Chapter 7: The Moving Equipment

The fluorescent lights of Salt Lake Regional Hospital Psychiatric Ward hummed their usual monotonous tune, a lullaby of sorts for the sleepless and the restless. But for me, a day shift housekeeper named Amythat hum had begun to carry a subtle dissonance, a tremor beneath the surface of the ordinary. It started subtly, almost imperceptibly, with the equipment.

It was the IV poles first. They were always parked just so, angled against the wall beside each patient’s door, their metal bases gleaming under the sterile light. Then, one morning, I found one a good ten feet down the corridor, its wheels inexplicably rotated to face the stairwell. I chalked it up to a tired orderly, a late-night emergency that had necessitated a hasty repositioning. But then it happened again. And again. Always the same poles, always moved when no one was around. They’d be tucked neatly beside Mrs. Gable’s room at the start of my shift, and by dawn, they’d be found lurking by the nurses’ station, as if waiting for someone to notice their silent migration.

Next came the wheelchairs. We had a few sturdy, no-nonsense models, usually lined up in a neat row in the common room, ready for patients who needed a little extra support. One night, after a particularly uneventful few hours, I went to fetch one for Mr. Henderson, who liked to wheel himself down to the solarium for a pre-dawn cigarette. The row was empty. Every single wheelchair had vanished. A cold dread began to prickle at the back of my neck. I scoured the ward. They weren't in the linen closet, not in the medication room, not even stashed in the seldom-used therapy room. Just as panic was about to set in, I found them. They were all neatly arranged, four abreast, right in the middle of the main corridor, facing the west wing doors. It was as if a phantom convention had convened in the dead of night, a silent, metallic gathering.