"You've got to be kidding me..."
Kim's eyes shifted from the chart to the man laying in the bed, looking for all the world as if he hadn't stirred in hours, nor was likely to anytime soon. She sighed, and sat down, continuing to scan the chart, her eyebrow quirking once again as she came to the list of medicines that she was to be administering, and the times. Her eyes widened a little as she reread the dosing charts, sure that she'd either misinterpreted it, or that there was some sort of clerical error made in transcription. As she sat puzzling over the strange orders in the chart before her, the crack of the door opening broke the relative silence of the room, causing her to jump in her seat a bit.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," came the voice of a man, as the door swung open to reveal Dr. Sam Loomis. She relaxed a bit as he entered the room, but the way his eyes fixed in on her sharply, as if sizing her up caught her off guard before he turned away to instead regard his patient for a long moment. Neither spoke for what seemed like forever, the room utterly silent before he finally turned back to her, still looking for all the world as if he was looking her over for any signs of weakness. She smiled blandly in response, before he finally spoke.
"I understand that you're the night shift nurse assigned to watch him and I just wanted to make sure that you fully understand what you're dealing with here."
"That's all right, Dr. Loomis. I just wasn't expecting anyone. I was just looking over his chart actually, and I have a question. Are these dosages correct? I wasn't sure, they seem to be very high, and I wanted to make sure there hadn't been a mistake in transcription. I was actually about to go ask Linda when you came in. " She held the chart open, and pointed to the orders in question, more sure than ever that this had to be some sort of mistake. The employees in charge of typing up the charts were for the most part reliable, but mistakes had been made before, and one of the first things she'd learned was that she should always clarify anything that seemed off, especially regarding medication. With the medicines they were handling, even a couple of milligrams could be the difference between pacifying an aggressive patient, and a possibly deadly overdose.
Taking a quick look at the chart, Loomis shook his head and said, "No. No, these are exactly what I requested them to be." Seeing the stunned look that appeared on Kim's face, he then continued, "I don't mean to frighten you, but without these medicines, there's no telling what he might do. Fifteen years ago, he brutally murdered his older sister. He showed absolutely no regret, no remorse for his actions and I'm certain that he'll kill again if given the chance. I've seen it, in his eyes. If you don't feel like you can handle taking care of him, I'd like for you to say so now, because you must be very careful around him."
Kim blinked, still stunned that Loomis had confirmed what she still couldn't help but consider a massive overdose of Thorazine. She didn't argue however, even though the idea of giving anyone that amount of such a powerful drug shook her. If he were to react adversely, surely she would be in the clear given that the patient's own doctor had confirmed it, but it still ate at her. Especially since she'd already been in the room close to an hour, and he hadn't so much as moved an inch. Of course, now she knew why that was so. She found it amazing the man was even still breathing, honestly.
"I don't have a problem with it, Dr. Loomis. I can handle this, and I will be careful. I have to say though, if anything, it seems like I'm in for a rather quiet night. He hasn't moved at all since I came on shift. Is he always like this? Now, I mean."
Loomis looked back at him, laying there. In a way, he could understand how someone might think him being motionless meant he wasn't a threat.
"Yes, he never speaks and he never moves. The Thorazine helps with that, but he was like that before. I believe he's simply waiting though and without the control of medicine, who knows when he might decide to pick up where he left off. It will be quiet, as long as you make sure to give him his medicine. But that doesn't mean you can let down your guard. He's still extremely dangerous."
He looked back at his patient before continuing to speak.
"I'm sure you've heard the other doctors and nurses around here laugh about my methods when it comes to him," Loomis couldn't help but a chuckle a little himself as he said that, though for entirely different reasons. "I hope you don't let that get in the way of following my instructions. I know I come off as a bit of a madman myself when it comes to...this, but I'm very serious. You must be careful."
"I understand. I do have one more question though, Dr. Loomis. He's been here for ages according to the other nurses, and you said he's always been like this. Forgive me for wondering, Dr. Loomis, but why does he suddenly need someone in here around the clock now, after all this time?"
Loomis considered her question carefully for a moment before answering.
"Because now it's crucial that he's under watch in case he tries anything. His court date is in less than a week. I've fought all of this time to keep him this secure after my proposal to send him to Litchfield was rejected several times. I'm not risking letting him get away now."
"All right. I'm sorry, I was just curious. I'll be here a year next February, and I've somehow never dealt with him before now. It's just... strange to see. I'm sorry, I'm rambling. We'll be fine, Dr. Loomis. I promise you, I'll take good care of him."
Looking back at her finally, he replied with, "I really hope you mean that. I don't mean to undermine your confidence. I just had to be sure that you understood what you were dealing with. If you have any questions, you can ask Dr. Wynn. He knows how to contact me if needed."
At that, Dr. Loomis turned to leave, turning back to give his patient one last look before leaving Kim all alone with him again.
Kim set the chart down, and shifted back in her chair. She still couldn't help but be dumbfounded by Loomis's words. He'd freely admitted that the patient didn't do much more than what she'd already seen, but still insisted that those huge doses of Thorazine were absolutely necessary. It rankled her, it truly did. Sure, she was no doctor, but she understood enough about the medications they handed out to know that what she was supposed to give him would more than likely render anyone into a state of almost permanent unconsciousness, and perhaps death even. She continued to skim his file, since he obviously didn't need her at the moment, her eyes flicking across words like 'catatonic' and 'elective mutism' and 'flat affect'.
"Well no shit, Sherlock." she muttered, looking up from the chart to the clock. almost eight more hours of this horrible silence. Had she known she was going to be spending the night doing the equivalent of watching paint dry, she'd have brought along a crossword puzzle or her knitting. It was going to take every ounce of will power she had to not fall asleep in here. For whatever reason, the room seemed very well insulated, she could barely hear anything else on the usually busy ward, only the distant whir of machinery and muffled snatches of conversation from the nurse's station down the hall.
Of course, she rarely sat in a room all night anyway. She'd flitted from room to room on the wards, and being the night shift there had been plenty of time to go and sit at the nurse's station and gossip with her coworkers. Surely she wasn't expected to stay in here all night. After all, what was he going to do, especially doped to the gills. She couldn't help but think the whole thing was overkill. The medicine orders, the requirement for round-the-clock supervision, all of it.
There was a television set mounted up into the wall, but the Star Spangled Banner would be playing soon, announcing the station's sign-off for the night. If anything she might catch the morning news when the stations came back on the air right before she went off her shift, but that was hours from now anyway. She'd definitely prepare ahead tomorrow night, the time seemed to drag by as slow as syrup. She could already feel her left leg beginning to fall asleep as well, so she rose from the chair to stretch her legs, wondering if she dared make a quick trip out of the room for another cup of coffee. Deciding to try to tough it out a little while longer, she instead began to slowly pace the small room in an effort to get her blood flowing.
In doing so, she came very close to the foot of her patient's bed, and on her fourth or fifth pass she banged her hip against the footboard, jostling him slightly. She cursed under her breath, hand migrating to her left hip to rub through the white polyblend fabric when she noticed it.
He'd opened his eyes.
She stood there, hand still at her hip, as she regarded him. While they were definitely open they seemed to focus on nothing. Kim drew a little closer, approaching up and around the left side of the hospital bed. The railing was in the upright position, and for a moment she almost felt like she was looking at some strange, rare, perhaps dangerous animal through bars in a cage. From her new vantage point, she could clearly see how dark, blank, and unfocussed his gaze was, and she shuddered slightly. He looked for all the world as if he were looking right through the blank white wall across from him, seeing something far beyond the walls of Smith's Grove.
She watched him a moment longer, and when he showed no signs of closing his eyes again aside from the occasional slow blink, she managed to speak.
"Are you okay? Is there anything you need that that I can get for you?" She asked, watching him for any sign of acknowledgement. Kim already knew not to expect him to say anything to her, she'd read enough of the file and her briefing with Loomis had prepared her for that, but in her experience even non-verbal patients had their ways of making their wishes known. Hopefully his way wouldn't be to flail at her, or grab at her, and mindful of that she put a few more inches between them. Kim had been around Smith's Grove long enough to know that sometimes the ones you'd least expect something like that from were the worst offenders, and while she thought his orders for Thorazine were ludicrous and perhaps even reaching levels of malpractice Loomis's warning was still fresh in her mind.
However, he didn't grab for her, or flail at her. He didn't even look at her, continuing to stare in that strange way across the room as if he hadn't heard a word she'd said, or even if he realized she was standing only about a foot away from him.
"I'm sorry I knocked into your bed. I only wanted to get up and stretch my legs. It's a little cramped in here. Again, I'm sorry, and I didn't mean to disturb you." She ventured, his lack of reaction causing her to close back in on the space she'd put between them moments before. Again, nothing from him other than an almost lazy blink before he continued to look straight past her. She could hear him breathing slowly, steadily, sounding for all the world like the inspirations of a sleeping child.
"I'll leave you alone now. I'm going to go sit back down over there, and if you do need something, I'd be more than glad to get it for you, okay?" Kim continued to watch for the slightest sign, a twitch, a glance, anything to indicate he'd heard her. When it was obvious there was none forthcoming, she retired to her chair, and continued to watch, as he continued to stare in that unfocussed way at the wall.
After what seemed like forever, but a brief glance at the clock confirmed as fifteen minutes, she decided to go ahead and get that second cup of coffee from the nurse's station. They couldn't possibly expect her to sit in here all night with the world's most uninteresting patient for company without a couple of breathers. She glanced back at him as she stood to exit the room, almost hoping to catch him looking, but he seemed to be set on whatever it was he was thinking about.
Kim padded down the hall in her soft white shoes, to the coffee pot situated behind the desk. Linda glanced up as she approached, a slight smile curving her lips.
"Bored to death yet, Hurst?" She asked, as Kim refilled her styrofoam cup, glancing around for any sign of their boss, Charge Nurse Keats. When it was obvious the coast was clear she turned back to Linda and smiled wryly.
"Only about an hour ago. Seriously, you could have warned me or something, told me to bring a book, anything. I'm afraid I'm going to doze off in there. I don't know how I'm going to manage another seven-odd hours."
"Ha. Well, you'll know tomorrow. You're scheduled to be in there all this week, as far as I know. Look at it this way though. Easiest paycheck you'll likely ever earn, here. He doesn't do anything. Count yourself lucky. It could always be worse. She could have decided to assign you that lady in Hall 4, the one that likes to wait until you're busy, and then shit the bed and finger-paint with it."
"Oh, nice. Okay, you're right, it could be worse. But I'm seriously about to fall asleep in there." Kim added an extra sugar to her coffee, hoping the extra sweetness would give her more of a boost. "And another couple of hours before I get to take a real break, too. I don't know how I'm going to do it."
"Is he awake? He usually sleeps most of the time, really. I think I've seen him up a few times since i've been here, but even then all he does is sit there and try to stare holes in the wall. Kind of creepy after a while, but he's never been any trouble whatsoever. Like I said, it could always be worse. Be glad you didn't get a biter or a bedpan-thrower."
"Yeah, he's awake. I think. His eyes are open, anyway. Linda, have you ever had to give him his medication?"
"Uh huh. Gets a shit-ton of Thorazine, if I recall. I asked about it once, and it's apparently legit. At first I thought it was a typo or something, I was surprised Dr. Loomis ordered that much. Speaking of Loomis, I saw him go in there a while ago. How was that?"
"Okay, I guess. He kept warning me about how dangerous he was, and that I shouldn't underestimate him. Although he even said that he is basically just like I saw all the time, even before he prescribed the Thorazine. It doesn't make sense to me at all, really. I read part of the chart, and I don't understand why he'd want to dope him up so much when he's already pretty much catatonic."
"Sounds like Dr Loomis, all right. I got the Myers speech a couple of years ago when I was in there checking up on him. And you know what? Never seen him do as much as brush a fly off his nose. Guy's in his own little world. You almost have to feel bad for him, really. He hasn't seen outside of this place in years, although sounds like that might change soon. I heard about the latest court date from Keats when I got here. Sounds like they might finally transfer him out of here, after all."
"Transfer him where, though?" Kim asked, stirring the coffee almost absentmindedly as Linda shared what she knew of her new charge.
"Well, I know that as long as I've been here, Loomis has had this idea that he should go to Litchfield, which is ridiculous. He's fine right here. I have a cousin that works down there, and trust me Myers is a complete pussycat compared to some of what they have in there. I could off hand think of at least a dozen more suitable candidates for Litchfield on this ward alone. This time though, I think Loomis is pushing to send Mikey to the State pen."
"What? Are you serious?" Kim said in disbelief. Linda nodded, and dropped her voice slightly.
"He just turned twenty-one last week. I think Loomis thinks since he can't seem to get him transferred to Litchfield after trying for so long, he might have a shot at sending him up the river now that he's an adult. You know, for the murder and all. They couldn't try him as an adult at the time, but now that he's twenty-one they can go ahead and put him away if the hearing goes as Loomis seems to think it will. That's what I heard, anyway."
Kim stared down into her coffee, processing this little tidbit of information. Now more than ever she felt that this entire thing was nothing more than the biggest case of overkill she'd ever been involved with.
"Put him away? Don't they think being here is put away enough? It's not like he's out prowling the streets, Linda. He's laid up in a hospital bed, and doesn't look like he plans on changing that anytime soon."
"You'd think so, but not to Loomis. Anyway, take that coffee and get back in there. Keats is due back up here any minute, and you know how she is about standing around and talking. And take the paper, I'm done with it anyway. It'll give you something to kill time until you go on break." Linda said, handing her the evening edition of The Herald and making a shooing motion with her other hand. Kim took it and hurried back down the hall, keen on reaching the room before Keats caught her out milling about. While Keats really wasn't all that bad, she did frown on congregating at the nurses station, especially while not on break.
Kim let herself back in, and immediately looked over to the bed to see if her patient was still awake. His eyes were closed, and he didn't seem to have moved at all. She sat her cup of coffee down on the small side table, and opened the newspaper, and began to read, although the short conversation she'd had with Linda kept pushing to the forefront of her mind.
She found herself peeking over the paper every so often to see if he'd stirred, but in what was quickly beginning to become predictable, he had not. And again, no surprise. She was sure that if she were pumped as full as he was of something as sedating as Thorazine she wouldn't likely do more than lay around only to stare at the occasional wall.
She thought back to what Linda had said, and she was right. You did sort of have to feel bad for him in a way. While Kim was a Warren county born and bred girl, and had never so much as set foot in Haddonfield, over her time working here she'd caught snatches of the murder that landed Myers in Smith's Grove. She was no expert or anything, and in reality struggled to recall the finer points, but it did seem a bit excessive to try him as an adult for something he'd done almost fifteen years previously. Sure, she didn't think he should be out roaming the streets a free man... if he in fact, was capable of roaming said streets. He was obviously disturbed, and had no place out there in the world that people like herself often took for granted. But the idea of taking him out of Smith's Grove and shipping him up to the State penitentiary seemed unnecessary, and in fact almost cruel.
Kim had always been told she had a big heart. It had been one of the things in fact that had set her on the career path she'd chosen. Ever since she'd been little, she'd known what she wanted to do with her life. She wanted to help people. That had been her driving goal in life, the one that had pushed her through nursing school through countless late nights of study and arduous days of practicals. She'd finally made it through, and while Smith's Grove had not been her first choice, it did help that her aunt had worked here since the late sixties and had vouched for her. She'd really wanted to work in Labor and Delivery somewhere, but she supposed that would come later down the line for her when she had more experience under her belt.
At any rate, she'd wanted to help people. Somehow, she didn't feel like her time in this room was doing anything to help the man in bed a few feet away. In fact, she felt like a co-conspirator, an agent for harm rather than healing. Loomis's warnings by now had gone out the window, as far as she was concerned. For whatever reason, he seemed to have it in for his patient, for reasons she couldn't fathom. She did know however, that she was going to do something she'd never even considered before, and her resoluteness shocked her.
It was approaching midnight, and she had made up her mind. She would take lunch at one, and when she returned she was supposed to go ahead and give him the first outrageously heavy dose of Thorazine, according to his chart.
And she wasn't going to. Not the whole dose, anyway. Kim knew enough to know one couldn't just stop giving a patient their medication. But she wasn't going to give him the huge dosage Loomis had prescribed. She'd been around long enough to have caught on to some of the sneakier habits of her fellow nurses. Not that she'd name names, but she knew for a fact some of the nurses here snitched some of the 'better' medications for themselves, especially painkillers. It was easy enough to chart that a pill or injection had been given and then either pocket the pills or take a quick spike of whatever analgesic floated one's boat. Not that Kim would ever dream of doing anything like that, but she knew it happened.
It would be just as easy to squirt out some of that Thorazine, and only give him half. That way, there wouldn't be an issue with sudden withdrawal, and her own conscience would be soothed tremendously. Honestly, even before she'd heard about the reality of his upcoming court date, she hadn't felt right giving him so much of that powerful drug. Half was still quite a bit, but she'd seen doses in that range in her time at Smith's Grove. It was far more reasonable, and easier on her conscience at the same time.
She peeked over the paper, and to her surprise she saw he'd opened his eyes again, as if he somehow knew that she'd been thinking about him. He still wasn't looking at her, or acknowledging her in anyway, but he definitely seemed what passed for awake for him. She set the paper down, and walked back over to his bedside, and looked him right in the eye.
To her shock, for a split second those dark eyes flicked over to her own, and focused in, and she could swear she saw some sort of glimmer of intelligence there. Before she could speak a word of encouragement however, he'd shifted his attention back to the wall leaving her to think she'd imagined the whole thing.
