Category Archives: Hell Hospital

Hell Hospital 15

10 Friday Jun 2011

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By theseustoo

(Disclaimer: this series of stories is completely fictional and none of the persons, places or institutions in these stories are real, but figments of my imagination. Any similarity to any real person, place or institution is entirely coincidental.)

Doctor Frood had never seen anything like it before in his life. Every time he tried to speak to Catherine, he was not only verbally attacked by his patient, but physically attacked by plastic drink and pee-bottles, bed-pans and other equipment in the ward which seemed, of their own accord, to actually fly at him from all directions so that he was obliged to make a strategic withdrawal, exiting the ward with much less dignity than a psychiatrist should maintain if he wanted to retain credibility. It could only be some form of psychokinesis, he supposed, and quickly came to the conclusion that whatever it was that was in control of this woman, it was not herself; and it had extraordinary powers.

Of course, he’d heard of such cases, but they were extremely rare and the medical profession had no way of treating what he suspected was a genuine case of demon-possession or possession by some other spirit, whose purposes were unknown, but whose intentions could only be evil, he decided. He realised he was out of his depth; he really needed help from the professionals in the possession business; the Catholic Church. So he had sent an urgent email to the Vatican, who sent out a troubleshooter in the form of a papal nuncio, whose instructions were to deal with whatever it was that was possessing Catherine Swan.

***** ******* *****

The most Reverend Bishop, Petros Batty, read through his check-list to make sure that he hadn’t forgotten anything important: plenty of crucifixes, check; at least a gallon of holy water he’d had blessed by the Pope himself, check; prayer book and bible (and at least two spares of each… just in case…) check; and a dozen wooden stakes, sharpened to a point at one end, check; a wooden mallet to hammer them home, should they prove necessary, check; and finally a Colt .45 revolver with a box of hollow-point, silver bullets, hand-made by the Sisters of Mercy, and again, specially blessed by the Pope himself, check. ‘It pays,’ he thought as he packed this last, ‘to be prepared for every eventuality’.

His flight was not on any scheduled aircraft, but in the Pope’s own Lear jet. Even so it would be three whole days before he would arrive in South Oz. As he climbed into the Pope’s own limousine, to be driven to the Pope’s own private airfield, he only hoped he would be in time… The souls of mortals could not withstand such forms of spiritual attack for long, he well knew, but he was thankful that from the reports he’d been given by Dr Frood, the subject had been a most devout believer right up until the moment of her psychic and spiritual invasion. With a little luck, he thought, that should buy him the time he would need for his journey and preparations. Even so, he prayed fervently for the protection of the saints and angels for his new client; from Dr Frood’s description this would not be an easy case.

***** ******* *****

The Dog-Spirit, Mirriyuula, sensed trouble in the world of humans; there was a baby in mortal and spiritual danger, and he knew he would have to remove it from where it was currently to a place of safety. Perhaps the best thing to do, he though, would be to take it to its brothers and sisters so that they could look after it. But then, he thought, I’ll have to take them ALL to a safe place… and somehow do it without letting them know that they were in any danger at all, and especially without them finding out exactly what was the nature of that danger; he didn’t want to worry them, because he know all too well that in cases like this one, where the Dark One was concerned, fear itself could destroy them. Fortunately it should, he though, be a relatively easy matter for him to remove the baby from the hospital’s nursery, as, in his ‘dog’ form, he was totally invisible to all but the most psychically gifted humans.

***** ******* *****

Though still in her alienated state, Catherine always seemed to enjoy her baby’s feeding times; these were the only time the doctors and nurses would ever let her see her child because they were all terrified she might harm it. Strangely enough, however, it seemed that the presence of the baby had a calming effect on the raving madwoman; and a blank but peaceful expression spread over her face as she breast-fed the infant.

Satisfied that her charge was comfortable and the baby was feeding happily and greedily, Nurse Paula thought she could easily duck out through the French windows to have a quick smoke; she’d be back before Catherine had finished feeding the bub, she thought… She did not see the invisible spirit of the ghost-dog as it brushed past her legs through the opened french windows and into the day-room.

The baby was extremely hungry today, for some reason, however, and had drained Catherine’s breasts in half the time it usually took. In here zombie-like state of somnolence, Catherine burped the child and put it down in the bassinet-trolley the nurses always used to bring the baby to her, so she could prepare a nappy for it. The doctors and nurses had initially been very surprised that she was able to do this in her alienated condition, but decided that her maternal functions were working perfectly, out of sheer instinct; after all, it was her eleventh child… now they took it for granted that she would feed the baby and change its nappy as if on some kind of maternal ‘auto-pilot’.

Taking advantage of Catherine’s turned back, Mirriyuula took the handle of the bassinet-trolley in its jaws and pushed it out through the ward’s swing-doors; as a spirit, Mirriyuula could sense that the corridor would be empty; and that he would be able to take it down in a service elevator to the ground floor and straight out into the car-park, where he would have to resume human form drive the vehicle he’d left there ready… But Catherine turned round again just in time to see a tawny, dog-like creature pushing the bassinet-trolley with her baby in it out through the swing-doors. Suddenly she spoke her first coherent sentence in months as she screamed out at the top of her lungs, “Help! Help! A dingo’s got my baby!”

***** ******* *****

14 Hell’s Hospital – Birthday Edition

06 Friday May 2011

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Episode 14

By theseustoo

The cricket team was doing
alright; with John and Mary working and Algernon and Vivienne in
charge of the ‘little-uns’ to make sure they all got to school fed
and properly dressed; although they had little enough time for
cricket these days… Fortunately it was off-season anyway; though
they still tried to get in as much practice as they could over the
weekends. Ever since they were born, cricket had been their religion;
their father’s passion had managed to inculcate his obsession into
his children.

For the time being at least
they had managed to avert impending doom and manage this crisis as
well as could be expected; indeed, much better than most expected;
thanks to the sense of discipline their father’s religion had
instilled in them. Swannee had been hoping to engage them against
similar ‘family’ teams in ‘exhibition matches’… Algernon was a
terrific fast-bowler and Merv, the third-eldest boy could hit almost
any delivery for six. Unafraid even of the dreaded ‘googlie’, he’d
stand his ground and then, ‘THWACK’ the next thing you know the ball
would be somewhere up in the grandstand, or crashing through a
pavilion window… When asked how he managed to hit so many ‘sixes’
he just said, “I hate running…”

The plans their father had,
however, were now on hold; in any case, they would need to get their
new sibling out of hospital (they still didn’t even know whether it
was a boy or a girl!) so they could bring it home and start its early
training; John and Mary worried that it had already been three months
since their mother’s ‘nervous breakdown’ and the poor bub hadn’t even
held a cricket ball yet! Indeed, hadn’t even met its mother or its
father… or its brothers and sisters; the poor thing was in danger
of growing up an atheist! Something would clearly have to be done
soon.

***** ******** *****

“Inspector Vin Ordinaire
Rouge was right,” Mr Jones, who called himself ‘Foodge’, was
saying, “Catherine Swan could not possibly have killed her beloved
husband, Swannee, because she loved him too much and in any case, her
religion forbids it; and she is very devout… We suspect that she
has been ‘body-snatched’ by some unknown alien force; probably from a
different dimension…” Even though the day-room was empty apart
from himself and Dave, the new psych patient, he spoke in hushed
tones.

“Bodysnatched?” Dave
said, incredulously, “You mean someone’s taken over her mind…?”
Foodge shushed him insistently, then answered in a whisper, “Well…
more like ‘someTHING’ has taken over her body and is controlling it;
no saying exactly what that thing is; or what has happened to her
mind; the shrinks here don’t even know what they’re looking for.
That’s why I’m here… If we can get through to Catherine’s mind we
may get vital information on the nature of the threat… We’re hoping
it’s still in there somewhere…”

“Threat…? What threat?”
Dave asked immediately.

“Well, if I knew that
precisely I wouldn’t be here now, would I? All we do know is that it
involves the intrusion into our dimension of hyper-dimensional beings
who really don’t belong in this time-space continuum… and they’re
collecting together certain people for some unknown purpose… and
you’re one of them…”

“Oh… right…” Said
Dave, dubiously… Sure now that this guy was not playing with a full
deck. “And you reckon this hyper-dimensional being wants me too, do
you? But why?”

“Well, if we knew why,
we’d know a lot more than we do today, I’m afraid; however, suffice
it to say that certain transmissions from the nth
dimension have been received which suggest that a plot is afoot which
puts the whole of South Oz in danger… though, we’re not quite sure
what kind of danger that is yet…”

Dave was just giving him
his ‘quizzical’ look when the nurse arrived and, catching the
tail-end of the conversation, decided it had better end at once;
fantasies like those entertained by Mr Jones were not to be discussed
outside therapy sessions; and certainly not in front of potentially
violent patients… it was too easy to get them to act out even the
most bizarre dreams as if they were real; and that could be
dangerous.

“Mr Jones!” the nurse
said, “It’s time for your medication; report to the ward-sister
immediately.”

Then, after he’d gone, she
squatted down in front of Dave, who was sitting in one of the
day-room’s armchairs, “You don’t want to take any notice of
anything that guy says,” she said to him, “He’s nuttier than a
snickers bar! Now, you’d better go and get your meds too…”

***** ******** *****

When Catherine had
discovered her husband in flagrante
delicto it
had been such a shock to her psyche; had opened up such alien
feelings in her that her own mind felt violated at the impulses she
now felt; and these feelings it was which had opened up the psychic
crack that was necessary for the Dark One to quickly slip in and take
control. From that instant Catherine’s mind had withdrawn into
itself; thus whatever she experienced was experienced as a dream;
disjointed snippets of actions that were so unlike her and so
horrific that she found hard to understand, let alone to believe that
it was she who was performing them. The Dark One had been thrilled
with the discovery in Catherine’s mind of such superb knife-throwing
skills, and had immediately prompted his newly-acquired body to act
on the intense feelings of hatred and betrayal which had let him in,
and let fly… Catherine’s mind retreated further into
unconsciousness as the knives sank into Swannee’s back.

After she’d been taken to
the psych ward, however, the Dark One had been so busy manipulating
Elaine’s mind that his grip on Catherine’s mind had loosened just
enough to allow some remnant of Catherine’s consciousness to become
dimly aware, somewhere in its own deep, dark recesses; and in this
dream-like awareness, she found herself being tugged at by another
consciousness. It was not the Dark One, who had bullied her mind into
submission and frightened it into unconsciousness, of that she was
certain. This new presence seemed kind and gentle; it spoke to her
gently, soothingly, reassuring her that all would be well, but that
the time would soon come when she must act to rid herself of the Dark
One’s presence.

“Soon…” the new
presence said and Catherine knew she would be ready.

***** ******** *****

Hell Hospital, Episode 13

12 Tuesday Apr 2011

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By theseustoo

Dave struggled to free himself from the warm fuzziness which seemed to weigh him down like a leaden blanket… as he gradually emerged into semi-consciousness, he realised that someone was shaking him. “Where am I?” he asked, thoroughly bemused. An unknown voice answered him from underneath a broad-rimmed fedora, “You’re in hospital… Psych ward…”

“What?!” Dave now sat bolt upright, “What he hell am I doing here? I’m not crazy!”

The stranger with the fedora grasped hold of him and, quickly shushing him, laid him back down on his pillow. The attendant nurse, who was sitting at the desk at the other end of the ward, briefly looked up, just as the fedora slipped below the level of Dave’s bed. Satisfied that all was as normal as might reasonably be expected in a psychiatric ward, she returned to her perusal of the new roster she was trying to organise, peeved at having to be the one to do it, and knowing that no matter what she did, just about everyone would be unhappy with the shifts she allocated them.

The fedora emerged from below the bed and, with a finger to his lips, said, “Shhhh! We know you’re not crazy… you’ve been brought here for a reason…”

Now Dave was beginning to think he may be crazy after all… who was this stranger and what did he know about the situation… which Dave was only just beginning to understand anyway; last thing he knew he’d been about to punch out some quack who’d handled his previously shattered and now de-calcified foot too roughly, and then the security guards had grabbed him and then…. Oh, yes… the injection…

He looked up again at the face under the fedora and said, “Yeah… I tried to punch a quack!”

The face underneath the fedora looked puzzled for a moment, and then, still talking in whispers, said, “No… I mean… well, that may have given them the excuse they needed, but you’d have been brought here anyway…”

This was beginning to sound dafter and dafter, thought Dave, but then he thought to himself, what else should I expect in the psych ward? Then he realised what had been said and felt somehow insulted, “Hey! What do you mean, I’d’a’ been brought here anyway… I told you I’m not nuts; just a bit hot-tempered, is all… Anyway who the hell are you and what do you know about me and why I’m in here? You’re just a patient in here yourself! For all I know, you’re the one that’s nuts!”

“That’d be what they’d want you to think,” said the face under the fedora, still trying to maintain as low a profile as possible, “but don’t you be taken in by it for a second!” Then, offering his hand to Dave to shake, added, “Name’s Foodge… I’m a private dick working under cover on a case for Inspector Vinh Ordinaire Rouge; I expect you’ll have heard of her?”

“No…” Dave replied simply, then asked the obvious, “What case?”

But just then the ward’s large, swing doors were pushed aside as the doctor entered the ward to do the rounds, noisily followed by a gaggle of interns and med students learning the trade.

“Can’t talk now…” Foodge whispered urgently,”Later… my bed’s the one with the poster over it…” And with that he turned to try to get back to his bed unnoticed, but it was too late; the nurse, as soon as she’d heard the doctor enter the ward, had done a quick reconnaissance tour of the ward and had just noticed the fedora beside the new patient’s bed. With the impatience of which only nurses whose orders have been disobeyed are capable, she ejaculated, “MISTER JONES! What ARE you doing out of bed? Now get back into it this instant before you get us both into trouble!”

Aha, thought Dave to himself, as he heard the fedora-wearer’s real name… I was right… just another loony! He was even more convinced of this fact when he looked up at the poster above the beds further down the ward into which the fedora’s wearer was now slipping: the poster depicted the star of the movie, ‘Babe’ in one of its happier scenes.  Yep! he thought again, this guy’s definitely one snag short of a barbie…

And with that comforting thought, he set himself to the task of trying to think of what would be the best way to get out of here… Should he just insist on his sanity; surely they would see he was normal? Or would they see that as a sure sign of mental instability, this insistence on normality? Perhaps it would be wiser to play the game for a while and then gradually ‘return’ to normality? It was a most difficult decision to make, but he would have to make his mind up on a strategy soon, as the doctor was now only a couple of beds away from his and he knew with dreadful certainty that the doctor would want to interview this new patient… and that the result of that interview would determine his fate.

***** ******** *****

The Dark One inside Elaine’s mind felt a wave of satisfaction flood its pleasure centers; everything was going according to plan; the coven had two members already and a third was being prepared for recruitment even as more potential recruits were being gathered. When the coven was complete, the Rite could begin… the ritual that would bring the ‘Others’! Until then, the Dark One knew, he must remain unknown and unobserved to the rest of this far-too-pleasant little planet…

***** ******** *****

Hell Hospital 12

19 Saturday Mar 2011

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Hospitals are hell - Aren't they?

 

HELL HOSPITAL

Episode 12

By theseustoo

When John and Mary Swan had finally decided to phone the hospital to find out about their parents’ protracted absence they had been told, in order to ‘spare their feelings’ that their father had suffered a fatal accident at work and that the shock had been too much for their mother, who was being kept in the psychiatric ward for the time being and the baby was being looked after in the hospital nursery. A social worker was sent to help arrange social security benefits for the children and with this done they were promptly forgotten.

But the bills had begun to arrive and it quickly became clear that social security benefits were not going to be enough to pay them all. John knew that he and Mary would have to find work in order to support the rest of the Cricket Team. The duty of ‘babysitting’ their other siblings devolved on the third and fourth eldest, Algernon and Vivienne, who, as their elder siblings had done before them, immediately rose to the challenge and put away the toys they had been playing with to don a more ‘adult’ persona as they intuitively assumed the mantle of authority whilst John and Mary, children competing for work in an adult world, went out day after day to look for work; their lack of early success was disheartening, but like the troopers they were, they always maintained a brave and cheerful face in front of the other members of the Cricket Team. Eventually they found work stacking supermarket shelves in the evenings at Coals; the pay wasn’t great, but it would pay the rent and bills and leave them just about enough to feed the Cricket team, so, for the time-being, they were satisfied.

***** ******** *****

As for their poor deceased pater, Swannee, as the bible says is true of all the dead, was aware of nothing at all. His recently animated corpse was still a corpse; capable of movement and obedience to simple commands, perhaps, but a corpse nonetheless. Without a mind to give it volition or purpose of its own, it was still very much a dead thing; a zombie. Neither was the zombie’s mistress, Elaine, any more aware of what she was doing than was her zombie creation; her own mind having been supplanted by the will of the Dark One and forced to retreat into subconsciousness; all her actions were now directed by the Dark One, to fulfil purposes only he could understand.

***** ******** *****

Dave returned to the hospital and demanded to see the doctor who had handled his injured and now de-calcified foot so roughly that he had re-fractured the fourth meta-tarsal. The doctor had not been impressed with Dave’s display of temper when he loudly accused the doctor of having broken his foot again. But when Dave had threatened to ‘see how you like having your bones broken!’ whilst advancing menacingly towards him, the doctor instantly shouted for security. The two burly security men who instantly responded, upon seeing Dave yelling at the doctor, immediately assessed the situation, sidled round behind him and, each taking hold of one of his arms, held him securely, in spite of his loud demands that he be ‘unhanded forthwith!’

“He’s raving,” the doctor said, “I believe he’s having some kind of nervous or mental breakdown; I’m going to give him a sedative…” With that he filled a syringe from a small bottle and quickly swabbing the skin of Dave’s upper arm, which the security guard who was still firmly holding it had thoughtfully uncovered, injected the syringe’s contents into Dave’s arm as the latter swooned into unconsciousness.

***** ******** *****

Hell Hospital 11

25 Friday Feb 2011

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HELL HOSPITAL

Episode 11

By theseustoo

(Disclaimer: this series of stories is completely fictional and none of the persons, places or institutions in these stories are real, but figments of my own imagination. Any similarity to any real person, place or institution is entirely coincidental.)

Dave had had a particularly wearying eighteen months since his accident; his foot had been crushed and dislocated simultaneously as he was thrown over the handlebars of his motorcycle after a female driver had driven out of a side-street to make a left turn right in front of him; he’d seen her approaching the junction and, as she had looked right at him, Dave had of course assumed that she was going to stop and give way as the law demanded in such a situation. She hadn’t, however, and the result had been just about every bone in Dave’s left foot being shattered. After eighteen months he’d returned for his check-up, expecting to be told he would soon have bone fusion surgery and that this would lessen some of the pain he still felt in the leg, even though he’d begun to walk on it some time ago.

“I remember you…” the doctor said, frowning heavily under his thick-rimmed glasses

“I remember you too!” Dave said. This doctor had seem him once before and had demonstrated such a judgemental attitude towards Dave and his injury that Dave suspected him of working for the insurance company which was dealing with his claim for compensation. At the very least, thought Dave, this guy has the bedside manner of a house-brick; in fact he was sure he’d known friendlier and more compassionate house-bricks.

The doctor made Dave take off his shoes and socks and, after looking at the X-rays Dave had just had done, took the latter’s left foot in his hands; taking one end of his foot in one hand and the other end in the other hand, the doctor then suddenly twisted both ends of the foot in opposite directions; “Aaargh!” Dave yelled instantly as he felt something go ‘click’ painfully in his left foot. Another wrench of the foot upwards towards the kneecap brought another yell of pain from the patient, who was beginning to wonder what he’d ever done to the doctor to deserve such treatment.

“That’s bad…” the doctor was saying, “Your ankle is still very stiff; and the x-rays show that your bones have all decalcified; your foot now has osteoporosis as a result of protracted disuse; there’s too little calcium in your bones for the bone fusion surgery to work, so you’ll need to walk on it as much as you can for the next six months… Then come back and we’ll see if there’s enough calcium in it for the bone fusion operation… The good news is that if you walk on it enough for the next six months you may not need the bone fusion…”

Dave had patiently ignored the violent urges he felt towards this doctor and even more patiently made another appointment for six months later; it had been six months since his last appointment; one thing Dave was sure of was that he was not suffering from ‘over-servicing’. He made a mental note of his determination that if he had to see the same doctor on his next visit, that he would ask for another doctor; he had been assured that none of the hospital’s doctors ‘worked for the insurance companies’, but who, he asked himself, could one possibly believe in this wonderful 21st century? And this quack seems downright hostile!

His determination was redoubled when a visit to his own GP confirmed a suspected fractured fourth meta-tarsal; and his GP’s method of examining the foot for flexibility was not only much gentler, but, it seemed to Dave, also produced greater flexibility in the whole foot.

***** ******** *****

“Well,” Doctor Frood was saying, “Vat does zis ‘saint’ of yours look like, then…?”

“Well, she’s kinda tall and slim… blonde and speaks with a slightly Scandinavian accent.

“So you actually do see her, then; she’s not just a voice inside your head?”

“Oh yes, Doctor… I see her as plainly as I see you sitting here in front of me!”

“Most unusual…” the psychiatrist said, suddenly standing up and agitatedly starting to pace the room; he stopped in front of the window, staring out of it into space, as he continued, “… few schizophrenia patients actually see visions; the voices remain internal to their heads, but clearly, you understand that this cannot be real? It must be some kind of hallucination! People just don’t appear and disappear like that!”

He turned round only to discover with astonishment that Loreen had somehow disappeared. She couldn’t have left by the normal route; his secretary was trained to try to stop and question anyone who left an interview early and he’d have heard; besides, when he asked her if his patient had left, his secretary had just said, “Patient?” as if she hardly knew what such at thing was. Nervously he reached into his drawer, took out a small pill-bottle and poured himself out a generous handful of ‘little yellow helpers’; then he withdrew a silver flask from a hip pocket and washed his pills down with a good strong slug of brandy…

It wasn’t possible, was it? That he could be imagining patients? Patients who talked about seeing saints? Was this, he began to wonder, some kind of guilt manifestation from his own rejection of religion at an early age? Perhaps, he thought, I need to see a psychiatrist!

***** ******** *****

HELL HOSPITAL 10

12 Saturday Feb 2011

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HELL HOSPITAL

Episode 10

By theseustoo

(Disclaimer: this series of stories is completely fictional and none of the persons, places or institutions in these stories are real, but figments of my own imagination. Any similarity to any real person, place or institution is entirely coincidental.)

After her narrow escape, Loreen decided it would be a good idea to keep a low profile for a while, so when the psychologist she had decided to visit on the advice of her friend, Nurse Julia from the Psych Ward, suggested that Loreen should prepare a bag for herself and then enter the Psych Ward for a few days’ observation, she welcomed it with a sigh of relief. Eating in the ward would keep her away from the staff canteen and thus minimise the chance that her presence might jog someone’s memory about the mystery siren who had lured the unfortunate Swannee to his doom…

“Don’t worry Loreen,” the shrink had said, as he opened his office door for his client as her session drew to a close, “…once we’ve observed you for a few days and run some tests, we’ll probably find there’s nothing wrong with you; we’ll find out what these apparitions you keep seeing really are… and what they really mean!”

“Thank you Dr Frood”, she had replied, as if her sigh of relief were a sigh of reluctance, “… I’m sure you know what you’re doing, of course; it’s all for the best…” The burden of looking after Nurse Paula had been something of a strain lately and she had begun to wonder about the sanity of following the advice of anyone spoken to during a transcendental experience. Yet she could not deny that had she not been there on several occasions, Nurse Paula’s actions would most certainly have been lethal for certain patients. Though she doubted her own sanity now, she still felt compelled to act on those occasions when she had realised the meaning of the clues in the crosswords; and she was never without a copy of ‘Take 5’ magazine in her pocket, buying the latest edition the moment after it arrived in the hospital’s shop. But she couldn’t understand why it had been she who had been chosen for this task; she’d never even been particularly religious.

Her relief at managing to escape the scrutiny of the diners in the staff canteen for even a few days was somewhat tempered, however, when she found herself in a bed right next to Catherine Swan… the now-infamous mad murderess who had killed her husband. The poor woman had completely refused to recognise her baby when it had been presented to her; indeed Catherine’s memory of having been married and had any children at all had completely vanished; she now thought she was in the convent to which she’d been prepared to go after a sadly fatal performance had put an end to her partner’s life and simultaneously brought her career as a knife-thrower to a premature close just before she had allowed herself to be persuaded by the blandishments of the then youthful Swannee.. She spent most of her waking hours in prayers or meditations, but the nature of these prayers and meditations was very unpredictable; sometimes they involved the hospital’s patron saint and seemed relatively benign, whilst at other times she seemed to be communicating fearfully with someone she referred to only as the Dark One; occasionally she would speak, snarl, growl and otherwise communicate as if she actually were the Dark One.

Loreen decided that Catherine was totally ‘out of it’. She showed no sign whatsoever that she recognised the woman who now occupied the next bed, so Loreen decided that her chances of remaining undiscovered were still much better here than at work. Of course, she still had to keep an eye on Paula, but Loreen knew Paula’s schedule by heart and had no difficulty in ‘disappearing’ from the ward whenever her protege had a serious mishap. Yes, she would be much safer here, she thought, with some satisfaction.

***** ******** *****

On a dimension the existence of which today’s scientists can scarcely dream of, the Dark One brooded; an eternity was coming to an end and he sensed that release from his eternal imprisonment was nigh; sensing a weakness, he extruded a metaphysical pseudopod into that group of dimensions which our scientists recognise as ‘Space-Time’ and found sympathetic vibrations; gently, he eased himself into Elaine’s receptive consciousness… Manipulating this one would be easy, he thought.

***** ******** *****

Hell Hospital: Episode 9

12 Monday Jul 2010

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HELL HOSPITAL

Episode 9

By theseustoo

Though still entranced, Elaine performed the ritual flawlessly...

The evil presence once more exuded itself into Elaine’s consciousness; it had done so with increasing frequency lately, especially when, as now, her assistants were on their lunch break. This time it stayed long enough to allow itself to be noticed by Elaine’s conscious mind. Elaine felt a certain amount of fear, mingled with anticipation as the dark presence communicated directly with her mind.

When Swannee’s corpse arrived at the morgue Elaine immediately recognized that this was the trouble the cards had warned her about, but the presence in her mind had lulled her into such a feeling of warmth and security that she could only allow herself to lay back and drift in the feeling as if in a cocoon; a strange awareness gradually grew in her entranced consciousness and she realized that she knew now what she must do; the presence had dictated the ritual to her entranced mind and, still entranced, she performed it flawlessly, uttering the incantation in an unknown, alien and ancient tongue as if it were the one she had been speaking all her life…

***** ******* *****

When Catherine didn’t return home for several days, it did not surprise her eldest boy, John; he’d been through the routine several times before and knew she would probably be kept in hospital for a few days at least, to enable her to rest and recover a little before returning home. Good boy and dutiful son that he was, he took over looking after his younger siblings like a real trooper; fortunately his eldest sister, Vivienne; little more than a year his junior; was quite a capable cook and helped him to organize the cricket team into squads to do the housework and shopping, which they fitted in around their normal school schedule.

Not knowing how to tell Catherine’s children about what had happened to their parents at the hospital, no-one really tried; everyone excusing themselves by thinking, someone else is bound to, anyway: The police thought that, as the incident happened on hospital premises and involved a hospital worker, the hospital would of course notify the victim’s family; they thought too, that perhaps in this instance discretion allowed them to waive this onerous duty, although it was normally theirs; but the hospital would surely want to inform the family themselves and, the chief inspector told himself, charitably, they surely had that right. The hospital, of course, thought the police would notify the family of the perpetrator and victims a crime as they usually do and so quickly relieved themselves of the burdensome task in a similar manner. When weeks passed and neither parent came home, though worried, John and Vivienne nevertheless carried on as if nothing untoward had happened, not wanting to upset the other children, especially the ‘littlies’.

Catherine was taken immediately to the psychiatric wing’s secure ward, where she was put into a padded cell and sat alternately thumbing a rosary and praying for her deceased husband’s forgiveness and babbling incoherently about a cricket team while she awaited psychiatric evaluation. After some time under observation it was evident that she was hallucinating; it was evidently some kind of religious delusion and Catherine appeared to be receiving instruction from two sources; one whom she referred to simply as ‘the Dark One’, and another whom she called, St Helvi… The psychiatrist recognized the name of the hospital’s patron, of course, but it was far too early to understand the significance of this name to his obviously delusional and manifestly psychotic patient. The police had ordered her to be kept in a secure ward and under constant 24-hour surveillance, but although the manner in which she had killed her husband had been dramatic, the psychiatrist thought the police’s instructions a little unnecessary; women who kill their husbands in a fit of jealous rage rarely commit further murders, but of course, he did not care to question police instructions too closely and obligingly obeyed them.

***** ******* *****

Swannee’s corpse had been laid out on the slab when it arrived; the blood drained out from his wounds, leaving him white as a sheet. But instead of telephoning the coroner to come and perform the autopsy, Elaine placed seven black candles around the cadaver; one at his head; two at his shoulders; another two at his waist and a final pair at his feet, uttering a strange incantation as she did so. Finally she made a motion as if pulling something towards her on the end of a rope, as she sang the final words of her chant, “Though you are dead, yet shall you live; the blood of the sacrifice has not flowed in vain; you are my servant and will do my bidding; now come to me, for I am your Mistress!”

Somehow the word ‘mistress’ seemed a little odd; but she didn’t want to further confuse with a gender anomaly a corpse who was, she realized, bound to be confused anyway at finding itself reanimated. But when she ordered the cadaver to sit up and it did so, she realized her meaning had been understood clearly. “Follow me!” she ordered, and led the now undead Swannee out to her car.

***** ******* *****

The incident had happened on a Friday so Loreen fortunately had all weekend to lay low and hope people would forget about the blonde strumpet who had lured her unwitting prey to his death, albeit accidentally. She had clocked out over an hour before she had seduced the unfortunate Swannee, so as long as no-one remembered her or recognized her, she thought she would probably be safe. She spent the weekend wearing dark glasses and dying her hair several shades darker… When she arrived for work on Monday morning, Paula caught up with her as she queued up for lunch. Catching hold of her elbow, Paula said, “Hey, did you hear about what happened to that kitchen-hand we both fancied? I think it happened just after you went home…”

“No…” Loreen said, as innocently as she could, “Do tell…”

After Paula had related the whole sordid tale, Loreen gave every impression of being flabbergasted, “Well I never!” she said, and then, “Poor Swannee… So who was this slut he was with anyway; did they ever find out?”

“No…” said Paula, “I was speaking with one of the policemen who came and interviewed everyone who was there; he said no-one seemed to know who she was; at first I thought it might have been you, but I checked your clock-card and you’d already gone off-shift… Like the new hair-color by the way…”

***** ******* *****

Hell Hospital: Episode 8

09 Sunday May 2010

Posted by in Hell Hospital

≈ 57 Comments

By theseustoo

Loreen just ‘happened’ to be waiting for Swannee as he came off duty for his lunch-break; a creature of habit, he always sat at the same table. She sat down opposite him just as he seated himself and he thought it would be impolite to reject her company by moving to another table; Swannee was nothing if not a gentleman.

He smiled politely at Loreen and hoped she wasn’t going to make ‘small talk’… he wasn’t much good at small talk. Quickly he filled his mouth strategically with a piece of steak large enough to choke a saltwater crocodile and set to work chewing on it, looking all around the room as he did so in order to avoid having to look, and perhaps appear to stare, at Loreen or her remarkable cleavage, which she seemed to be perpetually inclined to display to its best advantage by leaning forward at just the right angle… But in any case, he thought to himself, why bother with hamburger here when there’s fillet steak at home. He knew the girls liked to tease him because of his unlikely reputation for marital fidelity; yet they always found he was easily able to resist all their teasing, no matter how provocative; if he even deigned to notice it at all.

While he was looking around the busy canteen, however, he failed to notice the small gelatin capsule that Loreen dropped into his black coffee, or even that she added sugar and stirred it for him.

Loreen then waited patiently as Swannee chewed his steak and eggs with chips and salad; stopping only occasionally to take a swig of coffee. As he finished his meal he realized three things, firstly that he no longer had any excuse to avoid talking to Loreen; secondly that he no longer wished to avoid looking at her cleavage and thirdly that the latter no longer reminded him of camping holidays in the hills with the cricket team. Another realization was a certain stirring in his loins and an irresistible urge… Loreen saw the look of unadulterated lust on Swannee’s face and merely smiled provocatively, leaning forward as far as she could, and said, “Hellooooooo… tiger!”

Ignoring his apple pie and ice-cream desert Swannee lunged forward at the delectable strumpet he now saw in front of his fevered eyes; he grabbed Loreen’s hand and dragged her away from the prying eyes of the rest of the canteen’s customers and through the kitchen, right past the astonished chefs and kitchen-hands, and into the large pantry at the rear of the kitchen, slamming the door shut behind them as he impaled her against the pantry wall…

*****    *******    *****

Harry the ambulance-man pushed Catherine, on a gurney, into the staff canteen, but there was no sign of her husband there at all, although strange noises seemed to be coming from the direction of the kitchen. Never one for standing on protocol, Catherine hopped down off the gurney and hobbled towards the kitchen, in spite of Harry’s protests.

“Don’t worry Harry; I’ve been through this often enough before; I’ll know when it’s gonna pop!” Dubiously Harry let her go, but followed closely.

Strange noises, Catherine discovered, were indeed coming from the direction of the pantry at the rear of the kitchen… it almost sounded as if someone were in labor inside the pantry… curiosity kept her going now as she tentatively opened the pantry door, but the sight that met her eyes stopped her in her tracks.

It took her quite a long moment to assimilate the sight of her husband’s rear elevation, naked from the waist down apart from his socks, pounding into some tart whose fishnet-stockinged legs were still wrapped around his own legs and thrusting insistently. When the moment of assimilation had finally allowed her brain to comprehend what was actually happening she acted immediately, intuitively and instinctively:

Before she had settled down with Swannee, Catherine had toured Europe with Billy Smart’s Circus as the main attraction in a knife-throwing act. Her act’s novelty was that whilst dressed as a ‘knife-thower’s assistant’, she would turn the tables on the ‘knife thrower’, who was really just her assistant, and use him for a target, while he spun on the revolving backboard. The acts novelty combined with Catherine’s matrushka-doll figure and anthracite eyes to make the act immensely popular throughout Europe, especially in the Carpathians; until she eventually found the rapid turnover of assistants more than a little off-putting and decided to quit showbiz to marry Swannee, who appeared in her life whilst on a European vacation.

Inside the pantry door, on Catherine’s left, were several wooden blocks of the kind which contain a selection of very long, very sharp and very pointy chef’s knives. Swiftly grasping a knife from each block in either hand Catherine dexterously threw both knives into Swannee’s back; he jerked severely and grunted while his newfound sexual partner moaned in ecstasy each time as four more times Catherine’s expert marksmanship planted four more pairs of knives in her adulterous husband’s back!

How could he do this to her?! And to the cricket team?! After all these years and all these children together, he has to go and throw it all away for the sake of a quickie in the closet with some harlot?! As the final pair of knives sunk deep into her errant husband’s kidneys, and as he slowly collapsed backwards off his erstwhile paramour, into the arms of ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’, Catherine let out a terrifyingly blood-curdling scream as a huge contraction suddenly hit her. The baby’s head had not only instantly engaged, but had already forced its way out of her vagina to hang there dangling, visibly to Harry from the rear through the obligatory gap in her hospital robe, between her legs.

Thinking quickly, Harry grabbed a couple of serviettes from a shelf and laid them on a large silver platter… then he waited with his hands held underneath the baby’s head, ready to catch it when Catherine could no longer resist the urge to give it the final push it needed. After this he cut the cord with another sharp kitchen knife and tied off both ends with pieces of string which the chef used for tying up roasts. Just at this point the doctors arrived along with several nurses. One of the doctors administered a hypodermic sedative to Catherine, who was still screaming and clearly quite beside herself as Harry presented her with her new child on a silver platter; until, finally sedated, she allowed herself to slump into the nurse’s arms and let them take her away to a secure ward, where the police would be waiting to interview her as soon as she came round.

As luck would have it, Loreen found a convenient air-vent which she knew led outside the hospital building and took advantage of all the commotion, while everyone’s attention was focused on Catherine, to disappear; nobody had had a clear view of her face and the medicos had finally arrived to take care of the unfortunate Swannee; there was absolutely no reason, she told herself, why she needed to involve herself in this unfortunate affair whatsoever. She determined that she would be both shocked and stunned when she heard the news tomorrow morning when she arrived for work…

*****     *******     *****

Hell Hospital: Episode 7 – Christmas (Part 2)

12 Friday Feb 2010

Posted by in Hell Hospital

≈ 32 Comments

By theseustoo

There are moments of spiritual certainty bordering on epiphany, in which, acting on compassion and from the most noble movements of the heart, one senses that whatever one can do to help a particular individual, group or cause, that it is most certainly the right thing to do, regardless of the outcome, or the cost. Paula’s generous impetuosity with the air-conditioner, aided and abetted by George, the Greek janitor, was just such a moment. As little Emily gleefully enjoyed the sight of a pretty snowstorm in her ward, Paula knew without a shadow of a doubt she had done the right thing… whatever happened next, it was worth it to see the smile on Emily’s face!

But once the ‘fault’ with the air-conditioners had been found and fixed there was still all that snow to deal with. All the children in the ward had to be kept warm with heated blankets as temperatures gradually returned to normal and the snow was cleared away by a team of cleaners, who eventually agreed to do the extra work for a 50% increase to their usual Christmas penalty rates. However, by the time the negotiations had finished, in spite of their best efforts, the snow could not be cleared away before much, if not most of it had melted; and the resulting water, as is its wont, flowed downhill…

The Children’s Ward was on the first floor, just above the reception area. The receptionist, a remarkably diminutive yet cheerful girl with the unlikely name of Candy, first noticed it when a drop or two of water landed on a sheet of paper she was printing out, smudging the ink; wiping it only made the smudge worse; she would have to reprint it, she thought.

Then it occurred to her to look up to where the water was coming from; the ceiling was all wet and water was dripping from it quite rapidly now… Suddenly the plasterboard of the ceiling, simultaneously soaked, weighted down and structurally weakened by the water from Paula’s snowstorm, gave way and allowed a deluge of water to drench Candy, the printer, photocopier, filing cabinet and the reception’s computer station, which now seriously malfunctioned, emitting dangerous electric sparks, as the water continued on its way to the basement, where it finally ended up as a pool of water a few inches deep in the morgue after compromising the morgue’s lighting and refrigeration…

***** ******* *****

When Loreen had seen Paula and George walking off arm in arm, she thought at first that perhaps Paula now fancied the janitor and had given up on Swannee. For a brief moment she was jealous of what she imagined was Paula’s new conquest, but then realized that this was something different… she’d overheard them talking about George’s grand-daughter and dolls or something; Paula was obviously trying to scam the janitor for his help in some scheme or other. She wondered briefly what it was all about, but then realized that without Paula’s presence there was no competition; she had done her homework and knew that Swannee would be coming off duty for his lunch break in less than ten minutes’ time; the field was clear… and since the packet of Viagra which she’d ordered from the internet had arrived in that morning’s post, she was ready for him! The Viagra would overcome this or any man’s indifference, she thought lecherously as she plotted her seduction.

***** ******* *****

Catherine Swan would have made an excellent girl-scout; she was always prepared. After giving birth to ten children, she knew the whole routing inside and out and had had her ‘hospital bag’ prepared since the eighth month of her pregnancy. No longer fooled by any false contraction, she instantly recognized the real thing when it happened. She instantly instructed the eldest boy to phone the hospital for an ambulance and the eldest girl to fetch lots of towels from the bathroom as her waters broke even as she was giving her eldest son his instructions. Of course, the baby would have to come now, wouldn’t it? Now, while Swannee, her husband was at work, doing all the overtime he could to feed the cricket team… Such a good man, she thought as the second-eldest boy dragged her bulging suitcase out to the front door and the doorbell rang just as the lad arrived, in time to open the door for the ambulance man, who turned out to be an old friend of sorts; one of St Helvi’s longest-serving ambos, he had been privileged to drive Catherine to the hospital for the delivery of at least half of the cricket team, including her first.

“G’day, Mrs Swan! Nice to see you again… How many will this be?”

“G’day Harry… nice to see you again too… how’s the wife? This’ll be the eleventh!”

“Good Lord!” Harry exclaimed, “They know what causes that now, you know!”

“Oh! You are awful!” Catherine joked as she clambered into the ambulance and son number two pushed her suitcase in after her.

“John,” she said to the eldest boy, “you look after the kids while I’m away won’t you? You know what to do? Daddy should be off-shift in about four hours’ time… There’s plenty of food in the fridge…”

John merely nodded; he’d been through this all before… more than once!

As the ambulance started to drive away, Catherine suddenly turned to Harry, who rode with her in the back of the ambulance, and said, “I wonder if I might have a chance to see Swannee on the way to the delivery room…” as the staff canteen where he worked was right next door to the maternity ward; “I need to remind him to get plenty of disposable nappies on his way home.”

“No worries missus! Long as you think you’ve got enough time before the bub arrives, we can make a quick stop at the caff…”

***** ******* *****

Pig’s Arms Bumper Christmas Late Final Edition – Christmas at Hell Hospital: Episode 6

27 Sunday Dec 2009

Posted by in Hell Hospital

≈ 23 Comments

Santa, reminiscent of Cook County Hospital 1909.... there's a motivation to get better....

By Theseustoo

(Disclaimer: this series of stories is completely fictional and none of the persons, places or institutions in these stories are real, but figments of my own imagination. Any similarity to any real person, place or institution is entirely coincidental.)

Christmas was the most cheerful day of the year at Hell Hospital; or so it seemed on the surface. The cheery smiles, however, often hid severe stresses and tensions which, though always present in the medical profession, were always worse at this time of year… along with the number and severity of road trauma cases. Even so, whatever trauma cases came into the hospital were all greeted with a cheery smile and a hearty, if ironic, “Merry Christmas!” from every staff-member who had anything to do with them; no matter how horrific their injuries.

For some patients, admitted in a semi-conscious, drug-and/or-pain-induced delirium, this was almost enough to put them in the psychiatric ward; all the more so when the staff members wore reindeer antlers, or conical little red hats trimmed with white ‘fur’, or long white wigs and obviously fake ‘Santa’ beards. But it was generally felt that not to make an effort to ‘keep the spirit of Christmas’ would be far too depressing and would lead to patients feeling left out or deprived; especially in the Children’s ward. Everyone, they felt, must make an effort to at least appear cheerful, and for their part, the patients appreciated the effort and responded in kind, by trying to maintain a cheerful front themselves.

In the children’s ward, however, the happiness and good cheer brought by fake ‘Santas’, elves and ‘reindeer’, as well as clowns and fairies (of the gossamer-winged variety) was real enough, in spite of the kiddies’ often heartbreaking illnesses or injuries.

Paula, dressed in a red Santa suit, with a large pillow stuffed under it and wearing a full, fake white beard, was entertaining the kiddies on her electronic organ with all the Christmas songs in her repertoire. “May your days be merryyyyy and briiiiiiiight… And may all your Chrisssst-masses be whiiiiiiiite!” she sang with great feeling, drawing her set to a close by wringing as much emotion as possible out of the final lines of the old Bing Crosby Christmas classic. As the song drew to a close a little girl about seven years of age, who had been listening, completely enthralled, to Paula’s beautiful contralto voice, sighed and with a wistful expression on her pretty, youthful face, and said, “I wish I could have a white Christmas! It would be so wonderful to see real snow!”

It was heartbreaking, thought Paula, who knew that this particular little girl was dying of leukemia; she had consistently failed to respond to chemo-therapy and the nurses all knew that this would be her last Christmas… Paula didn’t know what to say, but knew she had to say something; after all, she was Santa, wasn’t she? She walked over to the little girl’s bed and, gently stroking the blond curls back from her forehead, said, “Well now… that’s a tall order, Emily; no-one can control the weather you know… and this is Australia… But we’ll see what Santa can do, okay?”

***** ******* *****

The staff cafeteria had been decorated with multicolored streamers of crepe paper and tinsel; and above the serving counter sheets of A4 paper, each individually lettered in red capitals, spelled out the words, “MERRY CHRISTMAS”. Strings of Christmas cards, given by various staff-members to each other and collected over the course of years for just this purpose, were strung around the walls. A nativity scene depicting the arrival of the Magi stood on a table in one corner while a small Christmas tree, laden with baubles, tinsel, fairy-lights and little candy-canes, stood on a table in another corner, completing the party atmosphere.

“Just what I need!” thought Paula, ironically “Another bloody Christmas party!”

Still dressed as Santa, she sauntered over to the serving counter, too preoccupied even to chat up Swannee; she merely ordered her lunch quietly and then drifted towards a table. Suddenly she saw a hospital maintenance man sitting at another table and swiftly changed her direction… “G’day, George… mind if I join you?” she said as the beginnings of an idea started to coalesce in the chaos that was her mind.

“All right, what do you want?” George asked, suspiciously; he knew she must want something; nurses just did not associate with maintenance men… they mostly aimed at doctors, though they sometimes settled for male nurses… but they never, ever showed any interest whatsoever in the maintenance staff.

Paula sat down opposite George and said, “George, how old is your granddaughter? About seven isn’t she?”

George’s granddaughter, Amanda was the sunshine of his life and he was so proud of her that he didn’t mind talking about her in the least, even though he still wondered what Paula was after… and what did his granddaughter have to do with it anyway?

Paula reached into her bag and pulled out a box wrapped in Christmas paper and held it up in front of George, “Malibu Barbie…” she said, “For your granddaughter…” Paula had bought the doll for her own niece a couple of weeks ago…

George, swiftly inhaled a lungful of air through pursed lips, raising his eyebrows in surprise; he’d searched all the shops for Malibu Barbie for Amanda, but had been unable to find it in the shops; and had finally had to settle for the latest ‘Bratz’ doll. But he knew that all the little girls at Amanda’s school loved Barbies; and Malibu Barbie was the latest and most popular edition… which was why the shops had all been sold out.

His eyes gleamed greedily as he instantly reached for the doll, but Paula suddenly snatched it away from him, and then, with a seductive smile, said, “George, there’s something I want you to do for me…”

“You got it!” George responded instantly, “Just give me the doll!”

***** ******* *****

St Helvi’s air-conditioning system was notorious; patients who had been there a while often joked about the ‘four seasons in one day’ they sometimes experienced. When it was particularly temperamental the nurses would have to go round the patients covering them all with blankets, kept warm in a heated linen cupboard for that specific purpose… but no-one had ever seen it do anything quite like this before:

As soon as Paula felt the temperature begin to drop, she headed straight for the children’s ward to make sure Emily was covered with a nice warm blanket, knowing that George had put her plan into action… Then she sat on the side of Emily’s bed and put her arm around her to cuddle her while the temperature dropped very severely.

“Ooooh, it’s really cold in here, isn’t it Emily?” She said.

Emily nodded, then Paula added, “Almost cold enough for snow…”

Suddenly, from all the air conditioning vents in the ward, came first little flurries and then small blizzards of frozen white snowflakes. Little Emily’s face lit up and she beamed with a delirious happiness as she clapped her tiny hands and yelled, “It’s snowing! Santa, you made it snow…”

“Well,” Paula said modestly, “I had a little help from the guy upstairs… Merry Christmas sweetheart!”

***** ******* *****