Six Before Dawn

BUZZZZZZZ

George nearly jumps out of his baggy blue scrubs. No, no, no. Not again. It’s only 3 a.m. (exactly 3 .a.m., in fact), and this shift’s already been a belter. First, there was the old man who’d broken his hip as a nurse guided him into bed. Then there’d been the lady, riddled with dementia, who tried to scalp George for checking her patient-identifying wristband, and finally, this:

EMERGENCY. CARDIAC ARREST.

George’s shoulders slump. He can’t take this anymore. But in just six hours, he won’t have to. In six hours, he’s out of a job, and his contract will end. In six hours, he can go home, wash off the trauma from this shift in his miserable one-bed flat, and figure out where the hell to go next.

Maybe he’ll go to Australia. A bit of sun never hurt anybody.

George sighs, clicks the pager off, takes a deep breath, and rises. Despite the warmth of the hospital, he shivers. A soft murmur brushes past his ear and he flicks his head toward the door.

No one. Just a cold draft. He shakes it off and refocuses.

The pager buzzes again: Ward 9. Geriatrics.

George has never been a fan of the elderly. Between visiting his ageing mother and working in the hospital, his life is a merry-go-round of broken hips, kidney problems, dementia, and endless cups of tea.

But that’s not going to matter soon, he tells himself as he swings his fashionably pink stethoscope around his neck and darts out the door.

Just six hours.

The hospital corridors are bland, decorated with off-white paint that cracks at the edges and the occasional window with a five-star view of the car park below. There’s a wall that features a line of dusty abstract paintings, an executive’s attempt to improve patient satisfaction and brighten George’s shifts. George sprints past this parade of paintings, and spares a moment wishing they’d spent the extra cash on his salary instead.

He turns a sharp corner, grubby pink crocs squeaking on the linoleum, and comes face to face with a long corridor. At the end of it, Ward Nine. He doesn’t stop. Doesn’t notice what’s wrong. What’s… off.

George looms forward to scan his ID badge on the door and…

ACCESS DENIED.

What?

Oh, of course.

As of midnight, George was no longer an ‘official employee’ of NHS Grantside. Despite the fact he was on nights, his access card had only been set to work until midnight yesterday.

Perfect.

As he debates his next move, a rattle echoes down the hall. George turns his head as a man dressed in aged black shoes, black slacks, and a turquoise shirt emblazoned with NHS Grantside pushes a large trolley, loaded with cardboard boxes, past the opening of the corridor.

‘Hey!’ George calls to the porter. ‘Could you let me in? My card’s not working and there’s an emergency.’

The porter turns to him, fishes for his badge in his trouser pocket, and begins ambling down the corridor. ‘They’re always mucking about with the cards,’ he grumbles. ‘Had to track down the security bloke three times before mine started working.’

He tuts, shaking his head. ‘Ward Nine… Place gives me the creeps sometimes.’

George bounces on his toes. Someone could be dying in there.

‘It’s a cardiac arrest, so…’ He urges.

The porter refuses to pick up his pace, his tousled grey hair bouncing as he walks. ‘Going as fast as I can. Old knees don’t do what they used to.’

George bites his tongue and instead makes do with flapping his arms in exasperation as soon as the porter has his back to him. He gets a moment to consider the situation — shouldn’t there be a crowd of people here by now? Especially for an arrest?

Eventually, the porter makes it. He taps his badge on the pad and it flashes green.

George doesn’t take the time to thank him as he bursts through the door and the lights flicker. Inside, he searches for a commotion, for people running to a bed, for a ringing alarm or the thump of CPR. Except the ward is silent. Eerily so. For a second time, he pauses. Where is everyone?

A flutter of nerves hits his stomach.

He glances through the window behind him, sees the elderly porter sauntering back to his trolley, and considers asking for more help. George has never been one for horror movies. Just the thought of being out after dark sent shivers through him as a child - only now that fear returns. But why? He’s done plenty of night shifts by now. He’s used to the long, dim corridors, the late-night pager buzzes, and the eerie quietness of a hospital out of hours.

But he’s never been to a ward as quiet as this.

There’s nothing else for it. George begins to search. He pokes his head through the first bay. Nothing, no one. He moves back to the centre of the ward and stops. Wait.

George checks the same bay again. It’s empty. Well and truly empty. Four beds, buckets of machines, IV drips and wires, and yet, no patients. The beds look like they were being used only moments ago and are each covered by a set of messy sheets and a hospital gown. George shakes his head. He’s really losing it now.

Maybe they’re shutting this ward down? Perhaps the call was a mistake?

He wanders further inside. Bathed in artificial yellow light, it’s a spacious, six-bed room with large bay windows overlooking another of the hospital car parks and a series of suburban streets in the distance. There’s nothing special about it. Every bay in the hospital looks like this.

He turns to leave and something crunches under his foot. George pauses. He picks up a weathered patient-identifier wristband from below his Crocs.

June Barnes. DOB: 28/06/1942

He squints. On a whiteboard above the first bed on the bay is the name ‘June Barnes’ in swirly handwriting. So there were patients here. But where are they now?

George fights the urge to flee, to run out of Ward Nine and back to the relative safety of the doctor’s office on the other side of the hospital. But he can’t. Something’s wrong here, and if there’s even a chance of someone needing his medical expertise, then he can’t leave.

George returns to the main body of the ward and passes by the nurse’s station. On the desk is an array of black and blue pens, loose paperwork, fashionable Stanley water bottles, thank-you notes, and a half-empty box of Thornton’s Chocolates. Still, no nurses.

Where are they?

George is about to investigate bay three when a long, low, miserable groan floats down the hall. His breath catches, heart pounding.

That must be them. His patient.

Fighting every animal urge, screaming at him to turn back, George instead rushes toward the source of the voice. Did it come from the end of the ward? From the furthest bay? He rushes past the other bays, glancing in each to check for life. Each of them is as empty as the first, messy bedsheets, hospital gowns.

George arrives at last. ‘Blue Bay’. He wants to stop. He wants to take a deep breath and focus himself. But there’s no time. With his heart thumping out his chest and his scrubs becoming saturated with sweat, he enters.

All the beds are empty, apart from one. George stops in his tracks. A tiny, shrivelled woman sits cross-legged on top of the sheets, her hospital gown bunched between her thighs to preserve her dignity. She’s awake, cold blue eyes that watch George with a hint of amusement. At first glance, she’d be a typical patient on a geriatric ward: frail, past ninety, and wasting away on the bland hospital food.

But where was the cardiac arrest? How had he been called here?

With a thump of his heart, George notices something else.

Beside the lady’s bed are several piles of scrubs in various colours and sizes. A pair of shoes pokes out under each mound - trainers or crocs - as well as the occasional lanyard or ID badge. It was as if a group of people had stripped naked next to the bed and simply wandered away.

George blinks. Whatever this is, it’s above his pay grade. For once, he’s speechless. His go-to patient patter is cut short by the shock of what’s in front of him.

As he recovers, the lady’s face melts into a toothless smile. She raises a tiny, stick-like arm and holds out her hand, beckoning toward him. And then she begins to speak. Her voice like freshly-churned gravel.

‘Come here, Dearie,’ she says.

George frowns. He blinks hard as a fog settles in his mind, a storm clouding his judgement. ‘I…’ Why can’t he think? Move? His legs are like ice, veins frozen by terror.

But not for long.

After a moment, to George’s absolute horror, his feet move without him.

He steps toward the woman. ‘What… what is…’

‘It’s okay,’ she crows. Her arm strays toward him, hanging over the bed like a crooked branch. Closer now, George can make out the liver spots dotting her fragile hand and the deep wrinkles framing her eyes. Skin so deep and lined, it’s as if her eyeballs are about to fall into their sockets.

Her hand reaches for him, as if drifting in the wind, as he approaches. ‘Just relax, Dearie.’

George’s crocs squeak against the linoleum for the final time.

-

Six hours later, the midwinter sun rises on an empty ward as the hospital bursts into life. Workers arrive early for their morning shifts, leave home clothes in the lockers, change into their scrubs, and walk the long white corridors, basking in the daylight.

But in Ward Nine, their eyes fall on empty bays — beds unmade, sheets tangled with hospital gowns, half-eaten chocolates at the nurse’s station, and complete quiet.

The scour the ward as the stale silence settles. Their puzzlement grows.

In the last bay, they discover neat piles of scrubs, shoes, and lanyards, and a single occupied bed. A ward with just one patient: an elderly woman with sunken eyes and a story to tell. She beckons them over.

Then, as if pulled by an unseen force, their feet shuffle forward. They crunch over discarded scrubs and ID badges that will never be needed again.

In time, someone will find them. They will read the names and remember:

John Wilkins, Senior Nurse

Amy Truehouse, Physiotherapist

George Smith, Resident Doctor.