Severed

by Corey Brown

  “Not much of a cover story,” Cody says. “How come he’s not in here, too? Or better yet, why isn’t he dead?”

  “Flak jacket,” Derek says. “I found one in his office. Lucas said he’d been wearing it when Marion was shot.”

  “Why the hell would he be wearing body armor?”

  “Well,” Derek says. “It seems Mr. Kelly is mixed up in a drug manufacturing ring, managed by dirty cops and he was expecting trouble. So he added Kevlar to his wardrobe. Lucas claims it was two NOPD detectives who shot Marion, then him.”

  “He’s full of shit,” Cody says. “If that’s true, he ought to have----”

  “Names,” Derek says, finishing Cody’s sentence. Derek looks Cody in the eye and nods. “He’s got the names.”

  For an instant, for a single thread of time, Cody feels separated from everyone else. He hears, or thinks he hears, a faint metallic tinkling. What is that sound, a chain? A thought slips into then out of his mind

  It is beginning. Find your faith, Cody.

  Cody looks around the room. He feels uneasy, restless and strangely alone. Several yards away, the woman Jamie met—what is her name, Susan? This woman is crying. A doctor is with her, he is down on one knee, a yellow shoe cover turned up.

  The doctor is holding the woman’s hand, comforting her, but he turns his head to look at Cody. They stare at each other for a long moment and just before looking away, the doctor mouths the word ‘faith’.

  Cody wants to ask Derek about Todd. He wants to know why, and how, Todd is a part of what happened at Lucas’s condominium, but the question is lost in a mix of other thoughts swirling around his mind. Bits and pieces of ideas and questions that are connected, but simultaneously broken apart, crash though his head like a flash flood. He forces himself to concentrate but it does no good, his attention is inexorably drawn to the woman and the doctor with yellow shoe covers, these familiar strangers.

  In a low voice Cody says, “Jamie, who did you say she was?”

  “What?”

  Cody points, Jamie looks.

  “That’s Suzanne Carlson, her brother died last night.” She is puzzled by Cody’s interest in Suzanne, confused why he isn’t asking how Todd was involved with her mother’s shooting.

  To Derek, Jamie says, “What did Lucas say about Todd?”

  “According to Lucas, Todd was with Marion when she knocked on Lucas’s door.”

  Jamie’s eyes fill with worry and she draws in a sharp breath, panic rising in her chest. “Oh my God,” she says. “Was Todd…?”

  Derek shakes his head. “Uh-uh. He says Todd got away. Well, Lucas didn’t see him take a bullet.” Derek puts his hand on Jamie’s shoulder. “Jamie, the evidence supports what Lucas says, there was nothing at the scene to indicate that Todd was hurt.”

  “Carlson,” Cody says, quietly. “As in David Carlson?”

  All three stare at Cody.

  “What?” Jamie says again.

  “You said that is Suzanne Carlson. Is her brother David Carlson?”

  “Who cares, what does it have to do with Todd? Have you forgotten about him?”

  “Just tell me,” Cody says.

  An angry scowl flashes across Jamie’s face. “Yes,” she says, “David Carlson, the famous screenwriter. What of it?”

  Derek and Cody glance at each other.

  “Her brother died here?” Cody says. “In this hospital?”

  Jamie shrugs. “I guess. I don’t really know where he died and I’m not sure I care. Does it matter?”

  “It might,” Cody says. “He might be connected to all of this.”

  “Wait a minute, hold on,” Derek says. “Cody, you don’t know that.”

  “She came up to us,” Gus interjects. “Not long after we got here.”

  Cody looks at Gus, narrows his eyes. “Why?”

  Gus shrugs, starts to speak but is interrupted.

  “Yeah,” Jamie says, her words a cross between thought and vocalization. “Suzanne came over….” Jamie catches herself, waits. She senses something, some connected knowledge between Cody and Derek but doesn’t know what it means.

  Cody studies Jamie, waiting for her to say something more. Jamie wants to talk but his visage is as serious as she’s ever seen. Her husband’s intense expression puts her off, makes her afraid to answer.

  “It was really weird,” Jamie says, choosing her words carefully. “She introduced herself and…”

  “And what?”

  Jamie bites the inside of her lip. “I felt like I knew her from somewhere.”

  Cody grabs Jamie’s wrist. “Knew her? How?”

  His grip is filled with emotional strength. Jamie looks down at Cody’s hand, looks at the way he is on the verge of wrenching her arm and feels something completely foreign. For the first time in her life, Jamie feels a pang of fear because of her husband.

  “I don’t know,” Jamie says, still trying to process the unexpected feelings that have just sliced into her life. “She just seemed familiar. Suzanne said the same thing about me, that she felt she knew me.”

  Across the waiting room, elevator doors open and two women step out. One looks to be in her early thirties, tall with dark red hair. The other is several years older with strawberry blonde hair and narrow hips. They hesitate, unsure of where to go then the younger one points, takes the other woman by the hand and they both rush over to the ER admitting station.

  It is starting, Cody thinks, looking at the two women. It has begun. She is here, Suzanne Carlson is here, her dead brother, too.

  Cody nudges Derek and says, “That’s her.”

  “That’s who?”

  “Tina McGrath. Remember? I was asking Harris if she was his patient.”

  Derek feels an unexpected rush of—-what? Anxiety? Anticipation? Fear? “Oh…yeah,” he says. “Which one is Tina?”

  “The older woman,” Cody says. “With lighter hair.”

  “Why do you suppose she’s here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  «»

  The emergency room is on edge, high alert. First, David Carlson, the walking dead man, had shown up naked and freezing in an elevator. And now this other patient, who had been pulled from death’s grip three or four times in the last six minutes. For him it had been CPR, an injection of atropine, a jolt from the defibrillator, more CPR. Each time his heart had come back to life but only for a few moments.

  Later, while sitting alone in a west side bar and working on her third vodka gimlet, Rose Robiere will reflect on those lifesaving techniques. She will wonder if the atropine had been necessary, she will think about her age and consider her inexperience, she will wish she’d had more time with her patient. Sipping the gimlet, Rose will also think the guy should have quit; he should have just given up and died, for godsakes.

  But right now, long before the bartender will place her first drink on the polished stainless steel bar top, Doctor Robiere is trying desperately to keep the man alive. The heart monitor shows a weak but steady pulse. In her gut, Robiere knows it will only be a short time before this patient is hit again. The situation is no-win, this guy is finished but his body doesn’t know he is dead. And why should it? The man is barely over forty, forty-five tops, and his muscle tone, weight, body fat, everything is well within tolerance. Her patient seems to be perfectly healthy, everything contradicts myocardial infarction.

  Robiere listens to the steady hiss of oxygen and runs down a mental checklist again: in the ambulance the patient was given a tab of nitroglycerin, a shot of heparin upon arrival followed by the atropine and electricity. But what can be done until the guy is stable? At the very least he needs an EKG to figure out the real problem. Robiere is just beginning to consider which ACE inhibitor to use when the heart monitor goes monotone, drawing a steady, flat line.

  “Here we go again,” Robiere calls out.

  Before anyone can react the man speaks, his words are a papery whisper slipping out between parched lips. Everyone freezes. Robiere star
es, frowns, waits.

  The patient makes another rasping attempt to speak. “He…”

  Robiere bends down, her ear an inch from the man’s mouth. “What?” Robiere says. “What did you say?”

  “He did this…to me.”

  Robiere stiffens. “Who did this to you?”

  “Doctor,” a nurse says. “Please, we’ve got to help him.”

  “Wait,” Robiere says, raising her hand. Then she looks down at her patient. “What do you mean? Who did this to you?”

  Even as the heart monitor complains about cardiac arrest, the man sits bolt upright, his left arm extended ram-rod straight, index finger pointing.

  “That’s him,” the man says, his voice bold and clear. “He did it.”

  Everyone looks, follows the man’s gesture, everyone sees at whom he is pointing.

  “Oh my god,” one nurse says, almost in a gasp. Several other people make choking sounds of revulsion. And the power fails.

  There is an instant of total darkness before the emergency lights pop on, and for a split second Robiere is completely blind. But the battery powered lighting does kick on, bathing the ER in a flat yellow light. And that is when she sees it. Everyone sees it.

  “Holy shit!” Robiere cries out. “What are you doing?”

  As Robiere speaks, her cardiac patient falls backward onto the gurney, making a heavy thud. Without checking, Robiere knows, this time, this guy is really dead. There are screams, sounds of wrenching fear as the ER disintegrates into panic and everyone breaks for a door.

  But, as those around her bolt from the room, Robiere finds herself cemented in place for a few moments, unable to move, trying to assimilate what just happened. She shakes her head and takes a few tentative steps toward David Carlson, who is now sitting on the floor, slumped against the wall. In the dim lighting Robiere squints then frowns, trying to make sense of what she sees.

  It looks as though the entire front side of David’s body has been ripped away. Ribs, stripped of muscle, lace over exposed lungs, bone and organs, everything is uncovered, completely visible. From the ears forward, David’s facial tissue is completely gone. Eyes, forehead, lips and nose, everything is missing. A bloody jawbone protrudes, exposing teeth that form a wicked grin. David’s left arm lies across his lap but the right one is on the floor surrounded by a puddle of dark, red blood.

  “Holy mother of God,” Robiere says, under her breath. She takes another tenuous step, her courage falters. “What the hell happened?”

  Several yards away, Doctor Robiere squats, staring at the corpse. Nine feet away is good enough, she cannot bring herself to move closer. Robiere has seen her share of mangled bodies, but the sight of a human being stripped in half is horrific. Her stomach buzzes, she feels light-headed, she worries about getting sick.

  But something else intrudes into Robiere’s mind. What had walked toward her when the heart attack patient had sat up and pointed? Had there been anything at all, had she imagined it? Robiere stands firm, tries not to lose her cool and looks around.

  After the sudden pandemonium, after the ER had emptied like a spilled glass of water, only five people remain in the ER. Two are dead. A third, a college student jacked up on too much Dramamine and Beefeater, lies sleeping behind a curtain. Next to Robiere’s heart attack patient is a nurse, Saranna, she is on the floor vomiting. That is four. Robiere makes number five.

  Without power, the ER is strangely quiet, no bleating heart monitor, the oxygen pump that had supplied David Carlson is silent, no subliminal hum of fresh air circulating through the ducts. One of the emergency lights flickers then clicks off. Robiere wonders why the backup generator is not running, she remembers that Tulane was having power troubles. Is this all related?

  Something else catches Doctor Robiere’s attention. Looking at the floor she sees footprints leading away from David Carlson.

  Footprints?

  Robiere flinches, not quite comprehending what she sees. But there are footprints, three bloody prints walking away. Walking where? Robiere looks at the prints, looks in the direction the bloody path footsteps take. She looks at David then at her heart attack patient.

  They lead from David Carlson to the guy who, while suffering a cardiac arrest, had sat straight up and pointed, blaming the Hollywood mega-screen writer for his death. The prints walk away from Carlson, walk toward the heart attack guy then vanish. A left footfall, a right, another left; three bloody footsteps then nothing. Robiere stares, recalls a feeling she’d had just moments before all hell cut loose. She remembers feeling a presence.

  Before Doctor Robiere can focus on the idea of who had made the footprints, a strange, premonitory feeling comes over her. An idea flashes through her mind then becomes conscious thought: David isn’t really dead. The footprints are odd but they don’t explain the weird tingling sensation that seems to crawl across her body.

  A creepy, no-fucking-way feeling rushes her senses and everything falls out of focus, Robiere finds herself concentrating on just that one sensation, the thought that David isn’t dead. But he has to be, there’s nothing left of him.

  Then Robiere hears a little cough. She freezes. No, it can’t be; it cannot possibly be. Another cough, slight, almost inaudible. Slowly, Robiere turns, not wanting to see what she already knows to be true.

  By the time her fourth vodka gimlet is gone, Rose Robiere will be ready to think about the moment she heard that cough. Four gimlets will provide enough courage to piece things together. Among the million thoughts streaking through her mind while in the ER, one, in particular, will be seared into her memory: it can’t be. It cannot possibly be.

  Just before blacking out, Rose will remember seeing David’s head move, his face turning toward her, empty orbital sockets staring, his hands planted on the floor as if he is trying to stand. The next thing Robiere will see is a penlight shining in her eyes as Doctor Kooman checks her pulse and asks inane questions about what day it was and who the president is and how she feels.

  Somewhere beyond Kooman’s revival efforts, Robiere will hear other voices, there will be talk about a beginning and someone named Todd.

  «»

  Emergency lights cast grim shadows about the waiting room, the sudden loss of power adding to the sense of apprehension. Hearing odd noises coming from the ER, Cody and Derek look at each other. Shouts and screams penetrate the waiting room followed by doors crashing open and a stream of people. The doctor kneeling in front of Suzanne Carlson glances at the hospital staff pouring out of the emergency room then he looks directly at Cody and Derek.

  He says something to Suzanne and stands, walking quickly into the ER, stripping off his bouffant cap. As the head covering drops to the floor, long, dark tangles of hair fall onto his shoulders and, somehow, Cody knows the man or at least knows something about him. What Cody does not know is that Jamie is feeling the same thing; Jamie is wondering if she knows that doctor, thinking that he may have saved her life.

  Mechanically, Cody starts after the doctor. Without saying a word, Derek follows Cody.

  “Where are you going?” Jamie says.

  Cody stops, turns to look at his wife. “Something is wrong,” he says. “Honey, stay with your father.” Then Cody glances at his father-in-law, he holds the old man’s gaze and Gus nods, accepting the role of guardian, not of his daughter but of Cody’s wife.

  Jamie starts to protest but Cody’s expression is intense, dark and commanding. She nods then takes her father’s hand and says, “Okay, we’ll wait here.”

  In unison the two men start walking again. As they reach the door to the ER another doctor shoves past them and holds up his hand.

  “Wait,” the man says. “You can’t go in there, staff only.”

  He turns away and goes into the emergency room, opening the door so hard it slams against the wall and bounces back. Cody catches it with his foot, holds it open.

  The sense of confusion in the room is palpable, there is an unmistakable undercurrent of panic and fea
r. Instinctively, both men check for their weapons. Cody frowns as his fingers touch an empty holster then he remembers his gun has been missing all day. Cody remembers that Detective Eric Hansen was assassinated with his gun.

  Overhead florescent lights flicker on, computers and life support systems beep as the building power returns. A few seconds later, the emergency lighting snaps off. A nurse rushes in through an entrance on the opposite side of the ER.

  Derek and Cody take in the scene. In the center of the room, the doctor who had told them to stay out is leaning over someone who is either unconscious or dead. To their right a man is lying on a gurney, motionless and unattended. A few feet beyond, a nurse is on her hands and knees, her body convulsing with dry heaves, a puddle of vomit on the floor beneath her. The nurse who had just arrived is leaning over the woman who is throwing up, putting a hand on her shoulder.

  On the far side of the room the doctor who had been with Suzanne Carlson is pulling a bloody sheet over a body. It strikes Cody as odd that he knows who is under the linen. Cody steps closer, considering the idea. Why do I think it is David Carlson under that sheet? How do I know? Cody watches, transfixed, as the sheet settles over the person’s head.

  The doctor turns to look at Cody, a grave expression on his face. “You didn’t listen,” he says. “You did not keep Todd. Now it may be too late.”

  Cody starts to speak but his mouth and throat are dry. “I…uh…” Cody swallows hard. “I don’t understand. Do you know where Todd is?”