Chapter 2

Rose waited it seemed for hours for the nurse to come into her room to give her the sedative. She didn’t really want the shot, she just wanted the opportunity to question the nurse about the events that had transpired over the course of the last few days.

When Evi walked in, she was wearing a smile. She was a slightly overweight fifty year old nurse. Rose had met her a time or two during one of her mother’s incarcerations. She was dressed in a large white smock-type gown with white stockings and cushioned white sneakers. She had short-cropped curly black hair and wide, round gray eyes. She had a mole close to her left eye. Her hands were fat and her upper arms shook when she walked. She had an odor about her. It was not vile, nor disgusting in any way. It was medicinal to an extent, a mixture of rubbing alcohol and baby powder.

Evi greeted Rose with a brisk greeting, raising the long-needled syringe in the air. A small trickle of cleared liquid oozed from the tip. The nurse began to lower the syringe to her IV when Rose spoke out quietly.

"I want to speak to Iris," Rose demanded, raising herself to better see the nurse.

Evi’s brows furrowed in confusion. "I’m sorry," she said in response to Rose’s earlier command.

"I said, I want to speak to Iris."

The nurse’s jubilation seemed to vanish instantly. She became guarded, her eyes shadowed by something queer and quizzical. "I’m sorry, who is Iris?" Evi asked.

Rose was puzzled by this. "She’s a nurse," Rose admitted. "She’s the one who called me the night I had my accident."

Evi’s laughter erupted unexpectedly, startling Rose. "Green Lake doesn’t have anyone working here by the name of Iris. Do you have a last name?"

Rose thought a moment. She remembered the brief conversation she had had that night with the nurse who had called her about her mother’s condition. "No. No, I have no information other than the name Iris. She called me to tell me that my mother had taken an overdose of sleeping pills."

Evi slanted her nose down to look at Rose. "So that’s why you were going so fast that night. And in the rain."

Rose answered with an irritated, "Yes. She said that my mother was going to die." Rose was growing annoyed and perturbed. "When someone calls you and tells you that your mother might die, you react in unusual ways."

The woman’s round belly rumbled as she found Rose’s words amusing. "Yes, I would guess that to be true."

"Was my mother in the hospital the night I had my accident?"

"Oh no," she admitted hurriedly. "You’re mother hasn’t been a patient here since last month. About the fifteenth, if I remember correctly."

Rose squeezed her hands into fists. "What was she here for?" Rose wanted to know. "Why wasn’t I notified."

Evi brushed her hand, palm up, into the hair. "She was having hallucination’s again. You know how she gets. Sees things that aren’t there, talking to them."

"Had she been drinking?"

"Some, but not much."

"Why didn’t you call me?"

Evi shrugged her shoulders casually. "She didn’t want you to worry about her."

"And I told you all, I am to be notified any time she is admitted here."

"Yes, we have that documented in her file."

Outraged, Rose snapped, "And why weren’t those orders obeyed?"

"We didn’t think it was necessary."

Rose’s fury was growing. "That was not your choice to make. Everything concerning my mother is to be relayed to me. What did you do to her?"

Evi’s face grew pale. She had been properly reprimanded and she knew it. "The doctor had wanted to have her admitted into Winterpark. but she wouldn’t hear of it."

"Why is that?"

Evi shrugged again. Rose noticed how large her neck was, and how big her shoulders were. She would not want to tangle with this woman. "Beats me. You know how your mother is. I just figured she was having one of her moments that would soon pass, then she would be stable again."

"How long did it take to stabilize her?"

"No more than a day. It usually doesn’t take long." Evi’s words trailed off. "But of course you know that."

Rose shook her head in acknowledgment. "Yes, I do. Was she taking her medication?"

"No, she wasn’t," Evi admitted solemnly. "I doubt she is taking it now. You’re mother is a very stubborn woman."

"Who was the doctor on call that night?" Rose asked unemotionally. She did not want to provoke suspicion in Evi.

"It was Dr. Vanderfelt," Evi said responsively. She patted at the center of the pillow, encouraging Rose to lay back so that she could take her medication.

Rose heeded to her silent message and allowed herself to be sedated. In a few minutes her lids were growing heavy. Her body became listless and she was drifting off to a dark and weightless place. A place where you are suspended into air. You can neither move, talk, or respond in any way. A place where you know nothing, feel nothing, and remember even less. It was a placed she liked.

Rose woke with a start. Her face turned ashen with the fear that had jolted her awake. For a moment she thought she heard someone crying. The sound was faint, faraway. It echoed in her mind over and over again. It was more like the sobbing of a distraught child. The room was basked in a soft glow of a light just outside her bedroom. Her room was just in front of the nurses station. In the intensive care unit all walls were constructed of glass so that the nurses could have a good view of you. The nurses were rarely at their station and that was okay with Rose. She liked it that way. It gave her a small amount of privacy. But at the moment being alone was the last thing she needed.

Rose closed her eyes and tried to drift off to sleep again. But as she closed her eyes, the tormented cry came back again. It was a girl’s voice. Rose was sure of it. The sound was full of anguish, almost tortured as if the girl was suffering a great deal.

"Help me," the girl whispered.

Rose sat frozen, her pulses racing with fear. She glanced around terror-struck. She was not certain that she had heard anything, or if the medication was playing tricks on her mind. When she decided it was the latter, Rose once again leaned back to return to sleep.

"Please help me."

The words were faint, it seemed some where in the distance, far far away. The whispers sent chills thrumming through Rose’s body. Slowly she rolled over in the bed, slowly coming to an upright position. Her ribs were bound tightly with bandages and she was seized with mild pain on the left side of her ribs.

When she was steady on her feet, she began to painfully, and cautiously maneuver out of the room. The nurses were no where in site. She glanced down the left wing of the hall, then the right. When she didn’t see anything, she began to proceed to the right where more rooms were located.

It was still and quiet, except for the continued sobbing and the occasional whispers. As Rose edged further into the corridor the crying grew louder. She could see a bend just up ahead. She was certain the crying was coming from that direction.

"You must help me."

Rose continued to move at a slow, steady pace. She had not walked in nearly a weak. Her ribs were sore and her lungs ached with each breath she took. She looked for signs of the nurses and saw none. As she made the final turn in the hall, Rose grew lifeless. Within seconds her breath was sucked from her lungs. Her knees began to quiver. Before long her hands were shaking to and her head began to spin.

"Help me," the young girl begged quietly. "You must help me."

Rose stood facing the very girl that had haunted her thoughts the last five days. She appeared to be in her early teens, sixteen or seventeen, she was not certain. The girl would have been pretty, but her face was badly marred. Thick, ragged scars were etched across most of her face. The girl was tall, with long curly brown hair that reached a few inches below her shoulders. She wore a pretty green and white ruffled dress that hung down past her knees. She wore a simple pair a black patent shoes. It was the eyes she found so fascinating. They were much like her mother’s eyes.

Rose took a tentative step forward and the girl did not move. When the girl did not move, Rose inched forward one step at a time. After a few steps, Rose was close enough to see the girl more clearly. Her eyes were red and swollen, as if she had been crying for some time. Rose could see a bleakness in them, a sadness that could not be removed. The collar of the dress was full and ruffled, but it did little to hide the marks around the girls neck.

When she realized that Rose was staring at them, the girl covered them with her dainty hands, shy and timid, almost embarrassed. Her hands were slim and badly wrinkled from numerous skin graphs. "Will you please help me?" the girl asked again.

Rose began to look around again. "Do you need a nurse?" Rose turned back to more closely inspect the girl. She was drawn to the eyes. Always the eyes. Haunting, yet tender. Frightening, yet soft and nurturing. The girl had a youthful appearance about her. Innocence radiated from her.

"No, they cannot help me like you can."

Rose was confused more than ever. She didn’t know this girl. Had never seen her before, and was not sure how in the world she could ever help her.

"Where are you going?" Rose asked curiously. "Shouldn’t you be in bed. You have been hurt. I hit you with my car, didn’t I?"

"Yes, you did," the girl admitted. "But don’t worry," she chided softly. "You did not hurt me." The quality of her voice was sobering.

Rose was deep in thought. The night of the crash flashed in her memory. "I remember hearing the thud. I felt the car make impact. You were lying on the ground when I passed out."

There was no possible way the girl could have gotten up and walked away from the accident. Rose was sure that she had killed the girl. For a moment Rose was not sure how to react. Scared. Confused. Worried. For a moment she felt as if she were the one losing her mind. Not her mother. None of the pieces of the puzzle fit together. Nothing made sense.

"Why are you here?" Rose questioned, watching the girl closely.

The girl’s expression did not change. Her skin was a pasty white. Her eyes were round, hollow, with dark circles. Her lips were slightly blue.

For a moment she did not speak. Rose stood suspended, waiting for her reply. In a moment the girl stepped away from her, turned her back and began to walk away. Rose noticed that when she walked, the girl drug her right leg as if it had been injured in some way. Or maybe she had been born with a handicap.

Rose was stunned. "Where are you going?" she asked.

The girl glanced quickly over her shoulder only once. "Shhhh...." she whispered, the nurses are coming. "They mustn’t see me."

"But Why?"

The girl turned the corner and disappeared without another word. Rose ran down the hall yelling after the girl, but when she arrived at the bend, the girl was gone, vanished. There was no sign of her any where. Rose was dumbfounded. Perplexed in a way she never thought possible. She could not explain what had just transpired. Was this how her mother felt every day of her life? It felt as if something weren’t right, but didn’t know quite how to fix it.

When she turned to go back to her room, Evi and another nurse were standing behind her, their arms crossed, watching her expression with curious eyes.

"What are you doing out of bed?" Evi asked, a bit perturbed.

"I heard someone crying. I came to help them," Rose explained.

"There are no other patients on this floor," the other nurse spoke in a snide voice. "You are the only one left."

This struck Rose as odd. "Where is my mother?" she questioned instantly.

"We transported her to the third floor so she could be close to the lung center, in case she should stop breathing again."

"Come now," Evi commanded in a gently chiding voice. "I will give you another sedative to help you sleep."

Evi reached for Rose’s elbow. She was angry and flinched her arm away. She stood glaring at the two nurses with rage in her eyes. "What is it with you people? I do not want, nor need a sedative. I want to get out of here."

Evi smiled politely. "You have been hurt. You need to rest and to heal first before the doctor will release you."

"Well I happen to think that I am capable of getting up and walking out of this hospital on my own, with or without the doctor’s release."

This seemed to alarm the nurses. They glanced at one another almost instantly. Rose stormed off without another word, her footsteps echoing down the hall. The further away she got from the nurses, the faster she began to walk until she was nearly at a full run.

She stopped by her room, only long enough to grab her mother’s purse that had the keys to her car.

Evi and the other nurse trotted behind her just in time to see her dash from her room. Rose ran as fast as she could, feeling a slicing pain in her ribs. She grunted as she turned a corner. She found a stairwell and began to descend its steps in a hurried fashion.

She scampered down them two at a time. With each step it was agony. When she bolted down the lest step, she slammed into the set of double doors. She expected them to open instantly at her touch. But they wouldn’t budge. When she stepped back to inspect them, she saw a thick steel chain wrapped around the handles to keep them from opening.

She was trapped. Her heart was racing in her chest. Her legs were beginning to hurt. But she couldn’t stop. She had to find away out of there.

She scampered her way back up to the second floor. The doors were chained shut to. And the third floor, and the fourth. She was not sure what to do and decided the only thing she could do was return to the fifth floor where she had come from.

Slowly she cracked the door ajar just enough to see down the hallway. She saw nothing. No shadows. No people. It was dark and hazy. Still only a faint light illuminated the surroundings. When Rose thought it was safe to emerge, she opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.

Before she could take a step forward, she was seized by Evi and the other nurse. Where Evi was large and round, the other nurse was tall and slender, but bearing massive strength. Her face was hard and cold. Her eyes blazed with a savageness that Rose had never witnessed before.

She fought to get away. Her struggle was futile for there was only one of her and two of them. Together the nurses began to carry Rose to her room. She made it difficult for them, allowing her body to go limp and her knees drug against the floor.

Rose noticed instantly that a syringe lay on the night stand beside her bed. She would get the sedative whether she wanted it or not.

"You will never try to leave again," the nurse said between clenched teeth.

The two nurses thrust her into bed. She cried out as she felt the jarring of her ribs. Rose felt the stinging prick of the needle, then the burning of the liquid as it was injected beneath her flesh. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head almost instantly, then she lay lifeless on the bed.

When Rose awoke hours later it was to find that her wrists had been tied to the bed using scraps of white bedding. There were blue and purple bruises up and down her arms. Bruises she did not remember seeing earlier.

She twisted her arms to try and free herself from the restraints. This only caused her more pain. The fabric rubbed against her skin and made it raw. But she continued to struggle until she drew blood from her own wounds.

She moaned, squinting her eyes against the onslaught of pain that besieged her. She began to cry as she realized she was not getting loose. She could not see Evi or the other nurse. That seemed customary for the two of them. They were as mysterious as the girl she had seen in the hall. And they were full of evil and hate. For the first time in her life, Rose was scared. For the first time in her life, she was beginning to realize just what her mother had been going through all of her life.

As Rose lay there weeping, she heard a gentle whisper. For a moment she stopped the tears to listen. Her eyes were open wide. Her heart hammered in her chest. Then her tears resumed.

"Shhhhh," the voice commanded. "Don’t let them hear you. They will know you are awake."

Rose could hear the voice of the girl from the hallway. She could hear, but could not see her. Suddenly it was as if she had stepped out of the darkness and into her room. Rose began to shake with fear. Her eyes grew dark and hesitant. She shuddered as the girl approached her bed.

"Don’t be afraid," she advised sweetly. "I won’t hurt you."

Rose watched with trembling lips as the girl began to untie her from the bed.

"You must be very quiet," the girl warned.

When Rose’s arms were freed from the restraints, she rubbed her wrists smearing blood. She wiped her palms against her hospital gown.

"Come," the girl suggested. "Follow me. I will show you the way out."

"How do you know your way around here?" Rose asked, following behind the girl as they darted out into the hallway.

"I come here often," she admitted. "I like to walk the halls sometimes when I am lonely."

Rose said nothing more as they forged ahead. The took a turn down one hall, then a second. It was dreadfully dark, but they continued down the corridors. Behind them were halls of rooms where patients often resided from time to time. But as they moved forward like silent creatures of the night, they approached a dingy set of offices and storage rooms. Dirt covered walls and floors were all Rose could see. The stench was horrible. Trash littered the floor in places. Rose saw a rat scurry across her path. She gasped in shock.

"Shhhh," the girl reminded her.

Rose covered her mouth to silence herself. They began to trudge forward. At the end of this hallway was a set of ancient elevators that looked hardly used. The girl pushed the down arrow and waited. A slight ding alerted them that the elevator was there.

Rose hesitated, showing uncertainty.

"You must come now. This is your only way out."

"What about my mother?" Rose questioned as the girl tugged her arm and forced her onto the elevators. The doors shut immediately, locking them inside.

"I will come after your mother later. She will be all right until then."

The elevator creaked and groaned as it slowly made its way down. Rose watched the numbers light up as each floor was passed over. When the doors opened, the two girls stepped into a basement. A few feet in front of them was a large waste container overflowing with boxes and trash, soiled linens, discarded uneaten food. It was appalling and disgusting. Rose felt an instant revulsion to this place. She felt the rush of bile in her throat.

"This way," the girl instructed.

They stepped over trash, large boxes, litter of all sorts. She tip-toed her way across it, afraid she may step on something unwanted. Behind the trash container were stacks of boxes laid out like a staircase leading to a broken window.

First the girl began to ascend the make-shift steps. She glanced back to make sure Rose was following. When she was satisfied she was coming, she hoisted herself up onto the ledge of the broken window. She heard a horrendous scream.

The girl looked back at Rose. She was staring down at a body half covered with garbage. The hair was thick and matted in knots. A rat sat nearby gnawing on part of her arm. Her eyes solid white orbs.

In horror Rose began to scamper out of the room. She pushed past the girl and out of the window. Once she was outside she hung her head over and wretched into the grass. She wretched over and over again until she dropped to her knees sobbing.

It took her some time to realize that she was, once again, alone. The girl was gone. Rose was beginning to doubt her own sanity. She could not explain all that was happening to her. She wanted to know who this girl was. Why she kept appearing in her life. She had to have answers. And soon. Before it was too late.