Resonance

by A. J. Scudiere

  He wasn’t sure if he’d find it filed under the scientific ‘K’ or English ‘P’.

  It jumped out at him in the ‘P’ section after he’d checked every ‘K’. Pocketing the bottle he scrounged for a needle. Knowing that if they saw him now he’d have less of a chance of bluffing his way out.

  He found the needles, and a syringe, and fumbled with thick fingers to plug the two together. He’d contaminated the injection all to hell, and he knew it, but since he was going to kill her with it, did a little bacteria really matter? He bit his lip at the thought of actually, purposefully killing another human being. And not just any human: Jillian.

  He drew up the solution into the syringe, realizing only after he did it that he’d forgotten to wipe the top with alcohol, and he’d contaminated the whole bottle of clear solution, too.

  Why hadn’t he watched ER more often?

  He couldn’t steal the whole vial. They’d count that it was missing, and Jillian’s death might get investigated. Being here wouldn’t mean much if he was in jail. And for a brief moment he thought about Jillian incarcerated on the other side. She might not have figured it out yet, but Jordan would be the one pulling the trigger for her. David knew it.

  He couldn’t in good conscience put the contaminated bottle back. He’d hurt others.

  He squelched the laugh that threatened to bubble up.

  After a minute of frantic searching for a way to right the problem without stealing the bottle, he squirted the solution out of his needle, wetting the grass at his feet. But it was such a small amount that it disappeared before he could account for it. He drew up more, again squirting it at the ground. After about ten times, he drew up a full syringe, carefully twisting the needle to get the solution out when it was low in the neck of the upside down bottle.

  A sound outside made his neck snap straight. And for a moment he held rabbit-still, quiet except for the volcanic rush of his breathing, waiting while footsteps passed by outside with voices laughing and chattering.

  His stale breath let out, the steel in his shoulders dissolving. He had to finish, and quickly. He’d give himself a heart attack and die. Then Jillian wouldn’t. And he’d be dead here. Then they’d kill him on the other side.

  God what a cluster-fuck they were going to have if anything went wrong.

  26

  David replaced the contaminated bottle exactly where he’d found it. It was there to be catalogued, but now too low for anyone to use. Someone would get pissed at whoever had left it, but no one would get hurt.

  Except him!

  He re-grabbed the bottle and wiped the fingerprints off it. Stupid, stupid. A clean bottle was a giveaway that someone had been intentional with the meds. He touched the glass to the backs of his fingers, thinking that would leave it not looking wiped, but not leading directly to his door.

  Surely a DNA test would point to him, but they’d have to be pretty suspicious of him before they dragged out that artillery. Capping the needle and pocketing it, he listened at the tent flap, and, not hearing anything, stepped out into the still morning. With the syringe safely ferreted away, his brain wandered to what would happen after he killed Jillian.

  His lab in Chicago waited for him.

  The First had been kind and proud and supportive for twenty-seven hours in a row.

  His body worked.

  He could settle in there. Dig into his lab, and run core samples from the local oil wells for the rest of his life. David figured no one was going to come after him for a few rock plugs after the whole apocalypse thing.

  The morning air bit at him as he walked back to the tent he and Jillian had shared only to find a tech pushing a medication into her IV, while she watched the numbers.

  David stood quietly, wondering if he’d been beaten to the punch. Especially when Jillian’s heart rate began to race, then slowly leveled and dropped off. The tech shook her pretty blond head, and turned away.

  “Ack!” Her blues eyes jerked wide open at the sight of him, and her hand jumped up splaying perfectly manicured nails wide across her chest to slow her own racing heart. “I didn’t see you there.” Then the hand came out in a gesture halfway between a handshake and a request to have the back kissed. “Lucy Whitman.”

  David had to unclench his right hand from around the needle hidden in his jacket pocket and he grasped her fingers, making sure he didn’t reveal anything. Just in case he had squeezed so hard he left an imprint of the syringe on his palm.

  “What did you do to her?” He pointed at the still prone form, getting paler as she lay amidst the dark ribbons of her hair.

  “We’ve been injecting potassium chloride into her every half hour.” Lucy missed the shock that registered on his face and kept going. “Trying to raise her heart rate and maybe even jolt her out of it.” The slim shoulders lifted in the shrug that seemed to be the new universal response. No one knew much of anything these days. At least the sun was still coming up regularly.

  He schooled his voice to remain steady, grateful that he was standing behind Lucy, watching Jillian’s lack of movement from over the tech’s shoulder. “Won’t that stuff kill her?”

  She laughed, a soft airy sound that shot straight to his groin, as she turned to face him. Her red lips looked like they were good for more than just explaining medications, and David was grateful that he would stay here, where he was clearly functional.

  “It won’t hurt her in the concentrations we use. It’s very dilute.”

  He focused on the words and their meanings, absorbing what she’d said and not just how she’d looked. By the time the oxygen was going to his brain again, she’d excused herself and left the tent to report on the patient.

  David blinked a few times, searching for the way that this would help him. He wished he had Jillian’s brain right now. But that would defeat the whole purpose. He didn’t even realize that he was gravitating toward her until his hip was spiked by the slightly open drawer Miss Blonde must have left. Son of a bitch!

  He stilled his hand just before he slammed it. Revenge never played well against inanimate objects, and he could see needles lying on a once sterile drape in the bottom of the drawer.

  Dark marker, in very bad handwriting denoted that there were four KCl syringes and that the solution was very dilute compared to what he’d pulled straight from the bottle. There were also a few in varying concentrations of epinephrine. Although why the docs would want to give Jillian a ‘fight or flight’ response, he couldn’t figure.

  Pulling his own syringe from his pocket he compared the two. His was fatter and would never pass as one of those if he just laid it in the drawer. Plus it didn’t have the bad handwriting on it. For some reason all the anal retentive people were over here. He might like that in his lab, he thought. But now he got himself back to the problem of making his syringe look like the ones in the drawer - the ready-made injections for Jillian.

  Becky ducked her head in, and he quickly yanked his hand back behind him, hoping that he could hide the needle and that the second-grade maneuver had actually worked. But it seemed she didn’t notice. “Lucy just came by and told me that it didn’t work. Jillian’s heart rate is dropping lower and lower.” Becky’s soft sigh came to him through the air that was suddenly too warm in the little tent with the tiny sun contained in the space heater. “Maybe next time.”

  “When is next time?”

  His heart soared. And crashed. He might not figure it out in time.

  “Maybe an hour. They’re afraid they’re losing her.” Her lips pressed into a sad smile. But like everyone else, Becky had gotten used to the idea of losing people.

  He tried a very un-David-like move, and hoped it would get filed under ‘everything is weird these days’. “I think I’m just going to sit here with her.”

  He hoped that Becky understood that he’d like to do it alone. It worked too well. Doctor Sorenson’s sweet smile held the belief that he was truly Jillian’s lover, wanting to sit and hold her hand. And oblig
ingly she ducked out while he held back the laughter that threatened from the irony of it all. And for a moment he just stared at the syringe in his hand.

  He did sit vigil beside Jillian’s bed for a while. At least it would have looked that way to anyone who stopped in. But his mind was churning, trying to figure out how to get his solution into one of those syringes.

  Then he wouldn’t have to pull the trigger himself. He could just wait until a tech picked up the right syringe and did the job for him.

  He sat there staring at her, until he was startled by another tech beside him. He hadn’t heard the kid enter, just jumped when the finger tapped his shoulder, and the young voice asked would he please scoot over so that Dr. Brookwood could be examined?

  David blinked a few times and didn’t say anything, just watched while the boy, who must have been no older than twenty, went through all the same motions of taking vital signs that the doctor had. He cranked up the oxygen, opened the flow on the IV a touch, scribbled notes in the chart and left.

  David’s own heartbeat set up a steady countdown. He had to do something quick, get that syringe traded out. He was reaching for the drawer when the tech burst back through the tent flaps again. The sun was up high enough that light filtered through all the pores in the tent, and the tent flaps let in just enough that a person who was paying a little attention would know that someone had come in.

  David nearly jumped clean out of his skin, his senses hyper-alert with the work he was about to do. But the tech was paying no attention to him. As long as David was out of his way, the practiced movements came off like clockwork.

  His eyes focused with fascination, David watched as the guy pulled the first syringe from the left of the row in the drawer. For a few brief moments he executed the precise rhythmic set up, yanking the needle cap with his teeth, he swabbed the rubber covered spot on the Y-tubing, and injected the full syringe. With his eyes transfixed on the machinery and the numbers it was blurping out, the tech’s hands slid the used syringe into the red plastic biohazard box mounted behind the countertop.

  Again David watched with perverse fascination while her heartrate spiked and then plummeted again.

  The tech sighed in defeat and turned to leave.

  David almost let him go, but blurted out at the last minute, stopping the tech. “Wasn’t that fast? I thought it was going to be an hour before you tried again.”

  The tech nodded solemnly. “Her sats are too low. We’ve bumped it up.”

  David took a swallow, and tried his best to look like a heartsick lover. He hadn’t tried to act since high school theater. His father hadn’t come to see him in that performance either, and for a brief moment he reminded himself that this Eden had a snake. Swinging his focus back to the job at hand he started to ask how long it would be before they came back, but he stopped himself, knowing it would be soon enough. “I’m not sure if I can watch this. If I leave, can I just come back and sit with her?”

  The tech tilted his head, and gave a sad smile. “Of course you can, Dr. Carter. We don’t mind.”

  David made short work of plucking the left-most syringe from the drawer and squirting the contents onto the ground before carefully pulling the plunger from his own fat vial. He stuck the needle in the back and drew up the pure stuff, trying to splurt out the air bubbles, then delicately aligning it with the level on the other syringes.

  He replaced it at the left-hand side of the drawer and carefully shut it. His feet had almost made it the tent door when he spun and went back - switching the pure syringe to the second spot.

  It would be soon enough.

  And he would be nowhere near when it happened.

  Home beckoned.

  Jordan’s hands had a fine tremor. He could read the same in Jillian’s, but knew that hers was due to the medications. His was due to the fact that he was about to kill a man.

  As they walked quietly back toward the tent where David lay, his brain was anything but silent. That was the tent where Jillian had spent so many hours, unmoving and unresponding. She wouldn’t go there again. Not after this. She wouldn’t be reminded of it, and neither would he. They would pack everything up and head back to Atlanta.

  Landerly had flown out this morning, leaving only a note. There were a few lines that made Jordan believe that the old man knew what they were up to and was heading out of town to get himself a little more of that ‘plausible deniability’ he liked so much.

  Inside his jacket pocket, Jordan’s gloved hand made a warm nest where it curled around the syringe. Outside of his pocket he tried to keep himself relaxed and looking less than suspicious. But his lungs breathed in a little too deeply, and he forced his eyes to wander the landscape. Although the sky cut bright shades of blue above him the daytime hours were cold now, too. And the air smelled heavy with tiny shards of ice. Snow wasn’t far away, and he wanted to be back in Atlanta before it fell.

  He wouldn’t be able to stand being trapped in this town when the ice came and made all the roads through the surrounding mountains impassable. It was the exact reason the government had built the town here, and the exact reason he had to get out. His heart hammered with it, and he wondered absently if he would suffer a major coronary at a relatively young age from all the stress he was enduring now.

  The heat hit him first, signaling that he should pay attention. He had stepped through the tent flap Jillian held open for him, and he was assaulted again by the vision of this man lying on the gurney. When David was awake he was every inch holier-than-thou. Richer-than-thou. Better-than-thou. And funny and charming enough to be fairly likable anyway.

  There was going to be a perverse satisfaction in pushing the plunger.

  “Can we do it this time?” Her voice was the only organic sound in the tent. Barely loud enough to be distinguishable over the beeping and printing noises that provided a lush synthetic jungle.

  Every time they had decided it was time to do it, they had talked themselves out of it. The last time, an hour and a half ago, they had talked themselves up to this. Their first concern had been that he was truly under. Not on some snap turnaround. When David had been out for just half an hour, they said he certainly wasn’t awake on the other side yet. If they stopped his heart before he awoke over there they might truly kill him. At an hour and a half they gave him until three hours under, just to be sure.

  David’s vitals had taken the steady plunge they expected. He might well die on his own, they offered up all the possibilities, but Jordan knew that he and Jillian were just chickening out one way after another. And being smart, they were able to come up with really good arguments for allowing themselves to wait.

  This was it though.

  If they didn’t do it this time, David might wake back up.

  Jordan ignored thoughts that told him he might really be killing the man. And that the woman at his side was delusional. With his feelings for her he couldn’t overlook his obvious bias. Yes, jail time was a definite option. Or perhaps he’d just suffer a simple lifetime of guilt.

  He sighed as she pressed the Velcro on the tent flap together. “All right, keep watch.” He pulled the syringe from his pocket, quickly clenching it between his teeth and swabbed the IV tubing.

  “Don’t you dare!”

  He almost jumped, and nearly coughed out the syringe. “Wha?” It was all he could pronounce with the thing in his mouth.

  “I’m doing it.”

  Removing the potassium chloride so he could speak, he braced his fists at his hips and stared her down. “Jillian, no.”

  “Jordan, yes.” Her eyes were unrelenting, and matched her tone.

  He felt his mouth open in protest. But as usual, Jillian’s brain worked faster than his and she shot him down before he even got a good aim.

  “It’s my life I’m buying. I’ll pay for it myself.” Fire leapt in her gaze and she lunged for the needle in his hand.

  Only then did he realize that he was stronger and taller than she was, and he could win th
is argument even if her little tongue was sharper. He jerked the needle over his head.

  “Don’t you dare!”

  “Dare? It’s done.” He shrugged, keeping the needle high while she plastered herself to him and jumped, attempting to reach what was way over her head. While he controlled the needle, he could think at his own pace. “Let me do it. If anyone suspects anything, they won’t suspect me.”

  “Bullshit! You two have been circling each other like caged tigers for weeks now. But I’ll be damned if I know why. Anyone with a brain in their head would suspect you.”

  Circling each other? It was that obvious? Jesus. But the needle was still out of her reach, despite numerous jumps. So he had time to think.

  “You’re clearly mentally deranged. For God’s sake, you think you’re going back and forth to another planet!”

  That stopped her in her tracks. “What?”

  “That’s what they’ll say, Jillian. You’re high up on the suspect list, too, you know.” He kept his voice soft, but not soothing.

  “Then even if they convict me they’ll put me in the psych ward, I’ll be out in no time. Give me the damned needle.”

  She jumped again. And Jordan fought for another argument, another hurdle to put in her path. But again she thought it through before he did. “I’ll scale you like a tree.”

  “I’d like to see you try.”

  And try she did. He almost laughed, it felt like junior high all over again. Except the part where the argument was about who got to kill David. That sobered him up.

  Again as he opened his mouth to argue, the words that filled the air were hers. “You do it. I’ll just sit down,” she stopped the useless jumping and lowered herself into the corner chair, tucking up her legs and letting loose a languid yawn, setting off coils of alarm in him, “and go to sleep.” Her head drifted down against the pole, her soft lashes fluttering shut and then going still.

  His heartbeat stopped with her eye movement. “Damnit, Jilly!” It was practically a yell. People would come from all around to see what was going on. They’d both get locked up and David would come back. All this arced through his thoughts as he grabbed her shoulders and violently shook her awake.