NICK CLARK imagines

In the Hospital

I could hear him shuffling around in the bed next to me. I'd barely been able to get any sleep since he was brought it. He was a junkie, that much was obvious, but there was something interesting about it. The first time I saw him, there was a look of terror in his eyes as if he'd seen something unexplainable and horrifying. The doctors called him crazy, told him that he hallucinated what he saw. I didn't believe it. I'd known junkies before and seen them during their bad trips. This wasn't one of those. Whatever he had seen, it must have been truly terrible for him to have ran out into the street like that.

His name was Nick. He seemed nice enough, a bit awkward but that was expected, after all, we were both trauma patients. One late night, a few hours after his parents left, I finally got to talk to him. He was surprisingly open about his life. He was 19 and a heroin addict and his dad had died a while back. Eventually, I even got a smile out of him. Not one of those sarcastic smiles like he gave the police officers when they questioned him, no this one was genuine. I decided that Nick was a good guy in a bad situation, for the most part.

I told him what had prompted my trip to the hospital. My mom, she had gotten sick, really sick. One night I came home to blood on the walls. My mom had lost it, I found her in the living room..chewing on my dad's spleen. The doctors didn't know what it was. They kept me here because of the shock but I think it's because they thought I was probably sick too. A lot of people were getting sick these days. That's why I believed Nick when he told me what happened, that his friend Gloria had attacked people, fed on them. Nick understood. It made it easier to talk to him, knowing that he was going through the same thing as me.

On the third night of his stay, I woke up in my bed. I could hear him moving around quickly, almost desperately. I couldn't quite see what he was doing in the dark but I could make out the outline of his body in the dark. He was dressing, grabbing things off the tables.

"Nick?" He froze. "Nick, what're you doing?"

"I have to get out of here." I got out of my bed and walked towards him, laying my hand on his shoulder, he flinched slightly.

"And where are you gonna go?"

"Anywhere. Anywhere but here. I can't stay In this room."

"Then I'll come with you." Though it was dark and he wouldn't be able to see my face, he turned around. The glow from the window at the end of the room was almost non-existent but it illuminated his face enough to see his confused expression.

"No. You can't, you don't wanna go where I'm going."

"Nick, I know what you went through, I saw it okay, with my own two eyes, I know what these...things..are capable of. I'm not gonna let you go alone and risk getting hurt."

"But..why?"

"I don't know....I guess I just care about you."

"Well we have to go now, before the guards get back, change back into the clothes they brought you here in, we can probably climb out through the window." I hurried to get my clothes on, pausing to think about what I was about to do. He was almost a complete stranger, someone I had known only three days and yet, I couldn't help feeling comforted that I was going with him. I trusted him, maybe because he knew what was out there or maybe because of those brown eyes that told the stories that his words couldn't, either way, I was getting out of this place.

We ended up sleeping in a park slide a few miles away from the hospital, it was cold and slightly terrifying, but I had to admit, it was sort of a rush. The next week or so was spent taking care of Nick during his withdrawals while we headed back to his parents house. I grew attached to him, even at the times he was covered in his own sweat and puke. He was sweet and funny too, even with all the pain of not having drugs in his system. Sometimes, he'd stay up and watch for any danger during the night when I slept, I don't think he knew that I knew he did this. It was then that I started falling for him. Our glances towards each other became more prolonged, he started sleeping with his arm around me, and we just sort of..gravitated towards one another.

He was difficult to read. I didn't know what he thought of me. Maybe he just wanted to protect me, but subconsciously, I wanted it to be more. We made it to his parents house, just before the worst of it hit. The military came in, fenced up the whole neighborhood. Apparently people were sicker than we thought. One night, I woke to the sound of the back door opening. I grabbed the nearest thing to me, a lamp, of all things. I followed the sound out to the backyard, shaking, hoping it wasn't one of the dead.

There he was, standing in the moonlight. He was looking up at the stars. He looked troubled. "Nick? Are you alright? You should come inside, its past curfew." He looked at me then, smiling cynically.

"You think this is forever?"

"What?"

"This thing, whatever's happening, do you think it's forever, that it won't end."

"I don't know Nick. I'm sure they're looking for a cure."

"What if they don't find one?"

"Then we'll just have to find a way to survive."

"We?"

"Yeah...we....I'm not just gonna let you fend for yourself you know, you couldn't last two seconds without me." I told him sarcastically.

"Good....I don't want you to go."

"I don't want you to go either Nick, don't run off on me okay?"

"Can I tell you something?" The tone of his voice made me nervous.

"Of course."

"I think, that I love you. I think I have since you left that hospital with me."

"You mean to tell me that I've been falling for you for weeks wondering if you had feelings for me and you didn't say anything?"

"I guess I've just been waiting for you to catch up with me."