  Horror/Scary
This week: WELCOME TO THE NURSING HOME Edited by: W.D.Wilcox  
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"WELCOME HOME" |
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WELCOME TO THE NURSING HOME
People die hard.
The myth about folks just closing their eyes and falling asleep is really nothing more than that . . . a myth. Death isn’t anything like we've been told, or even imagined--God doesn’t reach down and gather us up into His arms.
Oh, hell no!
Death is more like a dramatic wrenching and tearing away of the soul--an out-and-out battle to stay alive.
People die hard because they don’t want to die. They fight for every breath, every minute . . . every second.
That’s what I believe, and I know it to be true . . . that, and the fact that I never thought I’d end up in a nursing home.
This is the way my new story "The Home" begins. I wrote it for my Dad, who passed away on his birthday, March 20th, 2014. He died in a nursing home after diabetes took his leg, and then his life. It's hard for me to imagine that he's gone. I mean, I know he is, but I just can't accept it. I loved my Dad very much.
The last time I saw him he told me of a nightmare he had. During the conversation he said he thought it might be something I could use in one of my stories. So I wrote it down and later tried to work it. I worked on it a lot, but was never quite happy with how it ended. I struggled with the tense: writing it in 3rd person, and then re-writing it again in 1st person. But I just couldn't get the story straight. I later realized what I really wanted was for it to sound like my Dad talking.
Life moves along so quickly, but never in the right direction. I didn't finish the story in time, and my Dad never got a chance to read it. But it's done now, and I just wanted to share a little bit of it with you. This scene takes place in the nursing home, Mercy House, and Bob (my Dad's name) is there to witness the death of his wife, Rose (my Mom's name).
Rose didn’t last long, a month, maybe. I was there at her side when she finally spoke to me again.
It was Halloween.
Her face was drawn, her body shrunken, as if Death, in a sneak-thief mood, had begun days ago to steal the substance of her, little-by-little, ounce-by-ounce. I could see her trying to draw strength from somewhere deep within herself just to speak.
“Bob, you gotta get me out of here,” she said suddenly, her voice sounding thick and throaty. Panic swam in her eyes and lapped at the edges of her face, but her desire for my attention was as clear as a cry.
“What?” I asked, startled at hearing her voice again after her long silence.
“I said, take me home.”
“But Rose, you’re sick,” I said, “real sick.”
“Listen to me,” she insisted. Her eyes had taken on a focus that I had not seen in weeks. She demanded that she be heard. “There’s something not right here," she continued. “There are ghosts. Ghosts everywhere."
She tried to swallow before going on. “Everybody knows about it. They try to hide it." Her head fell back into the pillow as she gasped for air. I could see her intensity slipping.
“Rose, I don’t understand. What are you saying?”
“They're here, damn it!” Rose clutched my arm with amazing strength. “Everybody’s afraid! I'm afraid!”
“But Rose, that's nonsense. You’re sick, honey, that’s all. They’ve given you a lot of medicine."
“Listen to me, you old fool! Everybody that's ever died here is still here.” She grimaced and closed her eyes until a wave of pain passed.
“But Rose, I don’t understand . . .”
Her eyes shot open. “The dead, they’ve . . . they’ve never left. They're all still here, hanging on. They're all here, Bob. All of them.”
An unbearable coughing spasm shook through her then that I felt powerless to do anything about. I grabbed the cup of water that sat on her nightstand, desperately trying to ease her pain. She took a small, helpless sip, and the moment ate at me with cruel teeth.
“They want me to join them,” she finally said again. “Keep me here, forever. Please, Bob, take me home. I don't wanna die here!”
I felt powerless to help.
“Please, Bob . . . please.”
I crushed her hand to my chest, and bawled like a baby. “I can’t, honey, I can’t.” I lowered my head as if defeated, and then finally told her the truth. “I’m so sorry, honey. I can’t save you from any of this. I can’t take care of you anymore.”
Her last act upon this earth was to squeeze my hand as if in forgiveness.
From out of nowhere an unexplained wind blew through the room. I smelled it: a nauseating odor, sour and putrescent beyond anything I had ever smelled before. It swirled around Rose’s bed like a little dust dervish, and then fell upon her.
Violently, her body arched. It was as if she were being lifted up by the waist, her head and feet still touching the bed. I watched in horror as an invisible force seemed to hold her up like some ghostly lover even though every muscle in her body fought and strained to push it away.
Then there was a terrible licking sound, like a bear lapping at the last bit of honey from the bottom of a deep jar. Rose thrashed her arms and legs.
Immediately I shot to my feet. “Nurse!” I screamed “Nurse!”
Then Rose collapsed back into the bed like a doll that has been thrown to the floor, never to be played with again.
I stood there stunned, horror drowning me in cold currents that robbed my breath and left me gasping for air.
Something invisible had come into the room. I knew it as sure as I knew my wife was dead.
Rose lay upon the bed, broken and lifeless. As a woman, she had loved and given of herself her whole life. Now Death, unimpressed with her selfless giving, had just cruelly stormed into the room, and took what was left of her.
The wind stirred within the room again, and something unseen whispered in my ear.
“Behold the rotting corpse.”
I jumped from the bedside, fear gripping me like a cold knot in my stomach.
”She’s with us now. No doubt the worms will be waiting for what’s left.”
I cried out, startled, flailing backwards, and then tried to look in every direction at once.
The nurse rushed in. “What is it? What’s happened?” Then she looked down at Rose. “Oh my, bless her soul,” she said, as if she had spoken from a canned and well-rehearsed script. “I’m afraid she’s gone, Mr. Williams. I’m so sorry, but there’s no more pain for her now. It’s all over.”
To me, Rose looked as if her exact likeness had been set in wax. Her skin, almost translucent, appeared penciled with small blue veins like a long-forgotten map to her heart.
I could still hear the voice inside my head. Behold the rotting corpse. The words echoed in my mind and I felt as if worms and maggots had crawled inside my head.
The nurse stepped in front of me, breaking the spell, and tried to pull the sheet up. Though she gave it a firm tug, she was unable to pull it completely over my wife's head, and it stopped just below Rose’s eyes.
I crumbled back into the chair, holding my knotted grief, and then put my head upon the white sheet that covered her breast.
I didn’t want to cry, but did anyway. I wept as if I were being torn out of myself by the roots. When I finally stood, my face was drenched in tears, and my chest shook with the effort of stifling sobs.
And that was it. She was gone.
If you enjoyed any of this, you can read the story in it's entirety at "The Home"
Until Next Time,
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DEAD LETTERS
dogpack saving 4premium 
Screams:
What a story filled with suspense, drama, mystery, and of course horror. Thank you for showing me a different side of horror that may allow me to enter into this world and crank out a story from a different genre. Halloween is spooky but horror can be horror with all kinds of things thrown in, so I've learned a lot and appreciate this lesson, thank you very much.
"REAL LIFE HORROR MOVIE: Helping A Friend"
Quick-Quill 
Plugs:
Some things are better left alone.
"Ghosts or not?"
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Horror/Scary: November 02, 2016 Issue [#7943]
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