The Crack
"It's a miracle he's still alive."
These were the first words Leon Hepburn heard after struggling to emerge from a deep pit of pain and delirium and surfacing into consciousness. They meant nothing to him, just mindless chatter people heard from those around them in the subway, on the crowded street or standing in line at the DMV.
"Where ...?"
It was the only word he was able to utter before the stabbing pains in his chest silenced his voice.
"Hush now. Don't try to talk," a voice spoke from above.
Is that you, God? his dazed brain asked.
The suspicion that he was in the presence of his maker was strengthened when he tried to open his eyes and was forced by a blinding white light to quickly close them again.
How did I die?
He recalled the sentiments his grieving mother expressed at his grandfather's funeral: "At least he's not in pain anymore."
If I'm dead, why do I hurt so much?
"This will help with the pain," the unidentified voice announced moments before Leon felt a sharp prick in his arm.
Ah! Sweet relief. Despite the disdain he held for the "big business" American health care system that was rapidly becoming as impersonal as a General Motors assembly line—not to mention the avarice of the pharmaceutical companies—he basked in the blessed numbness of the painkiller.
He tried again, very slowly, to open his eyes.
Unless God looks like Sean Connery in a scrub suit, I'm still alive.
"Welcome back."
Welcome back? Where have I been?
It didn't really matter to him where he was, just as long as he could keep that excruciating pain at bay.
"You had quite a fall. You're lucky to be alive."
Is this guy serious? Lucky is winning the lottery or coming home from Vegas with more money in your pocket than when you left. Lucky is not feeling as though a four-ton elephant is sitting on your chest. Oh, well! I suppose the pachyderms had to go somewhere when the Ringling Brothers finally folded up their tent!
"Just sit back and relax ...."
Relax? Really?
"... you're going to be with us for a while."
Leon closed his eyes in despair as the doctor enumerated his long list of injuries which included two broken legs, two broken arms, six broken ribs, a broken clavicle and a fractured skull. And that was just the bones! He also had severe lacerations that required stitches, a hematoma and skin abrasions. In short, he was a real mess.
Lucky, huh? I'd hate to see what condition I'd be in if I were unlucky!
As the God-like Sean Connery physician talked business with his staff—IV drips, catheters and medications Leon could not pronounce much less know what they were for—the one question that came to every patient's mind when they were in a hospital suddenly occurred to him.
Does my insurance cover all this?
* * *
Forty minutes after Leon rejoined the world of the living, "Dusty" Bowditch, a young, muscular hospital orderly, informed him that he was going to be taken up to his room.
"There's no need for a gurney," the patient said, finally able to speak without causing himself agonizing pain. "I think I can walk."
"Are you kidding?" Dusty laughed. "With all the bones you broke, you'll be lucky to be on your feet in six months."
There's that word again: lucky. Maybe these people should check its definition in the dictionary.
Leon was wheeled to the third floor and placed in a private room that was not much bigger than a closet. There was no bathroom, which made sense since he could not get out of bed to use one.
I bet if I could stretch my arms out, I would touch the walls on each side.
However, both arms were in plaster casts as were both legs.
"I'm going to go stir crazy in here," he complained to the orderly.
"I'll bring up a TV for you."
When the orderly returned with a portable television that might have been in storage since the Eighties, Leon broke out in laughter. The pain from his broken ribs made him stop abruptly.
"Where the hell did you find that, in the Smithsonian?"
Although nearly all viewers had switched over to the large, flatscreen televisions, here was one with a bulky chassis and a thirteen-inch CRT screen.
"It may be old, but it still works," the order said defensively.
Dusty plugged it in, turned it on and adjusted the antenna.
"I take it there's no cable?"
"Sorry. This isn't Massachusetts General, you know. This is Dunwich Community Hospital. Here you've got two stations, only one of which comes in clear."
Dunwich. That was the reason he was in the closet-like room, his body broken, "lucky" to be alive. His brother had purchased a house in Dunwich, and he was helping him make the move from Boston. After carrying the furniture into the house, the perspiring siblings took a break from their efforts. His brother opened up a couple of beers, and the two men went out onto the second-story deck, unaware that the support beams were rotted. The deck collapsed, and Lucky Leon went down.
"You're all set," Dusty announced once he had tuned in the one station with good reception. "The nurse will be around with your medicine soon. You can tell her what you want for dinner."
"Is there a buzzer in case I need to call for assistance?"
"Nope."
There was no telephone in the room either. Leon would have to ask the nurse to get him his cell phone from out of his pants pocket.
Already bored, he glanced at the small television screen. A judge was deciding whether to grant damages to a young woman whose boyfriend took a sledge hammer to her windshield after he found her cheating on him with his best friend. His first instinct was to turn to the other channel, but there was no remote control and he could not reach the buttons on the set itself.
It was nearly four o'clock when the nurse entered his room. While he had not been expecting the woman to look like Charlize Theron or Angelina Jolie, he had presumed she would at least be pleasant in demeanor, if not in appearance. Nurse Lillian Soames was neither. She looked and acted like the teacher everyone dreaded getting in grammar school. Her graying hair was pulled back and pinned beneath an old-fashioned nurse's cap. Her dark, beady eyes peered out with apparent disapproval from a stern face that never registered emotion. Leon wondered if the woman had ever smiled in her lifetime.
"Here, take these," she ordered, handing him a red tablet, two white capsules and a glass of water.
When she turned and headed toward the door, Leon called her back.
"Could you turn this TV off?" he asked. "There's nothing on right now."
Giving him a sour look that would curdle milk, she crossed the room and switched off the television.
"And what about dinner? Can I get some sort of menu to choose from?"
"Meatloaf or roast chicken."
"That's it? Two choices?"
"This is a hospital, not a diner."
"What about side dishes? Beverages? Dessert?"
"The same for both the meatloaf and the chicken: mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli, iced tea and chocolate pudding."
"And is the chicken range-free?" he teased.
Nurse Lillian stared not at the patient, but straight ahead, ignoring his attempt at humor. Leon had seen the same stony face on the Old Guard sentinels standing at attention at Arlington's Tomb of the Unknown soldier and beneath the furry bearskin hats worn by the Queen's Foot Guards outside Buckingham Palace.
"I'll have the meatloaf. Thank you."
Without another word, the grim nurse in the white, starched uniform left his room.
Talk about bedside manner!
* * *
In retrospect, that first day at the hospital was probably the best one of his stay. Things only went downhill from there. For one thing, Nurse Lillian—"that beautiful ray of sunshine" as Leon sarcastically referred to her—was the only person beside the orderly to ever visit his room. She did so three times a day, like clockwork when she brought him his breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Not only was the food bland and often served cold, but the concept of choice seemed alien to the kitchen staff. For breakfast it was always a cup of coffee and a bowl of Cheerios. Lunch was a sandwich—either ham and cheese or tuna. Dinner consisted of the same two choices, meatloaf or roast chicken, accompanied by the mashed potatoes (no gravy), steamed broccoli (no butter), iced tea (no sugar) and chocolate pudding (no flavor).
When I get out of here, I'm going to find one of those all-you-can-eat buffet places and gorge myself.
While he could overlook the lack of culinary skills in the kitchen staff and the uncongenial disposition of his nurse, it was the boredom that really bothered him. He hated those long, seemingly endless hours, with nothing to do but lie on his back. The television, that relic from the Eighties, finally died (may it rest in peace), and there were no other sets available. The view from his third-floor window left a lot to be desired: from his position on the bed, all he could see were the tops of the trees outside the hospital. Worst of all, there was no cell phone service.
I feel like Robinson Crusoe, stranded on a desert island.
He woke on the fourth morning of his hospitalization, ready to climb the walls—a mere figure of speech since he was unable to get out of bed. To pass the time, he began playing a game of song titles. It was a game he often played as a teenager when he worked as a stock boy at a warehouse. He would sing snippets of songs that all had titles with something in common. For instance, songs with girls' names or the names of cities. On this occasion, he chose songs with the word time in their title. While waiting for breakfast, he began with a Rolling Stones' classic from 1964.
"Time is on my side. Yes, it is."
When Nurse Lillian brought in his coffee and Cheerios, he stopped singing.
"Do you like the Rolling Stones?" he asked, trying to make conversation.
"Not particularly."
"Nah, I'll bet you're more of a Beatles fan."
"They're all right."
Leon considered this high praise coming from his sullen caregiver.
"Here, take these," she instructed, handing him a tiny paper cup with two painkillers inside it.
Moments later she was gone, and the patient switched from the Stones to the Outsiders.
"I can't wait forever even though you want me to. I can't wait forever to know if you'll be true. Time won't let me. Time won't let me. Time won't let me wait that long."
As the hours dragged by, he went through a playlist of Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time," the Chambers Brothers' "Time Has Come Today" and Jim Croce's "Time in a Bottle" before returning to the Rolling Stones with "The Last Time." When he began singing a song by the Zombies, he had difficulty remembering the lyrics.
"It's the time of the season when love runs high. And this time, give it to me easy ...."
He could not recall what came next. It had something to do with "pleasured hands" and "promised lands." Since the words would not come to him, he hummed the melody until he got to his favorite part of the song.
"What's your name? Who's your daddy? Is he rich like me?"
It was at that moment that Leon first saw the crack in the wall. It was not a large one, only about two inches long. Most likely, he would not have noticed it had the wall not been a perfectly blank canvas.
A little spackle would take care of that.
That was all the thought he gave to the crack. At least for the time being.
* * *
When Leon woke the next morning, his eyes went first to the window. The sky was a dingy gray, and it looked as though rain would begin falling any moment. Then his gaze moved to the crack in the wall. Was it his imagination or had it grown in size since yesterday?
There was no greeting as the grave-faced nurse entered the room with his breakfast and morning meds.
"You know, I've been here nearly a week already, and I haven't received a single visitor," the patient said. "Hasn't my brother come by to see me?"
"I assume you're referring to the young man who accompanied you to the hospital after you fell?"
"I was unconscious at the time, but, yes, it must have been him."
"He left once the doctor assured him you'd make a full recovery."
"And he hasn't come back?"
"No, but he called the next day to check on your progress."
Leon supposed his brother was busy moving into his new house, but—damn it!—he could have spared an hour or so to visit him.
With a swish of her starched uniform, Nurse Lillian left the room, taking last night's dinner dishes with her. He was alone again. Until noon, it was only Leon, the dirty breakfast dishes, a broken television, a window that revealed dark clouds and treetops and a crack on the wall.
It has grown! he realized with a jolt, estimating that it was nearly a foot long.
Bored with the song titles game, he moved on to one-word movie titles. He said them aloud, eager to hear a human voice, even his own.
"Psycho, Jaws, Casablanca ...."
As if the day was not gloomy enough, the threatening clouds unleashed their fury in the form of heavy rain.
"Rocky, Halloween, Poltergeist ...."
There was a flash of lightning, followed by the angry grumble of thunder.
"Gladiator, Giant, Goodfellas ...."
Ten minutes later, with the worst of the storm over, Leon's head turned in the direction of the crack. It was not only longer, but it appeared to be wider, too. It caused him to question the integrity of the wall. Perhaps he should bring it to someone's attention. He would mention it to Nurse Lillian when she brought him his lunch.
"Casino, Scarface ... Did I say Rocky yet? I wish I could write these down. I can't keep track of them in my head."
He would ask Nurse Lillian for a pen and paper.
Giving up on the one-word movie titles for now, his mind reached back to his early childhood and bus trips with his classmates. Inevitably, one song was sure to pop up.
"A hundred bottles of beer on the wall, a hundred bottles of ...."
It was a faint sound, barely audible above his voice. He stopped singing and listened. When he and his ex-wife rented a vacation home in the country, he had heard a similar sound, that of mice.
"I know this isn't a big city hospital like Mass General, but even a place out here in the sticks ought to call in an exterminator. This is a hospital, for Christ's sake!"
With no better way to occupy his time, Leon closed his eyes and took a nap.
* * *
"Wake up, Mr. Hepburn. It's lunchtime."
It was the first time his caregiver had ever addressed him by name. Was this the first sign that she was warming up to him?
"Hello, Nurse Lillian. I was wondering if I could ask you a favor."
"What is it?"
"Could I get a pen and pad of paper?"
"What for?"
Her question took him by surprise. He had not anticipated that she would want to know why he wanted them.
"It's none of your business," he wanted to say but decided it best not to alienate her since she was his only conduit to the world outside his hospital room.
"I like to play word games to pass the time. For instance, this morning I was trying to think of one-word movie titles, but I soon lost track of them. If I write them down, I won't repeat any answers."
"I suppose it's safe to let you have them, but I'll have to check with the doctor first."
"Safe?" he laughed. "Are you afraid I'll get a paper cut?"
"If a man's set on killing himself, he can stab a pen through his heart."
"Why would I want to kill myself?"
"Why else would you have jumped off that deck?"
"I didn't jump. It collapsed beneath me. Didn't my brother tell that to anyone when he brought me in?"
"Maybe. I don't know. I wasn't there at the time. Anyway, you're going to be here with us for a while. And people often get cabin fever ...."
"Is that the clinical term for it?"
The nurse ignored both his question and his sarcasm.
"The hospital can't risk your harming yourself or anyone else."
Leon was flabbergasted by her statement.
"Who would I harm? I'm the only one here except for you. Is that it? Are you afraid I'm going to attack you with a pen? Look at me! I can't get out of bed. Hell, I can't even roll over onto my side."
"Calm down, Mr. Hepburn. I don't want to have to give you a sedative."
"Go ahead and knock me out! I'm tired of being in this bed with nothing to do but look at the treetops and a crack in the ...."
As he spoke, his eyes went to wall. The crack had doubled in size.
"Oh, my God! It's getting bigger and bigger."
"What is?" the nurse asked, having no idea what he was talking about.
"The crack."
"What crack?"
"That crack," he answered, trying to lift his arm to point at the wall.
"I don't see any crack."
"Are you blind?"
Offended by his outburst, Nurse Lillian picked up the tray and headed for the door.
"Don't forget the pen and paper," he called after her retreating figure.
* * *
The scratching sound was more pronounced and seemed to be coming from directly behind the crack. Could it be the mouse that was causing the damage to the wall?
Upset by his encounter with Nurse Lillian, the patient had not touched his lunch. The tuna sandwich still lay on the paper plate, the bread slowly hardening. He seriously doubted she would come back with the pen and paper.
I'll have to apologize to her at dinnertime.
Since he could not play his word game, he tried to enumerate all the things he missed about the outside world. Human companionship and decent food were at the top of the list.
"Netflix and my fifty-five-inch television. My gas-guzzling SUV. Sam Adams lager. Red Sox base—"
The scratching sound reached a crescendo, and moments later small chips of paint fell to the floor.
Oh, great! Am I going to have mice running around the room now?
To take his mind off the impending rodent invasion, Leon began to sing again.
"Show me the way to go home. I'm tired and I wanna go to bed."
Nurse Lillian made a surprise appearance midafternoon.
"Here's your pen and paper."
"Thank you. I really appreciate it. Oh, and I think the hospital has a mouse problem."
"You must be mistaken. There are no mice here."
"I heard them scratching at the wall. One of them is about to break through that crack."
The nurse looked at the wall and then back at the patient.
"I don't know what you're talking about. There's no crack in the wall."
"Are you telling me you really don't see it?" Leon cried.
The nurse walked to the wall and ran her hand over it, passing directly over the ever-growing crack.
"See. There's nothing there," she insisted.
"This place must be getting to me. I'm seeing things," he mumbled.
"Nothing to worry about. It's just cabin fever. Play your word game and try not to think about it."
After the nurse left the room, he picked up his pen and paper and began to write.
Alien. Aladdin. Cinderella. Patton.
The scratching began again, louder than before. More chips of paint fell to the floor.
Amadeus. Platoon. Batman. Papillon.
Certain the sound was only a figment of his imagination, he wrote furiously to take his mind off it.
Memento. Chinatown. Magnolia. Monster.
It was a different sound than before, less like scratching and more like slurping. Leon quickly turned to the wall and saw a thin, wormlike tentacle emerge through the widening crack, poking around like a finger.
"What the hell is that?" he exclaimed.
More paint chips fell, as the thing in the wall—it was definitely not a mouse—tried to break through.
"Nurse!" the frantic patient shouted. "Nurse Lillian. Come here. Quick."
It was Dusty Bowditch, the muscular orderly, who answered his call.
"What are you hollering about?" he asked, sauntering through the open door.
"I don't know what it is, but something is trying to squeeze through the crack in the wall."
"What crack?"
"You can't tell me you don't see it either!"
"Let me get the nurse. She can give you something for ...."
"Something for what? It had better be to kill whatever is on the other side of the wall!"
"Try to relax, Mr. Hepburn. There's no danger. You're just experiencing ...."
"Don't you dare tell me it's cabin fever!"
The slurping sound resumed.
"Didn't you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"That noise. That's the thing in the wall. Just look! Can't you see it coming through the crack."
"Yes, yes, I do," Dusty replied, fearing the patient might be on the verge of a breakdown. "Let me go get Mrs. Soames."
When the nurse returned with a hypodermic needle in her hand, Leon knew the orderly had only been humoring him.
"This will calm you down," the nurse said, giving him a shot in the arm.
"You really don't see it?"
"There's nothing wrong with the wall. Whatever you think you see or hear, it's all in your mind."
* * *
It was dark outside when the sedative wore off and Leon woke up. He did not know the exact time, but he saw that the nurse had delivered his dinner—the meatloaf—and taken away his uneaten lunch. The thing in the wall had made a good deal of progress while he was asleep. The crack was now nearly five feet high and half a foot wide.
"It's not real," he told himself when he saw the octopus-like appendages chipping away to widen the opening even further. "It's all in my head."
Although he was not hungry, despite not having eaten since breakfast, he knew he needed to keep up his strength. He picked up his fork and cut into his flavorless meatloaf. As he chewed and swallowed, he tried not to look toward the wall. Forkful after forkful of overbaked ground beef went into his mouth and down his throat as the creature slowly made his way from God-knows-where into our world.
"It's nothing but cabin fever."
Having finished the meatloaf, he moved on to the mashed potatoes. The steamed broccoli was next. Meanwhile, four slimy tentacles were at work, chipping away at the plaster walls.
"You're not real. If you were, I wouldn't be the only one to see you."
Lastly, he picked up the pudding. After only two bites, he dropped his plastic spoon onto the tray.
That's when the head came through the crack.
"Help!" Leon screamed. "Dusty! Nurse Lillian!"
With its one large protruding eye, the creature zeroed in on the patient in the bed.
"Somebody! Help me! Anybody!"
No one came to his aid.
Despite its ungainly shape, the creature moved quickly, slithering across the floor to the bed. Leon, unable to move—don't think he hadn't tried!—realized his only hope was to fight the thing off with the plaster casts on his arms.
"Please!" he called, his throat raw from screaming. "Someone help me!"
One tentacle grabbed him by the arm, another by the leg. With amazing strength, the thing pulled him from the bed and dragged him back across the floor. As the cyclopean monster hauled him none-too-gently through the opening in the wall, the patient smashed his head on a wooden beam and was knocked unconscious.
Being spared having to witness what was about to befall him, it was the only time since he survived the fall through his brother's deck that Leon Hepburn could truly be considered lucky.
* * *
"Where the hell am I?" Lynette Blodgett asked herself as she drove along the winding, tree-lined road.
Normally, she would have relied on her iPhone to do the navigating, but she lost reception when she left the interstate two hours earlier. The sun was beginning to set, and her thoughts turned from reaching her destination to finding a hotel for the night. Suddenly, a deer bolted out in front of her car. A sharp turn of the wheel and the Subaru left the road. The next thing the young woman knew, she was waking up in a hospital.
"Welcome back," the Sean Connery lookalike doctor said. "You're lucky to be alive."
"What? ... Where?"
"You had a car accident. The ambulance brought you here to Dunwich Community Hospital. I'm afraid you're going to be here with us for a while."
A muscular orderly whose nametag identified him as Dusty Bowditch wheeled her up to a room on the third floor.
"This is a cramped space," Lynette complained.
"It's a small hospital."
"No television?"
"I'll see if I can find one for you. Meanwhile, Nurse Lillian will be in with your meds soon."
I hope I'm not here too long, the patient thought. This place gives me the creeps. Still, as the doctor said, I'm lucky to be alive.
Moments later she saw the small crack in the wall.
"Time Is On My Side" written by Jerry Ragovoy under the name of Norman Meade. © Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
"Time Won't Let Me" written by Chet Kelley and Thomas R King. © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
"Time of the Season" written by Rod Argent. © Marquis Songs USA
"Show Me the Way to Go Home" written and self-published by James Campbell and Reginald Connelly in 1925.
I don't know which is more frightening: a Lovecraftian one-eyed, tentacled monster from another dimension or a black cat named Salem.
