Wraith

by Edie Claire

  The lingering specter of the old man, however, I could not get out of my mind. He and Zane had looked and acted so much alike… never mind that the old man seemed to know what was happening to him, while Zane did not. If Zane could have seen his physical body, wouldn't he, too, have understood?

  What troubled me far more was what had happened to Zane after I met him.

  My mind kept coming back to the question; my heart kept shoving it away. Yes, Zane had grown less solid every day that we had spent together. Yes, his spirit had ultimately ceased to be visible. But I had no way of knowing what that meant. I could not and would not assume the worst.

  I just had to get to him. Period.

  I cast a glance at the speedometer, groaned with frustration, and eased up on the accelerator. I had to be more careful, or I would get a ticket.

  The sun rose rapidly in the sky; the miles ground away slowly beneath my wheels. I turned on the radio to soothe my mind with other thoughts.

  It was pointless.

  My brain replayed every moment Zane and I had spent together, analyzing everything he had said and wondering about what he hadn't. He hadn't wanted to go back to the past, but he had never wanted to die, either. All he had wanted was a second chance.

  And he had had it.

  Did he still?

  I was speeding again. I took another gulp of the vile energy drink I'd picked up at the gas station and breathed deeply. My dad had to be the only person in Wyoming who would buy a used car without cruise control. Probably because he himself speeded like a maniac whenever he could get away with it.

  The hours ticked by with excruciating slowness. I was so focused on measuring the miles until Kearney that the significance of Lexington didn't register until I found myself upon it.

  The exit loomed ahead; I could see the overpass at the interchange.

  I found myself slowing the car. A cold chill coursed through my veins.

  It had happened here.

  To other eyes, the scene ahead was unremarkable. Solid walls of concrete patterned with giant hexagonal shapes rose up on either side of the road, while the bridge above cast a broad shadow over the otherwise sunwashed interstate. To most travelers the overpass meant no more than a second's worth of relative darkness. To me, it seemed the center of the earth. The sunless space seemed ominous; uncanny. I allowed my car to drift through even as my brain screamed for release—the concrete walls seemed clammy and suffocatingly close; the darkness absolute. The concrete supports in the center of the overpass were not simple pillars, but massive gothic arches, and for all the protection the metal guard rails offered a skidding car, they might as well be solid walls of stone.

  Bile rose in my throat as I glanced across the median and glimpsed what was left of the westbound guardrail: strips of mangled iron.

  A tortured cry escaped my lips. My foot hit the accelerator, heedless of the consequences.

  "He did not die!" I shouted out loud, needing to hear the words as much as say them. "He wanted to live, and he fought it, and he won!"

  My eyes misted, but with a mighty effort I forced the tears back. Under no circumstances could I fall apart now. I had come too far; I was too close.

  Zane's fading away from me in Oahu did not mean he was dying. It did not have to mean anything. How could it, when in so many ways, he had been coming more alive every day? We had so little time together, and yet he had come to know me so well… better than friends I'd had for years. He could look at me and guess what I was feeling—he could read my every mood. He asked me about myself; he was in interested in me, for me.

  And what other option did he have, exactly?

  I bit my already sore lip. The realization was not a new one, but I hardly wished to dwell on it now. I had known all along that Zane's appearing to care for me when I was, in absolute fact, the only woman in his world was hardly a fair test of his attraction. If we had met under different circumstances, would he still feel the same? Among a crowd of other admirers on a level playing field… would he ever even have noticed me?

  Don't ever doubt it, Kali.

  His words seared forward in my mind with the force of a freight train, and the tears I'd been fighting spilled over.

  It didn't matter.

  All that mattered was my getting to him.

  The stretch of road ahead seemed endless, even as the numbers continued to chip away. Thirty miles to Kearney. Twenty miles. Ten. Five.

  Exit 272.

  I was here.

  I turned off and headed north into town, staying on the main drag, as Tara had instructed. The town was classic heartland generica—perfectly flat, laid out in a grid, and chock full of franchises. But I could see no signs for a hospital. Six billion stoplights choked the road, and every red made me pound the steering wheel in frustration. The town was a little more sprawling than I had hoped, and when it seemed I had been starting and stopping forever, I tried desperately to remember Tara's directions. She had said it was only a couple blocks from the main road, and I hadn't turned off…

  At long last, I saw one. A blue sign with a big fat H on it. It was one of the most beautiful sights I had ever seen—and the arrow pointed straight ahead.

  Within five more minutes, I was in the parking lot. Twenty seconds after that, I was standing at the information desk.

  "Can I help you?" greeted a short, stout woman of late middle age.

  "Yes," I said, gulping air into my oxygen-starved lungs. "I'm here to see a patient. He was in a car accident. Zane—I mean Zachary—Svenson."

  The woman made no response, but set herself to typing on a keyboard, lifting her nose to train her bifocals to the appropriate spot on the monitor. The hospital lobby was busy, and probably noisy, but all I could hear was the clicking of her keys and the heavy whooshing of my own labored breaths.

  "Birthdate?" she said mechanically.

  I swallowed. "I don't know the exact day. He just turned eighteen recently."

  The woman clicked more keys. She stopped for a while and stared at a screen. Then she clicked some more.

  I braced myself to keep from exploding.

  She stared at another screen. She clicked a little more. Then she turned away from the monitor and faced me. "I'm sorry," she said brusquely. "But I can't give you any information about that patient. He's no longer in our computer."

  My breath stopped. Everything about me stopped. My body went cold. My feet froze into the floor tiles. The lobby swam.

  I don't know how long it took me to respond. But my stupor did not go unnoticed.

  "What do you mean, 'not in your computer?'" I said at last, my voice so low it hardly reached my own ears. "He was here; I know he was. He obviously is in your computer. What happened to him?!"

  The woman stood up from the stool on which she'd been sitting. The action made little difference to her height, but I could tell from her posture that she feared I would collapse before her eyes. Her countenance softened, her voice became mild.

  "All I can tell you is that the patient is no longer registered in this hospital," she said evenly. "Because of privacy laws, I can't give out any more information than that. Are you a relative?"

  I shook my head weakly, but I had a feeling she knew the answer even as she asked.

  "I'm sorry, honey," she repeated. "I really can't help you."

  No more information?

  No. Freakin'. Way.

  I looked back into the woman's small, bluish-gray eyes. She might be a lover of rules, but she was not inhuman. And I would not give up now. I would not.

  "Marsha," I said softly, reading her nametag, "My name is Kali. I have just spent seven hours on a plane flying over the Pacific Ocean from Oahu, and another seven hours in cars driving across three states, to reach 'the patient' before he dies thinking that no one on the entire planet gives a damn. He was in a horrific accident, he was brought here in critical condition, both his parents are dead and he doesn't have a single living family member. I am the only friend of his on th
e face of this earth that even knows he's here—and I am going to do absolutely everything in my power to make sure that he does not die alone. Do you understand me?"

  The woman blinked. Patches of red had risen in her cheeks. Her eyes were wide. I was getting to her. "It's not my decision. The privacy laws—"

  "What kind of privacy law protects a patient from being cared for by somebody who actually loves him?" I argued, my voice choking up. "Can't you at least tell me if he's still alive?"

  The woman stared at me.

  I stared back. My cheeks were wet again. My strangled voice could choke out no more.

  I could see the scene on the beach again, plain as day. The scene in my nightmare.

  The sheet was lifting.

  It was covering Zane's chin, his cheeks, his eyes...

  "Telling you anything about a particular patient could cost me my job," Marsha's voice continued from somewhere far away. My eyes were closed. My body swayed.

  "But I can tell you this," she continued, her voice suddenly sharper.

  My heart thudded. I concentrated on staying upright.

  "When patients are medically stable, but in a coma, they're often transferred to long-term care facilities. There's one not far from here, in fact. Just four blocks west, on Thirty-First and Fourth."

  My eyes wrenched open. The meaning of her words sank slowly in. When the process was complete, it was all I could do not to vault over the desktop and kiss her.

  Zane was still alive.

  He really was.

  He was alive!

  I did vault over the desk and kiss her. It couldn't be helped, really. One has to do what one has to do.

  I whirled away toward the door, leaving behind me in the lobby a trail of far-flung tears, a few confused bystanders, and one very red-faced information desk clerk.

  Zane was in a coma, but he was alive.

  Absolutely nothing could keep me from him now.

  Chapter 25

  "You're here for Zachary?" the tall, buxom nurse loitering in the front lobby interrupted as soon as she heard my words to the receptionist. "Seriously? Well, it's about damn time. That boy needs some visitors!"

  My heart nearly leapt from my chest.

  "Can I send her on back then?" the receptionist asked timidly. "I know the doctor's supposed to be in this morning—"

  "Bah!" The nurse waved a hand dismissively. "Doc'll get here when he gets here. He'll be happy to see her, too. Said all along that boy needed somebody to talk to him, and here she is!"

  The woman's broad mouth smiled, revealing surprisingly white teeth. She was an immense figure, nearly six feet of mostly muscle, and her deep voice boomed like a cannon. In another life, she could have been a drill sergeant. But perhaps not a very effective one; her eyes were open windows to what I could see was an exceptionally warm heart.

  "Can I… see him now?" I asked, hardly daring to believe that no more obstacles stood in my way.

  "Right now," the nurse agreed cheerfully, turning to lead me down a blue-paneled corridor. I noticed that she walked with a limp. "No offense, honey," she chatted, "but you look like you walked through fire to get here. Where'd you come from, anyway?"

  "Oahu," I mumbled, casting glances into the rooms left and right along the hallway. A prickle of fear coursed painfully up my spine. This was not a rehab hospital, much less assisted living. The patients here were elderly, bedridden, frail. The kind of patients no one expected to check out again.

  Zane couldn't be here, with them. He just couldn't. Unless…

  It didn't matter. It didn't matter what shape his body was in.

  He was alive.

  "Oahu?!" my escort exclaimed. "You're kidding. When did you get here?"

  "I came straight from the airport," I answered. As much as I appreciated the woman's optimistic gaiety, my own anxiety continued to climb. Now that I was so close, at last… I was afraid.

  "How is he?" I asked as we walked. "In a coma, still?"

  The nurse nodded solemnly. "Yep. Still in a coma. But it's a miracle he's alive at all—you know that?"

  I nodded.

  You don't know the half of it.

  "He's been through hell and back—that boy. Crash like that could have killed a buffalo. But he hung in there. Only problem now is bringing him back." She stopped at a half-closed door, then turned and looked at me. "You can ask the doc more about his condition when he gets here. In the meantime, don't be afraid to talk to the boy out loud, even if you feel like an idiot. It's good therapy."

  The nurse pushed the door the rest of the way open. Then she stood back and waved me in.

  My heart beat violently against my rib cage.

  My feet wouldn't move.

  I called up a vision to memory—a vision of Zane on his beloved waves, his curls wet, his eyes bright, his suntanned face lit up with joy.

  I inhaled a sharp breath and stepped forward.

  Only one of the two beds was occupied. On it lay a pale figure, stiff and still. He was covered to the neck with sheets and a blanket. One arm rested outside the linens, the wrist hosting an IV tube attached to a pole.

  I took a step closer.

  Scruffy curls spread out over the thin pillow. The face within them was wan, the chin and neck covered with blondish stubble. The eyes were closed.

  The room around me spun.

  It was Zane.

  "Yo there, Zachary!" the nurse boomed, stepping in around me and leaning down to pinch a toe through the covers. "Got a little surprise for you. And she's a looker, too," she added with a wink.

  "Zane," I corrected automatically, my voice ragged.

  "What'd you say?"

  I cleared my throat. "His name is Zane. That's what he goes by."

  The nurse smiled. "Well, hell! No wonder he's been ignoring us. Ha!" She turned towards the door to leave. "You just keep talking honey. Doc'll be in soon."

  She walked out and shut the door behind her.

  We were alone.

  My eyes remained riveted on the figure in the bed. I couldn't seem to move.

  Staring at the blankets that covered his chest, I held my breath, waiting for the movement that would confirm his own.

  The blankets lifted slightly, then fell.

  A rush of heat spurred my frozen limbs to motion; tears welled up behind my eyes. I crossed the distance to the bed in a heartbeat. "Zane," I said unevenly. "It's Kali. I'm here now. I found you."

  I leaned in closer, reached out a trembling hand.

  "You didn't die, Zane," I sputtered. "You wanted to live, and you did. You have a second chance!" My vision blurred with moisture. He looked so weak, so fragile. So terribly, terribly… tenuous.

  My fingers were inches from his, and I ached to touch him. My body trembled with the need—to actually feel him, warm and solid. And yet I was terrified. Terrified that if I asked for too much, if I pushed for one more miracle, he would simply crumple away and disappear. His being alive at all was too fantastic to be true; my finding him and reaching him in this bed in this hospital in the middle of this vast stretch of country was too much for anyone to ask for.

  Surely, at any moment, I would wake up alone again.

  I blinked.

  He was still there.

  I stretched out my fingers. Slowly, shakily.

  Their tips grazed the back of his hand.

  My breath halted again. He was solid. He was warm.

  He was real.

  Sheer joy flooded through me, and with a strangled sob, I reached out and folded the limp, unresisting hand into both of mine. I held it tightly for a minute, reveling in its solidness, then slipped my fingers forward to his wrist.

  He had a pulse.

  My knees caved in on me, and I dropped down on the edge of the mattress. I raised his hand unashamedly to my face, feeling the warmth of his beautiful skin against my cheek, my lips. My tears dripped over both of us.

  "It's going to be okay, Zane," I promised, unable to keep from smiling, even as I look
ed into eyes that were closed and unseeing. "It's all real, believe it or not. And I'm here now. You're not alone."

  "I sure am glad to hear that!" a man's voice rang out from the doorway. I glanced back—briefly—to acknowledge the arrival of the physician.

  The doctor stepped to the opposite side of the bed, laid a chart down on the end table, and extended a hand to me. "Phil Caldwell," he introduced.

  I withdrew one hand reluctantly from Zane's. The doctor's shake was so hearty it was painful. "Kali Thompson," I returned.

  "Can't tell you how glad I am to see you," he continued, performing a cursory examination of Zane as he talked. He felt the patient's pulse, his neck, checked his feet. "I have a feeling you're exactly what our boy here needs."

  I swallowed. "Really?"

  "Absolutely. Coma patients hear and take in a lot more than people used to think. He may not look responsive, but trust me—there's a part of him that knows exactly what's going on."

  The doctor lifted one of Zane's eyelids with a thumb and shone in a penlight. I rose slightly, eager for any glimpse of the twinkle that meant so much to me—but it was not to be. The exquisite sea-green eye was perfectly, frighteningly blank.

  I looked up at the doctor, my heart pounding again. "What makes you so sure?"

  He studied me a moment, then pocketed his instrument and stood with hands folded. "You know about the accident?" he asked mildly.

  I nodded. "A little. I know he swerved to miss another car and"—my voice wavered at the sudden, ghastly memory of the mangled guard rail—"his car crashed into the concrete."

  "That's the nuts and bolts of it," he agreed. "It wasn't his fault, that's for sure. The other car was driven by an 85-year-old woman with early-stage dementia whose son had taken away her car keys three times already. She drove down the entrance ramp to I-80, took a left, and headed East straight into oncoming traffic."