The sky too, was obscured behind it. Mack ascended the car up another steep hill and beyond it the road dipped yet again. The road wound and swung and the car snaked through the woodland for what felt like ten or fifteen miles. I kept expecting to see, as I glared out the windscreen, a bright pair of headlights coming the opposite way, but ten, fifteen, thirty minutes went by, and still we were alone on that road.
I could feel my stomach bunch into knots. “Is this road always this quiet?” I asked.
Mack was squinting through her specs, trying to concentrate, bent closer to the windscreen than ever.
“Yeah, I think so.” she replied, keeping her eyes fixed ahead. “I’ve only been here once before.” She paused and her arms gripped the wheel firmly as she took another corner. She went on, “There’s nothing else out here. There’s a quicker turn off to Chemsford ten miles up the motorway so most folk take that. Jesus! This fog is unreal!”
I know, I thought. I wanted to see where I was going, I wanted to know where I was going, especially for my first day. If I could’ve, I would’ve looked up this place, found out more, but I didn’t have any time. It was all so sudden, it had happened so fast, and now here I was, on my way to check-in. If checking-in was what you called it.
My stomach moaned louder than ever. I could feel the acids swishing around. I moved to turn the radio back on but just then, out of the gloom, a white wooden sign appeared ahead, sticking up from the roadsides long grass and pointing us right. NHS Royal Sleepyhillock hospital.
Mack braked sharply and veered right into the turn-off, into the woods, arrowing the car along the narrow road till we came to a tall open gate and she drove inside the black, half-rusted, iron bars. Behind it, hidden away amongst the fog and cluttered branches I noticed an odd concrete structure of a building- an eight by eight box that looked like a cold war shelter. As we drew up close a monkey face in uniform leaned out from its window, watching us. The face disappeared, and just as Mack was about to drive past, it emerged again as if from nowhere. The man leapt out in front of the car. He approached the driver’s side with long meaningful steps, his black uniform pressed and straightened like a soldiers. He held up a giant palm and glared simultaneously from me to Mrs. Mack. His features became clearer- his dark bushy eyebrows twisted and menacing- he looked like a man not to be messed with.
“HULLO? CAN I HELP YOU?” he commanded gruffly, his tone suspicious.
“Yes, hello there.” Mack rolled the window down, “This is Aisha McGillivray. She’s here to check-in?”
The man scrutinized me for a second. He twitched his flat nose and scratched his head and his face really did have the look of a baffled ape. He went on scratching his head and trying to decide what to do.
“Wait here!” he said finally.
As he walked backwards he held out his palm again, keeping his eyes fixed on us until he disappeared back into his cubby hole.
“What’s his problem?” Mack said. She turned to me and gave another of her well-meaning stoic smiles with her lips.
“He’s maybe lost his banana.” I said.
Mack grinned.
We waited. Through its one lit window we watched for movement. But there wasn’t any. Then there came a series of low grunts, bellowing out from behind the walls.
“He’s either on the phone in there, or masturbating.” Mack said flatly, in her typical deadpanned humour. But her neck immediately tensed up. She flashed an awkward look at me.
I pretended I didn’t hear. I watched a crow flutter along the surface of the rising road ahead and disappear off into the trees. I looked at the building then turned my eyes back to the road, and when I raised them again all of a sudden it seemed to get ten times darker.
The long winter nights were creeping in.
It was all so quiet…
Chapter 5
“There’s nothing stopping us from just going in,” Mack said, “but I’ll wait anyway. I spoke to the head nurse on the phone. She seems really nice!”
I didn’t reply. The guy returned from the building and without looking at us or saying another word, waved us through dismissively with the back of his hand. I looked out the back window as the car moved on and he swaggered back inside, and I hadn’t seen it before, but running along the back of that building and set against the closed trees, ran a razor barbed-wire fence, at least ten feet high.
Mack dropped into third gear and climbed the hill at reduced speed. She flicked the lights from half to full beam. The fog ghosted between the trees and sifted out in front of us, seeming to get thicker as we got higher. On both sides the overgrowth of shrubs and bushes kept creeping closer, until their thorns were almost clawing at the windows. Vines were spiraling up around the trees, strangling them in their grip, and below them rhododendrons twisted along the ground. I couldn’t believe how unkempt everything was. If this is what they leave their grounds like, what is it like inside? I wondered.
A dim orange glow hid in the greyness ahead and as we approached I
