The Man of Smoke - Part 5 (Phone Lines and Smoke Signals)

David stopped to eat breakfast before he began his frantic panic to escape the hospital because doomed or not doomed, he was still ravenously hungry.

Once he’d finished it he demanded that one of the nurses wheel him to the pay phone so he could phone someone, anyone, to pick him up and get him out of there. Failing that he would just wheel out the front doors and wheel his way to home. Anything was better than sitting here and waiting to die. He was no longer willing to take the risk that it was all just dreams and coincidences, it was better to be safe than sorry.

He was certain that his dream last night had been an omen, and he couldn’t be sure when reality had ended and the dream had begin, had he really stared into that eyeless face and smelt that putrid death breath? The memories seemed to have a weight far beyond that of the fading smoke of a dream. When he thought back it was like remembering his first day at work, or his first car.

He was almost certain what had happened was real. He would not wait here for this creature to claim him. The one thing he never really considered was that it had followed him before and it would again. This was a thought he was too afraid to think and he dusted it into the cracks in his mind. He could escape, and he would escape. There was no way he survived that accident just to die lying in his bed.

He took all the change he had in his wallet to the payphones and tried every number he could think of, but they couldn’t help, didn’t answer, or didn’t want to know. There was an endless amount of ‘Sorry’ and ‘No’ and ‘I wish I could but…’ until he was left with only one number, his dad’s. He was about to punch in the number when he hesitated, his hand hovering like one of the claws in those coin-ops prize games.

He hadn’t talked to his dad in years; all the bridges between them had not been so much burned as demolished, incinerated, and then the ashes burned too for good measure. He could remember the last time he ‘spoke’ to him, the sound of his father’s words still in his ears and the bitter taste of his own enraged words in his own mouth.
“I’m leaving, I’m sick of you and I’m sick of your crap!”
“Fine, go, get the hell out of here, and don’t you dare show your face around here again, or I’ll smack the shit out of you.”

Since his mother died there was nothing to hold the two of them together, no inhibiter to their individual stubbornness and rage, and her death just acted as a catalyst. But there was no better time to build bridges than when staring the certain destruction of your mortal soul in the face right?

David phoned home for the first time in 15 years, the number still ingrained in his memory despite the years that had passed. He heard the gruff voice of his father answer.

“Who is this?”
“It’s me.” He paused for a second, seeming to debate whether to say it or not but then he decided that no matter what had passed between them, he was still his father.
“It’s me, Dad. It’s David… I need your help.”

The silence seemed to stretch on for eternity, and David could swear he could hear the distance between the two of them, both physically and in a more empathetic way in the quiet crackle and scream of the phone connection. He could almost picture his Dad’s wrinkled old face screwing up under the pressure of whatever outburst he was about to let forth.

“It’s… good to hear from you... What’s happened?”
David’s mouth hung open, it was almost like his dad was expecting this call, and was waiting for the gulf between them to close. Maybe this accident would have its positives after all. He explained everything to his dad, the accident, his injuries, but of course he omitted the part about the man (or the it or the creature or the monster or the walking death-) because he was sure that slowly rebuilding father-son relationship or not, his dad would still think he was nuts.

His father lived 2 hours drive from the hospital and he agreed to come and pick up David. David was too tired and frightened to worry about such trivialities as how awkward the journey back would be and how awkward it would be to stay at his father’s until he was better again. He hung up the phone feeling a bit more positive that he had in quite a while, and the dark cloud of the creature didn’t seem to loom over him quite as much. He would be out of here in 2 hours, if he could survive that long.

Suddenly, 'it' was walking right towards him. Dressed in the same clothes, it’s face no longer hidden by darkness. It’s countenance was plain and naked in the bright lights of the hospital and all the more disturbing because of it. The eye sockets still held a darkness that was deep enough to drown in. As it passed the nurses station, the nurse looked up and shivered, and the flower on the desk began to wither and die, as if the very presence of this beast brought death and suffering.

As he passed the busy crowds of patients and doctors walking here and there, the former dejected and slow, the latter moving at a brisk business like pace, people involuntarily shivered, hands clasped bibles in pockets, crosses around necks, and everyone uttered a little subconscious prayer to the deity of their choice.

It passed a young man, pale and weak from chemo but growing stronger as his cancer went into recession. It brushed its hand along his shoulder, letting out a low chuckle that only David could hear. The boy would die a week later, the doctor’s stunned as to how the cancer that was disappearing suddenly became so violent and malicious. The creature met David’s eyes, and he felt himself sinking.

He blinked twice and snapped out of it. The beast was walking brazenly towards him in daylight, and even though he was basically alone because only he could see it, he felt that somehow it was weaker here. He had no illusions that he could defeat it, as far as he was concerned he was being hounded by death itself. He didn’t want to let it get close enough for him to try either, because whereas it may have been weaker here, he was certain it could still destroy him with a touch.

He turned his wheelchair in an awkward semi circle and bumped into the wall, jarring one of his legs, stifling a scream of agony into a pathetic whimper. He reversed too frantically and nearly went toppling down the concrete staircase behind him, he teetered over the edge of oblivion for a second before he straightened himself up and began to try and head down right hand corridor away from the creature, who was still strolling casually towards him.

He began to break into a cold sweat, he had completely forgotten about being in a wheelchair and his inability to manoeuvre quickly or with any sort of grace. David was now realising why it was just strolling casually towards him, there was no hurry. David couldn’t outrun him forever, especially not in his wheelchair.

He could taste his own fear in his mouth, a thick coppery taste, like blood. As it approached he imagined he could see death cloud around it like a dark aura, he could imagine how if it walked through the maternity ward, the babies would all start crying. He could imagine if it passed a pregnant mother, she would have a stillbirth.

He could imagine it’s hatred and death like a tangible disease that would eventually infect the hospital entirely and the patients would crawl from their beds and begin to tear each other limb from-
Snap out of it!

He was staring into its gaping sockets again, sinking into its pit of stygian despair. In one smooth movement he wheeled around and began to spin the wheels furiously down the adjacent corridor. As he moved around the corner he caught once last glimpse of it’s face, the confident smile (if you could call it a smile, it was like calling a gunshot wound a love bite) twisting into a grimace of rage and hate as David defied it.

The knowledge that he had at least bothered it in some way drained away some of his fear and hysteria, which was clinging below his skin, threatening to tear him apart. He was unaware that his mouth was making small whimpering sounds as he frantically spun the wheels, attracting the attention of everyone who walked passed him. A nurse shook her head in frustration, as if to say that she didn’t have time right now for another problem.

He passed behind Doctor Proctor, who turned away from the charts he was studying and looked behind him, showing off his perfect bedside manner and impeccable patient/doctor interaction skills once again as he called after him,
“What’s your problem? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

David made a small mental note that if he made it out alive, he would kick Dr. Proctor in the nuts. He would wait until he was finishing a shift though, and do it right outside the front door, because he would never set foot in another hospital again. He would never set foot in another place that handled death or sickness ever again. No hospitals, no nursing homes, no funeral homes, no graveyards, never ever again.

He would never take the chance of encountering this foul creature, and he didn’t even want to consider the possibility that more than one of them may exist, waiting to claim his life.
He went as fast as he could and rather than weaving in and out of the passing people he just went through them, hoping they would move out of his way before he ran one of them down like the car that ran him down.

They did, though not without a few curses and rude gestures. He moved closer and closer to the elevator at the end of the corridor, passing by ward after ward filled with patients and tearing past the white walls, leaving everyone scattering as if he was a bull charging. He chanced a look over his shoulder and saw that the man (thing? It? What do we call it?) was gone.

Before he had a chance to get halfway through his sigh of relief it turned into a scream. It was now in front of him somehow, and honestly in the back of his mind he had seen enough horror films to know this would happen. It could seemingly appear and disappear as it pleased, what made him think it would chase after him like a Scooby Doo villain? It was like smoke, it appeared and disappeared and passed through all boundaries and obstacles in search of its prey. It was unstoppable.

But that’s it! It’s like smoke!
David realised what this potentially meant but he tried to strangle his feelings of hope. He looked at it in front of him, smiling (again, gunshots and love bites) maliciously with its arms outspread, as if it wanted to give him a loving embrace. But he noticed now, its shape was undefined, it’s edges floated and drifted like it wasn’t really there, like it was just superimposed into the world.

Tendrils of smoke drifted from its mouth as it begin to open its gaping maw, filled with rows of razor sharp teeth. The Doctor was right for once, he was seeing a ghost. This thing was formless, it wasn’t solid. Its ethereal state was both it’s biggest strength and weakness David was strangely sure it could only hurt him if he let it. It was almost like it heard this thought form in his head and it’s face changed, looking no more likely to offer a loving embrace than a shark would.

David took a deep breath and smashed into it, closing his eyes and bracing himself for a solid impact that would knock him off his wheelchair and leave him as weak and helpless as a kitten, but there was nothing but yield. He had the briefest sensation of being plunged into freezing cold water, and it felt like his chest was caving in onto his lungs, but he held his breath and just as soon as the feeling came, it passed.

He opened his eyes and saw the tendrils of smoke fading around him and disappearing, and lucky for him the elevator was open so he could feel even more like an action hero in a Hollywood movie. He bumped into the back of the elevator unceremoniously, again banging his leg, this time letting out a cry that was half agony and half triumph. He spun his chair around; I’m getting the hang of this he thought as he mashed the ground floor button.

He saw a few nurses, and the good doctor himself heading to catch either him or the elevator, and he mashed the button ever harder. They reached the door just as they begin to close. Doctor Proctor cried out,
“Hold it please, David!”
David replied, hoping that his voice wasn’t shaking from fear and relief and pain all mixed into one heady cocktail with, “I can’t sorry, I’m in a hurry, I’ve seen a ghost.”

Just as the doors closed he saw the doctor’s confused look turn into the face of the spectre, the dead empty sockets leering at him for just a second. His stomach felt like it was plummeting, and it wasn’t just because the elevator was moving down. He may have escaped it, but this was only a temporary reprieve. All he had left to do was to pray that it couldn’t leave the hospital. He don’t know where he had gotten this idea from, but seemed to have a sense of gravity to it, like how we know that water is wet, or that the sky is blue. It seemed to add up and have a strange sense of logic to it.

He could only pray he was right. The fact that he had met it outside the hospital was a thought too grim to consider in this current blast of blind faith, and again, he buried it deep down in his mind. He found himself praying as the elevator moved down. This wasn’t the first time he had prayed since the accident, and before it he considered himself atheist. No better time for a spiritual awakening than several near death experiences, eh?