Into the Moonlight - 1. Story

Into the Moonlight

By: Jfalkon

Tony lay in bed half aware of what was going on around him. He had been in a terrible accident His body had survived the collision but the impact was too much for his young brain. His family’s hopes withered like plants without light as he spent weeks in a vegetative state. Eventually the decision was made to move him from the hospital to a convalescent home.

He felt himself be transported but was unable to acknowledge the change. He was laid in another bed in another room. His family was by his side. He heard his parents’ encouraging words but was able to do little more than grunt. They spent the day with him in the warm and pleasant room. Everything seemed in order until his family left and the sun went down. Then he was moved from the cheerful room to a dark ward where many people lay in old creaking beds. It was cold in that room and the other people stared at him as the nurses shoved him under an old blanket and left. The room smelled of age, disease, and death. The only light in the room came from a solitary window mostly obscured by the branches of a large tree. Thin shafts of moonlight illuminated small parts of the room. As Tony’s eyes acclimated to the darkness he could make out the forms of the other forgotten souls who shared the room. They had all been abandoned there by relatives who could not or would not take care of them.

Over the next month Tony’s life followed a predictable pattern. He spent most of his time in the old little bed. Sometimes a nurse would come and feed him something that tasted half spoiled. At the end of every week he would be cleaned up and put in the sunny room in a clean bed. His family would come to visit. After a few hours they would leave and he would be stripped of his hospital gown and taken back to the crowded ward.

The following month his family came to visit only three times. Over time the visits became less frequent and he became more neglected. The nurses only came to feed him and the others who could not eat by themselves. No one was given a bath. They lay dirty often in soiled diapers. The room reeked of decay. They developed rashes and sores. Eventually the sickest people died. The nurses would drag them off to the neighboring room that served as a morgue. At night the nurses paced the hallway like prison guards and shone their flashlights into the room. There were several wards and the nurses would endlessly pace between them.

Despite his semiconscious state Tony soon noticed that something other than the nurses watched the patients. There were rats who’s eyes flashed in the sweeping flashlight beams. There were other creatures too. They were dark figures that looked like shadows but more solid. At first Tony thought they were shadows but there was no one to cast them. The sick shivered in their beds at the sight of the dark forms but no one dared to scream. At first the shadows ignored Tony preferring more lively prey. Then one night a dark shadow began watching him. The dark being had no eyes but Tony could feel its stare. Then it began to glide towards him. Tony moaned and then screamed as loud as he could but the shadow kept coming.

Tony continued making whatever noise he could. Then the shadow stopped and quickly receded into a corner just as a nurse came charging in. She quickly isolated the source of the offending sounds. She slapped Tony and shouted at him to shut up. He managed to grasp her uniform and held on as tightly as he could. She tore his hand away and left him sobbing and shaking.

An old man in the next bed came and tried to comfort him but quickly retreated to his own bed at the sound of footsteps. The nurse returned and descended on Tony like a dark cloud. She pried his mouth open and shoved a pill down his throat. It was a sedative and should have made him sleep. Because of his injuries it had the opposite effect. It lifted the fog that had overshadowed his mind for nearly a year and brought the living nightmare into sharp focus. He could see, feel, and smell everything. His still logical mind told him that the medical miracle would be acknowledged and he would go home. His hope was destroyed the next morning.

No one seemed to care that he was awake. The nurse on duty found him sitting up. She herded him and all the other able bodied people together. They were sent to another room. This one was as dark and gray as the other. It did not even have a window. The only light source was a single hanging bulb in the middle of the room. Everyone gathered around it. They shivered there naked without even the thin blankets to keep them warm. Some people talked to the air. Others just stared. Tony cried as he took his place on one of the old battered chairs. He wished he could go back to his previous state. From this day on the little boy’s nightmare would be real. The old man who had come to him at night now sat by his side.

“Why am I here?” asked Tony.

“I don’t know,” answered the old man.

“Why are you here?” asked Tony.

“To die,” answered the old man.

Over the next few years Tony spent most of his days with the old man, who he soon began to call grandpa. He could not remember what his real grandparents looked like any more. They were like characters in a fairy tale but grandpa was real. Tony found that grandpa would sometimes relive the past completely oblivious to the present. He would speak in a strange language to people who were not there. To the nurses this was madness but to Tony it was magic. Grandpa could escape the nightmare they were living in.

When he was not lost in another time grandpa told Tony about their world and its occupants. He told the boy never to fear the shadows because they eat fear and get stronger. He told him that when people are near death the shadows come. Only the shafts of moonlight seem to keep them away. On moonless nights the shadows have free reign. Grandpa explained how the nurse’s eyes were different because they went out in the sun. They could not see the shadows but they could feel them.

Grandpa was always by Tony’s side until the day he did not wake up. The nurses dragged him away to the dead room. Tony was devastated. His one friend was gone. On dark nights the shadows searched the empty bed until it was filled by a new patient. She was a girl only a few years older than Tony. She was crazed with fear. When the shadows came at night she screamed and ran. All the nurse’s beatings could not calm her. They tried to sedate her but it hardly helped.

The shadows seemed drawn to her. They enjoyed her fear. The nurses had no mercy. They tied her to the bed and gagged her. For many days and nights the bed creaked and moaned speaking for her. The ropes tore into her flesh but she continued to struggle. The sound of her battle became the norm. Everyone learned to sleep with the sounds until one night silence woke them up. She was dead.

After the girl had died something changed. It was as if a pale beam of sunlight had penetrated the gloom. The nurses were not so quick to hit. The patients were required to bathe weekly. The water was cold and there was no soap of towels but still some of the dirt was removed. The lice that had been taken for granted were now addressed with a toxic smelling chemical. None of these changes were pleasant but they brought some relief.

After several months of relative sanitation a new patient joined them. He was a boy about Tony’s age. For the first time in months Tony was not the only child there. The new boy was kept heavily sedated for the first few months. He was drugged most severely when his family came to visit. Tony felt sorry for him. He knew how harsh the drugs could be. He had been sick so many times from them that he was glad that his family only came to visit a few times a year.

After a few months the boy was not sedated most days. He became a member of the crazy naked clan. Tony never asked why the boy was there. It did not matter. Instead he learned that the boy’s name was Jake and he was only half a year younger than Tony. They began to spend their days together exploring the dark edges of their daytime enclosure. On one end of the room they found an old bookshelf with some books and puzzles.

One day they tried to put together a jigsaw puzzle but one side of it was completely missing. They managed to put together part of a background with grass and flowers. There was a shadow on the grass but the pieces that made up its owner were gone. Over time they got to know all the books though neither of the boys could read well. Their favorite book was a big art book with pictures of ancient pottery and sculptures. As the boys got older they took more interest in the nude male statues. They looked at the pictures closely and also at each other. They were still years away from being men but their young abused bodies showed hints of the future. Sometimes they wanted to touch each other but dared not provoke the watching nurses.

At night Jake was frightened of the shadows. Tony told Jake that he had to be brave but it would take a long time until Jake was used to them. One dark night they began to advance on Jake’s bed. Tony watched remembering how the girl had died in the same bed. He remembered how they had searched the bed after the old man was gone. Without thinking Tony got out of bed and approached the shadows. He was not angry or scared but he would not let them take his friend. They drew back from him as if he was the moonlight that they hated. Tony gave Jake a quick kiss before the nurse returned on her rounds. She scanned the room with her flashlight and continued her walk.

The shadows never came so close to Jake again but they watched him from a distance. Tony worried about them. He wanted more than anything to get Jake out of this dark place. Tony was not sure if he would be able to live in the sunlit world outside but he was sure that Jake belonged there.

These thoughts were circling in Tony’s mind one day while he lay sick in bed. He only had a cold but his weak pale body was having a hard time fighting it. Both he and Jake were malnourished and small for their age. The hair on their heads was brittle and thin. What should have been facial hair was only thin fuzz on their cheeks. Tony, like the other patients was sick often. That day he lay helplessly listening to the rain. The window in the room was leaking leaving dirty streaks on the wall.

Later that day a man came in to fix it. He smelled of alcohol. Tony watched him clumsily remove the screws that secured the panes in their frame. He removed one of the four panes and replaced the seal that had rotted away. He put back the pane and replaced the screws. Leaving the screwdriver on the sill he went to talk to one of the nurses. She led him away to pay him. Seeing his chance Tony pooled all his strength and got out of bed. He walked the few feet to the window, took the screwdriver, and went back. He collapsed on the bed. He felt his heart pounding in his chest. After catching his breath he hid the screwdriver under his thin mattress. Luckily no one looked for it.

Over the next few days Tony recovered. He was able to go out during the day. At night he would wait for the nurse to leave and then he would go to Jake’s bed and kiss him goodnight. One night he asked Jake to come to him. Slowly it evolved into a game but for Tony it was much more than a game. The ability to move around quietly was important. He had gotten a breath of the fresh spring air the day he was sick. It gave him hope. He was determined to escape.

One night when Jake was asleep he waited for his chance. Moving like a shadow he took the screwdriver and went to the window. He was able to remove a screw and return to bed undetected. He knew his plan could work. Removing the glass and squeezing past the tree branches would not be easy but it was possible.

During the day he engaged Jake in more physical activity. It was not easy building up strength on the putrid diet and with little space to move but slowly through games of tag they became more graceful and their endurance improved. Finally when he was convinced they were ready Tony whispered his plan in Jake’s ear. By now Jake was conditioned not to show much emotion but he worried. He lay awake at night watching Tony remove screws from the window. He removed one each night and each night they got closer to freedom. The moon grew fuller and the light grew stronger until there were no more screws left.

The windowpane stood gently balanced in its place as the boys waited for their chance. They waited for the nurse to take a short break and then their bodies moved as one. Silently they walked to the window. Together they lifted the glass and set it on the floor. Then they slipped past the tree branches like ghosts. The small gaps that barely let in moonlight were enough for their wasted bodies.

Breathing hard they ran across what felt like acres of land. The fresh summer air helped them move and the moonlight gave them strength. The wild grass whipped against their nude bodies and stones hurt their delicate feet but they kept running. Their thin week hearts beat furiously as they gasped for air. Finally they reached a low brick wall. They rested only a few seconds before climbing over. Outside they found a road and followed it. The black asphalt led them past quiet houses. They did not know where they were going and did not care. They walked until their feet bled.

When they were too exhausted to walk any farther they sat on a curb that was still warm from the summer day. They embraced each other. Feeling each other’s hearts beating they basked in the moonlight. They did not know if anyone was looking for them or who might find them. They just sat there enjoying their freedom. They had escaped from hell and anything outside was heaven.

© 2008 Jfalcon