Jebediah's Crime: A Heroic Supernatural Thriller (The Hinge Series Book 1)

by Vincent Phan Tran

  The doctors stood in silence. Mr. Johnson and Ms. Trish fidgeted and avoided eye contact with anyone.

  "You come here for breakthroughs not seen outside of the Hinge, to do things not possible outside this amazing place. You came to try things that would normally kill patients but here, may instead make them live. And from this place, some of you will become the greatest medical minds of your generation. But always remember, only some of this is made possible by your intellect. The rest comes from the Hinge. You may not be able to reproduce your successes outside this island."

  She stood up from the patient and began to walk away. She paused and gave Johnson and Trish a hard. "Really kids. You're going to be doctors. Tell me you know how to use a rubber?"

  Jebediah continued down the hallway without hearing their answer. He stopped in front of a room with a blue teddy bear sticker on its door. Through the doorway came the rhythmic sound of a machine and the smell of disinfectant. He took a deep breath and walked into his son's room.

  David, eleven-years-old and painfully underweight, lay on a narrow hospital bed covered in blue blankets. Jebediah tiptoed in quietly. It was ridiculous, of course, but the boy looked like he was sleeping, and his father was instinctively worried he'd wake him.

  But that would be a miracle, wouldn't it? Him opening his eyes and in a groggy voice as if waking from a deep sleep say, "Hi." Maybe he should make more noise instead of being quiet, so he could wake the boy from his coma? He shook his head at the nonsense of it all.

  A padded chair sat close to the bed. He shoved it closer and sat down so his hands could rest comfortably on his son's arm. The boy's dark hair slightly obscured an eye. He pushed it aside, and his hand brushed against the bandage on David's scalp. He sat for several moments just listening to the sound of his child breathing. Then he reached into his pocket, pulled out a piece of paper and started to read from it.

  "Why didn't the banana go to the hospital? Because it wasn't peeling well."

  He looked up from the paper with a hopeful glance.

  "Why was the math book sad? Because it had too many problems. What do you call a boomerang that won't come back? A stick. What nails do carpenters hate to hit? Fingernails. Why did the belt go to jail? It held up a pair of pants."

  One joke came after the other. They were delivered with a tone of forced levity, like a man trying to tell a light-hearted story at a funeral.

  "What did the light bulb say to its parents?" He paused. "I miss you watts."

  No laughter, or even groans at the jokes greeted him. Jebediah slipped the paper into a binder sitting next to the bed. The outside of the binder said, "For David." It was stuffed full of slips of paper.

  He thought for a moment, then smiled and spoke to his son again.

  "Remember that time you brought that dead squirrel to your mom? I still have no idea where you got it. She took one look, and I thought she was going to explode. Her scream was so loud, Mrs. Johnson came running from next door to make sure everything was okay. You just stood there giggling, though, petting and kissing it like a puppy and talking like it could understand you. And then I started laughing 'cause I couldn't help it, and that just made your mom even more mad. Once we got you to let that thing go, I swear she had you in a bath for about an hour." He grinned at the memory.

  "I told you later the squirrel went to heaven and that's why it didn't run around anymore. I said what you had wasn't the squirrel anymore, just what was left after he went to heaven."

  "Are you in heaven now?" Jebediah asked. "Am I telling you Dad-jokes when you're playing in heaven?"

  His head dropped. "I miss you so much. I want you to tell me who you played with today and about the trouble you got in. I want you to run, so I can throw you in the air and make you scream. And laugh when I tickle you. I want to give you a bath and read to you and wrestle you back into bed because you want to show me your toys instead of sleep. I need you to hear me say, I'll never leave you alone again, and I'll protect you against anything. Anything. I need you to know I'm trying to be a better dad. Please just wake up, just for a little bit … you can have whatever you want, just wake up son … just wake up."

  David continued to breathe deeply, in and out. But he didn't open his eyes.

  "Okay," Jebediah whispered with a slight nod of his head. "It's okay, son. You rest up and take your time."

  He stood to leave, then stopped when something tugged at his belt. He looked down and spied the rough butt of his gun snagged against some of the plastic tubing around his son. He pulled gently to free himself, but the tubes held on stubbornly. Then it released him, finally.

  He pulled the blankets up higher on the child. His hands kept petting the boy's chest and arms as if unable to stay off him, as if they couldn't stop touching him. Then he bent and lightly kissed one of David's hands. He lingered for a moment. Then, stood and quietly left.

  The blankets rose and fell with the movement of his son's chest. On the floor next, to the boy, lay a small piece of rubber from the medical tubing. It had ripped and fallen after catching on Jebediah's gun.

  "Mr. Creek."

  Jebediah turned in the hallway in front of his son's room. Dr. Gaal approached him, minus the gaggle of other doctors she'd had with her earlier.

  He nodded to her. "Hi, Doc."

  "Mr. Creek, really, I've told you any number of times to call me Katie."

  He gave her a sheepish smile. He was pretty sure she was old enough to be his mother but damned if he didn't catch her checking out his ass every now and then.

  "You got it, Katie. Call me Jebediah. Or just Jeb, if you like."

  She smiled back at him. "I like Jeb. We see so much of each other, it just seems right we speak like friends."

  She looked toward his son's room.

  "His respiration is still steady. Normally we'd see more muscular atrophy but that seems fine. It's quite baffling."

  "The Hinge?" he asked.

  "The Hinge," she replied, as if it explained everything.

  "Jeb, I realize the expense of his stay here is significant, but please know the care he receives is literally the greatest available in the world. Your son's condition would have been fatal anywhere else. Him breathing is nothing short of a miracle."

  "I believe you," he said. "If this is what it takes, I'll keep paying. It's fine."

  When he said it, he was aware of the doctor looking at his old shirt and beaten jeans. He hadn't bought new clothes in a long time and it showed.

  She nodded and petted his arm.

  "I know you will," she said.

  "Was there anything else?"

  Katie opened her mouth as if to say something then closed it again in a hesitating manner. "There is one other thing, but I'm not quite sure how to explain it. Would you spare me a moment in my office?"

  He raised an eyebrow. "Okay."

  They walked down the hall to her office. It was marked with a plain wooden door with her name labeled on it. Inside, her office had books and papers piled all over. Even the bookshelf, next to her desk, had loose papers stacked on top of medical journals. She shoved things off an old armchair so he could sit down. Then she walked to a single serving coffee machine and popped in a pod.

  "You must try this," she said as the cup filled.

  She handed it to him. He took a sip, then smiled in appreciation. The coffee was delicious, and he took a longer drink.

  "They call it Giant Orgasm coffee," she said.

  He choked a little.

  "Yeah, I like it too," she smiled, then sat down, closer than she really needed to.

  "I look in on your boy myself. The nurses treat him wonderfully of course, but I'll be damned if I let the group of kiddie-doctors anywhere close to him." She pointed at the oculus on her head.

  "The things I can see with this amaze me. I've had it for years, and every time I think I understand it, it does something to surprise me. It seems to be based on my need to know things. For stuff I'd normally order blood tests or biopsi
es, I just think about while looking at the patient. Then, the oculus shows me things. It can be a picture of particular bacteria, or an image of a blockage. And because I can see things, I can diagnose them." She paused and leaned back.

  "But being able to see and diagnose doesn't necessarily mean I could fix the problem. I had a patient with lung cancer. The five-year survival rate is 4%. I could see what was wrong, even down to the cellular level, but it didn't mean I had a cure."

  "That is, until I slept and had a dream. And when I woke up, I went immediately into the hospital during the middle of the night and started putting together medical equipment and combining different pharmaceuticals. And then, with complete disregard for any accepted medical testing protocol, I used what I'd created to treat the patient."

  She held up a picture of a man in the middle of running a footrace. "This guy had late stage lung cancer. I cured it."

  Jebediah nodded. He was still unsure why she was telling him these things.

  "The other day, when I looked in on David, I saw something. It was small and a bit nondescript, so I ignored it. This morning, though, I walked back in and saw it again. It had grown. It looks like a light—a Flash of light."

  He heard the emphasis on the word and froze.

  "I don't understand."

  "I'm trying to explain something remarkable. I think he's been trying to Flash for quite some time, but the head injury kept it from happening. But it's there, and I can see it now."

  "Why couldn't you see it before?"

  "I don't think the oculus knew how to fix your son. But now? I think it's telling us if we can get your son to Flash, then he'll recover. I think I can help David."

  His breathing had become rapid and his hands were sweating. "How can you be sure?" he asked.

  "I can't be. Not completely, anyhow. But look at this." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper. On it, scrawled with a hurried hand, was a picture of a boy floating above a bed. Next to him was a small square box, and beaming out was a light covering the hovering boy.

  "I drew it last night. And I think I know how to build it."

  Jebediah drew a breath in, and when he spoke his voice was raspy.

  "Whatever you have to do, please, just do it," he said.

  "I can't. I mean, I could, but the materials alone …" she trailed off. "It's more than I could afford in my lifetime." She told him the cost, and his jaw tightened while his heart dropped. He thought of the apartment he could barely afford and the electrical bills he couldn't pay because everything he earned went to David's care.

  Then he thought what it would be like to hear David laugh at one of those kid jokes he'd always loved.

  "If I got you the money you needed, could you help me, Katie?"

  She nodded in return. "It would be the break-through of a lifetime. The first artificially created Flashpoint."

  She paused and looked around her office, then out the window. In the distance was the flickering ripple of the Wall.

  "Whatever makes this place work has no rhyme or reason. Do you understand how that must frustrate someone of my intellect? Some die horribly from minor injuries, while others recover from terrible ones—prosper even. The wounds your son suffered should have been fatal. They would have been, if you were anywhere but the Hinge. I have no false humility. I have an amazing medical mind, and only because of me and the Hinge is your son still alive. But there's a limit. People still die here regardless of my efforts."

  She turned and fixed him with a stare.

  "I'm starting to see small signs of degradation in his internal organs. I can't be sure, but I think time is limited. If we're going to do this, we need to do it soon."

  Jebediah sat for a moment and absorbed what he'd heard. Then he stood and went to the door. He paused with his hand on the knob. "Will this save my boy?" he asked.

  "It's the best chance he has. The best chance he'll ever have," she replied.

  He nodded and left. He stopped for a moment to look through David's doorway again. Sugar was laying between the boy's legs. The dog rested his head on his son's thigh, between two furry, crossed arms.

  Sugar cocked his eye at Jebediah and gave him a look. It was as if to ask him "What are you waiting for?"

  "Nothing," he replied. "Not a damn thing."

  Sugar chuffed then closed his eyes. Jebediah strode to the front of the building and out through the glass doors. He hit a button on his phone and put it to his face in mid-stride.

  "Flint, call that old woman back. If she wants me, she can have me. But at triple the normal rate."

  Chapter 7

  Mei stood in the kitchen of her large home, making soup. The stove was white and gleaming and held a Swedish name. Above it was a gigantic vent roaring close to her ears. She shook her head. As if the smell of cooking food was something to fear. She reached and flipped it off, and the quiet was instantly soothing. If anyone didn't like the smells of her kitchen, she'd remind them she was cooking in her own home.

  The kitchen would've made a professional chef envious. Every modern appliance you could think of surrounded a kitchen island as large as a conference table. Round lights bathed the room in a warm glow.

  Mei looked around for a moment, blinked slowly, then turned back to her bubbling pot of soup. She stirred it without thought, unconscious about the movement in the same way a professional dancer with years of experience could perform a pirouette. She let her mind drift back to another kitchen, one smaller and much more humble.

  She thought back to her last day in her old home, sometime thirty years ago, yet only a few months in the past.

  A smell of chicken broth and spices had been mixing with diesel exhaust, wafting in through holes in the wall passing as windows in that small house so many years ago. Green onions, oil and bean sprouts flopped about in the darkish soup in front of her. Mei ladled herself a bowl, took a small sip, then smiled with satisfaction.

  The delicate balance of savory and sweet was her secret to a good soup. Someone watching her cook would have seen no measuring cups or written list of ingredients. Just a handful of this and a pinch of that, delivered with the grace and surety that came only from years of dedication to an art. Not science, but art. And what great art ever came from a recipe?

  Another military convoy roared past her home. The walls and floors rattled with their passing, and the top of the stove shifted. Mei's hand, protected by a thick cloth, caught the side of the pot, but some of the hot soup still managed to spill over and out. She lost enough to fill a bowl. She cursed at the hours of work and care, wasted in a moment. She bent to clean the spill, while ignoring the raised voices of her friends and neighbors outside. They were yelling at the passing soldiers to stop and let them board.

  Some reached out to grab at the vehicles only to be knocked away. Women cried out offers of sex. Mothers held up babies and begged for the departing army to take them. They all knew what would happen once the military left, what always happened to those who'd been friendly with the side that lost a war.

  Those left after the Americans were gone would be raped, killed or worse along with their families and friends.

  She shook her head. Her son had been so proud of his American uniform. He'd reminded her the Northern army lost two or three soldiers for every one of the Americans. As if those numbers made a difference. As if the Americans winning every battle was important.

  It didn't matter. Not now. What mattered was they were leaving and there would be a terrible vengeance on any civilians that helped them. Two elephants had fought and left behind them were broken blades of grass.

  Earlier, her son, gun in hand and rushing out the door, had told her to pack and wait. Wait for him to speak to his military contacts. Wait for him to get help.

  She and Magda gathered what few belongings they had: old clothing, South Vietnamese currency that would soon become useless, and other small reminders of a place she'd called home for over fifty years. And when that was done, he
r son still hadn't come back.

  The only sensible thing left was to make her family a meal. Because no matter what happened, they would face it with that small comfort.

  So, she cooked and waited and shut out the sounds of a city gone to panic.

  "Magda, come eat."

  "I'm here, Mei." Her granddaughter looked exactly like her son. Straight black hair mixed with brown eyes so dark her gaze pierced and held you. She was tall for her age and skinny with the racing metabolism of youth.

  "Is Papa back yet?"

  "No, sweetheart. He's coming though."

  Mei grabbed the bowl with the least number of cracks, added noodles, and set it down on their old wooden table. Then she ladled in broth and stirred everything together. The greens mixed with the white noodles.

  "I'm not hungry," Magda said.

  "I don't know when we'll eat again. Best do it now while we can."

  The girl responded with a skeptical look on her young face.

  "It would make your Daddy really happy," Mei said.

  It was the right thing to say. The girl worshipped her father, and so decided she could eat after all. Mei made herself a bowl, sat down and joined Magda, and for a while the only thing they heard was the crunching of sprouts joined with the gentle slurping of noodles.

  Mei smiled, thinking if her son was around he'd have finished a bowl in a manner of minutes. Even before the military, he was a fast eater. After joining the service, it was almost magical how fast he could finish his food.

  Another convoy approached outside. She ignored it, then spun at the sound of the door being thrown open. In the doorway, framed by the light of a mid-day sun, stood her son, Lanh. Behind him were several American soldiers she recognized as members of his unit.

  "Damn it smells good in here," her son smiled. Magda rushed at her father, and he grabbed her up, taking a moment to hug and kiss her. Mei joined them and breathed in the sweat and dirt of her son.