They're here, I tell Ricky under my breath.
“The spooks?”
Yeah.
The rest of the nurses and several doctors—the Code team—race out of the elevator with the gurney, and my jaw drops nearly to the floor as three or four more spooks run out, trailing behind the bluing, choked body of Dr. Robert “Call me Bob” Smith.
My caseworker, he's dying.
There's a nurse actually kneeling on the gurney doing chest compressions. Another man—the respiratory tech—is intubating Dr. Smith. He's breathing for him using an endotracheal tube, and a bag-valve mask, being his only source of air.
A tall woman is starting an IV while she jogs along.
And all of this is being directed by a doctor who is following ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life Support) protocols. Ricky says that's very important when it comes time for lawsuits and stuff.
“That's Doctor Smith!” Ricky blurts.
And I have no words.
“Didn't you say the spooks were sizing him up at your meeting the other day?”
I nod slowly, deciding that Ricky and I don't need to entertain any of my other scenarios. The possibility that I'm imagining all of this is all but gone.
This is happening.
Ricky nudges me as the doctors, nurses, my suffocating caseworker, and a whole gaggle of spooks run down the hallway towards the CCU (Cardiac Care Unit). He elbows me and says, “Hey, Jack . . . if you ever see those spooks fitting me for my death suit, you had better fucking tell me. And I mean, that very second!”
Staring down the hallway watching all the excitement unfold, I tell Ricky, “We need to see this thing play out.” I look at him very seriously, “ . . . all the way out.”
And though neither of us say it, we were both thinking about the Gatherers.
Chapter 23
R.H.D. Memorial
Cardiac Care Unit . . .
Between the doctors racing around, the nurses taking orders like they were on the battlefield, and the spooks that had gathered in attendance to watch it all unfold, it was hard to see what the Code team was doing to revive Dr. Smith.
But when they all backed off and I saw the defibrillator pads being placed on his chest—one on his upper right pectoral, the other on his lower left ribs—I knew my caseworker was not long for this world.
Ricky's telling me everything that's going on, from the shots of adrenaline, to the joules (the energy released in one second by a current of one ampere through a resistance of one ohm) used on the defibrillator. He's explaining what each of the peoples' jobs are, and who does what, but I can't really focus on any of what he's saying.
“Ventricular fibrillation, most likely . . . ”
Even though there is all of this excitement going on around Dr. Smith's oxygen starved body, the rest of the CCU is business as usual. What I'm being explained is that Dr. Smith's heart is misfiring. Normal electrical pathway for the heart is Sinoatrial (SA)—Atrioventricle nodes (AV). But the signals are fibrillating—misfiring.
“If he makes it out of this—” Ricky starts to say.
He won't.
“ . . . well, if he does, he'll probably end up in hospice care. And those patients, they're just waiting to die. All the hospice people do is keep the patients so drugged-up that they don't have to suffer their end.”
We get as close as we can get without being in the way and I just listen.
A thin, black doctor directs the code, “Cardio-vert at two-hundred joules. Head clear, feet clear, all clear!” He touches a button and Dr. Smith's body arches, lifting up off of the gurney, his back curved impossibly.
They all watch the black and green screen, looking at the erratic spikes that seem everywhere on the monitor.
“Still V-fib. Resume CPR.”
They move around quickly, purposefully.
“ . . . administer epinephrine.”
All eyes are on the screen. Small numbers to the right of the numerous green spikes tell the doctors they aren't having success.
“ . . . still V-fib . . . cardio-vert again, three-hundred joules,” and a high-pitched wine sounds as the electricity is building for the shock charge.
“Head clear, feet clear, all clear!”
Again, Dr. Smith's body lifts and drops.
And everybody is silent, waiting, hoping.
Nothing.
More anxious now, “ . . . still V-fib, continue CPR. And give me lidocaine, IV bolus.”
And as sudden as the lidocaine starts to enter his body, there is a change. You could hear a pin drop. All of our eyes, they're all staring at the screen that now shows a pulse.
A cardiologist yells, “We've got V-tac!”
“We've got a pulse,” a nurse confirms.
“Ventricular Tachycardia,” Ricky whispers to me. This is like watching House, only . . . in the episode that is my life, the people really die.
Sure enough, the rhythmic spikes come, one after the next.
And then another.
And another.
Ricky slaps me on the shoulder, “See . . . have a bit of faith, Jack.” Somehow, at least Dr. Smith's heart is still alive.
I notice a most curious thing, the spooks are acting funny. They are huddling together in little groups and hurrying away to dark areas where they can disappear into the shadows. But they're not leaving . . . they're just hiding. Getting out of the way.
And I have an uneasy feeling about what is probably coming next.
Ricky squeezes my shoulder, “That's modern technology for you. We cheat death here, sir.”
I glance cautiously at him, and then back at my caseworker. The spooks are waiting for something to happen. And as far as I can tell, everybody else is all about pats on the back and high-fives. People are smiling, proud that they could save the life of one of their own. But the spooks and I, we know different.
“You're too negative, Jack,” Ricky says. “Lighten-up, buddy.”
And as the word, buddy, leaves his mouth I see two of them lumber out of the darkness. I ask Ricky if he still wants to bet, and he looks at me like I'm insane.
“Why . . . what do you see?”
The Gatherers. They are thicker in the trunk than the spooks, with their long spider arms, their thin sharp fingers, and their double-bladed knives. They slowly amble over to the gurney, lurching from side to side, as if they're worn-out from a long day of ripping chests open and sucking out life.
But as the doctors and nurses work to stabilize Dr. Smith, the gatherers are using their long knife-wielding arms to climb up and position themselves on Dr. Smith's body.
For a moment some of the spooks leave their small groups and edge towards the gurney, but one of the gatherers raises up—his arms spreading like an angry bird—and the spooks quickly scurry back to their shadows. Returning to their work, the gatherers seem to be measuring my caseworker's body for something.
Their arms raise slowly upward, their hands high in the air, the knife points facing downwards. This is the part I want to see, and can't bare to watch. I'm squinting, and Ricky doesn't know . . . but he knows.
And me and the spooks, we're on the edges of our proverbial seats. Ricky is not convinced until he hears the loud tone.
Crashed!
“ . . . we lost his pulse!”
“We have pulseless V-tac!”
“Immediate cardio-vert at three-sixty joules!” the doctor instructs, calm but forcefully.
And at that very moment, when the smiles melt away, when the jubilant attitudes disappear, and the high-fives become nervous hands, again . . . the gatherers strike.
Their arms and knives are so fast and so sharp that they must have cut through him in just three or four seconds. Doctors and nurses are scrambling again. And the gatherers, they're already reaching inside some invisible incision in Dr. Smith's chest.
My chest stings just watching all of this.
Ricky, he's quiet as a light switch, frozen. Searching for words. He's watching me watching the
doctors who are trying to revive my caseworker.
“ . . . head clear, feet clear, all clear!”
Up he goes, down he goes.
And the gatherers, they don't like this little carnival ride the humans are putting them through. Both of them spread their arms seeming to hiss at all of the doctors and nurses that are only prolonging their visit. I don't think that they like this place.
Now it's become a tug-of-war for Dr. Smith's soul. The doctors in this world, using all the drugs and technology that evolution provides them, trying to keep him alive. The gatherers, clawing and pulling at Dr. Smith's soul, freeing it of its worldly moorings.
Frustrated, one of the doctors says, “ . . . we've got asystole,” and he shakes his head, sweat turning his light green scrubs a dark forest green. “ . . . no activity.”
With each thing the Code team tries, the gatherers efforts are frustrated, but only momentarily. And with every pause in the doctor's fight, the gatherers pull at the man's soul, again.
Still no heartbeat.
No pulse.
The gatherers are winning. They're good at their job. And as I watch them, I realize that they were designed for this one purpose. They're emotionally inert and impassive about their work. They might as well be honey bees or something equally as apathetic to their chores.
These well-intentioned human doctors . . . they never had a chance.
Searching for a miracle, the black doctor offers, “ . . . we could try trans-cutaneous pacing?” He looks at the cardiologist.
“We've been working this for nearly forty-five minutes,” the cardiologist sighed, catching his breath, his arms crossing loosely in front of his chest. “He's got a history of heart complications. Eats sausage like it's going out of style . . .” He shakes his head.
“Fine . . .” the doctor says, rubbing his forehead. “Let's call it.”
And that, I say sadly, is that.
The gatherers pull Robert “Call me Bob” Smith out of his own body, right through the opening in his chest and he looks like a crash-test dummy. He's a dimly glowing tan-grey outline of a person. A faceless form—a grey skin sack, with large scared eyes as wide as saucers.
The spooks all rush to the side of the gurney and the gatherers toss the panicked form down at the very moment one of the doctors say, “ . . . what's the time?”
The spooks haul off their newly harvested soul. And the gatherers, after a thorough inspection of the insides of Dr. Smith's corpse, crawl back down and follow the spooks into the darkness.
Ricky turns around, all the color in his face flushed away. He's as white as a bleached sheet, and he looks sick.
Sorry, I tell him. I didn't want it to happen.
“But . . . you never had any doubts, either, did you?”
I shrugged as we walked down the hallway.
Nope.
Chapter 24
7-11 Convenience Store.
Monday evening . . .
I'm trying to decide what would sate my stomach grumbling. Ricky is two rows over, shuffling through cold medicines looking for something for his sniffles. Seems, after the whole Dr. Smith incident, he's a little health paranoid right now. So, while I'm looking for something that falls between a Twinkie and a Ding-Dong, he's trying to find the magical cure for creatures that come from the shadows.
I told him he should just get something from the hospital, but he's a bit freaked out about being there, right now. Even told me he wanted to take a few days off. I guess my caseworker's passing was less of a shock to me because I'd seen the spooks measuring him for his trip across the void, at our last meeting. That made it easier to accept.
Death Lite. Same great death, half the calories.
But for Ricky, most likely a more rational person than myself, he's having a hard time with all of this. See, when this all started a few weeks back, he didn't really have much invested in my little bug hunt. But as things began to get spooky—no pun intended—I think he realized that there was more to this than paranoid delusions and fugue states.
After Dr. Smith was ripped out of this world, and carted off into the whatever, Ricky had some pondering to do. And right now, I don't think he wants to concentrate about anything other than keeping the spooks at bay. Really, he's taking all of this pretty well.
“What's better between Sudafed and ColdAway?” he says, as he reads the ingredients.
“How should I know, I'm still technically an infant,” I say looking at a clear plastic bag of Choco-Kakes, looking for an expiration date. I can't find any numbers that make any sense. I don't think there's a born-on date, either. On the one hand, they look absolutely delicious. But then, there is no way of telling if they got here yesterday, or have been here since the 70's—constantly overlooked by the underachieving staff.
“I'm just saying,” Ricky says frustratingly, “ . . . if you had to choose?”
I ask if he even has a cold.
“Not really, but I've been under-the-weather.”
I shrug, Maybe you should just take the one with the most ingredients listed on the back. Look for the most variety in your pharmaceutical because maybe that will ward off the monsters.
“That's real funny, Jack. You sure are cavalier about death, lately. This shit is serious.”
Lose your memory and wake-up to a world full of shadowy monsters and it opens your horizons, I explain. I might have been a conservative Republican when I blinked out. But when I woke up, I was a liberal Democrat. Maybe even . . . gulp . . . a libertarian?
“So you'd tax the spooks, then?”
That's not what I meant with the analogy. Anyway, I tell him, he'll get use to it, too. Our adventure has only just begun. I still haven't finished the book. Once I do, we'll be in a much better position to deal with all of this. To make a difference.
“A difference in what?”
I don't know. I don't even want to talk about any of this. I just want a sweet, delicious, yummy snack that's packed with enough trans fat that my arteries make an audible wheezing sound.
Ricky approaches me with about seven different boxes of cold and allergy medicine. I see he chose the old, 'one of each' approach. He nods, then looks at my snack choices.
“You're going to kill yourself eating that shit. It turns your body into plastic.” He then taps on the deluxe box of Fluffy-Doves, “There's more fat in one of those, than in five Snickers bars.”
So I should put this back and grab five Snickers bars, I ask.
He reached over and grabs my Fluffy-Doves, squishing them in his hand, sending pink cream-filling all over the place.
I look at him like he just killed one of my children.
“I just saved a day of your life,” he says.
Yeah, I reply, those really good times when I'm 96, on every type of medication, and my body's falling apart like a cheap suit. Thanks for the favor.
We head to the counter to pay for our gobs full of snacks and medicines, and the cashier—a Mexican kid with a name tag that says, Victor—looks at us funny.
“You have drug problems?” Victor asks suspiciously as he slides the different packages over a small piece of glass near the register. His accent is thick and Latino. With each swipe we hear a beep, and the price on the screen facing us doubles, triples, exponentially climbing.
Ricky cocks his head to the side, staring at Victor narrowly, “What do you mean, drug problem?”
Victor points to the cold medicines, “The peoples who is usually buying these medicines, they make the Meth. You know, like for speed?”
Ricky laughs, “Oh, no, man. We're not speed freaks.”
“That's what a junkie would say,” Victor counters, looking at a printed list of things methamphetamine cooks might say to buy any drug that has ephedrine in it. This printed list is published by the DEA, and there's probably a copy of it in every 7-11 on the planet.
This, I say to them, is the War on Drugs I keep reading about. I guess it has finally made it to the checkout counter.
&n
bsp; Ricky says that the Drug War is only really profitable to the drug dealers, and the government agencies that enforce it. Everybody else seems to take it right up the tailpipe. His exact words were, “ . . . since the Government's apparently bankrupt, that's just the kind of shit they'd try to pull.”
And me, I'm still trying to figure out why cold pills are illegal in quantity.
Victor looks down at the DEA's rebuttal list, then to us, the list, us. I'm sure there's a big bold phone number at the bottom of the sheet. “You can only have two boxes, or I have to call the Federales.”
The veins on Ricky's neck are visibly throbbing. “One,” Ricky said sternly, “ . . . we don't have Fede-rales, here. Two, we're not junkies or meth-heads, or anything like that. Three, none of these are controlled substances. If they were, you'd have to have them in a protected case where people couldn't just go through grabbing whatever they wanted. I work at a hospital, Vic-tor. I know this shit.”
Victor grits his teeth, “Two boxes . . . on-ly!”
Sensing this silliness spiraling out of control, I say, “Look, I'll take two, and he'll take two. That way, everybody is happy. And nobody needs the Federales.”
Neither of them speak. I have become the arbitrator in all this. Ricky raises his eyebrows, glaring at the young Hispanic clerk as if to say, your move.
Victor nods slowly, as he starts to scan in the other boxes. More beeps and the dollar amount escalates to something that rivals the national debt.
With a plastic smile, Ricky asks, “Can we have more than two of the snack cakes, or are those on the ban list, too?”
I elbow Ricky in the ribs and apologize to Victor. I then tell Ricky to give me the money and go outside to the truck and wait. He reluctantly does so. A girl behind me is waiting patiently for her turn, so I give him the down payment on a new Porsche, collect about 13 cents change, and take my plastic bag full of frustration and future indictments.
As I head toward the door I hear a girl's voice behind me, “Hal . . . Hal Falter . . . is that you?” I look around and there's nobody else there she could be talking to. I wonder if that's me she's talking to, so I turn around.
See Jack Die (Part 1 in the Paranormal Series) (See Jack Die Series) Page 12
