Nick’s angry.
It’s not fair.
Why should his life end like this?
Tendrils squeeze around his brain stem, flexing as they enter his spinal cord. They wind their way around the medulla at the base of his brain. His heartbeat stutters, becoming irregular. Nick feels as though he’s choking, but he’s already submerged in the thick, goo-like fluid and has been for several minutes. It’s a reflex reaction to the way the thin alien probe is interacting with his cerebellum. He can feel them inside his head. They’re stealing his memories.
“We are at the twenty-two-yard line, and we have a flag on the field. Second down!”
“Read it, Nick. Read it carefully.”
Rage overwhelms him and yet it doesn’t. For once, Nick can see himself as he actually is, reacting rather than thinking. Although a host of memories flood his mind, he feels detached from them. There’s something, someone else beside him, someone lurking in the back of his mind, probing his thoughts. His reactions are being examined. These alien creatures are curating the neurons firing within his brain, scrutinizing his memories.
“You fucking bitch!”
Rage demands retribution, not reason. Anger consumes him, or it did. Now, though, he’s an observer. He sees through his eyes and yet he doesn’t. It’s as though he’s sitting beside himself. Like the alien inside his head, he’s a witness to these memories.
Sandra stands beside the door. She’s trembling. All he knows is vengeance. That bitch has ruined his life. Or has she? He’s been slighted, and yet he’s done this to himself.
Nick has lashed out without any regard for balance or understanding. Nothing matters beyond the adrenaline surging through his veins. To his mind, anger is righteous. It’s not, but no opinion matters other than his own.
He throws a glass bottle, but now he’s horrified by his actions.
[ No, no, no. ]
Nick’s drunk. His thoughts are a blur of white-hot fury. His thinking is dull, or it was when this happened. Now, he sees nothing but arrogance and stupidity.
The glass bottle shatters against the door frame. Splinters scratch the paint, digging into the wood. He doesn’t care, but he should.
[ What are you doing? ]
“Get out! Get the fuck out of my house, you goddamn whore!”
[ Stop! ]
Sandra runs for the car. She pops the trunk and tosses her suitcase in, slamming the metal lid shut. The young teen looks up in alarm.
[ James, I’m sorry. I—I. I didn’t mean this. ]
Any thoughts of sorrow he has now are worthless. Nothing can make up for the terror of those few seconds. In that moment, he wanted to kill Sandra. He would have happily left James as an orphan.
Inside the house, Nick kicks over the coffee table in anger, sending magazines flying. Empty beer bottles roll across the carpet.
[ Stop this madness, you idiot! ]
“You want my goddamn guns?” Nick mumbles under his breath. “Well, you can have the fucking bullets!”
[ Walk away! ]
Nick rifles through the drawers in the kitchen. Adrenaline surges through his body. The artery in his neck pulses with a surge of anger. The car door slams outside. His fingers wrap around the pistol grip of his favorite handgun, squeezing tight.
[ Jesus, this is fucked up! ]
With grim resolve, Nick pulls back on the slide, loading a round from the magazine as he marches to the front door. He sees the bullet. He feels it slide into place. He knows the gun is loaded.
Within the depths of an alien spacecraft, Nick wonders about himself. Who would do this? Him. He would. Any other conclusion is a lie. There’s no escaping who he chose to be.
[ This is stupid. You’re not tough. You’re not “Being a man.” ]
His feet pound on the wooden floor, echoing through the empty house like thunder.
[ You’re a goddamn coward hiding behind a gun. ]
The car engine roars to life after a few false starts. Sandra throws the gear shift in reverse, but before she looks over her shoulder and races down the driveway, she sees Nick standing in the doorway with the gun.
[ Fuck you, Nick! ]
He raises the Glock, peering along the barrel, lining up the sights.
“No, no, no,” Sandra says, pushing her son’s head down below the dash of her old convertible. She reverses along the drive.
Nick hasn’t shot anyone before, but he’s thought about it. A lot. He’s trained for this moment with paper targets at the gun range. They say killing someone is hard, but that’s a lie. It’s as easy as squeezing a trigger.
[ You think you’re the shit. ]
[ You think you’re such a big man. ]
[ You’re small, Nick. You’re tiny. ]
His finger tightens on the thin, curved, precision-machined metal, but he doesn’t pull the trigger.
[ Don’t do it!]
In his memory, Nick waits, but not out of pity. No, he’s leading the shot, anticipating the motion of the car, making sure he’s not going to miss.
Although Nick’s reliving a memory on an alien spacecraft rising high above the Antarctic plateau, he fears he’ll go through with it. The past cannot be changed, but it feels fluid. It feels as though he’s reaching back in time.
Nick stares down the barrel of the gun. His fingers should tremble, but they don’t. He knows precisely what he’s about to do.
The car tires squeal on the concrete.
Nick hesitates. He hates himself for it, but life should be measured by something other than a mere eight grams of lead being accelerated to over a thousand feet per second.
[ You’re an asshole! ]
Sirens sound in the distance.
In that instant, his thinking is the same then as it is now. Within the confines of the spacecraft, words echo within his mind.
[ Fuck this shit! ]
[ Pulling a trigger is simple. ]
[ Killing someone shouldn’t be so goddamn easy. ]
The convertible is halfway down the drive. Nick and Sandra lock eyes. She knows something he doesn’t. She’s tricked him. She emptied the gun. Only she didn’t. He saw the bullet slide into the chamber. He lied to himself. In that moment, he couldn’t accept any other way out. Pride demanded something other than cowardice. He couldn’t be honest with himself, but then, when was he honest with his own thoughts and feelings? Ego is a mask. Pride is vanity. Arrogance is avoidance.
Onboard the alien spacecraft, regret rocks his mind, and yet he can die in peace knowing Sandra will live on. She didn’t deserve his crap. All she wanted was to love and be loved. As the darkness descends and his thoughts fade, he dies content in the knowledge she has survived. He only hopes she can make something of the life he once sought to steal from her.
The alien monster, or machine, or whatever the hell it is, struggles with his thoughts. It’s perplexed. Nick doesn’t know how, but he can feel that response to his memories. It seems it expected intelligence. All animals have some degree of smarts, but it’s confused by his raw emotions. That’s something it didn’t anticipate. He’s haunted with regret and it can sense that.
It’s the contradiction of his life that leaves this star-faring entity puzzled. Hell, it ain’t alone. Looking back at his life, Nick is bewildered. He wasted the opportunities before him. He squandered them like a pile of chips at a casino.
If he were to live just one more day, he’d want to spend it relishing the little things. The quiet of the morning. The call of birds in the trees. The way dew lies on the grass. The smell of coffee wafting through the air. The feeling of warmth on his cheeks as he walks out into the sunshine. The wind rustling through the leaves. The bright sun causing him to squint. Far from being annoying, it would be a joy to behold. These are the sensations he was robbed of by his own arrogance. What he thought of as focus and determination were petty. They blinded him to the magnificence of a world teeming with life.
For Nick, there is nothing more.
His hea
rt stops.
Oxygen no longer flows through his brain.
Sandra will live on. That’s all that matters now.
In the end, it’s not hope he clings to but the thought that life on Earth is bigger than his own ego.
The End
Epilogue
“Do you have any batteries?” a nurse asks, rummaging through a desk drawer. “My mouse died.”
“Here,” Sandra says, finding a couple in the cluttered junk box beneath her workstation.
Twelve beds surround the central nursing desk—three on each wall, with an internal hallway running off-center through the middle of ER. After a busy afternoon, it’s been a quiet night. The curtains are drawn back on most of the beds. As each unit is separated only by a thin plastic curtain, the team likes to rotate bed allocations. As much as possible, they separate patients to provide at least a semblance of privacy. At the moment, beds one, five and seven are in use.
There’s a television on, but the sound is turned down. It’s mounted behind the central desk on a wall covered in pigeon holes, smack in the middle of ER. No one’s sure who put it there or what purpose it serves as the only way the nurses can watch it is if they turn away from their patients. As the curtains are drawn, there’s no way patients can see it. Even if they could, the screen is only visible to roughly half of the beds. For Sandra, it’s background noise. It helps pass the time but little else. Anything’s preferable over silence while trying to whittle away a ten-hour weekend shift.
“What do you make of it?” Dr. Jeannie Sopori asks, leaning on the high front counter. She’s standing in the walkway with her back to the empty waiting room.
“Huh?” Sandra says, looking up from her paperwork. A quiet Sunday night is ideal for catching up on the chaos of a crazy Saturday. Sandra’s been typing up notes. She wants to get ahead of the admin team on Monday. From their perspective, failing to complete records is lazy. It’s not. If anything, it’s a sign of how goddamn busy they were yesterday. Sandra never signed on for clerical duty, but it comes with the territory.
“The UFO?” Dr. Sopori says.
Sandra raises an eyebrow as if to say, Are you serious?
Dr. Sopori looks to the screen behind her. “Haven’t you seen it?”
“No,” Sandra replies. “Too busy. Last night, we had a bus rollover on the highway. Thankfully, there were no fatalities, but we had to split patients between here and Georgetown. Keeping track of who went where and what claims are due is a nightmare.”
Sandra swivels in her seat. The padding has worn flat, but it’s better than standing.
“…having crossed Mexico, the craft is currently over the Gulf and expected to make landfall near Lafayette in Louisiana.”
“And this is for real?” Sandra asks, surprised.
“I guess.”
“What does an alien spacecraft want with Cajuns?”
“I don’t know,” Dr. Sopori says. “Hot sauce?”
Dr. Sopori is from Chennai in India. She’s known as a bit of a prankster in the quieter moments, prompting Sandra to glare at her.
“It’s not me,” Dr. Sopori says, raising her hands in defense. “I swear. How am I going to fake that?”
“If you’re playing some dumb movie in the background to wind me up, I swear.”
Dr. Sopori laughs. “Honest. It’s been on TV all day. They’ve been tracking this thing up the west coast of South America since about two this afternoon.”
“Hmm,” Sandra says, not convinced. She wants to turn back to her paperwork. It’s not going to complete itself, but she allows herself to indulge in a moment’s distraction.
Fighter planes take off from some unnamed airbase in one of the southern states. They roar into the sky with missiles hanging from their underbellies. Afterburners glow in the twilight.
“How many planes have they launched?” Sandra asks.
“Um. I don’t know,” Dr. Sopori says. She shrugs. “All of them, I think.”
Sandra laughs, shaking her head.
“No, I mean it,” Dr. Sopori says. “They’ve been doing this for hours now.”
Sandra cocks her head sideways, making her disbelief apparent.
“I’m serious,” Dr. Sopori says. “My cousin works as a triage nurse up at Shaw. She said they’ve recalled everyone back to base. They’re pushing everything they have into the skies.”
Sandra rolls her eyes. Her tone of voice is dry.
“We are not under attack from an alien warship.”
“I didn’t say that.”
Sandra turns her back to the television. UFOs won’t be considered a legitimate excuse by admin. She continues typing up her notes.
“Do you want a Pepsi?” Dr. Sopori asks.
“No, I’m fine. Thanks,” Sandra replies. The doctor wanders off into the waiting room. A coin drops within a vending machine, followed by the clunk of a can of soda.
“…flights grounded across the Continental US. We are being told the President is monitoring the situation from the bunker beneath the White House… At this point, we are told there is no cause for alarm.”
Sandra’s still not convinced. This could be some alternate opening for the movie Independence Day. When does Will Smith arrive on screen?
As she finishes entering an online form, she glances back at the television. Sandra’s half-expecting Dr. Sopori and the others to come waltzing in laughing at her. Mentally, she’s ready to respond. Ha ha. Very funny. It’s not April 1st. I know you’re bored. Go play Candy Crush or something. I’ve got work to do.
Suddenly, a sharp, high-pitched whine comes from bed seven. Sandra is out of her seat and on her feet in a fraction of a second. Her hand slams the large red intercom button on the counter.
“Code Blue on Seven. Code Blue on Seven.”
She rushes out of the nursing station, catching her hip on the edge of the bench. A jolt of pain surges through her, but her own pain will have to wait. Someone’s dying. Nothing matters beyond the Code Blue.
Sandra throws back the curtain. Her nice quiet teenaged boy was waiting on x-ray results. He fell from the roof while setting up a spotlight over his driveway. He’s been in here for a few hours now. Mild pain relief. Nothing serious. Dr. Tao was treating him before the evening shift change. If anything, he fractured rather than broke the bones in his left arm. Why the hell has he gone blue?
Bubbles form on his lips.
“I need a crash cart,” she yells, rushing up to his bedside. In a single motion, she kicks the emergency release pedal, disconnecting the hydraulics that make the gurney comfortable. The bed drops. Buttons go flying as she tears open his shirt, exposing his chest. With her hands positioned one over the other and her fingers interlaced, she starts CPR. At five foot four in height, Sandra is on her tiptoes, driving hard against his chest with all her weight. His body convulses.
“Airway check,” she yells to the other nurse rushing in. Sandra is already hitting two beats per second, crunching down on his sternum with the rhythm of a jackhammer breaking concrete. “I am not losing this kid!”
“What the hell?” Dr. Sopori says, running in beside her.
“Allergy,” Sandra says. She’s guessing, but with fifteen year’s experience, her assessment has got to be damn close.
The other nurse says, “LMA tube ready.”
That’s Sandra’s cue. She comes to an abrupt halt. The second nurse inserts a plastic tube to open the teen’s airway. She follows up with an oxygen mask.
“And go,” the nurse barks.
Sandra returns to pummeling the teenager’s chest. “Where the hell is that goddamn defibrillator?”
Young bones bend and flex beneath her outstretched palms. This guy is going to have some serious bruising on his chest tomorrow.
“Ampenthadazanol,” Dr. Sopori says, checking the patient’s chart.
The second nurse applies plastic paddles on either side of his chest as Dr. Sopori yells, “Who the hell gave him Ampenthadazanol?”
Dr
. Sopori runs out of the unit and into the nurse station, calling out, “Hold on that defib. He needs a shot of adrenaline first.”
Sandra keeps driving hard. Sweat beads on her forehead. With her elbows locked, she uses her weight to thrust down time and again. Each compression sends his abdomen rising, causing his legs to flex on the gurney, but there’s no sign of consciousness.
Dr. Sopori runs back into the medical bay. She unzips the man’s jeans. The second nurse helps her work his pants down.
Sandra ignores them, refusing to slacken her pace. She’s tiring from the initial burst of adrenaline, but she forces herself on. The explosion of energy required to keep two hearts pumping saps her strength, but she’s determined not to break her stride.
Dr. Sopori talks through what she’s doing so there’s no confusion. This way, she and both nurses have absolute clarity about what is being done to save the teen’s life.
“Point seven five milligrams of adrenaline administered to the left thigh, aiming for the femoral artery.” With that, Dr. Sopori slams the injector into his leg muscle and squeezes the tube. “And ready on that defibrillator.”
“Ready,” the other nurse says.
“Clear,” Sandra says, stepping back away from the gurney with her hands raised high.
Kah-thunk.
The teen arches his back for a moment before falling onto the mattress again. To Sandra’s relief, a tiny blip appears on the medi-monitor. At first, his heartbeat is irregular, but within seconds it finds its rhythm. She takes a deep breath.
Dr. Sopori pats her on the shoulder, saying, “Well done.”
“Oh, you too,” Sandra says.
With the patient regaining consciousness, the second nurse removes the breathing tube. She leaves the oxygen mask over his mouth and leans in, talking softly to him, telling him he’s going to be okay. He’s oblivious—dazed, but alive.
Sandra steps back, letting Dr. Sopori continue to examine the man. The doctor pushes her fingers against his neck, looks at his hands and fingers for swelling, and shines a light in his eyes, checking for a response. He coughs and moans, which is a good sign. If his ribs weren’t cracked when he came in, they damn sure are now. Once he’s stable, Sandra will have to get him back down to the x-ray dept.
Jury Duty (First Contact) Page 31
