deformed bone

After 15 years--

Bradmore State Hospital

"Don't go into that room alone, listen, I repeat, no matter what happens, don't go in alone - always remember to have your partner with you, you should choose people with good hearts and integrity with you together."

Cyndia Sandford stood by the cart and said to the new girl.

Before this hospital was officially established, she worked in another hospital in Seattle for 20 years. The rainy season there made her arthritis worse. She moved to the drier and hotter West Coast, and then she worked in Bradmore. State hospital for an additional 30 years until now.

She was a stern, unkind Mexican woman with menacing eyes in a hazel face.In Bradmore, any qualified doctors and nurses follow the law of silence. If there is any special trouble here, then there will be no problem in listening to Cyndia.It is precisely because of this special authority that after "Red Deer" was transferred to this hospital, Cyndia Sandford has been in charge of his ward. Up to now, 15 years have passed— —and even Cyndia Sandford was not immune to cancer.

She will retire at the end of this month, and before that, she has to fill the heads of the girls around her with some necessary common sense.And this common sense is obviously not limited to how to use light blue disinfectant spray to wipe down the toilet and the low cabinet and how to change the poop-stained diaper of the paralyzed patient-it needs to be repeated and ensured that they remember it. matter.

For example, don't go to the intensive care unit where "Red Deer" is alone.

"...if you can't find someone to accompany you, then tell the nurse on duty that you are not feeling well and need to rest." Cyndia Sandford said expressionlessly to Isabel Laidlaw, a woman who is somewhat familiar with life. said the overzealous new nurse.The latter opened his eyes slightly.

"Uh... would this work? I mean - what's wrong with that room?"

Cyndia peered at Isabel from behind the high stacks of fresh sheets, her pupils reminding young women of cats that have lived too long.That strange, oppressive gaze stared at Isabel a little uncomfortable.Just when she was about to apologize for her stupid question, Cyndia lowered her voice and said.

"That's the room of the 'Red Deer'."

Her look made people feel that she seemed to be afraid of touching something.

"Red deer? Is that...who?"

Isabel asked in a daze.

"A demon." Cyndia turned around suddenly, and pushed the trolley towards the end of the corridor. "He was very famous back then. People tried to kill him with the electric chair, but something went wrong in the end."

The Mexican woman paused, and stretched out a finger to circle around the temple.

"They gave three electric shocks, but they still didn't kill him. Some people said that it was because the man was protected by a demon... But who knows, he survived in the end, but the electric current damaged his brain. He's been in a vegetable ever since. Those damn lawyers finally got him out and dumped him here."

Isabel frowned and thought about it, and after a while, she showed an expression of enlightenment——

"My God, you mean that guy, I think I know him... God, he's in this hospital?!"

What made Cyndia feel a little uneasy was the surprised expression on Isabel's face.

"Yes, he has been."

Her voice became a little low, and her serious expression made her look even more difficult to get close to.Isabel immediately realized the change in the other party's mood, she calmed down and smiled at Cindia embarrassedly.

"Sorry—I'm just a little... how should I put it, it's the 'Red Deer' after all, and boys used his stories to scare girls when I was in middle school, you know, when the tabloids made him look like someone People like witches and Gu masters, those stories, the gates of hell and so on, although they are all made up, but at that time it was enough to scare people, isn't it? I was scared many times. "

Isabel said, her tone quickened because of her nervousness.

The corner of Cyndia's mouth pulled down in a stern arc.

"...Some things are not just made up."

she said softly.

"what?"

Isabel didn't hear Cyndia's mumbling, she asked suspiciously, but the latter seemed to have suddenly lost interest in this topic.

"Well, my girl, you just have to take note of what I say."

Cyndia forcibly interrupted the topic.Isabel shrugged her shoulders, maybe it was an illusion, Isabel always felt that Cyndia was avoiding those mysterious stories about "Red Deer".

They have completed most of the work on this floor, leaving only the intensive care unit where "Red Deer" is.Cyndia waited at the door of the ward for a while, until the hands of the watch on her wrist reached twelve o'clock at noon, before she motioned for Isabel to enter the ward with her.

It has to be said that Cyndia's serious attitude made Isabel feel nervous.She swallowed dryly before following Cyndia into the door—she thought she would feel something special, like those described in those horror movies, flickering on the roof Lighting, windless automatic curtains and the like...

However, in fact, this intensive care unit is no different from the dozen or so wards she cleaned before.

The air was filled with the smell of detergent and ozone, and from the corner came the electronic sound of life-support equipment ticking regularly.

"Shh-"

Cyndia walked to the window with ease, and she opened the curtains.

When she's in this room, she always makes sure there's plenty of bright light.

Behind her, Isabelle was clumsily pouring disinfectant into a spray bottle. While doing this, she habitually looked towards the side of the hospital bed. Normally, there would always be something on the bedside of an inpatient. , sometimes a bouquet of flowers from a loved one, sometimes a patient’s own note holder (there is always a diabetic old man hiding a handful of candy there under the mattress near the pillow)—but the bedside of "Red Deer" Nothing at all.

On the light blue bed sheet, a man lay there quietly.

Isabel's eyes widened, and she stared blankly at the man on the bed, that...the legendary demon, the serial killer "Red Deer", who survived the electric shock.

Her movements stopped unconsciously, and she was very surprised to find that it turned out to be a young and handsome man - his skin was smooth and rosy, his facial features were very deep, the eyes below the browbones were tightly closed, and his head was closed. The long brown hair is gathered around his face, the thin, red lips are tightly closed, but the corners of the mouth are slightly hooked up, like a subtle and sweet smile.In fact, he looked almost like a man in a deep sleep, a male version of Sleeping Beauty.

However, the scene that should have been pleasing to a mature woman made Isabel's back suddenly feel chilly.

She turned her head to look at Cyndia, who had returned to the side of the cart and was also looking at her.There was no verbal communication between the two women, but in this short moment, Isabel felt the importance of Cyndia's previous warning.

Yes, something is not right in this room—no, no, it should be said, something is not right with "Red Deer".

As a vegetative person who has been in a coma for 15 years, his state is too unusual...Isabel has seen people who live on the hospital bed with instruments, and it doesn’t even take 15 years, it only needs about a year of vegetative life, no matter what No matter how rich those people are, no matter how advanced equipment and meticulous care they use, they will always present similar characteristics.Their hair will be as dry and messy as dried straw, their skin will become deadly waxy white, their cheeks will be deeply sunken due to the loss of fat, and the skin of their mouths that lack saliva will become powdery. of white dandruff.

They will definitely not be like "Red Deer", so bright and beautiful that they may suddenly yawn at any time, stretch their waists and wake up slowly...

Isabel felt that faint... ominous breath.

It is likely to have no substance, and can only be captured by the keenest female intuition: like the kind when you walk through a dark alley in the middle of the night, or when you come home alone and hear footsteps slowly overlapping behind you. The breath you can catch.

Her heart began to beat wildly inexplicably, and she felt that she should leave this room immediately if she could.

Cyndia looked at Isabel.

"Cheer up, Isa." She whispered, then took the hot sterile towel out of the plastic bag and walked towards the hospital bed.

She began cleaning Red Deer's body, and Isabel noticed that he didn't even show any signs of muscle atrophy.

"Are you sure, he, he..."

She asked dryly and in a very low voice.

Cyndia interrupted her: "I know what you want to ask. He didn't pretend, and he didn't get up at night when there was no one else to continue his terrible deeds... To be honest, many people think the same as you Same, but there have been several groups of people who have checked him, done brain waves and all that shit. Don't worry, he's in a vegetable."

Cyndia said solemnly and calmly to the flustered Isabel.

She didn't like the girl's excitable nature, and she wanted Isabel to be quiet if she could.It is precisely because of this that Cyndia looks even more relaxed than when she was outside the door.

"Don't worry, stay vigilant, but don't panic too much, my girl," Cyndia said to her companion, "Whatever he is, whether he is a demon or an ordinary vegetable, he has been 'quiet' for 15 years. '."

——It’s just that the distortion in this room has never disappeared.

Cyndia did not tell Isabel the last sentence.

She felt a little worried, obviously Isabel was much more sensitive than she thought, she didn't know if this girl could have enough strength to fight against that distorted breath like her.But soon she found she didn't have to worry about that—

A week later, when she and Isabel opened the door of the intensive care unit, they found that the light blue hospital bed was empty.

"Red Deer" is gone.