Like a dozen years. Maybe twenty.
Jason actually felt pretty relaxed as he walked her back to her car in the hospital parking deck. The mini-date had gone smoothly and he was relieved that Jenny’s other commitment had set a time limit on them. No pressure about what to do next.
I know what I’d like to do next, but a kiss seems out of the question.
He admired her beauty, allowing his gaze to pass briefly over her body. The scrubs were not flattering on anyone but her athletic figure looked great even in those. He tried not to stare and felt his stomach drop when he saw her eyes were on him. Caught.
He started to stammer an excuse or an apology, unsure which would be better, but she relieved him of his need for either when she kissed his cheek and then squeezed his arm against her neck.
They waited in the parking garage for the elevator in silence but it didn’t feel awkward. Jason summoned his courage as best he could. Maybe it would have been best to leave well enough alone, play it cool, but he found himself almost uncontrollably eager to see her again—like in an hour or less.
As they entered the elevator he heard a gasp. Her face seemed pale and he took her arms.
“Are you okay?”
Jenny shuddered but seemed to collect herself. “Yeah,” she said and smiled at him weakly. “Sorry. I don’t know what the hell that was.”
“Are you afraid of elevators?” he asked.
Instead of answering, Jenny closed her eyes and leaned into him. Her lips touched his gently and he felt her hands on his waist. His pulse quickened and he was a little dizzy from her soft, gentle mouth meeting his. She pulled back and he lingered, staring at her for a moment.
“Wow,” he finally managed to whisper.
“Yeah,” she said and gazed down at her twisting hands. “I hope that was okay. I’m not usually such a… I don’t know. So forward I guess.”
Jason tilted her face up gently by the chin. “It was fine. I mean it was great. Look.” He stopped for a moment. “Can I see you later? After you nap, I mean. We could have dinner.”
Jenny’s face clouded and he worried he had made the wrong choice. “I don’t know,” she said with a troubled voice. “I have this thing I have to do and then I really need some sleep.”
“No problem,” he said but he knew how disappointed he sounded.
Now it was her turn to touch his chin. “It’s not that I don’t want to. I definitely want to see you again. It’s just this thing I have to do is, well…” She left the explanation unfinished. “Can you give me your number and I can call you if I feel up to something later? I mean, I don’t expect you to wait around or anything…”
Jason laughed out loud. “That’s not a problem,” he said and wrote his cell number on a scratch of paper from his pocket. He handed it to her “Call even if you just want to chat on the phone. I got nowhere I need to be. My social calendar is a big blank piece of emptiness.”
Jenny took the paper and smiled, then leaned up and kissed him again. “Can I see you tomorrow if tonight doesn’t work out?” she asked and he thought she sounded hopeful.
“Absolutely.”
He walked her to her car, a lone SUV on the top floor of the garage, and they kissed one last time. He watched her drive off and then headed to the elevators, back to see Nathan.
That went way better than expected.
* * *
Jenny drove around the bend and out of sight and then slowed as she descended the ramp to the next floor below. She suspected that Jason would head back in to visit Nathan and the thought of him sitting beside the little boy made her feel warm—and conflicted. It wouldn’t do for him to see her returning, so she decided to sit for a minute before heading in. It would take some luck to not run into him, but she couldn’t really do anything about that now.
I should have just told him I had a work meeting.
Too late, though she could always fall back on it if they did run into each other later.
Jenny drew in a shaking sigh. She decided to just hope that they didn’t run into each other. If they did, she would deal with it. There were plenty of other things to worry about without making herself sick over how she would handle her budding crush.
Like what I’m doing here. And why it feels so perfectly right and horribly wrong at the same time.
It dawned on her that she now finally understood the word surrealistic.
The LED clock on the dash told her that only four minutes had passed. Surely Jason was well out of view and in the unit with Nathan by now. Just the same, she watched as the indicator clicked over two more times in what felt like a half hour. When the clock made its second silent click, she took her key out of the ignition, got out of her truck and headed for the elevators with a determined grimace on her face. A part of her mind demanded to know just how she knew where she was supposed to go and what she was supposed to do. A much stronger part shut the doubts up. She knew where to go and why.
How she knew didn’t matter any more than the haunting lies of a happy childhood that couldn’t possibly belong to her.
Chapter
7
Steve must have fallen asleep, because he didn’t remember the woman in a mask and blue shower cap leaning over him. His mind wandered in and out of reality and she seemed to materialize out of nowhere. For a moment he thought he dreamt her.
Maybe she can help me.
Steve concentrated with all of his might and his eyes moved slightly to the left for several seconds—long enough to see a large, heavy door that looked closed and nothing else before they ticked center again. He didn’t see anyone else in the room; he tried to focus on the surgical-mask girl who kept darting in and out of his peripheral vision. If he could catch her attention, get her to notice that he was awake, maybe she would give him some medicine. Or better, maybe she would feel bad for him, see what they were doing was horribly fucking wrong, and maybe she could stop it. If he could only catch her gaze.
Steve ignored the horrible, burning pain in his thigh. Finally, he had something else to focus on. He needed this woman’s pretty green eyes to SEE him. Her face grazed his vision to the right and he could hear her adjusting some equipment. Steve strained to follow her movement, but saw she had turned away, her back to him. With all of his might he forced his eyes to remain where they were, feeling them quiver. The room seemed to shake, but his eyes stayed in the girl’s direction. A wave of nausea swept over him as his view of the room rocked back and forth, but he ignored it and concentrated solely on his fight to keep his eyes fixated.
She turned. He rallied and strained harder. The quivering slowed, almost stopped. She leaned over.
“Well, look who’s awake.” Her voice sounded flat and hollow and her expression was stone. Steve saw none of the compassion he hoped for.
He tried to talk to her with his eyes.
Please, please help me! Please, I’m so scared. My leg hurts so bad, so, so bad. Please don’t let them hurt me again. I’m begging you. Please help me. Get me out of here or at least get me some medicine. PLEASE!
The nurse stared at him, paused, seemed to understand.
Please let her understand!
She leaned closer and her stone eyes looked into his soul. He could smell her perfume.
“Hurts, does it? Well…” She patted his hand. Her skin felt warm.
Yes, god, how it hurts! Please, please, make the pain go away. Won’t you please help?
The nurse put her lips right beside his ear, her breath diffused by her mask but warm on his face.
“Well I’m glad, you miserable little bastard. I hope they show you pain that you never imagined. I know what you did to that poor little boy, to Nathan, and I’m so glad someone is making you pay, you shit. The courts sure as hell don’t do it. They didn’t do a goddamn thing when my father raped me or paralyzed my brother. I hope they kill you!”
The nurse stood up, a little fire to her now. She patted his hand, less softly than before, and Steve knew he was fucked.
“Alright, sir, your doctors will be with you shortly.” She laughed. Then she turned and walked away.
Steve’s eyes drifted back to center, back to his white ceiling with the black line. But he couldn’t see it clearly, not through the tears. He felt the pressure change of the door opening again, felt the bustling activity. There were voices and the clinking sound of instruments.
“Donor site?”
“Right upper extremity and chest.”
“Oh?”
“Gonna move this one along. Got another one coming in, they say.”
“Well, fine. We could use the tissue, god knows. The burn ICU is full right now.”
“Get some towels?”
“Sure, doctor.”
Arm and chest? The blades again? Please, no I can’t stand it again! I’ll die, I swear to God! My mind will explode and I will DIE!
Steve heard the beeping speed up, get louder. Then an alarm sounded.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing, just the heart rate alarm. He went above 150.”
“I guess he knows what’s coming, huh?”
“Yeah, just reset the alarms. Better yet, just turn them off.”
He heard a shuffle of activity and the alarm stopped.
The pressure changed as the door opened again. Steve tried to look that way but he was exhausted. A moment later, the pale face, the red lips, the eyes hidden in the shadows of a gray hat, came into view. Steve felt his tears erupt, the image of Mr. Clark blurring. Somehow it made him look even more demonic.
“Good morning, Mr. Prescott.”
He felt a warm towel on his face and a cold, pale hand mopped away his tears. “There we are. I want us to be able to clearly see one another. Mr. Prescott.” The red cut with teeth spread again in a tight smile.
Steve focused pleadingly on the ghostlike face above him. Yes, I’m sorry. Whatever I did, I’m so fucking sorry. I’m sorry for being born! Just please, don’t cut me again! Please, Please, Please! I’ll do anything to make it all better! I’ll marry the bitch and take care of her brat! PLEASE DON’T CUT ME AGAIN!!
The pale man tilted his head to the left. He seemed to be considering, as if he had heard Steve’s mental pleas. Then he rose up slightly.
“No. Sorry, Mr. Prescott. Not good enough.” The gray face disappeared from view.
Steve felt dizzy. How was this fucking possible? He was sorry, goddamnit.
He doesn’t care if you’re sorry. That’s just a show for the others. He doesn’t want your remorse or grief. What he needs is your fear and your pain.
The voice sounded like his, inside his head, but he knew it wasn’t. He also knew that it told him the truth.
“Prep both arms and his whole chest please.”
“The whole chest? Jesus! We’re gonna need some blood in the room then. Do we have the type and cross up to date?”
“That won’t be necessary,” Mr. Clark said. “Give all the fluids you need but we won’t be giving any blood.”
“Why not?”
Steve felt a wave of heat in the room and a terrible smell. He could barely focus on the debate over whether he would get a blood transfusion after they tore more flesh from his body. The ceiling blurred and the horrible shit smell in the room made his stomach turn.
“Let’s give him a liter of crystalloid now,” said a voice that sounded unsure.
Someone new leaned over him—Clark’s shorter friend. The red scar up the side of the white cheek looked wet to him. The deep orange, almost red eyes peered at him from the impossibly dark shadow of the grey top hat. The thin red lips quivered with excitement, waiting to taste that first cool sip of liquid after a long hot day in the sun.
The lips parted and thin wet drool trickled down the pasty chin. Steve heard a loud, animal like pant and felt the hot, ass-smelling breath on his skin. He looked at teeth that were way too long and pointed to be inside a human mouth. A part of his mind understood that this creature fed on him somehow. The shit smell faded away, disappeared, but the acid-hot breath of the creature seemed every bit as nauseating. Then it slipped from view and he stared again at his familiar ceiling.
Steve tried with all his might to make his heart stop beating. To stop being alive, quickly, before the cutting started again—before the demons fed on his anguish. But no matter how hard he focused his desire, his heart just kept on beating, sending blood and oxygen to his brain, keeping him alive and awake for what was about to begin. He wanted to scream, to flail his arms, to at least close his eyes, but he could do nothing except stare at the white ceiling, listen and wait.
So he waited for the cold steel and the ripping pain of skin being torn from his body.
“Prep please.”
Again the cold liquid, the scrubbing. A pair of hands pulled his arms out from his sides, crucifix style. They wrapped straps around his wrists to hold them in place. As they cleaned him the icy liquid ran down his arms to his hands. Drops of soap trickled down his fingers and dripped off onto the floor. The coldness on his chest flowed down his sides, onto his back. He was fucking freezing.
“Towels please.”
Warm towels were splayed across his waist and neck, then across his arms at the elbows. Steve’s brain fired burst after burst, signals to his nervous system, commanding his arms to move, his head to turn, his legs to kick. It demanded that his voice wail. But his body ignored the commands, somehow unsure of how to follow them, and he lay motionless.
“Two pickups and the electric blade, please.”
The whirring sound cut into his thoughts like a bullet. Steve screamed loudly, again and again, in his mind, certain the terror would make his head explode. He prayed for death.
His chest exploded. Pain and searing heat erupted as the vibrating blade impacted his skin just below his rib cage. Flashes of white light blurred his vision and his internal shrieking reached a fever pitch. Everything happened in slow motion.
He could feel the vibrating blade lift the skin from his body, feel the hand-held saw as it ran up his chest, all the way to his neck. He felt the tearing as the long strip of skin pulled free. A blurry, gloved hand passed briefly through his vision, pulling a silver square past his eyes. Hanging from it was a long, six-inch wide strip of grayish-white skin.
His skin.
The flapping piece of flesh was mixed with red. Warm spatters of blood speckled his cheek and chin. A deep burning, intense, like he had been dowsed in kerosene and lit, joined the tearing flesh pain. His vision blurred further still.
God, please, let me die! Let me die! Just let me fucking die!!
“Wow, great piece! Wish I’d had that for grafting that guy from the car fire.”
“Put that in saline. Let’s keep going.”
Steve again felt liquid on his chest, warm this time, and he knew it must be his blood. It felt like a lot of his blood. His muscles burned.
The whirring noise fired up again and then the vibrating blade bit into his flesh again. The tearing pain, the burning, the horrible noise, the spatters of blood on his face.
He stared at the ceiling, red discoloration splashing through his field of vision. His mind screamed as the whirring machine peeled strip after strip of flesh from his chest, his sides, both of his upper arms. It was like being burned alive, the horrible pain that wrapped around his body and mind.
The pain in his right leg faded to less than an itch. The burning-hot pain in his upper body consumed his brain. He could feel the warm pool of his blood on the table, running down his sides in streams now, following his body, trickling over his hips and thighs.
The whirring had stopped and he could hear the rhythmic pat pat pat of his blood as it dripped onto the floor beneath the table. He felt lightheaded.
Please, please, please let me pass out!
“That is a lot of bleeding.”
“Epi-soaked gauze, please.”
“You may stop. Give him more fluid but only give blood to keep him from dying.”
The l
ast voice sounded familiar: Mr. Clark. Steve could see his strange eyes blazing from the shadows of his mind.
“The rest of you may go. Thank you for your assistance, Jenny. You have been a huge help, my dear.”
He felt only vaguely aware of the motion around him, the pressure change as the door opened and people filed quietly out. It seemed like a hazy dream, voices in the next room when you were almost asleep. The dizziness only added to the dream-like feeling, but the pain in his chest and arms remained very real. He would give anything to stop that pain.
Anything!
He listened with dread as the footsteps moved toward him. He stared at the ceiling and waited for the question. This time two pale faces came into view, both in gray hats. Mr. Clark spoke and Steve tried to close his eyes.
“Mr. Prescott, you have fed us well tonight. You won’t last much longer, but there is more pain waiting for you tomorrow. Do you understand?”
Yes! Yes, I am sorry! Please forgive me! Please make the burning stop! I am SOOOOOO SORRY! PLEEEEEEEASE!
They turned toward each other and nodded in unison. Then as he watched, they began to change. Steve knew hallucinations when he saw them, had done enough mushrooms with Kenny. Even knowing that what he saw had to be a hallucination, or a dream, or whatever the fuck it was, did nothing to stem the terror he felt as the demons transformed.
The dizziness cascaded into a vortex and the room seemed to tilt. The ceiling crumpled as he watched it, turning dark and moist. Suddenly he found himself lying in a wet, hot cave. The creatures peering hungrily down at him no longer vaguely resembled anything human.
He stared at the reptilian monstrosities with their wet, long teeth dripping yellowish liquid onto their bare gray chests. He thought of the raptors in Jurassic Park. The things grunted at him and he screamed silently in his head. His eyes wouldn’t close but it didn’t matter. Everything faded away to blackness and his last thought was that he hoped he had bled to death.
* * *
Nathan tried his best not to want any of the medicine that they put in his arm through the tube. It made him feel too weird. He thought it might be the cause of his horrible dreams. Or maybe it made them worse.
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