The Emerald Tablet: Omnibus Edition

by JM HART

  The desire to open his mouth and draw in a breath was overwhelming, and his lungs ached badly. It’s just not fair! he thought. He was feeling like the comic book hero who never gets the girl because the two of them are from different worlds. Why, damn it? he screamed in his head.

  The water seemed to rise even higher; the rock had a firm grip around his leg. He stretched his arms up in one last, desperate attempt to grapple at the water around him as if it would suddenly allow him purchase. He felt his lungs fill with unbearable pain, the pressure of the water crushing his ribs as if he were being tormented by not one, but a legion of underwater phantoms. He yelled at the darkness, Enough! I will not … die … today!

  In a heartbeat, the hail stopped, the river went silent, he felt his chest start convulsing, and darkness slithered in. There’s no peace in drowning!

  Feeling an explosion of light deep within himself, he pushed away the darkness and let go.

  *

  The road was now covered with hailstones that looked like shiny marbles. Terry was anxious to get home to his wife, Amy. He rolled down the car window and stared out at the dark cloud that was hovering, tormenting the town. He wound the window back up, nervously gripped the steering wheel, and pulled out from the safety of the trees back on to the road. He heard the tyres crunch and slide over the ice, and he chanted, “Don’t speed! Don’t speed! It’s okay! She’s okay!” He used his left hand to wipe the windscreen, and continued carefully towards home.

  The river had flooded and the road was nowhere in sight, he slowed to a stop. He prayed the bridge was in one piece underneath, and entered the flowing water. Two weeks ago, he thought, the rivers and streams were barely a trickle — not even enough to quench a bird!

  Terry put his foot steady on the gas and kept the car crawling across the bridge. The water started seeping in between the door seals and pooling at his feet, he was afraid the motor would flood and stall.

  Two-thirds of the way across, he spied a funnel of air dropping from the sky and spiraling out of control. “Oh, my God!” he murmured.

  He accelerated out of the water, not taking his eyes off the swaying funnel, which was moving backwards and forwards gathering speed, propelling itself towards the town. I’m not gonna make it! he thought as he saw the funnel grow larger. He was well aware that disasters were occurring throughout the world, having vigilantly listened to the reports over the radio. No local warnings — nothing! he thought. Mesmerized, he watched a rooftop bouncing around in the wind, like a kite. The sky was filled with debris. The black clouds released their fury as another twister formed and started colliding with the first, creating one massive storm cell. Terry couldn’t see the town any more.

  The trees arching over the road were unable to withstand the force and like dead weeds were uprooted and yanked into the sky. Coastal towns are the only places that get freak storms!

  Up ahead, something was lying on the road. He squinted, and frantically wiped the windscreen just in time to see a tree falling across the road. He planted his foot on the brake, the car screeched and spun out of control. He choked the steering wheel, terrified. The car jackknifed, Terry’s head violently hit the steering wheel and the car crashed into the enormous oak…

  Silence filled the car, and he slowly opened his eyes and took in his surroundings. He saw the back-left passenger door was crushed inward, and could feel the back wheel was elevated. He opened his door and tumbled out, the wind had subsided but it was still sharp and cold on his face.

  He climbed over the horizontal tree trunk, opened the car boot and searched around for his emergency warning triangle, raincoat and first-aid kit. When he climbed back over the branches, he slipped, and the triangle blew away. He pulled his jacket tight around himself, kept his head down to protect his eyes, and walked to the crest of the road, occasionally looking up, searching.

  Finally, he spotted something further up the road. Terry picked up his pace — the closer he got, the more he could see it looked like a body. “Hey!” he yelled. “You okay? Hello!” He didn’t think whoever it was would hear him over the sounds of the howling wind as it increased in velocity. The trees started bending and snapping. He tried to run, forcing his way through the wind; he could manage no more than a slow jog. “Hey, can you hear me?” he shouted as he approached the body.

  No answer. Child-sized, face down and lifeless.

  He knelt beside the body, gently squeezed the shoulders, put his hand on the back, and waited to feel it rise.

  Nothing.

  He rolled the body on its side, and saw it was a boy. He opened the boy’s mouth, and murky water escaped from it. Protecting his neck, he carefully turned the boy on to his back and checked his breathing. His other injuries were evident: a gash down his right cheek, which would warrant at least half a dozen stitches, and blood all over his left leg. Terry could feel neither a breath nor a pulse. He decided to fold his fingers together and press down on to the adolescent boy’s chest, to perform CPR, but it was nothing like the rubber mannequins he’d practiced on — this real body was very fragile. Rain dripped from Terry’s hair on to the boy’s face, and he blinked madly to see.

  No response.

  “Come on, damn it!” he shouted at the body. “Come on!” He kept pumping the boy’s chest: “One! Two! Three! Four!”

  After what seemed like an eternity, the boy started coughing and vomiting water.

  Terry quickly turned him on his right side, telling him, “That’s it, good! Bring it all up!” He rubbed the boy’s back and continued reassuring him until he’d stopped vomiting the oceans of water he seemed to have inhaled. “My name’s Terry,” he told him. “You’re okay now.”

  The wind was getting stronger and the storm was back, building. He knew he had to get them out of there. He saw the kid’s fingernails had been snapped back and the flesh underneath was exposed.

  The rain stopped, and the storm became eerily quiet.

  “What happened?” he asked the boy, hoping he’d hear. “Storm caught you by surprise aye? — I think the whole town’s been caught out! I’ve never known any twister, or a storm, like it in this neck of the woods — what about you? You’re okay, pal!”

  The boy struggled to sit up.

  “Take it easy,” Terry said.

  “My head hurts!” The boy announced as he tried to sit up. “The footbridge collapsed! My chest hurts! How’d you pull me from the river?” He looked at his fingers, clenched his teeth, and tried to push one of his fingernails back into place. He bent his knee and winced when he felt his torn school pants caught on his open wound.

  He’s hurting badly! Terry thought. “The river?” he queried. “No, I didn’t pull you from the river — you’re in the middle of the road, about three hundred yards from the river. I was driving. I couldn’t see. Just before a tree fell in front of me, I thought I saw something on the road. I swerved to miss the tree, and the car slid out of control.”

  The boy stopped trying to push his fingernail back to its rightful place, and stared into Terry’s eyes as if he were searching for answers but failing.

  “If it hadn’t fallen …” Terry began. “That tree saved your life. I would’ve run over you. Someone’s looking out for you, buddy — you’re one hell of a lucky dude!”

  The boy sat up, leant against Terry’s knees. “How’d I get here, then?” he looked towards the violent river, and mumbled, “It was the light – I chose not to die – it was my choice. I did this. Did you see anybody else, another boy?”

  Terry watched as the child turned his head towards the river.

  “I have to — I have to get home! My mom — she — she’s alone!”

  “Okay,” Terry said, “let’s get you up. Do you think you can put any weight on that leg?”

  The boy looked down at his left knee, tried to straighten it out, and replied, “Maybe — I think it’s just a bit mangled.”

  “‘Mangled’, huh? Is that what you’d call it?” Terry said. He put his right arm
under him and helped him to his feet, concerned because the boy could only stand on one leg and looked like he was going to pass out any second. “I’m gonna have to pick you up, buddy,” he announced. “You cool with that?” He waited for him to register the comment.

  But the boy didn’t move.

  “What’s your name?” he asked him, feeling the rain getting harder and stinging his face as if it were tiny, sharp needles. He was now chilled to the bone. He quickly bent and scooped up the boy, just in time, as the poor fella passed out and slumped over Terry’s right shoulder.

  He’s so heavy! he thought. What was I thinking? This guy has to be about ninety pounds! Bearing the boy’s dead weight, he rushed back to the car, desperate to find his wife and get the boy to hospital. Each step was a struggle not to topple over as the wind pushed him from behind.

  Exhausted, he sat the boy on the front passenger seat and reclined it until the boy was fully lying down. He feverishly wiped the windshield, breathing heavily as a sense of something terribly wrong came over him. He placed his right hand on the ignition, paused, and addressed the car as if it were a horse: “Okay, boy. We’re gonna get one shot! You’re an all-wheel drive, and we’ve gotta jump this tree to get out of this mess! You can do it!” He patted the dashboard and turned the key.

  The car came to life.

  “Good!” he exclaimed. “Good start!” He held the handbrake lever, ready to release it, and stomped down on the accelerator.

  The car tried to pull away.

  He released the lever.

  The car hurled itself over the tree trunk on to the road, and stopped.

  Amazed, he sat idling for a few seconds and then checked his passenger. Thunder clapped overhead, and he jumped. Lightning split across the blackened sky — a rip in the fabric of the universe — and he felt fear creep over his body.

  *

  Entering the town, Terry slowed the car to a crawl. He found the main street blocked and some of the buildings demolished, whereas others were untouched. Cars lay under fallen trees. Like a toothpick, a telegraph pole had snapped and was leaning, broken over the road. A frenzy of broken wires jittered across the lanes, raised up like cobras, discharging electrical sparks; Terry mounted the gutter and then swerved back to the road to avoid them. The boy he had in the passenger seat was a rag doll bouncing around.

  Terry saw a few people appear along the streets. An elderly couple were weeping over a pile of rubble. He was spooked, his mouth was dry and the blood rushed around his head. He felt his heart pounding, and began to truly fear for his wife, Amy’s safety. He picked up his phone, no signal. He checked the boy.

  He was still breathing.

  He cautiously drove on, easing the car forward over the rubble, and finally turned east towards the hospital. Leaves and twigs were caught up under the windshield wipers and were scratching against the window. He strained to see beyond them as he checked down each road to determine the safest route. The town’s north-west side seemed to have taken the biggest blow, and the damage was less as he approached the hospital. “Thank God it’s still standing!” he muttered. He pulled on the handbrake and jumped out of the car.

  Hundreds of people, dazed and injured, were walking towards the hospital’s entrance. Terry carefully picked up the boy and moved amongst the crowd as quickly as possible to the entrance. He stopped at the doorway to Emergency and looked over the sea of wounded, searching for help. He wove through the mayhem, pushing towards the front, and repeated, “Excuse me! Excuse me! I have an unconscious child! Somebody help me.”

  The triage nurse behind the glass window opened the side door for the next patient.

  Terry slid through.

  She gave him a scolding look, but checked the boy’s pupils, then pulled open a curtain and said, “Lay him on that bed. What’s his name?” She flashed a light in the boy’s eyes, checked his pulse, and patted him down.

  “I don’t know,” Terry answered. “I found him on the road. He wasn’t breathing. I gave him CPR. He vomited water.”

  “Has he been in a car accident?” the nurse asked him as she placed a plastic collar around the boy’s neck.

  “No,” Terry replied. “Well — I don’t know. He was just lying in the middle of the road. I didn’t see any cars.”

  She looked up at Terry and announced, “He’ll need some stitches, at least. We’ll need to check him for spinal injuries and X-ray his lungs.” She pulled the stethoscope out of her ears and left them dangling around her neck. “I’ll find a doctor. You’ll need to stay with him. We’re understaffed; relief is coming, but I need you to stay with him for now. What’s your name?”

  “Terry,” he answered.

  “Can you stay with him, Terry?” she asked.

  “Okay,” he replied, “but my wife … I don’t know where my wife is.”

  “I’m sure just as you helped this young man, someone will help your wife,” the nurse assured him, and dashed out of the cubicle.

  The hospital smelt and tasted like a construction site, Terry thought. He crouched down so his face was next to the boy’s head, and whispered to him, “Just in case you can hear, we’re in the hospital — you’ll be alright.” He looked at the woman lying unconscious in the bed next to the boy’s. Her face and neck were blackened with bruises and her hair and clothes were caked with dirt. He thought she looked as if she’d been excavated. She had an IV line inserted in her left arm. One of the two attending nurses jabbed a needle into a narrow, orange-colored rubber tip and injected a clear fluid into the arm. The woman reacted in seconds and opened her eyes wide. She gasped for air, seized her stomach and twisted in pain, and the nurse gave her another injection into the rubber tube. The woman calmed slightly and started taking hurried shallow breaths.

  That one must’ve been morphine, Terry guessed, watching as the attending doctor unemotionally scribbled notes on his clipboard and then hurried away to his next patient, leaving the woman in the care of two young nurses, who were now holding her right hand and speaking clearly to her to explain where she was and what had happened: “There was a storm, and you were found pinned under a cement slab. You’re now safe in the hospital. Your injuries are critical. Do you understand?”

  The woman made the smallest attempt to nod.

  “Is there anyone you’d like us to try to get hold of?” one of the nurses asked.

  The woman struggled to breathe and to speak: “My … son. Where’s … my son?”

  The other nurse held a syringe in the air, again grabbed the little rubber stopper, and injected the swirling, clear liquid into the woman.

  “What’s your son’s number?” the other nurse asked the woman, to distract her from the pain she was feeling.

  The woman made a choking sound.

  Terry’s heart went out to her.

  She gave a cough, and blood sprayed into the oxygen mask. She moaned.

  Terry saw tears fall from the corner of her left eye.

  She turned her head slightly and whispered, “My son.” She coughed again, and this time, more than a spray of blood was visible.

  The nurse let go of her hand, moved the mask, and wiped her mouth.

  The woman slightly lifted her arm, reached out to Terry, and said to him, “My son.”

  Terry’s eyes met hers. He smiled as the nurse busied herself by placing a new oxygen mask over the patient’s face, causing muffling of the words the woman was uttering: “Cay … Casey … my son …” Before she slipped away, she locked eyes with Terry.

  He felt a strange connection with her.

  The nurses moved quickly, and the machines beeped and pinged loudly around them … but there was nothing they could do.

  Terry felt conflicted in his heart. He wanted to turn away from the misery in her eyes.

  However, he held her gaze while she was dying.

  He felt her fighting the pain, not knowing where her child was. A heavy burden to die with, he thought.

  She clutched on to her last moments of lif
e.

  He believed her thoughts were only for her son. Her eyes emptied.

  He turned away from the dying woman’s final moment.

  The triage nurse returned with a doctor, who immediately went to work examining the boy.

  “What did you say his name was?” the nurse asked Terry.

  Terry pulled his eyes away from the dead woman’s, and replied, “I didn’t — he never told me.” He looked back at the dead woman, and said, “But, it might be … Casey. I think that might’ve been his mother.”

  The nurse followed his gaze towards the deceased woman, and closed the curtain.

  The doctor turned, lowered his glasses, rubbed his tired eyes, looked at Terry, and said to him, “Why don’t you get yourself a cup of coffee while we run some tests and stitch up his cheek and knee? His vitals are good; he’s stable. You saved his life. He won’t wake for a little while. Go and get yourself some air.”

  Terry rubbed the back of his neck, stared down at the springy blue-vinyl floor, thought of his wife, and prayed she was alright. Realizing he needed to try to call her again, he said to the doctor and nurses, “I’ll be back in ten.” He headed out of the emergency ward and came out into the ambulance bay to search for mobile-phone reception. He dialed the number, and when he heard her phone start ringing, he felt joy entwined with fear leap into his throat.

  An ambulance pulled into the bay, and the sound of it drowned out the sound of the ring tone.