Inner Demons

Written by Zelda

 

Part Two: The Devil Made Me Do It

 

                Noodle’s eyes flew back to him as she heard him open the door. Gulping and letting out another whimper, she tugged on Murdoc’s free hand, trying to pull him down from where he was perched, not moving.

                Russel couldn’t believe what he was seeing. For a moment, he stood in shock. Murdoc lay slumped over a tiny sink in the counter of the Winnebago’s tiny kitchen. His head was flopped to one side, and Russel couldn’t see his face, but his hair was soaking wet, and the one arm that was hanging free was white as a sheet. His skin was even paler than 2-D’s. From his hand, blood was dripping freely onto the floor. He wasn’t just passed out drunk this time. As Russel snapped out of it and rushed to Murdoc’s side, Noodle started realizing that something was really wrong with him, and it was evident on her face.

                “Russel-san!” she pointed to Murdoc, and started rattling something off in Japanese, her eyes beginning to tear up.

                Russel threw a quick glance down to the girl as he began to pull Murdoc up and away from the sink. He frowned sympathetically, and quickly patted her head to try and calm her down. “Don’t worry, it’s gonna be okay...” he started. Turning his attention back to Murdoc, he lowered the older man to a sitting position against the kitchen cabinets, rolling him over and lifting his head. Murdoc looked unconscious. His skin was so white, it was starting to really unnerve Russel. Water was still running in a thin stream from the sink. Murdoc’s hand was still bleeding. It didn’t take long for the drummer to put two and two together. “Muds, come on, wake up man!” Russel shook him slightly. Murdoc made no response, his wet black bangs flopping down in front of his blank face. Russel held his head up and gently prized open his right eye. The maroon pupil seemed drained of color, and fully dilated.

Seeing this made Noodle let out another frightened little sob, and start off on a jabber again in Japanese.

Distracted by her crying, Russel grabbed one of Murdoc’s dirty t-shirts off the floor, and wrapped his bleeding hand in it. “Noodle, go get 2-D, okay?” he asked her. “Go on!”

Shooed into action, Noodle sniffed loudly and nodded, quickly exiting the camper.

Russel shook Murdoc again, feeling scared at this point. As he wrapped the bassist’s wrist, he could feel a pulse running through his arm, but it was thready and weak. They’d have to get him to the hospital, and fast. As gently as he could manage in the small space of the Winnebago, Russel scooped Murdoc up in his arms, and maneuvered him out the door, heading towards the white van.

The week’s grocery list had long since fallen out of his hands, and lay on the floor of the car park, plastered there by one of Russel’s bloodied shoe prints.

 

2-D’s stomach dropped as soon as he heard the pounding on his door. But he slowly lost his fear as he realized it wasn’t Murdoc, there was a voice coming from outside that sounded a lot like Noodle. What would she be doing all the way down here? Lifting an ice pack off of his aching head, 2-D rolled out of bed and opened the door. He gasped a little and crouched beside her as he saw Noodle crying.

“Goodness girl, what’sa matter?”

“Murdoc-san!” she sniffled, pointing back to the lift, and then up. “Russel-san... sent me...”

2-D glanced up at the hallway to the lift, realizing that something must have gone wrong, if it had gotten Russel concerned. Maybe he’d broken a window or something, but then why would Noodle be crying?

Noodle impatiently grabbed his hand and started pulling 2-D violently towards the lift, the bigger man having to stand and scramble a bit to follow. They both huddled in, and waited for what seemed like an eternity as the lift car rose one floor to the ground level. As the door opened, Noodle sprinted out and peeked into the Winnebago.

“Yo both of you, over here!” Russel beeped the horn of the white van. “Somebody get in the back and help hold him up!”

                2-D’s frown deepened as he hurried over to the van. Something had definitely gone very wrong. “What happened to him?” he yelled to Russel as he swung open the hatch to the back.

                “I dunno man.” Russel turned to look at him as Noodle hopped anxiously into the wide back seat. “I... I think he tried to kill himself.”

                “Jesus...” 2-D slammed the door shut and shuffled up to where Murdoc was slumped, propped up against the back seat. He quickly felt for a pulse, and brushed the hair back from Murdoc’s bone white face. “Why?”

                “Doesn’t matter just now.” Russel shook his head. “We’ve just gotta get him to the ER while he’s still breathin’.”

 

                The ride was a terrible blur. Russel struggled to keep an eye on the road and on Murdoc at the same time. He had resolved right off the bat to not drive like Murdoc would under normal circumstances, but he was also having trouble keeping that up as he took the fastest route he could think of to the nearest hospital. He couldn’t see Murdoc that well, not even through the rear-view mirror. But he could hear. Noodle was still crying, not wailing out of sadness but whimpering, because she was afraid and she didn’t understand. She was afraid that Murdoc was hurt, maybe that he might die. Russel squinted a bit, and shook his head. He knew exactly how the poor kid felt, he’d felt it too, years ago. “It’s gonna be okay Noodle.” he started, glancing back at her.

                Sniffling, the girl turned to look back at him, and stammered something out in Japanese.

                Russel really wished he spoke the language right at the moment. “Hey, come up here and sit with me.” he patted the passenger seat.

                Slowly, the girl obeyed, calming a little as she climbed up beside him. “Murdoc-san, not okay?” she asked, blinking and cocking her head. Her hat’s antennae followed her in a little twitch.

                “He’s gonna be just fine.” Russel nodded. “We’ll get him to a doctor…” And thank God there wasn’t any traffic…

                “Murdoc-san… hand, red…” she frowned slightly, shaking her head.

                She must have been referring to him bleeding. “Yeah, you were good to stay with him, like that.” He took a hand off the wheel for just a moment, to pat her on the head again. He seemed to have cheered her up a little, at least. But he had other concerns at the moment. “How’s he doing?” He glanced back up into the rear-view mirror again.

                “He’s not waking up…” 2-D sounded distracted, and he was. He was trying everything to get Murdoc to make some sort of response, shaking him and tapping the sides of his face. Even holding his eyelids open didn’t get him to move! 2-D had seen a lot of zombie flicks in his life, but there was a person sitting before him that actually looked dead. “Come on, wake up.” he muttered, shaking the older man again. “I’ll letcha punch me, promise!” Seeing the bassist that had been responsible for most everything good in his life in this nearly lifeless state, 2-D was becoming more frightened with each passing moment. At least Murdoc still had a pulse, at least he was still breathing. Blood was starting to soak through the t-shirt that Russel had used to bandage the bassist’s hand, and 2-D distracted himself by fussing with it. That cut must have been pretty bad to do this to him, but it was an accident, why would Russel say that Murdoc had tried to commit suicide? He also wondered why Murdoc’s hair was soaking wet. If the t-shirt he was holding wasn’t so bloody, maybe he would have used that to dry out his hair. He looked so awful, lying there with no color in his skin and no life in his eyes. 2-D had to sit back a little as he realized that Murdoc looked a lot like him. But he didn’t want his friend like this, not at all. “Wake up Muds…” 2-D shook him again. “What are we gonna do if ya can’t play?” He tried to wrap his hand again, tighter this time. This whole situation was beginning to make him feel nauseous, on top of the pounding headache that had followed him from before. He sighed and looked up to the driver’s seat. “We almost there Russ?”

                “Just a few more minutes, bro.” Russel nodded, pushing down just a little more on the gas pedal. “He’s gonna be okay.”

                Peeking out of the window, Noodle saw the large hospital looming above all of the other buildings in the surrounding streets. She pointed excitedly, and started jabbering again.

                Russel tried to pull up gently, into the pavilion they had built for receiving ambulances into the ER. He leaned over the back of the driver’s seat and motioned to 2-D. “Go on Dee, go in there and tell ‘em what’s going on, have them get a gurney ready. I’ll take him in.”

                “Gotcha.” 2-D nodded sharply, and hopped out of the back of the van, leaving the door swinging.

                Before Russel could even open his door, Noodle was out of her seat, vaulting over the backs of the others until she clunked down into the back, holding up Murdoc’s shoulders.

                “Murdoc-san!” she yelped, shaking him a little. She started jabbering again, trying to get him to at least open his eyes. “Murdoc-san!”

                Russel quickly joined her in the back, pushing her slightly aside. “Come on Noodle, let’s get him in, the doctors’ll take care of him…” Again he scooped up the bassist, and to him Murdoc had never seemed so lightweight to him before. Not that he picked him up often, but still, it was just the way he looked now, it was scary.

 

                Inside, 2-D rushed up to one of the nurse’s desks, panting a little.

                A nurse glanced nonchalantly up at him, taking a pen out of her mouth to speak. “Mr. Pot, we’ve told you this before, you need to go down to the pharmacy in the lower level to get your prescription refilled…”

                “No no, it’s not about me this time!” he hopped a little.

                The nurse sighed, grabbed a clipboard, and started writing notes. “Alright then, bring them in over there.” She pointed to a gurney.

2-D waved, and was off for the door again. “Guys, over here!” he called from the doorway to the ER, his voice partially blotted out by the wail of an ambulance siren that was approaching from the road.

Russel and Noodle hopped out of the back one at a time, and then went jogging over the tarmac, into the hospital. 2-D pointed to an empty gurney against a wall, and Russel tried to put Murdoc down on it as gently as he could. As soon as he had pulled his arms away, the three of them were overwhelmed by a swarm of doctors, who pushed the Gorillaz away from their leader and bassist.

“We can take care of things from here.” One of the doctors said, pointing them away. “Please, stay in the waiting room, we’ll update you when conditions change.”

                Noodle blinked, hugging Russel’s arm, obviously a little unnerved as she saw a few doctors start to cut away Murdoc’s clothing.

                “Come on girl.” he patted her back gently. “Let’s wait like they told us.”

                The three of them trudged off towards the busy waiting room, trying hard not to look behind them as Murdoc was wheeled away in the opposite direction.

 

                2-D had curled himself up, shifting rather uncomfortably on his plastic chair. This waiting room reminded him of a miniature underground station, with all of these people grubbing through. But he wasn’t just waiting for a train here, he was waiting to find out if Murdoc was still alive or not. He had curled himself up in the corner of his chair, hugging his bony knees and just staring at everyone else that was huddled in there along with him. Russel and Noodle weren’t far away, sitting a few chairs down from him. Noodle appeared to be asleep, snuggled against Russel’s big, sweatshirt-clad arm. But Russel was looking very distant. 2-D sighed, and went to staring at the floor, closing his eyes to try and make his ever-present headache give him just one night off.

                And Russel was, in fact, almost unaware of the young girl that was trying to treat him like one big teddy bear. Not that he would have minded, he was feeling pretty bad for the little one right about now. But he was also lost in his thoughts and memories. This whole situation called back some literal skeletons from his closet, and Russel didn’t like thinking about them at all. In Noodle’s eyes, he saw a reflection of himself when he was just a high school kid back on the streets of NYC. She was a heck of a lot more innocent than he was, but in her reaction to Murdoc’s suicide attempt, he saw the same shock and momentary terror that he felt when the bullets had started to rip through the car he had sat in with his friends, those years ago. She had tried to shake Murdoc awake just as he’d tried to revive the bodies around him in the blown-out frame of that car. Russel let out a heavy sigh and closed his eyes. He wanted to stop thinking, to stop remembering all of that. He wished it had never happened. Forget all of the good things that had come of it, they would never outweigh that one day of abject terror he had to go through. He wished that Del was here with him now, instead of just lurking in some far corner of his head… Russel sharply jerked the bill of his baseball cap down, and wiped his milky eyes with his free hand while pulling the other one across his lap. He had forgotten about Noodle, and upset her in the process. “Whoa, sorry girl…” he started, trying to keep his hat brim down as he glanced back to her.

                Noodle blinked herself awake quickly, looked around, and then up at Russel. Her expression changed for a moment, and curiously tried to look him in the face. “Russel-san?” she asked, leaning up on the armrest of the chair. “You sad?”

                Russel looked away. “Sorta. Don’t worry about it, Noodle-chan.”

                 Noodle blinked again, and pulled back his arm to hug it a little. “Don’t be sad… you say…. Murdoc be okay…”

                Russel sighed in embarrassment. A ten year old girl was trying to comfort him, instead of it being vice versa. But she didn’t understand the whole situation, and Russel didn’t want her to understand. These ghosts were his own, literal or figurative or whatever. As he squeezed his eyes shut, Noodle pulled his arm back and hugged it.

                “Murdoc be okay.” she repeated. “Gorillaz be okay too!”

                Russel took his hand away from his face to pat Noodle on the head, as she snuggled into him again and yawned. He wished that he could be so optimistic about the situation. More than anything, he wished that she’d be right.

2-D blinked at the little exchange between the two. He wasn’t really watching them, he wasn’t really watching anyone. He had even forgotten about his pounding headache. Right now, he was sitting with a pencil and a little notepad that he carried around in his back pocket. 2-D was scribbling down words, doodling out images, just scratching the pencil across the little lined pages. It came naturally to him, and anything was better than being locked in reality, right now. This notepad was an escape hatch, a way to cope, a means to distraction. 2-D didn’t mind that at all. It was just what he was looking for. He curled up tighter on the chair, bracing the notepad on one knee. Even though he had his distraction, 2-D still felt awful, in the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t stop worrying about what was happening to Murdoc. His band leader could be dead now, and the others didn’t know. 2-D sighed, and felt quite alone. Slowly unfolding himself, he stood and walked down the few chairs that separated himself from his two bandmates. He curled up again on the chair next to Noodle, and started scribbling quietly.

                Russel gave the vocalist a slow glance, before swinging his head back and quickly becoming enveloped in his own unwanted thoughts once again.

                “Mr. Pot? Mr. Hobbs?” a voice called from the entrance to the waiting room.

                Snapping out of their individual stupors, both men looked up as a man in scrubs walked over to them.

                “What’s happening, is he gonna be awright?” 2-D spoke up.

                “Let me explain everything.” the doctor started. “I’m Dr. Thorne, Mr. Niccals is going to be fine. We managed to get some blood back into him, and stitch up the lacerated blood vessel in his hand.”

                “Thank goodness.” Russel sighed, relieved.

                “So that’s it?” 2-D blinked. “Can we go see ‘im?”

                “You may, although he hasn’t regained consciousness yet.” Dr. Thorne nodded. “He’s currently recovering in our psych ward. I think they may keep him a while, just for observation, but that decision is up to the doctors there.”

                Russel stood and nodded to the doctor. “Thank you, and all of the others. Which way is the psych ward?”

                “Go down the hall to the right.” Dr. Thorne pointed. “You’ll come up to the reception desk in the next wing.”

                As the doctor nodded and started away, 2-D stood up and tucked his pencil and notepad back into his pocket. “Fink we should go…”

                Before he could even set a foot forward, Noodle had shot out of her seat and was off down the hall, peeking into every room along the way, because she only understood that the doctor had pointed in that direction.

                It was 2-D that managed to catch up to her, grabbing onto the hood of her jacket and pulling her back. “This way.” he nodded. “But slow down girl!” He ushered her along as Russel joined them, and they finally reached the reception desk. The psych ward was definitely different from the ER. It was much more quiet, but almost a little too quiet for anyone’s liking. There was wire meshed into the glass on the doors, so that nobody could break through it. Passing doctors were scanning their ID cards to gain access to certain halls. A security guard stood on duty across the room, in the smaller waiting area. Russel approached the main desk, where a female nurse was scribbling on a medical chart.

                “Excuse me miss.” he started. “We have a friend who just arrived here a while ago, we were told we could visit him.”

                The nurse glanced up at him, and then scanned over a few charts behind the desk.

                “You’re looking for a Mr. Niccals, aren’t you? He’s in room forty two, on the left. I’ll let you into the hall, but you’ll have to wait for his doctor to come and speak with you, she’s with another patient right now.” As she spoke, the nurse led the three Gorillaz over to a door, and slid her card in to open it. “There you go.”

                “Thank you.” Russel nodded, and was the last in before the door shut behind him.

                The hall of the psych ward was eerily silent, save for the bleeping of a few nearby heart monitors, and the hiss of a hidden respirator. Most of the doors to the rooms were shut, and the three started off, eyes trailing down the numbers as they all focused on the left. The door to Murdoc’s room was actually open, and they could hear his own heart monitor bleeping from the hallway.

                “Murdoc-san?” Noodle asked, pointing to the room.

                “Yes.” Russel nodded, but took a firm hold of her hand. He didn’t want the poor kid running into any more bad sights for today. “Come on, let’s go see if he’s in the mood to chat.”

                The three Gorillaz made an effort to all enter the room together.

 

End of Part Two