Chapter 4:

Chapter 4: Taking a turn

The next morning Melinda awoke to find that she had little memory of last nights' events. She was aware that the doctor had been over and she knew that she'd been sick but that's about it. Once she had come to Melinda rolled over to find that Jim was no longer lying next to her but when she listened carefully she could hear him downstairs clanking about in the kitchen. He was probably making breakfast or cleaning up the plates from dinner.

Feeling slightly better than she had done last night she slowly propped herself up and stepped out of bed. Her head was still spinning slightly but she managed to stay steady on her feet and headed to her wardrobe where she picked out an outfit for the day. As she began to get dressed she had a strange feeling that she was been watched but when she glanced around the room no one was there. She continued to get dressed pulling on a pair of blue jeans and a light blue dress top all the while feeling uneasy. She was sure that someone was watching her, that someone else was in the room but she could see nothing.

"Hello is anyone here?" She called hoping that if there was anyone around she could draw them out. She waited a while but nothing happened.

"Hello, I know you're watching me." She said again, still scanning all corners of the room for a presence. This time she did see a flicker in the mirror.

Taking a deep breath she slowly made her way over to the mirror on the wall, stopping right in front of it. Staring back at her was a familiar pair of dark eyes. They didn't blink; they didn't even move they just sent chills down her spine. Melinda had been staring into the mirror for a few minutes then the eyes disappeared and she was left staring at her own face except she looked pale, her face was battered and bruised and her eyes were no longer a warm brown colour, but black. They looked empty and blank, this couldn't be her reflection. She was about to scream for her husband when the mirror cracked and, although the image distorted, her reflection appeared as she expected it to be.

A wave of nausea swept over Mel as it had done last night and she ran to the bathroom, using every bit of her energy to prevent herself throwing up over the hall carpet. Once she reached the toilet she began violently vomiting again, she felt so ill and tears began to stream down her face.

Downstairs Melinda's frantic footsteps and retching noises had been heard from the kitchen and Jim immediately dropped what he was doing to check on his wife. He turned off the stove, which he was using to make homemade pancakes and headed straight to the bottom of the stairs.

"Mel you Ok." He called sounding worried.

When he didn't receive an answer Jim bounded up the stairs and opened the bathroom door. There he found he curled up, head slumped over the toilet bowl as she had been last night. Quickly he sat down next to her and put an arm around her back hoping to offer some comfort.

"Looks like you wont be wanting any pancakes then." He said trying to make Mel laugh but he soon realised she wasn't in a joking mood.

"Hey, it's Ok don't cry." He said as he noticed the tears falling down her face.

"Ji…m I…"She stopped talking as the vomit moved up into her mouth then threw up once more.

"Ok Mel I need to take you to the hospital. The doctor said if you were still throwing up I had to take you." Jim said looking scared for his wife. He knew that she was sick and probably dehydrated from all the fluids she'd lost and her safety was important to him.

"N..oo I'm fi...ne" Melinda tried her best to convince her husband that she didn't need to go to hospital but her efforts came up short as she threw up one last time.

Once she stopped vomiting the hunky paramedic scooped Melinda into his arms and carried her to the car. He laid her across the back seats fastening the middle belt around her so she didn't slide off then he shut the door and climbed into the driver's seat. He had barley belted up when he put his foot on the gas and sped toward the hospital.

At this moment in time the speed limit wasn't on his mind, all he wanted to do was get his wife to the hospital. All the way there he checked the rear view mirror to determine if she was still conscious and breathing. He had never been as worried about anyone in his life.

It was usually a 20 minute journey from their house to the nearest hospital but Jim had managed to get there in half the time. Pulling into the parking lot he quickly undid his seat belt and dived out of the car. Next he opened the door to the back of the car and took Melinda in his arms. He then closed the car door with his foot and ran into A&E. By this time Melinda was barely conscious and pretty dehydrated. Whilst she was in the car she had been sick again and had vomit down her top.

"Can someone help me, my wife's really sick?" Jim called as he bounded further into the emergency department.

"Ok I need a bed over here now." A man shouted, he was wearing a white lab coat so Jim assumed that he was a doctor.

"She keeps been sick, I think she's dehydrated, I called the doctor last night and he gave her some pills to settle her stomach but it hasn't worked." Jim said quickly still holding his wife in his arms. It was a wonder that anybody had a clue what he was talking about.

Another man arrived pushing a bed and Jim placed Melinda onto it carefully. She was clearly delirious now and refused to keep still. As the bed was wheeled away Jim was asked to wait outside until they had stabilised her. There were a few seats available to sit on but the doting husband refused to sit down and just paced backwards and forwards at quite a formidable pace.

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Melinda could now see the bright lights of the hospital room above her. There were several people bustling around muttering things to each other, all with serious looks on their faces but she had no idea what they were saying. Everything sounded muffled to her as her head hurt so much her ears felt blocked.

"We need to get an Intravenous drip into her straight away she's clearly dehydrated and there's no way we can get her to ingest the fluids orally." One man said as he looked at a nurse to bring over the correct equipment for the drip to be put into her arm.

"Her husband said she's been vomiting a lot but not replacing the fluids and the doctor was called last night. He took some bloods and gave her some anti-nausea medication but it didn't work." Another doctor said.

"Ok we need to check her records and track down her doctor, see if we can't hurry the blood tests up and see what they come up with." The first man replied, now sliding the drip into the middle of Melinda's arm. She did struggle a little but a female doctor kept her still.

Next the doctors hooked her up to a heart monitor and more bloods were taken as precaution. Melinda could here the beeping of the machine and she felt the power of speech returning to her.

"Jim…. Where's Jim." She asked desperately, there was no sign of him in the room and all she wanted was him to be with her.

"It's alright Mrs Gordon the nurse behind me will go and get your husband, just relax." A male doctor said in a rather patronising manner.

She hadn't noticed this one in the room before but he seemed rather old and from the way people were tip toeing around him she assumed he was the boss or some high up doctor man.

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"Mr Clancy, your wife is asking for you." The nurse said smiling and gesturing toward Melinda's room.

"Thank you." Jim replied as he hurriedly entered the room.

"Hey Mel, how you feeling?" He said his voice a little shaky from worry.

"Not that great, better now you're here though." She replied whilst holding his hand tightly not wanting to ever let him go.

"The doctors have taken some blood and are running some tests. They're trying to get hold of Dr. Eastman to see what pills he gave you last night but you're in the right place now." Jim said trying to put Mel at ease.

"They don't know what's wrong with me do they?" Mel asked her husband, looking deeply into his eyes.

"No not yet, but they will." He said insistently, more to convince himself than Melinda.

"I saw something at the house, before I was sick again." Mel said seriously.

"What was it." Jim asked.

"Those eyes again, then my face except it wasn't me because I was pale and scarred then the mirror broke." Mel finished. Even though she was clearly unwell the thoughts of the ghost still ruled her mind.

"You don't think it's the ghost causing this do you." Jim asked sincerely.

"No, if it was him I wouldn't still be ill now; they can only affect me if there near me. This one doesn't do nausea anyway he does dizziness and weird visions." Melinda answered, quite sure that the ghost was not the cause of her hospital admittance.

"Ok then you don't need to be thinking of the ghost now, you need to rest and concentrate on getting better. I'm going to call Delia and let her know what's happened." Jim said.

He kissed his wife lovingly on the forehead and went to make a call leaving Melinda with the doctors to get some much needed rest.