The Waiting Room

Tracy Hill opened her eyes. She could remember one thing. She remembered running out of the school door at the end of a Wednesday afternoon. It was cloudy outside then, as well as a bit chilly. The leaves had been falling from the trees surrounding the schoolyard, and they’d fallen in all kinds of maroon, yellow, brown, and red colors. Tracy had been running home from school, until all of a sudden, she was here.

She couldn’t recall what’d happened in between. She supposed she’d been knocked out somehow, but then again, she obviously would’ve known because her head would’ve been aching. However, nothing at all was aching. She felt no pain, except for the pain of looking up at a dull white ceiling, like a ceiling one would see in a clinic.

Tracy suddenly realized she was, in fact, sitting in a chair, and from that, she gained some more consciousness and completely awoke. She looked around and saw a few more people. One of them was surprisingly her classmate and friend Conrad Walker.

He had tannish blond hair and blue eyes, and he was wearing a white hospital gown. As for Tracy, she had brown eyes and chestnut brown hair that was tied into a French braid. She was wearing the same type of gown as Conrad.

Conrad was staring at her, and when he saw she’d awoken, he went over to her and said, “Tracy, you’re finally awake.”

“What, where am I, what is this place?” Tracy asked in a daze, thinking Conrad had a clue, as if he wasn’t just as clueless.

“That’s what we’ve all been trying to figure out, but nobody has a clue.”

A man chimed in. “I think it’s some kind of waiting room.” He had curly black hair and brown eyes, and he looked like he was about thirty years old. He wore the same white hospital gown Tracy and Conrad were wearing.

“We have to think of a way out of here,” another guy said. His voice was a bit loud, and also a bit cocky. He had shaggy black hair, with some of it covering the left side of his face. He also had brown eyes and light brown skin. He looked like he was about twenty-one years old. He also donned the gown.

A girl replied, “Well, there’s no doors in sight, and that hallway looks like it lasts forever.” She had rectangular glasses with a red frame and black hair that was in pigtails. She looked like she was about Tracy and Conrad’s age, which was sixteen. She, too, wore the gown.

When the girl had mentioned the hallway, Tracy stood up from her chair and looked around the room. The walls and the floor were a pristine white, and there was an opening to a hallway that seemed to stretch into infinity. As the girl said, there were no doors. There was an arrangement of chairs both in the middle of the room and in the bottom right corner, with an old man sitting in the chair that was tucked furthest into the nook. The old man looked like he was in his eighties. He had white hair surrounding the bald top of his head, and he had brown eyes. He also had on the gown, just like everyone else.

“Hey, old man, do you know what this place is?” Tracy asked.

“It’s a waiting room,” the old man replied.

“Wait, did he just talk?” Conrad asked with a hint of shock.

“The whole time we’ve been here, he hasn’t said a word,” the girl said, just as shocked.

“I needed some time to think,” the old man replied.

“Time to think of what?” the loud guy asked.

“I needed to think of what to say about this place.”

“Well, what about this place?” Conrad asked.

“Well, you kids gather over here and I’ll tell you.”

“Wait, shouldn’t we all introduce ourselves first?” Tracy asked.

“Yeah, maybe we should,” Conrad replied.

“Well, I’ll introduce myself first,” the man with the curly black hair said. “I’m Mr. Newman.”

“Well, what’s your first name?” Tracy asked.

“It’s Henry,” Mr. Newman replied. “But I’d rather be called Mr. Newman.”

“Well, first things first, my name is Diego!” the loud guy said in a confident voice. “Diego Ramirez, to be exact. Here’s what you need to know about me. I’m the best, I’m the strongest, I’m the bravest, and I’m gonna get us out of here!”

“Alrighty then,” Tracy said.

“As for me, I’m Alnair,” the girl with the glasses said. “Alnair Coleman.”

“I’m Conrad Walker, and my only objective is to get out of here,” Conrad said.

“Well, I’m Tracy Hill,” Tracy said. “What about your name, old man?”

Everybody turned to the old man when she asked this.

“That’s all you shall know me as,” the old man replied.

“Don’t you have a name?” Conrad asked.

“You can’t possibly have us know you as just ‘the old man’,” Mr. Newman said.

“Yes, you will know me as just ‘the old man’,” the old man said.

“Well, that’s not fair,” Diego said, irritated the old man wasn’t revealing his real name. “We gave you all our names, so you’d better take one for the team and tell us your name.”

“It doesn’t really matter, Diego,” Alnair said. “If he won’t tell us, he won’t tell us.”

“You know, Alnair is right,” Conrad said. “We have better things to worry about, like, I don’t know, escaping.”

“If he wants to be referred to as the old man, then we’ll have to call him that,” Mr. Newman said.

“Okay, now that we’ve all introduced ourselves, we should let the old man tell us what he knows about this place,” Tracy said.

“Well, you all should listen very carefully, because what I’m about to tell you is very important,” the old man said, staring everyone down to make sure they were listening. “As I said before, this place is a waiting room.”

“A waiting room, well, wait a minute, I don’t remember scheduling a doctor’s appointment,” Diego said, interrupting the old man.

Everybody shushed Diego, putting their index fingers over their mouths.

“No more interruptions,” the old man continued. “Now, as I was saying, this place looks like a waiting room you may see at a clinic or a hospital, but let me just say, this isn’t just an ordinary waiting room.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Diego said sarcastically.

“Diego!” everybody yelled.

“Oh, yeah, sorry.”

The old man continued. “Anyway, this place is no good. I’ve tried walking down that hallway, but it doesn’t seem to end. When I turned around to walk back up the hallway, the opening to the waiting room was right behind me, no matter how far I went. There were actually three people who were here with me shortly before you all arrived. They were all taken, one by one. I don’t know who took them, and I don’t know where they went. When one of them would get taken, before I could see who the person taking them was, I would pass out.”

“What were they like?” Tracy asked.

“I didn’t know them for long, so I wouldn’t really know. However, when I was with them, they seemed like good people. They wanted to escape. They were just like you guys.”

“Old man, how long have you been here?” Mr. Newman asked.

“I don’t know. Nobody can tell the time here, but probably a long while.”

Mr. Newman was surprised. “Wow, now that I think of it, there aren’t any clocks anywhere.”

“Yeah, that’s unusual for a waiting room,” Alnair added.

“What sort of waiting room doesn’t have at least one clock?” Conrad asked, looking around at the blank white walls. “What kind of place is this?”

“A fuckin’ weird place, that’s what,” Diego replied. He turned his attention to the old man. “Were those other three you mentioned the first people you knew in here?”

“Yes,” the old man began. “I was alone before that. I was probably here for what felt like a day before those people arrived. Prior to that, I tried escaping down the hallway a few times. Most of the time, I was in there for what felt like an hour or so. Then, I’d turn around, only to have the opening to the waiting room be right behind me. But, there was one time. There was one time when the hallway started getting darker. It grew darker and darker until I saw what were like images popping out at me. Terrible things, frightening things. I can’t even describe what I saw. I’d tell you guys I was just seeing things, that my mind made it up from insanity, but those images were much too vivid for that. Why, I remember running back in here screaming from the things I saw. I haven’t ventured back into that hallway since.”

“No wonder we haven’t seen you trying to escape,” Alnair said.

“I just thought of something,” Diego chimed in. “Why didn’t we run down that hallway when we first got here?”

“I don’t know, but I’m guessing it was because we were all too shocked to think. Either way, we wouldn’t have made it out of here, according to what the old man just said, anyway.”

“Good point.”

Tracy whispered to Conrad quietly. “Conrad?”

Conrad had been standing next to her the whole time. “Yeah, Tracy?”

“How long, excluding the old man, were you guys in here before I arrived?”

“Probably a few minutes, at most.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t long after we got here before you arrived, Tracy,” Mr. Newman added, overhearing the whispers.

“How did I get in here?” Tracy asked, hoping to find an answer. “You guys had to see how I got put in here.”

“You know, it’s funny. We’d all arrived, and we were trying to figure out how we ourselves had gotten in here. We were trying to plan how to get out of here, but then, when we turned around, there you were.” Then, Mr. Newman focused his gaze on the old man. “But then again, the old man was sitting in the corner the whole time, so maybe he might’ve seen something.”

“Actually, I passed out for a brief moment, so I didn’t see her arrive,” the old man said. “To mention another thing, when all the rest of you guys arrived, I passed out then, too.”

Mr. Newman asked in confusion, “You just passed out for no reason?”

“I don’t how else to describe it, so I’d say yes to that.”

“You know, this really isn’t a normal waiting room if you just randomly pass out when a new person arrives,” Tracy said.

“You think?” Diego replied sarcastically.

“Why would you pass out, though?” Alnair asked, trying to make sense of the whole situation. “It doesn’t make sense. We didn’t pass out when Tracy arrived.”

The old man said, “I have a theory on this. Perhaps, you pass out when you’re facing the new arrival. If you’re turned away, then they appear when you’re not looking.”

“That’s one wild theory, but for a place like this, it’s believable,” Mr. Newman responded.

“Guys, listen!” Conrad suddenly exclaimed.

Everyone went completely quiet, and the waiting room had no noise but one. That one noise was the sound of footsteps coming up the hallway.

“Oh no,” the old man muttered.

“What?” Tracy whispered.

The old man was nervous. “It’s the doctor. They’re coming for one of us.”

“We have to hide!” Diego exclaimed.

Mr. Newman looked at him like he was crazy. “Are you kidding? Where are we gonna hide, under the chairs?”

Diego backtracked his statement. “Yeah, now that I think of it, there’s not really anywhere to hide.”

“Which means we’re all screwed!” Alnair added.

Everybody was afraid now, for they didn’t like the prospect of being taken nor the prospect of being screwed, whatever that could’ve meant. Everyone except the old man gathered around the opening to the hallway, trying to get a peek of the doctor. However, most of them couldn’t see anything. The footsteps came closer and closer, and they grew louder as they neared. This doctor, whoever they were, was someone mysterious. Not even the old man, who’d been here the longest out of everyone, knew the doctor’s identity.

Suddenly, everyone except one person passed out. Alnair was surprised to see everybody mysteriously unconscious on the floor while she was the only one still standing. She was also surprised nobody had said anything about the doctor coming up the hallway.

You see, Alnair was the only person who could see the doctor, for she was the one being taken. Once the doctor was close enough, they grabbed Alnair by the arm and dragged her into the long hallway that seemed to last forever. She let out screams for help, but to no avail.

Nobody saw her getting dragged into that long, dark corridor. She didn’t know what would happen to her, and she didn’t know whether or not she’d survive. She tried breaking free from the doctor’s tight grasp, but every struggle she made was in vain. No matter how loud she screamed or how much she kicked and shook about, it didn’t help. At that point, she knew she was doomed.