Page:Weird Tales volume 38 number 03 CAN.djvu/51

 not so, only I knew that. I had to get away now.

I struggled and writhed in the nurse's arms. My nails raked the square unimaginative face in front of my own. Meadows grunted in pain and stepped away momentarily but Dr. Blake had me by the arm and was calling down the stairs. I twisted desperately and jerked myself free. But crowding up the stairs now were two more nurses and a male attendant. I believe then I was out of my head for I threw myself down the stairs at them. The women went down under my weight with shrill cries of alarm and pain, but the male attendant caught me and held my arms to my sides as though I were a child. I kicked but it did no good.

I was taken back into my room, Dr. Blake discreetly shutting the door behind us. Then I was put to bed in a restraining sheet. Do you know what they are? I'd seen them used for other patients, never guessing, never thinking—You can hardly move once you are in one. You can't get away and your bed is the trap. You can wiggle and struggle and thresh and fight but you're held as though in a sack. Your head is out and you can move it but your arms and legs are securely imprisoned.

Dr. Blake forced me to take a sedative then, and after a while, one by one the attendant, Blake, and the three nurses left the room.

I would go to sleep now, I understood from their talk.

Miss Meadows was the last to go, her bovine indifferent face looking back at me from the door. In a drowsy way—for the sedative was beginning to work—I was glad for the nail marks on her cheek. A black pit of unconsciousness opened up for me then as I slipped off into drugged sleep.

I don't know how long it was before I woke up. It must have been quite a few hours, for darkness had fallen. I finally figured that it had to be fairly late because the small sounds of the sanitarium kept up during the early evening were now all absent. I struggled briefly but the restraining sheet was still my complete master. I was thirsty, cramped, and very uncomfortable. I had to get out of this thing. I called. I screamed, and after an eternity I heard steps upon the stairs. My door opened and someone lit the light at my bedside. It was Miss Meadows. I swore at her, I cried, I pleaded, and she just looked at me silently. I could see her gaze was professional, to ascertain whether I was still snug and safe—safe, that was a good one—in the restraining sheet.

Satisfied, she snapped out the light and without answering any of my pleas to be let up, went out the door. I heard her steps descending the long stairs, and then there was the deep silence of late night.

FOUGHT with myself then, using the weapons Dr. Blake had given me, things I had laughed at once but used now against my fear of the steam shovel. So what if Big Mike had come across the state for this job. There were reasons, logical reasons probably. It had nothing to do with me or the steam shovel. The Greene Construction Company was pretty big. Maybe Big Mike was the only kind of shovel that could do this particular kind of job at Byerly Home. That last thought had an ominous significance. Big Mike was the only kind of steam shovel that could do this job!