Jessica Heron

NURSE!

The lights went out with an industrial clatter and Amelia’s eyes snapped open. She heard faint crying beside her, the soundtrack of her stay. Ignoring it she chose to walk to the door, open it slightly and look out. There was a dim flickering light at the far end of the hallway near the ceiling, and another dim light coming from the nurses’ station at the other end of the hallway. She opened her bedroom door wider and stood in the doorway, her eyes and ears slowly coming into focus. The loudest sound was her roommate, her sobbing so animated even though muffled by the thin white cotton blanket she had shoved into her mouth. Poor Nancy, Amelia thought as she looked back toward the bed of sobs, when a flash of darkness whizzed by Amelia’s periphery, charging so fast she felt a rush of wind touch her face. Then, a sudden splat of skin and bones against concrete brick tiles and the immediate slump of body parts in a pile on the linoleum floor. Before she could wonder what happened, another dark form speeds past her smack into the wall and slumps down, then another and another. It might have happened four or five times while Amelia stood in the doorway, aghast and now quite creeped out. Squinting toward the far end of the hallway where the bodies heaped, she could hear a very soft moan and make out the word “nurse”. It was raspy and barely audible but she heard another “nurse” coming from the pile of bodies. Amelia’s skin started to prickle. In the part of the short hallway where the bedrooms are she could see a few other patients coming toward their doors, awakened by the bizarre ruckus. She heard louder moans and the word “nurse” coming from inside the bedrooms now too, some slow and constant demands “nnurrrrsssse nnurrrsssse nnnurrrrrsse”, an urgent high-pitched shriek “NURSE!!!” at a faster clip, “NURSE!!! NURSE!!! NURSE!!! NURSE!!!” like an actual banshee. The chorus of “nurses” was then coming from every bedroom, bouncing off the walls of the hallway, and drowning out the poor cries for help coming from the body pile. All around her at different notes and speeds Amelia was feeling NURSE NURSE NURSE NURSE overwhelm all her senses completely. Amelia slammed her door shut and ran into her bed, throwing the blanket over her head and thinking if she squeezes her eyes shut tight enough everything will go back to normal. In the open spaces of the nurse chant Amelia’s ears replay the awful sound of bodies smacking against the concrete bricks at full speed. She quickly acknowledged that her eye squinting was a dumb idea and tucked her blanket under chin, eyes open again. The electricity was out, some truly sick patients made a gross error in wall-judgement, and she was in a room alone with Nancy. She couldn’t figure out what’s worse, to stay shut in with Nancy’s blanket-chewing emo sobbing or to watch what’s going on in the hallway. Maybe she should make an exit plan. If the power was out then maybe the two doors to get out were unlocked, first to the vestibule next to the nurse’s station and then from the vestibule to the rest of the third floor of the hospital: freedom. There was no other way out. There were no windows or any other doors to the outside. She decided an exit plan is not a dumb thought, and got up to take another look into the hallway. By now the NURSE chant had slowed down, and she thought it would be better to know what’s going on in the ward since her bedroom door doesn’t lock. It doesn’t even have a doorknob, so she’s not safe cloistered in there with Nancy. Nancy’s not a threat but she is a distraction. Amelia started to wonder why she’s thinking in terms of threats and distractions as she returned to the doorway to a lively scene. To her right under the emergency light at the end of the hall she saw two patients arm in arm pivoting away from the only remaining good wall and strolling down the hallway. They were talking to each other intensely. Amelia could make out a hospital gown on one of them and knew that was Bob, who had no one to bring him clothes so he has to wear hospital gowns day and night. The other figure is a stout man with bulging eyes. That’s Carl. Carl and Bob both have delusions or hallucinations, Amelia’s not sure which ones, but only Carl had spent time in the quiet room, screaming and thrashing away at them. Now they looked more peaceful than ever, locked into each others’ eyes, promenading. They were so peaceful it spooked Amelia. To her left, still in the bedroom area she saw some patients sitting cross-legged outside their doors. Farther down, one large person was knocking on the locked door that contained the shower as if someone was occupying it. And farther on, a small group of patients made a sharp right turn across from the nurses’ station, just before the body pile, and into the multi-purpose room. Once in a while something in the body pile moved, an arm twitched or a hip flexed, but it was not looking good for them, and they were completely silent. 

Where were the nurses? They had to have heard the calls, Amelia thought, they had to see the patients’ bodies almost directly in front of the their station… Right then a slinky figure in white fell like from the ceiling right before her eyes then pounced back up, two wide white eyes and and a huge smiling mouth with bright razor sharp teeth smiling, dark fluids dripping around the face area. Amelia let out one quick yelp and slammed the door, put her shoulder to it to hold back whatever that white glowing monstrosity was, but for no reason at all. There was no pounding on the door or anything to indicate agitation, or even a presence. Not sure if the silence was the good or bad kind, Amelia readied herself, counted to ten, then swung the door open. All she could make out is Bob and Carl promenading, and the patients sitting by their doors, like this was a normal day, except it was night and all the lights except the two emergency ones were out. And oh yea, the body pile. 

Amelia remembered the group going into the multi-purpose room across from the nurses’ station and the exit doors, and made her move, trying not to look at the bodies. She flung herself down the hall on light feet and slipped into the MPR in near-silence. Christine was there opening every plastic cup of juice she could find, apple then orange then apple then orange, arranging them on the linoleum floor in columns. Jody was there rifling through the drawer next to the juice cabinet for tiny packets of salt and pepper. When she found a salt packet she’d gently tear it open then pour it onto her tongue like it’s candy. And long-haired Michael was there sitting at a table in a corner clutching the broken stereo. Amelia moved toward the safety of his friendly face but kept her back to the wall to maintain a vantage point. “Are you getting any channels?” she asked. “Just one. It’s talk radio, hyperlocal.” “Are they talking about the power outage?” “Yes.” “Oh wow! What are they saying?” Amelia excitedly leaned closer. She felt best with Michael and Jody. The two of them plus Jody, who was currently increasing her salt intake, had instantly formed a little clique. But Mike showed a side of himself that Amelia hadn’t seen before. “They’re speaking to ME ONLY,” he snarled, “I can’t tell you the details but they’re carrying out their plan, okay?! Jesus Christ!” Then he pulled a 180. “I want to protect you Amelia, you can’t get caught up in this,” and Amelia nodded seriously, and as she nodded she slyly moved her ear a bit closer to the radio. For some reason the darkness sharpened her sense of hearing so she didn’t need to get too close to hear the station that Mike was playing. It was static, nothing but static. Crestfallen, she looked into his eyes and said “Okay Mike, I won’t ask any questions as long as you protect me.” Michael smiled but turned serious as he held on to the stereo and kept one eye out for anyone else trying to approach them. In her seat next to Mike, Amelia scanned the MPR for nurses and noticed Marla for the first time. Her head was brighter than the emergency lights, almost as bright as that freaky creature that scared Amelia half to death. Marla’s hair was fluorescent white and stuck up in high pigtails directly at the sides of her head over her ears. Amelia never could place an age on Marla because of the child’s hairstyle on this woman with dark glass skin, deep crow’s feet around big green eyes, the only wrinkle in a smooth face. Christine started chugging her juices, switching from the apple column to the orange column and back and forth like she’s in a race against time, but Amelia’s watching Marla, sitting by herself at a table near Christine, grinning like she has a dark secret but sitting so still you’d think she was a doll. Amelia considered talking to Marla whom she’s been avoiding during her whole stay until she heard horrible coughing sounds. Christine was projectile puking orangey-red bile and she was retching like she’d wake the dead. A figure in a white nurse’s uniform jumped toward her. So there’s the nurse, Amelia thought. The nurse flew over to Christine to help her up while she was puking and shaking and gargling on the floor, but she wasn’t getting up. Something weird was going on, it looked like the nurse was… holding her down. The nurse put her face right up to Chistine’s like she was sniffing, then opened her mouth way too wide and chomped down on Christine’s cheek, blood seeping onto both their faces. Christine was trying to scream as the nurse chewed and sucked on her cheek flesh. Amelia froze as the second night nurse ran over to them both, pushing the other nurse away not to save Christine, but to eat Christine. She got a huge bite out of Christine’s neck, the blood started squirting, and Amelia unfroze in a snap, jumped up from the table. Her metal chair scraped against the floor and she froze again at the sound, but the nurses were fighting over Christine’s body, now completely limp. They’re biting and chewing and lapping up blood and puke and intestines and had no concern for squeaky chairs. Amelia looked to Michael and Jody, who’d let her salt packets fall to the floor and had backed away from the MPR’s kitchen area. They were in the far left corner, terrified. Amelia knew it was time to get them all the fuck out of there. She nodded her head toward the hall then put her finger to her lips, and the three of them moved briskly but silently out of the MPR into the hallway, an arm’s length from the body pile. She whispered to Mike and Jody, “they’re the only two nurses here, but there’s a security officer somewhere, and that guy who does our vitals might be here as well, do you know what time his shift starts? I think it’s Joe?” Jody replied, “5am”. Michael added “The radio show host said it was half past 4,” and they looked at each other’s faces thinking the same thing: Joe has the keys. If they timed it right, Joe could save them. If they could get to the door at the same time he does, they could all run out of the psych ward together and lock the nurse beasts in behind them. “The only clock is in the nurses’ station, but you can’t see it from outside,” Jody offered again. “It’s 4:30!” Mike shouted, indignant. Amelia ignored them and began directing. “Michael, keep an eye on the MPR. If the nurses or whatever the fuck they are get bored with Christine and Marla, make a noise. But stay very quiet. Maybe just wave your hands a lot. Actually, don’t make a noise.” Michael nodded and turned back toward the direction of where Christine used to be but was now a mess of pulp and bone. Marla was still there, but she’d stood up and was raising both her arms into the ceiling. Marla’s head titled up toward the ceiling as well, and Michael could see her lips moving and body swaying. The swaying became thrashing and whatever she was mumbling was not quite English, and getting louder until a sharp gargling sound cut her off. Her body thrashed to the ground and convulsed, spit bubbling at the sides of her mouth. Amelia was facing Jody and saw none of this. “Jody, you come with me to the nurse’s station, NOW,” she instructed. But before Jody and Amelia could move, Michael waved his hands at Amelia. “They’re done with Christine,” he whispered without taking his eyes off of the demonic creatures in white. “Marla started having a seizure…,” Mike trailed off. Amelia and Jody craned their necks to see into the room and Marla’s neon white hair was so dark as if it’d been dyed black. The nurse-type things moved on to Marla, defenseless on the floor having a medical episode. “I don’t think we have much time before they notice us. Jody, let’s go.” But Jody didn’t move. Amelia shout-whispered, “Jody, come on.” But she was staring at the pile of broken bodies of the patients who tried to make a run for it and forgot how short the hallway was, or how walls work. Amelia had an idea. “Jody do you want to stay here?” “Yes,” she said to Amelia but kept her eyes on the possibly dead patients. “Okay, Jody, Mike, listen. I’m going to get into the nurses station and find the clock and whatever else. You two, can you distract the nurses with these half-dead bodies? Can you feed them to the nurses? They’re maybe all fully dead, maybe not, but I think the nurses are attracted to patients who need, like, medical attention or something. No time to check, you gotta chuck those bodies in and hope I’m right!” “Aye-aye” said Michael who saluted Amelia and tapped Jody on the arm who saluted Amelia as well. She nodded at them then turned to face the nurses’ station.

Two of the patients sitting in the hallway had gathered in front of the nurse’s station. They were wiping their hands down the glass and jiggling the doorknob, tapping their palms on the wood and thick possibly bulletproof glass. Amelia could not remember their names. She saw Bob and Carl still promenading the hallway clasped together, and turned back to the two other men across from her. All she remembered were their medications, Latuda, Librium, Lithium, Lexapro… then she remembered! Jim who wanted to be called Jennie, and Jeff, who had all three come up on the same day. Amelia stood up and approached them. In a low and friendly voice she called their names and they turned to face her, “Is there something you guys want? I’m going in, can I get you anything?” Jeff, protective of Jennie, replied “Jennie wants to shower but the door is locked. I want to take my Librium. No one is in there and we can’t get in. We’ve been trying for hours.” “The lights went out only like half an hour ago but okay, maybe if we work together we can get in. Let me think….” replied Amelia. She glanced back at Mike and Jody shoving the first body from the pile into the MPR and hoped that patient was just alive enough to get the cursed nurses’ special attentions. “Let’s pick the lock open,” she suggested. “With what?” from Jennie. “I don’t know, I don’t know! Fuck!” Amelia felt desperate and couldn’t think straight. The nurses station was designed to prevent patients from getting in and Amelia had no clue how to beat it. She cried in a whisper, “Can we beat the door down?” and Jennie replied “We can try. But we were trying to get the guard’s attention first to open the door for us.” Amelia stood on tip-toe and saw the fat legs of the security guard. They weren’t moving. She tried hitting the thick glass but the legs didn’t even twitch. Amelia hated to do this but she had to. “Jennie, Jeff, the nurses are in the multipurpose room, did you see them?” “Oh, we didn’t!” Jeff shouted, followed by a loud “Can we get the shower key? Jennie is sweating and she doesn’t like how it feels” in the direction of the room. Both creatures turned their heads abruptly toward us. I ducked next to the body pile straight into Mike and Jody as the nurses leapt with animal prowess onto Jennie. “What are you doing to him?” Jeff cried and grabbed a nurse’s rippling shoulder. “I need my Librium!” Jeff shouted into the back of the creature’s head, and before Jeff had the chance to notice is creature-ness, he was attacked. With one nurse on Jennie and the other nurse on Jeff, it was up to either Amelia, Mike, or Jody to search their uniforms for the keys. It was an insane idea but this was the time and place to act insane. Blood and guts were flying everywhere while the nurses went nuts on Jennie and Jeff’s sacrificed bodies. Out of nowhere Jody leapt up into the air, slapped her hand on the ceiling tile, then the floor as she crouched in superhero stance. “What the fuck?!” Mike and Amelia said in unison but Jody didn’t notice. The salt was coursing through her veins, her heart pumping faster than ever before, so fast and loud Jody couldn’t hear anything outside of her body. Her blood was moving so fast she could sense it heating up, that any second it will overheat and her circulatory system will boil her alive. As the salt swam through her veins and her body started to react she understood she had to sacrifice herself before the salt fully kicked in and she got cooked alive. With the granulated courage practically bursting her veins already, Jody was no longer afraid. She sidled up to the feeding nurse demons and began patting them down. They don’t notice, their hunger too great and Jennie and Jeff’s bodies too tasty, especially Jennie with all that greasy sweat. Jody struck her arm out once, then twice and hit directly into a pocket. She covered her red pulsing hand over the angular lump of keys as her blood pressure spiked high again and her body sprang toward the ceiling. This time she landed less gracefully, more like a spill, her body exploding into hot nasty pieces. It was more than enough to get the nurses attentions. One of them froze in her feeding stance. She sensed it: Jody needed medical attention. The nurse’s claws loosened from Jeff’s gorged bloodied body and her head snapped toward the slush that was Jody. The nurse monster hissed and unrolled its tongue in the direction of Jody’s fluids and pieces. Mike and Amelia stared in horror as something from Jody’s direction hit Mike lightly in the face. He sputtered and spit and wiped his hands over his face frantically. Amelia saw a quick glint of metal: Jody had flung the keys to her friends in one final moment of glory. Amelia grabbed them from the blood mess then grabbed Mike’s shocked shoulders. “I need you to protect me. Can you keep those psychos busy while I go around them into the station?” “I promise. There’s three bodies left in the pile. I won’t let you down.” “Alright. This is it”, said Amelia, “and get ready to run toward me if I shout!” All Amelia could think about was that clock, and finding out what time Joe would enter this bloody freak show from hell and open the door to freedom. She gave a wide berth to the Jody/Jennie/Jeff feeding frenzy and started trying every key in the lock. There were five keys, and only 3 fresh bodies left, and the fuckers were not slowing down. The first key didn’t fit. The second key didn’t fit. The third key didn’t fit. The fourth key didn’t fit. Amelia paused to check on Mike. He had only one body left to throw at the nurses. Then it struck her. The vestibule! “The keys to the vestibule doors are on this keychain, what the fuck am I doing here!?” she thought to herself angrily. Moving faster now she went in the reverse direction, giving wide berth to the feeding again, and stopped at the vestibule door. “Mike”, she whispered loudly, “Mike, get over here.” Mike slid the last body to the nurses and ran to Amelia’s side hopping around like he had to pee real bad. “Open it!” he yelled. “I’m trying!” She yelled back as she put the third key in the lock and it jammed itself in all the way. With no time to spare, she pushed open the door and Mike and Amelia flung themselves into the vestibule and slammed the door behind them. They breathed heavy for a moment while the nurse creatures pounded their fists on the door, but Mike and Amelia were unscathed, and the creatures, sensing no medical attention needed, slipped from view. In the safety of the vestibule with no threats around them, their adrenaline started to downshift. The two psych patients looked at each other and burst into laughter. They slumped down to the floor, their laughter and breathing starting to slow until eventually they were silent. Mike looked to Amelia and asked her what he’s been dying to ask her since the first day she got locked up, when he first saw her walk through those same doors they were on the other side of now. He had been sitting outside the multipurpose room and held out the squishy excuse of a pen, saying to her, “Here, you’re going to want this.” In her dazed state she stared back, then took the gift. “Thanks”, she said, wondering what the fuck that weirdo was talking about. Mike looked at Amelia that very same way and finally, finally asked her, “Why are you in here?” Amelia sighed and parted her long bangs that had grown over her eyes while she was stuck in that hell hole. A scrape the shape of a large upside-down tear drop had begun to crust and scab over. “I was at a pool party with my friends. We were drinking and I got some pills and went into the pool shed. Before I could fade out I tied the vacuum hose around my ankles and dove into the pool. I hit my head along the bottom while they were pulling me out.” Mike was silent for a moment, reflecting on how he got brought up to this place after detoxing in the psych emergency room. “Damn,” he said to himself. Amelia shrugged. They both looked straight ahead at the final locked door, the slab of wood dividing the space between the nightmare behind them, and the outside world ahead of them.