PEELED RAW ~ Book 2

Chapter 11. Hatch

The minute hand on the old wall clock above the nurse's station shuddered and ticked violently to 14:10 pm, its tick echoing down the empty tiled corridor like a gun shot. Nurse McGinty ignored the small passage of time, her mind was already occupied with her well-oiled routine. She knew her inner clock was vastly more reliable. With carefully measured steps she walked the length of the corridor and at each door of a patient's room, she dropped the long thin hatch and glanced in on its occupant. The hospital called the rooms, secured bedrooms, where they said, patients were safe from harm. Anyone caught calling them cells was taken to one side and made to understand the distinction between a safe environment and the dole line. The staff soon understood, as did the patients, with a little persuasion.

McGinty liked this time of the afternoon when all the patients were locked away so as the staff could take their break. At this time only one orderly or nurse was needed to walk the floor, rather than the usual two. Mcginty always took this responsibility and her staff was happy to let her.

Unlatching another thin hatch, McGinty leaned over and looked in and greeted the occupant of the room "Good afternoon, Arnold. It's nice to see that you made the effort to get out of bed and to dress yourself today. Tea will be served in precisely twenty minutes time. It's beans and toast and a jelly pot!"

Arnold sat on the edge of his bed, silently rocking. He would have smiled and thanked her but he couldn't smile or talk since suffering his stroke month's earlier. All he could do was think and he thought "If I was able to do anything I would have long since landed that fine bitch on her back and thanked her properly"

Arnold smiled internally and imagined McGinty in his cell with him as he thanked her over and over but he neither smiled nor moved from the edge of his bed.

Nurse McGinty, satisfied that Arnold was causing no problems, closed the hatch and moved on. The disjointed sounds of miserable patients moaning and crying floated eerily down the brightly lit corridor as McGinty opened another hatch. The name hastily scribbled on the board beside the door, was, Malcolm Cloverson. According to the report that had accompanied him, it stated that he was a mild-mannered young man who had spent the best part of the last year moving from one failed suicide attempt to another. The last attempt had been a fourteen-hour rooftop extravaganza as Police specialists had tried to coax him down whilst under a hailed of slate roofing tiles.

McGinty did not say anything to him, she just allowed him to lay with eyes closed on his bed, counting invisible stars in his head. So far he had reached 2389, 90, 91, 92. She slowly and quietly closed the hatch so as to not disturb him and moved on to the next.

This one she thought, would be a problem if given a chance. The copperplate handwriting on the nameplate, said, Samantha Barringer. McGinty opened the hatch and looked in on the sleeping form beneath the covers, which she thought strange for Samantha at this time of day, she usually was a handful. McGinty wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth, so she tried to close the hatch but something was in the way. Reaching her fingers through the narrow opening, she ran them side to side trying to find the obstruction but felt something brush over her hand and then with a wrench pulled her arm fully through the hatch. McGinty, startled, cried out in pain and then screamed in agony as she heard as well as felt her arm snap.

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Samantha hunkered down on the floor behind the door. She stifled her laughter as she waited for the right moment to strike. She looked at the body double she had creates out of rolled up clothing and pillows and stifled another chuckle just as the hatch in her bedroom door opened. From where she sat, Samantha could not see who was at the door but the familiar scent of rose water wondered in.

Samantha knew that the nurses were not allowed to wear perfume, apparently, it could cause issues with patients, especially of the male variety. But of course, McGinty wore rose water and nobody argued against her authority, the bitch!