There’s something about the “ber” months that makes me think of Charles Dickens—and readers waiting eagerly for the next installment of a story. Imagine living with a cliffhanger until the next issue arrived. No clicking “next episode.” Just questions, suspicions, and an unreasonable amount of patience.
In honor of that tradition, I’m sharing a little serialized horror of my own. I make no claims to Dickens’s literary stature, but I do intend to leave you waiting nervously for the next chapter.
Welcome to Don’t Say Her Name. One chapter a week. No editor, so forgive typos.
Let’s see who answers the door.
Chapter One
Hi, gang. It’s your girl Mabel. Welcome back to Mabel’s Midnight Madness.
Yes, I’m alive. Thank you to everybody who checked on me. I know a month is a long time to disappear without saying anything.
I had emergency surgery. Six days in the hospital, another few weeks recovering, and absolutely nothing worth filming.
At least, that’s what I thought when I checked in.
Before we start, the hospital bracelet is real. I posted a picture earlier because apparently some of y’all think this is a promotion.
There’s nothing to promote.
I thought I had the flu.
What I actually had was a hernia trapping part of my small intestine. By the time the surgeon explained it, they were already getting me ready.
Afterward, I had a tube running through my nose into my stomach. It was there to drain things while my bowel recovered, which meant I couldn’t eat or drink. My mouth was so dry my tongue kept sticking to the roof of it.
The horror, am I right?
I’m telling you this because I want you to understand something.
A hospital is a busy, loud place. There’s always something beeping, somebody coming in, somebody asking you to move when moving is the last thing you want to do.
Turning over hurt. Sitting up required help. If I dropped the television remote, I had to call somebody.
I was trapped in that bed.
So when the knocking started, all I could do was lie there and listen.
The first time was at two thirty in the morning.
Three soft knocks.
I remember checking the clock because I was hoping it was almost time for the nurse to bring the little sponge she used to wet my mouth.
“Come in.”
Nobody did.
The door stayed closed.
I waited for the handle to turn. Then I thought maybe the nurse had been called away.
A few minutes later, it happened again.
Three knocks. Quiet. Almost apologetic.
“Come in,” I said, louder this time.
Nothing.
Light shone beneath the door from the hallway. I watched that strip of light, waiting for a shadow to move across it.
It never changed.
Eventually, I fell asleep.
The next morning, Gabriella came to clean my room.
She was from Brazil. She had two little boys and a husband named Marcos, and she talked to me while she worked. When you’re spending your third straight day in a hospital bed, somebody telling you about their son refusing to wear shoes can become the best part of your morning.
I asked whether she’d been working overnight.
“No. Why?”
“Somebody kept knocking on my door.”
Her mop stopped.
I told her about the three knocks. About saying, “Come in.”
She looked at the door.
“Don’t answer again.”
The way she said it made me smile. I thought she was about to tell me a story.
“Why? Who was it?”
“Just leave it.”
“Gabriella.”
She moved closer to the bed.
“If it happens tonight, press your call button. You don’t need to speak. We’ll come.”
“We?”
“The nurses.”
“I thought it was a nurse.”
“No.”
That was when I stopped smiling.
She checked the doorway again.
“Don’t open the door for that girl.”
“What girl?”
Jenna came in before Gabriella could answer.
“What are we talking about?”
Her voice was bright, but her eyes settled on Gabriella, who went very still.
“She heard knocking,” Gabriella said.
Jenna set a packet of wipes on the counter and sighed.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Jenna said, “Would you give us a minute?”
Gabriella took her cart into the hallway. She didn’t look at me as she left.
Jenna checked my wristband.
“Did somebody knock on your door last night?”
“Twice.”
“What time?”
“About two thirty.”
“And what did you do?”
“I said, ‘Come in.’ Why?”
She tightened the blood pressure cuff around my arm.
“People hear things here. Equipment, other patients. Sound carries.”
“What girl was she talking about?”
“Some of the staff tell stories.”
“She seemed scared.”
The cuff began squeezing.
“Try to keep your arm relaxed.”
“Jenna. Who’s the girl?”
She watched the numbers on the machine until it finished.
Then she loosened the cuff.
“If somebody knocks tonight, use your call button.”
“That’s what Gabriella said.”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s what it’s there for.”
Now, normally, this is where I’d tell y’all I was delighted.
A hospital ghost. A frightened housekeeper. A nurse pretending she hadn’t heard it before.
You know me. I would have spent the rest of the day looking it up.
But my phone charger had fallen behind the bed, and I didn’t ask Jenna to get it.
I waited until the evening shift.
I had more people to interview.
Maria came in a little after seven.
She retrieved my charger, helped me sit up, and asked how much pain I was having. I waited until she finished writing before I mentioned the knocking.
“Gabriella told you about that?” she asked.
“She told me not to answer.”
“Then don’t.”
“What’s supposed to happen if I do?”
Maria checked the bag hanging beside my bed.
“Is this pulling?”
“Maria.”
She straightened the tubing, then looked at me.
“It’s an old story, Mabel.”
“Will you tell me?”
“You need sleep.”
“I’ve been trying to sleep for three days. Please.”
She pulled the visitor’s chair closer, but she didn’t sit down.
“There was a little girl. Years ago, when this part of the hospital was new. Her family had recently come from India. Her parents were waiting for an interpreter, and she died while they were out of the room.”
“How old?”
“I don’t know.”
“What was her name?”
Maria shook her head.
“I’ve heard different names.”
“And now she knocks on doors?”
“That’s the story.”
“Looking for her parents?”
“Maybe.”
I looked toward the door.
I’d been picturing something frightening out there. Now I pictured a child trying to find someone who understood her.
I don’t want children of my own, y’all, but that doesn’t mean I could listen to one asking for her mama and just turn up the television.
“Why wouldn’t you let her in?”
Maria moved the chair back against the wall.
“Because I’ve worked here eleven years.”
I waited.
She glanced at the door before she continued.
“I know of two patients who opened their doors after hearing that knock.”
“And?”
“Neither went home.”
“People die in hospitals,” I said.
“Yes.”
“So it could have been a coincidence.”
She suddenly looked tired.
“One of them was supposed to leave the next morning. His wife had already taken his things down to the car.”
I waited for her to tell me what happened to him.
She reached across me and put the call button in my hand.
“If you hear it, press this.”
“What if you’re busy?”
“Press it anyway.”
I know. I know. I can already see the comments.
Of course I wanted to see a ghost. Y’all have watched me spend entire nights in places where the scariest thing was the bathroom.
But wanting something to happen is a good way to convince yourself it did.
I’d had major surgery. I was taking pain medicine. I hadn’t slept properly in days. Those things mattered.
Then again, Gabriella hadn’t had surgery.
And she’d stopped cleaning the moment I mentioned the knock.
Before Maria left, I asked her to check my call button.
She pressed it. Someone answered.
Everything worked.
That night, I kept the television on with the sound turned down.
The hours blurred into visits from nurses and aides. Maria came in at midnight. Later, somebody took blood. A cart rattled past, and farther down the hall, a man kept calling for his wife.
Ordinary hospital noises.
I watched the clock change from 2:28 to 2:29.
I remember feeling foolish. Excited, too. I kept my phone beside me, ready to record.
But I was holding the call button.
Then the first knock came.
I pressed it before the third.
A voice came through the speaker.
“Can I help you?”
“Somebody’s at my door.”
“Do you need assistance?”
“Maria told me to call.”
A pause.
“Stay in bed, please.”
I could hear footsteps in the hallway.
They came quickly, rubber soles squeaking, and stopped outside my room.
“Maria?”
Nobody answered.
The handle moved.
I watched it go down.
Then back up.
A woman spoke outside. Too quietly for me to make out the words.
Then the door opened.
A nurse I hadn’t seen before walked in with a strained smile.
“Everything is fine, Mabel.”
“Really?”
She nodded.
“Did you hear the knock?”
“No one is there, Mabel. Go to sleep.”
She stepped back into the hallway.
And then she closed the door.
And I was alone.
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