My Daylight Monsters (3 page)

“Don’t worry, I won’t look.” Lacey picks up her book and buries her nose in it once more.

For a while
, things are nowhere near as bad as I’d conjured in my mind. The most disturbing sight is Lacey, picking her toenails. Even though I find myself able to begin to relax in my room, especially after I get my things back and I’m able to put up a photograph of my family, something stops me from venturing into the communal areas. Lacey finds this frustrating and almost drags me there by the arm. She pulls me around the sofas, pointing at the things Nurse Granger already showed me on the way in. It’s no good. All I see is dark corners with doctors lurking behind. I know that through the two thick glass doors is the rest of the hospital, with people dying, having their insides cut open or giving birth, or whatever other gross things go on.

I slip away from her and
head back towards our room. She doesn’t follow me.

How is this going to work? How am I supposed to get better
, when the thing that’s supposed to help me get better scares me? For the briefest of moments, everything comes crashing down and I have pause and lean against the wall. There’s a bright flash in my mind and I’m back there, flames licking at my skin. I screw my eyes shut and open them again. The corridor light flickers on and off, one… two… three times. My heart flutters like the wings of a trapped butterfly.

There’s a boy in the corridor, about twenty feet
away from me. The light flashes above his head. I only see him for two seconds and then he’s gone. Back into his room, I guess.

His hood
was up, so I only caught a glimpse of his face. I could swear he had green eyes, but maybe it’s the light playing tricks on me. I pull myself together and find my room. Thunder cracks in the distance. Water flows down the windowpane in rivulets. I want to be at home.

Lacey brings me a tuna sandwich for lunch. “Not veggie
, are you?”

I shake my head.

“I didn’t think you’d want to eat out there today.”

It’s so thoughtful
that my eyes mist over with tears. More to avoid her gaze than anything, I pull the plastic away from my sandwich and start eating. The bread has gone soggy from too much mayo and the crusts are dry.

“The food here is shit,” she says. “But you get used to it.”

I nod, still worried I might cry.

“The first day is the hardest.” She picks the crust away fr
om her sandwich. “But after that, things get better. I’ll introduce you to everyone tomorrow, if you want.”

“Okay,” I say.

“Wow, you’re a talker. I mean, come on, you’re giving me earache here.” Lacey rolls her eyes and the wicked grin comes back. “No need to go on about it.”

Finally I catch her eye and we laugh a little.

“Girls?” Nurse Granger appears at the door again. “Enjoying your lunches?”

“Yes,” we mumble in unison.

“Good. Mary, after you’ve eaten that, Dr. Harrison would like to see you. Come to the hatch when you’re ready and I’ll take you in.” Her round, pleasant face disappears from the door.

My tuna sandwich doesn’t seem
quite as appetising now. Hearing the name of someone I’ve seen outside of the hospital reminds me of my family and everything outside the ward. My heart pangs when I realise I miss them already.

“I wouldn’t worry about it.
I don’t think you’re quite ready for the straight
jacket yet,” Lace
y says with a laugh. “He’ll talk to you about your medication and the therapy here and stuff. It’s nothing to worry about. What kind of drugs are you on?”

I don’t answer.

“Honestly, shut up, Mary. You’re driving me mad with your jibber-jabber. Besides, I’ll probably see what old Lurch passes you in the morning.”

“Who’s Lurch?”

“Dr. Gethen, at the hatch. Don’t you think he looks like a monster? With his stoop and creepy eyes.”

“No
, not really,” I reply.

“Oh
, for God’s sake, would you cheer the hell up?” She rolls her eyes at me.

My stomach churns but I manage to
humour Lacey with a smile before getting up from my bed and dumping the tuna sandwich in the bin on the way out.

Lacey calls after me.
“Thought you weren’t anorexic? That’s going to stink the room out, you know. Honestly, I’d expect better from a Harrington girl.”

*

“And what about your visions?” Dr. Harrison says.

I find my eyes roaming his office instead of answering the question. He has a lot of books. His desk is untidy and piled high with papers
and tacky snow globes. Rows of cheap little trolls and mascots are stuck atop his computer with blu-tack.

“I… um… I don’t know.”

“Have you seen anything out of the ordinary?” His bushy eyebrows raise. He leans across the desk, his elbows resting on notepads. “Anything unusual at all?”

I shake my head.

“Okay. Well, we’ll keep you on the same dose of anti-psychotics as before. Did you take your dose before you came to the hospital, like I said to?”

“Yes.”

“Good. That’s good. So you’ll take your medicine tomorrow morning, after breakfast. At 9am you go to the hatch and collect it, okay?”

“Yes.”

“Good. And how are you settling in? Are you getting on well with Lacey?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I thought so. She’s been here a long time and she knows the ropes. Lacey will show you around and help you settle in. There are daily group therapy sessions that I expect you to attend. Okay?”

“Yes.”

He opens his mouth, probably to say ‘good’, but then closes it again and meets my eyes with his. They are a little bloodshot and an unremarkable blue colour. Lines, bags and a few broken blood vessels mar the skin around his eyes. “Mary, the experience and therapy you get from this ward will only be as good as what you contribute to it. You need to interact with people here. Now, I want you to actively participate in the group therapy sessions, okay?”

“Yes.”

Dr. Harrison sighs and rubs his temples. “All right. You can go now. Don’t forget to collect your medicine from Dr. Gethen, at the hatch, 9am sharp. Please write down any visions you have, like anything you saw at the time of the accident.”

My skin goes cold.

“Okay.” I stand up to leave.

“
Nurse Granger is there if you have any problems. There is someone supervising the hatch at all times. Usually Dr. Gethen.”

“Okay.”

To get back to my room I have to walk back past the hatch, through the communal area, past the toilets and down the corridor. No one seems to bother me—they’re too interested in watching daytime television or playing cards. Some are just too involved in themselves to care. They stare at the walls, their lips moving but emitting no sound. Care assistants sit near them, with books open on their knees. When one boy, about fourteenish in appearance with a thin face and pale skin, jumps up and makes screeching noises, the care assistant watches him warily but doesn’t intervene.

I tensed every muscle when the boy screeched, and my stomach flipped.
Despite telling myself not to be such an idiot, I move faster towards my room. The stupid corridor light flickers on and off again. Behind me, the agitated boy screeches. I glance back, breath catching in my throat. The care assistant tries to calm the boy but he hits the sofa with his fists. I turn away and carry on along the corridor, hurrying and not paying attention to what I’m doing.

The lights flicker overhead and I stumble away from the common room, moving so fast I don’t see the trainers left on the floor. I trip forward, catch my trouser leg with the foot behind, and have no choice but to let myself fall to the floor, with both arms stupidly flailing. My palms and fac
e both smack down at the same time, leaving my skin stinging.

But I don’t care about the
stinging; I want to get up as fast as possible, preferably before anyone notices. In doing so, I almost fall forwards again. With a groan I kick the offending trainers away and clench and unclench my fists to get the feeling back in my hands.

“Have a nice trip?”

I spin around to see a hooded figure behind me. His voice is low and quiet, with a hint of sarcasm. The light flickers and brightens, revealing green eyes and a hint of dark stubble under the hood. The boy from earlier. Up close I see he’s tall, well-built and stands cockily with his arms folded. He pulls back the hood to reveal a smirk and thick eyelashes.

“
Whatever,” I mutter, moving away from him. I’ve got no time for sarcasm today. He can jog on.

As
I start to open the door to my room, something makes me turn back towards the guy. He smiles and says, “I’m Johnny. Nice to meet you.”

I
glance away, pushing the door open. It groans loudly. Again, I look back. Johnny is gone.

I always thought my demons came out in the day, rather than
at night. I’ve never been scared of the dark. I’ve only ever been scared of real things: getting ill, having injections, physical pain… death. Those are my monsters, not ghosts or vampires or whatever else can hide under your bed at night. I guess serial killers could get you in the dark, but they can get you in the light just as easily.

I was wrong.

The dark makes everything worse.

Lacey
warns me about Frankie, the boy who screams. He’s been in Magdelena for a long time. The screams come from nowhere and happen at any time, day or night. That night I wake in a cold sweat to the sound of his screeches, echoing down the corridor, and the squeak of shoes against the linoleum as the nurses and care assistants rush to his room. Lacey doesn’t even stir.

After
that, every noise is amplified. Every glint of light seems sinister. Occasional cars arrive and leave the multi-story car park opposite our room. They come and go at all hours. My mind begins to wander each time the headlights seep through the windows. I make up stories for each driver. At 3am, a family leave the bedside of their now deceased grandparent. She’d waited for them to leave the room before letting herself die. The presence of her family helped her cling to a few extra moments, but no one can last forever. At 5am, a nurse finishes her shift and heads back to her car. She goes to unlock the door but finds it already unlocked. How weird. Did she forget to lock it? She must be working too hard again. She’ll have to ask for time off. At least no one has stolen the car, or her radio. That’s really lucky. She drives away without checking the rear view mirror. She should have checked…

You could say that it’s weird. That
I’m
weird. Because I don’t believe in ghosts, but I believe in what I see. I see some strange things. I see people with things wrong with them, bones and wounds and deathly pale skin. They deliver messages to me. They help me stop bad things from happening. I don’t know what they are, or why they come to me. Maybe they are some sort of left over essence, or a part of my mind trying to glue pieces together. I don’t know and I don’t over think it.

The problem is—they get me in trouble. Like during the incident.

It was at school. This girl I know, someone I wanted to impress but not someone who’s a good friend, invited me to a get together. A group of us broke into the school with a load of alcohol and started getting pissed, spray-painting the sports hall and generally arsing around. I’m not normally like that. Honest. But I guess I needed to let off steam or something. The things… the Things I see… they were getting to me and I wanted a break. I wanted to be a
kid
again.

So the week before we br
oke into the school, one of the Things came to me during class. One minute I’m taking notes about the boiling point of ethanol and the next, this leathery man with an eye missing and green tinged skin is standing next to my desk. He puts a hand over mine and moves the pen.
Fire. Blood. School.

In another instant
, he’s gone.

Half an hour later
, Gary Jones lights his Bunsen burner and it explodes! Mr. Qureshi had disappeared to get more goggles from the store cupboard next door and while everyone’s yelling, “Sir! Sir!”, I rush forward and pull Gary away. Mr. Qureshi dashes into the lab, grabs a fire extinguisher and puts the fire out. It’s only after I let Gary go that I see the gash on my elbow. I’d caught myself on a piece of broken beaker. That was it for me. I fainted.

On the night of the incident, inside the sports hall with Anita Taylor, half the rugby team and Anita’s sister and her friends—the A-
Level crew—were sat passing vodka around in a circle when someone drunkenly mentions that it’s like we’re camping. Someone else rolls a joint and things get messy.

I space out for a while.
The lights go off. Someone creates light. It flickers and moves like it’s dancing. One of the rugby team comes to sit next to me, his knee touching mine. His arms get closer until one of them is over my shoulder and he pulls me into his chest a little bit. It’s nice for a while, but then a sensation of suffocation overwhelms me. The zombie with the rotting leather skin comes back, spray painting across the walls:
Die die die. You all die die die.

Suddenly I’m not
so spaced anymore. The idiots have lit a campfire and the flames are already taller than me. Black smoke billows out and the alarms are screaming. I can’t see Anita anywhere. The rugby guy has passed out on the floor and part of his jeans are on fire. I slam my foot down on his ankle, stomping out the flames. Then I drag him away from the fire.

“Anita? Anita?” I shout out.

I wake.

Lacey stares down at me. “You all right? It’s nearly 8:15. You need to get showered or you’ll never
have time for breakfast.” She seems concerned. “Bad dream?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“You’ll feel better after your meds.” She moves away from the bed and picks up her eyeliner. As I dash out of the room she leans forward into the mirror. For a split-second I think I see a shadow in the back of the mirror and some green eyes. I shake my head and leave.

*

At breakfast, Lacey introduces me to some of the other patients. There’s Yasmeen, an anorexic girl with braided hair and glasses, who stares at her food for thirty seconds before starting to eat; then there’s Marcus, a recovering addict from London who says ‘yeah’ at the end of most sentences; he fidgets in his seat and drums on the table with his knife. They sit together and seem to be good friends, if a little ill-suited. Frankie, the screecher, sits with his care assistant and splashes his milk with his spoon. Lacey informs me that Natalie has attempted suicide five times—she checks in and out whenever she begins to plan another suicide and then sits in perfect silence, usually on her own, until she leaves a week later. My eyes are drawn to her. She sits so still. Her dark eyes stare into nothing.

Mohammed—or Mo—runs poker sessions. He is another regular at
Magdelena, checking in and out whenever he has a psychotic episode. Over breakfast he cheerily tells me about the time he ordered £300 worth of salt and vinegar crisps on the internet, and thought people in soap operas were talking to him.

Also amongst the card players are Helen, who
is a depressed over-eater—she smiles shyly and pulls at her stretched out hoody; Tom, with borderline personality disorder and straight teeth; and Anka, another anorexia sufferer.

Halfway through introductions, uncomfortable questions and cereal, I hear a loud sobbing coming from out
side the ward. I follow the gaze of some of the patients, through the glass doors. You can see into the corridor of the hospital, beyond the reception, where a man comforts a distressed woman, stroking her hair and patting her back. She sinks into his arms, limp with grief.

“That
makes four. Whoever bet on three is out.” Mo cocks his head to one side and surveys the rest of the table.

“Not me. I got five.
Hels is gonna have to pay up, yeah.” Marcus flashes Helen a grin.

“I’ve only got prawn cocktail left,” Helen whines, “and they’re my favourite.”

“Shh, Granger is coming,” Lacey chimes in.

The rest of the table lower their heads and carry on with breakfast.

“Good morning,” Nurse Granger says. “Yasmeen and Anka, can I check your bowls, please?”

The two girls hold up their bowls, which have been scraped clean.
Anka looks a little like she wants to vomit.

“Very good. So I see you’ve all met Mary. Make sure to give her a warm welcome.” Nurse Granger clicks her heels together like Mary Poppins and walks off with a slight wiggle to her backside.

Mo sniggers. “Jolly good show, guys,” he says with forced gusto. “We’d best throw Mary a spiffing good party to welcome her here.”

“Don’t forget the ginger beer!”
Tom suggests.

I try and join in the laughter, but there’s still a pang inside, one telling me I should be at home.

“All right, that’s enough, yeah. We’re sortin’ out the bets, innit.” Marcus raps the table with his plastic knife. It could barely cut bread and butter. “Like four of them have snuffed it this week, at least. So anyone who went for less than four needs to cough up.”

“You’re betting on
deaths
?” I blurt out. “Isn’t that a bit… morbid?”

The group burst out laughing. “Where you been, girl? This is morbid central,
innit. You’re in a mental hospital, yeah,” Marcus says.

Mo quietens first. “There’s a palliative care unit across the hallway,” he explains in a measured tone. “It’s basically for people with terminal illnesses.”

A cold sensation spreads over my skin. Nanna in the hospital bed. Thin and lifeless.

“End of life care,” Lacey says wistfully. “That’s what they called it when my
grandad died. It sounds so much better than dying. Takes the pain out.”

“I wonder if that’s how
she
sees it,” Yasmeen says, nodding towards Natalie. “Ending things.”

“Or beginning,” Tom joins in, “d
epending on what you believe.”

The group stop and poke at their cereal. Silence descends
over the table. Frankie screeches and the shock of the loud noise after such a pregnant pause causes a jolt to run up my spine. I physically jump and clutch my chest. Mo turns his deep brown eyes on me and laughs.

“You’re gonna have to toughen up, girl. Things will get worse than this,” he says.

Something makes me want to turn to the back of the room, as if I sense a presence. Johnny walks in. His green eyes shine from beneath his hood. The sight of him sets tingles running up and down my arms, almost like when I see the Things, except I kind of like seeing Johnny. I’m not terribly fond of zombies with rotting flesh.

He doesn’t get breakfast. Instead, he hovers around the room before turning and running back down the corridor. I’m about to ask the group about him when Marcus starts insisting that the
others pay him in crisps and chocolate. I glance towards the glass, where you can just see the corridor and the palliative care unit. Standing outside the door—for the briefest of instances—I see the man with a skull-like face. His bones shine through the skin. I shake the image away and continue with my breakfast.