Staff Nurse Eden Granger – Diary – Entry Twenty Seven

I’d never really liked night shifts. Nobody in the hospital does, but needs must, and all that.

The hospital is so quiet at night, and it’s always creeped me out a little. That’s why I started keeping this diary. 

It’s normally mundane stuff about how many biscuits I’ve had, or what gossip I’ve been able to hear on my shift. Just cataloguing all the boring, normal stuff that happens on shift so I can remind myself that the hospital being eerily quiet is actually a blessing. 

I miss things being boring and normal. 

I’m not sure that I can explain what happened tonight, but I will try my best. 

It began as a blissfully boring night. I did the medication round and got started on paperwork. It was quiet, as usual. I was sat in the nurse’s station catching up on care plans, when the lights began flickering up above me. 

It’s hardly unusual. Unfortunately, the hospital, like most across England is in a bit of a state. We get flickering lights and weird stuff like that every now and again, but it’s just the building feeling a little unwell. 

Well, normally it is, but I’m starting to think that tonight, it could have been something else. 

There have been over twenty normal night shifts since I began this diary, and a part of me wants, so badly, to believe that this was just a normal night. 

I keep telling myself that I’m being silly. It was just some flickering lights and the creepy quiet of the night. Right? That’s all… 

Maybe I was dreaming? Could it have all been a strange and unsettling nightmare? 

Perhaps, if I was awake, and everything was real, there is an explanation. 

People do crazy things when they’re ill, I suppose. That’s probably all that it was. 

We’ve got a patient in, he’s recovering from an appendectomy, and everything should have been simple with his care. 

He had been given pain meds during my first rounds, and had settled into sleep at about nine. There had been no complications from the surgery, and nothing should have gone wrong. 

I can’t explain it. 

He should have been fast asleep. He’d had his pain medication, and he’d been up all day. It was baffling that he was awake in the first place. 

He pressed the bell and one of the care assistants, Alice rushed over to his room to check on him. A few seconds later, she came running back out again, screaming the place down and making such a scene. 

I went over to check what was going on and Alice fell into my arms. I was astounded as blood poured from her neck. There was a huge wound, and as another care assistant joined me, we couldn’t get her to tell us what happened. 

She was shaking, her arms clutched around my neck as she stared up at me with fevered, frightened eyes. 

The patient threw the door open and glared over at us. His gown was covered in blood and his eyes were frantic. Alice cowered as the patient advanced towards us. His mouth dripping with scarlet.

“Alice wouldn’t listen to me!” He bellowed, as we backed away, dragging Alice with us. “She’s coming, and Alice just wouldn’t listen!” The security staff finally arrived, and began restraining him. He spat and screamed as they tried to force him back to bed. 

I had no idea why he had attacked Alice. From what A&E can tell us, he bit her, repeatedly, so deeply that it almost reached the bone. They’d never seen anything like it from a human bite. 

Neither have I, and I’ve been a nurse for three years. 

I watched the security guards bundle him onto the bed, as he thrashed and hollered, wondering if I might get some kind of explanation from him, but… well… this is the part that I can’t explain. 

He looked at me. Right at me, and he headbutted the nearest security guard. Chaos spilled across the small side room as he launched at the other security guard, punching him straight in the throat. The guard crumpled, falling to the ground in a heap. The guards struggled to their feet but the patient was already running across the room towards me. 

I didn’t know what to do, freezing up and falling back against the door as he approached. 

Was I about to die?

That was what I asked myself, on repeat, as the seconds stretched out, endless and unforgiving. 

He stopped, just an inch from my face. Our eyes met, as sweat poured down his strained, blood stained cheeks. I asked myself the question again. 

Was I about to die?

“She’s here Nurse Granger.” He whispered, and then, without another word, and with one last, lingering, almost sad look, he fell into my arms, lifeless and lost. 

He was dead. Nobody could understand how it happened, or any of the events of last night. 

It was far from the usual creepy but uneventful night shift. I thought that writing it down would make it make a little more sense, or take away some of the fear I feel when I remember what happened, but it hasn’t helped. 

I can’t stop thinking about it. Round and round it goes, taking up every inch of my brain. 

Something went on in the hospital. Men don’t just attack people and then drop dead after having their appendix taken out. That’s insane. Something went on last night, and the only person who could tell me more is in a fridge at the mortuary. 

I have another night shift tomorrow and I’m dreading it. I keep wondering if last night was just a dream, but the reports piling up in my inbox make it hard to write off as a dream. 

Perhaps tomorrow, I’ll find out more? I’m not sure that I want to.