“Room 12,” Olga said, thrusting a clipboard into my hands. “She’s a fun one.”
I scowled. “A fun one? Wait, what do you mean by that?”
She only laughed in response, striding down the hallway as quickly as she possibly could. I watched her purple-scrubbed silhouette turn down the corner, then disappear.
Well, shit. I guess I was stupid for thinking things would be slow the Monday after Christmas. Didn’t we have enough alcohol poisonings and pine-tree-related injuries? And don’t even get me started on that guy who thought he was Santa Claus…
“Olga, you little jerk,” I muttered under my breath. Then I slugged down the rest of my coffee, threw it in the bin, and stepped into room 12.
It was a woman. A quite pretty woman, with long black hair and olive skin. I glanced at the file. Tanya Rodrigo… 23, single… stats normal… I sat down at the computer station and turned towards her, faking a smile. “So what brings you in here tonight?”
“I don’t feel well.”
Oh, that’s very helpful. “Can you be more specific?”
“I don’t feel like myself.”
“More specific.”
“My head… feels foggy.”
“Okay. We can work with that.” I clacked at the keys. “Do you have pain? Or is it sort of like, a pressure in your head?”
“I don’t know.”
Oh yeah. Olga was right. This was a fun one. “Any other symptoms?”
“No.”
“Okay, look, Tanya,” I said, swiveling around on my stool. “This is the emergency room. It’s almost three am. Clearly you are feeling something bad to bring yourself in here. If it’s something you can’t talk about with me, that’s okay. But we’re here to help. We have counselors, or if you’re in an abusive household, we can—”
“No. I’ll tell you.” She let out a big sigh. “This sounds so stupid, but… I feel like someone else is in my head.”
A chill went down my spine. “Okay. Okay, yeah.” I nodded at her, silently, unsure what to say. I wasn’t wholly prepared to deal with mental symptoms. Here in the ER, it was mostly grisly injuries, blood and guts… you know, the easy stuff.
“Have you had any thoughts of self-harm, or anything like that?” I asked.
“No.”
“So uh… why do you feel like someone else is in your head?”
She puffed out a breath. “I get these thoughts, images, flashing through my head. They’re very disturbing,” she added.
“Intrusive thoughts.”
“Yeah, but… worse. I had to call in sick to work, today. Because the thoughts were just playing in my head, nonstop. Really violent, horrible things…” She paused, as if considering whether to elaborate on the details. Then she shook her head. “Just really bad things.”
“Okay. Thanks for telling me, Tanya. I’m just going to enter that in my notes…” I turned back towards the computer—
And froze.
In the window behind the computer, I saw her reflection.
She was smiling.
Not just smiling—grinning. This huge, deranged grin stretching across her face as she stared at me. Like she knew something I didn’t, and was just waiting for me to figure it out. The type of grin you see on people like Charles Manson.
I whipped around—
Tanya wasn’t smiling.
I looked back at the window. But now, her reflection showed what I expected: the profile of a troubled young woman, looking down at the floor.
I swallowed. Relax. She was probably just smiling at you. And you interpreted it as some deranged grin because you got, what, four hours of sleep today? It had been a long day. I’d been dragged to my niece’s birthday party, which was smack in the middle of my daytime sleep.
I stifled a yawn. “Sorry. Just a few more questions. How long has this been going on?”
“About two or three weeks.”
“Okay. And it’s interfered with work, and your daily life, right?”
“Yeah.”
I asked her more routine questions and typed all the notes into her file. “Okay. I’m going to get the doctor now, okay?” I grabbed my phone, checked the time—a little after 3. Damn, four more hours to go. I yawned again and turned off the phone’s screen—
No.
She was right behind me.
I saw her reflection clear as day in my phone’s screen. Peeking over my shoulder. Grinning that horrible, deranged grin. Her dark eyes locked on mine, and her hands—her hands going for my neck—
I leapt back.
And when I turned, Tanya was in the same place as before. Sitting on the bed, looking at the floor.
“I’m gonna get the doctor now,” I said. And then I dashed out into the hallway.
I took a shuddering breath. And then another. I glanced back at the room—but Tanya was still staring at the floor, fidgeting with her hands.
What was that?
I mean. Had she really tried to… strangle me? But then, how did she get back to the bed so fast? And she seemed perfectly normal. A woman with some intrusive thoughts. Not a serial killer.
But I’d seen what I’d seen.
She was going to grab my throat. There was no denying it.
I’ll admit, part of me wanted to just throw Olga back in there and see what happened. But my stupid little conscience forced me to do the right thing and find Dr. Cohen. “Can I talk to you for a sec?” I panted.
“Sure,” he replied.
Dr. Cohen was a graying old man with all the fierceness of a teddy bear. He looked at me with soft concern as I pulled him aside in the hallway and spoke in a low voice. “In room 12, we have a woman that… uh… well, she seems to be describing intrusive thoughts. But she… when I had my back turned, she looked like she was going to strangle me.”
“Strangle you?”
“She had her hands—like this.” I mimed her claw-like hands, going for my neck.
“Okay, hmm.” Any other doctor would have freaked out, probably, but Dr. Cohen just nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll go to her right now.”
I followed him down the hallway. “Be careful,” I whispered as he opened the door. I watched as he disappeared inside, chewing my nails. What if she murders him in there? But Dr. Cohen was a six-foot-tall former football player. He could defend himself, right?
… Right?
Ten nail-biting minutes later, Dr. Cohen came out. He gave me a reassuring nod. “She seems fine,” he said. “I prescribed her some anti-anxiety meds that I think will help. Thank you for the heads-up, though!”
He gave my arm a squeeze and continued down the hallway.
But I couldn’t move.
I was frozen. All the breath had been sucked out of my lungs. All I could do was stare, paralyzed, as the good doctor walked away from me.
Because in the glass double-doors, I saw his reflection.
And the wide smile stretching across his face, as he locked eyes with me.