The Cold Ward

The old inpatient building of the municipal hospital was built in the 1970s, a four-story red-brick structure. Two years ago they put up a new wing, and most departments moved over, leaving only respiratory and rehab in the old building. The ward at the far east end of the third floor had a room number worn smooth off its doorplate long ago, and it was always locked. The head nurse told the new girl, Xiao Yu: leave that room alone.

Xiao Yu was twenty-four, fresh out of nursing school. The veterans said she was a good kid, just timid. Her first night shift fell on the twenty-third of the twelfth lunar month, Little New Year. The head nurse said it again at handover: leave the east room alone. Xiao Yu nodded. It was locked. What could happen.

By eleven, the ward wing was quiet. Only the hum of fluorescent lights in the hallway, an occasional cough leaking through a door crack. Xiao Yu sat at the nurses' station scrolling her phone. Her shift schedule was pinned to the partition under a faded ballpoint sketch of Peppa Pig that a nurse from last year had drawn.

At half past eleven, the call screen flickered. Bed thirty-two. Xiao Yu grabbed the blood pressure cuff and walked over. The old man with COPD was dead asleep, his arm pressing the call button. She moved his arm and silenced it.

At quarter past midnight, the screen flickered again.

Bed thirty-two. She went again. Same thing. This time she moved the call button to the far side of the bedrail, thinking it wouldn't happen again.

At two in the morning, Xiao Yu was dozing at her desk when a sharp buzz jolted her awake.

A red dot on the screen, pulsing.

She rubbed her eyes and leaned in. The screen showed a set of digits. Not a bed number, something she didn't recognize, like three zeros. She looked closer. Not just zeros, there was a number there, only the display was so old the segments were barely visible against the background.

She pressed cancel. The screen stayed lit. She pressed harder. The buzzing stopped but the digits remained, like a half-open eye.

She stood up. The hallway was empty. The fluorescent light was a sickly greenish white, pooling on the floor like thin frost. She remembered the head nurse: leave that room alone.

She didn't go. She sat back down.

The buzzing came again. Continuous now, the kind that won't stop until you answer. The digits on the screen began to blink, urgent.

Xiao Yu took the key ring and walked toward the east end. The corridor was long. Her soft-soled shoes made almost no sound on the terrazzo. The ward doors were all shut, dark slits beneath them. At the end, in front of that locked door, the call light above the frame was off.

It wasn't this room.

Xiao Yu froze. She retraced a few steps, then turned back. The lock was an old pin-tumbler, rust around the keyhole. She tried the handle. It wasn't locked. The key tag said "Always Locked," but it wasn't.

She pushed the door open.

A small room. One iron bed frame, one bedside table, one window. The glass was fogged with condensation. The bed was made, crisp white sheets, white pillowcase, blanket corners folded at a sharp right angle. On the bedside table was an enamel mug with a dried brown stain at the bottom, like someone had once drunk medicine from it.

It was cold in there. Much colder than the hallway. Xiao Yu shivered and saw her own breath. It was a southern winter, no heating, but it shouldn't have been this cold.

Above the bed was a call button, the old pull-cord kind. The cord was broken, dangling in midair.

Xiao Yu stepped out and shut the door. She tried the handle again. Locked. This time, locked solid.

Back at the station, the screen was dark. The call log showed nothing for those digits.

At morning handover she mentioned it to the head nurse, who was eating a soy milk breakfast. The head nurse stopped mid-sip. She set the cup down and said: that bed, twenty years ago, belonged to a woman brought in with severe burns. She went straight to the ICU down the hall, hung on for three days, passed away. Her family never settled the bill. The bed stayed on the books, occupied, for two years. Then people started hearing the call bell from that room in the middle of the night, going in and finding no one. They checked twice, found nothing, locked the door.

Xiao Yu asked: what was her name.

The head nurse thought for a long time. She said: I can't remember.

That afternoon Xiao Yu passed the east end of the third floor. A white thread was hanging from the door handle, the kind that comes loose from a nurse's uniform sleeve. She reached out and tugged it. The thread snapped, drifting to the floor.

There was nothing on the floor.