The Book: Chapter 8


By Sooz006
- 89 reads
The hospital had a different mood at night. Even on good nights, the empty halls created an oppressive feeling that pressed on the soul. It was a long time since they’d had a quiet one. As so many times before, Alice was asked to stay after her Friday shift. Mick was upset when she rang to let him know.
‘You promised you wouldn’t.’
‘I’m sorry. Dr Calvert hasn’t come in and I’m the only doctor available. A&E said they’d send a junior over but an RTA’s come in. I’m sorry, babe. It’s in my contract and I can’t refuse.’
‘You can’t work 24 hours straight—it’s illegal.’
‘Maybe, but it does state that if there isn’t adequate replacement at shift handover, we must stay on until the cavalry comes.’
‘Some weekend this is going to be. You’ll be exhausted when you get home. I’ve cooked.’
Mick, I’m sorry. You understand, don’t you?’
He laughed, and in her mind, she saw him run his hand through his hair in frustration. ‘I understand that I love you, and I’ll be here when you get home. I’ll have the crash cart ready, with some reheated food for you.’
A chill seeped into Alice’s bones. She wasn’t supposed to be here; her shift was finished but something had manipulated the need for her to stay. She felt it. Would there still have been a serious road accident if she hadn’t asked a doctor from the main building to cover her?
By midnight, the hospital was quiet except for Ann wandering the corridors and refusing to stay in her room. It was the kind of quiet that made every creak and distant thud feel like footsteps coming closer. Alice had finished her first lukewarm coffee for hours and was going back to the nurses’ station when she saw the book.
It was lying in the middle of the corridor, spine up, as though it had been dropped or deliberately positioned. It stopped her cold. Her breath caught and she stared at it. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears and she thought about walking past and leaving it for somebody else to deal with. It repulsed her and she didn’t want to touch it again, but her body refused to move.
Her instincts screamed at her to leave it alone, but something stronger took hold. The same pull she’d felt before cloaked her in fear. It was a compulsion she couldn’t explain and it wrapped around her.
She crouched and picked it up It felt warm, the leather reminded her of an emaciated animal stretched too tightly over glistening bones bone. Horror was her first emotion, but along with it, there was an unexpected comfort. She wanted this book near her. The contradiction to her senses confused her.
She’d just had her break, but forgot about work. She carried the book back to the staff room and her steps echoed like somebody walking behind her. Putting the book on a table near one of the sofas, she tried to walk away, but she got as far as the door and something stopped her. It wasn’t just the pull she’d experienced before, it was that and more. She had a gnawing curiosity, something whispered in her ear—real or imagined—urging her to open it.
Alice thought the word no and brought it into her mind hard as if voicing the refusal would make the book easier to resist. After all, the book was made of words, so she focussed on using one of its own against it. She felt a snap in her head as if a taut thread had broken like knicker elastic. And just like that, it let her go. It wasn’t fancy on her part, something physical released her. One second a force stronger than her made her turn back to the book, and the next, it just stopped. The phrase you’ll keep came into her head, and she shook it away. She felt a profound sadness that she was able to go back to work. She had to read it, and the loss of it gripped her, as though she’d turned away from a cherished friend. But the thought of the friendship made her feel sick with fear.
She couldn’t concentrate, and thinking about the book caused her to make several mistakes. The temptation came back and it felt unbearable. She took her break early while the others were still working. She should set a better example but every time she thought about it, the pull was irresistible. It radiated an insistence and demanded her attention.
She went straight to it without making a drink and her fingers hesitated over the cover as if reading it carried a price. She sat, prepared herself for something terrible, and opened it.
The pages were musty, their edges frayed in places but sharp enough in others to cut her if handled carelessly. The smell of old paper was strong, faintly metallic and strangely sweet. She flipped through a few pages, skimming words that seemed ordinary—until they weren’t.
Alice was fascinated but freaked out as she read in earnest. The first chapter described a psychiatric hospital in detail. The setting seemed uncannily similar to the unit: the same sterile corridors and coffee-crème walls. It had flickering lights in the main corridor that refused to stay fixed no matter how often maintenance was called. The characters had different names— some with opposing genders to the corresponding roles in Dale View—but the events matched up. It was all there, as though the author had walked these floors.
She reached a passage that made her blood run cold.
The pages described a patient found catatonic in bed after a week of increasingly erratic behaviour—some words had been pulled straight from her notes on Eddie. The phrasing wasn’t just similar, this was her description of the incident verbatim. She read aloud. ‘…staring blankly at the ceiling, unresponsive and catatonic.’
The heat in the staff room was too fierce but she couldn’t stop reading. The surrounding details weren’t identical—there were discrepancies in the timeline, and some specifics didn’t match—but the essence of the story was the same. It was as though somebody took her experience and plagiarised it, reshaping it into fiction along the way.
Alice snapped the book shut, and the sudden noise in the stillness made her gasp. It was loud against the tranquillity and muted background noise of patient torment further up the unit.
It was a coincidence. It had to be. Books like this were meant to stimulate unease. Written daily records followed a certain format. Accomplished writers can draw readers into their pages to identify with themselves and empathise with the character’s plight. But the words felt too tailored and precise to be random. She pulled herself together. It could have been any unit or any town in any country.
Her explanation felt hollow and made to fit, and the sensation of being watched crawled under her skin and told a different story.
Alice mentioned the book to the rest of the team. She chose her words carefully and masked the desperation crawling up her throat and searching for release. They didn’t get it and she felt a wall rising between her and the team, their laughter sounded cruel. She was corralled and separated from them by something primal she couldn’t identify.
During the one am break, she tried again, leaning against the counter aiming for indifference as the staff filtered in. She’d finished her last break late and started this one early. She’d already worked eighteen hours and had another 6 to go. ‘You’ll never guess what’s just happened,’ she said to a chorus of ‘What?’ That book just described what happened to Eddie. It’s supposed to be a story, but it copied my report exactly.’
‘Wow,’ Debbie said. ‘The book’s about our Eddie?’ she reached over to look, but Alice put her hand over it possessively and snatched it up.
‘No. Of course not. It was a female patient, but it happened exactly the same.’
Felix smirked as he poured coffee. ‘Like a prophecy?’ he asked.
Alice bristled. ‘I’m serious. It’s uncanny. The details matched too closely to be a coincidence.’
Mara interrupted, ‘And we’ll have something very similar again next week, so will all the other facilities. It’s just what happens, patients deteriorate sometimes. Don’t get too close, Alice.’
Debbie rolled her eyes. ‘You’ve worked too many shifts in this madhouse.’
‘She’s right,’ Mara said. ‘You need a break. You’re just reading into it. It’s a creepy story in a creepy hospital— and your brain’s filling in the blanks, that’s all.’
‘It’s not my imagination,’ Alice snapped. ‘When Eddie and Lisa broke down. That book was there both times.’
Felix chuckled. ‘It sounds like we’ve got a haunted library. Maybe we should call a priest.’
Debbie snorted. ‘Or a therapist. Did it write about Lisa, too?’
They all burst out laughing, but Alice didn’t join in. Her fingers gripped the book as a wave of anger hit her. They didn’t feel it, the way she did.
‘Yes, actually. It did.’
They went silent and passed looks of disbelief around.
‘Let’s see, then. If this book’s magic we can make a fortune and won’t have to work in his shithole.’ Felix opened his butty box and took out a banana. ‘Are we ordering a Dominoes, before they close?’
‘It’s not funny.’ Alice’s voice cut through the derision. ‘Something’s wrong.’
The room was quiet, but only a moment. The staff had other gossip to impart and returned to their conversations, dismissing her outburst as that of an overworked doctor.
For the first time, Alice faced the truth. This wasn’t unease, it was fear—real and tangible. The book wasn’t done with her.
Not even close.
Katherine Black Amazon Page. 17 books to choose from: all on KU.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/Katherine-Black/author/B071JW51FW?
- Log in to post comments
Comments
down, book, down, good boy.
down, book, down, good boy. down, down, down. All good books prophesise.
- Log in to post comments
Find the ones not in the Book
Find the ones not in the Book's voice more scary. Was interested that she could cut the control by concentrating on a word, "no", and the book is made of words.
- Log in to post comments