Acid Rain by R.D Rhodes (ebook reader txt) 📕

had been in so far. I came in on the twenty-seventh, so that makes today… “Halloween?”

“When the veil between this world and the other is at its thinnest, apparently. Every year on Halloween all the ghost and supernatural sightings increase. Hm, that’s pretty cool.”

“That’s cause they’re looking for it, though. They see it because they’re prepared to see it.”

“You didn’t expect to see it.”

“No.”

“Well, have you seen anything like it before?”

“No.”

“What did it look like?”

He seemed calmer this morning. His curly hair was just as messy though and hadn’t been brushed or washed. He wore a black t-shirt with some folk singer on the front.

I told Harry all about it- about the lucid color and the formless shape, about how it drifted along the corridor but didn’t rise or expand like smoke should do. That there was nobody else around.

“Did it not have a face, or a figure?”

“No.”

“Hm.”

“Do you believe me?” I said.

“Yeah.” he nodded.

I picked up my orange juice and took a long drink.

“Is Nina not out of bed yet?” Sanders voice called.

“I’ll go and check.” Dale said. He wandered out down the hall.

“You don’t look like you slept much.” Harry said.

“No. I didn’t.”

I spooned up some of the porridge and ate a few mouthfuls in silence, when Dale came racing back into the room. His face was wild, “Come here! Quick!” He commanded Sanders, as animated as I’d ever seen him.

Her eyes returned that fright. “Shit.” She mouthed, as she left the serving area and followed him out the room with the other nurses. Their panic spread quickly and a couple of patients immediately got up from the telly and jogged after them, catching me by surprise, I had thought they were pretty much vegetables. I pushed my chair in and jogged behind. A crowd of patients were already stood outside Nina’s door. I went up on my tiptoes, and with my extra height, managed to peer over the heads into the room. The bed was made, the room was clean- apart from the knife on the floor underneath the window, surrounded by broken glass.

Sanders paced side to side, her hands flailing and wringing the air. Liz and Dale just stood there, looking dumbly at the jagged edges of the glass and at the gap of the missing bar.

“How the hell did she get hold of that?” Sanders pointed at the knife and screamed at Liz and Dale. She turned to us at the doorway. “Move!” She strode through the middle of us and turned left, those sharp heels clacking as she sprinted down the corridor.

Dale and Liz stood motionless. “We’re gonna get it for this.” Dale said. He picked up the knife, held it in his closed fist and looked back at the bar that had been perforated.

“How did she manage to get in the nurses’ staysh-in?” Liz offered.

They stood in silence, darkly contemplating, then they turned and ran through us in the direction Sanders had gone.

I don’t think anyone could believe she had done it. Little Nina the child. She’d managed to get hold of that knife, somehow get it back to her room, break the glass that I couldn’t break, and saw her way through the bar before jumping out of the window. The crowd of us stared in mutual astonishment. The space she had to squeeze through was tiny, about twenty inches between the bars. And all that effort, when she could have just slashed her wrists.

“Move, please.” Kev stormed in with Jean, holding a brush and dustpan. They commenced sweeping up the broken glass.

Eight or nine of us remained, watching them sweep and staring awe-struck at the window. Then I felt warm, moist breath in my ear and looked left, at Harry. He looked crazy, his black eyes were blazing. I was about to ask him to move a little further away from me when he whispered loudly and with great excitement “Aisha. They haven’t shut the fucking door.”

“What?” I glanced over.  Jesus, he was right. The entrance door to the buffer zone had been left open. Maybe the second one had been too.

“C’mon, hurry up.” He tugged at my jumper.

I followed after him. We walked casually but quickly as the group remained staring into Nina’s room. We passed by the bathroom door, then another door, and another. We were almost there. I kept waiting for a shout to come but it never did. We picked up our pace, my heart was pounding. “Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ” Harry kept repeating, his eyes fixed on the entrance. We reached it and stepped beyond the first set of doors, we were in the buffer zone- and the keys had been left in the lock. I took them out and unlocked the second doors and we stepped out of the ward. I was about to set off down the stairs, but Harry stalled and turned around. It was in that second that Kev saw us, and leapt forward through the crowd. Harry grabbed the keys from my hand and I watched in horror as he put the key in the lock, grinned at Kev, clicked the key round and left it there.

“C’mon, fuckin run!” I shouted.

We took the steps down two at a time, hearing Kev cursing and pounding at the door. We landed on the bottom floor, his screaming fading behind us, and we didn’t bother to check if the coast was clear. Harry shot out in front. The halls were empty. We sprinted out along the custard walls and floral wallpaper and neared the reception office and beyond it the exit.

“Slow down” I said.

Harry slowed and we strolled past the reception window as casually as we could. The receptionist was staring at the monitor on her computer, she never noticed us. We got three paces past