Shifting Sands - Chapter 62

[Pierry Louys]

Poor zack I can’t get a break !! 

[CDfm]

Very very pleased to see a new chapter. You just can’t help but feel horrible for Zack. It’s one thing to have your diaper exposed to complete strangers.  It’s an entirely different thing to have your classmate see you and find out that this is a regular thing for you.  That level of embarrassment goes well beyond the highest point on the scale.  I think that if I were in Zack’s shoes I would point that scooter to the nearest door and just keep it going. Then I would ditch the diaper at the first opportunity.  I wouldn’t even hesitate to start begging people for enough money to buy a pair of shorts or pants and then go commando.  I would take my chances on the street rather than deal with Kelly. Obviously getting this kind of emotion in your readers, you are doing a fantastic job writing.  I am looking forward to reading more. 

[Andyman3]

21 hours ago, CDfm said:

Very very pleased to see a new chapter. You just can’t help but feel horrible for Zack. It’s one thing to have your diaper exposed to complete strangers.  It’s an entirely different thing to have your classmate see you and find out that this is a regular thing for you.  That level of embarrassment goes well beyond the highest point on the scale.  I think that if I were in Zack’s shoes I would point that scooter to the nearest door and just keep it going. Then I would ditch the diaper at the first opportunity.  I wouldn’t even hesitate to start begging people for enough money to buy a pair of shorts or pants and then go commando.  I would take my chances on the street rather than deal with Kelly. Obviously getting this kind of emotion in your readers, you are doing a fantastic job writing.  I am looking forward to reading more. 

Absolutely, problem is he got injured 😭

[Andyman3]

Can't wait to see what happens when he gets back home😄

[Little Sherri]

I've been travelling for work and really busy, but I hope to sit down and write some more soon. Thanks for the support. 

[Little Sherri]

Chapter 49 – Romping About

The elevator doors opened, and Zack glumly wheeled himself up the hall, past the nursing station, and into his room. Tommy waived a perplexed hello to him as he rolled by, but Zack just awkwardly lifted his leg off his scooter and rolled onto his bed. He stared at the ceiling and tried to will his ankle to heal with his mind, picturing blood and nutrients rushing towards the injury like floodwaters from a burst dam, but he got no response from it that he could detect. He put his arm over his eyes and concentrated on the colour bursts that occurred in the darkness behind his eyelids, while suckling absentmindedly on his pacifier.

Kelly seemed to have click-click-clicked off somewhere. He heard footsteps and the sound of a rolling cart approaching, but didn’t bother looking. He felt a hand lift his shirt, which finally caused him to drop his arm and open his eyes. It was Brenda, the nurse.

“Zack, is it okay if I check your diaper?”

“I donth cawe,” he responded.

Brenda gently opened the tabs and lowered the front of his diaper partially, before refastening it.

“You’re dry – did you use the potty, now that you can get around, or did your mommy change you?”

Zack said nothing.

“I just need to know for your chart, sweetie. If you’ve stopped peeing, that’s not good.”

“Thee’s NOTH my mommy.”

“Did your, uh… did Kelly help you with your diaper?”

Zack remained silent for an extended moment, before finally replying. “Yeth,” he said in a low voice.

“Thank you, Zack. I’ll make a note of it. Was your diaper soiled, or just wet?”

“Juth weth.”

“Perfect, thank you. I’m going to hook you up to an IV for about an hour, to give you another dose of your medications.”

Brenda took a strip of tape off of the port on Zack’s arm, and then she connected a line that ran up to two small bags, and a larger bag, hanging on a pole behind his bed. Zack felt sleepy within a few minutes of the drip starting, and happily gave in to the sensation.

Sometime later, he was awakened by noises around him, and when he opened his eyes, he realized that the lunches were being delivered into their room. He also realized that he’d fallen asleep on top of his bedding, so he lifted his hips and his legs and pulled at the sheets until he could get himself partially under them. The food service lady smiled at him and took hold of the lower corner by his injured foot, to straighten them out. It wasn’t until she’d left that room that he realized he still had a soother in his mouth. He took it out and stuffed it under his pillow.

Zack looked over his shoulder and noted that the contents of both of the small bags, and more than half of the large one, were gone. He also realized that his diaper was slightly damp beneath him, although the front felt fairly dry.

He looked at his lunch. There was a yellowing plastic dome overtop of a plastic dish, a carton of chocolate milk, an apple, and two wrapped cookies, all sitting on top of a brown plastic tray. He lifted the dome without enthusiasm, revealing a portion of limp-looking fries, some boiled mixed vegetables, and what looked like a breaded piece of meat of some sort. The smell under the dome was vaguely fishy.

Fish and chips. Blech. Why do they bother trying to serve something like this? Stick to sandwiches and soups.

Zack picked at the fries and drank his chocolate milk and ate the cookies and part of the apple. He put the dome back over the fish and the watery vegetables, and hoped that the remains would get taken away before anyone looked into how much of it he’d eaten.

Then, Zack heard Kelly’s heels clicking up the hallway, so he pushed the tray table as far away from himself as he could without getting out of bed, and hoped that she’d ignore it.

Kelly breezed into the room and waived at Tommy, who was now in the company of his mom again, before pushing the curtains back and then sitting down on the edge of Zack’s bed.

“Where’s your paci?” she opened with.

Zack swallowed audibly, and reached around under his pillow for a moment, before his hand brushed over the plastic handle. Somewhat triumphantly, he extracted it and held it out to her.

“Don’t hide those, Zack, or you’ll lose one. Your timing is excellent, though, because I just ordered you some mag-lock paci tethers from Mr. Burke! Your rompers came as well. Do you want to try one on?”

Zack shrugged.

“Well, I would have thought you’d be more excited about not having to wander the halls in just a baby diaper, as much as I still say it doesn’t matter, because this is a hospital, and nobody should care what anyone else has to wear. And, you look sweet, waddling around. But I know big boys don’t want to hear that.”

Zack decided to revise his strategy, and with effort, he feigned some interest.

“Can I see it?”

Kelly reached into her bag and pulled out a shipping sack that was still sealed, and then ripped a perforated end off of it, and overturned it onto the bedding beside Zack. Two folded light blue garments slid out, each individually packed in clear plastic, and, a smaller clear plastic bag containing a couple of blue gingham strips of fabric that had what looked like plastic jaws at the end. Three mag lock clickers in another bag fell out beside them, looking like a sleeve of white chocolates.

Kelly took one of the pacifier tethers and unwrapped it. She picked up Zack’s soother and studied the mechanism for a moment, before determining that she had to wrap the loop at the end of it over the handle of the pacifier, and then feed the tether portion through it. She closed the plastic jaws onto the collar of Zack’s shirt, and then slid a plastic cover up over the mechanism. The plastic cover would not slide back without being released via the magnet, and the jaws held fast when she gave the tether a couple of tugs.

“There, now we never have to worry about losing your paci, and you’ll never be without it.”

Zack looked down at the pacifier dangling on the front of his shirt.

Am I supposed to be overjoyed about this?

Next, Kelly pulled back a flap on the clear plastic pouch containing one of the rompers, which was held down by a strip of adhesive. It came away easily and looked like it could be resealed. She extracted the square of light fabric and unfolded it. It looked like a pair of gym shorts had been sewn to a t-shirt of the same material. The edges of the legs and the sleaves had a thin strip of lace affixed to them, in the same colour. Mercifully, if was quite small, and looked like an elastic if you didn’t examine it closely. At least there wasn’t a ruffle running across the bum, like his plastic pants had.

What is with the lace on all this crap?

Kelly flipped the garment upside down, and pulled at the edges of one of the leg openings, which perplexed Zack, until the middle seam gave way, and the shorts split up one leg and down the other, until the garment opened at the bottom like a dress.

Kelly flipped it right-side-up and then said “Hands up!”

Zack put his good foot on the floor, and kneeled on the bed with his casted leg, then put his hands up like a person under arrest, and Kelly pulled the romper down over his arms, and fished his hands out of the short sleeves, before shuffling the rest of it down around his waist until it did, indeed, resemble a dress, although one with an uneven hem. Kelly reached under Zack and pulled the rear edge of the left leg forward until it met the front edge, and then pushed a small snap together, joining the two. She repeated the process until she got to the middle, at the center of the underside of the shorts.

“This one’s the mag-lock, Zack. I’m going to leave it open so it’s easier for the nurses to get to your diapers.”

She continued from the center, down the inseam of his right leg, fastening snaps, until the light blue dress turned into light blue shorts. She reached down the collar of his shirt and extracted his pacifier, letting it dangle over the front of the romper. Then she stood back and had a look at her work.

“Do you want to see?”

Somewhat reluctantly, Zack nodded. Kelly wheeled his scooter over to him, and he transferred over to it and then coasted over to the washroom, which Kelly opened for him. The angled mirror gave him a full view of himself under the harsh florescent lights. He studied what he saw with serious eyes. The legs of the romper were short, shorter than he liked, but, it still beat wandering the halls in a t-shirt. However, both the material, and the colour, were light, and Zack could see the ghost of the print on the front of his diaper where the material was snug over top of it. Also, the sleeves had a slight puffiness to them, lacy, elasticized cuffs, and were shorter than the sleeves of his t-shirt, which had bunched up within them.

As though reading his mind, Kelly set to pulling the undershirt’s sleeves out, before frowning.

“Maybe we should have taken the t-shirt off first,” she noted.

“Kel… what’s with the sleeves? Is this thing… for girls?”

“You’re cute, Zack. No. Baby clothing is largely genderless. Anyway, I didn’t think you’d mind… you were happy enough to wear your sister’s little panties, weren’t you?”

Zack turned crimson and whipped his head around, terrified that Tommy or someone else might have heard Kelly’s reference to the humiliating incident that seemed, to Zack, to have occurred years ago, even thought it was only a couple of weeks. He caught a glimpse of Tommy through a gap in the curtains. He had headphones on and looked like a pilot, clearly engaged in a video game. His mom was reading a book and hadn’t looked up.

Kelly knelt down beside him and began unsnapping the fasteners, before lifting the whole contraption up over his head again. The legs were short enough that him kneeling on the scooter did not interfere. Next, without asking, she pulled his t-shirt up over his head, leaving him standing in his diaper in the entrance to the washroom.

As if on cue, the food services lady walked into the room and then collected Tommy’s tray before taking his. He stood with his back to her as she walked past and said hello to Kelly, but he saw in the mirror that she’d given him a brief look-over.

Of course, she did. I look ridiculous.

Kelly opened up the sleeve of magnet release clickers and pressed one of them to the pacifier tether, allowing her to slide back the cover and open the jaws. She took it off of his t-shirt and applied it to the collar of his romper, before walking back.

“Hands up, little man.”

Zack raised his hands, now looking more like a hostage than ever, and Kelly pulled the romper down over his head and then began fastening the snaps up underneath him again. She gave the back of his diaper a quick pat when she was done.

“There, I think you’ll be okay for a while in that one, let’s roll you over to the nursing station, and I can explain to them how it works.”

Kelly took a hold of the handlebars on Zack’s scooter, and towed him out of the room and over to the nursing station, while he pushed dejectedly with his good foot and staired at the ground.

At the nursing station, a couple of the nurses Zack knew were sitting behind the desk, looking at a screen. There was a lady standing off to the side of the hall, with two little girls, one of them in a wheelchair, also with a casted leg.

“Hi, ladies!” Kelly’s voice took on a chipper, lecturing tone.

An Asian man wearing glasses and green scrubs looked up from a clipboard. He smiled thinly. “Hi,” he said.

“So sorry, ladies and gentlemen, if I could please have your attention for a moment, I wanted to show you how Zack’s outfit works.”

The women behind the desk rose in their chairs and looked over.

“This,” Kelly began, “is basically a snap-crotch romper like you can get for babies, but sized for a bigger kid. There’s an anti-tamper mechanism in the middle, but you don’t have to worry about it, because I’m not going to subject you to that. What you do is, reach down…”.

Kelly bent over at the waist and reached around his thigh, grabbing both inward edges of the romper’s inseam at Zack’s right leg. 

“And if you give the two sides a gentle pull apart…”

She tugged, and the snaps began releasing one after the other in slow motion. Zack thought that she’d surely pause the demonstration after a couple of them had released, but she kept going as the snap-snap-snap reports marched up to the center of his shorts and then down the other leg, leaving her holding a widening strip of material, until the last fastener on his folded left leg let go. She lifted both sides with a flourish and held them aloft for a moment.

“That way,” she finished, “you have easy access to his diapers.”

She let the material fall, and then began closing the snaps.

“Skip the slightly larger snap in the middle, that one needs a magnetic key to release, and we don’t need to worry about that while he’s here, because he’s never really unsupervised.”

Zack sat astride his scooter with his eyes locked on the floor as Kelly reached around and below him and refastened his romper. When she was done, she placed a hand on the handlebars of his scooter, and pulled him around in a tight half-circle, back toward his room.

Kelly could feel that Zack was lagging bind her, making her tow him while he halfheartedly pushed with his good leg. Once they were in front of his bed, she held the scooter so that he could make the transfer back onto his mattress. She pulled it over to the front of the room, then walked back and leaned down, looking Zack in the eyes, or rather looking at his eyes, because his eyes immediately went down and stayed fixated on his hands.

“Ahhhh, is Zacky sad right now? Zacky didn’t like his hospital gown, so mommy got him a t-shirt. Then Zacky didn’t like his t-shirt, so mommy got him a romper. Does Zacky not like his romper now?”

“You’re NOT my mommy,” Zack said flatly.

Kelly took a sharp breath. “That’s fine, then, we can take that romper off and you can get a some skin time in your cute little diaper.”

Kelly reached down and gave the edge of Zack’s inseam an abrupt yank, causing all the snaps to release in rapid succession.

“Hands up!” she barked.

Zack lifted his hands, and Kelly hauled the romper up over his head, and then she set about digging around in her purse for a mag release clicker, so that she could detach his pacifier from it. She pressed the silicon nipple to his lips, and after a moment, he took it. The tether dangled below his chin, weighed down by the open clip.

Kelly took the romper, folded it, and put it on the end of Zack’s bed, then went over to the white board above his dresser, and picked up one of the dry-erase markers. On a blank spot at the bottom of the board, she started drawing in red letters.

Hi, regarding Zack’s romper, if you’re checking his diaper, please do not engage the large middle snap, or else a release key will be needed to open the romper again. IF the snap accidentally gets locked, there will be a key at the nursing desk. Please do not give the key to Zack. Thank you so much for all your help.

She finished by drawing a heart, then circled the whole message. Then, she walked back over to Zack, reached over to the bed controls, and motored down the top of his bed.

“I think someone needs a nap,” she announced. Zack needed no further incentive to cooperate with that initiative. He wanted the day, the week, the whole summer, to go by as quickly as possible. Zack reached down and pulled the covers up over himself, up past his ears, while rolling away from Kelly to face the window. Kelly sat down on a chair and pulled out her phone.

Zack closed his eyes, but before sleep could come, he had to deal with one more issue; there was a familiar pressure building in his lower abdomen. Seeing no other way that he could possibly deal with it, and not wanting to converse on the topic with Kelly or anyone else, Zack slowly and quietly pushed what he could into his diaper, and then sucked on his soother until he drifted fitfully off to sleep.

[A_Pale_Spirit]

Another great chapter!

[Tracey]

Kelly is really putting the heat on Zach now that he is pushing back. Kelly also has his little sister Maddie back in cloth diapers although she seems to be compliant and doing as she is told for now, but will it last and will Kelly realise that reorienting her focus to Maddie would deliver her a better outcome? 

[CDfm]

Zack seemed to be a little depressed in this chapter.  Imagine that.  Wonder why it is that no one seems so notice that. I was pretty happy to see Zack push back a little bit.  I think Kelly was actually hurt a bit when he told her she wasn’t his mom.  I don’t really want to see anyone hurt but I did get some joy out of that little barb. 
I think you are doing a fantastic job with this story and I am always thrilled to see a new chapter. 

[keith60]

kelly is a bitch 

[Andyman3]

Wow interesting chapter. Well the rompers would be great once he is back home, so he can not always be watched. Poor thing, maybe now would be good for a time skip. 

[Alutheria]

Oh Zack, things are just getting worse and worse for him, aren't they? Kelly has long since slipped into evil step-monster territory, but she's now actively controlling and humiliating him, and coming down hard when he has the audacity to push back on the humiliation.

I get the feeling he was right previously when he thought that Kelly wasn't following the good doctor's treatment advice properly. (Though it will be interesting to see if he ever gets a chance to properly speak with Dr. Paige about the program she's put him into.) 

I actually think Zack would probably have been more accepting of his new treatment if Kelly had been anything less than 100% stick with him from the first moment.

Much as I love this story, I'm really pulling for him to turn the tables on Kelly and get a happy ending at the conclusion of all of this.

[Little Sherri]

Chapter 50 – Changing Times

“Zack, wake up buddy. Zack?”

Zack opened his eyes and felt a hand on his shoulder. He reached up and quickly snatched the pacifier from his mouth, tucking it under his pillow, before realizing that it almost didn’t matter, because all he had on was a diaper, in any case. Still, he got some satisfaction from being able to hide it, even after Kelly had bought him a locking tether.

Zack rolled onto his back and sat up. It was nurse Brenda.

“Zack, Dr. Raj is going to come and have a look at your incision, so I’m going to take off your air cast and the dressing. How is your level of pain?”

Zack thought about it. His ankle was throbbing dully.

“It kinda hurts right now, not too badly. It just aches.”

Brenda flipped through his chart for a moment. “I think we can maybe try some oral medication, rather than IV. Sound good?”

Zack nodded. Brenda stood up and left, returning quickly with a small plastic cup that had two white pills in it, and a Styrofoam cup with ice water in it. Zack brought the cup up to his mouth and tossed the pills back, then washed them down with a sip of water.

Brenda pushed Zack’s bedding to the side, and Zack motored the backrest up so that he could lean back against it. Brenda reached for the release valve on the air cast, but then paused for a moment, turned and looked at Zack.

“Zack, uh, could we maybe deal with your diaper before Dr. Raj gets here?”

Zack nodded sheepishly. He had become aware almost in the same moment that Brenda did, that there was a lump pressing up from down below his bottom. He didn’t really remember having used his diaper, but he’d been in them so long at this point that he wondered if he had just stopped thinking about it when he did. Or maybe it happened when he was asleep. In any case, it wasn’t a big accident.

Brenda walked over to the front of the room, put blue gloves on, then picked up a diaper and a packet of wipes, and then, mercifully, she drew the curtain closed so that Tommy, or anyone in the hall, wouldn’t inadvertently catch of glimpse of the proceedings. She put her finger on the bed controls and lowered the backrest a bit, then unfolded the diaper and spread out the back of it.

“Lift your bum, Zack,” she said.

Zack pressed into the mattress with his palms and his good foot, and raised his hips enough so that she could slide the new diaper under him. He settled down on top of it, and Brenda quickly pulled the tabs open on his current diaper, and pulled the front forward. Zack fixed his gaze on the ceiling and tried not to think about the sensations from below.

“Can you lift your legs a bit? Or is that going to hurt?”

Zack nodded, and then pulled his knees up until they were over his hips, before placing his hands behind his knees. The weight of the cast made it a bit more difficult, but not unmanageable. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on the colours that danced behind his eyelids. The coolness of the wipes caused him to flinch slightly.

“Sorry,” Brenda said.

“It’s fine,” Zack whispered.

Brenda worked quickly, and in moments, the old diaper had been extracted and folded around the soiled wipes, and then Zack heard her walk across the room, and drop it with a dull thud. He let his legs straighten out, opened his eyes, and reached down, fishing the front of the diaper out from between his legs and pulling it up over himself. Brenda came back, smiled, and folded the front down again, in order to apply barrier cream in the creases between his legs with a gloved finger.  Then, she wiped her finger clean on the inside front panel, closed the diaper, and began positioning the tabs on the front.

“Is that too snug, Zack?”

Zack blushed lightly. “It’s fine.”

“Then we’re all done. I’m just going to wash my hands, and then we’ll take that cast off.”

Brenda walked over to the bathroom, reopening his curtain on the way out. Tommy looked over from his screen for a moment and waved at him. Zack nodded back, vaguely wishing that the detested romper was within easy reach. Brenda returned, leaned over his foot, and Zack heard a hissing and felt the pressure within his cast begin to decline. He’d become so used to his immobilized foot being firmly gripped by the inflatable bladders within the orthopedic boot, that having it free within the cast now felt weird. He wanted to stretch it, but was also afraid to move it.

Brenda fiddled with buckles and fasteners, and then gingerly slid the boot down off his foot, pulling the tongue back to put as little pressure as possible on his ankle. Under the boot was a white surgical dressing that looked a little yellowed in the center. Brenda pulled it away to reveal a surprisingly small surgical scar, crisscrossed with stark black stitching that looked almost like wire. There was a jagged pink line down the middle of the track of stitches, but everything around the wound looked clean.

“This looks really good, Zack. You’re a fast healer, apparently!” Brenda proclaimed.

The bedroom door was filled with the blue, scrub-fitted frame of Dr. Raj, who smiled at Tommy before crossing the room and sitting down on the edge of Zack’s bed. Zack wanted to pull his blankets up over his midriff, but realized that the dignity ship had already sailed. Awkwardly, he tugged up and flattened the waistband of his diaper with his hand, and pressed on the tabs.

“Hi, Zack – I see that Brenda beat me to the grand reveal. Let’s have a look.”

Dr. Raj ran a gloved finger over the tissue surrounding and under the stitches.

“Does that hurt much?”, he asked.

“Not really.”

“Well, this looks excellent, Zack. I’m going to request another X-ray, but I think that you can head home sooner, rather than later, if everything looks good. Are you using the scooter to get around right now?”

“Yes,” Zack replied.

“In another day or two, we’ll have you putting a little weight on it – that actually helps the bone to heal faster, if you don’t overdo it. Use the scooter or a crutch if you go to the mall, but if it’s just to go to the bathr….” Dr. Raj’s eye flicked momentarily to Zack’s diaper. “Uh, if it’s just to get something from the fridge, then you can hobble a few steps on it.”

Zack’s cheeks reddened at the doctor’s verbal stumble, but he nodded.

Dr. Raj gave him a pat on the knee, then stood up and walked out of the room.

“So that’s good news, then, isn’t it?” Brenda asked.

Zack nodded again, but he wasn’t entirely sure. On the one hand, it would be great to be able to get up and move around, and not being poked and prodded several times a day had its upside for sure, but, on the other hand, getting out of the hospital meant going home. With Kelly.

“Zack, do you want me to help you put your romper on, and you can go scooting around for a while before dinner?”

Zack looked perplexed. “But, Kelly isn’t here right now…”

“How old are you, Zack, ten?”

“Eleven. Going on twelve.”

“As long as you stay on the floor, Zack, you can go exploring if you want to. This is a children’s hospital. We have areas where you can go meet other kids or watch TV or play video games, or just stretch your legs. You don’t have to be escorted everywhere, just don’t get in an elevator. Let’s get another dressing on your incision and get your boot back on, and then we’ll get you dressed, what do you think?”

Zack thought about it. Getting a chance to stretch his legs, get out of this room, and, to do it without being towed around by Kelly had its appeal.

“That would be good.”

Brenda quickly dressed his foot and slid his cast back on, and then she pumped up the air bladders until his foot was almost numb again. Then she went over and picked up the romper and shook it out and held it up in front of her, trying to discern which side was the front and which was the back. Once she had it figured out (the back had two faux pockets outlined with darker blue stitching), she held it aloft and Zack threaded his arms up into the sleeves. She pulled it down to his waist, and then he put his good foot down onto the floor and rocked forward on to his knees so that the front and the back flap could be snapped together into shorts again. Brenda snapped up one side while he reached down and did the other, until the butterflies on his diaper became shadows, barely discernable through the light blue cotton of the romper.

Brenda went to snap the larger center button, but Zack put a hand over it first.

“That one locks it.”

“Right, yes, the note on the whiteboard. I don’t want Kelly hunting me down later! Listen…” Brenda looked thoughtful for a moment. “Do you sometimes try to take your diapers off? Is that something that I need to be concerned about?”

Zack blushed again, and broke away from her gaze.

“I understand, Zack – I’m sure it’s embarrassing sometimes, being your age and wearing diapers. You don’t have to feel badly about it around here. I have kids coming in for surgery or recovering from injuries who find themselves in diapers for the first time since they were babies, and it’s hard on them, sometimes. I see it every day. I just want you to know that I’m not judging you, and Dr. Raj isn’t judging you, and neither are any of the other staff.”

Zack lifted his eyes and met Brenda’s. She smiled at him, and he smiled shyly in return.

“So let’s get you up and motoring!”, she concluded, and then pulled the scooter up next to the bed, but deliberately did not offer to help Zack get up and onto it. He pivoted on his good foot and put his knee onto the saddle, gripped the handlebars, and began rolling himself across the room. Brenda got up and walked past him, giving him a pat on the back as she went.

Then, Zack paused, waited until she’d left, and went back to his bed. With a bit of effort, he was able to reach over and extract his pacifier and tether from under his pillow. He held it in his hand and thought hard for a few moments, wavering between shoving it back under his pillow, or, clipping it to his romper. In the end, he came to the realization that he’d quite likely run into Kelly either before, or, as soon as he got back to his room, and if his soother was stuffed under his pillow again, then who knew what she might come up with?

Reluctantly, he pocketed the pacifier and tether contraption. It made a lump under the light fabric of his romper on his right thigh. He wheeled himself over to the mirror again, and judged that the protrusion would be unrecognizable to the uninitiated, perhaps looking like some kind of medical device.

If he squinted, he could still make out the lines of his diaper, but, again, it wasn’t obvious – certainly not nearly as obvious as having nothing on over it would be. And the unfortunately-named Baby Stages were at least quiet, and comfortable enough to almost forget you were in them for a while.

Zack did his best to flatten out the puffy, lace-trimmed sleeves, and then he gave Tommy a nod, and headed out the door and past the nursing station, down the hall, and around the corner. Another hospital corridor, looking very much like the one he’d just left, stretched out before him. Zack wasn’t sure if there was a point going exploring on a floor where everything mirrored everything else, but absent anything better to do, he transferred his weight to the scooter, and pushed off with his good foot.

He rolled past doorways, turning his head to the left and right as he went, trying to get an idea what was going on behind them, without being too intrusive. There were semiprivate rooms like his, and a room with a fridge and an ice machine. The door was propped open, so he decided to head inside, recalling the large white Styrofoam cups that Kelly and the Nurses sometimes brought him, filled with water and ice.

Sure enough, there was a stack of the cups on a steel shelf. Zack positioned one under the ice machine and used it to press against a lever that was behind the ice spout. Ice avalanched into the cup, quicker than Zack had expected, and he pulled it back.

How do you get water?

There was a black button on the front of the machine, above the spout, and off to the left. It almost looked like an afterthought, but it had a small blue drop in the middle of it. Zack gave it a poke with his finger, and water came squirting out from somewhere within or behind the ice spout, again, with surprising vigor, spraying his face lightly with deflected droplets. He held it until he could see ice floating close to the top of the cup, then he released the button and withdrew the cup, pressing a plastic lid down onto it, and picking up a straw, before depositing it into the basket on the front of his scooter. He did a three-point turn, left the water room, and headed further up the hall.

Next, he came across a supply closet that was open, and caught a glimpse of several packets of diapers lined up on shelves, alongside boxes of blue nitrile gloves, and rolls of paper hand towels for the washrooms. Further down were a series of doors that were closed, and then, at the other end of the hall, another door that was propped open. He looked inside, and saw a large screen television with an L-shaped couch in front of it. The backs of three heads were visible in the glow from the screen.

Zack nearly withdrew from the room, feeling that he was invading someone’s space, when his eye fixated on a sign on the open door that wasn’t visible unless you looked in at it: Patient Lounge. He remembered someone at some point had mentioned that there was a lounge they could go to, but he’d dismissed the information at the time, confined as he was to his bed. Now, with his scooter, and an outfit that offered at least some coverage, he was curious. Quietly, he rolled himself inside and looked over the back of the couch.

Three kids were seated on the couch, a boy who looked a bit older than Zack, another boy who looked about Maddy’s age, and a girl who was maybe a bit younger. It was hard to tell. The two boys were playing Minecraft, or a game a lot like it, on the big screen, and the girl was watching and combing the hair of a doll. The boys were directly across from the TV, while the girl sat on the perpendicular section of the low, black couch. There was a spot at the far end of the couch, almost next to the TV, beside the girl.

Zack hesitated, but then decided to join them. He rolled along the back of the couch with the boys on it, and eyed the gap between it and the perpendicular couch. He judged it to be too small for his scooter, so instead he chose a path behind that couch, coming around the far end of it, right by the empty seat. He waved an apology to the players as his appeared in front of the TV, blocking the righthand side of it while he dismounted from his scooter and plunked down onto the couch.

The younger of the two boys leaned to the left to see around Zack, which put him into the sightline of the older one.

“Come on, dude!” he said.

“Yeah I can’t see my side of the screen,” the smaller kid replied, while ducking his head down and trying to become less of an obstruction.

“Sorry, guys,” Zack said, as he settled onto the couch, put his cup on the table in front of it, and then wheeled the scooter over beside his seat.

“It’s fine,” the younger kid said curtly, as he sat back up.

The girl, who had curly brown hair, fixed Zack with a gaze, and then went back to brushing the doll’s blond locks.

“I’m brushing Bella’s hair,” she said to nobody in particular.

Zack looked over at her. She was wearing a white and pink one-piece sleeper, and pink slippers. The doll was in a short pink dress with matching knickers.

“Hi Bella,” Zack offered.

“She can’t talk,” the girl said.

“Oh.”

Zack turned his attention to the action on the screen. He had to crane his neck a bit to see it from his vantage point, almost directly alongside the screen. The two players seemed to be working on the same lofty structure, adding blocks one by one until they’d constructed walls and doorways and floors.

“They’re buildin’ giant treehouses,” the girl explained. “’Cept there’s only two controllers so nobody else can play.”

“No, you can’t play because you suck!” the younger boy retorted. Zack looked over at him. He was wearing street clothes.

Probably the girl’s brother, here visiting.

The older boy had a hospital gown on, over knee-length shorts. Zack could see that he had a dressing taped over one of his ears. He seemed oblivious to the conversation. Zack wondered if he could hear them, or what, but then he spoke up.

“You fucked up your leg?”

The small girl startled at the older boy’s choice of words, but the younger boy laughed.

Zack tried to make eye contact with the kid who’d spoken, but his eyes were locked on the screen.

“Yeah, I jumped off of a rope swing and landed on rocks.”

“Good one! I had to have a bone in my ear removed because it started growing funny. Why are you dressed like a girl?”

It was Zack’s turn to startle. The younger kid laughed again. The girl turned her head and seemed to be appraising Zack’s wardrobe.

“I’m not dressed like a girl.” Zack replied, trying to keep his voice level.

“That’s a romper or whatever they’re called. My sister has a few of those.”

Zack tried to gauge the tenor of the conversation. The boy spoke in a matter-of-fact manner, and did not seem like he was looking for a fight, but his observations were getting under Zack’s skin.

Zack sighed. “We were at a cottage when it happened and what I was wearing was covered in blood, so my stepmom bought me this thing, because I can put it on without pulling it up over my cast. But yeah, it kinda sucks.”

The older boy shrugged, then changed gears.

“You guys want to watch something else? I brought a Firestick. Want to watch It?”

“NOOOOOO!” the younger boy shouted, picking up the pace of his on-screen construction.

“You only get one vote, and anyway, you can go home anytime you like. The rest of us are stuck here.”

“What’s It?”, the girl inquired.

“It’s a movie about a clown,” the older boy responded. Zack looked over at him with raised eyebrows.

That is a severe understatement.

“Okay, sure,” said the girl, before turning Bella over and starting to form a ponytail in her hair.

The older boy picked up a remote and toggled through some source options, until the videogame disappeared, and a streaming service menu came up. He highlighted the image of a menacing clown with a balloon, and the device started buffering. The younger boy dropped his controller onto the couch beside him, hung his head back over the couch, and groaned.

“That looks like a bad clown,” the girl whispered, as she pulled her knees into her chest. Zack slid a little further over towards the girl, so that he had a better angle on the screen. His ankle throbbed a bit when he pushed off the floor with it.

[Andyman3]

Oh that's cool the ending. This has been quite a long hospital part, really wonder why. Zach keeps meeting younger people, wonder what's going to happen. 

[A_Pale_Spirit]

I can't say enough good things about your writing!

Looking forward to more like always!

[CDfm]

Surprising how smooth things go when Kelly isn’t around to mess with Zack. He could almost pretend he is about to be a teenager and even act like one. I suppose now that the Doctor is discharging Zack things at home with Kelly are going to take a turn for the worse.  There can’t be to much more she can do to embarrass him but I have no doubt she will come up with something.  
I will say again that I am enjoying your story and encourage you to continue. 

[Little Sherri]

Chapter 51 – Movie Night

The movie played out over the next couple of hours, as Zack sipped his ice water, and the quality of the light through the windows changed, lengthening the shadows. Zack was not expecting the movie to be as intense as it was, nor that he would identify with the characters’ plight as much as he did. He felt like Kelly was his killer clown.

The girl sitting on the couch had run back to her room, and they all thought that was the last they would see of her, but then she returned, towing a blanket that she covered her head with, leaving a narrow opening, through which she continued to watch. Another kid came in midway through the movie, watched for a moment, and promptly headed back out into the hall. Occasionally, a nurse would cast a glance into the room, but nobody interrupted the show.

The surviving characters pledged to return to the town again to confront the evil, if it returned (which, Zack imagined, it had to, or why mention it?), and then the credits rolled. The girl let the blanket drop from her head, and the younger of the boys said “That was crazy. Who wants to play Minecraft?”

The older kid started flicking through ‘If you liked It, you’ll also like..’ options within the streaming service menu.

Zack let his hand fall surreptitiously to his lap, where he tried to very subtly probe the front of his diaper through his romper. He felt slightly damp, but he really could not tell how wet he was. He didn’t even remember peeing, he was so engrossed in the movie.

The front of his diaper felt slightly squishy. He moved his legs around, and thought that he detected a bit more bulk between them, but concluded that he was probably in no immediate danger.

As though reading his thoughts, Nurse Brenda appeared in the doorway to the patient lounge.

“Zack, you in here?” she inquired.

“Hi, Brenda,” he responded.

“How’s your ankle – are you in any pain?”

“No, ma’am, I’m okay.”

“How’s… everything else?”

Zack’s eyes had widened when she paused after saying ‘how’s’, in anticipation of where she might be going with that line of questioning, and he exhaled with relief when she concluded with without mentioning anything specific.

“I’m good,” he responded, but then he heard a telltale click-click-clicking coming up the hall behind her. He thought he saw Brenda roll her eyes slightly as Kelly’s blond head appeared over Brenda’s.

“So, THIS is where you’ve been hiding, Zackie.”

Zack held his breath again. Brenda withdrew from the doorway and headed back down the hall, and Zack fervently hoped that Kelly (the evil clown) would do the same thing, but instead, she came into the room, walking around the back of the couch, carrying her salmon-coloured purse under one arm.

“Have you made some new friends, little man?”

Zack nodded slightly. The eyes of the other kids in the room were fixed on the tall, blond woman, but Zack’s were looking at the floor.

“I’ll let you get back to your show or whatever you’re up to. I just need a quick look at your little diaper.”

Zack froze on the spot, except for the redness that was rising from his neck, heading towards his ears. The eyes of the other kids widened, and nobody said a word. Even the kid trying to set up the game again seemed to have been put on pause.

The sound of Kelly’s heels muted as she stepped off the tile and onto the area rug that was between the couches and the TV. She stooped over, reached down into Zack’s lap, and pulled open the middle of his romper with a quick upward tug, producing a staccato of snaps. She studied his diaper like a map for a moment, then stood up and ruffled the hair on his down-turned head.

“Don’t leave that for too much longer, kiddo. I’ll let you do your snaps up – mommy doesn’t have to do everything for you.” 

Kelly reached into her purse and extracted a folded Baby Stages diaper, which she laid on the coffee table, next to Zack’s drink.

“Bring that to one of the nurses when your bum gets too wet.”

Her shoes tap-tap-tapped on the carpet and then click-click-clicked on the tile until she was just about through the door, when she turned her head towards the couches again.

“Zack… where’s your paci?”

Like an automaton, Zack’s right hand slowly rose from his side, found the tether under the collar of his romper, and pulled on it, until his pacifier fell onto his chest. He began following the tether down towards the purple plastic handle it was wrapped around.

“It’s okay, little man, you don’t have to suck on it right now. I just wanted to make sure we knew where it was. Tootles!” Zack let the pacifier dangle against the front of his romper.

A moment later, Kelly was gone, leaving behind the smell of shampoo and something else, maybe perfume, or a body spray.

The younger boy was the first to break the silence.

“Ho-Ly-CRAP. Do you have some kind of baby disease or something? Or are you, like, ‘special needs’?”

Zack sat like a statue, eyes fixed on his open romper and the yellowed, printed diaper inside it. Tears began to roll down his crimson cheeks, and he swallowed a sob, before he started robotically snapping his romper closed.

The older kid spoke next.

“Dude, your mom’s hot.”

Three pairs of wide eyes slowly pivoted towards him.

“I’m just sayin’. But, yeah, weird man, why you wearin’ a diaper and a soother and baby clothes?”

“It’s called a romper…,” the girl on the couch whispered. “They’re not just for babies. I have one.”

“Yeah, that’s true, they are also for girls. Does yours unbutton at the bottom?” the older kid asked.

“No,” the girl answered solemnly.

“So, yeah, he’s wearin’ a baby romper, which makes sense, since he’s wearin’ Pampers.”

Zack snapped furiously now, using both hands. He stood bolt upright when he was done, and hopped on his good leg over to his scooter, as quickly as he could manage, using the arm of the couch to balance himself. Once he was on the scooter, he started navigating towards the hallway.

“Hey, kid!” the younger boy barked.

Zack’s head snapped around, and the boy could see that there was fire in his eyes.

“You forgot your extra Pampers…”

Zack’s eyes drilled into the kid. With some trepidation, as though approaching a dog he didn’t know, the kid leaned over, picked up the diaper, and then extended a hand over the back of the couch. Zack took the diaper, put it back over his shoulder, and sailed it like a Frisbee across the room, where it hit the TV screen and landed on the floor with a muted crunch. Then, he launched himself out the door like a skateboarder approaching a jump.

[A_Pale_Spirit]

A short but excellent chapter! Loved it!

As always, looking forward to more.

[Alutheria]

Ugh. Can I just give Zach a hug and get him away from psycho Kelly at this point? Poor, poor kid. He really needs help, and I hope he gets it soon.

 

Excellent chapter as always.

[Andyman3]

"mommy doesn’t have to do everything for you", your the one turning him into a baby! I do like this moment with the kids. 

I wonder were the story is going to go, this seems pointlessly hash. 

[CDfm]

I am not sure where Zack is headed but I am hoping that he is looking for a pair of shorts or some kind of garment to replace the diaper he is wearing.  Then I would hope he goes AMA and leaves Kelly and the hospital behind.  Realistically he isn’t going to get very far but at this point trying is a must. 
Any chapter causing these kind of feelings in me is a great chapter! I will be waiting for the next chapter. 

[007specialk]

Wowwhat a chapter had me on edge...Great writing thank you...

[Cute_Kitten]

I don't see that little stunt of throwing the diaper ending well for Zack when Kelly finds out.

[sklawlor]

You know what I would have said to kelly if I were zack and she asked me in front of my friends where my pacifier was? I would have said "it's up your ass" consequences be damned. I can't stand this character and I hope that someday, some way, somehow, she gets what's comming to her for embarassing this poor kid unnecessarily, every chance she gets.

[Little Sherri]

Chapter 52 – A River Runs Through It

Zack shot out of the patient lounge like he’d been launched by a slingshot. A lady pushing a cart stacked with sad-looking dinner trays had to slide to a halt to avoid him. Zack paid her no mind as he zipped purposefully up the hall, rounding the corner that led to back to his nursing station… and then, to the bank of elevators. Another cafeteria employee was negotiating another stack of trays onto the ward, and the automated doors were holding themselves open. Zack glided through, and turned towards the steel doors.

A lone woman wearing a business suit stood, looking at her phone, in front the glowing ‘down’ button. Zack rolled in beside her, distant enough not to startle her, but consciously close enough to imply an association. The elevator dinged, an arrow lit up above the left set of doors, and they rolled open a moment later. A nurse he’d never met before came walking out, gave Zack a nod, and continued towards the doors. The lady walked forward into the car, and Zack followed. She hit the lobby button, and Zack gave her a curt nod. Then, he noticed her eyes land on the pacifier dangling in front of his chest, sighed, and reeled it in before stuffing it back into his romper.

A moment later, the elevator doors opened, and he was once again presented with the lobby throng. The smells of toasting bread and coffee mingled with a lemony aroma of floor cleaner. Heels clicked and snippets of words rung out. The high ceilings gave everything a slight echo. The lady in the suit gave Zack an ‘after you’ arm sweep, and he pushed himself out, steering himself over to a central pillar, a natural break in the human stream, where he could stop and get his bearings without impeding anyone.

Scanning the large atrium, Zack saw a flash of blond hair at a counter in a store. He looked up at the sign above the shop; he didn’t recognize the name, but the place looked fancy and seemed to deal in cosmetics.

That could be Kelly.

Zack spun his head quickly, looking for inspiration, and he saw a revolving door. He didn’t really have a plan, and had not considered actually leaving the hospital, but, he knew with certainty that if he stayed in the lobby, Kelly or someone from his floor would pick him out of the crowd eventually – his scooter and his big black boot were hard to miss. That, and, he was pretty sure he was the only kid his age wearing a light blue romper.

He made a beeline for the revolving door, timing his entry speed to coincide with an opening in the large glass paddlewheel. The door hissed around against its air seals, and Zack was enveloped by a puff of humid, early evening air. The road in front of the hospital was lined with parked cars and traversed by slow traffic. A white cab eased by, blinker on, looking for a section of unoccupied curbing.

Zack had no idea what his next move was going to be. He didn’t have a cent to his name, didn’t have identification, didn’t even really know where he was. All he knew was that he wanted to get the hell away from Kelly, and maybe get a call through to his dad somehow.

I should have brought my cell phone! But I couldn’t go back to my room in case Kelly was there.

He thought about heading back up to the floor while Kelly was, possibly, preoccupied in that store.

Assuming it’s Kelly.

He decided that the odds of him getting up to his room and back down here without being interrupted by someone were low. It was dinner time. He was due for medication. Someone would want to chart the status of his diaper. Or he’d get noticed while waiting for the elevators again.

He shook his head and resumed observing his surroundings, hoping for inspiration.

Down the curb a bit, a bus was idling, and, it had a ramp extending down from the front door to the pavement. It seemed to be capable of lowering itself down to curb level – the front looked to Zack like it was squatting. Without a clue as to where it was going, or what it would take to secure a seat on board, Zack steered for the protruding ramp.

When he got to it, he read the LED sign that was scrolling above the door. University Health Campus Shuttle. There was a grey-haired man sitting on a black chair, leaning forward against a large, nearly horizontal steering wheel. He had a blue uniform on and was reading a newspaper. Zack pursed his lips, swallowed, and started rolling up the ramp.

The driver lifted his head, and looked Zack up and down, causing him to stop in his tracks. The man’s gaze settled on Zack’s wrist, and he realized the man was looking at his hospital wristband.

“Keep that thing out of the aisles and stay seated when the bus is moving,” he said in a gravelly voice, before turning back to his paper.

“Yessir…” Zack responded, and then rolled himself onboard the bus.

Inside, the lighting was blue, and the seats were covered in red vinyl, which caused them to look like they were the colour of dried blood. The flooring looked like it was covered in glittery back sandpaper. There were rows of seats oriented towards the front of the bus, on either side of a central aisle, and then there were individual chairs that were arrayed along the sides of the bus, facing each other, at the back, close to a door marked ‘Exit’, which wasn’t open at the moment. Zack deduced that it, too, would have a ramp.

He rolled himself along the rows of seats, eyeing the sparse scattering of fellow travelers without making eye contact. A couple of them wore scrubs or lab coats, others wore street clothes, and one old man looked disheveled, and was already sleeping. At the back of the bus, there was a young woman with a stroller sitting in one of the sideways chairs, and on the other side, an older lady with a walker. Zack decided to once again attempt to physically associate himself with someone, this time, the young woman, without drawing her attention. He chose a seat one seat away from her.

Make friends with her baby and it will look like we’re together.

Zack parked his scooter and lifted himself off it, finding that he could now use his casted leg as a bit of a crutch, if he didn’t press too hard on it. He lowered himself onto the chair, and then pulled his scooter in front of himself, in a way that he hoped somewhat obstructed the view of the row of snaps between his legs.

Turning his head, he leaned forward and looked into the stroller. A preschooler in a pink romper looked back at him, with a pacifier clipped to her collar. Zack huffed lightly to himself and shook his head.

She’s wearing the same outfit I am. Hilarious.

Zack had no idea how old the kid was, but she looked half his height, sat upright and was quite alert. He waved at her, and she grinned, and whispered “Hi.” The mom, a lady probably in her early thirties, looked over at Zack and smiled. Zack smiled back. Then, a shrill beeping noise projected from the front of the bus, they felt the floor start to rise and level out, and then the door closed with a hiss of compressed air. The engine thrummed, launching the bus away from the curb.

__________

 

Zack looked over his shoulder and out the window behind him, as the bus pitched back and forth in stop-and-go traffic. They had navigated some roundabouts close to the hospital and then picked up what felt like considerable speed on some kind of parkway. Next, they merged with a much wider road - it might have been a highway, - but it was moving at a very slow pace. The road ahead of them was a river of red brake lights, flowing towards a skyline of tall buildings on the distant horizon.

Zack decided that he couldn’t dare to ask anyone seated around him where the bus was going, or else they might alert the driver to the unaccompanied stowaway on board. He needed to look like he knew where he was headed.

However, he didn’t feel like he knew anything at all right now. There was a growing unease in the pit of his stomach; getting away from the children’s hospital and away from Kelly felt like the only thing he could do, in the moment, but, having accomplished that, now he felt like he was a leaf being carried by the wind, with no control over where he would land.

As Zack shifted on his seat to look past the little girl in the stroller, vying for a look out the front window, he also detected a notable dampness underneath him.

Crap! Well, not yet. But I gotta stop peeing in this diaper, and find a bathroom. But what the hell am I going to put on under this stupid romper?

Zack’s unease grew as the dusk light outside deepened, and the bus crawled into what looked like the middle of a city. Zack was a creature of the suburbs, of sizeable lawns and baseball diamonds and schools with soccer fields that you could land a plane on. Tall buildings crammed close together around honking traffic was not his natural environment. Particularly not at night. His anxiety writhed like a worm within him, and he realized that sometimes, he was dribbling into his diaper, unconsciously trying to relieve the tension. Trying to stop it required concentration, and not long after he started taking in his surroundings and contemplating what to do again, he’d be reminded that he’d dropped his guard by a trickling sensation. It was deeply disconcerting – almost as disconcerting as being carried into a strange city on a strange bus.