The Ghost
or How I Became A Female Paraplegic
It was a dark and stormy night. Isn’t that how all the badly written stories are supposed to start? Unfortunately for me, it was true.
I had been a drifter since I was 16. Moving from place to place on foot or hitch-hiking, doing odd jobs to earn enough money to get me to the next town my travels took me to. When the night in question happened I was 23 years old. I had been traveling in the central United States and was in a rural area with a moderate sized town in the distance as my destination. It was nearing night fall and I could tell a major storm was gathering over head. I was sure that it was going to let loose before I found decent shelter, and I was right. I got drenched once it started coming down, but having been hiking for the past 7 years I had my other clothing packed inside waterproof bags so I wasn’t too concerned about that. The bad thing was the rain was ice cold so I wanted out of this weather as soon as I could find some place. The sun was going below the horizon to my right as I was passing a small rise to my left and the light from the sun along with a big flash of lightning lit up a building just beyond the rise in the land. Immediately I headed for it hoping to at least find a corner out of the rain if I could not gain entry into the place.
I hurried over to the building to find it was a hospital that appeared to be abandoned. Walking around it I found the emergency entrance which had a large cover over it that got me out of the direct rain pouring down, but not away from the heavy winds that were whipping around. I went all the way up to the entrance doors hoping to get better shelter from the weather and to my amazement the automatic doors slid open. Not wasting a chance like this I went right inside and got out of the rain and wind howling around outside. It was dark inside for the most part, just a couple widely spaced and rather small dim emergency lights were glowing down a couple directions I could initially see. I dropped my backpack on a chair in the waiting area and pulled out my flashlight from an external pocket to take a look around. After the first few minutes I realized that while abandoned this hospital was in great condition, which left me wondering why nobody was here. None of the lights I tried worked, and the computers I came across would not turn on, so I assumed there was no power and the emergency lights were probably running on batteries. There were a few wheelchairs and gurneys in the hallways, and curtains were still hanging in the exam rooms I looked into. Any of the doors I tried opened right up, and behind one of them I found what appeared to be a supply closet that was mostly empty, but in one corner what must have been the linen supply shelves still had towels, blankets, and even patient exam gowns and slippers. I grabbed a couple towels a long gown and slippers, and immediately stripped off all my wet clothing right down to my birthday suit, not really caring I was nude since I was alone. Then I dried my self and put on the patient gown and slippers to cover up a bit. My wet clothing was laid out to dry on a gurney just outside the supply closet and I continued to look around.
Now that I was at least dry, I searched for vendor machines in the hopes that something would still be in them, but every one I found were all empty and without power. I continued to pad around in my slippers and I found different procedure rooms and a couple surgery rooms, all devoid of any actual medical supplies but still having exam or procedure tables in them. I eventually got bored of poking around the ER and headed back towards the waiting area to get my bag. Along the way I passed by the same supply closet and gurney where I had gotten the towels to dry off with, and where I had left my clothes to dry, not realizing my wet clothes and the wet towels were missing from where I had left them. I arrived at the waiting area and my backpack was not there. Seeing that the seating went on around a corner I went and looked thinking I had mistaken where I thought my bag was at but when I shined my light around all the seats were empty.
“What in the ...?” I exclaimed. “I know I left my pack around here somewhere. Now where in the hell is it?”
I went back to where my clothes should be at only to realize they were missing. Looking at the gurney I saw there were several wet spots on it so I knew I had the right one, but no clothes. I headed back to the seat I thought I had left my pack on, and sure enough when I check it was wet. Someone was here and had taken my belongings!
“Alright,” I said loudly, “Whoever is in here had better show them self and return my things. This isn’t funny.”
I waited a minute for someone to come out or respond, but there was nothing. No sounds that were out of place or anything. I looked down at the floor to see if there was a trail of water from my backpack that would point me in the direction it had been taken, and there was nothing. The floor was perfectly dry.
“Dammit.”
Now what was I going to do? All I had was my flashlight, and the exam gown and slippers I was currently wearing. Everything else was gone. I began a systematic search of the entire floor instead of randomly wandering around this time. As I went I would close any doors I found to indicate I had already been there since so far most doors I found were open, and where there were curtains hanging I would pull them out even with the end of the beds. It took me an hour, and I found nothing new as far as my belongings were concerned. It still appeared I was here alone and my stuff was gone. I found a lounge, a gift shop, and several offices, but there was nothing of any real value in any of them. The only thing to be found in any of them were large furniture such as desks chairs couches or display shelves, all shelves and drawers were other wise empty. The elevators I came across all had no power and were not functioning, and I simply made note of where the stairs were that I found, determined to check this floor first before going up. Plus, the doors to the stairs were extremely noisy when opened and I figured I’d hear it echo around if someone went through one.
I headed back to the ER section once I finished my search, feeling more than a bit dejected with my failure to find anyone or anything at all. My flashlight batteries were also dying and it was not much better than the dim emergency lights at this point which did not help my mood either. As I was passing by one of the halls I had checked earlier I caught something moving out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look and down at the end of the hall was what appeared to be a figure in the inky darkness down there.
“Hey you! What did you do with my stuff!” I yelled as I started down the hall towards them.
“I’m sorry! It wasn’t me!” replied a girl’s voice. “It’s not my fault! Please, stay back!”
She was definitely in a panic, and appeared to be trying to get through a door I had closed but not locked but she could not get it to open. I slowed down my approach and spoke softly to her realizing she was younger than me and probably scared I was going to hurt her.
“It’s ok, I won’t hurt you. Calm down. Just show me where my things are and it’ll be ok. My name is Jeff by the way.”
My flashlight decided to give up at this point leaving me with only the emergency light in the hallway behind me to see by. The girl gave up on the door as I continued to get closer and shrank back into the darkest corner at the end of the hall. She spoke again, still sounding nervous and scared.
“Don’t come any closer, please. You should leave, now. If you stay bad things will happen. Stop, please.”
I stopped moving and responded telling her “I can’t exactly leave dressed like this with a storm outside, now can I? Look, I’m not going to hurt you. Won’t you come out of the dark where I can see you better? Here, I’ll even put down my flashlight.” And I matched my words with actions, placing the flashlight on a gurney beside me and stepping away from it.
“You won’t like what you see if I come out,” she said.
“Oh come on, what do you mean I won’t like how you look. You sound cute to me, and it’s nicer talking to someone you can see than an indistinct shape in the dark. Now come on, show me what you look like.”
She still hesitated, then said “I’m not a living person. I’m a ghost.”
That shocked me a bit, “What did you say?”
“I’m dead. I died in this hospital, and the person who caused it won’t let any of us leave.”
“You’re kidding me,” I said, disbelief evident in my voice. “You’re telling me that you’re a ghost? I don’t believe it, show me.”
She sighed and said “Fine, but please don’t go running away screaming.”
Then she slowly began to move towards me to where I could see her better. She wasn’t kidding. As she got closer I saw that she was floating above the floor. She was very pale looking and as she got closer I could vaguely see through her. I did not see any legs at all, she just kind of fade out at about her waist or hips. Even so, she was shorter than me and when she looked up she had the saddest expression I have ever seen. It was so sad that despite my fear of seeing a real ghost for the first time in my entire life, I still wanted to reach out and give her a warm hug to comfort her. I actually raised my arms part way before stopping and wondering if I could even touch her.
“Oh my god, you ARE a ghost! What happened to you?” I asked her.
“My name is Elizabeth and I was a patient here, along with several others under the care of a particular doctor. Nobody knew it at the time, but he was a cruel and evil man. He would proscribe more extensive treatments than necessary for some patients so he could have them stay in the hospital for ‘special’ procedures. I was one of his special patients. Once he had us in his care here, he would do cruel things and completely unnecessary procedures on us up to and including surgeries that were not needed. And late at night, or during one of these surgeries, he would perform rituals over us, telling us that he was binding our souls to him and we would never leave here alive. The death rate of his patients was high, but he covered it up with medical reports showing there were complications and other underlying factors or health problems of his patients causing it. He honestly was a brilliant doctor, and was very gifted at what he did so he was able to hide his sadistic side for a time. But it was still too much, and someone got suspicious. They contacted the police and the hospital administrators and had them self admitted as a patient, faking an injury that would get them assigned to the doctor to see what would happen. It worked, and they got admitted to the hospital as one of his special patients, all the time managing to take notes and having other hospital staff keeping track of what was happening. Unfortunately for that person, the doctor was quick to do a couple procedures and even a surgery in the first couple days that exposed them as a fake and the doctor was quick to arrange an ‘unfortunate complication’ during surgery that killed them. The doctor was caught in the act and accused of murder right there in the surgery room. He pronounced a curse on the hospital, saying that none of his patients would ever leave him and he would keep them here forever. Then he managed to kill himself in the struggle to arrest him instead of being taken to jail.”
“That’s horrible!” I said. “So he’s still here, and has you and others trapped in this hospital?”
“Yes,” she replied. “He had been at this for a while, so he already had a bunch of souls trapped here. After he died, the other doctors checked out his living patients here in the hospital, not knowing about or even believing there could be people trapped here after death. There were only 3 of us alive at the time and they found that all of us had suffered cruel and unnecessary operations by his hands, but we all showed to be stable and should recover in time. What they did not know was the curse was real, and the doctor had bound his own soul to remain here at the hospital. It took him about a week to regain his strength from dying before he could actually do anything. Once he could, his remaining 3 patients all suffered an unexplainable random complication that resulted in their deaths one after the other over a month’s time. I was the last one of the three to die. After that unexplainable, sometimes horrible, things would happen to random patients occasionally resulting in their death. The hospital quickly got the reputation of being cursed and haunted. Of course it was the doctor continuing his evil games, both with the living and those whom he had bound to him. The living had a better chance of escaping him since there were other doctors taking care of them, but those of us who were bound here have no way of getting free and must suffer what ever he wants to do to us. We did find that we could hide from him somewhat by going inside of living people. It was only temporary though, since if we chose a healthy person they would feel it and wind up leaving the hospital soon after. We can’t ever leave so we’d be dragged out of their body when they went outside. If we chose someone who was a patient that couldn’t just leave, then our own injuries would start to show up on them after about a week of us hiding in their bodies which would further weaken them and leave them more susceptible to the doctor. It was a no win situation for us.”
By this time we had sat down against the wall. I found that I could not touch her if I tried, but she could lean up against me if it was her choice and I did not stop her, wanting to give her what little comfort I could.
“Since being abandoned, the hospital has been almost completely under his power and control and he can do practically anything he wants here. And now you’re under his power too,” she said. She pointed up at the gurney, “See, you’re flashlight is gone now too. Everything you brought with you is gone. I doubt you could leave if you tried now. It was probably too late the first time I told you to run.”
Suddenly she sat up alarmed. “He’s coming! I’ve got to run and hide somewhere before he finds me!”
I tried to hold her out of instinct, but my arms just went through her body reminding me she was a ghost. This also reminded me of something she had just said.
“You said you could hide from him in someone who was living. Hide in me.”
“Are you sure? It will be unpleasant,” she said, but her eyes were hopeful for the first time since I’d met her.
“I’m certain, do it now before he finds you.”
She immediately turned around and sat down in my lap, sinking right into my body. The sensation was uncomfortable but did not hurt, and I could actually feel her moving around inside me as she got settled in.
“No wonder people left as soon as they could when you did that,” I thought. “That was disturbing.”
“I know. It’s a little strange for us too,” she thought back.
“You heard my thoughts? And I heard yours!” I said aloud.
“Yep. My soul is over lapping yours now so we can communicate directly. Don’t speak to me out loud anymore, he’s almost here.”
I stood up and began walking down the hall back towards the ER waiting area, hoping to avoid this evil apparition that was in control of the building. My fortune was not to be so good it seemed. Before I got to the end of the hall a man in a long doctors coat stepped around the corner and blocked my way. He was a little bit taller than me, and like Elizabeth was partially transparent, but he was full figured with legs and feet standing on the floor instead of floating above it. He was intentionally blocking the passage so I stopped ten feet way from him and waited to see what he would do.
He looked up and down at the way I was dressed and said “Well now, it would seem that there is a new patient in the hospital tonight who is wandering around. I don’t suppose you’ve seen any other patients have you? It seems that one of my patients has gone off on her own. She needs to be found and taken back to her bed; she is very fragile and could come to great harm if she does not get her next treatment in time.”
“Oh no. He’s lying. His next treatment is what is going to harm me, and it’s probably going to be worse now” thought Elizabeth.
I decided that I was not going to play this game with the doctor. I looked him right in the eye and said “Yes, I’ve seen your missing patient. I even had an interesting conversation with poor Elizabeth about you and the horrible things you have done.”
“What are you doing?!?” Elizabeth screamed in my head.
“Is that so? Well since you know something about me, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Doctor Albert Einstein Brown. I am a Doctor of Orthopedic Surgery at this hospital. And while I do not know the content of what you have been told, let me just say that it is probably all true,” he said with a nasty smirk on his face. Then his face got serious. “I want Lizzy, and I want her now. I can’t seem to detect her anywhere. Tell me where she is. If you don’t then you shall suffer more than I intended you to initially suffer. And make no mistake, you ARE a patient in this hospital now and I intend to treat you as one.”
Elizabeth just moaned at this and I could feel her quivering in fear which just strengthened my resolve to try and protect her.
“Why should I give her up to you? You’ll just torture her or worse. I have her safely hidden away where you cannot reach her, and I’ll stop you from hurting her if I can.”
Dr. Brown chuckled at this. “So, hiding inside the boy are you Lizzy? Come out here right now if you know what’s good for you.” He stepped forward and reached out as if to grab my, or Elizabeth’s, arm.
“No!” I exclaimed and held up my hand as if to stop him. Amazingly, he was unable to grasp either Elizabeth or myself. His hand stopped cold just before making contact.
“You ... you stopped him. How?” said Elizabeth.
The doctor was shocked at first, then visibly angered. “So, you wish to challenge me then. Is that so, BOY?”
Without hesitating I answered, “Yes, I challenge you. I will keep Elizabeth safe from harm, AND I will escape you!”
Dr. Brown calmed down at this and grinned. “Very well then. It will be a contest. You must find Elizabeth’s bed, somewhere in this hospital, and then make your way out. Elizabeth is to stay with you and can only leave your body for a few minutes at a time. She can do this as often as she likes, but when she returns to you she cannot leave again for at least 15 minutes. While she is outside your body she is safe from me, I give you my word. She is also forbidden from telling you where her bed is in any way. This is a contest after all. Also, as you are a patient here, if you are caught by any hospital staff where you don’t belong, then a penalty will be imposed. You will be brought back down here to the ER for the penalty and have to start your search all over again. Now I will demonstrate one more restriction to the both of you. Please sit down in that wheelchair over there if you would.”
I looked around and saw the indicated chair. Looking back at the doctor uncertainly I walked over and sat in it.
“Please, wheel yourself around,” He said.
I put my hands on the wheel rims and pushed myself around the hall with no problem.
“Now, Elizabeth, come out of there if you please. This is an intentional demonstration of another rule of the contest, you will not be harmed.”
Elizabeth floated up out of my body, again giving me that uncomfortable sensation which caused me a moment’s pause to adjust to. While she had remained still inside me I had gotten used to her presence and was not as bothered with her there, but as soon as she moved it was very disturbing. Once she was out Dr. Brown gestured as if to have me wheel around some more. I shrugged my shoulders and proceeded to do so. Or, I tried to. The wheelchair would not budge. It was as if I was sitting on a solid steel carving of a wheelchair. I stood up and tried to pick up or move the chair in any way. Again it would not move, I could not even get the flexible leather seat or back to bend in the slightest.
I looked back at the doctor. “What’s this?” I said.
“You will not be able to affect anything in this hospital without Elizabeth. If she is not within you, then you have no power here. You may now go back where you belong for the duration of this contest Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth quickly floated over and re-entered my body. I was ready and tried to brace myself for it this time, but the sensation was just as uncomfortable as the first time and it took us a moment to get situated again.
“That’s not going to be getting any easier, is it?” I asked.
“No, I’m afraid it’s not,” she replied.
“There is one final rule to be aware of. There will be a time limit,” said the doctor. “You have until dawn. It is currently just before 10 PM, and sunrise is not until shortly after 6 in the morning, so you should have plenty of time to play my game.”
“So, let me get this straight,’ I said. “I have about 8 hours to search the entire building and find Elizabeth’s bed. I assume as proof I’ll have to actually lay down in it or something?” Dr. Brown nodded at this. “Then, once having found said bed I will then have to make my way out of the building. I will be able to exit won’t I?” He smiled and nodded again. “During this time Elizabeth is my link to this hospital. While she is with me I can open doors, use elevators, etcetera and when she is not nothing will move for me. Elizabeth is allowed to leave me briefly, say as a scout, and then cannot leave me again for 15 minutes. There will be other hospital staff around while this is going on, and if I get caught where a patient should not be then I will be brought back down to the ER for a penalty and have to start my search again. If I am successful then I get to leave and Elizabeth does not get harmed.”
The doctor nodded and said “I do believe you have got it. Do you accept the terms?”
Elizabeth spoke up in my mind “Don’t do this. He is evil and will find ways to twist it to his advantage.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve already found a way to get you out of this. I can do it.” I replied.
“I agree, and I’ll win. You just wait and see,” I told Dr, Brown.
“Excellent,” he said. “Now, since this is a contest, and contests are supposed to be challenging you know, and you happen to be one of my patients here, I believe it is time for a small demonstration of my power over you.” He gestured and the wheelchair rolled up behind me forcefully knocking me down into the seat and continued to roll forward with the leg rests raised up holding my legs elevated. It quickly rolled down the hall and into a room. It was one of the seemingly empty procedure rooms with a padded table in the middle of the room which the wheelchair stopped next to. The doctor appeared just inside the room, blocking the doorway.
“This is one of my cast rooms, used for simple cast applications that don’t need special harnesses or frames to apply.” He pointed at me and I was lifted out of the wheelchair and laid down on the table. My legs were lifted up off the table and bent at the knees and out of nowhere cloth tubes were pulled over my feet and up to just above my knees. Next rolls of padding appeared and began to quickly wrap my feet from my toes to just below my knees, tightly binding them in a couple layers with extra at the heel and ankle bones. Finally wet rolls of plaster bandages appeared and wrapped themselves around my legs, building up several layers quickly and smoothing out the plaster as they went. In just a minute I had two complete casts on my legs from just below the knees all the way down to very solid plates under my toes with extra thick and very flat ‘soles’ on the bottom of my feet.
As my legs were gently laid back down on the table I sat up and looked at Dr. Brown, “What the hell is this?” I reached down and felt the casts from the outside, finding them to be completely dry and hard. I then tried and found the casts were tight enough that I could not bend my ankles in any direction at all in the slightest; even my toes would only lift up a little bit due to the edge of the cast on the top of my foot going directly over but not covering the first joints of my toes.
“I do believe we agreed you are a patient in this hospital. One of my patients. And I am a Doctor of Orthopedics. As such, you have been fitted with your very first casts as my patient. These happen to be rather beautifully formed plaster short leg walking casts, so that your search will be a bit more challenging. You will find that you are fully able to walk around in them, although not so easily I suspect. If you don’t think that’s enough of a challenge I can certainly make it harder by making them long leg walking casts, say right up to your crotch and hips?”
Elizabeth started crying and said “I told you he would twist the rules! He’s not going to ever let us go!”
I frowned at him, but said “No, I do believe you have made your point here. These are more than sufficient to be a challenge.”
He pointed again and a pair of blue canvas cast shoes appeared on my casts. “To help keep your plaster casts from slipping around on the smooth tile floors. You might want to consider keeping that wheelchair with you too.”
I swung my legs over the edge of the table, reached down and moved the wheelchair out of the way, and carefully lowered myself to stand on the floor. I found my balance to be a little off with the casts, so I took a couple of gentle test steps while keeping one hand firmly on the table beside me in case I fell. As he had said, I could walk ok, as long as I took it slow and easy. There was no way I was going to be able to run in these things, or even do a fast walk. I frowned at the doctor again and carefully made my way out the door. Once I got out of the room, I realized that I could see up and down the hallways almost normally. It was as if the hospital had fully functional electricity and lights, but not quite real and over laid on the real building I had been in. There were even one or two people moving around like there would be in an active functioning hospital.
“Am I seeing your ‘world’ over top of my own Elizabeth?” I asked her.
“Yes,” she said. “This is what I usually see around here, and these are all the nurses and orderlies that he has running around to do his bidding here. They are the ones who we need to avoid so we don’t get caught where we don’t belong.”
“Great,” I said aloud. Unfortunately this attracted the attention of a nurse walking by right then.
“Oh, you poor dear,” she said. “What are you doing out on your own?”
Oh crap, now what? Was I already caught before I even got out of the ER? I thought fast and pointed back at the cast room I had just come out of, “Doc Brown just put brand new casts on my legs. He then let me go on my own to make my way back to the ward and bed.”
“Ok,” she said. “If Doctor Brown said it was alright then go ahead. You should be using a wheelchair though don’t you think?”
“No, he said these are walking casts. I’ll be ok as long as I take it easy,” I told her.
“Very well. You just be careful and get to bed as soon as you can. We don’t want you stressing yourself too much or slipping and causing further injury.” And she gave me one more concerned look before heading off and leaving me to my own.
“That was some fast talking. I was sure we were had,” Elizabeth told me.
“So was I,” I replied. “But I didn’t lie to her. Doc Brown really did just put these casts on me and then let me go to start my search. Now, which way do we go from here?” I could tell she was trying to say something, but no words came to my mind from her. “Oh, yea. Right. You can’t give me any directions.”
“Sorry,” she said.
“It’s ok. Now we know just how strict that rule is,” I said. I shrugged and turned towards the nearest bank of elevators I had found in my earlier searches. Along the way I looked for any kind of floor directory that might indicate where the orthopedic ward was in this building. I found a simple one that listed an orthopedics ward as being on the 6th floor, but not what direction.
I pushed the button to call the elevator and asked, “Is there just one ortho ward? Or is there more than one, split up between male female and pediatric?”
Elizabeth paused for a moment then said, “I can answer that one. Yes, there is more than one ward.”
“But you can’t tell me where. Ok. How old are you?” I asked.
“I was 15 when I died. I’m not sure exactly how long I’ve been like this though,” she answered.
The elevator arrived and I thought about it for a moment while I got on and pushed the button to the 6th floor. “That means you could possibly be in the pediatric or female ward. That’ll make this interesting.”
We rode on up and got off when the doors opened at the 6th floor. I looked around and did not see any obvious signs pointing in any direction so I headed left down the hallway. As I slowly walked down the hall I stayed next to the wall so I could grab the hand rail there in case I stumbled with these casts on. A minute later we both saw a nurse come out of a doorway and turn in our direction.
“Crap,” said Elizabeth. “We don’t know if you’re on the right floor or not. If you’re in the wrong place, then we’re caught. Quick, lay down on this gurney here and get under the sheet.” I climbed up on the gurney and quickly pulled the sheet up over me so it covered from my feet up to just below my neck. “Now just lay still and close your eyes as if you’re a patient waiting to be moved.”
I did as she suggested and the nurse passed us by without a second glance. I carefully breathed a sigh of relief and looked behind me to make sure she kept on going. Elizabeth piped up and said, “Stay here for a minute or two. I can’t tell you where to go, but I can look around and see if there are any more nurses or orderlies in the area. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
I kept still while she left my body, again having a problem while she moved out of me, and she continued on down the direction we were going. She failed to notice the patient chart that appeared hanging at the foot of the gurney I was on while she went by. About 30 seconds later a male orderly walked up to the gurney from behind me, giving me a start. He lifted the chart at the end and looked at it briefly before putting it back down then looking at me with a smile while he began to move the gurney back the way I had come.
“Looks like it’s time to take you to the cast room sweetheart,” he said as he pushed me along. I tried to sit up and get off the gurney only to find I was pinned down under the sheet covering me! The rules said that without Elizabeth I have no power to move anything here, and apparently that means EVERYTHING. Including the sheet that I was now trapped under. I was helpless to stop him as he pressed the button for the elevator, got me on and off, and rolled me right back to the same cast room I had been in previously.
Doctor Brown was there, waiting for me, grinning like a cheshire cat. “Oops, looks like you got caught.”
“Yea, ok, fine. I got caught,” I said. “Now I’ve been penalized and brought back down to ER again. Let me up from under this sheet please so I can get back to my search.”
“Oh no,” he said with a smirk. “You’ve not received your punishment yet. I said you’d be brought back here FOR your penalty, not AS your penalty. And we can’t have Elizabeth running around loose for too long. Lizzy, come here now and get back where you belong.” Instantly Elizabeth was in the room with us, and she immediately floated over and sunk back down into me.
While we were recovering from our disorientation the doctor walked over and picked up the chart hanging at the end of the gurney I was laying on. “What have we here? A patient chart, for a patient other than yourself. Trying to disguise yourself as someone else were we?” He looked over the chart for a moment, “Hm, yes. I think this will do nicely. Nicely indeed. Lizzy, guess who’s chart this is. None other than Jennifer’s. Now isn’t that interesting.”
Elizabeth began to panic inside me while the doctor continued to talk. “Now, while Elizabeth knows just who Jennifer is, you probably have no idea. Jennifer was an abused child. Her father beat her quite often, and she was a regular patient of mine. It seems that this chart is for the time that he broke both of Jennifer’s arms, rather severely at that. It seems he used a hammer this time around. I believe this will work quite well as your penalty. You will now get to have the same casts applied to you that Jennifer did for this particular visit.”
He motioned at me, and I was lifted from the gurney and deposited on the exam table once again. My arms were both pulled away from my body and bent at the elbow 90 degrees. Then the stockinet came out and was pulled over both arms right up over the armpits and a bit onto the shoulders. My thumbs were pulled through holes and a shorter piece of tubular bandage covered both of them past the tips. The cast padding began to cover my arms tightly, going from the knuckles all the way up to my armpits and included both thumbs as well. Once that was done wet plaster began to wrap my arms firmly, forming the final part of the casts that I was going to be wearing. Again it only took a minute for the casts to be finished, and they were completely dry and hard once finished. I was able to sit up and found that both casts extended right up into my armpits on the inside and to the tip of the shoulder on the outside, holding my elbows bent at 90 degrees. My hands were both turned palm down with the wrists bent down at about a 45 degree angle, with both thumbs encased out to the tips and pointing out to the sides. My fingers were free, but in this position with my thumbs held as they were my hands were almost completely useless.
While the casts were being applied this time I felt some mild pain and a great deal of unusual discomfort, and Elizabeth was screaming in my head as if she was being tortured then suddenly went silent as if she has passed out.
“You bastard!” I yelled at Dr. Brown. “What did you just do to me! And to Elizabeth! She was screaming bloody murder while the casts were being applied and now I can’t get her to respond to me! On top of that I also felt pain this time unlike last time when you put these damn walking casts on my legs!”
He laughed evilly at me and said, “I told you that you would be punished if you got caught, and the terms of that punishment was never discussed which left it up to me to decide what would happen. I also said that since you were trying to disguise yourself as someone else then you would get her casts. Of course to have a cast, there needs to be an injury to go along with it.” His eyes narrowed briefly at this. “Hm, yes that is correct, there should be an injury present for every cast. Now I do believe it’s time for you to start your search again, is it not? Tick-toc tick-toc, time is running.” And as he faded away from view I barely heard him say, “Be careful of those legs of yours now,” and I was left there alone.
I moved my legs down over the edge of the table and carefully allowed myself to slide off landing on my feet, but this time I was met with a great deal of pain from the sudden impact of landing. I nearly toppled over it hurt so much, and I actually bent over sideways and caught my self on my right elbow to stop from falling down. This only served to bring me more pain from my right arm. That bastard had apparently given me all the broken bones that Jennifer had suffered, as well as broken bones in my feet and ankles! Not only was I going to have a hard enough time trying to manipulate anything with these casts on my arms and walking in these casts had not gotten any easier, but now I was going to have to worry about how much it was going to hurt trying to use my fingers and walk around too.
Once the initial pain had subsided, I took a few steps and found that while painful I could still walk about the same as I had been, it was just a dull pain now with each step. I did my best to walk lightly and made my way on out into the hall. I figured that if I had been caught as a girl named Jennifer up on the 6th floor then I had to be in the right area, so I headed back to the same bank of elevators I’d used earlier. I was careful to peek around corners before actually going around them, and I hid in a couple doorways to avoid hospital staff and made it all the way to the elevators once again. While I was walking along I inspected my arms and there was something different about either them or the casts holding them immobile, but I could not tell what it was. I carefully pressed the button for the elevator, only receiving mild pain in my hand for using a finger to push with. The elevator dinged and when the doors opened up there stood the same nurse as before pushing an empty wheelchair, the same one who I had told the doctor allowed me to go about on my own.
She took one look at me with my arms now in casts and frowned. “Sweetie, I don’t think you need to be moving about by yourself. Look at you, you’ve obviously fallen and hurt your arms. Now you sit right down in this chair here and we’ll take you to the doctor and have him make sure you didn’t hurt anything else out here on your own.”
I was busted, again. And this time I could tell she was not going to accept any excuse I came up with this time. I carefully sat down and she lifted my legs up onto the leg rests that she extended up to seat level, then she wheeled me right back to the ER and stuck me in an exam room and put me up on the bed. A few minutes later Dr. Brown came over and chuckled. “Didn’t make it very far at all this time did you? Well now, the nurse tells me she is afraid you may have further injured yourself walking around all by yourself just now, so let’s take a look at things shall we.”
He took a few minutes to poke and prod at me, which actually caused considerable pain around the tops of my short leg casts. “I think that we need to take some pictures down here from the looks of things. An orderly will be right along to take you to x-ray.”
I tried several times to get Elizabeth to respond to me, but she was out of it. I could tell she was still there though as I could carefully pick up and move things around when I was left alone and tried. An orderly showed back up with a wheelchair, and even though he carefully lifted me onto it I still felt a sharp pain from both of my legs. He then wheeled me down to x-ray where I was treated to the torture of having my legs moved around several times to get the correct positions for the pictures the doctor had apparently ordered. I was then loaded back onto the wheelchair and taken back to the cast room I had visited twice before and moved up onto the cast table. By this point I had figured out what had been done to me, and all I was waiting for was to see what the treatment would be.
It didn’t take long at all for Doctor Brown to arrive and start in on his spiel, “Let’s take a look at these pictures now and see what we’ve got.” I just rolled my eyes at him when he looked over at me. “Oh, very well. I’m sure you’ve already figured out your legs have been further broken by now. I’m feeling generous at this point, what with you having been caught and brought back so quickly, and I sense that Elizabeth is not entirely with you right now. So, I will allow you to keep your walking casts, but now they are going to be long leg walking casts, with rubber heels on the bottom.”
He waved his hand and the short casts on my legs both just disappeared. My legs were pulled up into the air again, this time the gown I was wearing being pulled up to my waist. My knees were bent slightly as the stockinet was pulled over my legs, going all the way up to my hips. The rolls of padding were next, tightly swathing my legs from the toes all the way up to my crotch. The plaster came last to finish it all off, wrapping its way around my legs starting from the toes and working up to the hips and back down again several times, smoothing out as it went. Once it finished I again had toes plates restricting any downward movement of my toes. The bottoms of the casts were very thick, but this time is was because a rubber walking heel had been added in to the cast. The doctor happily showed me one of them before it got applied, and it was made of red rubber. It was about as wide as my foot and at least 2/3rds as long, and had several grooves cutting across it in different directions for the plaster bandages to fit in and hold it securely to the cast. The casts held my knees firmly bent at about a 10 degree angle and both came up the inside of my legs right to the crotch, while the outside continued higher to the level of my hips. I had already experienced trouble lifting my arms up much further than shoulder level because of how they had been formed up to my shoulders the way they were, so I figured I was going to have a similar problem with my legs in some manner. Probably not being able to spread my legs out to the side very far was my guess. Not to mention that if I actually got up to walk the inner edge was going to be digging up into my privates. And I still had no underwear on, that could be painful.
This time when the casts were being wrapped I felt a lot of pain and unusual discomfort just like when the arm casts had been put on me. It took longer this time too, taking about 2 minutes to be completed. Apparently it affected Elizabeth also and she woke up yelling.
“Oh shit! What is he doing to us now!” she screamed.
“Shhhh, it’s going to be alright. Don’t say anything right now while I ask him something, then we’ll figure this out together when we’re alone.” I said.
I quietly asked Dr. Brown, without looking up at him, “I don’t suppose I can request an orderly to take me up to my bed can I? I’ve suffered a lot of trauma here and I’m going to find it hard to move around.”
He got a thoughtful look on his face and said, “Why, that was never brought up, was it? It’s not against the rules, so yes, I’ll have an orderly come get you and take you to your bed. Well done, boy.”
The doctor left, and a few minutes later the same orderly who took me to x-ray showed up with the wheelchair, got me into it, and rolled me out and on my way up to the orthopedic ward and my bed. While I was being wheeled along I took the time to examine my legs. My toes could hardly move again, and the casts were tight enough that I could not move my ankles at all and now my knees as well. Once again there was something different, something I couldn’t quite figure out, just like my arms. But, with so much plaster covering everything I just couldn’t tell what it was, or even if it was my legs or the casts themselves that was wrong. We reached the 6th floor and the orderly turned to the left down the same hall I had gone down before. He took me through a door on the left side of the hall and wheeled me up to a bed. I noticed there was a chart hanging on the end that had my name on it, so supposedly it also had a record of my current injuries.
As he got me up into bed I asked him, “Are there girls here to?”
“The girls are across the hall from here on the right,” he answered. “The entire wing on this floor is dedicated to orthopedics with boys on the left and girls on the right.” He finished adjusting me in bed then took the wheelchair and left. I looked around and there were several others in the room with me, but nobody appeared to be awake, and in most cases did not appear to be able to talk at all. I was probably the least encumbered with the casts I was in compared to what I could see around me. There was a large amount of plaster present here along with a good deal of metal and plastic in the form of splints braces and various external fixation devices as well as multiple breathing apparatus’ and other medical tubes sticking out of various parts of their bodies. All of which appeared to be rather extensive.
“Holy christ,” I said to Elizabeth. “Are these some of the poor souls that Doc Brown has trapped here?”
“Yes,” she replied. “These are the people he has cursed and continues to torture by inflicting them with what ever medical procedure he deems fit at the time. Rarely does any one of us ever have as little done to them as you have right now.”
“How was it then that you got free with nothing on you at all when I met you?” I asked her.
She sighed. “Now that I think about it, I think I was let go just to let me believe I had gotten away. In reality I was the bait to firmly trap you here. If you don’t win and get out by dawn, then you’ll be just another patient for him to torture until you die. Then you’ll be just like us, trapped here forever.”
“Wow, he really is an evil bastard,” I said. “But, we need to figure out a couple of things first. What happened to you when he was putting these arm casts on me? You were scared before it even started, then you were screaming until you passed out. What did he do?”
“I knew what he was about to do to you. I know Jennifer, she’s right across the hall. And I know what she suffered before she died. I tried to draw as much of the pain as I could away from you of having your arms broken. It was terrible, and I guess I passed out from the pain.”
“Well it worked, that time. It hurt, but not nearly as much as I suppose it should have. Thank you. That was a very brave thing to do for a stranger. I had figured out what he did shortly after that, he basically told me that to have a cast meant you should have an injury to go with it too. That meant he also gave me broken bones in my legs to go with the short casts I had on already. I never even made it off the first floor after that. I got caught at the elevators and taken back to the ER again. This time I was treated to the pain of having x-rays done, then the pain having these new casts applied to my legs with further broken bones to go with them. I noticed I have a chart hanging on the end of the bed there. Do you think you can take a look at it and tell me the extent of my injuries?”
“Oh, I can tell you exactly what’s been done; I’m inside your body after all and can tell. Starting from the top down, both your upper arms have been broken between the elbows and the mid point of the humerus. Both the bones in your forearms have been broken at least once, twice on the ulna. Both wrists have been broken, nearly shattered really. Both scaphoids have been broken along with the thumb bone next to it.”
“Jesus, Jennifer’s father did that to her with a hammer? And that was only one instance of a beating? I hope he got the justice he deserved.”
“I have no idea what happened to him, he never came here so I never saw him. Continuing on down, both bones in you lower legs, the tibia and the fibula, have been broken twice. Once up next to the knees and again down near the ankles. Your heels, the calcaneus, have been broken once each as well. None appear to be displaced though. That explains why the casts go up so high on the hips, and the reason for the toes plates to further immobilize the feet, while still allowing you to have walking casts. Although I wouldn’t recommend too much of that; it would be too easy to cause something to move out of place if you slip and fall.”
“That’s a lot of ouch you just described. We’ll have to risk the walking though if I’m going to win this challenge and get us out of here. There’s something else wrong with these casts, on both my arms and legs, but I can’t figure out what it is just yet. What ever it is, it does not seem to be slowing me down any more than the casts would normally so I won’t worry about it right now. Can you get up and take a look around to see if there is any hospital staff near by? We need to get over across the hall and find your bed. I’m pretty sure it’s over there, since you said you know Jennifer and her bed is right across the hall. Let me get these sheets off me first before you get up, that’s what trapped me the first time and landed me with these arm casts.” I pulled the sheet off my legs so that I could get out of bed without Elizabeth around, then she took over and tried to exit my body.
“Ok, I’ll go out and come right back this time. I’ll just ... I ... I can’t! I can’t leave your body! I’m stuck! I can’t pull my arms and legs out of these casts,” she wailed. “Oh my god! That’s what is different about the casts! It’s not just the casts either! You and I have been fused together somehow! The casts look different because they are smaller than they should be! Somehow those are MY arms and legs in these casts, on your body!”
“That son of a ...! That explains the unusual feelings I experienced when the casts were being put on! He was fusing us together which transformed my arms and legs into a likeness of yours! I’m going to get free of him and come back and have him exorcised if I can! Dammit! Well there’s nothing we can do about it now, we’ll just have to deal with it. I’m going to get out of bed and make my way over to the door.”
First I used the bed controls to lower the bed as far as it would go, then I carefully slid our legs around and let them gently slide down so the heels touched the floor. Next I turned over onto my stomach and carefully pulled my feet up under me and used my arms as best I could to support me while I straightened up to a standing position. Once I got my balance I slowly made my way over to the doorway and stopped so I was leaning against the wall right next to it.
I asked Elizabeth in my mind, “Can you still lean out far enough to look down the hall?”
“I’ll try,” she said, and then I felt that uncomfortable feeling of her leaving me while she leaned her head around the corner and looked. She pulled back around and once we were over that she said, “All clear, I didn’t see any one.”
I got us moving and carefully walked across the hall to the girl’s side of the wing. There were just as many beds here with just as much plaster, steel, plastic, and misery as in the other side. There were a few empty beds, but only one with a patient chart hanging from the end of it. I hobbled over and was able to pull the chart up enough to find Elizabeth’s name on it. Elizabeth Montgomery.
“Well, we’ve found your bed. Now I guess I have to lay down in it like I said in the rules to prove I was here.”
“I don’t like this. Something is not right.”
“The rules have been set. Like it or not I have to lay down here.”
I went around to the side of the bed and sat my butt on the edge of it. Then I was able to reach over and lower the bed down so it was not so high up, and twisted around to the left while carefully lifting up our left leg onto the bed. Once I got that done I leaned on over and slowly scooted us up onto the bed completely so I was resting with both legs in the middle of the bed and my head was up on the pillow. I breathed a sigh of relief with the effort that took and rested there for a minute before trying to get back up again.
Suddenly, the bed began to rise up on its own. I tried to get off the bed before it got too high and found I was not able to move! I was stuck there as if I was paralyzed! The bed finished rising up to the same height I had found it at and stopped. I heard a clapping sound and was able to look over at the doorway as Dr. Brown walked into the room.
“Well done you two. You managed to find her bed.” He smirked at us again, and I was getting real tired of seeing that look on his face. “Now that you’ve completed the first part of the challenge, you have to now complete the second part. It would seem that 5 of your 8 hours are gone though. That still leaves you 3 whole hours to get yourself out of the hospital. In your current condition I’d have to say that is not going to be much of a challenge, now is it. And as we’ve already agreed a contest must be challenging. So what can we do to make the next part a challenge?”
He looked to be in thought for a moment then he spoke again. “I bet Elizabeth has not been exactly forthcoming about her personal condition, now has she. In fact, I seem to recall that she has remained rather insubstantial and hidden her legs from view, hasn’t she. Tsk tsk tsk. Shame on you Elizabeth. Why don’t you come out here and show your brave champion what you really look like Elizabeth. Oh, that’s right,” he said as he snapped his fingers, “you can’t right now, can you? Here, let me help you.”
He reached down and into my chest and I could feel him grab Elizabeth and start to drag her out of me. This was worse than when she voluntarily entered or left my body, and it apparently hurt her a great deal in the process. Once he had pulled her free he grinned evilly at us and said, “There’s a good girl. Now just show Jeff here what you really looked like just before you died.”
Elizabeth moaned in anguished, but it was apparent that she was being forced to do this by the power he had over her. She remained floating in the air where I could see her, and quickly began to become more substantial and her whole body came into view from head to toes. What I saw was a girl who appeared to have been in a terrible accident. She was in a body cast from here toes all the way up to her neck, with the support structure for a halo brace embedded in it and attached to a halo ring that was screwed into her skull. Her arms were free of any casts though, and she could no longer talk as there was a breathing tube going down her throat and a feeding tube going up her nostril. There also appeared to be a catheter dangling form her crotch as well to complete the indignity.
“Oh my lord,” I said. “This is what you looked like while you were still alive? What happened to you?”
Dr. Brown responded back, “Oh, she was brought in following a car wreak. Her parents had been killed in the accident, a head on collision by the way, but she had been in the back seat and survived. When I examined her I found that she had been extremely lucky. She had only suffered a case of whiplash and a sprained ankle in the accident. I wanted a new toy to play with in my ward, and she had no other immediate family in the state to worry about. I diagnosed her with multiple broken bones in her legs and pelvis, multiple damaged vertebrate in her back and neck, and probable spinal cord damage. Of course I immediately ordered her to surgery to try and repair as much of her injuries as possible and prevent further injury to her spinal cord. When she came out of surgery she looked much as you see her here, with very real injuries to match what I had diagnosed her with. While in surgery I also performed my little ritual to bind her to me, so that if she just happened to die of her injuries then she would be mine forever. Unfortunately it was one of her relatives who got suspicious of me and exposed me with the help of the police and the board of regents for the hospital. I killed him, but could not perform my ritual on him so he got away. And I died too as a result. It took me a week to regain my strength and start to take care of my last 3 patients on the ward. Elizabeth here was the last to go. If I remember correctly, it was an unexplained overdose of medicine caused by an automatic drip machine was it not? As it was, at the time she died Elizabeth here had a crushed pelvis, multiple breaks to her femurs, tibias and fibulas, crushing injuries to her ankles and feet, several broken vertebrate along her back, 3 crushed vertebrate in her neck, unable to breathe on her own or feel anything from the neck down due to spinal swelling from the neck injury, and probable permanent paralysis from the waist down. Just between you and me, they couldn’t tell with all the other injuries, but I had actually severed her spinal cord at the T-12 level.”
I just gaped at him after that explanation of what he had done to this poor girl. I couldn’t come up with anything to say that would sufficiently describe the horror and rage I felt towards him right then. Dr. Brown just stood there and grinned for several minutes, letting it all sink in.
“Well now that we’ve gotten all that out of the way, I do believe all that along with what you’ve already got would be more than sufficient to make your escape from this building extremely challenging, would it not?” In a flash he grabbed poor Elizabeth with both hands and shoved her back down into me just as he was saying “Now back you go into your new home darling!”
As soon as Elizabeth was shoved back down in me, we were both hit with excruciating pain and there was a sudden flurry of bandages all around us. I felt the pins from the halo ring being screwed into my skull. The casts on my legs were reshaped, bending the knees to a 30 degree angle while the walking heels were removed and a spreader bar was added between them just below the knees. More stockinet, cast padding, and plaster bandages flew out of nowhere, attached themselves to the leg casts, and continued to wrap around my hips and on up my torso right up to my neck just like Elizabeth’s cast was done. The support rods for the halo ring also appeared and were embedded into the plaster cast forming on my body. Once the actual cast was done I felt the feeding tube being inserted into my nostril and down into my stomach followed by the breathing tube going down my trachea to my lungs. Finally the catheter was inserted into my urethra and the balloon inflated in my bladder. It took only about 3 minutes for all this to be accomplished, leaving the plaster fully dried and as hard as the rock it was.
While all this was going on, I was also experiencing the discomfort of having my entire body transformed. It shrank and warped until I was an exact match for Elizabeth. Everything was altered, top to bottom, inside and out. Once it was done I was physically a 15 year old girl who was encased in a huge combination dual hip-spica cast with embedded halo brace attached, had casts on both arms from the shoulders to the knuckles of her fingers and included thumb spica on both hands, and who was currently paralyzed from the neck down. I was laying there helpless, unable to move or feel and hooked up to a ventilator to breathe, the only visible skin below my shoulders being my fingers and toes, and my newly reconfigured genitals which was fully exposed to the world. The pain and shock of what had just happened, finding myself back in my original body again, was too much. No, that was Elizabeth’s feelings, not my own, but still they were mine too as it had all just happened to me as well, and I began to cry. It was the only thing I was capable of doing on my own right then.
“Oh, now that couldn’t have been too bad was it? There were two of you to share it all together. I suppose that if you can’t actually move then you don’t really have a chance to get out, do you.” Dr. Brown waved at us, and suddenly I had feeling down to my waist again and I could move my arms. “There, the spinal swelling has been removed. Now you have a chance to get out. Better get to it, you’ve got a little less than 3 hours at this point.” And he walked away laughing at us and the predicament he was leaving us in.
For several minutes I just lay there crying, and I could hear Elizabeth doing the same thing in my mind. Finally I started to get a grip on my emotions and get myself under enough control to take stock of the situation. I was encased in plaster from my toes to my neck, with extensive and debilitating casts on my arms. I could move my shoulders, with some restrictions, and my fingers minus my thumbs. My head was held immobile by a halo ring screwed into my skull and attached to the body cast I was in. On top of this I was completely paralyzed from the waist down, unable to feel or move anything below that level, and while I could feel above that and probably breathe on my own I still had a ventilator attached to a tube going down my throat that was currently breathing for me. And the person who had been trapped here for who knows how long, and was currently stuck inside my mind, was completely losing it. I gently waved my arms around to test how much movement I still had with them in this giant body cast that I now realized even went up over the tops of my shoulders too. It wasn’t a lot of movement, but I hoped it would be enough. In the process I also figured out that the bed rails had been left down, so if I could manage to move my body around I could potentially get out of bed. I waved one arm up as high as I could in front of my face, and saw it come in contact with the long blue tube leading over to the ventilator. Knowing it would be difficult, and possibly harmful, I worked up the courage to forcefully wave both arms up in front of my face at the same time. What I was hoping for happened; I hit the ventilator tube hard enough to knock it loose from the tube going down my throat. The endo-tracheal tube was pulled on rather hard before it disconnected but was not dislodged from my throat and remained in place. I waited a moment to see if I could breathe on my own, and praying fervantly that I would, and to my relief I was able to breathe ok through the tube left in my windpipe.
This was enough of a shock to pull Elizabeth out of her hysterics and get her to calm down a bit. “What did you just do?!? You could have killed us. Are you nuts?!?”
“No Elizabeth, I’m not nuts. By the rules of the game Dr. Brown has to give us a reasonable chance to escape, no matter how hard it is. I’ve just taken the first step to getting us free. This is not going to be easy, and I don’t know how we’re going to do it, but dammit all we’re going to win this! Now, please calm down and help me to remember. When we got into the room and to your bed, what did you see around the bed? Also try to remember what you saw while he had you hanging there in the air in front of me. Was there anything we could use to move us around? I recall all kinds of monitors and support machinery like the ventilator, but was there anything else?”
Elizabeth quieted down and I could feel her thinking. “Yes, I think there was a pair of underarm crutches leaning on the left side of the bed. They may be just in reach if you can manage to turn us over onto our side.”
With the restrictions of the cast holding our legs spread out, and the paraplegia reducing the amount of muscle available to use, this was not going to be an easy task. I started by simply testing if I was able to get my body to move at all by moving my left arm out to the side and pressing down with the elbow of my right arm. After a moment of nothing but pain in several parts of my arm and neck I actually noticed that I was starting to roll over. The angle of how I was pushing with my arm wasn’t right to get me all the way over though, so I stopped and adjusted my right arm some and tried again. The second time I was able to roll over partially before I could not go any further and I could just see the crutches beside the bed when I looked upwards with my eyes. I tried to hold that position and still adjust my arm to push me farther but I lost my balance and rolled back down. I knew I could do it now, and it only took three more tries until I was lying on my side and panting heavily from the exertion. My left arm was pinned underneath me, so I was going to have to use just my right arm to grab the crutches that I could now see a bit above my head. I carefully reached over and was able to touch the crutches before the two casts made contact and stopped my arm from going any more. I reached a little more and I could barely get my fingers over the handle of one of them before I was stopped dead by the casts pressing against one another. Very slowly I pulled the crutch up with my fingers until I had the handle firmly held under my fingers. I then pulled it up towards me to where I could get the fingers of my left hand on it as well. Once I was able to hold it with both sets of fingers I was able to slowly move it around until it was up on the bed with us. I then used that crutch to carefully reach over and pull the second one over to where I could grab it more easily and get that one up on the bed as well. I pushed myself back over onto my back after that so I could rest and let the blood go back into my left arm again.
“Alright, that was a pain, but we’ve got them,” I said. “Now, was there anything else you remember around us that we might use? I don’t recall anything that would be useful myself.”
“Neither do I,” she replied.
“Ok then, let’s rest for a few more minutes then we can find out if the wheels of this bed are locked. While we are resting, do you recall how high the gurneys in the hallway are?” I asked her.
Elizabeth replied, “I think they are about the same height as the bed is now. If I remember that made it easier for the nurses and orderlies to transfer us over when we would be moved around.”
“Good, that may or may not come in handy later on. Guess I’m ready to try and move this bed around. Cross your fingers.” I then picked up one of the crutches and began reaching up over my head with the foot of it until I hit the wall. I took a couple of breaths then pushed as hard as I could, praying that the wheels on the bed were not locked. It hurt more than trying to roll over did, but the bed moved. I pushed as far as I could away form the wall then stopped to let the pain of what I was doing die down and take a breather. “God that hurts, but at least we’re moving,” I said.
“Let me try to remove some of the pain from you like I did earlier,” she said. “I think I can handle it better this time.”
After a minute I felt the pain subside noticeably, it was working! Elizabeth was able to take some measure of the pain away, and I felt that I was able to keep going. I began ‘rowing’ with the crutches as best as I could, going from one side to the other using both crutches. Instead of trying to swing one crutch up over the bed to the other side, I’d drop one crutch on the bed and pick up the other one that I put on the other side of the bed so I could go back and forth between them. It was slow and arduous work, with many pauses to rest or back up to get unstuck from another bed that we ran into. Eventually, we made it over to the doorway and out into the hall.
“I have no idea how long that took us, Elizabeth. But it took a while and I don’t think we have enough time to maneuver this bed into an elevator and outdoors. Do you remember if there is a clock anywhere in the hallway? How are you doing with all of this? Your help by keeping some of the pain away has been superb.” I could feel her exhaustion so I knew this was taking a toll on her.
“I’m still here,” she said. “I’ll make it through. I think there is a clock just behind us.”
I moved the bed around so we could see the other way down the hall and there was the clock. It had taken me a lot longer than I thought to get us this far though. We had only 30 minutes before 6 AM, and sunrise was just a couple minutes after that.
“Not good,” I said. “You’re going to think I’m crazy, but is there a window at either end of this hallway?”
“You are crazy. You could kill yourself if you are thinking what I believe you are. And yes, there is a window at the far end of the hall.”
“It’s either risk everything, or accept the less pleasant alternative of staying here forever with the not so good doctor. We need to get onto one of those gurneys. Hopefully the slick surface and lack of any foot board will allow us to slide right off, and the lighter weight will let us build up enough speed to crash through the window when we hit.”
I moved us around again so we were facing down the hall and got up next to a gurney. I was able to push the bed sideways right up against the gurney pinning it between the wall and the bed so it would not move. I began the task of moving the dead weight of our cast over from the bed onto the gurney. At first all I could manage was to spin around on my butt which was getting us nowhere. Then I managed to spin around just far enough that I could reach the wooden hand rail going down the length of the hall and begin a series of pulls and twists that finally got us on the gurney and several more minutes to get us centered on it. I had no idea how long it took me to do it, but I knew we were running out of time. I pushed the bed away so I could get the gurney moving and started my rowing trick again, this time using just one crutch, the other one having been left behind on the bed.
Using the walls and floor I got us moving down the hall, praying that I was able to build up enough speed. We came to the end of the hall with a large picture window looking outside, going as fast as I could get us going. My guess about the slick surface of the gurney was right, and as soon as it hit the bottom edge of the window sill it stopped dead and we kept going, sliding right off it. We, being heavy plaster cast Elizabeth and myself, hit the window hard and it was fast enough to break the glass and keep going through from 6 stories up. Now I could experience the definite fear of falling from a great height that I had been trying to ignore up until this moment. I would have screamed if my vocal cords had not been blocked by the endo-tracheal tube. The only thing I recall from the landing was pain. A LOT of pain.
“Oh my god, you did it Jeff. You did it! Look! Please Jeff, open your eyes and look! We beat him before the time limit, we’re out!” I managed to open my eyes to see the pre-dawn horizon hanging pale in my sight, and no more than a minute later the sun broke the horizon and it was the dawn of a new day. We had made it, with only one minute to spare. “Jeff, I’m outside that hospital for the first time in years! I’m free! Thank you Jeff, thank you! In return for setting me free, I give to you all my experience and knowledge. I’m afraid you’re going to need it.”
Then I felt something I hadn’t felt before, as if Elizabeth were somehow pouring herself into me. “Elizabeth? What did you just do? Are you still there?”
I heard her whisper, as if from a great distance, “It’s ok Jeff, I’m finally free. Thank you.” Then the pain overwhelmed me and I passed out.
Epilogue
Well, that’s my story. Not a lot to tell after that. Miraculously, I was found alive and completely naked lying in the ditch beside the road, my body bent and twisted in places that it should not be. I was still in the body of a 15 year old girl too. An ambulance was called and I was taken to the nearest hospital where I was diagnosed with the exact same injuries I had been inflicted with by Dr. Brown. I was put into a body cast from my toes to my neck, with a halo ring screwed into my skull and attached to the cast. My arms were put into casts just like I had been wearing during my contest and struggle to get free of that accursed place. I even had to deal with the ventilator due to the spinal swelling from the shattered vertebrate in my neck, and the permanent paralysis from a severed spinal cord at the T-12 level. I had my first menstrual cycle while in the hospital and on life support and I never felt a thing from it or any of the others I’ve gone through since then, being a complete paraplegic. The paralysis from the neck injury took a month to start going away, then another two months before I didn’t need some level of assistance from a ventilator any more. You can still see the scar from the tracheotomy tube they cut my throat open to insert while I still needed the ventilator. Speaking of scars, if you look closely you can see the marks where the halo ring was screwed into my skull. It took 6 months before the doctors felt it could be removed and a rigid, but removable, neck brace replaced it. The body cast stayed around for 3 more months following the removal of the halo, although they did change it for a fresh one twice during those 9 months I was in it. At least the arm casts got changed for smaller ones after a couple months, and then for splints and braces 2 months after that. Physical therapy had my arms back to fairly good working order before I was out of my huge body cast; although I’ve still got some minor nerve damage and minor loss of flexibility in my hands and arms that I’ll probably never fully get rid of.
Oh, that name Elizabeth Montgomery? When I was brought into the hospital of course I couldn’t talk, and I was put on the ventilator pretty quick, so a picture was taken and someone went through a database of missing people and news articles. Wouldn’t you know it, a perfect match was made with that name on it, and my distant relatives were notified that Elizabeth Montgomery was alive and being treated in the hospital for multiple serious injuries. Turns out that once they accepted me as their relative I was basically adopted into their direct family. Not a bad deal since they are an old family with a good bit of ‘old money’. What ever Elizabeth did for me at the end, it gave me enough knowledge about herself and her family that I have no problems now as both a girl and a Montgomery. The closest I can figure it, she gave up what ever defined her as ‘Elizabeth’ and finished the bonding or merge that had been done to us, completely melding her soul with mine and leaving me as the only one in this body. I’ve accepted her gift to me, and have strived to live my life over again.
I do mean live it over again too. While it took the better part of a year of me being in a hospital, and many more months in a rehab facility, I’m now a 16 year old teenage girl with all that entails. I happily scoot around high school again in my sleek little manual wheelchair and get nearly straight A’s for grades. I wasn’t a dummy the first time through high school, and with that knowledge still there this time is even easier. I have my own car with manual hand controls and I passed the driving test to get my license a few months ago. I have a bunch of girl friends I hang out with, and I even have a boy friend now. Apparently Elizabeth left me enough of herself so that in no time at all I got used to the fact that I’m a girl. A heterosexual girl. One who likes boys. Sure, I’m a paraplegic and use a wheelchair to get around, but that doesn’t seem to bother Donald. If we ever get past the shy kissing and holding hands stage, I’m sure we’ll figure how to make it work out.
As for the abandoned and haunted hospital that I swore to come back and exorcise Dr. Brown’s evil butt out of? It seems the building was bull-dozed and torn down a decade before I ever found it. There’s just an empty field where the damned thing used to stand. I still convinced a couple of priests to go out there with me and perform an exorcism ritual on the location. I have no idea if it worked, but it made me feel better afterwards and just maybe it will keep someone else from suffering a horrible fate like I almost did. Just in case though if you ever go out that way and see a building in a flash of lightning just behind a small rise, don’t go anywhere near it. Turn around and go the opposite direction. You’ll be glad you did.
The End
