The Hole

2

Janet Dickson barely had time to open the door in the morning before the office space she rather grandly called The Surgery started to fill up. Most mornings she’d see one or two walk-in patients this early, and then have time for a leisurely coffee and a bagel before starting her scheduled appointments at ten.

Normally she’d see a maximum of twenty patients a day, but twice that number had already filed into the waiting room, and more cars were arriving outside every minute. It was already obvious that her schedule for the day was no more than a forlorn hope, and that she had to steel herself for not only dealing with the walk-ins, but also explaining to those who already had appointments that she wouldn’t be able to honor the agreement.

I need a receptionist.

She laughed at the thought. She barely made enough money to pay her own bills. The town just wasn’t big enough to warrant hiring more staff. It was normally too quiet. That was why she’d come here. A year in a big-city hospital dealing with every ailment modern civilization could throw at her had burned out most of her idealism, but she still thought she could make a difference, somewhere quieter… somewhere slower. She had thought she’d chosen the perfect town, with a low crime rate, healthy outdoor lifestyles, and just enough elderly and children to keep her busy. Most of the time she had a relaxed and stress-free day.

Except for today.

“Try to form a queue,” she shouted above the hubbub. “I’ll get to you all eventually. And if anybody wants to go for a coffee, I’ll have a large latte.”

That got her a laugh and at least broke some of the tension in the room. But it was obvious that something had the townsfolk spooked.

She heard about the hum from her second patient. On a normal visiting day Ellen Simmons would have been first in line, first with the gossip, and usually with a different complaint from the one she’d protested long and loud about on her last visit. Today the older woman had to play second fiddle to Jim McClay, and she was none too happy about having to wait the extra two minutes.

“There’s nothing wrong with that man that a hard day’s work wouldn’t cure,” was the first thing she said as she closed the door behind her.

“That’s your medical opinion, is it, Ellen?” Janet said, trying, but not completely succeeding, to keep exasperation out of her voice.

“Don’t need no medical opinion to know a slacker when I see one. You’re a soft touch, Doc. And everybody knows it. Why, just yesterday, Mrs. Ellinson said…”

And that was the start of a litany of perceived slights and scurrilous gossip that Janet had learned a long time ago was best ignored. She only started to pay attention when the woman mentioned waking up in the night.

“It was terrible. At first I thought it was an earthquake. The whole room shook, and two of my best china figures fell off the dressing table. I’m not even sure glue will fix them. I had them off my Frank’s mother for our first anniversary. Did I ever tell you…”

Janet gave the woman a verbal prod, otherwise the story she actually wanted to hear might never get told, lost in a labyrinthine pathway of Ellen Simmons’ stray thoughts made verbal.

“What time was this?” Janet asked.

The older woman looked none too pleased to be interrupted, but gave in when Janet raised an eyebrow.

“Around one,” she finally said. “And it got worse right quick soon after. I thought my head was going to explode. Like having a dentist drilling into my skull. Then the nosebleed came… all over my best nightgown and down across the quilt. I’ll never get the stain out. I said to Mrs. Hewitt out in the waiting room, ‘Who’s going to pay, that’s what I want to know?’ and do you know what that bitch said?”

Janet tuned the woman out again. Ellen Simmons was in her early fifties, but she had the dress code and mannerisms of someone twenty years older. She reminded Janet of one of her own aunts, a widow from the age of twenty who reached eighty-five without having a good word to say about anybody, her face as dry and sour as her heart. Ellen had tried over the past few months to get Janet involved in what she called the life of the town—needlework classes, baking classes, Bible readings. Each time Janet had refused, politely but firmly, and each time Ellen Simmons got a little colder and a little more cutting in her tone. Janet guessed that she might be the subject of some gossip on her own behalf outside the surgery.

But that’s where it is, outside the surgery. It’s of little importance.

She’d lost the train of the conversation in her reverie; her hands had been working in a routine of dabbing and cleaning while the older woman talked. It was obvious that Ellen Simmons was waiting for an answer to a question Janet hadn’t heard. She made a noncommittal ‘um,’ hoping that was enough to satisfy the woman. It seemed to do the trick. Ellen Simmons left, but as ever, she had a passing barb to fling.

“It’ll be something to do with that damned trailer park. You mark my words.”

The morning got steadily busier, mostly nosebleeds and headaches of varying degrees of severity. She sent some of them next door to the pharmacy for pills and cotton swabs, but others needed closer attention, particularly the elderly and the young. Two in particular gave cause for concern; old man Parks was white, his eyes fluttering and pulse racing, while young Joshua Timmons bled both nasally and rectally. By the time Janet got an ambulance organized and got them headed at speed up the road to County, she had thirty more people stuffed into her small waiting room and spilling out into the parking bay outside.

Over the course of a manic morning she was to hear many more tales of splitting headaches and nosebleeds, strange vibrations and worries of earthquakes. She didn’t see the pattern until she got a break at lunchtime, and by then the source was all too obvious.