Safe and Sound

I work in a nursing home as an admissions coordinator. I give tours and help residents move into the facility when they’re no longer safe at home. I tell their families they’ll be safe and sound here at Covington Hills—loved and cared for. Up until now, I would have said that was true. But my residents were dying, and not from natural causes. Of that I am sure.

Death is a huge part of working in a nursing home. We’re surrounded by death. Sometimes, in the case of our terminally ill residents, it’s even welcomed. But recently something strange had been happening—perfectly healthy residents were dying, and they all had one thing in common—frequent hallucinations of a woman in their room in the weeks leading up to their deaths.

Now, hallucinations in elderly people is not uncommon. Many residents with dementia or even a UTI can have hallucinations. Which is why none of us were all that surprised when residents started talking to a lady only they could see. Just a natural progression of their dementia, the nurses would say and we would all give the same sad nod. Dementia is a hell of an illness. 

I’m not a nurse, nor am I an expert in dementia, but I did find it strange that all the residents were hallucinating a woman. Usually hallucinations will vary—some residents may see their long-dead spouse, or some might see bugs or birds. Many of them see children. But in the past two months, we had three residents with hallucinations and they each saw a woman and only a woman. 

Another strange thing I noticed was that only one resident at a time had hallucinations. It’s not unheard of, but the pattern the hallucinations followed was the exact same, and that—coupled with the fact that the residents all seemed to see the same thing—struck me as odd.

The hallucinations all started off pleasant enough with the affected resident happily chatting to the unseen woman, but they soon turned frightening. The cries of “Get her out of my room! Get her out!” would echo throughout the hallways and within days, they would pass away.

There was chatter in the hallways and the staff break room about how strange it was. But still, dementia can progress quickly and, though they seemed healthy, the residents in question were all in their 90s and their bodies just gave out. At least that’s what we all told ourselves. After all, this was a nursing home. Death worked here just as much as any of us.

It wasn’t until last week that I really began to question if something else was going on.

We say we don’t pick favorites here, but everyone has at least one resident that they just click with. For me, I clicked with a man named John who was 91 and sharp as a tack with a grumpy, yet endearing personality. He moved in three months ago when it was clear his daughter could no longer care for him at home. He has Parkinson’s, and while he was still able to walk, he wasn’t as steady on his feet as he used to be and he had fallen a few too many times in the past year for home to continue to be an option.

The minute I was done touring him and his daughter through the facility, I knew he’d be a favorite of mine. He’d stood in the middle of our activities room and let out a deep huff of a breath before turning to me and saying:

“Well, the place doesn’t look like a complete hell hole, which is more than I can say about some of the places my daughter’s dragged me to, and if the other girls here are half as pretty as you, I guess I’ll be okay. Sign me up, doll. Quick, before I change my mind.”

What can I say? I’m a sucker for a charmer. 

John moved in the next week and I helped his daughter set up his room. He was lucky enough to be able to afford a private room and by the time we were done with it, it looked quite cozy.

“Listen, doll,” he said when we were all done. “I’m not gonna call you by any other name than that because frankly I can’t be arsed to remember your real one. That gonna be a problem for you?”

His daughter looked absolutely mortified, but I just laughed.

“No, sir. Not a problem at all.”

And from that day on I was “doll” while everyone else, regardless of their job title, was “nurse.”

Despite his dislike of remembering names, John’s memory was excellent. He could tell you what he ate for breakfast last Wednesday without skipping a beat. He was as “with it” as any of us working at Covington Hills, so when he started complaining about a woman coming into his room, I figured another resident must have accidentally wandered in. It happens sometimes and because the nursing home has a mix between residents with dementia and residents without, like John, I often had to do damage control after a wandering incident.

“Hey, John. How ya feeling today?”

“Like hell, doll. Like hell. Couldn’t sleep a wink last night with that lady coming in here.”

“Was it another resident? Sometimes people get confused, especially at night, and go into other people’s rooms. They don’t mean to intrude.”

“Naw, she was younger than any of us old fogies living here. She said it was time for my medication, but I know damn well I don’t take any medication at 3 in the goddamn morning.”

I told him I would look into it for him and ask the nurses to change the time of whatever medication they’d been trying to give him, but when I asked Sandy the nurse manager about it, she had no idea what I was talking about. John wasn’t scheduled for any medications during the night, so no one should have woken him up to take something. She assured me she’d address it with the night staff to make sure it didn’t happen again. I went back to John’s room to let him know we’d figured it all out and that no one should bother him that night.

When I came into work the next morning, I saw I had a voicemail on my office phone. I absentmindedly punched in my code and put the phone on speaker while I booted up my computer.

“Hey, doll, it’s your favorite old pain in the you-know-what here to let you know I’m not happy with you. I thought you said no one would wake me up last night? That damn nurse was in here again trying to give me medication. I told her where she could put it and she left after that, but it ruined my sleep. Okay, they’re here with my real medicine now—yeah, yeah, one minute, I gotta hang this damn thing u—“

I sighed and sucked in a deep breath to calm the frustration building up inside me. I knew the nurses were overwhelmed, but to make a med error two nights in a row was unacceptable. Luckily John knew when his medication was due, but most of the other residents would just take whatever the nurse gave them, thinking it was correct. It was dangerous and I would have to report it to the nurse manager yet again. 

I walked to Sandy’s office and filled her in on John’s less-than-happy voicemail.

“I called Jan, the nurse that was on the first night it happened, and she swears up and down that she didn’t go into John’s room that night. I even checked the cameras and she’s telling the truth. She was on last night, too.”

“Then who did he see?”

“Probably no one. Maybe it was a dream or maybe it was a hallucination. His Parkinson’s could be progressing. I’m sorry, Taryn, I know you two are close. Maybe he’s just having bad dreams and it will all be fine tonight. But I gotta go to a meeting. See ya later, hun. Chin up!”

She gave my shoulder a squeeze before bustling down the hall, clipboard in hand. I went back to my office. I couldn’t face seeing John just yet. I didn’t know how to tell him that no one had been in his room those nights. I could tell him it was just dreams, but he would know, just like Sandy did, that it was likely Parkinson’s dementia creeping in to take over his mind.

Lunch came and went and I finally decided I couldn’t put off talking to John any longer.

“Hey, doll.”

“Hey, John.” I sat down on the edge of his bed and faced the recliner he was sitting in. “Sandy checked the cameras last night and the night before and no one went into your room. Maybe you’re just having some weird drea—“

He cut me off before I could finish.

“They all think I have dementia and I’m hallucinating,” he said with a scowl. “You know these walls are paper thin, doll. I can hear those nurses talking in the hallway all day. I know what they say about me, but it’s not true. This lady isn’t a hallucination. I don’t know what she is exactly, but she isn’t good. I can tell you that. There was something about her face last night that was... wrong. She looked normal enough the first night. I was half asleep, but I thought she was just one of the new nurses you people always get here. But last night, doll. Last night was different. Her eyes were glowing red and she had too many teeth in her mouth. Too many sharp teeth. I know that sounds crazy, but you and I both know I’m sane.”

I picked up his hand and gave it a squeeze. He squeezed back and leaned forward, lowering his voice to a raspy whisper.

“I know something else, too, doll. I know other people here have seen the same woman. I’ve heard ‘em screaming at her to get out. And I know that once they see her, they’re goners. She does something to them—to us. Guess I’m a goner now, too.”

“No, absolutely not, John. You’re no more a goner than I am. Maybe all that eavesdropping you’ve been doing is giving you nightmares,” I said with more confidence than I actually felt.

As I left work that night, something kept nagging at me. John was right—he was sane. A little forgetful at times, but he was still cognitively intact. There had to be something going on at Covington Hills. Ghosts and the paranormal were something staff would often whisper about to each other. So-and-so saw the ghost of a long-dead resident walking down the hall last night, the man in room 108 saw an angel and passed away the next day, and so on and so on. I believed the stories. You work in a place like this long enough and you just know that spirits exist. If something evil was hurting the residents of Covington Hills, it was my duty to stop it.

The next evening as I was about to leave work, I received a frantic phone call from Sandy. I’d never heard her so worked up before, but I soon understood why.

“It’s John, he’s threatening to hurt himself,” Sandy said frantically. “The senior psych ward is full at the hospital-- we already called and they said they wouldn’t be able to admit him. We don’t have enough nurse’s aides on right now to have someone stay one-on-one with him, and he says he’ll only have you stay with him. I know you’ve been working all day, but--”

I cut her off.

“Of course I’ll stay with him. All night, if I have to--it’s OK. I haven’t been sleeping much, anyway. I’ll be right over.”

When I got to John’s room he was sitting in his recliner tapping his fingers anxiously against the chair’s arm.

“John, what in the world is going on,” I said, rushing over to him. “Are you OK? Why would you want to hurt yourself?”

“Hush, doll. I’m fine. I just said all that nonsense so you and I could be alone tonight. I have a plan to fight this thing that’s been coming into my room at night.”

I sighed and sat down on his bed.

“You shouldn’t have done that, John.”

“I know, but I didn’t get to 91 without taking some risks. Now listen, because I think I know how to make sure this nasty thing doesn’t get any of us old timers any more.” He leaned back and let out a sigh before continuing.

“I fought in the Korean War and I saw a lot of terrible things, doll. Men--most of ‘em really just boys--killing each other. Men I thought of as brothers dying from drinking contaminated water because it was all we could get. Innocent women and children dying in the streets in front of us as we fought on. It was hell, doll. It was like being in hell. But there was something else there, too. Something evil that was basking in the hell we had created. At night, the guys would talk about spirits that walked the streets looking for souls to take. They looked like civilians at a glance and they would always be helping the people laying injured in the streets. The guys thought nothing of it, and let them tend to their wounded--sometimes they’d even try to help. But when they got closer to the helpers, they’d notice that their eyes glowed with a hint of red and their mouths opened just a bit too wide when they talked. The wounded they were helping would die and the helpers would disappear. They guys all said they never saw them leave--they would blink and the helpers would just be gone.

Some of the guys asked around and found out that these things disguised as civilians were evil spirits that fed off the sick and dying. The war attracted them and they wandered the streets searching for the wounded. The only way to get rid of them was to offer up your own blood freely as a sacrifice. I never saw these things, but that nurse--she’s got that same glow in her eyes the guys all talked about. Same mouth, too.” He pulled a knife out from his recliner’s side pocket and set it on his bedside table. “Stole this from lunch. It should do.”

“OK, so I’ll be the one doing the blood sacrifice, obviously. I don’t need to give a lot of blood, do I?” I asked with less confidence in my voice than I hoped for. He started to protest, but I held up my hand. “You’re 91 and I’m 31. I think I’ve got the best chance of healing up, OK? Besides, I’m supposed to be making sure you don’t hurt yourself, remember?”

He relented and we settled in for the night with some game shows and crime dramas after I assured the nursing staff that we were OK and I’d let them know if I needed any help. At some point I fell asleep, only to be woken up by the sound of John swearing. 

I rubbed my eyes and tried to focus on the scene in front of me. John was in his recliner, frantically reaching for the knife on the bedside table as a woman dressed in white scrubs stood over him, hands around his neck.

“Stop!” I shrieked as I leapt from the bed and collided with the woman, knocking her away from John. She turned to face me, her eyes glowing a deep red that made my hair stand on end.

“Leave him alone,” I said, as I reached behind me for the knife. The woman let out a shrill laugh, baring rows and rows of sharp teeth. She raised an arm over her head before bringing it down in a swinging arc. She pointed at me, and the bedside table suddenly tipped over, crashing down onto my thighs. Although it was a small, lightweight table, it somehow pinned me to the floor. I struggled to lift it, but it wouldn’t move.

“She did something to it, John. I can’t move it.”

I decided that I’d just have to make the blood sacrifice from the floor. The woman looked exactly like the things John had described from the war and as much as I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to shedding blood, it was the only thing we had to go off of. I looked around and saw the knife lying by John’s feet, just out of my reach.

“John, I need the knife!”

The woman raised her arm again and pointed at me before clenching her fist. I felt my throat tighten. I tried to yell, but no sound came out. I was trapped and I couldn’t even scream for help.

“Don’t worry, doll. I’ll do it.”

I tried to scream at John to stop as he bent over to pick up the knife. I frantically pushed at the table, but it was useless. I watched as the woman took a step toward John, her mouth stretched into a terrible smile.

He didn’t flinch as she approached. He stood up from his chair and looked straight into her glowing eyes.

“I’ll give you what you want--blood, given of my own accord--but then you will leave us alone. You won’t take any more souls here.”

The woman nodded and licked her lips. It was sickening, but I couldn’t do anything to stop what was about to happen. John held his left arm out straight in front of him and brought the knife down on his flesh with a quick slice. As soon as the blood poured from the wound, the woman lept at him. Her mouth latched onto his arm and she loudly began to drink the blood. I forced myself not to retch. 

I watched helpless as John winced in pain, the color beginning to drain from his face. After what seemed like a lifetime, the woman stopped. She straightened up and turned toward me, blood dripping from her mouth as she smiled at me once more. I blinked and she was gone.

I pushed the table off my legs with ease and rushed over to John, who had fallen to the floor.

“We did it, doll,” he said before passing out.

John was rushed to the hospital where he made a full recovery. The official story was that I had passed out from not eating. I had, after all, skipped dinner to stay with John. John had attempted to rush to my side, but had knocked over the bedside table in the process. He tripped over the fallen table and cut himself on the knife when he landed. He insisted that he never wanted to hurt himself and didn’t know why he’d said it. The hospital chalked it up to altered mental status from severe dehydration and cleared him to return to Covington Hills. To be safe, staff now cut his food for him and remove any knives from the room after they drop off his meals.

So far, staff haven’t reported any residents with hallucinations. For now, I think we’re back to being safe and sound.