I wish they’d at least cover my eyes before they started wheeling me around in my bed at all hours. The rows of light above burned my eyes and made me wish I had use of my hands to rub them back into comfort, or at least smack the hell out of the nurse who decided 2am was the time for my therapy.
They must have thought it perfectly reasonable to move the paralyzed guy out of his perfectly comfortable dark cell into the harsh, oppressing light of the hallway. Not like he can say anything about it anyway?
They talk around me and laugh about their daily struggles and mishaps, believing I can’t hear or understand. I always hear but ever rarely understand. How can I understand some bitch nurse who complains about her awful other half? I can’t fucking move! They should be lucky they don’t need a tube up their urethra to pee into to.
The two guys moving me around are chatting about the football game the other night. Makes me nostalgic. It’s been so long since I watched sports or any form of entertainment. Not that football was ever really my favourite form of entertainment. Mine were always more niche. Seeing the players get hurt or damaged always did put a spring into my step though.
“What do you think the Doc has planned for him tonight?”
Him being I. Not like I don’t have a fucking name.
“Not sure, honestly, I don’t want to know, the Doc always gave me the creeps and so does this guy. Having them both in the same room together must be like a nightmare show”
You have no idea my friend.
As their conversation turns into idle silence I begin recognising my surroundings, especially the black, aluminium door ahead. Sweat springs up on my forehead and I feel a cold, sharp sting travel down my spine.
These meetings with the Doc are getting harder and try as I might, I don’t know how much longer I can hold out before I lose my ever-loving will.
……………………….
Helen rarely slept well. Especially since her room was one plaster wall away from Karen’s. It had been 2 years since Helen had needed a place to stay and her sister agreed to letting her crash, telling her it could only be a short while. The years went by and Helen was no closer to moving out and now even contributed to household necessities – when she could.
James wasn’t fond of the cohabitation. He was rarely fond of anything involving Helen. It gave her a little sense of satisfaction knowing her presence regularly ruins his days.
Doesn’t seem that her presence is wrecking anything tonight. She could hear Karen and James banging away like a pair of rabbits, making annoying whines and grunts. Helen understood they were a loving, married couple but couldn’t they give any consideration to her or her new job? She didn’t need a living porno occurring right next to her at 1am.
Since sleep didn’t seem to be coming any closer to her, Helen decided the best way to get any rest was to move her quilt and pillow to the living room and hope no sounds were able to drift down the stairs. She carefully bundled up her bedding and creaked her door open, making her way into the dimly lit hall. Luckily, her bedroom was right next to the stairs, so no awkward tip-toeing was needed.
The only problem was getting from the stairs to the living room. The only problem was the dark. Ever since childhood, Helen found no comfort in dark rooms. Sleep didn’t come any easier for her, if her room was bathed in black. Darkness put her on edge and made everything seem twice as vicious as before. Nothing could be trusted in the dark, not when you can hide so easily.
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Why Helen thought nothing about this before deciding to leave her room with her perfectly lit table light, she’ll never know. Could she go back now? If Karen and James were done with their sexcapades, would she wake them up? This is what being near the dark did to her, made her all anxious and jumpy, waiting for something to attack.
Just as she finally made her decision to make her way back to her room, she heard a small creak to her left. It was the smallest sound, something most people would just ignore or not even notice, but not Helen. She couldn’t help but notice. The sound sent ice to her heart and made her skin harden. The creak was coming from the bottom of the stairs.
Helen didn’t want to look, everything in her body told her to keep her head to the right and run right back through her bedroom door. Then the creak came again, louder this time. It lasted longer and sounded like a creak you get when standing on an old plank of wood that couldn’t hold the weight. Like someone was coming up the stairs. When that realisation came, she peeked.
The bottom of the stairs was covered in darkness, but as the stairs got higher more light opened from the small window behind her that rested at the top. This gave Helen the perfect vantage point to see what she saw. Four small tips of fingers were clenching the 7th step from the top. They were clenching on for dear life on that step. Helen felt the breath leave her mouth through her nose in one big huff, like the shock of it forced oxygen out of her.
The fingers were pale white and the nails covered in dirt and cut short. They didn’t move an inch from the step, just kept clinging on. Helen wasn’t sure what to do. This couldn’t be real, could it? She had to be having a nightmare or at least tricking her mind into thinking she was seeing what she was seeing. No matter how long she stood there, the scene didn’t change.
If she was having a nightmare, maybe going back to bed will wake her up? Helen wasn’t sure, but she was willing to do anything to move away from that step. Just as she was about to take one step forward, another sound hit her. A small groan rose up from the bottom of the steps. A woman’s groan. It sounded like she was in agony.
A moment of silence, then another groan. And again. And again. They were getting louder and close together, like someone was working up a sweat. Helen had to look. None of this could be real, yet it was.
As she moved her head to left and finally looked once more down the darkened steps, she wasn’t ready for what she saw.
A pale, shivering woman with long black hair was clinging onto the stairs and pulling herself upwards. Her hair lay in tangles on her head and obscured most of her face. Her arms were covered in dark bruises and red, weeping cuts. As she tried her hardest to pull herself up, the cuts on her arms kept opening and pushing out more congealed blood. As the woman got closer and more light hit her, Helen saw why it was so hard for the woman to pull herself up.
She had no legs.
Her legs looked as if they had been crudely sawn off and in their wake left a mess of flapping skin and bleeding muscle. There was so much blood, more than Helen had ever been witness to.
“He- me-“
The woman seemed to be trying to speak through her groans, but Helen couldn’t understand.
“Help me…”
The woman wanted help. But none of this was real? How could Helen help when this was all in her head?
“Help me, help me, help me, HELP ME!”
The woman suddenly pushed upwards with his arms and flung herself right to the top, right at Helen. Her hair sprung out either side, showing her mangled face. Half of her face was missing, just bloody tissue and bone peeking out. Helen couldn’t help but scream at the fate that awaited her.
“What are you doing?”
A voice. Helen has heard that voice before. She opened her eyes to see herself standing at the top of the stairs and the woman nowhere in sight.
“I said, what are you doing Helen?”
Helen looked to her right to find James standing outside his bedroom door, arms crossed and a stern look on his face.
“James? Is that you?”
“Who else is it going to be? Why are you screaming anyway? You’ve probably woken the whole neighbourhood up”
“But…but-“
Helen looked down at the stairs again, but everything seemed normal. No woman was lying on them, bleeding half to death.
“I’m going to get a drink and go back to bed and I think you should do the same”
Helen must have imagined all of it. Her mind was playing tricks on her again in the dark. It could never be trusted.
As James made his way into the bathroom for a drink, Helen wandered back into her room and huddled under her covers. She wasn’t popping her head out again until the sun came up.