Stephen King - End of Watch

‘There’s a number in here I want you to find,’ he says. ‘A nine-digit number. If you can find that number, Nurse Scapelli, today’s incident will remain between us.’

The first thing that comes to mind is You must be crazy, but she can’t say that, not when he holds her whole life in his hands. ‘How can I? I don’t know anything about those electronic gadgets! I can barely work my phone!’

‘Nonsense. As a surgical nurse, you were in great demand. Because of your dexterity.’

True enough, but it’s been ten years since she worked in the Kiner surgical suites, handing out scissors and retractors and sponges. She was offered a six-week course in microsurgery – the hospital would have paid seventy percent – but she had no interest. Or so she claimed; in truth, she was afraid of failing the course. He’s right, though, in her prime she had been fast.

Babineau pushes a button on top of the gadget. She cranes her neck to see. It lights up, and the words WELCOME TO ZAPPIT! appear. This is followed by a screen showing all sorts of icons. Games, she supposes. He swipes the screen once, twice, then tells her to stand next to him. When she hesitates, he smiles. Perhaps it’s meant to be pleasant and inviting, but it terrifies her, instead. Because there’s nothing in his eyes, no human expression at all.

‘Come, Nurse. I won’t bite you.’

Of course not. Only what if he does?

Nevertheless, she steps closer so she can see the screen, where exotic fish are swimming back and forth. When they flick their tails, bubbles stream up. A vaguely familiar little tune plays.

‘Do you see this one? It’s called Fishin’ Hole.’

‘Y-Yes.’ Thinking, He really is crazy. He’s had some sort of mental breakdown from overwork.

‘If you were to tap the bottom of the screen, the game would come up and the music would change, but I don’t want you to do that. The demo is all you need. Look for the pink fish. They don’t come often, and they’re fast, so you have to watch carefully. You can’t take your eyes off the screen.’

‘Dr Babineau, are you all right?’

It’s her voice, but it seems to be coming from far away. He makes no reply, just keeps looking at the screen. Scapelli is looking, too. Those fish are interesting. And the little tune, that’s sort of hypnotic. There’s a flash of blue light from the screen. She blinks, and then the fish are back. Swimming to and fro. Flicking their flippy tails and sending up burbles of bubbles.

‘Each time you see a pink fish, tap it and a number will come up. Nine pink fish, nine numbers. Then you will be done and all this will be behind us. Do you understand?’

She thinks of asking him if she’s supposed to write the numbers down or just remember them, but that seems too hard, so she just says yes.

‘Good.’ He hands her the gadget. ‘Nine fish, nine numbers. But just the pink ones, mind.’

Scapelli stares at the screen where the fish swim: red and green, green and blue, blue and yellow. They swim off the left side of the little rectangular screen, then back on at the right. They swim off the right side of the screen, then back on at the left.

Left, right.

Right, left.

Some high, some low.

But where are the pink ones? She needs to tap the pink ones and when she’s tapped nine of them, all of this will be behind her.

From the corner of one eye she sees Babineau refastening the clasps on his briefcase. He picks it up and leaves the room. He’s going. It doesn’t matter. She has to tap the pink fish, and then all of this will be behind her. A flash of blue light from the screen, and then the fish are back. They swim left to right and right to left. The tune plays: By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea, you and me, you and me, oh how happy we’ll be.

A pink one! She taps it! The number 11 appears! Eight more to go!

She taps a second pink fish as the front door quietly closes, and a third as Dr Babineau’s car starts outside. She stands in the middle of her living room, lips parted as if for a kiss, staring down at the screen. Colors shift and move on her cheeks and forehead. Her eyes are wide and unblinking. A fourth pink fish swims into view, this one moving slowly, as if inviting the tap of her finger, but she only stands there.

‘Hello, Nurse Scapelli.’

She looks up to see Brady Hartsfield sitting in her easy chair. He’s shimmering a bit at the edges, ghostly, but it’s him, all right. He’s wearing what he was wearing when she visited him in his room that afternoon: jeans and a checked shirt. On the shirt is that button reading I WAS SHAVED BY NURSE BARBARA! But the vacant gaze everyone in the Bucket has grown used to is gone. He’s looking at her with lively interest. She remembers her brother looking at his ant farm that way when they were children back in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

He must be a ghost, because fish are swimming in his eyes.

‘He’ll tell,’ Hartsfield says. ‘And it won’t just be his word against yours, don’t get that idea. He had a nanny-cam planted in my room so he can watch me. Study me. It’s got a wide-angle lens so he can see the whole room. That kind of lens is called a fish-eye.’

He smiles to show he’s made a pun. A red fish swims across his right eye, disappears, and then appears in his left one. Scapelli thinks, His brain is full of fish. I’m seeing his thoughts.

‘The camera is hooked up to a recorder. He’ll show the board of directors the footage of you torturing me. It didn’t actually hurt that much, I don’t feel pain the way I used to, but torture is what he’ll call it. It won’t end there, either. He’ll put it on YouTube. And Facebook. And Bad Medicine dot-com. It will go viral. You’ll be famous. The Torturing Nurse. And who will come to your defense? Who will stand up for you? No one. Because nobody likes you. They think you’re awful. And what do you think? Do you think you’re awful?’

Now that the idea has been brought fully to her attention, she supposes she is. Anyone who would threaten to twist the testicles of a brain-damaged man must be awful. What was she thinking?

‘Say it.’ He leans forward, smiling.

The fish swim. The blue light flashes. The tune plays.

‘Say it, you worthless bitch.’

‘I’m awful,’ Ruth Scapelli says in her living room, which is empty except for her. She stares down at the screen of the Zappit Commander.

‘Now say it like you mean it.’

‘I’m awful. I’m an awful worthless bitch.’

‘And what is Dr Babineau going to do?’

‘Put it on YouTube. Put it on Facebook. Put it on Bad Medicine dot-com. Tell everyone.’

‘You’ll be arrested.’

‘I’ll be arrested.’

‘They’ll put your picture in the paper.’

‘Of course they will.’

‘You’ll go to jail.’

‘I’ll go to jail.’

‘Who will stand up for you?’

‘No one.’

Sitting in Room 217 of the Bucket, Brady stares down at the Fishin’ Hole demo. His face is fully awake and aware. It’s the face he hides from everyone except Felix Babineau, and Dr Babineau no longer matters. Dr Babineau hardly exists. These days he’s mostly Dr Z.

‘Nurse Scapelli,’ Brady says. ‘Let’s go into the kitchen.’

She resists, but not for long.

Hodges tries to swim below the pain and stay asleep, but it pulls him up steadily until he breaks the surface and opens his eyes. He fumbles for the bedside clock and sees it’s two A.M. A bad time to be awake, maybe the worst time. When he suffered insomnia after his retirement, he thought of two A.M. as the suicide hour and now he thinks, That’s probably when Mrs Ellerton did it. Two in the morning. The hour when it seems daylight will never come.