottle in my palm and closes my fingers around it.

  ‘It’s the Maxitrol drops you need. Two drops morning and night for two weeks. Please don’t tell anyone; I’d get into trouble.’

  ‘But how will you—?’

  ‘Just don’t let them see it. Absurd that they have the medicine you need but won’t supply it.’

  The thank you is forming on my lips but she’s gone already. I imagine the mould in my eyes burning away like mist in the sun, but I worry about what I’ll see when it has. Katya’s bloodied face. I squeeze my sore hand. It couldn’t have been me, could it? And if for some fucked-up reason I hurt her, I’m dead. Glenn will cut me up into little pieces if I’ve laid a finger on his daughter.

  There’s no way I would have hurt Katya. Surely? But does Glenn know that?

  ‘Jesus. Did you hear?’

  ‘Yes. I’m going down now.’

  ‘We need all available staff from this floor in casualty. Skeleton staff to remain only.’

  ‘How many do they think?’

  ‘I don’t know. More than a hundred. Maybe two.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘At least seventeen dead.’

  ‘We’d better get down there.’

  As they hurry past my closet, my fingers itch to check my phone for the news, see what happened. A bomb? A crash? Where?

  I get out of bed, pulling myself up by the drip stand. I unplug the tube from my arm. There has to be a TV somewhere on this floor, or a radio, or someone with a web connection. Maybe someone else’s visitors will be able to tell me what’s happened.

  I shamble along the corridor. If it was five thirty a.m. when Nomsa came in, it’s about seven now. It should be busy this time of the morning but the section is dead quiet. One of the old women starts groaning again. It goes on and on; there’s nobody here to help her.

  I stand against the wall across from the nurses’ station trying to get my bearings, waiting for someone to come past; waiting to hear something that will explain what’s going on. But all I see is quiet, still smudges. Then another two dark-blue nurse shapes run past me towards the Green Section’s exit before I can stop them, their soft shoes squeaking on the lino. A patient coughs up a gout of mucus in the ward nearest to me, then subsides into silence again. What the hell is going on?

  ‘Farrell!’ Lisa appears in my blur and grips my wrist. She’s br
eathing in heavy gasps as if she’s been running. ‘Thank God! This place is not… Something’s not right and last night I didn’t get any sleep and I was thinking about what you said about having another operation in here and then and then—’

  ‘Whoa, slow down.’

  She takes another hitching breath. Christ, this is just what I need now. I try to wrangle my arm out of her grasp but she’s not letting go.

  ‘I need to get out of here,’ she says, and I can hear the tears in her voice. ‘There was a man in the bathroom while I was showering and I think… I think he was following me, watching me. I wondered if he… He was creepy, like you said.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Big, limpy. Like his legs were different lengths. He had a white coat, like a doctor. But he wasn’t.’

  Jesus. ‘Did he have, like, grey skin? A weird big head, sweaty?’

  ‘Yes, that’s him! He was following me. He followed me into the bathroom.’

  ‘Did he hurt you?’

  ‘No… he was… God. I’ve got to get out of here. I can’t stay here anymore.’

  ‘But how? We’re locked in.’

  ‘There’s nobody here. Even the security guard’s gone.’

  ‘I heard there was an accident. Do you know what happened?’

  ‘Yes, the Gautrain, you know, the one they built for the World Cup—’

  ‘I know what the fucking Gautrain is, Lisa!’ She whimpers. ‘Sorry,’ I say quickly. ‘What about it?’

  ‘It crashed. More than four hundred people on board. Lumpy Legs – the nurse, you know, the sister, the one that’s so mean – well, I overheard her talking to one of the other nurses about it this morning.’

  Holy fuck. The fucking Gautrain…

  ‘Anyway, the security guard’s not at the gate. We can buzz ourselves out,’ she continues. ‘He’ll be back soon. Now’s our only chance to leave. I mean… I can help you if you also want to leave now. I think… I think something bad’s going to happen.’

  This woman has serious issues, obviously. Something bad’s going to happen. But fuck. If she’s also seen that freak, maybe she’s right. I consid er my options: wait here till I can see and am officially discharged, or take the gap and get back into the real world. Find Katya, find out what happened. Find out if Glenn is hunting me. Then, when I’ve done that, go and see a proper fucking doctor.

  ‘Please, Farrell. The security guard’s coming… We have to go now.’

  I’d have to leave my iPhone and my wallet behind at the nurses’ station. I can always claim the insurance though, provided that isn’t as fucked as my medical aid.

  ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Let’s do it.’

  She sighs with relief and starts hustling. She pulls me along, the cool air whistling through my bare-arse gown as we go. I turn back to see the dark shape of the guard strolling behind us. He’s in no hurry.

  ‘Stop, Lisa. Stop! If he sees us running, he’ll chase us. We’re just going for a walk, okay? Let’s go slowly. We’re still between him and the door.’

  Lisa slows down but I can sense how panicked she is by the increasing pressure of her grip on my arm. That’s my fucked-up arm from the drip. I try not to cry out, and instead shift her fingers up to my bicep.

  I dart another smudged look over my shoulder. The guard’s still some way behind us and we’re nearly at the security gate.

  Oh shit. ‘Oh shit.’

  ‘What?’ says Lisa, tugging on my arm.

  ‘The eye drops. I need the eye drops.’ No way am I going anywhere without those. ‘You go ahead. Don’t worry. Good luck, okay.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘They’re on a shelf on the far side of my bed.’

  ‘Dammit…’ Lisa casts around, indecisive, breathing heavily. ‘Oh God. Okay. He’s gone into the toilet. I’ll be back. Don’t go anywhere.’

  She sprints off and I stare into space for a minute. I imagine that the blurs I see are getting just a little crisper around the edges. An image of Katya’s bloodied face blindsides me and I feel like I’ve been kicked in the chest. Glenn’s fat head looms over it.

  Next thing, Lisa’s pressing the vial into my hand. Her quiet, shocked voice surprises me. ‘Did you see what was on the cabinet by your bed?’

  ‘I didn’t see anything. I can’t see.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘No, don’t worry. It’s nothing.’

  ‘Come on, Lisa! What the…? Lisa?’ She’s ducked out of my eyeline and now I can’t spot her blur anywhere. Has she gone without me?

  ‘Lisa!’ I call, aware that my voice is too loud in the deathly ward. I grope towards the security gate and walk into the guard’s patio chair; it clatters across the lino loud enough to wake the dead. ‘Lisa,’ I hiss. Fuck it.

  ‘I’m here. Here. I brought you something to wear.’ She shoves a cotton bundle into my hands. ‘Just some scrubs. They look clean enough. Better than that, anyway.’

  Lisa leads me down a hallway to a lift and presses the button. The air smells different outside the Green Section, both fresher and ranker, as if fresh air from the outside world is mixing with the gasses of seriously diseased and decomposing people in other sections, each washing over us in currents.

  The lift door opens with a ding and Lisa presses a button. Soon as the door closes, I struggle to orient the baggy pants, then pull them on, keeping the gown on over them. We descend for a bit, then the door opens again into a poorly lit space.

  ‘Where are we? What’s here?’

  ‘I don’t know. Two doors. One with a keypad.’ Her voice trails away as she goes. She rattles at the door and mutters something.

  ‘What’s there? Please keep talking.’

  ‘It’s locked. The other door looks like… Oh, Farrell.’

  We both hear the lift grinding in the shaft behind us.

  Fuck. ‘It could be the security guard,’ I say. ‘What about the other door?’

  ‘Uh…’

  ‘What’s the problem?’ The lift’s grinding closer.

  More hesitation. Then she grabs my wrist. ‘Okay, come.’

  I hear a heavy metallic click and a rubber squeal – somehow a familiar sound – and Lisa pulls me through the door with a squeaking shear, then slams it behind us. Clink. That’s it, that’s where I know that sound. It’s just like the lock on the beer fridge in a bottle store. They don’t open from the inside.

  A muffled voice from the other side of the door, then it stops. I hear only our breath. When I open my eyes, the light is bright, light green, like underwater. It’s cold.

  Dead silence. Then what my mind’s been trying to ignore. The smell kicks in. Lisa grabs me and hides her face, cowering between me and the door.

  ‘What is this place, Lisa?’

  Chapter 6

  LISA

  ‘Christ. It stinks in here.’ Farrell pulls up the top of his gown to cover his mouth and nose. ‘Fuck… Are we in the fucking morgue?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  The morgues they show on CSI and Silent Witness are always clean, brightly lit places, clad in stainless steel and hi-tech fittings, but this area is small and dingy. The floor is covered in that crappy linoleum, and the dented cadaver drawers are grubby and scratched and smeared with dirty fingerprints. Although it’s chilly, it’s as if there’s not enough oxygen in the room, and I’m starting to feel light-headed. Still, as gross as it is in here, there’s a part of me that’s coldly fascinated by what I’m seeing.

  Farrell shuffles to the side of the room and peers myopically at the three gurneys shoved against the drawers. They’re piled with lumpy, zippered black plastic bags.

  ‘Jesus,’ he says. ‘Are those bodies?’

  ‘I think so.’ Two of the bodies aren’t anywhere near large enough to fill the bags out and I try not to look at them.

  ‘Christ. Why aren’t they in the… freezer or wherever they keep them?’

  ‘I don’t know. Ma
ybe there’s no space.’

  Farrell flaps a hand in front of his face. ‘Christ… I’ve never smelled anything like it.’

  ‘Try not to breathe too deeply,’ I say. ‘You’ll get used to the smell soon.’

  ‘How the fuck would you know that?’ he snaps. ‘Look, let’s just go back.’

  For a second I want to do just that. The light-headedness is turning into a weird disconnected feeling as if part of me has skipped away for a bit. But then I remember that grey-faced man and what I saw in Farrell’s room and the world snaps back into focus. We can’t go back.

  ‘Come on,’ he says, making for the door behind us.

  ‘Wait! Think about it, Farrell.’ I don’t recognise my voice. I sound sure of myself, in control. ‘There has to be another exit through here. I mean… I mean, it’s unlikely that they’d bring the dead bodies through the hospital.’

  ‘Lisa, what the fuck are you talking about?’

  ‘I mean, funeral directors have to fetch the dead people from somewhere, right? There’s probably a back entrance or exit.’

  He hesitates. ‘Lisa, you’re creeping me out a bit here. How in the fuck would you know something like that?’

  Heat races to my cheeks. ‘Um, you know. TV and books and stuff.’ A sudden image of my room back home flashes into my mind – the room I sometimes don’t leave for days at a time. What would Farrell say if he saw the pink flouncy coverlet, the piles of cheap true-crime paperbacks, my Grey’s Anatomy DVDs and the Girls Aloud posters that I haven’t bothered taking down for years?

  ‘Let’s try through here,’ he says, heading towards the double doors in front of us.

  They’re made of thick black rubber and he has to push against them with his shoulder to shove them open wide enough for us to slip through.

  ‘Ah, man,’ Farrell says. ‘It smells even worse in here. Like rotten meat only... I dunno, sweeter.’

  This room is far larger than the last. The walls and floors are covered with cracked porcelain tiles and mildewed grouting; shallow open drains criss-cross the floor. The light winks off a saw and pair of scales that are on a shelf next to the row of sinks at the far side. There are two stainless steel tables in the centre of the room; one is empty, but lying on the other is what looks to be a twisted, charred tree trunk. I don’t get it. Why would there be burned wood in a morgue?