On The Bridge

by Ada Uzoije

  He cracked open the door of the bathroom, reluctantly peered out and saw that the man had disappeared.

  “They work,” he marvelled at the efficacy of the anti-psychotics.

  As the hard rain came down on the roof, Doug fainted, watching the ceiling turn and turn and then almost immediately fell into soothing oblivion.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The paramedics had wheeled the teenager into the ER just after 9 a.m. the next morning, pumped his stomach and stabilised him. Had he not been brought in on time, he may well have succumbed to the trauma. His parents were pacing about for a harrowing thirty minutes before he came out of the emergency room and was settled in a ward for observation.

  “If you hadn’t found him on that bathroom floor…” Jean shivered, her eyes wet with worry and sadness.

  “And you know, I wasn’t going to make breakfast this morning. Thank God I went to call him for breakfast or we would not have found him in time,” Norman spoke softly, shaking his head. “I tried everything, Jean, but I could not revive him. I just couldn’t.”

  The doctor came to check on Doug, who was gradually regaining his consciousness, but not enough to react or speak. He could vaguely hear a mess of noises, all entwined, and the voices of the medical staff echoed lost in his ears.

  “He should be okay in no time,” the doctor said and checked Doug’s vitals.

  “Why do kids do this?” the attending nurse asked and Doug could hear her from the left side of where he was lying. He was dreadfully lightheaded and felt like he was floating.

  “I guess it’s stress, Cathy,” came the voice from his right.

  “These days, teens are under so much pressure to excel in school and keep up with their peers that they crack eventually. You know how it was when you were a teen.”

  “I had a tough childhood, but I’d never try to kill myself,” she replied as she reset the drip. Doug wished he could fight back. He wished he could tell them what had happened. He would tell them that he didn’t try to kill himself. He would defend himself from their absurd assumptions. If he could speak he would tell them all about the ghastly visitor who sat on his bed and subsequently attacked him.

  But they’d probably not believe him. Grown-ups think they know everything. Of course they would just see what they wanted to see.

  He resented the medical personnel for just accepting what they thought happened without giving him the benefit of the doubt, but the medication was very strong and he drifted in and out of the sub-coma he was in.

  When Doug regained consciousness, his parents were sitting next to his bed. His head was ringing and his eyes wouldn’t focus properly, but he knew they were there. The young boy’s throat was terribly sore because they had pumped out his stomach and it was painful to talk. But he could see that his mother had been crying and his father looked stone-faced and angry. He could not bear the pressure of speaking to them now. Not yet. He had not opened his eyes fully and so elected to pretend that he was semi-conscious. Doug groaned painfully and turned on his side away from his parents so as to fool them to buy some time to think of what he would say. He played unconscious, but his father, however, could tell from the way he was breathing and the rigidity of his body that he was faking.

  He started to speak sternly. “Doug…”

  “Norman,” pleaded his mother, “he’s in no condition to talk now. Can’t you see that?”

  But Doug’s father ignored her. “Douglas,” he said, “I think you owe us an explanation. You’ve done something very stupid. You have frightened your mother and cost us a lot of money. How could you do something so idiotic? This is stupid even for you!”

  Doug just kept quiet and retained his ruse, hoping still that they’d fall for it.

  “Don’t play silly games with me. I know you can hear me, and I resent your pretending not to, dammit,” Norman hissed, trying not to raise his voice too much in the ward.

  Doug knew it was no use faking any longer. He turned on his back but kept his eyes closed to look as sick as he could.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I remember going to bed and then…then nothing until I woke up here just now,” he bluffed, recalling all too clearly what had happened the night before. “Did you bring me to the hospital? Why would you do that?”

  He really tested his father, all for the sake of keeping his awful secret. He didn’t want to talk to his father about what he’d seen, and of course that meant that he couldn’t tell him why he’d taken the pills in such a volume. It was a matter of telling his father all or nothing – and the only possible choice was nothing.

  Not only would it be met with hostility from lack of understanding, but his father would think he was deliberate and spiteful for spinning such a web.

  “We didn’t bring you to the hospital; you were brought to the hospital in an ambulance,” Norman screamed in a whisper, now plainly furious with the boy, “because you had taken an overdose of your anti-psychotic pills, WHICH YOU DIDN’T EVEN NEED IN THE FIRST PLACE!” Doug’s heart pounded at his father’s intolerance and felt his angry breath in his face, because he had drawn really close.

  “I want to know why you did such a cretinous thing, and I want to know why right now, boy,” Norman said through his clenched teeth and his face glowed dangerously red.

  “Norman, please” Jean said anxiously, “not right now.”

  “Yes,” said his father as he quickly turned his face to her, “right now! I am not waiting any longer. I was due at the office ten minutes ago.”

  Doug felt sick. How could he tell them something that could only exacerbate things?

  He pleaded with his father. “Dad, please believe me. I don’t remember anything, I swear! I don’t know why I would do such a thing. Maybe I was sleepwalking. I don’t know. I don’t know.” For the greater good, Doug presented his best pity play and started to cry.

  Norman threw his hands up in the air.

  “Oh there we go again. Cry baby.”

  Jean looked angrily at Norman, “Now look what you’ve done, bullying him.”

  “Okay, that does it!” exclaimed Norman.

  He rose briskly and headed straight for the door. “My son is a mindless little wimp and according to his perfect mother I’m a bully. Oh yes, such a bully to expect more of my son, hey? I’m out of here!” He didn’t care for the volume of his voice now. He left, slamming the door behind him.

  A moment of stunned silence passed.

  Finally Doug opened his eyes, as if the sight of his father would have blinded him.

  Jean took her son’s hand and said, “Doug, don’t be angry with him. He’s worried about you and scared to death for your welfare. Really. He’s always bad-tempered when he’s scared.”

  Doug stopped crying, but his problem persisted still. He didn’t want to tell his mother any more than he had wanted to tell his father.

  “Mom,” he said, “can you please just let me sleep for a while? Maybe I’ll remember something if I can just sleep for a while.”

  “Doug, honey,” said his mother, “we love you very much and we need to know what’s wrong.”

  “I know.”

  “The doctor said that they would probably release you late this afternoon. Try to be ready to talk to us when we get you home. Please, sweetheart!” she implored.

  “Remember, we can’t help you if we don’t know what’s wrong and only you can tell us that.” She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. Then she gave him one last look and left.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  He was discharged that afternoon and Jean took him home, because his father had to work late. The car was quiet and the atmosphere a bit uncomfortable, but Jean made small talk to put her boy at ease a bit.

  “Hey, I’m making lasagne tonight,” she said awkwardly, pretending to pay attention to the wet road they drove on.

  “Great! With parmesan cheese, I hope,” Doug said with a smile, trying extra hard to fool his mother that he was completely fine a
nd not nervous at all about having to deal with his father later on.

  “Of course, and those big chicken pieces you like.”

  Silence.

  Since his father would not be home soon, and Jean was mostly worried about feeding his son, she decided to serve dinner early. While they ate in silence, she noticed Doug barely touch his meal.

  “What the matter?” She asked

  “I just lost my appetite” He replied.

  “Okay.” Jean understood but was not pleased; she wanted him to at least finish half of the meal on his plate.

  “Mom, I’m a bit tired. Think I’m going to take a shower and watch a movie on my computer, okay?”

  “Doug…” she attempted.

  “Thanks for the lasagne, mom, it was really good,” he said quickly and dismissed himself with a false cheer she wanted to believe.

  “O-okay then, honey. Sleep tight,” Jean said in a distraught tone, but she accepted it for now and vowed to try and get through to him the next day.

  Once in his blue room, Doug logged on to Suicidewitness.com to share his miserable encounter with The Suicide Queen. He couldn’t wait to tell her and get some sort of sense or closure from her wisdom. That, and he could unload a bit on someone who took him seriously. Doug’s fingertips were sweaty when he saw her name light up on the screen.

  “Hey Krista”

  “Hi Doug”

  “Can you keep a secret?” Doug asked immediately. He could not wait to get it out.

  “101% sure,” Krista replied a moment after.

  “Promise you won’t think I’m crazy?” He made sure first before making known the absurdity to her.

  “Oh come darling, you know we’re all a little nuts That is why we hang out together!”

  Her words encouraged him greatly and he just said it.

  “I am seeing things.”

  A longer pause than before. Doug worried, because she typed fast and it took her long to respond. Then he saw Krista is writing a message on his screen and he knew his revelation did not scare her off after all.

  “Are these things evil?” Krista asked

  “Yes! It first started with recurring nightmares and feelings of being watched, you know?” He said.

  “Wait…you still have nightmares? They never stopped?” She caught him out, but it was the least of his problems.

  “No, I still get them. You know, I can handle the nightmares. I can, but seeing things…I could feel there was something for a long time even when I was awake. And then I saw with my own two eyes, Krista. Just last night! The dead man!” Doug wrote with his nervous fingers.

  “Ghost! You see his ghost now? Since when?” Krista asked.

  “Last night.” Doug said.

  “Are you sure it is a proper ghost? Or could it be that you are just hallucinating, perhaps?” Krista asked, choosing her words carefully, not to sound like she does not believe him.

  Doug didn’t like her response. Did she also think he was just seeing things? But she was his only confidant and he carried on explaining.

  “Then I took an overdose in fear, I woke up this afternoon at the hospital”

  “Oh! No way! God, I fear for you, Doug,” Krista typed hastily.

  “I am so scared!”

  “Calm down. Have you told your parents?” Krista asked.

  Doug sighed over his keyboard. Why was that the only answer people had?

  “No way! They would never believe me!” he said with the appropriate emoticon to show his disagreement.

  And so they exchanged ideas on how to approach Doug’s parents and how to cope, chatting on without realising, as always, how time flew when they did so. Around 12:35 a.m. they were still chatting, when he sudden heard a big bang behind him. He had left his window half open and something was just thrown through it.

  In his veins the blood ran ice cold and he was suddenly terrified.

  He typed quickly: “Something in my room”

  “What?”

  No answer from the young man.

  “WHAT???”

  Still nothing, but his icon was green and he was online.

  Slowly the terrified boy turned to see what was thrown into his room. His chest held his heart inside, for will of exploding, but he knew he had to see what it was. His eyes frozen open, he rose from his seat and looked behind him. On the floor lay a suitcase, a deadly familiar suitcase. He gasped. It was that distinct suitcase similar to the one the dead man was holding.

  Krista’s messages came through one by one, consecutively:

  “What is in your room?”…”Doug! Get out of the room!”…”Get out!!!”

  The pings from Doug’s computer reminded him that he was not entirely alone and he carefully approached the suitcase. He bent over and reached down to touch it. Before his hand met the handle the dead man rushed out from Doug's bathroom with a low snarl. He snatched the suitcase up and flew out of Doug's window, not even stirring the curtain in his flight. Doug froze, scared to death, unable to move or cry out.

  He just collapsed on the floor, leaving his Instant Message window vacant with the line cursor pulsing in anticipation of an answer that would not come.

  In the morning the shrill sound of his phone woke him from the place where he fell the night before. All was hazy and his skin was burning from the cold exposure of the night and he struggled to sit up and register what was going on while the phone kept ringing madly. Doug crawled on his knees to his desk where his computer screen was still waiting for him to type, but his conversation was timed out.

  He reached the phone and answered the early caller.

  “Yes?” his voice shivered while he wrapped his blanket around him.

  “Doug! Thank God! I thought something terrible had you. I thought you were dead. What the hell happened last night?”

  “Who is this?” Doug asked, not used having a female voice on the other end of a social call.

  “It’s Krista,” she replied a bit impatient.

  He was pleasantly surprised to finally hear his friend’s voice, but for the nature of the call.

  “How did you get my number?” Doug inquired, feeling a little important.

  “I messaged a friend who is an expert in obtaining personal details of just about anybody in this country with staggering accuracy,” Krista said, “Don’t ask.”

  “Oh!” Doug said, impressed.

  “Are you okay? I was worried out of my mind all night. I hardly slept. What happened?” Krista asked.

  It all came back to him now. Inside him a tingle ensued and he looked at his shut window with its drawn curtain.

  “I saw the dead man again,” Doug announced, equally much to himself.

  “Doug! This not good, man. I am telling you, it’s a warning sign. It’s an omen. That is why it keeps looping and coming back to you. It’s a sign. A bad sign,” she warned with sinister urgency.

  “Warning? Warning me of what?” Doug was thoroughly frightened by her tone and her meaning too.

  He could hear her breathe on the other side, as if taming her own concerns.

  “You are in danger. You need help, and soon!” Krista urged again.

  The boy felt his world shatter again. Worry filled his demeanour again. The panic of the unknown and its incomprehensible language threatened his sanity and his composure now and he had no idea how to ask for help against a supernatural foe from ignorant parents.

  “It’s getting worse and worse, Krista!” his voice broke as the tears consumed him.

  “Why is this happening to me? I feel so alone. I feel like every time he appears he gets more of me. Like he is going to get me!”

  “Listen, Doug! Don't sleep alone. You hear me? You make sure he can’t get you alone. Sleep in the room with another soul present,” Krista suggested sincerely, although she knew it sounded a bit odd.

  “I can't sleep with my parents,” he sniffed, “I am no baby,” Doug said through his anxiety.

  “Well…I don’t really know…wait, can you
arrange a sleep over at your friends for a week? Or get someone to visit you?” she tried, thinking frantically of any suggestions that could help the poor boy.

  It was a splendid idea that almost cheered him up. There was hope.

  “That’s it! I think I can do that,” he replied with more clarity than a moment before. “I have two best friends. I can get one of them, or both, to come over. Thanks, Krista, you are a genius!”

  She was quiet for a moment.

  “Doug, please, tell your friends everything you told me, okay? The more you disclose about such things the quicker you will get better and even get this thing to go away forever,” she said softly, clearly protective of him and his plight.

  “Okay, Krista,” Doug agreed and put her at ease.

  “I am sure your two best friends will believe you. I can almost assure you they will,” she added, “and please keep in touch with me so that I know you’re okay? I gotta go. Time to feed the animals. Bye kiddo.”

  And with that the line clicked off and she was gone, but he felt renewed in his fight with the dead man and his nightmares. He didn’t know which was worse. At least when he had nightmares he could wake up.

  He went into the bathroom to brush his teeth and found that the medicine cabinet, where his pills had been before, was empty of them. He would have to ask for his pills now, but he understood why. It was only natural for his parents not to trust him with harmful medication after what had happened.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Just after lunchtime, Mick and Thompson came to hang out with Doug in his front yard, where he had set up the umbrella and some chairs. His mother watched through the window and she wondered what was on his mind, and what he kept to himself that he did not trust her and Norman to know. But she knew she had to be patient.

  The two teenagers showed up in their usual high-spirited and loud manner and Jean couldn’t help but smile and be glad for their being in her son’s life.