Chapter 6 – Night Terrors
Sunday 12 June
Samantha Blake was awake. She was not sure what had disturbed her sleep. She had been having another strange dream. She couldn’t remember what it was about, but she was sure Philip Randerson was in it. What would he make of that? Proof that she fancied him? Why did dreams make you have uncomfortable thoughts about the oddest of people?
It was 01:39, according to the clock on her mobile phone – or her lifeline, as she was beginning to think of it. It was impossible to keep track of time, or even what day it was, without constantly referring to her mobile and the internet. It was the middle of the night and her room felt more like a prison. All she could see were the white walls, the moonlight spilling into her bathroom and the door to the corridor.
James was lucky. In a shared ward he could chat to his friends, talk about what had happened to them, maybe even have a laugh. And he was mobile. Mum and Dad said that he was getting on fine and was being his usual golden-child self. All the nurses adored him and his class mates all looked to him for inspiration and a sense of leadership. James had always been like that, though. He was a kind of natural leader. Sam loved him for it. She wanted to see him now. In fact, she wanted the reassurance of just being able to see someone.
Sam considered phoning Mum and Dad. But it was the middle of the night and that would just be selfish. She could only imagine what they had been through. The worry, the dashing to and from the hospital, seeing both their children close to death.
Sam thought about her best friend Nina Palmer. She’d had texts from Nina. She’d come out of the explosion without even a scratch. At the first suggestion that the children might still be in danger, her parents had decided to decamp to India for a few months, where Mrs Palmer’s family lived.
Sam texted Nina Palmer. She couldn’t remember how many hours ahead India was, but she thought Nina must be awake.
‘Hiii. I’m awake at last. And bored. Thanx for all ur texts. Can’t believe u only got a broken fingernail. Bet u were mad. When u comin home?’
Sam sighed. Usually if she was worried by something, or bored, she’d go out for a run.
She reflected on the bandaged patients from earlier. That had been so weird. But it had also hammered home how she felt so cut off from everything. A nuclear bomb could have gone off in the rest of the hospital and she would be totally oblivious. She could be the only person in the building. She shivered. It made her want to pee.
She very nearly did two seconds later when a vase of flowers pitched onto the floor with a deafening crash. Sam jumped out of her skin. The vase was lying in hundreds of tiny pieces on the floor in front of her bed.
Sam looked at the door, expecting nurses to come running any second to comfort her and to clean up the mess. Nothing happened. Surely someone must have heard the noise? She didn’t know whether to press her alarm button or not. It seemed kind of wrong to drag some poor nurse in at this time just to clear up some broken glass. It wasn’t exactly hurting her, but this was the second time something like this had happened.
As she was pondering this, the television buzzed into life. Just static, but it was nerve-jarringly loud. What was happening? Surely this would attract attention. Whoever was in the next room would be kept awake. Assuming there was a next room. Perhaps she was in a room just stuck at the end of the corridor with nobody else around? Sam looked at the trolley table near her bed for the remote control, before remembering that the TV didn’t have one.
Still no one came. No, wait. At last! A shadow fell across the hall. She could see it through the door window. Her heart leaped. The face of the person at the door was just completely wrapped in bandages. Was it the same figure as earlier? It was impossible to tell. Why had he or she come back? The figure continued to look through the glass for a while and then Sam saw the door handle moving.
During the day, the appearance of the bandaged person had felt a little weird. In the middle of the night it was frightening! It was not as though this person was likely to mean her any harm but, lying immobile in the bed, Sam felt horribly vulnerable.
The door opened and the figure walked in with a measured slowness. Sam was fairly sure it was a girl, although the number of bandages made it hard to be sure. The patient uttered no sound.
“Hello,” said Sam. She tried to peer closer, to look into the patient’s eyes to see if she could recognise the person. The bandaged figure came closer, still not speaking, but just with the inscrutable eyes staring at her.
Sam was severely freaked out now. She shifted slightly in her bed, but this only succeeded in delivering a shooting pain into her right leg.
“Are you lost?” asked Sam, hearing the fear in her own voice. Was she dreaming? Please let her be dreaming. Please let it be the medication giving her hallucinations. The figure was walking slowly towards her, like an Egyptian mummy from a horror movie. The glass fragments from the smashed vase crunched under the bandaged foot of the approaching figure. It appeared not to even be aware of them.
The figure was standing right next to Sam now, the head leaning slightly forward as if trying to peer into her eyes to work out who she was. Sam couldn’t move her legs but she could move her arms and she raised them towards her head protectively. A bandaged hand reached out towards her face. She was unsure of whether to touch the patient’s arm, because if the person was severely burned then taking hold of their wrist could be intensely painful.
Sam moved her left hand to block the bandaged hand from touching her head. The hand just kept coming closer.
“Stop it. Please. Please stop,” said Sam, trying not to cry. James had made her watch several horror films with him, and each time it had given her nightmares. Now it felt like she was in one.
Sam finally took hold of the patient’s wrist. She was jolted when she saw the identification bracelet that was looped around the bandages. It read:
‘Emma Venton’.
Sam jumped as a second bandaged hand came up and touched her hair. She screamed.
“Get away from me!!!!”
The hand stopped. Sam continued to scream.
The eyes of Emma Venton looked out through the mask of white wrappings. They were emotionless. As slowly and deliberately as she had entered the room, the girl departed.
Sam sat on the bed, gasping for breath. This time she had no qualms about pressing her alarm button to call a nurse, or doctor, or anyone. Nothing happened. No noise, no response, nothing. She pressed it again. Still nothing. Desperately, she stabbed at the button again and again, feeling like a horribly cruel joke was being played on her.
“Help me!!!!” she screamed out at the top of her voice. “Heeeeeeeeeeelllp meeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!”
She tried to move her body, but it was useless. Her legs wouldn’t move and the plaster casts seemed to weigh a ton. She looked around her. The sound of the television was cutting through her. Her body was shivering.
“Sam?”
She looked back at the door and nearly fainted with relief. Her brother James was standing in the doorway, clearly trying to understand what was happening. He was wrapped up in his thick blue dressing gown from home.
James saw the smashed vase, the water and the flowers strewn over the floor. He could hear his sister crying and the blaring noise of the television.
“James! James please help me!” James hurried to his sister’s bedside, avoiding the glass fragments.
“What’s the matter? What’s happened?”
“Emma! Emma Venton. She was in here. She scared me!”
James hugged his sister as best he could. The plaster cast on his left arm made him feel useless.
“It’s ok. It’s ok, she’s gone now. She didn’t hurt you, did she?”
Sam forced herself to calm down.
“No. No. But what was she doing here? She totally freaked me out. She just came in, didn’t say anything, just came in and... touched my hair.”
It sounded silly now. It was hard to do ju
stice to the macabre nature of what had happened.
“Did you see her? In the corridor? Did you pass her?”
James looked into Sam’s eyes. He had never seen his sister so scared. Perhaps she’d had a nightmare. The TV was blaring. He got up and switched it off. She could have fallen asleep in front of a programme. She’d been given so much medication, much like himself. He too had had the weirdest dreams over the last few days, waking up not knowing where he was.
“It’s ok, Sam. It’s ok,” he hugged her again. “You’re safe. It was probably just a really bad dream.”
Sam shook her head vehemently.
“It wasn’t. I promise you it wasn’t. I saw her. She touched my head, I felt it.”
“Ok, ok. She’s gone now. I don’t think she would have hurt you.”
Sam nodded, feeling much better. The presence of her brother had restored her strength. In fact, she suddenly realised that she was just glad to know that she wasn’t alone in the building.
“You ok, Little Sis?”
“Ok, Big Bro,” she replied wanly, smiling. This was one of their rituals; something they said to each other if one was feeling down. James was born one hour before Sam so, technically, he was her big brother.
“I’m so glad you’re here. But it’s one in the morning. What are you doing out of bed?”
“I woke up. They gave me some medicine earlier and that knocked me out. So when I woke up, I couldn’t get back to sleep. I was hungry, so I went looking for food.”
“So you came to nick mine?” she said, laughing.
“I was sure Mum and Dad would have brought you some too, but I knew you wouldn’t have eaten it.”
She laughed.
“I hate you. I thought you came to see me.”
“I did. Lucky I did, really.” Despite this, James started to look through her bedside locker.
“I don’t believe it. You really haven’t got anything? You? Mum must have left you something.”
“She did,” said Sam, hearing a defensive tone in her own voice. “But I ate it. Anyway, your greediness is now on national television. It was on the news. Only you could survive a terrorist bomb and then go down to McDonalds.”
It was James’s turn to look defensive.
“Yeaahh. Well, I don’t really know what happened there. I think Mum and Dad were weirded out a bit. One minute I was in bed, and I think I fell asleep. Next minute I’m down in McDonalds in my pyjamas.”
Sam giggled.
“Lucky it wasn’t one of those hospital gowns. In fact, I don’t want to think about that. It’s too gross.”
“Would have put people off their burgers, wouldn’t it?” joked James. He looked at Sam, suddenly serious again. “Nothing weird has happened to you, has it? Apart from whatever just happened I mean?”
“Oh my God! No, nothing like that. I can’t exactly leave my bed, can I, and if it was me they’d probably find me in the gym, but I think I’d get dressed first.” She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. “I’ve got to be honest. I don’t know how I feel. I’ve only been awake for a day. I feel as though I should feel worse than I do. I don’t feel in a lot of pain, but I do feel funny. But some weird things have been happening. My flowers threw themselves onto the floor. My running trophy did it earlier. The TV came on by itself. And I really, really just want to go home and be in my own bedroom looking up at Johnny Depp on my ceiling, rather than your ugly mug.”
James grinned, but he shared the sense of unease and fear that his sister had just expressed. He had been told repeatedly that he was a brave young man, and he’d been through a terrible experience that no one should have to go through. He kind of understood that. But there was something else on top of all that. He felt that Samantha shared that feeling too.
“And my stupid alarm isn’t working,” added Sam, crossly, feeling more in control by being grouchy. “So obviously no one cares if I live or die.”
“I’ll see if I can find a nurse. I didn’t see anyone outside.”
Sam touched his arm. She didn’t want him to leave her. She wanted him to sit by her bedside until Mum and Dad arrived tomorrow, but she wasn’t going to admit that, not even to James. He seemed to understand. Perhaps that was why he had come here himself. The need to make contact with his twin. The dislike of being apart. The sense of loss.
“I won’t be a second,” he said, reassuringly. “I think they should make sure you’re all right. And I’ll see if I can find out what happened to Emma.”
Sam nodded. James got up, carefully made his way back around the wreckage of the vase, and got to the door.
“I’m still going to run in the Olympics one day,” said Sam.
“I know,” said James. “I’ll be cheering you at the finish line.”
He left the room. Sam shivered. She was alone again and she hated it.
The hospital felt very different at night, James decided. Previously, he had only gone walking about during the day and had slept soundly throughout the night. The lights were dimmer now, almost reddish in tinge. There were unidentified noises and creepy echoes.
Sam’s private room was situated off a long corridor. James peered into some of the wards that he passed on the way. Some were children’s wards, others contained adults. The hospital must be huge. James couldn’t even begin to imagine how many patients it would take to fill up 36 floors.
People seemed to be sleeping peacefully while nurses bustled around looking incredibly busy. For some reason they reminded James of ants. They seemed to have lost some of their usual kindness. Several of them swept right past him without even giving him a look, cutting off his “excuse me” and other attempts at making himself heard. Not wishing to be impolite or get in their way, he carried on until he found the next ward’s reception desk. Several times he had to dart out of the way of a nurse in order to avoid being knocked over or simply to avoid jarring his plaster cast. He found a stern-looking nurse at the reception area who didn’t even look up at him as he stood in front of her.
“Ummm. I’m sorry.” Arrrghhh! Why did he always say ‘I’m sorry’ all the time when speaking to someone? Was there really anything to say sorry about just for beginning a conversation? The worst time had been in Pizza Express where he’d taken his previous girlfriend, Sophia, hoping to impress her. He’d found himself saying ‘thank you’, ‘cheers’ and ‘sorry’ every two minutes as the waiting staff brought an endless succession of glasses, bottles, black pepper, parmesan and their meals to the table.
“Sorry, excuse me.” That was even worse! And yet the nurse still didn’t look at him.
“Sorry, excuse me, ummm, I know you’re busy but it’s just that my sister really needs some help. Her alarm didn’t go off and–”.
He stopped as the nurse picked up the desk telephone and started dialling a number.
“Actually that’s quite rude,” said James, feeling his polite-young-man routine wearing a little thin and his blood start to boil. “You may be busy, and you’re probably underpaid, but you could at least listen to what I’m saying. I’m really worried about my sister in room seven”.
Still the nurse ignored him.
“Right, you rude–”. He stopped himself from going too far. “I’ll go and find someone with a brain to help me.”
He stepped away from the desk and looked back down the corridor towards Sam’s room. It was a long corridor and her room was approximately 100 metres away. He thought his eyes must be deceiving him at first. It looked like a bed was being wheeled out of the room. Surely it couldn’t be room seven... could it?
Then the scream reached his ears. Definitely Sam. She was calling out his name in panic. He took a step forward. He realised why he had been so confused when he had first noticed the scene at the end of the corridor. There were several people moving the bed out of the room, but they weren’t nurses, they were other patients. He took another step forward but a nurse barred his way. He barely looked at her and tried to move around the woman. Another nurse, a ma
n this time, was also suddenly standing in front of him. What the...? A third nurse, another man, promptly emerged from a nearby ward and completed the barricade.
“Now, young man,” said the woman, totally without emotion. “What are you doing out of bed?”
For goodness’ sake! A minute ago James hadn’t been able to get a nurse to even look at him and now three had come along at once to get in his way.
“Please. Please look,” said James, desperately, pointing down the corridor. “My sister, Sam. Those patients are taking her out of the ward.”
The nurses didn’t even look.
“Listen to her,” James pleaded, uncomprehendingly. “Why aren’t you doing anything?”
“Now, young man,” repeated the woman. “What are you doing out of bed?”
James looked again. The nurses all had the same look about them. Mum and Dad had told him that both he and Sam used to sleepwalk. They hadn’t done it for years, but he had seen Sam do it and she’d worn exactly the same expression as these nurses did now. Vacant.
James surprised himself with his sudden turn of speed. The three nurses formed a line across the corridor, but they weren’t shoulder to shoulder like defenders preparing for a free kick in a football match. There was effectively a gap in the wall where the female nurse was standing at least one pace forward of the two men either side of her. Forgetting the fact that his arm was in a cast, James feinted to the left and then shifted his weight to dart quickly to the right. He was unable to resist a Ronaldo-style 360-degree twist of his body as he span around the middle nurse and then darted between the gap of the two men stationed either side. He’d practised that move so many times in football training. Nice when it worked just right.
He couldn’t glance over his shoulder to see if the nurses were following him because of his broken collarbone, but he pelted down the corridor as fast as he could. Sam was still calling out to him, but the ensemble of patients was now taking her round the corner into a different corridor. It took another 15 seconds before James could reach the same intersection and when he turned to head down the same route the corridor was totally empty.
He heard Sam scream out his name again. What the hell was going on in this place? Had everyone gone mad? Why was no one coming to help? Where had all the normal people gone?
He quickly realised where Sam had been moved to. He caught a glimpse of movement from the right side of the corridor. The lifts! He took a step forward and could just see the end of Sam’s bed and a patient in a dressing gown in the nearest lift. The doors were closing. James started running again but the doors shut before he could make it. The lift started to move upwards. He reached the doors and could see his sister through the glass. She looked terrified, and with good reason. Her bed had somehow caught fire. There were three other patients in the lift with her, all people James knew from school. They were wearing dressing gowns, but they were all heavily bandaged.
Smoke was already belching out through the outer lift doors. A fire alarm cranked into life. James wondered if the lifts had sprinkler systems fitted. The lift was still rising but there did not seem to be any water coming out from the ceiling. Would the lift shut down in the case of fire?
He felt a surge of anger and desperation, and a terrible feeling of helplessness. What could he do? He pressed his hands and face uselessly against the glass to look up as the lift ascended until he could see only the metal base. Then a blinding flash right behind his eyes stunned him and for a second the whole world went black.
James opened his eyes. He was in the lift.