One Night at St. Mary’s
Based off a "3 random words" prompt from a comment on Tik Tok! The words were: "pinafore, fortify, ostentatious" See if you can find where each word influenced the story!
April 25th, 1952. Conners Switch, Indiana.
Claire Thompson had volunteered to stay for the extra shift overnight tonight. Usually the candy stripers (especially if they were still in high school, as she was) were always sent home much much earlier--even before dinner time most days. But occasionally, if the doctors and nurses at the hospital really needed the help, they would request for volunteers to stay and assist overnight. This night was not particularly busy, really, so there had been no requests.
But she volunteered because she couldn’t help feeling at least a little bit responsible for what had happened to Johnny Conner.
If she had only just said yes when he asked her to the Spring dance last Friday...then he wouldn’t be laying here on the hospital bed, sweating like he was in the middle of the night.
Why didn’t she just say yes?
She sat down on the bed next to him, took the towel from the bedside table, dipped it into the cool water in the bowl, and dabbed it across Johnny’s young boyish face (looking more like a boy than a man now, cowering and whimpering in his sleep as he was). She wiped the sweat from his forehead, replaced the towel, and wiped her hands dry on the red and white striped pinafore that all the candy stripers wore.
She looked to the clock on the wall. Almost three in the morning now...she felt the ache in her bones and feet (especially her feet), from the long day of assisting nurses and caring for patients and learning new things that she hoped she would eventually be taking with her into her career as a professional nurse in a few years.
She’d been volunteering at St. Mary’s hospital in Conners Switch, Indiana, since about the middle of last summer. And had kept it up all through her senior year at St. Michael’s high school. Doctor Lincoln had said it was alright (but only after considerable begging from Claire!), and that was a big win for her. Doctor Lincoln didn’t usually accept high school volunteers unless it was during the summer breaks. But Claire had worked her butt off trying to be as helpful as she possibly could at the hospital, and she’d kept on insisting that she could still manage her school work and keep up with the volunteering at the same time. And Doctor Lincoln had finally caved in with the caveat that she had to bring him every single report card that she got, so that he could be sure her volunteer work at St. Mary’s wasn’t affecting her grades negatively.
So far, she’d brought him straight A’s on every single report card, except for one B+ in Advanced Biology last semester. And so she’d been able to keep up with her work here at the hospital through the entire school year. And now there was a little over a month left. The Spring Dance and the final exams were all that were left.
She loved doing it. And she was able to keep her grades up. But her social life had all but disappeared. And so when Johnny Conner had asked her to be his date to the Spring Dance, it didn’t even take any thought to tell him “no.”
Life was so busy already, Claire had never planned on going to the dance. And she’d told Johnny as much the first time he asked her. She just didn’t have the time for the dance (let alone to go steady with someone, which she knew was what Johnny was really after). So she just thought it best not to lead the poor boy on.
But he kept on asking.
Each new proposal was more dramatic than the last. And not more than two days went by in a school week without Claire getting some flowers in her locker, a box of chocolates, and one time an awfully corny love poem.
Every time Claire gave him the same answer. But that only seemed to make him more eager to try again.
And then finally, earlier today, Johnny had gone and got himself hurt. Claire wasn’t certain, but she had the feeling that it was because of her. That Johnny had been going up to Haley Manor to impress her or something. Maybe to find something that was left behind in the abandoned house that would seem romantic, to give to her as another present. (The best one yet! This one is a rare artifact. I had to go deep into that old haunted house to find it for you my sweet, now won’t you please be my date to the Spring Dance? It’s just a dance! We don’t even need to go to the diner after with everyone else, I’ll just take you straight home!)
“Oh Johnny,” Claire said, looking at him as he tossed and turned on the bed.
New beads of sweat had already appeared on his forehead where she had just wiped him clean. She touched his face, expecting fever-hot skin. But it was ice cold.
This alarmed her more than the heat would have. She wasn’t sure what was wrong with him. Even Doctor Lincoln hadn’t been able to give a sure answer to Johnny’s mother when she’d come in. His best guess was that Johnny was in some state of shock. His vitals had all been fine. Medically speaking, there was nothing actually wrong with him. And when his friends had driven him into the hospital and admitted to the doctors and nurses (while looking down at their feet with a childlike shame) that they’d been daring each other to go into the old Haley Manor, Doctor Lincoln had surmised that the boy had simply frightened himself good. And that after a night’s sleep he would be better in the morning. But he had insisted on Johnny staying the night in the hospital, just so he could be monitored until morning. But he had assured his mother that if everything checked out when the sun came up, Johnny would be able to go home that day, and probably still play in the big baseball game on Friday against Conners High.
The other boys that were with Johnny at the old Manor, Eric Tanner and two other boys from the baseball team whose names Claire did not know, swore that they didn’t see what had happened to Johnny. They said that they were all off exploring different areas of the old house when they’d heard Johnny scream and then a loud clattering sound. When they found him upstairs in the Master Bedroom, he was already collapsed on the ground, asleep like he was now. Only he hadn’t been tossing and turning at the time. Just asleep and pale.
But the icy chill of Johnny’s skin had Claire worried now. It was like he’d just come in from a blizzard or something. She was about to go and get Doctor Lincoln. She stood up and was walking to the door, the fatigue she’d felt just moments earlier now replaced by an urgent rush of energy. And that’s when Johnny started talking. Softly at first but then it turned into almost a yell. A frightened kind of yell.
“No,” Johnny said, shaking his back and forth on the sweat-drenched pillow of the hospital bed. “No no no no no no NO!”
“Johnny?” Claire said, walking back toward his bed. “Johnny? Are you awake? What’s the matter?”
“Get away from me!” Johnny said. “Don’t touch me! Don’t--”
Just then Johnny shot up in bed, gasping madly like a man who had almost drowned. His eyes shot around the room, a deep confusion in them as he tried to figure out where he was.
“Johnny,” Claire said, trying to sound calm with a voice that was trained over a year of being a volunteer nurse. “It’s okay, Johnny, you’re safe. You’re at St. Mary’s Hospital.”
Johnny looked at her for a moment, still with that frightened and confused look on his sweat-covered face.
“I’m what?” Johnny said, and then a realization started to come over him. “Claire? Claire Thompson?”
“Yes,” she said, smiling. “That Claire.”
“Why am I here? When did I...”
“Eric Tanner and the others brought you in after you fainted at the old Haley Manor. At least that’s what they said happened. Listen Johnny, I swear if this was just some elaborate ploy of yours to ask me to the Spring Dance again, I’m gonna--”
“No,” Johnny said, cutting her off. He looked frightened again. “I mean, yes, it was going to be. But...no.”
“Well...it’s okay. You’re safe now. You don’t have to be frightened.”
“I’m not frightened,” Johnny said defensively.
“It sounded like you were having one crazy nightmare,” Claire said.
“It did?” Johnny said. “How do you know?”
“Because you were talking in your sleep.”
“I did? What did I say?”
“I don’t know, really. You weren’t exactly speaking in coherent sentences. Something about ‘he’s going to touch me, don’t let him touch me.’”
Johnny shivered. And Claire believed that if the boy could’ve gone any paler than he already was, then he would’ve done it right then and there. But he was already as white as the bed covers draped over his lap. He looked off toward the far corner of the room where an empty chair sat. He looked like he was deep in thought, but also looked like he was working himself up into some big fright again.
“Do you remember anything?” Claire asked. “I mean anything that happened at the old Manor. Do you know why you fainted? What you were doing right before it happened?”
She thought that she should absolutely be halfway down the hallway right now, trying to find Doctor Stanford (who was the resident Doctor at St. Mary’s tonight) to tell him that the boy from earlier today had finally woken up. But Claire thought that there wouldn’t be any harm in letting Johnny come to his senses a little bit before the doctor came in and started asking a hundred and one different questions.
Johnny didn’t say anything. He just kept staring at that empty corner of the room.
“Johnny?”
“Huh?” He looked at her.
“Do you remember what happened before you fainted?”
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