Code Poltergeist STAT

CW: Physical violence, gore or abuse, body horror

Logline: A nightshift hospital worker who can see ghosts ropes a newbie nurse and her spectral coworkers into exorcising a demon from a patient.

Most healthcare workers hate the chaos that comes with shift change as staff change hands with the night crew. Sarah was one of those few techs that actually loved the insanity she stepped into when her white sneakers hit the unit floor.

It was the only time the ghosts laid low.

“Hey y’all.” She said in passing after tapping her badge onto the timeclock. She let the retractable holder pinned to her scrubs snap back into place on her chest before strutting out. The nurse sitting at the breakroom table nodded his head to Sarah in recognition but raised an eyebrow after looking around the room. Tobias, the ghost of a former Orderly sitting next to him, flashed a two-finger wave and a smile her way before turning his attention back to the T.V. in the corner.

Nurses seated in office chairs at their station were giving updated reports on their patients. Patient’s families were shuffling out of rooms and into hallways to leave for the evening now that visiting hours were closed. Other Patient Care Techs (PCTs) scrambled past one another as they restocked medical supplies in the closet and tended to patient requests before finally leaving for the day. The doctors had tucked themselves into an office out of sight of everyone else on the floor. They were furiously clacking on keyboards in silence before slinking out of the double doors nearby.

The buzz of the floor subsided as quickly as it had started. Once the transition hour passed, Sarah switched the overhead lights in the hall to the low lights. If you didn’t know any better, you’d almost think this was going to be one of the few calm nights at the hospital, where the most eventful occurrence is how loudly a patient is snoring in the corner room.

“Gonna be a busy night tonight.” Prudence announced. Sarah sighed. She had just sat down in one of the office chairs. Prudence was no longer alive but had decades of experience in nursing before her first and last heart attack. She was one of the more annoying ghosts for Sarah, but worth a listen. She was old-fashioned and chose to spend her afterlife barking orders at any of the allied health workers passing by. Thankfully, most staff were unaware of the dead charge nurse reminding them to turn the patient in 803B. Sarah wished for the same ignorance.

“Busy, already? You sure?” Sarah whispered.

“Sure as sin. This’ll probably be your last chance to sit down before-”

“Hey, Sarah?” The nurse from the breakroom interjected while leaning on the desk.

Sarah stood up and responded, already poised to assist. Supporting nurses in patient care and always staying ready was the usual labor ritual for her during her four 10’s. Nurse Chris the Newbie making a request, was not.

“Can you, uh, assist me with the patient in 808? Something’s…just come with me, please?” He asked. She was taken aback and noticed that Prudence had already disappeared elsewhere or chose to make herself invisible. Sarah slowly nodded her head and followed behind Chris with a gentle jog, her right hand over the pocket of her scrub pants to keep her personal effects from falling out.

“Did your patient soil themselves?” Sarah inquired to gauge the level she should raise her concern.

“Worse.” Chris answered and began to powerwalk faster.

“W-worse?! How…wait!” Sarah’s feet hurried behind the nurse with squeaks of urgency.

The patient in 808 was recovering from surgery on her ACL. A nice woman, but with rotten luck. She was transferred to the floor, then back to the ICU after becoming comatose, then back to the floor upon waking to finish her recovery before being discharged. Sarah liked chatting with her to try and get her talking just so she could hear her melodic voice. A patient telling a story was always more interesting than paying attention to the moody ghost nearby. It was a great bonus that her voice was so soothing, even when she was talking about the Weather Channel.

This was not the same woman. This woman was crawling on all fours up the wall.

She continued crawling up the wall as her I.V. pole dragged behind her on it’s wheels. Nurse Chris’ mouth dropped when she reached the ceiling and started to slither upside down.

“She’s not supposed to be able to do that.” Sarah whispered to Chris with the same shocked expression.

“She’s not even supposed to be able to walk right now.” Chris replied.

The patient looked down at the two of them and began to edge towards the doorway. She reached out an arm to Sarah when her I.V. port pulled from her vein with a pop. The small pinhole from the needle was now shooting blood around the room like a garden hose.

Chris put his hands up in feeble defense as the blood shot across his chest, painting his scrubtop with a crimson stripe.

“Oh god, no, not my spares…” He squeamishly protested.

Sarah leapt forward and pulled the call button out from the wall to trigger the Patient Fall alarm. Not the correct way to signal an alarm for help but Sarah had no time to come up with an appropriate code response for a possession situation. Three nurses and a tech responded, all of them filing into the room. They joined Chris, whose arms were outstretched to catch the patient in the event she fell from the ceiling. The woman shrieked while shooting blood around the room, with a new addition of floating objects.

“Chris, what the hell did you do to her?!” His Mentor Nurse yelled while dodging a pudding cup. The additional tech had jumped up and grabbed onto the patient’s waist in an effort to bring her back down but was now dangling pitifully above the staff. The patient kept scuttling to avoid the other nurses chasing her and attempting to diffuse the situation.

“I didn’t do anything! I got report, everything was business as usual. No biggie, then I come in here to check on her and she’s doing…THIS!” Chris was frantic between trying to explain, avoiding a floating pink tub, and moving around the bed to catch his other coworker all at once.

“Well, let’s sedate her!”

“I’ve already given her four mills of dilaudid!” Chris yelled and ducked another stream of blood.

The tech in midair began to scream as the possessed patient started twirling in circles to shake her off.

“Someone page the doctor!” She pleaded. The patient responded to her request by flinging her across the room, where she hit the back wall before plopping onto the hospital bed.

***

Sarah had snuck off after backup arrived. But not without a purpose. She was fine with ghosts occasionally distracting her or chatting her ear off because they knew she was the only one who could perceive them. But messing with the patients? That was unacceptable. Even the newly deceased who sometimes crossed her path knew better.

Which meant that this thing was something else entirely.

“Can you get Prudence and meet me at room 808?” She vomited the words the moment she opened the breakroom door.

Tobias looked up from his outdated newspaper, saw the look on Sarah’s face, eyed her up and down, then closed his paper and stood up to follow her without a word.

***

Chris and the others managed to get the patient down, sedated, and restrained in her bed. Multiple sedatives later made her body go limp but her head moving and coherently throwing insults at the staff. The attending physician on call was resistant to the idea of bed restraints in addition to another sedative. When walking into the patient’s room to inquire about the status of her pain post-surgery, he received black, projectile vomit straight to the face.

He changed his mind about the extra sedative.

The other nurses floated back and forth between the other patients on the floor and conferencing with the doctor behind the station. The situation in 808 had unsettled them to the point of speaking in whispers. Chris fumbled with his necklace chain between his fingers.

“Chris! Chris!” Sarah harshly whispered. She was ducking her head to be below the level of the nurse’s desk. He jumped and turned around behind him.

“Where did you go?! We had to transport the other tech to the Urgent Care clinic.”

“No time, come.” Sarah grabbed Chris’ hand, still ducking, and dragged him behind her into room 808.

“Okay, come on out.” Sarah announced to the room. The patient was glaring at the two of them and gnashing her teeth.

“You need to let him see you or else he’s gonna think I’m crazy.” She sighed.

“Who-?” But Chris got his answer. Suddenly, both Tobias and Prudence appeared in front of them before their eyes.

“We’re not going to be able to stay like this for long, hun.” Prudence reminded Sarah.

“I’m aware. This one of y’all’s?” She asked while pointing to the patient.

“Uh, are they?” Chris asked, to no reply.

“Ha, they wish. I’ve actually GOT a body.” The patient quipped. Her voice vibrated into two sounds, her own voice and a deep, scratchy imposter overlaying her usual gentle tone.

Tobias jumped in surprise. “Lord have mercy…” He gasped.

“Prudence? How do we fix her?” Sarah asked.

“How do we…you think this is medical?! That’s a demon. And I’m no demon. I’m a nurse.”

“Oh, okay so they are ghosts.” Chris interjected. He nodded to himself, impressed with his own understanding.

“Yes, they’re ghosts,” Sarah confirmed then turned back to Prudence, “which means they should know at least something to get that demon out of our patient.”

“Holy Water?” Tobias added.

Sarah whipped her head around to face him but her eyes noticed a square, pink tub on the counter on the other side of his ethereal body.

“What would I need? If I wanted to make holy water?” She asked as she phased through him to look inside the tub.

“Well, water,” He began to list, “And maybe a cross?” Tobias turned to Prudence for assurance, who agreed emphatically. “You know, something holy and what-not.”

She pulled out a bag of saline from the tub, a roll of clear medical tape and a pair of scissors.

“If I had some tongue depressors I could tape a cross together…Shit, where do we have them stored?” Sarah pulled everything out of the tub, cut the saline bag with scissors and dumped out its contents.

“Holy Water? At the hospital? You’re better off using a catheter bag.” Demon Patient mocked. She laughed at her own joke until she coughed and spit up more black vomit onto her gown.

“What about this?” Chris pulled his necklace from underneath his scrub top and unclasped it. He handed it to Sarah who had just finished pouring out the saline.

“An actual Rod of Asclepius? Where’d you get this?”

“It was a gift. F-from my mom. For passing the NCLEX.” He admitted.

The rod with a single snake wrapped around shined even in the low fluorescents.

“Pure silver. Silver purifies. It could work.” Tobias mentioned with a shrug.

It would have to be good enough, Sarah thought, and she dropped it into the tub. Chris looked to Prudence for some sort of guidance when the Demon Patient hissed at him.

“Bell…We need a bell! Something that chimes! I know that’s something that messes with Demons and us Spirits.” Prudence exclaimed.

Chris pulled out his gaggle of keys and work badge from out of his pants.

“Sarah! Your keys!”

She tossed them to him from her pocket and moved to the demon’s bedside with her homemade holy water. Chris clasped the gaggle of keys in both his hands like a makeshift kagura suzu and jangled them. The awkward chime they made caused the patient to groan.

“Ugh, that’s almost worse than all your bitching.” The Demon complained. Chris chimed the keys again and she roared in pain. Prudence and Tobias were covering their ears with their hands. Their corporeal forms were shifting between visibility and vanishing. The lights flickered and the lamp on the side table was beginning to float again.

“Don’t worry about us, just do what needs to happen” Tobias yelled to the two of them. Prudence gave a nod to Sarah with a smile.

“That’s real noble you guys, but I don’t know what the hell to say right now. How do I banish this thing?” Sarah put a gloved hand into the water, ready to flick it onto the demon.

“Tell her to leave?” Chris suggested.

Sarah turned to the possessed and flicked her first handful of water directly into her face.

“Get outta my patient!” She yelled. Chris chimed the keys after. The demon’s roar became shrill.

“Get out! You are,” Sarah flicked more saline on the possessed patient. Chris chimed the keys again with more force. “Getting in the way,” She flicked more faux holy water on her face. Chris chimed the keys once more. “Of my Hippocratic Oath!” She stopped flicking and resorted to splashing the sacred saline onto her.

“What oath? You’re not even a nurse and you don’t even want to work here.” The demon snarled. Steam was coming off from where the water had splashed on her face and body. The burns bled black. Chris chimed the jangle of keys three times with one hand.

“And Chrissy-boy here barely passed the NCLEX. No wonder he’s in over his head.” Demon Patient laughed when Chris gasped. He chimed the keys again, causing her to moan through her laughter.

Sarah splashed the last of the water onto her face. She screamed and another puff of steam lifted into the air. But the demon was not releasing its hold on the patient. Sarah stared at the demon, panting. Chris chimed the keys again. He didn’t know what else to do.

Then, she raised the empty tub above her head.

“BEGONE, bitch!” She exclaimed, clobbering the patient over the head with it.

The patient fell back onto the bed. No scream. Her face hidden behind her hair. The lights had stopped flickering and the lamp clattered back into place on the bedside table. Silence. Sarah looked around the room to see that Prudence and Tobias had disappeared. Chris exchanged a paranoid glance with her, still clutching his makeshift cleansing bells.

The door slammed open. Chris and Sarah screamed in surprise. The doctor on the other side of the door screamed, too, the three of them stopping when they all realized their error.

“What are you two doing to the patient?! She JUST had-“ The doctor was about to criticize them both when something stopped him.

The patient was sitting up, calm, her face no longer injured from the holy water. Chris and Sarah turned their heads to see what the doctor had noticed. Ms. Day, the woman in room 808 stretched her arms and cracked her neck.

“I don’t know what you told the nurse to give me last night but my back feels so much better. And my leg isn’t even sore!” She bent her neck to the opposite side and it popped some more

“Is it time for breakfast yet, Nurse?” Ms. Day asked Chris.

***

Sarah stood in front of the time clock, staring at the digital clock in the corner, waiting for it to turn seven a.m. on the dot. Her bloodied clothes and shoes were in the red biohazard bag she held in her hand. The spare scrubs the hospital provided were baggy on her frame and pale from being over washed. She slowly blinked, still waiting for the time to change over so she could clock out. Six fifty-eight. Her sunken eyes glazed over.

“Same time tomorrow night?”

She turned around to see both Tobias and Prudence sitting at the break room table. Tobias nodded politely before turning back to his outdated newspaper. Prudence gave a wave and a shy smile, smoking a cigarette that left no smell.

Sarah looked down at the note in her other hand. It was from Chris, saying, “Thanks, Work Buddy!” With his phone number and gamer tag. He drew a tiny caricature of the possessed patient and even featured the floating medical supplies from her poltergeist tantrum.

She chuckled aloud.

“Yeah. See you tonight.”