Scatter's thoughts crushed to ice in the heat of the apparition wake before him. The white-fright nurse with her horn-rimmed eyes, antiseptic smile and starched disguise hung there like a full balloon.
Her hands, the colour of a fish's belly, squirmed in some macabre jelly-dance as she squinted around the room full of corners. She began to go about her daily rounds, prodding here, buzzing there.
Pretty soon, the rooms were brushing with nurses , and that dream wagon with its hundred doors and brown bottles with pills for mister Simms whose head is full of hornets and the thick gooey cream they plaster all over mister CampbelI's arse cos the cot-rot's got him.
Then she was back. She passed his bed, looking down at the chart clipped to the bottom end. He shut his eyes quickly, feigning sleep. He smelt her cheap perfume wafting closer as she came to check his Plugs. And bring his drugs.
"Rise and shine mister, it’s time to wake up!" Her cheery voice carried to him on waves of garlic and tobacco, and he squeezed his eyes tighter. "I've got some nice hot Maltebella for you!"
She had him behind the shoulders now, lifting him up from the cocoon of haze that he wanted to lie in for just a moment longer. Drughaze, he knew that. Keeping him hanging somewhere between the Darkness, and the light. But keeping him from remembering other things. Distant things. Ancient things.
"Aaaah, so there you arel" Her balloon face now bobbing all around the room, as he squeezed open his eyes again.
He was sitting up now, and she was spooning the puke into his mouth. He stared down into the brown goo, with the spoon standing upright in it, all by itself. She was moving away. He moved his hand toward the spoon, in slow-motion like every move he made, and tried to grab the handle.
He missed. So what. Nobody saw. He tried again. And grabbed the big silver spoon by its handle. He had it now. He had the spoon, and lifted it up to his face. It was coming toward him, huge and dripping brown sludge. He brought it closer to his face, watching the brown stuff oozing off it as it approached. Thick lumps of what was it? Thick lumps of mud. Of the Ancient.
From where he lay, Scatter could see the statue of St. Francis standing at the shadowed south end of the garden. The moon slung ripped shreds of its softly glowing fabric over the statue’s cold shoulders, casting an animation over the marbled robes and frozen limbs.
He had been without drugs for a full twenty hours, and the buzzy net had lifted its cloying weave from his senses; yet his head still hummed with a dulling numbness and his body seeped a heavy sweat into the crispy sheets.
Slowly, he swung his legs over the iron railings and sat on the edge of the bed, his feet just brushing the worn nylon carpet. He pushed himself up and off the bed, and made his way over to the door.
Outside, the wind was picking at the edges of the trees, and the garden shivered and whispered. He flicked the latch and slid open the glass door, which glided softly across its tracks. The wind lifted the curtains, which billowed around his shoulders. He stepped out into the garden and stood among the scurrying leaves. At once, he felt the moon tug at his primal tide, and he felt himself drawn towards the dark bushes where the shadows lay in heavy folds.
He sat down on the damp earth and began to scratch together the leaves that lay scattered around him. Shrouded in darkness, he began to crawl around in the freshly turned soil, gathering fallen branches and tufts of fern and groundcover. As he worked, he felt his strength returning, and his skin prickled with a familiar agitation.
He tore the gown from his body, and began to cake himself with the soft, muddy loam.
Soon, he had fashioned a large nest under the canopy of the bushes. Leaving it, he rummaged deeper into the darkness where the garden grew wild behind its carefully tended perimeter. Here, he collected large branches, which lay rotting in the dense undergrowth, dragging them over to his nest. These he planted into the soil, and wove other twigs and branches among them, forming a screen between him and the hospital building.
High above him, the moon was gathering great shrouds of dark brooding cloud around its fading light. The wind blew a dizzy dance across the lawns, sweeping the leaves up in waves that rustled across the garden.
In the last drops of moonlight that hung in the trees around him, Scatter noticed the long thorns of the Mace Palm, knotted among a tangle of vines. He pushed his way into the thicket, which snatched at his flesh and rutted jagged strips from his naked body.
Where he crawled, stubby thornheads pierced deep into his hands and knees. He smashed at the sharp, dry web of branches with his arms and was soon able to reach out and pull one of the large palm fronds from the tree. Turning, he made his way back to his nest, tugging at the long frond as it snared in the tangled bush. Reaching the soft pile of leaves, he sat down and tuned in to the pain points that seared over his body. He pulled the palm frond onto his lap, and began to snap the long, sharp spears from its curved spine.
It had started to rain.
The new nurse assigned to Scatter's ward this evening was starting out on the first of her nightshift rounds. Most of the patients on her roster so far seemed quite comfortable, with the exception of Simms in ward B, who was having a blistering shouting match with a pair of saline drip bags that were hanging over his bed.
Approaching Scatter's ward, she noticed first the waving shadows of the curtains that cast a macabre dance on the far passage wall. As she neared the door, she felt the first creeping grasps of a chill wind fold its grapples around her bustling stockinged legs. She became aware of other shapes blowing in the dim light of the hospital passage. Thousands of dancing wings tossed like broken butterflies in the blur around her. She turned into Scatter's room, and had to shield her eyes from the dusty maelstrom that whistled around the small ward. The leaves slapped against her, some scratching off her to continue their malevolent spin-cycle, others plastering themselves tightly against her skin. She leaned into the cauldron and stumbled for the door, wrestling with the fiercely leaping curtains. With some effort, she managed to slide the door shut. Immediately, the curtains fell limp, one of them draping itself over the nurse's shoulders. She had her hands up to her face, and now she began to wipe the grit and leaves from her eyes, shagging out her hair to release the leaves and small twigs stuck there.
She dropped her hands to dust off her uniform, opening her eyes to survey the mess in the room. What she saw in front of her froze the blood in her veins, and an icy hum buzzed in her bones. Above the bed, the leaves continued to circle wildly; a softly whispering twister in the still, windless room.
Down the hall, the security guard heard her scream, and raced to the ward.
He found her wrapped in curtains, lying on a carpet of leaves.
By the time the alarm was raised, the storm had passed over the hospital and was gathering itself far off the coast. The moon was still covered in a dark mat of cloud, which released the last gentle sheets of rain.
In the gardens around the hospital, shafts of torchlight flashed in the darkness, as the hospital staff began their search for the missing patient.
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