Nightingale Read online

  “Damn it.” June turned back to face Eleanor and the other girls. “What was she going to say? About Joya?”

  “Why are you so obsessed with Joya?” Eleanor asked, grabbing at the ends of her own sweater.

  “Why are you going along with all of this like it’s okay?” June shot back, her voice raised. “This isn’t a real hospital—you said so yourself. Nobody here is a real doctor or nurse. Something is happening...”

  The girls looked as though June had just spoken in tongues.

  “What do you mean?” Cassy broke the silence. “Why wouldn’t we do what they tell us? They’re caring for us.”

  “What?” June felt the space behind her nose tingling. “What about everything you’ve talked about before? Have you ever heard of anywhere that treats patients like this? What would your parents say if they knew how things were in here? Your friends?”

  “We are each other’s friends and family,” Eleanor answered, and the other girls nodded. “We’ve never had anyone else. We’ve never been anywhere else but here.”

  “No,” June cried out, then realized that there were a few nurses behind the glass partition watching her. She knew she needed to calm down, or else she’d soon be drugged out like Simpson. She took a second to breathe, tried to look more at ease in her body language. “You guys had lives before you came here,” she tried again. “You had to have.”

  Still, silence and stunned gazes.

  “Eleanor.” June sat down beside her roommate and took her hand. “You told me that you came here three years ago. After you died. You talked about your family. Cassy, what about all that stuff about the Titanic?”

  Eleanor’s face looked strained. “I... What in the world...”

  “What’s wrong?” June asked. Cassy and Jessica looked as confused as they did before. “Don’t you guys remember? Don’t you remember anything about your lives before this place?”

  The girls’ faces were all overcome with the same blank confusion. It made June feel sick, truly sick to her stomach. Why could she still remember her life? Because she’d only been here for a little while? Would she forget soon? As of now, she remembered everything. She mustn’t let herself slip away, she knew, and decided that every morning and every night she would remember her old life, repeat everyone’s names in her mind, as painful as it may have been.

  “We were all born here,” Cassy said, and June knew it was a lie. She’d be far more willing to believe the time travel story than this. “You’re the only one who’s ever been new.”

  It wasn’t true.

  “You’re the weird one,” Cassy went on, her eyes welling up despite her triumphant stare. “You’re here because you think your parents were replaced.” She giggled cruelly, and a single tear fell down her cheek. “How does that even make sense? You are never going to get out of here.”

  Beside her, Jessica started to rock back and forth slightly, her long hair falling forward and covering her face. Eleanor stared at June. Simpson didn’t move, her mouth slacked open. June wondered what Adie was going through right this very second. What had happened to these girls in the short time that June had been here?

  “Simpson mentioned that thing about the worms,” she said aloud, trying desperately to understand something, anything. “Is that what Joya meant when she said that Simpson was saying wicked things?”

  Was it possible Joya and the doctor needed to silence her for whatever reason? Was it possible Simpson had seen something?

  One night while I was sleeping, some nurses came in and held me down and I felt something go into my ear, June remembered Simpson saying at breakfast that morning. I can hear it eating every so often—I swear I can. I can hear it crunching.

  “Something feels funny,” Eleanor said. “Whenever I try to think about what’s outside these walls, I...” She appeared unable to speak.

  “You had a family,” June urged, tightening her grip on Eleanor’s hand. “Remember them. Fight it! Whatever is doing this to you, fight it—”

  “You’re right,” she says. “How did I die? And why?”

  “You’re not dead.” June was finished playing along. “You’re alive. Your name is Eleanor, you’re seventeen years old just like me, and you’re alive.”

  “I am dead,” Eleanor said. She looked into June’s eyes. “I don’t know how I know it—I realize it sounds insane—I just... I know I’m dead.”

  “Because they told you that you were?”

  “No.” Eleanor’s eyes went glassy like she was remembering something. “I...died before I came here. I remember that much. It happened, and then they brought me here. It was like the doctor had been expecting me or something. They acted like this was my new home from the start...”

  “Tell me more,” June urged. “What were your parents like?”

  “My head hurts,” Eleanor whimpered, lifting her free hand to her temple. “Please stop.”

  “Stop fucking with her,” Jessica hissed from Eleanor’s other side. “And shut your fat mouth unless you want them to find out what you’re doing—”

  “They’ll punish you if they know,” Cassy interrupted. “They’ll punish all of us. Just look at Lauren and Simpson. Look what they did to them.”

  When Lauren was lobotomized, June remembered, the other girls had instantly cut all emotional ties to her. June had felt it happen in that moment during breakfast. And now they were ready to do the same thing to Simpson if it came down to it.

  “But the worms Simpson mentioned...” June said weakly. “And all the things that are wrong with this place...”

  “Stop it,” Eleanor pleaded. “Please...my head. I think I need to lie down...”

  “I’ll go with you back to our room.” June helped pull Eleanor to her feet, happy to get away from Cassy and Jessica. She cast one last pained glance Simpson’s way, making a note to have a private conversation with her as soon as Simpson came around a bit more. It was possible that she knew things.

  “They were mostly leaving us all alone until you came along,” Cassy said bitterly after them, before they were too far away so she could keep her voice low and still be heard. “And now they just won’t stop digging.”

  the institution

  When they were in their room and the door was closed behind them, the girls sat on June’s bed. Eleanor drank the water she’d picked up from the nurses’ station on the way, along with a few aspirin for her headache.

  “Don’t mind them,” Eleanor said, still rubbing her temple gently. “They’re just upset and scared. What happened to Lauren was...awful. And sudden. They’re trying to pretend it didn’t happen. Things around here are getting worse by the minute.” She looked to June, her mouth pulled into a thin line. “I have to admit Cassy wasn’t wrong about things changing when you arrived.”

  June swallowed. “But that doesn’t make sense. What would I have to do with any of it?”

  “I don’t know,” Eleanor admitted. “It’s not like you’re the one who planted the seed in Simpson’s mind about the brain worm. And who knows what Lauren said at her appointment that got her lobotomized. If that’s even how they choose who gets it.” She shook her head.

  “Do you think the worm thing is real?” June couldn’t believe she was asking this question, seriously considering it. This is how things are now, she realized in horror. Your parents have been replaced, and you’ve been brought into some sort of hell house.

  “Of course not,” Eleanor said, almost defensively. “I know we were all joking about that sort of stuff before, and things here are bad, but they’re real. Brain worms are not real. And if they were, doctors would not be putting them into our brains.” She paused, and her breath started to quicken. “It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m dead.” She touched a hand to her face as if checking herself for a fever. “But the good thing about it is that I get to live forever now, in this state. I can feel th
e truth of that in my bones, June—I will live forever.”

  Maybe you goddamn will, June thought. I’d believe it at this point.

  June looked at Eleanor until she returned her gaze. “How do you feel about the idea of getting out of here someday?” June asked. “I mean it. Think about it. What if they let you out?”

  Eleanor considered it. “I think,” she said and gave June a little smile, and June felt her cheeks warm, “I think I’d like that.”

  “Okay, then,” June said, grasping at this budding plan, believing it could happen someday. “Let’s promise each other right now. Somehow, we’ll both get out of here. And we can live in the world however we want, together.”

  “Okay,” Eleanor said, her face lighting up slowly but surely. “It’s a promise. We’ll do it together.”

  “Together,” June confirmed and smiled back. “Don’t forget our promise. Don’t get too used to this place like Cassy and Jessica have.”

  She realized that they were holding hands. June liked how Eleanor’s fingers felt in hers, liked the way their palms rested against one another. She decided that she was glad to have been roomed with Eleanor, and not any of the other girls. She’d been scared of Eleanor at first, but now June was wondering if that had been on her.

  Nothing in this world made sense anymore, but Eleanor had looked out for June from the beginning. June thought that maybe she was starting to fall in love with her. The realization gave her stomach a lovely little flip, an unfamiliar wave of emotion that June felt curious to explore.

  The door opened, and Nurse Chelsea poked her head in to peer at the girls curiously. “Sharing secrets, are we?” she asked, and grabbed at the end of one of the golden braids that were resting over her shoulders. She was chewing on a piece of gum and looked as though she’d just stepped out of a Sears catalog, just like all the nurses June had seen.

  Who were these women who worked for the doctor who never even spoke? Where did they come from? What lives did they live outside of here? Did they even have lives outside of here? They were all always around.

  “Keep this door open unless a nurse closes it, please,” Chelsea went on, smacking her gum impatiently. “This is your only warning.”

  The girls nodded, but the nurse continued to stare, even narrowed her eyes just the slightest. “Nurse Joya wants me to tell you that it’s time for your appointment, Eleanor.”

  “Okay,” Eleanor said with a weak smile. “I’m coming.”

  When the nurse didn’t budge, Eleanor stood and nodded at June before heading out the door. Then June was alone. Soon she heard the call for lunch and went alone to the cafeteria. She picked up a tray of food and looked around, spotting Cassy and Jessica at the usual table, Adie sitting with them. Cassy didn’t look happy to see June, but Adie waved her over. Simpson was nowhere to be seen.

  “Where’s Simpson?” June asked casually, refusing to make eye contact with Cassy. “You’re her roommate, aren’t you, Adie?”

  “I am,” Adie confirmed through a bite of egg-salad sandwich. “I haven’t seen her since my appointment, though. I was kind of wondering where she was, too. Maybe she’s having her appointment now.”

  “Eleanor is,” June said, and Adie’s chewing slowed.

  “You sure?” Adie asked, looking around the room for Simpson and failing to find her. “That’s weird.”

  “She got up and left after you and Eleanor went back to your room,” Cassy said, so quietly June had to lean in to hear her. June knew Cassy was afraid that they were being spied on or somehow monitored. It was what had set her off earlier. “Whatever she was on seemed to wear off. She said she wanted to take a shower.”

  “So quickly?” June asked, at least somewhat glad that the girl was talking to her without a tone. “She seemed pretty out of it before.”

  “It was weird,” Jessica mumbled. “She seemed weird.”

  “We have to stop talking about this sort of stuff,” Cassy said, her voice pinched tight with anxiety. June could see that she was about to cry. “Please. You’re going to make them hurt us. Think about what happened with Lauren. Just stop.”

  It was wrong, the way these girls refused to question how this place was run. It wasn’t like hospitals murdered anyone; June had heard of things like lobotomies long before she came to this place. It was about the conditions of the institution: the unconventional medical practices, the needle sharing, the aggressive comments, and the overall feeling that something bigger was happening in the office with the expensive furniture and the odd carpeting.

  “I’ll check on Simpson, then,” June said, ignoring her sandwich and standing to go. “So none of you have to involve yourselves. But if you really think it’ll somehow make you more of a target than every single one of us already is—”

  “I’ll go with you.” Adie stood, too, and Cassy looked like she was about to have a panic attack. “It’s fine, Cass,” Adie insisted, nudging her with her arm. “We’re just going with each other to the bathroom. No big deal.”

  “You need to settle down,” Jessica nearly hissed at Cassy under her breath. “You’re gonna get yourself a doozy of an injection.”

  June went over to the tray carriage and waited for Adie to slide her used tray in, too. They walked together out of the cafeteria and back toward the main hall. The shower room was in the back, on the opposite end of the hallway from the doctor’s office.

  June could hear water running before she even stepped into the room, which was covered floor to wall with small white tiles. Not wanting her slippers to get wet, she took them off, and Adie did the same. The girls stepped carefully over the damp tiles. “Simp?” Adie called through the steam that hung thick in the room. “Are you in here? It’s lunchtime.”

  Nothing. June was suddenly afraid for Eleanor, who’d been out of her sight too long for comfort. She’ll live forever because she’s already dead, she told herself wildly, stepping deeper into the shower room.

  An odor hit the girls at the same time: something immensely heavy and metallic. June knew Adie could smell it, too, because she pinched her nose as they went on. “Why is there so much steam in here?” Adie demanded, using her free hand to wave it away. “The showers don’t even get very hot. It doesn’t make sense.”

  June knew the smell nearly choking them was blood, no doubt about it. Jesus Christ, June thought, breathing through her mouth. Please don’t let her be sitting on the floor with her wrists slit.

  It was an awful thought, and she hated herself for having it. Simpson was probably fine, and if she wasn’t she was most unlikely to be in here. It’s not like they did the lobotomies in the shower. As they approached, the steam started to thin. Adie gasped and grabbed June’s arm as a terrifying sight came into view: the floor before them was pooled, flooded, with blood. It was stark against the white tiles, running in torrents toward the drain in the center of the room.

  Adie whimpered, and the girls stepped around the edge to avoid it flowing over their toes. June felt like she might be sick. The smell was overwhelming.

  “We need to find someone who can help—” June began, and that’s when Adie started to scream.

  Simpson sat in the steam, her legs splayed, jutting from beneath her blue cotton housedress. The steam made it hard to determine what had happened, but it was very clear that Simpson was the source of all the blood. Her dress was soaked with it, her legs, her slippers. June squinted through the steam at Simpson’s wrists but didn’t see any cuts. The steam was too thick to make out much of anything above her waist, but based on the amount of blood and the terrifying stillness of Simpson’s body, June would have bet anything that the girl was dead.

  Adie sprinted away, still screaming, calling for help. June stood alone, her own legs like noodles. With her hands trembling and her heart pounding, she took a tentative step forward into the liquid, then another, then another, until she was standing at Simpson�
�s side. She waved the steam out of the way, and that’s when she screamed even louder than Adie had.

  Simpson’s face was gone. Her lips were gone, her nose was opened up, her eyeballs had withered away into nothing. Bright red meat, shockingly bright, stuck out over the front of the skull in thick, gummy clumps that wept fluids and blood. Her teeth were exposed, the pointed canines gleaming.

  June didn’t understand at first exactly what had happened, until she saw the opening of the pipe directly on the other side of Simpson, level with her face. The pipe hissed angrily every time condensation from the ceiling dripped onto it. June stopped screaming, held her hand out toward the pipe, and discovered that it was emanating immense heat, enough to burn without even touching it. Below the opening, a small wheeled valve handle dripped with bloody water.

  Simpson’s face had been steamed off.

  June heard running footsteps in the distance, then the echo of a nurse shouting out her name. She backed away so fast that she nearly slipped and fell onto the tiles slicked thick with Simpson’s blood. “Over here!” she cried out, and her voice cracked. “Please help!”

  That’s not an injury that can be helped.

  June’s vision went a little funny, and she dropped to one knee, afraid she might pass out or vomit or both. The lights overhead flickered as Nurse Chelsea and two other nurses rushed forward and grabbed at June with urgent hands.

  “Joya will be here shortly,” Chelsea assured her, squeezing June’s arm and pulling her up so hard she cried out. “In the meantime, everyone is on emergency lockdown. Get to your room now, please.”

  June didn’t need to be told twice. She fled, slipping through the shower room, then running past the hallway of doors that were all already closed except for hers. When she passed the room that Simpson and Adie shared, she could hear Adie’s anguished screams from behind the door, a sound that made her heart feel like it was being squeezed. A nurse was waiting at her door, a big ring of keys in her hand. June stepped into the room, and the door was immediately closed and bolted.