She forced herself to concentrate on her work, reviewing the bowel and digestive tract. She thought of her mother’s face as she slipped her hands around loops of intestine and what it would look like if she graduated without honors.
Twenty minutes later, she was wandering the visceral pathways of a dead man when the lights went out. Patricia froze, her breath caught. She listened to the dark and heard it call to her in the slow thunder of her own heartbeat. Boom. Boom. Boom. The voices of reason—her cardiologist, her mother, herself—sparkled at the corners of her mind, but the fear overrode them. Her skull, mouth, throat, gut and crotch filled with writhing snakes. At the far edges of her consciousness she wondered when her chest would start to hurt. Boom. Boom. Boom. It didn’t take long. The pain spiked behind her left breast and rolled along her arm, gripping and grinding.
Patricia’s reflexes broke the spell as she dragged in a great gulp of air. She lurched away and backed into another table, a hard curve of skull pressing into her butt with a sensation that was almost intimate. She gave a yelp and careened forward, sinking her left hand into Fourteen’s open intestinal cavity with a wet slurp. “Oh, God,” she moaned and staggered to the side. The pain in her chest and arm was actually helping to clear her mind somewhat. She knew she needed to get out of the room. Out of the dark. Out of the maze of silent dead… Before she woke one of them.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Her peripheral vision flashed in time to the explosions from her chest, but it was a cruel joke. The light was only in her mind and gave no direction. Using the sides of the lab tables to guide her, Patricia began to stumble toward where she thought the doors might be. Her left hand trailed along the edges of the tables, her right clutched her breast. It hurt. Oh, mommy, it hurt so bad. She made a fist and struck at her chest, trying to attack the source of the pain. But she was weak and the blow was little more than a limp caress.
Patricia lost her footing and went down on one knee, pain flaring from her kneecap. Another useless burst in the void. Now she was on the floor below the line of the tables. They could just reach over and grab her hair, or flick her ear lobes like her older brother used to do. They could do worse, they could pull her hair and move her head like—
Light!
A pencil-thin line along the floor just to the left. The doors! She was so close, just a few feet off to the wrong side. She could get out. She could get into the light and her heart would stop hurting and then she would be able to see and then she could sit down and then her heart would stop hurting and they wouldn’t be able to get her. Patricia grunted and hauled herself off the floor. She stumbled forward. She was going to make it. She could get out. She put her hands out in front of her to push the swinging doors open and flood herself with light. Her palms collided with a sheet of cold plastic and the pliant resistance of flesh beneath.
BOOM!
The rattle of a long zipper.
BOOM!
The reek of formaldehyde.
BOOM!
Fingers on her wrist.
The night custodian found Patricia Mills-Hansen’s body crumpled up a heartbeat from the door. Rigor mortis clamped the terror on her face and welded her eyes open. The only marks on her well-maintained skin were the five red crescents from where she’d clawed her own breast and the streaks of minimalist make-up from her tears. Cause of death was listed as massive myocardial infarction. Her recent history was taken into account and no further investigation was conducted.
Five days after Patricia’s funeral, Drummond Fine decided to specialize in psychiatry with a focus on phobias. It had been an easy decision. He’d been remarkably clear-headed in the days leading up to it.
~~~~~~~~
From the Journal of Drummond Fine, MD
Monday, June 25th, 1:12am
Calamity. Catastrophe. The client escaped. I may be undone by a confused boy in a dress! The horrid, sick, disgusting drag queen surprised me. I turned away my mental focus for an instant and he/she/it (Filth! Filth!) got the upper hand. The faggot knows my face, my name. IT HURT ME! This is what I get for hunting too close to home. Ah, but he seemed so perfect—the heart defect, the reservoir of fear and insecurity, the lack of familial ties. Still, too close to home and this is what happens. I have to undo it. I have to finish it, finish him. I’ll start with the hospitals…
—DF
~~~~~~~~
Chapter 7
SAMUELS WAS DEAD. He had to be. How else could you explain the angel at his bedside? It was possible she might just be a beautiful young woman with intense green eyes, but Samuel’s didn’t know any beautiful young women anymore. The last one had been his wife, Greta. He’d always assumed that when he woke up in heaven she would be there waiting for him as he remembered her. But Greta had black hair and this woman had sandy blonde hair. The light caught a silver strand near her temple and lit it up like a tiny neon tube.
His voice rasped in a dry throat. “Are all Seraphim as pretty as you, my dear?” Could people have dry throats in the afterlife?
The angel smiled, sweet lipped and gentle. “You scared me.”
Samuels blinked. His head hurt. Come to think of it, they probably didn’t have headaches in heaven either. As he rose through consciousness, Samuels began to question his initial assumption. “Not dead am I?” He blinked again. “I know you. You’re not Greta, but I know you.”
Emily hesitated only a moment, then pressed her hand down on his liver spotted forearm, careful not to touch the IV where it punctured the papery skin.
His eyes cleared. “Miss Emily.”
She nodded and repeated. “You scared me.” Her throat thickened with surprising tears. She swallowed and blinked them back. “You’re one of the only friends I’ve got in this big old city.”
Samuels caught a whiff of perfume. Nothing too strong, just a suggestion of the feminine on display, wild flowers and clean skin. She was wearing a black spaghetti-strap tank top that showed off her swimmer’s shoulders. He chuckled and chased it with a wince. His chest felt like Joe Louis had been practicing hay-makers on it. “You met someone.”
Identical splashes of pink brushed her cheekbones and her lips curled up at the corners. “When I brought you in,” she said. Emily told him about Charlie and recounted the events of the previous night.
When she was finished, Samuels reached over and took her hand in his. “Thank you, miss Emily. Thank you for my life.”
She began to balk, but he squeezed with enough force to quiet her. “This is more important than manners and shyness,” Samuels said. “I would be dead were it not for you.” He grinned. “This is all so wonderfully melodramatic, don’t you think?”
“You’re welcome, Samuels.”
He patted her hand. “Good. Now, tell me more about this young man.” He tented his fingers on his chest and snuggled into the pillows. “Charlie was it? You have a date with him later this evening.”
Emily sat back. “How’d you know that?”
“You smell like flowers and look rather fetching. I suggest you show off those shoulders of yours more often. They’re as creamy-dreamy as a couple of scoops of vanilla on a July afternoon.”
The pink rushed back into Emily’s cheeks. She squinted and clasped her hands. “I do have a date with him. I’m so excited about it I can hardly stand myself.”
“That’s wonderful. I’m gratified to know you have more than just a rickety old man for an acquaintance in New York—beautiful young woman like you.” Samuels paused a moment. “And that other thing—your experiment? How does that fare?”
Emily sat up and showed him a prim smile. “All’s quiet on the Western Front for now.”
He touched her hand again. “Your not still thinking of taking your own life?”
“I wish I’d never told you about that.”
“But you did and now you mean something to me.”
She looked at him. “You can’t tell anyone, Samuels. You can’t.”
He opened his mouth to speak.
/>
“I mean it. You rat me out and I’ll vanish. My dad is a—was a cop. I know what it takes to drop off the grid well enough.” She touched the edge of his sheet, played with the fabric. It was clean but coarse. She thought about thin skin and bed sores. “Besides, the way things are going I won’t need to do that.” She looked up at him. “I’m starting to wonder if I can still feel other people at all.”
“Really?”
“I’ve still got the white noise, but it’s like…” Her head tilted to one side, her eyes retreated. “It’s like it’s all a lot less noticeable. Like I’m getting used to it so much that I don’t even know the white noise is there anymore.”
“I’m very happy to hear that.”
She focused hard on him. “You don’t think I’m nuts.”
“Thought we’d been through this already. No, I don’t think you’re nuts.” He smiled. “Sometimes you can just tell when a person is telling the truth. And not the kind of truth you get when you talk to crazy people who believe they’re the second coming of Vishnu or whomever well enough to pass one of those FBI polygraph machines.”
Emily laughed. “Don’t worry. I know for sure that I’m not the second coming of Vishnu.” She cut her laugh in the middle and leaned in close. “I’m the second coming of Christ.” She waited a beat and crossed her eyes.
Samuels blew a raspberry. “Is this how you treat the dying?”
“Please, the dying. You’ll be out of here in another day or two.”
“Speaking of getting out of here—when’s your date?”
“I’m meeting himmm…” Emily checked her watch. “Oh crap, like three minutes ago at the admin desk.”
“Beautiful women and their sense of time.” Samuels shook his head. “If I had a dime for every time Greta every made us late for a party. Get out of here and have a wonderful time. I’ll expect a full report tomorrow.”
Emily stood and saluted. “Yessir.” She threw him a wink he wouldn’t soon forget and left. Wonderful shoulders on that girl. With Greta it had been her hair, a lush obsidian slick. Greta’s hair blowing on some orange October wind, framing her face just so. Samuels sighed and wondered what Emily’s love life was like; if her gift/curse enhanced it or made it impossible. He’d have to ask her about that sometime. Take a little courage, though, even from an old goat like him. Excuse me, miss, when your lover has an orgasm do you feel it too? Samuels laughed at himself. Perhaps he’d wait until their friendship developed a little further.
* * *
EMILY WALKED DOWN the hall toward the elevators, hips swinging and strappy sandals clocking. She hadn’t had a real date…well…ever, but her night out with Charlie would be different. She’d been out with plenty of people, but it never worked as she imagined an actual date should.
Her romantic life had always operated on a simple process. If a man was attracted to her enough and enjoyed a certain level of confidence, she inevitably picked up on that. The emotional boundaries between her and the man would blur to the point where she would experience and reflect his attraction. Believing her reaction to be an indication of her own feelings, the man would then become even more excited and the cycle would feed back on itself. The end result was almost always a one night stand from which Emily would flee as soon as her mate started snoring. She had too many memories of staring at her reflection in some stranger’s bathroom, dead-eyed and smeary. It always left her soul feeling like a rotted tree.
Her father had often suspected that Emily had begun her sexual life early. He’d done his best to outfit his girl with the kind of knowledge and self-respect a young woman needed to get through the transition. Emily might not have had a mother and he might have been pretty ignorant when it came to the girlie stuff, but Andy Burton would have been damned if his girl ended up going down the wrong path because he’d been a lousy guide. He’d given her all the literature, taken the time to have all the embarrassing talks, and made sure she knew that he was there for her no matter what her questions might be.
Andy had even taken a semester of Women’s Studies through the Continuing Ed. Curriculum at nearby Beloit College. He’d drawn more than a few poison glances being one of two men in a room full of womyn, but it had been worth it. At the end of the term he had a better understanding of women and womyn and what they endure within the white male dominated patriarchal society, of which he was a filthy, if ignorant, chauvinist pawn. He wasn’t sure if he could be a better father because of it, but at least he’d read some good books. He’d enjoyed Moon Goddess: A Feminist Study of Lesbian Erotica probably more than had been required.
He even got a date out of the experience. One day one of the women (sorry, womyn) demanded to know why he was in the class. Andy explained his situation as the single father of a young girl and his desire to better guide her through her development. The class had fallen silent, simmering in a stew of grudging admiration. The professor had cornered Andy a week later and asked him out. The sex had been great, but she had been interested in little else, and Andy couldn’t waste time with a woman who wasn’t interested in being part of a family. When it was all said and done, he had received an A for his extra credit work. He hadn’t thought his academic work worth more than a B, but beggars not being choosers and all…
After all the talks and books and interrogation, Andy Burton had been satisfied that he’d armed his daughter with all the weapons she would need. He gave her his trust and stepped back.
Emily had taken it all in good stride. She loved her father, but she had been an early bloomer, developing those long legs and magnetic curves by the sixth grade. By then, Andy had been a little late. Emily had already been sleeping with boys and even a couple of adult men for about a year when he started her education. She had her first abortion at sixteen, catching a ride to Madison for the procedure with a pasty-faced, but relieved nineteen-year old. She had her second and last a year later before she finally broke down and asked Andy’s help to pay for the birth control pills.
That final pregnancy had been nine weeks along before Emily terminated it. She would have realized sooner were it not for the periods. It was rare, but it happened. The flow had been a little lighter than what she had been used to, but there it had been in red and white: All Clear. She might have gone on for months without knowing, but then one morning she felt something, an empathic kick.
It was weak and raw, nothing so developed as could have been categorized as an emotion, but it was enough to alert her to the other. When the clinic admissions councilor asked her if she’d had a pregnancy test, Emily had lied and said “yes.” She didn’t need to pee on a stick to know what she had felt. She hadn’t missed a single day of the pill since.
From now on, her love life would be different. Starting with Charlie, everything would be the way it was supposed to be. Like the movies or those crappy books in the airport with the greasy, shirtless men on the covers. With her abilities dampened, she wouldn’t fall prey to the sexual cycle as she had in the past. What she felt for Charlie was just that: what she felt. It wasn’t a reflection and subsequent amplification of his attraction for her. And if it didn’t work out because she suffered from some emotional delusion, it would be her own head trash doing the deluding and no one else’s.
She was pretty sure Charlie had the hots for her well enough. Although she couldn’t be certain. How people got through life without being able to read each other’s hearts was beyond her. She smiled as she hurried for the elevator, remembering the way his pupils had dilated when they first talked, and her own rapid pulse. Well, there were other ways to know what was on a man’s mind. She’d get the hang of them.
Emily rode the elevator down to the main lobby and when the doors opened—bing—there he was. Charlie leaned against the admissions desk, dressed in a pair of old blue jeans and an open throated white button-down. He held an open manila file folder, rooted to its contents, his forehead all lines. Emily glanced at the notch at the base of his neck and found herself stuck there for a
second or two longer than was perhaps ladylike. He felt it and looked up, the lines of concentration melting from his face. He put the file down and took her hands as she drew near.
“I,” he said, “am very happy to see you again.”
She leaned in and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. This is how this happens, she said to herself. This is how this happens. “Whatcha’ readin’?”
“Hmm?”
She grinned and dropped his hands. Emily pointed to the file. “That. What were you so serious about a second ago?”
“Oh,” he clouded. “That’s the file for that woman, uh, man, in the cab. One who crashed.”
“Right,” she said. Torn dress, pale skin, the big male hands with polished nails, the terror and choked request for help. “Is he going to make it? She?”
“He, probably.”
“Probably?”
“Probably would want to referred to as a ‘he’ when not otherwise dressed for the part,” Charlie said. “I think that’s the proper ettiquette anyway.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t look like he’s going to be able to tell us one way or another.”
“Yeah?”
“Coma. The heart attack was massive—congenital thing. It looks like a kind of sensitivity to adrenaline with the result being cardiac arrest. Turns out he was already a patient here for the condition. We have a specialized cardiac care unit here. Anyway, he suffered a shock that set him off and by the time he got in here his bloodflow had been restricted. There was a lot of brain damage from the lack of oxygen, so we don’t know if he’s going to come out of it or what.”
“Suffered a shock? Like what?”
“That’s one of the things I’m sure they’d like to ask him.”
“Is he like, I dunno’,” Emily cringed. “A vegetable? I don’t know the nice way to put it.”
“Well, the nice way to put it would be ‘permanent vegetative state’, but we professionals like to say broccoli.”
Empathy Page 10
