A few years ago I discovered what seemed like the best website ever. Well, the best for me at least. It targeted young people who wanted to practice their English skills with actual conversation. The site partnered up with American nursing homes, so you could video chat with the residents. Elderly people, who wanted nothing more than a nice talk and the feeling of being useful.
I've been involved in voluntary work since before I got my first bra, so you could call me a bit of a veteran on the subject. Also, I never had anyone to practice my crappy English on. Now I could do both at once? Well, that got me hooked from the get-go.
This is how I met Mr. Wiebe.
He was a different kind of old person. Super witty, sharp sense of humor, we really hit it off. He was also a retired English teacher, which was a best-case scenario for me. We started talking once a week.
Mr. Wiebe lived in a really nice nursing home in California, but we had a bit of a time zone problem. He would spend most weekends with his grandsons and I had classes all day long during the week. The only moment we could both go online was around 11 pm in his local time, which is quite late for nursing home standards. But he convinced the nurses to let him cheat the curfew and "help out the young lady on the computer". That guy could sell a bag of sand to a nomad in the desert. Talking to him was my favorite part of the week.
But then there was this one goddamned night.
It started out as usual. Mr. Wiebe was telling me about another resident who kept accusing people of stealing his napkins during meals. "I consider myself a pacifist, but that is one obituary I'd read with great delight" he said. This comment made me laugh a lot, which seemed to give him more delight than any obituary. We talked a little more until he said: "Honey, I went a little hard on the jello juice tonight. Excuse me for a couple of minutes". He got up and left the video. I checked my phone for a while. Took a sip of water. Looked back up. It was there.
At first, I couldn't quite make heads or tales of it. His computer stayed in a large entertainment room and all of the lights were off, except the one right over Mr. Wiebe's PC. The background was all dark, except for this one little white blur. I think it was already there all along, but dimmer. Now it had gotten larger. I approached the screen to take a closer look. It moved. Was it a person? It seemed to be tilting its head, looking at me. Then it moved again, walking away into a dark hallway.
Mr. Wiebe returned immediately after this. I asked if there was anyone else there. "I'm the only one bold enough to stay awake past ten. Why?".
"For no reason."
I didn't sleep very well that night.
A few weeks went by in our normal routine. I was busy with college and voluntary work, while he had discovered stand-up comedy videos on YouTube, which was, in his words, "a game-changer". About a month later we were chatting away like always. He first told me about his favorite comedians, later we talked about grammar and auxiliary verbs, which I would still misuse sometimes. After about an hour, we said goodbye and he took off his earbuds.
"Is this off? Damn thing's been acting up. I think it's turning off." He said, and left the room. I laughed as he went away leaving the computer on. Mr. Wiebe wasn't very tech savvy, although, to be fair, he did ok for his age. The lights went off and everything was dark, except for the small circle illuminated by the computer screen. I was just about to disconnect when I saw it again. That same white blur. I sat up straight on my chair. It started to grow, getting closer. Closer. It was about twenty feet from the screen now, and the image finally became defined enough so I could see what it was.
She was wearing a white nightshirt. Below it, very thin, crooked shins. She walked with a limp and had some very old slippers on. The arms were also thin and ended on bony, purple hands with nails missing. There was long, dark hair that seemed like it had never been washed in a century. She raised her head a little and I could see the face. There was a mouth, yes, a huge mouth that had been cut outwards through both cheeks. Pieces of flesh would hang loosely, wet with blood. There were no eyes, just one big stitched scar where they should be. Yet, somehow I knew, she was looking straight at me.
I yelled. Slapped my webcam to the side and pulled the plug on the computer. The monitor went off. I was breathing deep and fast, crying my heart out.
What in God's name was that?
The following week just dragged by. I had trouble sleeping or concentrating on anything. I thought about telling someone, but would just come out as a nutcase. I considered calling the nursing home and asking for the security cameras, but did they even have those? In the recreational area? Maybe if I talked to Mr. Wiebe, he'd listen. Maybe, but I didn't have his number or anything. In the end, I just waited for a hell of a long week to go by.
And so it did.
Once again I was in front of my computer screen. Mr. Wiebe was smiling, all alone in that big room. I let him talk a little about whatever was happening in his life before asking:
"Mr. Wiebe, have you or some other resident ever seen something... unnatural around there?"
He looked honestly puzzled.
"What do you mean, honey?"
"Well, something that... seemed out of this world. Kind of like a person, a woman I guess, but different." I was feeling silly about my lack of descriptive skills. "A very pale woman, maybe injured, with, with..."
"No eyes?"
My expression must have been enough of an answer. All of a sudden Mr. Wiebe seemed smaller, weaker, and I was reminded he was but an old man, half a world away.
"I have not seen her." He seemed to struggle in his head for a moment, but finally sighed and leaned forward on the chair. "Look kid, these things are complicated. Yes, there are stories, but we do not talk about it openly. If someone does, the nurses view it as a sign of dementia. Nobody believes us in things like that. Getting old is a fucking chore".
He straightened himself up before continuing.
"But strange things do happen here, that's for sure. Wet footsteps in the morning, like someone's been walking around all night. Stuff that gets moved around. Nurses always assume some resident did those things and then forgot about it, but that's not the case. If you live here, you can see who still has a working mind and who doesn't, it's not a subtle difference. About five people claim to have seen her, at least three I can vouch for. Pale white lady in sleepers, no eyes, blood around her mouth. That's it, isn't it?" I agreed. "Where?" he asked, to which I indicated the hallway behind him. He looked around, troubled, but there was nothing to be seen. Mr. Wiebe lowered his tone once more, to a near whisper. "And there is one other thing we suspect, but you cannot tell it to anyone. If they know I'm saying this, they'll call the "crazy" card and switch my medications to Panzer levels, so you have to promise."
"I promise."
"There's a male nurse, his name is Kevin. Good young fella, very hard-working. He is the one that visits us in the morning, checks if everyone's alright, gives us the medicines, that kind of stuff. Sometimes he finds the people who, y'know, kicked the bucket during the night. It's sad but what you're gonna do about it. Well, Kevin and I talk regularly and he once told me about this old lady who almost gave him a heart attack. She was sitting on her bed, mouth open in sort of a silent scream, face twisted, tears on her cheeks. And dead. As if she had died in agony, or scared, tremendously scared. He doesn't know what to make of it, but I do. And a few others suspect the same thing. She saw something."
We stood quietly for a while. I told him exactly what I had seen and the description seemed to match what he had already heard. I thought Mr. Wiebe would know what to do, he was a grown-up man for longer than my dad was alive, but old people have it hard. It was actually he who was asking for my help. We agreed that I would contact the home's administrators and come up with a story. Say I have seen someone, maybe a burglar, something that forced them to install cameras there. Some of the residents wouldn't like this, but Mr. Wiebe would handle them. He ended the night smiling, albeit afraid, and wished I could walk him to his room.
This gave me an idea. I taught him to use the Skype app, this way we could talk through there. We started a video call and I told him to carry the phone to his room so we would both be less afraid together. Mr. Wiebe almost cried right there and then, but concealed his eyes and agreed. He got up and started walking, we soon were halfway there and already saying good night.
But of course, nothing ever goes as planned.
"Oh no."
"What's wrong?"
He took a step back, then another one, his hands shaking with the phone. Then he moved fast, trying to run, but tripped on his own feet. The last thing I saw before the phone landed screen-down was his head hitting the wall.
"Oh my God, Mr. Wiebe what's happening? Please, say something!"
The image moved. From the dark of the floor, a strong beam of light that made everything white. Then the camera adapted and an image formed. Stitches where the eyes should be. A mouth with cuts on both sides. Blood. Tilting her head to the side, as if trying to understand what I was. I yelled and dropped my phone, screaming as loud as I could. Mr. Wiebe was there, I had to do something but all I could think about was screaming for help. I cried as loud as I could until a voice answered. I picked up the phone carefully and saw a woman in uniform. There were people around her and the lights were on.
"Who the hell are you?" She asked, and I didn't know what to answer. Honestly, I don't remember what we talked about at this point. I was probably not making much sense.
After a couple of days, the police got in contact. This scared me even more, trouble with the American law enforcement is not something I had planned for my life. Mr. Wiebe was in the hospital, in poor condition and not able to talk to anyone or explain what happened. He wouldn't anyway, not with the risk of being labeled senile. I never told the whole truth to the cops, only that he fell because something scared him. I was young and stupid and confused with no one I could be honest with.
A month went by like this. Sleeping badly and having nightmares. Every day I checked Skype for Mr. Wiebe. The nurse said she would email me if he recovered, but nothing so far.
Until an invite appeared in my inbox. It was a call to chat from that same website where I had met him.
"Hello there. I am sorry to get in contact like this, but it's the only way I could find to talk to you. My name is Kevin, I am a nurse and I work in Mr. Wiebe's home. He is still in the hospital, but I would like to have a word with you. Some of the residents have become restless. I think that something is not right and that you might know what it is. I'm sorry to bother you if that's not the case, but I have exhausted my options.
Can you, please, help me?"
I thought that was it. The solution. Someone they would believe, someone who could convince them if only I could convince him. The chance to push this situation forward to someone else who could get to the bottom of it, find a reasonable solution and share it, to my relief. So, of course I talked to Kevin, why wouldn't I?
There have been many bad decisions in my life, but that was by far the worst.
I'm not sure anyone will give a rat's ass about this account, but writing it down made me realize just how much I need to get it out there. My suffering was at its mere beginning. My life was not yet ruined, but that would change soon enough.
I need a couple days to get myself together after writing this, it has taken a toll on me. Then we'll talk about how I discovered the blanket of lies over this nice nursing home in California, half a world away.