I work as a palliative care nurse, looking after people who are nearing the end of their lives. I like my job, as I care deeply about those who need patience and compassion in their final moments. I believe no one should be alone when they begin to pass, and because of that conviction, I’ve made it my duty. But I’m not here to talk about my philosophy of life — I want to tell you about something that happened to me tonight that has me badly shaken. It is something that has been happening for some time, and until now I dismissed it. To start, let me recount something that happened to one of my patients last week.

I was to look after a middle-aged man who occupied one of my patients’ rooms in the hospital. He came under my care when in critical condition, fighting for his life. At some point during my shift, the man stabilized and became conscious. During my next shift, he was still there, in good spirits and making a full recovery. We kept him in that room as it was an anomalous turnaround and we wanted to monitor him closely. The man was cheery and very kind to me. He seemed happy to have been given a second chance.

That peace didn’t last. That night, the man started hitting the call light repeatedly. Strange as it was, I was finishing up with another patient before I could attend to him. As I walked into his room, he looked agitated and demanded to know what took me so long. Taken aback by his sudden change in demeanor, I acted as if everything was fine and asked what he needed. He told me a man had been in his room — he’d appeared out of thin air. My stomach dropped. I thought to myself: not again.

I immediately asked the patient to describe the man. He told me he had awoken from a nap and a man was standing in front of his bed. He thought at first it was one of the nurses. But when his eyes finally adjusted, it was a man in a dark rain jacket, hood over his head, and dripping with water. The patient was petrified as he listened to the drips of water on the floor. He finally built up enough courage to ask the man in front of the bed who he was, but his question was met with silence. The dripping wet man just stood still, seeming to stare at him. The patient then asked what the wet man wanted, and he responded by slowly lifting his arm and pointing to the patient. That was when he began to frantically press the call light to get my attention. As the patient was waiting for me, the wet man remained pointing at him, motionless, as he continuously dripped with water. And then moments before I came in, the patient blinked and in that blink, the wet man had vanished.

As I listened to the patient’s story, I put a calm and brave face on and scoured the room. I checked every nook and cranny for a man or puddles of water, to reassure him it was his imagination. Doing so pained me as I knew I was lying to the patient. I made it seem like he dreamt or hallucinated it. But deep down, I knew what he experienced was true, as he wasn’t the only one to have seen the wet man. I sat beside the patient for a while, to calm him and keep him company, since I sensed the wet man was some kind of omen. Unfortunately, my hunch was correct: by the end of my shift, the patient suddenly went into critical condition once again. Shortly after, he passed. I couldn’t help but think: yet another patient taken away by the wet man.

I’ve known a dozen patients, if not more, who have witnessed the wet man. I tried to find a pattern — type of illness, room number, condition — but there is no rhyme or reason to his visits. The descriptions are always similar: a man who appears out of nowhere, in a black raincoat, hooded, his face in shadow, and soaking wet. The water is the one thing they all agree on. The details that change are smaller. Some see him in the corner of the room, others right beside the bed, others seated. Sometimes he points; sometimes he holds a bucket, or an umbrella. But he is always a man, and he is always wet. And the patients always react the same way — with panic. They call for me. Sometimes I’m there in seconds; sometimes it takes longer. But every time, by the time I arrive, he’s gone.

I chalked it up to a Jungian archetypal monster people see before they die. But I had a little girl patient once who saw the man differently. This happened a couple of months prior, and as I was making my rounds, I overheard the patient’s mother yelling at security. Curious, I eavesdropped: the mother was furious because the hospital allowed a man to see her daughter without permission. I found that odd. Our protocols were strict; nothing like that had ever happened before. Except, of course, the wet man.

I ran to the girl’s room, and there she was, lying calmly in bed. Surprised, as usually patients panic after seeing the wet man, I asked her if she was all right. She said she was fine. I probed and asked her about the man, and she described him exactly as others had. She told me he had sat beside her bed, and just listened to her talk. He didn’t move or say a word, but she felt he was there to listen to her, so she spoke. She spoke about everything, about what she would miss, about what she regretted, and what she cherished. She told me she let it all out, and she knew he heard every word she said. She talked to the wet man for what seemed like hours. And then, when she was done, the wet man slowly got up and left the room. Soon after, her mother came in, and when the little girl told her that a man had just left, she darted out of the room to complain to the hospital. The girl had a look on her face as if she had made a mistake, so I reassured her that everything was fine and that she didn’t do anything wrong. A smile crept back to her face. A few hours later, she passed.

That was the only time the wet man appeared and my help button wasn’t pressed. That time, and tonight. It was the end of my shift and I was doing my last rounds before I punched out. As I passed one of the rooms, the door was shut. I thought it odd since there was no patient in that room and protocol was to keep all vacant rooms open. So I knocked, just in case, and swung the door open. I peered inside, and the room was empty. Then I heard something unfamiliar — water droplets dripping on the floor. There was a privacy divider tucked in the corner of the room, and the dripping was coming from behind it

Heart pounding, I slowly walked closer to the divider, almost with the cadence of the dripping water. When I was close enough, I noticed a puddle of water leaking from underneath. Praying that it was a leaking pipe, I poked my head around the divider, and that was when I saw the wet man. He stood there in his dark raincoat, dripping wet, his shadowed face turned right at me — as if he’d been expecting me. I let out what may have been a yelp and ran out of the room. I hurried down the hallway, and one of my coworkers attempted to stop me. I told her I was done for the night, and I went straight to my car and drove off. Panicking, I tried to pretend it never happened, that I was seeing things. But this was the same reasoning I gave my patients. That thought haunted me.

Now I’m here, in the silence and comfort of my home, wondering what the wet man was doing in that room. I only thought dying patients saw him. So was he waiting for a new patient? Or did he know a patient was soon to come into that room? I don’t know. But another question bothers me: if only dying patients see him, why was I able to see him tonight?