The Devil in Silver

He got out of bed. He wore pajamas, top and bottom, and slipped on his light blue slipper-socks. He looked at the ceiling and listened for the creaking sound. Pepper heard nothing but the low buzz of the lights.

He went to his dresser. Had he brought all his things with him when he transferred rooms? He’d been so medicated, he could hardly remember. One set of outdoor clothes? Check. Coffee’s binder? Check. Sue’s blue accordion folder? The folder was there, but nothing sat inside. The two words were still there. “Nice Dream.” He’d have to fill it with something new.

His boots stood beside the dresser, upright and at attention. He left them there for now.

Pepper stepped out into the hallway, and instinctively, turned left instead of right, thinking he was still on Northwest 2, but he was on Northwest 4 now. The silver door was at the end of the hall, propped open.

Pepper flinched and held his breath as he braced for the Devil (Mr. Visserplein) to come bounding out of the room. But that didn’t happen. Pepper caught his breath again. He stared at the open door.

A light glowed inside. He walked toward the room cautiously but nobody came to stop him. He looked over his shoulder but no one paid attention. He reached the silver door. He touched the stainless steel.

He looked inside.

Imagine a concrete stairwell without stairs (and now without railings). Twenty feet up, in the ceiling, a single strong bulb cast light that filled the room. No shadows. No bed. No evidence at all that anyone had ever lived in here. Been kept here.

Pepper looked at the concrete floor, almost expecting to see Mr. Mack’s small crumpled body. Or at least a bloody stain. But the floor was clean. Power-washed. All the surfaces were so bright because they’d all been repainted.

He left the room and paced back down Northwest 4 slowly. His feet hurt. So did his knees and hips. How long had he been underwater? That’s how he felt. Like a man walking out of the ocean. All but drowned. His nose and eyes even stung. When he reached the nurses’ station, it looked a little different. Another change courtesy of Dr. Anand. The lower half of the nurses’ station was the same split-level rectangular desk but the upper half was no longer open. Shatterproof plastic panes had been installed. The nurses’ station now looked exactly like a ghetto Chinese-food counter.

Pepper walked up to the station. Nurse Washburn sat inside.

Pepper knocked on the plastic with a little force. He wanted to believe this new partition had been put up as a joke. He’d tap it and it would tumble down harmlessly. But that didn’t happen. He knocked and the plastic rattled but stayed firm. Nurse Washburn looked so small inside that clear cage.

“I’ll take the General Tso’s chicken,” Pepper said. “Gimme an extra-spicy mustard.”

Nurse Washburn, to his great surprise, grinned at him.

“You haven’t seen all this yet.”

“How long has it been since …”

He gestured toward Northwest 2, his old room, with his chin.

“Two months,” she said, and looked embarrassed to tell him.

He felt a little shocked, but only a little. He remembered the passing of days. Meals eaten. Television watched. Showers taken. Smoke breaks under the maple tree. He might even have had a few conversations. Two months. Was it June?

Nurse Washburn tilted her head to the right, a look of real sympathy.

“It’s no surprise,” she said. “The doctor just lowered everyone’s meds back to normal.”

“How is Dr. Sam?”

She shook her head. “Not him. He’s gone.”

None of the improvements had helped Dr. Samuel Anand. The board of New Hyde Hospital voted to terminate his contract. He was replaced. The Devil had vanquished the doctor, too.

Aside from the new plastic shielding, the inside of the nurses’ station looked largely the same. The desk phone had been returned. Nurse Washburn sat in front of the same outdated computer screen. On either side of it were more stacks of patient records.

Pepper leaned forward. He read the names on the tabs. Gerald Mack. Frank Waverly.

“What are you doing with those?” Pepper said. “Those men are dead and gone.”

Nurse Washburn, Josephine, looked down at the paperwork and back up at Pepper. “Dead, yes,” she said. “But not gone, not with Equator Zero.”

“Dr. Anand talked about that,” Pepper said. “But he didn’t explain what it meant.”

Josephine rolled backward in her chair. She gestured at the computer screen. “Equator Zero is a program for filing patient records.”

Pepper nodded. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Not just for keeping records. But for filing them.”

Pepper raised both hands, like a scale. “You like Clamato and I like Clamahto.”

“New Hyde is a public hospital,” Nurse Washburn said. “That means it gets city, state, and federal money to take care of its poorest patients. Which is just about all of you. No offense.”

Pepper doffed an invisible cap. “Thanks.”