The Haunted

“We’re taking her to the hospital!” she heard her mom tell her grandma, and Megan opened her eyes to see her grandmother handing over a fresh hand towel filled with ice cubes. Her mom let the bloody wet washcloth she’d been pressing against the wound drop onto the floor, replacing it with the ice-filled hand towel. “Hold this,” her mom ordered. “Press it hard to stop the bleeding. Do you think you can stand?”

Grimacing, Megan nodded. The cold ice made the cut feel a little better.

“Stay here with James!” her mother said. Her grandma nodded.

With her dad on one side and her mom on the other, each holding a hand under her armpit to support her, Megan got off the toilet, still bent over, keeping the makeshift ice pack pressed firmly against the slice on her leg. “Make sure she doesn’t fall,” her mom said to her dad, and crouched down, taking over ice-pack duty and encouraging her to stand up straight. Megan pulled up her pants, pausing as her mom adjusted the hand holding the ice. She let out a sharp yelp as a flash of pain stabbed through her.

“Do you want me to carry you?” her dad asked.

Megan nodded.

“Maybe that would be better,” her mom said quickly. “I’m not sure we want that blood to be pumping.”

“Start the van and open the door,” her dad replied, grunting as he picked her up, one hand under her neck, the other under her knees.

Megan saw a steady stream of blood streaming over her father’s arm, saw a frightening amount of red puddled and smeared on the floor. She reached out and held the ice-filled hand towel against the cut while her mom ran through the house and outside.

“Megan?” James said worriedly.

“I’ll be okay,” she reassured him, though she had no idea whether that was true or not. The bleeding hadn’t stopped or even slowed down, and that was getting very scary. Had she sliced open a vein or something? Was she going to die?

“Where’s Grandpa?” she asked as her dad carried her down the hall.

“We don’t know,” he admitted.

“Is he dead?” Maybe that was why she’d been cutting herself.

It was an uncharacteristically blunt question to have asked, and her dad’s answer was equally blunt. “We don’t know.”

The house was reaching out, Megan thought. She and James should have kept quiet.

I will kill you both.

Even though they were away from it, they should not have revealed its secrets. Now they were going to have to pay. She started to cry, though whether it was over her grandpa or because of the pain or it was simply a reaction to the totality of everything that was going on, she could not say.

The van’s engine was running and the side door was open. Her mom was inside, laying towels over the back bench seat. Between both parents, they got her onto the seat and laid her down on the towels. They weren’t sure how to hook up the shoulder harness and didn’t have the time to figure it out, so her mom sat on the floor next to her, holding her in place and making sure she didn’t move while her dad slammed the side door shut, got in the front, backed quickly out of the driveway and took off.

Megan started feeling woozy on the way to the hospital. It suddenly seemed hard to keep her eyes open, and she closed them for a moment.

After that, sounds and images came in short staccato bursts, some of which remained in her brain, others of which were forgotten as soon as they appeared. A wheelchair. A bed. A curtain. A doctor. “She’s lost a lot of blood.” A shot. Her mom crying. A television. A Geico commercial. A nurse. A plastic bag hanging from a hook with a tube coming out of it. Beeping. Her dad in a chair, watching her. James. Grandma. Two doctors talking. Mom. Dad. Mom.

Eventually, things sorted themselves out. She was in a hospital room, and it was daytime. Sunlight streamed through a window to her left, above a bed in which an old man lay snoring.

“She’s awake!” her mom said excitedly, and as weak as she felt, Megan had to smile. It was nice to hear her mom’s voice. Her dad was there, looking down at her, and a moment later a nurse was there, too, smiling, telling her everything was going to be okay.

Apparently she had lost a lot of blood because she had hit a vein, although, luckily, it was a small one; otherwise she would probably be dead. Doctors had repaired the damage and sewn everything up. The lost blood had been replaced, and she was being given some kind of medicine to make sure no dangerous clots formed. She would have to remain in the hospital under observation for a few more days.

“How … ?” She tried to speak, but her throat was dry and the word came out a croak. The nurse picked up a plastic cup from a tray that sat suspended to the right of the bed and placed a straw in Megan’s mouth. She sipped water through the straw, the coolest, freshest, best tasting water she had ever had. Her throat felt better, and she swallowed before trying to speak again. This time her voice was weak but clear. “How long have I been here?”

“Since last night,” the nurse told her.