The Deepest Hour

Blame Robyn for this one.  

The nights were never fully quiet.  Even the nurses’ soft soled shoes seemed loud in the rarefied atmosphere of the hospital in the small hours.  The ward was on the other side of the building from the accident and emergency, but I could still hear the sirens in the distance.

I was never a good sleeper.  Night after night, I lay and listened to the snores and sleeping moans of my fellows in the ward.  The room was too hot and filled with the smell of sick men.  I lay there, in the deepest hour of the night, taking involuntary deep breaths, trying to get enough air into my lungs, wiping sweat out of my eyes.  A nurse glanced into the ward and saw me awake.  She disappeared for a minute and returned with a jug of cold water.  I drank a little and when she was gone, dipped my hand into the jug and swiped the water across my face.  It was cold enough to make me gasp and I felt a little better when I lay back down.  The old man to my left struggled onto his side and gave a heavy sigh.  I waited for him to take his next breath and was on the point of pressing the bell for the nurse when he finally hitched it in.  

Someone across the ward coughed and made a gagging noise.  I turned my head to the right and let my arm hang out over the edge to cool.  The man on my right was new and the curtain was drawn between us.  I stared at the faded stripes of the material and tried to think of something bland and peaceful that might help me rest.  Instead, my tireless mind replayed the flash of lights and the sound of grinding metal and I felt clammy cold despite the muggy air. 

The curtain between us moved as if caught by a breeze.  I felt a static charge build and rise the short hairs on my arm, where it hung over the edge of the narrow bed.  The movement behind the curtain disturbed a discarded chocolate wrapper that the cleaner had missed.  It almost floated along the smooth floor, turning a small circle.  I watched the wrapper spin to a halt and caught the next movement of the curtain out of the corner of my eye.  It bulged out in a solid lump and I looked down, expecting white nurse shoes.  There weren’t any.  Then I heard a noise that wasn’t part of the normal night sounds.  It was low and quiet, but distinct.  It sounded like a child sucking on a soother, rhythmic and vacant.  There was nothing especially sinister about the sound, but at once, I felt like the night was pressing down on me.  It seemed hard to even move.  Adrenalin rushed around my body and then drained away, leaving me feeling flat and weak.  The bulge in the curtain shifted and the sound was like dry hands rubbing together.  It moved down the stripes of the curtain and the material bellied out before falling flat. 

There was a vacuum in the sounds of the night.  I counted off five Mississippi before I heard the dry-hand scrape under a bed across the ward.  I turned my head enough to see the hump that represented the man opposite.  He moaned slightly and then I watched his shape grow smaller under the covers.  When the sounds stopped, I tried to pull myself up in the bed as I had done earlier to take a drink, but my leaden legs felt weighted down. 

I tried to call out, but my tongue felt swollen and my throat closed in panic.  I could feel my heart pounding a jerky beat in all my pulse points.  I wanted to get to my chair, but I had a craven fear of putting my legs out over the bed.  If something touched them, I wouldn’t feel it.  I began to get the idea that there was already something touching them, holding me down.  I kicked out but the idea didn’t create movement in my stubborn legs. 

I heard the scratchy sound cross the floor.  When it reached the old man next to me, he took a deep breath and this time when he let it out, he didn’t take another one.  There was a pause, followed by the crackly sound of movement in my direction. 

Then I saw its hands grip the side of my bed.  It gave a grunt of effort and the fingers bit into the mattress.  The skin was the colour of old bruises, the nails long and yellow.  I saw the top of its head appear, hairless and covered in pulsing veins, like leeches full of blood.  I flung myself sideways and crashed onto the floor.  The impact knocked the trapped scream from my lungs and I started to crawl for the corridor.  I heard it come after me.  I couldn’t feel it touch me, but it was suddenly harder to move.  I saw a nurse’s legs appear at the door and then saw the floor approach fast. 

When I came to, my head was pounding and a nurse was waiting with a pill.  She murmured about bad dreams, not sleeping and a sad night on the ward.  I was afraid to confess what I thought I had seen so I agreed with her, taking my pill as I took all the pills given to me.  She rewarded me with a smile before going back to her brightly lit station where no one ever died. 

I shoved back the covers and pushed down my pajama bottoms.  I had to roll a little and look over my shoulder to examine myself, but then I saw a bite clearly.  I couldn’t feel it, but it made me sick just looking at it.  It had open lips like a fish’s mouth and the meat inside was raw.  I put my hand out towards the bell to call the nurse back but before I reached it, I heard the sound. 
 

The hurried brush of dry skin against the underside of my bed.