Nightmare Clinic

Jeff woke to find himself in his hospital bed, warmed by blankets and surrounded by a familiar silence, like when you woke up too early and realized you still had a few more hours to sleep. He can't remember what it is that's disturbed him from his sleep, but other than a slight feeling of foreboding and a very mild cold clamminess to his skin nothing really seems off. The room is shadow-dark, dim enough to sleep but light enough that you could immediately see what you were doing even upon first waking, the curtains and blinds closed, the overhead light off and the bed's nightlight out, but the door open and allowing a good amount of light from the bright hallway inside. Maybe, it had been a nightmare.

Yes, in fact, he was sure of it. After nearly dying in a motorcycle accident that's probably normal, right? He'd probably dreamed about the accident and forgot upon waking. It makes sense, right? Anyway, Jeff doesn't like hospitals so he sort of figures that's likely contributing to his unease. The thing about hospitals is that they're all a little bit creepy and pretty uniform. Everything has to be white or gray or some other bland color. The nurses are all efficient but most of them are also rude and arrogant with you if you express an opinion that doesn't go along with what they want to do, or if you simply ask a question they think is stupid. They also don't give a shit if they hurt you while helping you move around. If they have to stick you with a needle several times before they're able to accurately draw blood, well you're a whiny little bitch if you complain. Or at least that's how they act, as if they didn't care about your comfort level, or lack thereof, and if you even think of complaining then you're the one that's out of line. The disinfectant in hospitals is always so strong that it practically sears the nose-hairs out of your nostrils and this hospital is no exception in that. Not to mention that everyone is either sick or dying or upset over a loved one who is sick or dying. Completely depressing.

Yet this is an environment for getting well? Surrounded by unhappiness, cut-off from the outside world except for – if you were lucky – a window to look out of? And of course all the rooms have at least one window, but you're only lucky if the nurses allow you to have them uncovered, opened, or if they were located low enough for you to actually look out of from your bed. Nothing is cozy, it's all business efficiency and screw the unreasonable patients who dislike it. Hospital floors are cold, hard, and slick enough to allow you to fall and bust your ass if your feet are wet, and he sort of felt that that's the overall atmosphere of most hospitals. Cold, hard, and slick. And don't even get him started on the bland, tasteless hospital food. Somehow, the dietary staff even managed to screw up gelatin. Gelatin, not Jell-O, because why do patients need name-brand items?

He's glad he's getting out of here soon. It would be sooner, except every time he comes close to check-out day his white blood cell count spikes and alarms his doctors and they insist on keeping him. Hopefully, the third try will be the charm and he'll be able to get the hell out of this place. If he didn't know any better, and at this point he isn't sure he does, he'd think this was a special wing of Hell. After all, he's pretty sure that if he were Satan he'd definitely include a hospital wing in there somewhere just for special cases. If he's in Hell, he isn't really sure what he did to get here. Or did all the gays get put in this wing? Whatever.

Anyway, luck works in threes. He'd heard that somewhere. So with the lucky third try and a positive attitude he can will even his white blood cells to behave, right? Of course! Then again, that means he'll need to cut out the 'I'm in Hell' thoughts.

“Jeff, what are you doing awake at this hour? You should be getting your rest. No wonder your white count keeps spiking,” a voice is saying, startling him out of his reverie. The voice is sweet and soft, not too sugary at all but definitely pleasant. Like maybe your mother or even your sister might use if they're concerned about you but don't want to make a big fuss and get you worked up, while still attempting to get to the bottom of things. Not pushy, but definitely invested in your well-being.

She's young, with an oval face, chestnut hair and hazel eyes. Eyes which were now fixed on him to complete a look of obvious disapproval that didn't seem harsh or make him feel chastised. She always sort of reminds him of an extra in 1940s black-and-white movies, the ones that were soft and sweet looking but which never got more than perhaps a line or two at the most. His father used to watch those movies all the time when Jeff was a kid and he always found the extras, the women you didn't actually get to know, to be more interesting. Not because they were quiet and sat in the background, but because they always seemed to have an air of mystery about them. You didn't know what was up with them, their story and whatnot, but they seemed like genuinely nice people that would probably make good and interesting conversation if you'd give them half the chance.

“Sorry, Cara,” he says a bit sheepishly, “I think I had another nightmare.”

“Oh, that's too bad. I was hoping those would stop,” she says, sounding genuinely concerned, not like it was just her job, Jeff thought to himself. Her voice puts him at ease, there was something to it that he couldn't quite ever put his finger on, something at once gentle and firm.

“Doesn't look like it. Is this normal?” he asks, frowning a bit and hoping that this isn't something new that will keep him from being released again in addition to or in place of the issues with his blood.

“Well, a bit. One of the side effects of the meds we have you on is nightmares, but they aren't the most common,” she admitted, smiling in a way that made Jeff feel as though she sympathizes with him.

“Can you maybe switch me to something else?” Jeff asks with a heavy, exhausted sigh and a hand moving up to his face to rub firmly along his right cheek and temple.

“I'll speak to Dr. Jenkins about it,” she answers with a smile as she finishes with her checking of the charts and monitors.

The next night Jeff refuses to eat his bland, nasty hospital food, even shoving it away from him on that wheeled whatever-it-was that they use to give you your tray in bed, and angrily yelling at them to shove the food up their asses and leave him the hell alone if they can't actually help him. His doctor had refused to change his medication and Cara isn't on shift tonight. She's the only decent nurse on the whole damn staff! At least she truly cares about her patients. Unlike the rest of these harpies.

The other nurses only seem to pretend to care, and that's if you're lucky. Usually, they're rude and act like it's a pain in their ass to do the jobs that they went through all of that schooling and preparation for, that they were hired to do. Everyone was always taught that you don't go into nursing unless you want to help people, or at least that's what he'd grown up hearing about nurses, but these nurses? They don't care about their patients at all, they just seem to care about their paychecks and being able to sit on their asses at the nurse's station gossiping with each other, reading bodice-rippers and trashy magazines that gave them shit advice on how to land and keep a man. He felt sorry for anybody who has to put up with these monsters at home. If they treat sickly strangers like this, he can't imagine how they treat significant others, elderly parents, or their kids.

He runs a hand over his bald head before deciding to get comfortable. He may as well try to sleep. Who knew? Maybe he'll get lucky and escape the nightmares. He doesn't want to ask for too much luck, though. That's greedy and will probably put a jinx on the whole damn thing.

“Positive thoughts, Jeff,” he mumbles to himself as a reminder. He's pretty sure that silently complaining about the nurses the way that he is, all of these extremely unkind thoughts – however true they were – probably don't qualify as positive thinking.

This time when he woke up it's to a sharp pain and a jolt. Looking up he sees a woman, one of the nurses. The red-head, Emily, he thinks her name is. He's just woken up and it's pretty dim in the room at the moment, more than usual even – was the door shut? – but he can make out her flaming, crimped hairstyle. Her face is a little longer than Cara's, not quite so oval, but it's usually pleasant enough. Tonight, with the shadows darker than usual her face almost looks gaunt, the cheeks almost seem hollowed-out. And maybe it's just the very little bit of moonlight that's getting through the closed curtains but she looks paler than usual, as well. Like a ghoul or a vampire or something.

He's about to open his mouth and ask what happened when he notices the strange way she's looking at him. As if she hates him with the power of all the heat and brimstone in Hell. Her mother opens and she hisses at him like some sort of mutated snake, showing two fangs, long and sharp and dripping with some sort of liquid. Blood, venom? He can't quite tell and frankly he doesn't really care, he's too distracted by the fact that this woman has fangs! Long, sharp fangs that come to obvious needle-like points. He should scream, he knows he should, but he can't. He can't look away from her mouth, either, it's like he's hypnotized with surprise and fear. Like a mouse confronted with a cobra it'd had no idea had been in its midst a moment before turning around and seeing it.

Emily shoots forward and bites his shoulder firmly, the weight of her against him sudden and shocking, the pain of her fangs sinking into the juncture of his neck and shoulder searing, as if he'd just been stabbed with a red-hot knife. Except that the heat didn't end where it touched, no it kept going, all through his entire shoulder and along his arm, liquid fire bleeding down his side. Just when he finally found his voice to cry out in panic it was too late and blackness overtook him.

He woke with a sudden jerk, only to feel a gentle hand on his chest, pushing him back down. Despite his confusion, he obeys the hand.

“Calm down, Jeff. Another nightmare?” came a soft voice.

Looking up, he was surprised to see Emily there. She looks completely normal, though. No evil eyes or dripping fangs. Just one of the nicer nurses who works this floor.

“Yeah, must have been,” he says, reaching up to rub a hand over his face. He winces at a bit of dull pain in his shoulder, prepared to dismiss it before he remembers the dream. Not only is it the same shoulder that Nightmare Emily had bit him on...it also feels like it's probably the same spot.

“Well, that's too bad. I'll make another note of it for Dr. Jenkins,” Emily says with a smile, leaving the room after setting his chart down in its usual spot.

Jeff can only nod dumbly at her retreating form. His mouth has gone dry and his skin clammy. He looks down at his shoulder, covered by the standard-issue hospital gown he wore, and raises his other hand, allowing it to hover over the sore area. Maybe he should take a look...just in case.

No, this is stupid, he thinks to himself. There's no such things as monsters and dreams do not come true. And besides...some part of him which is very dominant right now doesn't want to know. He knows it's irrational and that not looking might be trouble, because what if something were wrong with his shoulder? Someone should know about it. But, he can't make himself check. Part of him feels that if there is something wrong with his shoulder, no matter what it is, it will be confirmation that his dream had been real, that it had actually happened. And that, of course, is insane. Which would mean he is insane.

So, he moves his hand back to his side where it belongs and looks up at the ceiling. He'll make himself think of pleasant, rational, sane thoughts instead. That'll get his mind off of the nightmares and monsters and insane weirdness. He's a grown man, way too old to be scaring himself in the dark of night while he should be sleeping.

He had fallen asleep again despite himself that night, but thankfully had no more nightmares. It's a very pleasant change and he hopes it's a sign of better luck heading his way. He even aeats all of the food that's sent to his room that day, finding that when usually he has trouble simply choking the hospital food down, today he can hardly get enough of it and even finds himself disappointed and still hungry when it's gone. Maybe he can convince a nurse somehow to get him a snack a little bit later.

Even his shoulder feels good as new. In fact, he's feeling so good he hopes he might get a visitor or two today. So far no one has bothered to visit him, and while at first he had been glad that nobody could see him at his worst and make a fuss he's beginning to feel hurt and lonely at the obvious neglect. He's surprised his brother Wayne hasn't insisted on visiting. He's a worrier like that. Still, at least Wayne has called a couple of times. His boyfriend, Adam, hasn't even bothered to do that much. That really hurts.

But, if today is an indication that his luck is turning around maybe all of that will change! Maybe both Wayne and Adam will visit. And maybe there's a perfectly good and reasonable excuse for the odd behavior, too. All he has to do is wait for them to show up and explain.

Jeff waited all day and by the time dinner arrives he's no longer hungry. His upbeat attitude has left him. Nobody came to visit and no one even so much as called. Just the nurses and Dr. Jenkins, who still refuses to change his meds...especially since the nightmares seemed to be gone and he's had such a good appetite and humor earlier. Hospital staff don't really count as visitors, anyway.

At around eight that night he tries to call Adam but gets no answer. The phone just keeps ringing.

Dejected, and a bit down-right angry, Jeff hangs up after what seems like it damn well has to be around the 80th ring. He's definitely going to be giving Adam a piece of his mind once he gets out of here. What kind of behavior is this, anyway? Who treats someone you loved as if they don't matter?

It's while he's having these angry thoughts that he begins to hear the voices, feeling just a little numb and detached from himself at the same time. He probably ought to be alarmed, but he isn't. The numbness he feels in his body seems to reach to his emotions, as well.

“Are you sure? If we take him off of the medication there could be side effects,” a female voice Jeff almost thought could be Cara's said, her tone sharp.

“I understand that, I'm well aware of how the medication he is on works, Miss Nordstrom,” an irritated male voice this time, “however, he must be taken off of it completely or the whole thing is useless and we may as well not even be here,”

“It just seems like something we could get sued over,” came another female voice. Emily?

“We won't. Next of kin has consented and signed all the paperwork. Do as I ask, please,” the male voice again, this time less irritated but definitely tired.

“Another weird dream?” Cara asks as Jeff came back around. He'd swear that what he'd just experienced had been no dream. It had seemed far too real. The again, what else can it have been?

“Yeah, and this one was a real doozy,” he answers, running a hand over his bald head. Well, buzzed, actually. After so long here, though, his hair is growing in a bit more. One of the first things he would do once he was out of this joint would be to go to the barber. He'd have some good stories to tell Mack, that's for sure. Ghoulish nurses and disembodied voices. Really!

“That's too bad. You were in such good spirits earlier I was sure those dreams were gone this time,” Cara's tone was genuinely sympathetic.

“It's okay. Hey...have you heard whether maybe Adam called while I was asleep?” he asks, his tone a little more hopeful than he'd like to admit.

“No, no one's called. Were you expecting him to?” she replied, her tone sad this time because she knew the fact he'd asked at all meant that yes, he'd definitely been expecting a call and she knew who Adam was. He'd spoken to her about his boyfriend before on many occasions.

“Yeah...well, no...well, sort of. I called him earlier, but no answer. I was hoping he'd call back,” Jeff tries to keep the dejection he's feeling off of his face, but from the look on Cara's he hasn't done a very good job of it. Failed seemed like the best word.

“Oh, Jeff. I'm sorry. Maybe he'll call tomorrow,” she said, her tone the sort you'd use to convince a small child you understood how they must feel at the unfortunate beheading of a favorite doll. It's the first time he remembers ever feeling annoyed with Cara.

“You're probably right,” Jeff answers, no longer really wanting to talk to her.

There's so much smoke and fire and pain that he can barely see. At first he isn't even sure what's happening, but it suddenly comes back to him in a crash of memory. He had been on the bike with Adam when they'd been hit. His bike had been pushed into oncoming traffic before being hit again and sent onto a grass bank near the road. Everything went fuzzy after that so he supposes he must have passed out or something. He doesn't make a habit of randomly passing out, so he doesn't really know what that's supposed to be like.

But, wait...Adam! Where's Adam?! As he tries to maneuver himself around and up into a sitting position he finds it more difficult and painful than he anticipated. He has to crawl, more or less, toward the burning and smoking debris, calling Adam's name.

“Adam!! Answer me, babe, where are you!” it isn't even a question, it's an imploring. He needs to know right now where his boyfriend is, that he's safe. He needs Adam to answer him, needs to pinpoint an exact spot for his boyfriend, so that he can stop panicking, so that he can get his head back in the game. He just needs to know Adam is alive and not mortally wounded.

“Please, God, Adam, answer me!” he's pretty sure he's crying at this point, the panic and fear for his lover almost too much. His lover who isn't answering him. His lover who might be dead. Lover, not just simply boyfriend, because he doesn't think it's possible for a man's heart to wrench and squeeze so tight to the point of breathlessness over someone that he doesn't love with the entirety of that heart.

There isn't a need to do that for long before he realizes someone is screaming. Screaming for help, screaming for Jeff.

“Adam! I'm here, Adam! I'm right here, I'm coming, just hang on!” he calls out, heading to where he is certain he can hear his boyfriend's voice coming from.

Jeff gasps audibly and his eyes widen, jaw slackening and working vaguely and uselessly without sound when he realizes Adam is pinned under the burning motorcycle. He's unable to reach him, though, before the bike explodes and he feels a sudden pain, sharp and wet, in his head.

Jeff woke with a start, tears on his face. He wipes them away before running his hand through his short, blond hair again. That had seemed so real. He had even felt pain. You aren't supposed to be able to feel pain in dreams, right? Could that have been real? An actual memory? But, wait, that makes no sense. There's no way he'd be able to forget Adam being there and dying. And the nurses all seem genuinely upset that Adam wouldn't call or visit, it doesn't seem like they're keeping anything from him. Dr. Jenkins, either. And the few times he's spoken to Wayne on the phone in the beginning gave no hint of anything like that.

Anyway, he remembers distinctly that Adam had stayed home that day. He had been sick with the flu and hadn't felt like going for a ride. He even remembers kissing him goodbye and Adam telling him he was an idiot because he'd probably get the flu, too, after that. Just their usual good-natured banter before he'd left on the bike. Alone. Adam is fine.

However, after that nightmare he really can't be angry with Adam for staying away and not calling. It put things in perspective. And Jeff knows Adam has a phobia of hospitals and people in hospitals, after the way his mother had died after being sick with cancer for so long. He hates hospitals more than Jeff does. Way more.

Everything is fine. Adam is fine, he assures himself again.

“You've looked like you've seen a ghost for the past hour, Jeff. What's wrong?” Emily asks as she enters the room. Jeff can see the nurse's station when his door is open and the curtains around his bed aren't drawn, so he supposes they can see him. It strikes him as a little odd that they've been watching him for an hour, though. Don't they have any other patients?

“Yeah, sorry. I had a nightmare about Adam,” he confides. There's no one else to tell, anyway.

“Still with those crazy dreams. I wish Dr. Jenkins would find something else to put you on. But, at least you aren't having any physical side effects. I think that's what he's most concerned with,” Emily says as she helps add another pillow to the ones already propping him up, then adjusts the bed a bit for him.

“I almost wish I had something physical instead,” he says with a heavy sigh, “I'd give anything not to have another dream like that again.”

“Don't say that, you could jinx yourself,” Emily scolded gently, frowning deeply.

Jeff doesn't say anything to that, so she checks some of the monitors, writes something on his chart and leaves the room again.

He's glad she's gone, he's still weirded out over that dream he'd had about her. He knows it's silly and totally irrational. Monster nurses, really? But, he can't shake the feeling of creepy crawlies whenever she came around anymore. He wishes Cara could be the only nurse that would see him. He trusts her the most. Of course, he knows and understands why that isn't possible. Still doesn't change the fact that Emily weirds him out now, though.

“Any word from the brother?” asks the voice that sounds suspiciously like Dr. Jenkins. Jeff has the idea that he must be dreaming again, because he has that odd sensation of trying to move, to open his eyes, or make some noise but being unable to that often occurrs in dreams. What is it called? Sleep paralysis or something like that.

“No, not yet. It's difficult to get a hold of him. He stopped visiting a few months ago,” Emily answers, matter-of-factly. Or, at least it's the voice that sounds like Emily's. It isn't really her. Just a figment of his imagination.

“We can't transfer the patient until his next of kin signs off on it,” Dr. Jenkins sounded exasperated.

“We'll keep trying,” Cara's voice this time. She's the one Jenkins had called Nordstrom in the last dream like this he had had. Or had that been Emily?

Once Jeff wakes up he eats some of the food waiting for him, though he isn't very hungry. He understands the medication he's on is giving him weird dreams, but why these particular dreams? Why are they taking on the “forms” that they are?

Is this driven by his subconscious somehow? They can't be memories. Well, alright, the last two could, possibly, but he doesn't think so. He would have known, remembered, in a much more obvious and tangible way if Adam had died. He knows he would have. How do you not know something like that. He refuses to entertain the idea that he would have forgotten for any reason, even taking into account stress and head trauma. He simply refuses. Maybe, just maybe, that last dream was his overhearing a conversation the doctor and nurses were having about. Or hell, even about another patient.

He still doesn't think so, though. No, they're all dreams. But, why? Why these dreams all of a sudden? Can they be a subconscious attempt to make him feel better about his apparent abandonment by his family? That does seem to make sense. Although, he feels bad that the way he's subconsciously choosing to explain it away is to turn himself into a coma patient whose prospects for waking up are apparently so hopeless that even his brother had stopped coming to visit.

And poor Adam! At least Wayne is alive in the dreams, even if absent. He's managed to subconsciously kill Adam in a very violent and horrific way. He supposes once he's out of here he may need to see a shrink or something about this.

Maybe Wayne's behavior in the dream is a product of his resentment towards his brother's absence, and Adam's fiery death is a product of his anger over the same sort of behavior. Still, why a coma patient? Is it just easier or is it maybe a manifestation of his feelings of helplessness over being unable to leave the hospital or communicate with anybody except his doctor and the nurses on this floor?

Actually, this is starting to make a lot of sense. Maybe, he doesn't need that shrink after all.

“Do you detect any brain activity?” asked Dr. Jenkins, already knowing the answer. That didn't matter, though, it was procedure and he happened to be one of those doctors who insisted everything be done by the book.

“Yes, but there's no picture. Everything points to some type of awareness, but the machine won't display,” Emily answered, a bite to her voice and an exasperated sigh following.

“It doesn't matter. We went into this knowing it was a long shot. Testing like this on coma patients isn't ideal. Not for this. Even if we did get a picture, it could be a fluke or malfunction. The only real way to be sure would be if he woke up and told us,” Dr. Jenkins reminded in a tone of voice befitting a university professor who had to stop in the middle of a lecture to remind a student of something that is so basic it should go without saying at this stage.

“I suppose, but that's what this device was developed for. To allow us to get into the minds of coma patients and see what's going on. Maybe one day even leading to a way to communicate with certain patients,” Cara spoke up.

“I know, but medical science takes time. It may be years before we develop a properly functioning device,” Dr. Jenkins explained, his tone gentle but firm, a school counselor explaining to a student that it was perfectly alright to be disappointed that they didn't do as well as they had hoped on the SATs but now that they knew what to expect they'd be better equipped to get a better score the next time.

Still, all parties in the room silently wondered just what it was that Patient 64JQ7-58 could be dreaming about.

End