Cemetery Dance

Chapter 5

Nora Kelly opened her eyes. It was night and all was quiet. A faint city breeze came through the window of her hospital room and rustled the modesty curtains drawn around the empty bed next to her.

The fog of painkillers was gone, and when she realized sleep would not return she lay very still, trying to hold back the tide of horror and sorrow threatening to overwhelm her. The world was cruel and capricious, and the very act of drawing breath seemed pointless. Even so, she tried to master her grief, to focus on the faint throbbing of her bandaged head, the sounds of the great hospital around her. Slowly, the shaking of her limbs subsided.

Bill — her husband, her lover, her friend — was dead. It wasn't just that she'd seen it; she couldfeel it in her bones. There was an absence, an emptiness. He was gone from the earth.

The shock and horror of the tragedy only seemed to grow with each passing hour, and the clarity of her thoughts was agonizing. How could this have happened? It was a nightmare, the brutal act of a pitiless God. Just last night they had been celebrating the first anniversary of their marriage. And now…now …

Once again she struggled to push back the wave of unbearable pain. Her hand reached for the call button and another dose of morphine, but she stopped herself. That was not the answer. She forced her eyes closed again, hoping for the grateful embrace of sleep but knowing it would not come. Perhaps it would never come.

She heard a noise, and a fleeting sense of déjà vu told her this same noise was what had woken her up. Her eyes flew open. It was the sound of a grunt, and it had come from the next bed in the double room. The sudden stab of panic subsided; someone must have been put into the bed while she was sleeping.

She turned her head toward it, trying to make out the person on the other side of the curtains. There was a faint sound of breathing now, ragged, stertorous. The curtains swayed and she realized it wasn't from the movement of air in the room after all, but rather from the shifting of the person in the bed. A sigh, a rustle of starched sheets. The semi — translucent curtains were backlit by the window, and she could just make out a dark silhouette. As she stared, it slowly rose up with another sigh and a wheezing grunt of effort.

A hand reached out and touched the curtains lightly from within.

Nora could see the faint shadow of a hand stroking and sliding along the gauzy folds, setting the curtains swaying. The hand found an opening, slipped through, and grasped the edge of the curtain.

Nora stared. The hand was dirty. It was mottled with dark, wet streaks — almost like blood. The longer she stared in the faint light, the more certain she became that itwas blood. Perhaps this was someone just back from the OR, or whose stitches had opened. Someone very ill.

"Are you all right?" she asked, her voice loud and hoarse in the silence.

Another grunt. The hand began drawing back the curtain very slowly. There was something horrible about the deliberation with which the steel loops of the curtain slid back along the runner. They rattled with a cold, palsied cadence. Once again, Nora fumbled along the rail of her bed for the call button.

As the curtain drew back, it revealed a dark figure, draped in ragged clothing and covered with dark splotches. Sticky, matted hair stood up from its head. Nora held her breath. As she stared, the figure slowly turned its head to look at her. The mouth opened and a guttural sound came out, like water being sucked down a drain.

Nora found the button and began pressing it, frantically.

The figure slid its feet to the floor, waited a moment as if to recover, and then stood unsteadily. For a minute, it swayed back and forth in the dim light. Then it took a small, almost experimental step toward her. As it did so, the face came into a shaft of pale light from the door transom, and Nora had the briefest glimpse of muddied, lumpen features, puffy and moist. Something about the features, about the shambling movements, brought a dreadful feeling of familiarity to her. Another unsteady step forward, the shaking arm now reaching up for her…

Nora screamed, flailing desperately at the figure, scrambling back to get away from it, her feet tangling in the bedsheets. Crying out, stabbing at the call button, she struggled to free herself from the linens. What was taking the nurses so long? She freed herself with a brutal tug, swung out of bed, knocking over the IV stand with a crash, and tumbled to the floor in a daze of horror and panic…

After a long moment of fog and confusion, she heard running feet, voices. The lights came on and a nurse was bending over her, gently raising her from the floor, speaking soothingly into her ear.

"Relax," came the voice. "You've just had a nightmare—"

"It was there!" she cried, struggling. "

Right there!

" She tried to lift her arm to point but the nurse had her arms around her, gently but firmly restraining her.

"Let's get you back into bed," the nurse said. "Nightmares are very common after a concussion."

"No! It was real, I swear!"

"Of course it seemed real. But you're all right now." The nurse eased her back into the bed and drew up the covers.

"Look! Behind the curtain!" Her head was pounding, and she could hardly think.

Another nurse came running in, hypodermic at the ready.

"I know, I know. But you're safe now…" The nurse gently dabbed at her forehead with a cool cloth. Nora felt a brief needle sting in her upper arm. A third nurse arrived, righting the IV stand.

"…Behind the curtain… in the bed…" Despite her best efforts, Nora could feel her whole body relaxing.

"In here?" the nurse asked, rising. She drew back the curtain with one hand, revealing a neatly made bed, as tight as a drum. "You see? Just a dream."

Nora lay back, her limbs growing heavy. It hadn't been real, after all.

The nurse leaned over her and smoothed down the covers, tucking her in more firmly. Vaguely, Nora could see the second nurse hanging a new bottle of saline and reattaching the line. Everything seemed to be going very far away. Nora felt tired, so tired. Of course it was a dream. She found herself not caring anymore and thinking how wonderful it was not to care…