Backwards Into Hell

Part One: The Lodge

Some Weeks Ago

I was at work when she died.

In fact, I was in a small court in Hertfordshire arguing out the details of a fraud case while last night's argument rattled around my brain. It had been about the dishes. Our old dishwasher had finally packed up and, while we were hanging around for a new one, I hadn't been pulling my weight.

To put the cherry on top, Rachel had an interview at one of the top law firms in the country that week (she was far more successful than me, you see). And as she'd been busy preparing, I'd been moaning about the washing. A lot.

Back to the courtroom. As I graciously lost the case and left, it felt like any other day. The halls were busy, full of wide-eyed defendants and stressed attorneys slipping down the polished wood floor with sheets of paper flapping in hand. I took no notice of them and reached for my phone—we weren't allowed them while court was in session—and checked for messages.

There was just one: a missed call from an unknown number. I'd had a barrage of spam callers that past month, everything ranging from accidents at work to Nigerian princes, so I was ready to block it when a chill came across my neck. Something in me already knew.

They answered immediately.

'St Bernard's Hospital. How can I help?'

I held the phone tighter.

'You called me earlier?'

'Let me just check that for you, Sir. Would you mind giving your name?'

'Sure.' I leaned against the hard wall. It felt so much warmer than usual. 'It's Jake. Jake Jones.'

'Right. One second, Sir.'

Her keyboard clacked and the world swam as my mind raced to find an explanation. A few weeks ago I'd given blood. Maybe they'd found something in it.

'Are you still there?' she asked. I noted her voice had changed to be softer, more sympathetic.

'Still here.'

'I'm sorry to tell you this, but your wife's been in an accident. You'll need to come in as soon as...'

I slid to the floor and cradled my knees as the receptionist continued. Rachel. I hadn't even thought it could be about her.

My hand was so clammy the phone began to slip from my fingers. Anyway, I didn't—couldn't—listen to a word she said. My heart was too loud. Its pulse roaring like a tractor.

Thud-thud. Thud-thud. Thud-thud.

'Is she alive?' I interrupted.

A quiet breath came through the phone.

'She's in Resus. If you come in, we can give you more information.'

I hung up the phone then. It was rude, probably, but she wasn't going to be any help.

That word ran around my head—Resus. Resuscitation.

It was a few minutes before I got up from the floor. No one had noticed or cared enough to ask, so I staggered through the hall and out to the car park alone. Everything was fogged, blurred like my eyes were falling out.

I don't remember the drive to the hospital. My memory's blank until my hands fall on the main desk.

'Rachel Jones?' checked the next receptionist.

I nodded. More keyboard clacking ensued.

'Down the hall and to the left. Follow the signs.'

I muttered a breathless thanks and skidded away. Everything in the hospital was white—meant to look clean. The air stank of disinfectant and it all looked exactly the same. A maze.

But I found it, and God was it noisy.

Throughout the ward a cacophony of beeps and buzzes filtered through the shouts of patients, doctors, and nurses as the smell of disinfectant followed me through the door. It was, in short, hell.

The first man was silent. He was in a white bed next to the doors with his eyes tight shut and all manner of injuries covered by just a thin bedsheet. I stared at him a while before gazing across the room. Through the chaos, on a bed surrounded by heavy machines, was Rachel.

She was unconscious. Her arms were pumped full of plastic tubes and she looked no better than the other patients. I went to dash forward as someone placed their hand on my shoulder.

'Mr. Jones?' she asked.

I half-nodded, half-grunted in response as I swung my head.

'I'm Doctor Gates. I'm looking after Rachel. Would you like to come and sit in the family room for a few moments?'

I wouldn't. All I wanted was to see Rachel. But as the Doctor gazed at me with her ice-cold topaz eyes, I realised it wasn't a question I could say no to. So she guided me through another set of doors and into a room far from the chaos that had plastic blue chairs and sported a cheap vending machine in one corner.

She began to explain it then. The drugs they were pumping into Rachel would help, but she'd lost a lot of blood and been put into a coma. That was her only chance. Except she was bleeding into her brain too.

They let me see her after an hour or two. Rachel was still asleep, of course, and I sat by her bed, gripping her limp hand and blinking back the tears. I felt everyone's eyes on me—the ward was no private place—but I tuned them out, turning my thoughts to prayer.

I've never been a religious man. My parents raised me with science and cold, hard logic. Dad especially believed a man shouldn't concern himself with higher beings and malevolent spirits.

'That stuff is for the weak-minded,' he would say over long games of chess, and I would nod—even if I didn't agree—because just a small protest would lead to a half-portion dinner and, if he'd had a bad day, the belt.

Despite all of that, I prayed. In times that bad, everyone wants to believe in something bigger than themselves. That there's some reason for what happened. That someone in this unholy mess of a universe, has a plan.

But the prayer didn't work.

Rachel died just after midnight. For the last hour, in some sick twist of fate, she appeared to be getting better. She started to stabilise, as the nurses explained. Her pulse was stronger and her blood pressure improved. So I let a tiny, warm piece of hope bloom in my chest as I kept her hand in mine.

Then the beeps started.

They were short at first, quiet. But as the sounds began to build, staff rushed to the bed, shouting in fractured medical codes. I was shoved away, disregarded, and watched as the curtains were pulled and her hand left a space in mine.

I didn't see the rest.

I waited in the family room until Dr Gates came to break the news. Then they booked me a taxi home and I went, numb, to our silent flat where nothing waited for me apart but a pile of dirty dishes on the counter. For the next week, I did nothing.

It was past lunchtime by the time I would slug out of bed everyday and, skipping food entirely, I'd grab a twelve-pack of beer in the kitchen cupboard and migrate to the sofa. The phone would keep ringing. I ignored it. I watched crap TV until my eyes stung and my brain melted.

Friends and family would only say one thing—I knew that much from when Dad died—they'd ring, give me some half-hearted apology or offer of help and put the phone back down, feeling all the better for it. But what did apologies matter when Rachel wasn't there?

At about nine o'clock one evening, I chucked another bottle into the pile and the power cut out. I didn't move. I hadn't been watching anyway, not really, and as I reached across the sofa for another beer, someone cleared their throat behind me.

He was here.