She walked through the automatic doors in the A & E department and despite the distance and her blurred vision, she recognised Stephen sitting behind the desk by his light pink shirt, which he said made him look welcoming and approachable, but which she thought looked a little effeminate. At a distance, and with her distorted vision, he resembled a blancmange.
Hoping he noticed, she waved and saw him wave back. Then she went to sit in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs in the waiting area where people sat snuffling and complaining about the length of time they’d already waited to be seen.
After a moment, the blancmange came out from behind the security screen and walked towards her until it gained clarity.
“You ready?” Joanna asked.
“You’ll have to give me another fifteen minutes as I’m running late,” Stephen said. “How are the eyes?”
“They’d be better if I didn’t have to look at that pink shirt.”
“I could always wear my Hawaiian one instead.”
“What, and let me think I was on an acid trip. No, I think you should stick with the pink.”
“Are you talking rude again?”
“Moi? Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Stephen grinned. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”
“I hope that’s only a reference to leaving work.” She saw Stephen blush before he walked away sniggering.
With the lack of chairs for those waiting to be seen by the medical staff, she stood and wandered towards the corridor leading to the various departments, each one reached by following the colour coded lines on the floor.
In the distance, she saw an orderly pushing a hospital bed towards her. As the bed got closer, she recognised the man lying in it as the bodybuilder who had fallen onto the railway tracks. She remembered Stephen saying his name was Lincoln.
He was propped up and by the looks of the bandaged stump around where his bicep would have been, they hadn’t managed to save his arm. But with no sign of the black phantom limb that she thought she had seen earlier, she now realised it must have been either her imagination or a visual aberration caused by the protruding stitch and despite her pity for the man, she felt relieved she wasn’t going bonkers.
As the bed drew alongside Joanna, the orderly pressed a button for the lift and Lincoln looked up at her. Despite his size and the fake tan adorning his face, he appeared drawn and sickly, no doubt an after-effect of the accident and subsequent operation. His eyelids flickered, eyes rolling in their sockets.
“Do I know you?” Lincoln asked, his voice a little slurred.
“I was at the train station,” Joanna said. “You sat next to me on the platform.” She paused. “I’m so sorry about what happened.”
“Not as sorry as I am.”
The lift doors opened and a couple of people exited.
Joanna looked back down at Lincoln, about to say something in reply, when she saw his eyes close as sleep laid claim.
Then his eyes snapped back open, making Joanna jump. He stared up at her, only his blue eyes were now as black as obsidian.
The black limb materialised from the stump of his arm, fingers flexing.
Joanna took a step back, her mouth open and her eyes wide as she shook her head, trying to dispel the image.
“It’s good to be back,” Lincoln said. “It’s been too long.” He grinned, the white teeth looking oddly menacing in the tanned features.
He stared at Joanna, and her legs started to shake.
“You know what they say, possession’s nine tenths of the law.” He emitted a booming laugh.
Despite the pain the movement caused in her eye, Joanna turned and ran. Ran as fast as her legs could carry her through the reception and out into the fresh air, the roar of laughter silenced by the doors sliding shut in her wake.
Whatever the hell was going on, she wasn’t going to hang around to find out.
CHAPTER 3
“What happened to you?” Stephen asked. “One minute you were waiting in the hospital, and the next you’d gone. I tried ringing you on your mobile, but you wouldn’t answer.”
Joanna leaned back on the threadbare settee and took a deep breath. What was the best way to tell him she might be going crazy?
“Jo, talk to me. I was worried sick. I went down the corridor where I’d seen you walk, and there was that man who lost his arm, you know Lincoln.”
Joanna shuddered and the blood drained from her face.
“He was waiting to be taken up in the lift. Looked way too, well, happy I guess, for a man who’d just lost his arm.”
“What about him?” Joanna snapped.
Stephen frowned. “Hey. Take it easy. No need to bite my head off. I was only going to say that the orderly pushing the bed said you ran off after talking to Lincoln. What’s going on?” His tongue peeked from the corner of his mouth.
Joanna closed her eyes, but the darkness behind the lids made her recall the blackness that surrounded Lincoln, so she opened them again. “I don’t know what’s going on. It’s… complicated.”
“Just tell me.”
She took another long breath, then an equally long exhalation, delaying the revelation. “That man, Lincoln.”
“Yeah, what a bloke. Talk about upbeat.”
“I thought you wanted to know what was wrong.”
“I do. It’s just, Jesus, man loses his arm and anyone would think he’d won the lottery. He asked about you. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you had an admirer.”
Joanna froze. “Why, what did he say?”
“Not much. Just asked if I knew you and where you lived.”
The blood froze in Joanna’s veins, she felt her heart pound within her chest.
“So what’s going on.”
“What’s going on? I wish I knew.” She stared around the living room of her one bedroom apartment. Photographs decorated the walls, black and white portraits taken when her sight wasn’t as bad. She liked to think she captured the subjects’ essence in the shots, trying to make them as natural as possible. The wrinkles on a pensioner’s face a map of time. A young girl, head thrown back as she laughed – looking at the photograph usually made Joanna smile, as though she could hear the laughter, but not today. Today she felt cold inside and she shivered.
“You’re starting to scare me now. Did the doctor at the hospital tell you something that you’re not telling me?”
“No, he said everything’s fine.”
“Then what is it?”
“I was trying to tell you. It’s that man, the one who lost his arm. Well, I saw something, something strange. When he lost his arm, I saw, I don’t know, another limb sticking out from where his arm should have been.”
Stephen frowned. “A what?”
“I don’t know. A sort of limb.”
“You probably imagined it. Hell, you’d just seen a man lose his arm. That’s enough to freak anyone out.”
“I didn’t imagine it.”
“Well what other explanation could there be?”
Joanna licked her lips. “I think there’s something wrong with the transplant.”
“Did you mention it to the doctor?”
Joanna shook her head.
“Well don’t you think you should have?”
“I don’t know. I was scared he would think I was, you know, crazy.”
“No crazier than anyone else.” He winked. “So why’d you run out of the hospital?”
“Because I saw it again, that ghost limb thing when I saw Lincoln in the corridor. The first time, yes, I might have imagined it, but twice!”
“Have you thought that seeing the man again made you see it? That the sight of him triggered the shock from the accident and that you’re, I don’t know, imprinting an arm where there isn’t one to disguise the horror of what you’d seen.”