Staff Nurse Eden Granger – Diary – Entry Twenty Eight

Hello again Diary,

How are you? 

I’m exhausted.

Months of normal night shifts go by, and then suddenly, I’m trapped in this weird cycle of dreadful events. 

It’s almost unbelievable. 

It would be, entirely, if I hadn’t seen what has unfolded with my own eyes. 

… but, still. Perhaps I’m just tired? Maybe my exhausted eyes have conjured these terrifying visions? Is everyone else as tired as me? The care assistants? The porters? The coroner?

We are all seeing the same thing. It all began on my last night shift and as I headed into this one, I was dreading it. 

I had barely slept during the day. I’d tried, but every time I started to drift off, I’d hear him. The Patient. Right up close to my ear, whispering those last words. 

“She’s here, Nurse Granger.” 

I tried to ignore it, but it chased me though my flat, from the sofa, to my bedroom, to the shower, to the kitchen. 

He was everywhere, and she, whoever the strange voice warned of, was somewhere close too. 

As I got to work, the day Staff were tired but cheery, but all of the night staff looked like they’d seen a ghost. Almost every single one of us was exhausted and haunted. 

Alice wasn’t in, obviously, so we had an agency staff member, who was bright eyed and busy tailed when he started. Not so much by the end of the shift, though. 

I think that we saw her tonight. Her… you know… HER. Like the patient said. She is here. Maybe. It could all still be just a dream, or a trick of tiredness, but, I find it hard to believe that we’d all see the same thing. 

Most of the shift was quiet, but about an hour ago, the lights started flickering again. Normally it wouldn’t phase me, but the second I noticed, I was on edge. 

One of the porters ran to the nurse’s station, and though we didn’t say a word, I knew that we were thinking the same thing. 

It wasn’t a building maintenance issue.

The patients began to get restless. Call buttons were flashing from every room as the lights flickered and the patients called out, their voices dripping in distress as they screamed the same thing. 

“She’s here, Nurse Granger.” 

All around me, those same words, repeated and relentless. Their voices, frantic and panicked as I watched each patient pulling the blankets over their heads, still repeating those words. 

“She’s here, Nurse Granger.” 

And then, there she was, just out of the corner of my eye, just out of sight. A dark blur and a hummed song that seemed to follow me everywhere I went. Always just out of sight. Sometimes, right behind me, almost on top of me, but always gone when I dared to look. 

The same song, for hours now, slow and sad as the night goes on. 

I don’t know what I saw, but the porter saw it too. 

We’ve been sat together while I do care plans, and he came with me to check on all the patients. 

They wouldn’t come up from under the blankets. Not a single one. From what I can tell, they’re all still stable, but something has scared them so badly that they’re hiding away under the blankets. 

I’ve paged a doctor, but it could take a while for them to get here. 

As we came back to the nurse’s station just now, Luke (that’s the porter) asked if we were going to die. I smiled warmly and told him not to be so silly, but between you and me, I’m not so sure.