Beyond the Veil

I should have known better.

Not about the West Virginia coal mine. Not about the surgery. Not even about the Dilaudid. I should have known better than to answer the old woman.

“You can see me, can’t you?”

I opened my eyes. At least I thought I did. The hospital room looked exactly the same as it had before I fell asleep. Same television bolted to the wall. Same beige curtain hanging between my bed and the empty one beside it. Same glowing monitor throwing numbers into the darkness. Same plastic pitcher of water on the tray table that had been sitting just far enough out of reach to piss me off for the better part of an hour. The only difference was the woman sitting in the chair beside my bed. She was old, maybe 80, maybe older, with white hair, a face that showed decades of accumulated knowledge, a hospital gown, and bare feet. She looked comfortable, which annoyed me for some reason.

“You’re in my chair,” I said.

She smiled. “So, you can.”

“Can what?”

“See me.”

I found the call button beneath my right hand and pressed it. Nothing happened. I pressed it again, harder this time, as though that would somehow improve the signal.

“They can’t hear you here,” she said.

I looked toward the door. “Where’s my nurse?”

“Upstairs.”

“This is the sixth floor.”

“I know.”

That was the first time I noticed how quiet everything was. No carts rattling down the hallway. No alarms. No voices at the nurses’ station. No television bleeding through the wall from the old guy next door who apparently believed Gunsmoke should be watched at the same volume as a Metallica concert. Nothing. The silence felt wrong because hospitals are never truly quiet. Even at 3:00am there is always something beeping, rolling, dripping, humming, or complaining. I looked back at the woman. “What did they give me?”

She laughed softly. “Probably quite a bit.”

“Dilaudid.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Then you’re definitely not a nurse.”

“No.”

I looked down at my leg and for half a second my brain refused to understand what I was seeing. The external fixator was gone. So were the bandages. So were the swelling, the bruising, the steel, the blood, all of it. Both legs were there beneath the blanket, whole and completely normal. I moved my toes, then my ankle, then my knee. “No,” I said.

The woman tilted her head. “No what?”

“I can’t bend that.”

“You just did.”

“I shattered my tibia.”

She shrugged. “Apparently you didn’t here.”

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood. For the first time in five days, there was no pain. Not less pain. None. I put weight on my left leg, waiting for something to snap or buckle, but nothing happened.

The woman smiled again. “That part always gets them.”

“What part?”

“Standing.”

The room went black.

I woke up screaming. A nurse was leaning over me with both hands on my shoulders, telling me I was okay while my left leg felt like somebody had driven a railroad spike through it and decided to twist. I sucked air through my teeth and looked around the room. The lights were on. The monitor was beeping. The curtain was there. My leg was suspended in front of me, swollen and wrapped, metal hardware protruding from either side exactly where it belonged.

“You were dreaming,” the nurse said.

“What time is it?”

“2:17.”

“In the morning?”

“Yes.”

I rubbed my face. “How long was I asleep?”

“Maybe 20 minutes.”

“That wasn’t 20 minutes.”

She gave me the kind of smile people use when they think they are being reassuring. “Dreams are weird.”

“No shit.”

She checked my IV pump. “You’re due for pain medication in about 40 minutes.”

“No.”

She stopped. “No?”

“Skip it.”

“Eli, you were at a nine less than an hour ago.”

“I’ll deal with it.”

She gave me the look nurses give patients who have just volunteered to make everybody’s night more difficult. “All right. But call me if you change your mind.”

“I won’t.”

I did 24 minutes later.

The pain was not a nine. It was a 12 pretending numbers still mattered. The mining accident took less than three seconds. A support jack failed, steel shifted, and something weighing several tons came down where my left leg happened to be. According to the orthopedic surgeon, I was lucky. Doctors love that word. Lucky. Your leg was crushed, but you’re lucky. You almost bled out underground, but you’re lucky. You’ll need three surgeries and maybe a fourth, but you’re lucky. They should print it on the discharge paperwork. Congratulations. You have survived something horrible. Please remember to feel grateful.

The nurse pushed the Dilaudid slowly into my IV. “Try to sleep.”

“That’s the problem.”

“What is?”

“Sleeping.”

She smiled again. “You’ll be fine.”

I should have told her about the old woman. Instead, I closed my eyes and went back.

This time I woke up in the hallway. I was standing barefoot outside my room, and the hospital was dim but not dark. Every third fluorescent light seemed to work. The rest flickered or buzzed. The old woman stood about 20 feet away from me.

“You came back,” she said.

“Apparently.”

“You always come back at first.”

“At first?”

She turned and began walking. “Come on.”

“I don’t think so.”

She stopped and looked over her shoulder. “You’d rather stand there?”

“I’d rather wake up.”

             “That isn’t how it works.”

             I looked through the narrow window in the door to my room. My bed was empty. Not unmade. Empty. The sheets were tucked perfectly beneath the mattress like no one had been there in days. “Where am I?” The woman kept walking. I followed because I had no better idea. We passed room after room. Every bed was occupied. A teenage boy stared at the ceiling without blinking. A woman sat cross-legged on her mattress and whispered to herself. An old man stood beside his bed with his forehead pressed against the wall. None of them had IVs. None had monitors. None seemed injured. “They’re dreaming too?”

             The woman glanced at me. “No.”

             “Then what?”

             “Waiting.”

             “For what?”

             She did not answer. We reached the elevator. The doors opened before she touched the button. Inside stood a little girl, maybe seven years old, facing backward with her nose nearly touching the mirrored wall. The old woman stepped inside. I stayed where I was. “Why is she standing like that?”

             The girl answered without turning around. “Because I don’t like looking at the doors.”

             A cold feeling moved up my back. “Why?”

             She turned her head slightly. “Sometimes they open somewhere else.” The old woman pressed six.

             “We’re already on six.”

             “I know.”

             The doors closed. The elevator went down. I watched the numbers descend. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Then zero. I stared at the display. “There is no zero.”

             The old woman nodded. “Not upstairs.”

             The elevator continued. Minus one. Minus two. The little girl began humming. I hit the emergency stop. Nothing happened. “Where are we going?”

             The old woman looked at me. “To show you why you should stop coming back.”

             The doors opened. I woke so violently that I ripped the pulse oximeter from my finger. “Goddammit.” The room was dark. Real dark. Normal hospital dark. I hit the call button, and a young male nurse came in.

             “You okay?”

             “No.”

             He turned on the light. “What happened?”

             “Bad dream.”

             “Pain?”

             “Six.”

             “Want the Dilaudid?”

             I hesitated. “What else am I getting?”

             He checked the computer. “Acetaminophen. Antibiotics. Ketamine infusion is still running low dose.”

             “Ketamine?”

             “You’ve been on it since surgery.”

             Nobody had mentioned that. Or maybe they had. I had been unconscious for most of the first day. “Can that cause hallucinations?”

             “It can.”

             “Dilaudid?”

             “Also can.”

             “Sleep deprivation?”

             He smiled. “Absolutely.”

             “Good.”

             “Good?”

             “That means I’m not crazy.”

             He looked at me for a second. “I didn’t say that.” I laughed despite myself. “Want the pain medication?”

             I looked at my leg, then at the IV. “Yeah.”

             The third time, I did not wake up in my room. I woke up in the elevator. The little girl was gone. The old woman stood beside me. “You shouldn’t have come back.”

             “I didn’t exactly buy a ticket.”

             “You took the medicine.”

             “I have a leg that looks like somebody tried to fold it in half.”

             “That’ll do it.”

             The elevator display read minus seven. The doors opened onto a mine tunnel. I knew the smell immediately. Wet stone. Diesel. Dust. Underground air. “No.” The old woman stepped out.

             “No way.”

             “You need to see.”

             “I don’t need to see shit.” Then I heard someone screaming. My voice. The sound came from somewhere beyond the darkness. I froze.

             The old woman looked at me. “What happened to you?”

             “You know what happened.”

             “I know what they told you happened.”

             That got me moving. I followed her. The tunnel looked almost exactly like the section where the accident occurred, but the geometry was wrong. Too narrow. Too long. The roof disappeared into darkness. We passed a hard hat lying upside down. Mine. Then another. Mine again. Then another. Dozens. “What is this?” She did not answer.

             My screaming grew louder. We turned the corner and I saw myself beneath the steel. Or something that looked like me. My body was crushed from the waist down. My eyes were open. Standing over it was a man in hospital scrubs. Tall. Thin. No face. Not blurred. Not hidden. There simply was not one. The skin was smooth from forehead to chin.

             The thing reached down and pushed one hand into my chest. I backed away. “What the hell is that?”

             The old woman grabbed my arm. “Quiet.” The faceless man stopped. Slowly, it turned toward us. The old woman pulled me backward. “Run.”

             We ran. The thing followed, not fast, because it did not need to. Every light behind us went dark. One, then another, then another. I hit the elevator button. “Come on!”

             The old woman slapped the wall. The doors opened. We stumbled inside. The faceless man appeared at the end of the tunnel and raised one hand. The old woman screamed. The doors closed. I woke with blood running from my nose.

             My wife was beside the bed. “Eli?” I touched my face and looked at the blood on my fingers. “What happened?”

             “You tell me.”

             She handed me a tissue. “You started yelling.”

             “What was I saying?”

             She hesitated. “Run.”

             I looked toward the door. “Anything else?”

             “Yes.”

             “What?”

             Her expression changed. “You kept saying, ‘It found me.’”

             I did not sleep again that day. I refused Dilaudid. Refused ketamine. Refused anything stronger than Tylenol. By evening I was sweating from pain. My surgeon came in and told me being stubborn was not a treatment plan. I told him neither was getting eaten by a faceless thing in a basement that did not exist. he stared at me. I stared back. Finally, he pulled up a chair. “Tell me.” So, I did. All of it. He listened without interrupting. When I finished, he folded his hands.

             “Medication-related hallucinations are not uncommon.”

             “I know.”

             “Especially with ketamine.”

             “I know.”

             “And you’re severely sleep deprived.”

             “I know.”

             “And you’ve been through major trauma.”

             “I know.”

             He paused. “You keep saying that.”

             “Because I know.”

             “Then what are you afraid of?”

             I looked at him. “That it isn’t a hallucination.” That night I eventually slept without Dilaudid and dreamed normally. I was home. My wife was making coffee. The dog was scratching at the back door. Nothing supernatural happened. When I woke up, I nearly cried.

             The next morning, they stopped the ketamine. By noon the pain was manageable. By evening I had convinced myself the whole thing was chemistry. Drugs. Trauma. Exhaustion. My brain trying to make sense of garbage. Simple. Then an old woman was admitted to the room across from mine. I saw her through the open door. White hair. Thin shoulders. Bare feet beneath the blanket. My stomach tightened. I hit the call button.

             The nurse came in. “What’s wrong?”

             “Who’s across the hall?”

             She glanced behind her. “Mrs. Talbot.”

             “When did she get here?”

             “About an hour ago.”

             “Has she been here before?”

             The nurse frowned. “I don’t know.”

             I lowered my voice. “Can you ask her something?”

             “What?”

             “Ask if she knows me.”

             The nurse stared at me. “Eli.”

             “Please.”

             She sighed. “All right.” She crossed the hall. I watched through the doorway as she spoke to the woman. Mrs. Talbot turned her head, looked directly at me, and screamed. Not startled. Terrified. She began clawing at the blanket. “No! No! No!” Three nurses rushed into the room. I could not hear everything, but I heard one sentence perfectly. “Don’t let him sleep!”

             My wife arrived 10 minutes later. I told her nothing. I could not. What was I supposed to say? An elderly woman I had never met recognized me from a drug dream? They transferred Mrs. Talbot to another floor after she became agitated. I spent the night awake. The next day was surgery number three. More anesthesia. More pain medication. No choice. Just before they wheeled me down, my wife squeezed my hand. “You’re going to be okay.”

             “Probably.”

             “Probably?”

             “I don’t like making promises I can’t keep.”

             She kissed my forehead. “You’re an idiot.”

             “Yeah.”

             In the operating room, the anesthesiologist leaned over me. “Big breath.” The mask covered my face. I remember thinking about the old woman. Mrs. Talbot. The faceless man. Then nothing. I woke standing beside my hospital bed. My body lay beneath the blankets. Machines screamed. Doctors crowded around it. Someone was doing chest compressions. “No.”

             The old woman stood beside me. Not Mrs. Talbot. The first one. The dead one. I knew that now. I do not know how. I just did. “What’s happening?”

             “They’re trying to keep you.”

             “Keep me where?”

             She looked at me. “Upstairs.” Across the room, the wall darkened. Not shadow. Something deeper. Like a hole opening where the paint should be. The faceless man stepped through. The old woman grabbed my wrist. “You have to go.”

             “Where?”

             “Back.”

             “How?”

             She pointed toward my body. Doctors shouted around it. “Charging.” My chest jumped. Nothing. The faceless man came closer.

             The old woman shoved me toward the bed. “Go!”

             I could not move. “What does it want?”

             She looked at the thing, then at me. “Someone who still has a body.”

             The monitor screamed again. The faceless man reached for me. I dove. Pain exploded through every part of me. Real pain. Beautiful pain. I opened my eyes. Lights. Masks. Voices.

             “Eli?” Someone leaned over me. “Can you hear me?” I tried to speak. Nothing came out. Then I heard the anesthesiologist. “He’s back.” Back.

             I spent another three days in the hospital. Nobody could explain the brief cardiac event during surgery. Nobody seemed especially bothered by it. Medicine has a way of making impossible things sound boring if you give them enough syllables. Transient arrhythmia. Anesthetic complication. Hypoxic episode.

             Eventually I went home.

             Months passed. My leg healed, though not completely and probably never would. I went back to work, but not underground. My wife stopped asking about the dreams. I stopped talking about them. Mrs. Talbot died two days after I was discharged. I found that out accidentally. I told myself it meant nothing. I got very good at telling myself things meant nothing.

             Then one morning, nearly a year later, I was shaving. My wife was downstairs. Coffee brewing. Dog scratching at the back door. Normal morning. I looked into the mirror. My reflection looked exhausted. Older. But alive. I rinsed the razor. Looked up again. My reflection was smiling. I wasn’t. The smile widened. Then something tall and thin stepped into view behind it. No face. I dropped the razor. When I looked again, the bathroom was empty. My reflection stared back at me. Normal.

             I stood there for a long time. Then, from somewhere behind the mirror, I heard the old woman’s voice. Quiet. Almost apologetic. “You shouldn’t have come back.”