Post by Deleted on May 30, 2013 13:47:29 GMT -5
…and it was late.
This was the fourth night in a row that Audrey had to cover the graveyard shift—12th work day since she had had a night off. Her eyes were weary, her mind numb. She hated the overnight. Nothing ever changed. It was always silent and dull.
She went to school for six long years to become a nurse and, since jobs were scarce, now she was paying off the debt by answering phones during a shift when no one called. It always seemed like such a waste of time. It all seemed like a waste of time. Like the moon, she could see her purpose and ambition fleeting away into the frigid night sky. Every night was more dejected than the last. Long deadening trances consumed much of her time. Solitude was her only companion aside from the flat, constant buzz of electricity. The clock was her master and it was cruel.
2:41 A.M.
It was late. It was all a waste of time.
Audrey began to fall into state of darkening wonderment. She began daydreaming. Her eyelids were heavy. Audrey settled into the annoyingly docile, yet restless, space between lucid awareness and sleep.
For the first time in three graveyard shifts, the phone rang. It squawked and gouged her clinging listlessness. Audrey took a couple of deep breaths to curb the sudden flow of adrenaline and batted her eyes to shake them free from the glassy clutches of perpetual boredom.
After four rings, she answered,[/color]”Peoria Mercy Hospital, Neurology Intensive Care Unit, this is Audrey speaking. How may I help you?”
There was a quick silence while the other voice collected its thoughts. ”…Hi there, Audrey. This is Dr. Fontoya calling from the third floor. We’ve got a bit of a situation.” Fontoya’s voice was riddled with panic that it was desperately trying to hide. There was an uncomfortable beat between the two and Fontoya continued. ”We have an empty bed. It’s supposed to belong to John Harker. He’s been a comatose patient for the last five years.”
Silence followed. Nothing but the hiss of a live phone line spoke. After a couple of seconds, Fontoya broke the wall, ”Audrey. Audrey? Audrey, I need you to answer me. Hello?”
”Yes, okay,” Audrey forced herself to answer.
Fontoya quickly continued, ”I need you to do a parameter check. Be sure to lock the entrances and go to code blue. That’s a patient out of bed. As of right now, he’s unaccounted for, not necessarily missing. I still need to check the room assignments and security shifts.”
A beat. Audrey didn’t know why she couldn’t speak. Something inside held her tongue.
”Audrey! Dammit!”
”Uh, eh, y-yeh-yes…hrm—yes. Yes. Yes sir. Code blue. I’ll check the exits and talk to security,” Audrey coughed and choked out words and sounds as Dr. Fontoya sighed with very obvious frustration.
”Okay. We’ll check this floor and we’ll make our way down to you. Get the lead out of your shoes.”
”Yeah, yes, yes sir—”
Click. Dial tone. Audrey hung up the phone. Quiet.
She blinked a couple of times and rubbed her hands over her face, stopping and scrubbing the tired out of her eyes. Suddenly, she had a job, a purpose, a reason. She was needed. She meant something. She was breathing heavy. She placed her feet firmly on the floor and quickly stood up and began to turn quickly to her right toward the wing’s outer entrance which lead to the outside world beyond the pale walls. She spun around. There he was.
Harker. Patient missing. Comatose awakened. Lifeless risen. Dead man walking. Everyone in the unit had heard about his torturous past, his coma and his horrible injuries. He had been in an eternal sleep, forever at rest. His mind had sailed into the blotchy recesses of nothingness. Now he was awake. He had risen. He was standing right in front of Audrey as real and strong as ever.
Harker was large framed, unshaven, unkept, scraggly and disheveled. He was focused on his inpatient wrist bracelet, fiddling his thick fingers against the plastic. He started clutching it, crunching it. He saw Audrey out of the corner of his gaze. He cocked his head sideways and fixed his attention on her. Audrey looked back, locking eyes.
Harker’s eyes were gray and hidden just beyond, and within, the scar/burn tissue about his face. Audrey felt how cold his eyes were. Harker’s stare was icy, absent, piercing and hypnotizing. His eyes were a window into a soul that wasn’t there. He was a man possessed by his thoughts. The man behind the eyes was brooding and focused. His eyes swirled with murky bloodlust.
Harker stared within and through Audrey. Harker’s eyes stabbed through her—they gripped, clutched and paralyzed her. Without breaking contact, Harker calmly yanked the plastic bracelet off his wrist and crunched it within his heavy fist. He rolled it around for a moment or two and dropped it to the floor where it slowly unkinked, but never completely reformed. His final chain had been broken. He was a slave no longer.
Harker stood tall and finally broke the line of sight with Audrey as he coolly turned his wide shoulders toward the tightly closed exit doors and clamped down on the crash bar which held them shut. With a swift shove, the door swung open and Harker glided, barefoot, into the outside world. As he left, Audrey came to her senses and rushed toward the glass. She peered out and the blanketed night landscape stared back. She spotted the back of Harker’s bulky shoulders and shaggy head as they gradually faded into the darkness beyond.
2:44 A.M.
It was late. It was all a matter of time. He was awake and now he could be anywhere.