Chapter 14

Alice tried to convince herself that she was overworked, that the book’s stories were an elaborate coincidence, and that candyfloss grew from the trees in her garden.

She worked hard on this hypothesis and resisted opening the book for two days. Mick said she had to get a grip to preserve her sanity. And, it wasn’t just him, everybody told her that it was in her head. They couldn’t all be wrong.

She’d endured a disciplinary hearing with Dr Calver and several board members and assured them she’d been overwrought, but was perfectly fine now. She’d do better—and they couldn’t afford to lose her.  She told Mick, ‘With the staffing shortages, you’d have to slit somebody’s throat and be standing with the knife in your hand for them to consider letting you go. But even then, they’d look at the rota and ask how you were fixed for some overtime.’ She smiled, exaggerating her theory greatly, but the fact remained that if things were different, she probably wouldn’t be at work that day.

But the book was clever. It knew she was onto it and toyed with her, turning it into a grotesque treasure hunt.

It described a spilt tray in the cafeteria. For the first time, it didn’t disguise the character’s identity or change details. Shit. The book was bold now—like a dog pissing on the rug while staring you dead in the eyes. But there was no point getting excited because if she showed it to anybody, she knew it would be developmentally edited.  

In the book, a nurse—Felix—slipped. Food sprayed across the floor, and he landed in a heap in the middle of Spaghetti Junction. In real life, there was a moment of silence before people in the queue rushed to help him. Felix sprang to his feet and posed Olga Corbett style. ‘Ta-da,’ he said with his arms above his head. Laughter spread through the room. It was harmless, an everyday mishap.

Until she read it.

This time, it unfolded exactly as written—right down to the pasta spatter and the Banksy print on the canteen wall. In real-time, the laughter in the room wasn’t as described. It didn’t feel harmless. It was aimed at Alice. It mocked her. They were all out to get her.

She retreated to her office. This week she’d been struggling to get out. She’d put her hand on the handle, knowing that danger lurked outside. She’d count out loud but still didn’t open the door when she reached ten. She’d done it again, and an hour passed before Debbie knocked, needing help with a patient.

On Tuesday, she’d driven to work, couldn’t face it, and turned around. Mick was coming home from hospital later that day, and he’d stay at her house while he recuperated. She’d been thinking about asking him to move in for a while—but things were different now. She didn’t want him there.

It was too much being expected to look after him when he could barely get to the bathroom. She was halfway home when her phone rang. It was somebody from HR, asking where she was. She told them she was stuck in traffic. There was no avoiding it. She had to go in.

Lynda had been struggling since catching her husband in bed with another woman, but she’d put on a brave face. Alice admired her resilience. If Lynda could cope, so could she. And she did—until the book ripped through her good intentions.

Its new story wasn’t a slip in the canteen. It was vicious. A woman—Lynda— was broken from a recent betrayal. Alice read, and could hardly keep up with the words because she flew through them so fast. Lynda suffered an unbearable humiliation in her workplace. A private moment was exposed to the world and her shame was so overwhelming that it left her no choice but to walk away from the job she loved.

Alice felt dread chiselling into her brain. She had to warn Lynda. She needed to do something to prevent the inevitable. But she couldn’t tell her the cursed book had foretold an unspecified humiliation. She was a laughing stock treading on thin ice, and nobody believed her. Lynda would think she’d lost it again. And Alice worried that she had. She was a coward. She said nothing.

Lynda’s private emails were sent to the hospital’s mailing list. Every doctor, nurse, administrator, and NHS bigwig received her raw, desperate words.

Along with her emotional outpourings to her closest friend—who was also on the email server—she confessed to feeling ugly and ruined. A terrible picture was attached to an email on the long thread. Lynda’s husband had bought her an elaborate sex toy for Christmas. The photo showed him, in their bed, using it on his mistress. Lynda found the image on her husband’s phone and copied it to show her best friend.

Alice cringed through the emails, wanting to stop out of respect. But she kept reading. She gasped when further down the thread Lynda confessed to criminal intentions.

She said she’d thought about stealing hospital drugs to end her life. That couldn’t be ignored. The hospital buzzed with whispers and sideways glances. Lynda’s humiliation was devastating and she snapped. ‘You sit there staring at me and gossiping. You don’t know what it’s like. None of you do.’

She was called into Calvert’s office but refused to go. She knew she couldn’t continue there and resigned before the incident could be escalated.

And she was gone. Her resignation—in writing—was sent and she was escorted from the premises by security before her shift was over.

Alice watched the drama unfold in horrified silence. If the book had been specific, she might have stopped it. It always gave chapter and verse—until now. This time, it had only left a cruel teaser of cryptic clues for Alice to find. It was a bastard, and she was weak. She should have done something.

Her thoughts tangled into impossible knots like a kitten left alone with a ball of wool. She kept coming to the same questions: was it predicting the events, or causing them? And why?

Her paranoia festered. She saw meaning in everything. People looked at her funny, and conversations shifted when she walked into the staffroom. She knew they were whispering about her. Her patients spoke about bad things. Betty manifested and warned her about hidden messages in the world. For the first time, she didn’t dismiss the paranoid ramblings outright.

She was one of them now.

She saw it too.

The sleepless nights had carved hollows under her eyes. Her hands shook when she held her coffee and exhaustion crept into her bones. She tried to seem normal, but the cracks were there. She’d sit at her desk fighting the urge to flip through the book to see what new horror it had printed. It was a twisted compulsion—like somebody with emetophobia being unable to look away when somebody vomited or pressing a bruise to feel the pain and make sure it was still there.

Even from the hospital, Mick saw what she was becoming. He didn’t want to leave and convinced the doctors he wasn’t ready to be discharged. Could his disgust for her have caused the fever he’d developed? It was a real temperature.

They’d always been solid, but every interaction felt strained. The book was a wedge between them. He’d stopped her talking about it, and that gave it power. It was devious, creeping into their relationship and harming them from the sidelines. When she looked at him, she saw frustration in his eyes.

‘I think I need some time to myself, for a while,’ he said. 

He couldn’t have hurt her more if he’d slapped her. Now?—when she needed him? Mick was a joker with an easy smile. But he was disappearing into a surly husk. And she hated the book for taking him too.

She tried to backpedal, but it was too late. The rift had formed. It was growing.

That night, she lay in bed alone. Her heart thudded against her ribs as she pressed her fingers to her wrist. Even at rest, her pulse was a hundred and sixty-five bpm. Far too fast. She had to relax. Exhaustion pressed on her limbs but sleep refused to come.

She’d cried and held on to him during visiting on Wednesday, begging Mick not to leave. And to end the scene, he’d agreed to stay with her, but she felt his withdrawal. He wanted to escape this nightmare.

He came home on Wednesday night and slept beside her, his back turned, his breathing deep and steady. She envied him his sleeping tablets and his ability to let things go. He was going to let her go soon. She felt it.

She couldn’t relax.

Her mind churned over every impossible coincidence. Maybe she was filling in the blanks and shaping reality to fit what she’d read. The mind was powerful. She’d seen similar traits in her patients—self-fulfilling prophecies and paranoia manifesting as truth.

She was unravelling. But even through her loosening madness, she was certain the book was something more.

Sleep claimed her, but it was restless and filled with dreams of ink-stained fingers and pages turning themselves.

The next day, she kept checking her hands for ink stains. Surely the book would have bled its lifeforce onto her.

 She sat in her office at work with her pulse pounding in her ears again. It was relentless with no rest from the pressure. She’d been late to work. Mick was demanding, and she’d had to see that he had everything he needed. He’d be alone for thirteen-plus hours. She’d left him cold food and plenty to drink. She’d make him a hot meal when she got home. He was an inconvenience.

She couldn’t carry on like this.

It was time.

Her fingers trembled as she picked the book up, holding it at arm’s length like a disease. She went to the bin, forcing herself not to hesitate. A scream blew through her mind. It came with a surge of rage—it’s fury, not her own. The lid swung open and the scent of old coffee cups climbed the metal walls to meet her.

She dropped it in.

The lid snapped shut.

And she was motionless, staring at the bin, waiting for something to happen. It didn’t. She waited for Relief. Peace. Victory.

But she felt nothing.

Because she knew it wouldn’t be that simple.

Book Links

Katherine Black Amazon Page. 17 books to choose from: all on KU.

 

 https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/Katherine-Black/author/B071JW51FW?