by Bryan Cohen
Chapter 19
Stucky was happy to be alive – that was his first thought when he woke up to the sound of a beeping machine. He looked around the white room and did his best to breathe. He didn't know what day it was, but he knew and appreciated the fact that he was alone. There were no cops. There weren't any possessed family members or friends. He felt a sharp pain whenever he exhaled, so he tried to tense up as he did it. He'd take the pain over coming back as something horrible, anyway. A nurse pulled back the curtain around his bed and smiled when she saw his eyes open.
"Hey there, Stucky."
"You know my name?"
The nurse was pretty enough to make Stucky wonder if there was some kind of angel situation going on. Given what he'd seen in the last few weeks, he wouldn't be too surprised. The nurse leaned down to check his vitals on the machine.
"You've made two things very clear since you've gotten here," she said. "Keep you alive and call you Stucky. So far, we've done an OK job of both."
Stucky laughed until the pain made him stop. The words the nurse had uttered were the most he'd ever heard from a girl he wasn't paying to serve him a drink.
"Has anybody been in here to see me?"
"We made an effort to contact your family members. We can try your brother, Tanner, again."
Stucky felt the need to sit up, but he was far too weak to do so. It did feel nice to stretch his back slightly off the bed though.
"He goes by Tank. No need to contact him. I was kind of hoping to be left alone."
"I respect that," the nurse said.
"And there haven't been any cops or anything either, right?"
"Why would there be cops?"
Stucky cleared his throat and followed it with a cough.
"To ask about the guy who did this to me, maybe?"
He wasn't sure he'd made a good enough save. Stucky had always left the talking to Nigel. Even before his change, Nigel was the most eloquent of the bunch.
"Somebody attacked you?"
"Sort of."
Stucky thought about his trip through the air. The kid sent him to the hospital without even breaking a sweat. And here Nigel had said the job would be a piece of cake. Stucky was in such rough shape, he probably couldn't even eat a piece of cake.
"Honey, we had you down as jumping off the roof of the bank. If the manager wasn't there that day looking over some paperwork, we probably wouldn't have gotten to you in time."
The thought of crashing through that car made his back stiffen. He wondered if he'd still be having the conversation if he'd landed on the pavement or somewhere in the middle of the street.
"Oh," he said. "No, I was... pushed."
"Maybe we should get the cops," the nurse said.
Stucky reached out and caught the nurse's hand before she could walk away.
"Don't. It's something I'd rather take care of myself. Can you stay with me for a sec?"
The nurse put her hand on Stucky's. He couldn't remember the last woman who'd treated him this nicely. He knew it was the nurse's job to be caring, though it still felt good to be attended to.
"I can only stay for a little bit," the nurse said. "I've got a lot of other patients, and some of them are way cuter than you."
Stucky smirked, learning quickly from his last attempt to laugh.
"I doubt it. Thank you."
He had a moment to think while the nurse sat down beside him. If no cops had associated him with the diner, he'd be scot-free. He didn't know where Tank and the others were, and it was possible they didn't know where he was, either. He wasn't a part of this inter-dimensional war, and now he had his out.
"Do you ever think about running away?" he asked.
The nurse showed off a wide grin. She had a bright, white smile that made him feel like he was in a toothpaste commercial.
"I feel like if you don't think about running away a few times a month, you know you're crazy."
Stucky knew it was impossible, but he temporarily entertained the thought that the nurse could run away with him. Maybe he'd go back to his parents' place in the Midwest.
They'd have to take me back if I brought a girl, he thought.
He could settle down and raise a family. Maybe he could start doing something honest for a change.
"I think I'm gonna get out of here when I'm better. Just jump in a car and see where the road takes me."
"If I didn't have kids and a job, believe me, Stucky, I'd be doing the same thing."
He nodded.
"Thanks for listening to me," he said. "I haven't had a lot of people do that lately."
The nurse flashed her teeth again.
"You're welcome," she said as she stood up and grabbed her clipboard. "Now, I'm going to have to tell someone about you getting pushed. It's hospital policy."
Stucky felt his heart race.
"No, you don't understand. I don't want to talk to anybody about it."
The machine changed its rhythm as the sounds it made changed in intensity.
"Stucky, calm down."
He tried to reach for the nurse again, but instead he started to cough. The pain shot through him. He tried to hold the coughing back, but he felt like he was drowning.
"Nurse, please–"
He saw the nurse pull back the curtain and heard her call for help. She seemed farther away than she was before. He knew exactly what was happening.
"It's not fair," he said.
After uttering those three words, Stucky felt the room grow dark. One of the last images he saw was the nurse gathering several other people around him. They touched his body and shouted something, but at this point he was too far gone to hear them. The last image he had before blacking out was a brick red townhouse he'd grown up in outside of Chicago. It was his parents' house. He saw the yard. He saw his mom and dad's faces. Stucky watched his brother throwing a football in the backyard. And then everything went dark.
For the next few minutes, the nurse, her supervisor and the doctor did their best to resuscitate Stucky. After trying everything they could, the familiar flat line tone of the machine sounded.
"We need to do more," she said. "Can we please try something else?"
The doctor stopped her.
"He's gone. Time of death, 1:35 p.m."
The nurse couldn't help her tears. It wasn't the first time she'd talked to a patient shortly before he passed, but repetition didn't make this part of the job any easier.
"You didn't have to run away so fast, Stucky."
She touched his arm. A few seconds went by before his arm shot up off the bed and grabbed the nurse by the throat. Stucky sat upright and the symbol on his arm glowed blue.
"I think you're right," he said. "I should stay."
PART THREE
