The Man In Black

The breakfast tray sat untouched on the bedside table as Nurse Teegan shuffled around the room adjusting monitor settings and pretending to document my vital signs. Her auburn hair was perfectly coiled on top of her head, and her scrubs sat crisply on her narrow frame. Her eyes were large and brown, magnified by thin framed glasses with red rims. Every so often those eyes would shift to me before darting back to her computer screen. Her slender hands danced across the keyboard and her lips moved as she thought quietly to herself; though I often wondered if she were speaking to someone else, someone who wasn’t in the room with us. Did she see the man in the room? I’d tried and failed to spot any listening devices, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any.

“How are you feeling today dear?” Nurse chimed, and I scraped together a weak smile. In another minute or two, Nurse Teegan would feed me several pills, which I would hide in my cheek and spit out later. The Physicians thought I needed them- they thought that I was crazy. Or “psychiatric” was the term they liked to use. I disagreed. My mother was crazy, but I wasn’t. I knew that Nurse Teegan was afraid of me, and so was the orderly who brought my food. He wouldn’t hold my gaze any longer than a second or two. They all tiptoed around the room as if I were a ravenous animal, ready to devour them at any moment. I’d only ever attacked one person, and that man had deserved it. He was working with the man in the room.

I sat up straighter and narrowed my gaze to the corner behind where the nurse stood, typing, typing away, oblivious to the shadowed figured looming only feet behind her. He was tall and thin, and he liked to dress in black, his hat pulled down low to obscure his face, and his coat collar pulled up high. I never saw his skin, or the whites of his eyes- he was simply a void in dark clothing. He changed his name daily, never using the same one.

 The room grew suddenly chilly, and the sun’s rays seemed to choke behind the blinds, casting the room in shadow. The man in black preferred it like that- dark and cold, like himself.

Nurse Teegan stood over me now, an expectant look affixed to her face. In her right hand she clutched a small paper cup full of pills- mood stabilizers, and what I suspected was some sort of sedative. I could read her guilt, and I eyed the pills a second time, trying to determine which one of them was poison. Perhaps she was working for him, too.

“It’s time to take your medicine,” she added, shifting nervously. My fingers gripped the bedside rails, and my heart rate increased. The man loomed across from us both, drifting closer still. I could hear his ragged breathing. Smell the death of the others on his nonexistent skin. He’d come for me again, just like he had nearly every day for the past several months.

It’s only a matter of time, he whispered. Tears sprang to my eyes as realization dawned on me, along with a sinking feeling that he was right. I could only evade him for so long before he seized control completely, and no Doctor and well-meaning nurse would be able to stop him. Panic enveloped me.

“What is your name this time?” I asked him.

“Honey, I’m Nurse Teegan,” she told me carefully.

Fate, the man replied.

The Nurse’s eyes followed my gaze behind her, though she wouldn’t see him like I did. They never did. That’s why he was so frightening. How do you stop something you can’t see?

“Do you see something, Marie?” Nurse Teegan asked. I gulped and nodded as a trail of tears slid down my cheeks and onto my gown.

“What do you see?” she whispered.

“I see Fate,” I told her.

Then, before she could say anything else, Fate seized her by her neck and drained her of her soul at my bedside.

Two days Later…

Nurse Teegan hadn’t returned. I’d stared at her crumpled body for a moment before pushing the Nurse call light. It took awhile for someone to come, it usually did. By the time the other nurse swept in, harried and disheveled, Nurse Teegan’s body had absorbed into the tile floors, and the man in black had gone like a puff of smoke. The Nurse mumbled something when I tried explaining what had happened to her. She didn’t believe me, of course. She’d only lied and said that Nurse Teegan had gone home early. I wasn’t sure how the man in black managed to recruit regular people to do his bidding, only that he did. Just like he’d recruited my landlord, Mr. Hopkins, two weeks prior. The man in black had materialized while I was in the shower. I’d screamed, of course, and stumbled out, falling back onto the wet porcelain and hitting my head. When I’d come to, Mr. Hopkins, having heard the commotion, had let himself into my apartment and stood over me, eyeing my nude form as I lay sprawled out on the bathroom floor, the shower water running.

He told me that he would call for help and advised me to lie still until the Paramedics could get there. It was while I was lying there that the man in black reappeared, taking possession of my landlord and causing him to attack me. I screamed and fought, blood running down my back from the head wound, but eventually I’d gained an upper hand on the slight middle-aged man and hit him over the head with a crystal soap dish I’d bought at a yard sale three years ago. Only after I’d done it had the man in black vacated his body, leaving nothing behind but the injured shell of Mr. Hopkins, who cursed my name and fled the apartment, returning with the police moments later.

They’d said that I’d written things on the walls, malicious, threatening things. No one believed that it wasn’t my hand-writing. No one believed me when I told them about the man in black. I followed the orderly to the day room, thankful to be dressed in my regular clothes. Someone had brought them to the hospital, though I wasn’t sure who. The man had robbed me of my family and friends, one by one, leaving me isolated and powerless. He liked it that way.

The other residents of the hospital drifted around, some of them gathered around board games or staring blankly at the television screen. One woman rocked back and forth in the corner, muttering something about snakes. Beside me, a young woman laughed incessantly, though I wasn’t sure what she’d found so amusing. The nurses watched us with hawk eyes, gazes unceasing, while we all pretended to mingle.

I stared at the deck of cards on the table. They moved, changing images, constructing one image after another. First a house of cards, then a bridge, followed by a boat. I gasped when the man materialized again, this time occupying the seat opposite mine. The woman beside me had wandered off, and it was me alone at the table. Me and a deck of cards. And the man in black.

“What are you calling yourself today?” I asked.

A few pairs of eyes drifted toward me, and I realized I’d yelled the question. I had to tread carefully, or the nurses would figure out that I wasn’t taking their poison.

The man in black chuckled. It sounded like a growl.

Vengeance, he answered.

“Why Vengeance?” I asked, my curiosity piqued.

He leaned forward, and the smell of rancid flesh permeated the space between us. The more he appeared, the less afraid I had become. Though the sight of him still sent chills down my spine, I realized that, perhaps, the two of us had something in common.

You tell me, he taunted.

I shuffled the deck while I considered his question. Somehow the man seemed more human today, despite his usual dark appearance. I was almost drawn to him, to his strength and anonymity. He was unstoppable.

“You exact vengeance on the ones who have hurt you,” I answered, and he nodded once.

Who will your vengeance claim? He asked. My gaze drifted across the dayroom at the dozens of strangers who milled about. Some of them pretended not to watch me, but I knew that they were listening all the time. Who would it be? I spotted Nurse Teegan behind the receptionist desk, whispering something to the nurse beside her.

They’re whispering about you, the man said.

I knew this, of course. They liked to whisper about me. They liked to watch me. To try and poison me, destroy me. They called me liar and crazy and unstable. They tried to stop me.

“Her,” I nodded at Nurse Teegan. Her eyes caught mine and fear flashed behind her eyes.

How will you do it? He asked me.

I sighed and reclined in my plastic chair, grinning at her from behind the table. I flicked the cards between my fingers, the same way grandpa taught me when I was younger.

“Poison,” I answered simply. I could feel the man grin behind his shadows, feel his approval beyond the void of his face. He liked it.

Good. Feed her the poison she tries to feed you. Show her what it’s like.

Two hours later, I sat in my bed, the sunlight outside the window waning and growing to a pale purple. The air conditioning hummed and the clamor outside my door kept me from drifting into a comfortable sleep. I’d grown increasingly tired over the past week, and I suspected that they were sneaking tranquilizers in my food. I could only hold out for so long before my hunger drove me to desperation, and I ate what they brought me. I left the tray open and on the windowsill for awhile first, for the sun to dry out the toxins. I couldn’t be sure if it was effective.

“Medication time,” Nurse Teegan called, sweeping into the room. She didn’t look at me this time, and she moved quickly, eager to leave.

“Where have you been?”

She stopped in her tracks, the pills clutched in those narrow fingers,

“I was here all the time,” she lied.

“You weren’t here. Not after the man got you. Where did you go? How did you get back?”

She crept closer, extending her hand and a glass of water out to me.

“Have you been taking all your medications, Marie?” she asked, suspiciously. I smiled with my teeth, infusing what little bit of warmth into it that I had left. She seemed unsettled.

“Of course, Nurse.”

“Swallow these, please.”

I nodded obediently and moved the cup to my lips, as if to take them all in one gulp. Then, just as I’d planned, I tensed and trained my eyes on the hallway behind her, beyond the door which stood open.

“What do you see?” she asked, turning her head to glimpse the empty hallway.

Moving quickly, I dumped the pills into the bedsheets, which I kept pulled up to my waist. Then, just as she turned to glimpse me again, I drained the cup of water, gulping loudly.

“I thought I saw the man again, but I guess it was only a shadow,” I finished lamely. I handed her the cups, which she inspected and discarded, logging the medication use in the bedside computer.

“I’ll be back in to check on you later,” she said, pulling the door closed behind her.

After she had gone, I crawled out of the bed and gathered the discarded pills, tucking them into my pants pocket. I’d wandered these hallways a few times, and I knew where the nurses took their lunch breaks. Nurse Teegan always smelled like fruit, and she liked to snack on vinegar and salt chips. I could find which lunch was hers and hide the pills in her food, just like she’d done to me so many times before.

The man in black followed closely while I crept through the halls. Now was the best time to steal through the halls, since the nurses were out administering the evening medication. No one occupied the nurses’ station, and the break room door sat propped open to the left, at the end of the hall. No one was inside as I stole through the door and crept to the refrigerator, which was packed with lunchboxes and half-consumed drinks. The coffee pot sat cold and half empty on the counter, and the faucet dripped. The wall opposite the refrigerator was papered in colorful paper and displayed ratings and employee relations drivel. I poked through all of the lunches, confidant that I’d found Nurse Teagan’s. She was a creature of habit, and just as I’d suspected, her lunch box held an apple and a fruit salad, half a tuna sandwich, and a bag of potato crisps.

They’ve underestimated us, haven’t they? The man whispered.

The chill raced down my back and warmed me, coating me in a sense of well-being. And power. How many months had I spent running from him, when I could have embraced him instead? I wasn’t a victim in restraints, drugged and powerless. Not now. Now, I was in control. Empowered. I was vengeance.

Having crushed up the pills, I mashed the powder into her sandwich, replacing the bread and zipping the lunch box up. I crept back to my room and waited there, anticipating a scream or a series of shouts. Anything to indicate that my plan had worked, that the man in black had won. That I had won.

The next morning when I woke, Nurse Teegan stared down at me with glazed eyes, her dark hat pulled low and her coat collar pulled high, wreaking of flesh and rotting things. The man in black had gone, leaving her in his wake, and I found that I preferred his form better to hers.

“What’s your name today?” I asked, conversationally.

“Death,” she answered, and we smiled.