Interference

by S. L. LUCK

  “Myoclonic?”

  “Possible,” Abe said, “but we don’t believe so. Movement was slow, more like she was scratching a cat than jerking. Go see for yourself. Once that finger got going, it hasn’t stopped. If I wasn’t so tired, I’d have stayed at her bedside just to watch that little finger move. Quite the sight.” He bid her a smooth shift, then hunched further inside his jacket as the doors slid open and the wind assaulted him.

  After a quick detour to the cafeteria, Adhira rode the elevator to her office, sipping a large hot coffee. She dropped her purse and jacket on her desk and decided to pay a visit to Huxley before they saw Cliff. She had just stepped from the elevator onto the fifth floor when Huxley dangled a Kit Kat in front of her face.

  “I’d say we celebrate with champagne, but the vending machine is out.” When she eyed him curiously, Huxley added, “Abe called me after he saw you. Told me to send your ass home to sleep for a few more hours so you don’t scare the patients.” He opened the package, broke the bar down the center, and gave Adhira half.

  “You don’t look so hot either,” Adhira said, breaking a stick from her chocolate bar. “As much as I’d rather be getting my beauty sleep, I’m here to talk to Cliff. He still in?”

  “Not sure,” Huxley said. Watching her disinterestedly nip at her favorite snack, he asked, “What’s the problem?”

  “I need a need a day-maker before we get into it.”

  She sighed, relieved that Huxley didn’t insist she explain. For seventeen years, after a shift together when a screaming woman arrived at the ER with intense abdominal pain, day-maker had been their code for cases that made them smile. That particular case had stuck with them not only because the patient had been unaware that she was thirty-nine weeks pregnant and deep in the second stage of labor, but the soon-to-be mother was an avid astrologist who insisted her sign prevented her from pregnancy, even as the baby was crowning. While they both agreed that “But I’m a Libra!” was a better code, their professional oath required that patient interactions be treated with confidentiality and integrity, even in matters that made them laugh until their sides hurt.

  Huxley whispered, “This beats Libra. We might need a new code after this.” He finished his chocolate bar as he accompanied Adhira to the intensive care unit.

  “It must be good if you’re thinking about a decision like that.”

  They washed at the sink and Adhira couldn’t help but feel a pang of excitement. Days ago, she’d thought Anabelle’s death was only a matter of time. Now Anabelle was not only approachable but exhibiting non-myoclonic movement. It was a small victory in the tragedy tornado that had hit the city, and Adhira gladly welcomed it. The week had been hell; one of the worst in her career, but as they drew toward Anabelle’s bedside and Adhira saw the color back in the young patient’s face, she was struck by a moment of gratitude so severe her eyes prickled with tears. Adhira looked up at the fluorescents, trying to keep her weeping at bay, then her eyes swept fully over Anabelle, from the fresh bandage on her head, to her clean gown and sheets, and lastly to that moving finger. Had the movement been as constant as Abe suggested, Adhira might have suspected limb dystonia and tested Anabelle’s basal ganglia function, but it was random and slow, so she made a mental note for further investigation if it persisted.

  “Incredible, isn’t it?” Huxley said quietly, watching the slow swirl of Anabelle’s left index finger.

  “Never thought I’d see it,” Adhira agreed, eyes unblinking, afraid to miss the movement. Anabelle’s thumb tapped the bed once, twice, and then her middle finger dragged a short line in the sheets. Although she didn’t want to ruin the moment, it occurred to Adhira that Anabelle’s potential recovery would present additional challenges, of which she now reminded Huxley. “What if we can’t release her?”

  Huxley drew his lips into his mouth, thinking. “We’ll get to that. We got this far, didn’t we? I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t expecting us to be where we’re at today. Baby steps, just like we tell our patients.”

  Adhira knew that was the logical process, but nothing about Anabelle’s condition was logical, and it brought the greatest worry she’d ever felt for a patient. She sighed. “We didn’t train for this.”

  “No, but I figure if we ever want to freelance as electricians, we might have options.” He nudged her gently and was rewarded with a small smile.

  Afterward, as Huxley updated his patient reports, Adhira came to collect him for their short journey to Cliff’s office on the second floor. She knocked gently. “Time? Kathy said he’s leaving soon so it’s now or sometime tomorrow.”

  Huxley tossed down his pen. “Nothing like a good tantrum before I leave for the night. Why not?”

  He cracked his neck and stood, then followed Adhira down the quiet halls. Earlier, Adhira had apprised Huxley of the Cheevers’ lawsuit, so Huxley had prepared himself accordingly. He’d run through a litany of scenarios in his head, most involved the throwing of a stapler; all involved the bulging of the many veins on Cliff’s neck. In the current social climate, where Cliff’s behavior could easily land him in the stocks of public discontent, the CEO was smart enough to temper his rage in public, but he still miserably failed in private. Cliff had success with others, as Huxley had seen with the rest of the staff, but for reasons unknown to Huxley, Cliff appeared uninterested in the same caution when it came to Adhira and himself. Malpractice suits in Canada weren’t especially uncommon, but at Garrett General, in a city where the community mostly adored its practitioners, litigation was rare. When cases did arise, however, Cliff went ballistic to the point that Huxley himself had strongly considered taking valium before appointments with him.

  As they walked, Adhira slipped a small tablet under her tongue. “We do what we got to do, right?”

  “And I thought we were friends,” he whined, until Adhira drew from her pocket a small bottle of lorazepam and pressed one of the tiny white pills into his palm. It wouldn’t work immediately, but it would give him something to look forward to while Cliff’s rage boiled over.

  Outside the CEO’s closed door, the doctors stopped. “Namaste and all that shit,” Huxley said to Adhira, smoothing the front of his shirt.

  “May the force be with you,” she responded, lifting her breasts while staring ahead at Cliff’s door.

  They tapped fists and Adhira’s hand rose to knock when both of their pagers went off at the same time. “What now?” she groaned, checking her pager, that archaic but functional institutional tether, when she realized that Huxley had already withdrawn and was using the phone at Kathy’s desk.

  “Can you repeat that, please?” he said, gesturing Adhira over. She waited beside him, trying but unable to hear the voice on the phone. Huxley finally hung up, still in shock.

  “What?” Adhira asked him now. “What happened?” A cold certainty ran through her that the news was going to be terrible, that it was going to exhaust whatever strength she had left, that whatever it was meant death.

  Instead, Huxley said, “Anabelle’s awake.”

  23

  His dreams were of a lipless woman in a never-ending night. He’d come upon her in the mist in the shadow of a hill of bones, where she pounced on him and begin feeding. The sickly sound of his own bones being consumed terrorized him more than the pain itself. And he woke, screaming, in his old bedroom.

  Johnny sat up. In an antique rocking chair in the corner, Dak wiped the sleep from his face and went to his son’s side. The cool of a wet cloth against his forehead eased Johnny’s panic, but still he looked at his father with fearful eyes. His young son’s face, scarred with fear, preternaturally grown old in the hours since they left Roy’s farm, brought a fresh stab of anxiety to Dak, but he smiled warmly at him now.

  “It’s okay, Rabbit, I’m here,” Dak cooed to his son, using the nickname they’d given to Johnny when he was four, after he’d whipped his older brother in a race around the house, crossing the toilet-paper finish line with the carrot he’d for
gotten to spit out still dangling from his mouth.

  Johnny’s eyes swept over the familiar desk light and onto hockey figurines in the soft glow of its cone, then to the comforting blue hue of his jersey-decked walls. He let out a little puff of relief then finally looked to his father, who was rubbing Johnny’s forehead with his thumb.

  “It hurts, Dad,” Johnny whimpered, raising his bandaged hand, where the slant of two missing fingers the doctors had been unable to attach was obvious to both.

  “It’s time for Tylenol anyway,” Dak said, thankful the codeine was mostly managing Johnny’s pain. He drew a pill from the prescription bottle and gave it to Johnny with a glass of water.

  Johnny swallowed the pill and settled again. “What time is it?”

  “Almost six. You got a few hours at least.” Dak patted Johnny’s leg. “You want some breakfast?”

  Though his son’s eyes were puffed and signs of exhaustion were playing out all over his face, Dak knew that Johnny hadn’t managed more than a spoonful of soup in almost two days. Looking at him, a grown man yet somehow small and childlike, with all the heat pressed out of him, Dak felt guilty for appreciating this stolen time with his youngest son.

  He said, “I can fry up some sausages, if you like.”

  Just then, the smell of bacon hit them, and they heard the clang of faraway dishes being put to use.

  More to appease his father than out of any real hunger, Johnny followed him to the kitchen where his mother was already many steps along in their breakfast. New crescents of darkness hung beneath her eyes, and her normally smooth, biscuit skin had taken the dry sheen of clay. On the table she’d set a plate of cut fruit and tomatoes, individual containers of yogurt, and a multi-compartment server with several varieties of nuts. Seeing them come into the kitchen, Wendy brought a stack of pancakes to the table and gave Johnny a gentle, one-armed hug with the hand that wasn’t holding the spatula. “Just in time,” she said cheerfully, pulling out a chair for Johnny as though she’d been waiting hours for his arrival. “Sit, sit.”

  Dak kissed his wife, silently sharing his concern through a locked stare, then took a seat beside Johnny. “Smells incredible,” he said appreciatively, and was glad to see Johnny agree and look eager to eat. Soon, a plate of bacon, a tray of sausage, half a baked ham, a bowl of scrambled eggs, and a dish of hash browns were placed before them.

  Johnny’s tired eyes widened. “Shit, Mom. You feeding an army?”

  “You could say that. We’ve got three more to feed for the next while. Coffee, dear?”

  Dak held Johnny’s cup out for him while Wendy poured.

  “Save some for me,” Jesse said. He and Sarah came up the basement stairs, both in robes. He ruffled his brother’s hair and snuck a piece of bacon before sitting down. “You look like shit, Bunny.”

  “Tell me again why you’re married to him?” Johnny asked Sarah, who was pouring a glass of orange juice.

  “I ask myself the same question sometimes,” she said, watching her husband indiscriminately pick from the plates and stuff his mouth.

  Johnny frowned. “So, you’re my protectors now or something? Are we expecting a llama invasion anytime soon?”

  The room grew quiet until finally Wendy, turning off the stove, said, “Tell him.”

  Holding hands beneath the table, Sarah and Jesse quietly consented with a nod to Dak.

  The others waited while he set his coffee down and looked at Johnny. “We’ve asked your brother and Sarah and your nephew or niece to stay with us until this all blows over. We need to stick together—”

  “You’re pregnant?” Johnny gaped at Sarah. She nodded and patted her still flat belly. He began to wonder how much he’d missed during the fog of the last two days as his father went on.

  “You’re going to be an uncle,” Dak confirmed, “as long as we get through this. It’s not my news to tell, but I’m telling it because it underscores what I’ve got to say next. I’m not sure how much you remember of what happened at the farm, but we believe that your injury was only a diversion. When everyone rushed to the llama pen to see what was going on, a few of the children were left unattended.” He paused, letting the severity of words settle over his son. “Two of Perry’s grandkids died. They were found at the play set.”

  He did not elaborate, though the lowering of his eyes caused Johnny to press him for details. Dak’s undesired recollection materialized with the tightening of his jaw and the flaring of his nostrils. In his lifetime, he’d seen terrible things. His volunteer efforts at the local shelter had inured Dak to the torments of homelessness, addiction, violence, and the gut-wrenching mental afflictions that attended most of its patrons. And though he’d grown a self-protective, case-hardened detachment out of necessity, it crumbled to dust when he saw those taut swings and those two blue faces in Roy’s backyard two days ago. The boy was only four. The girl only eight.

  “I’m sure you’ll find out later, but I’d avoid it, if you can,” he said. His fingers were pressure-white around his cup.

  Johnny, surprised by his own appetite when he’d first seen the spread his mother laid out, set down his fork, sure he’d never be hungry again. “Was it Flint?” he asked when no one would meet his eyes. “It was, wasn’t it?”

  “We think so,” Jesse told him. “She was the only one sitting at the picnic table near the swing set when it happened. Her back was to the pen, and she would have seen the kids twisting the ropes—” Suddenly Dak coughed, and Jesse’s explanation stopped.

  Observing the dawning horror on her younger son’s face, Wendy took the empty chair at the table. She was serious when she turned to him. “We’ve asked Nikonha to come. She will tell us what to do. Right now we all just need to eat so we can be strong when the time comes that we need to be strong.”

  She plucked a strawberry from Dak’s plate and deliberately bit down while the rest of them pushed their breakfast around their plates. When the food was eventually collected and put away, Wendy had to force the fridge door shut with her hip to keep it closed, and she released them all with a stern warning that they’d better eat more for lunch or she’d start storing it beneath their bedsheets.

  Jesse and Sarah showered and dressed while Johnny fell into an uneasy, medicated sleep. Dak used this time to sneak to his office in the basement and check his gun cabinet, explaining to Wendy that he had paperwork to do. From the look in her eyes, he knew she wasn’t convinced, but she pretended for his sake as much as her own and dismissed him with a kiss and a tight, prolonged hug.

  The small window afforded little light, so Dak switched on his desk lamp, as he wasn’t quite ready for blare of the pot lights. He’d taken a mug of coffee with him, and this he set down as he sought comfort in the familiar paintings his mother had bestowed on him in her will almost a decade earlier. Harmonious plumes of reds, oranges, and yellows patterned fields, suns, animals, and people. Dak took in their unity and peace and let their messages wash over him as he prepared to defend his family.

  Calmer now, he went to the closet and opened the doors. He expected his gun cabinet to have somehow vanished, but it was still there. His finger drew from memory the code and punched it into the keypad, then Dak opened the safe.

  Just then, something banged against the window; a dwindling remnant of the windstorm the city had been enduring for over two days. If the death of two children wasn’t enough, the city had been hit with fierce winds that toppled trailers, overturned streetlights, peeled siding, felled trees, and knocked down six billboards and the neon displays for Garett’s only McDonald’s and two of its Tim Horton’s.

  At the sound, Dak turned and peered at the little square above his desk. He pulled the blinds up. A scattering of leaves and loose twigs whirled across the back sidewalk, but nothing else of significance—so Dak returned to his task.

  Back at the cabinet, he removed each of his rifles and looked them over. He was checking the safety on his Browning when the window rattled. Again it screeched and clacked withi
n the pane until Dak was sure it was going to explode in on him. He set the rifle back in the case and quickly locked the safe, all the while bracing himself for a sudden spray of glass. But the moment he closed the closet doors, the window went still. A cold tine of fear rose up his spine, and he involuntarily shuddered with the certainty that Flint had seen him with his guns.

  The doorbell rang.

  Jesse’s heavy footsteps sounded up the stairs, and Dak pulled the blinds closed, realizing that the heaviness in his chest was the pounding of his heart. His fingers trembled and he had the rusty taste of blood in his mouth from biting the inside of his cheek, but now he steadied himself and concentrated on slowing his breath. If Wendy saw him like this, she would know he had been visited. She was already a mess worrying over Johnny and her upcoming grandchild, so Dak took a moment to collect himself. He smoothed his hair, rubbed color into his cheeks, and got his tobacco pouch from his desk. Then he went to greet Nikonha, who was removing her wet boots at the front door.

  “Dakota.” The old woman halted the removal of her shoes and opened her arms wide. She rose onto the tips of her toes to reach around his shoulders, holding him warmly like a mother. Then Nikonha pushed a wrinkled cheek to Dak’s chest and pinched her eyes shut, listening, and released him with a wary smile. “We have much to talk about, Good Fish.” She eyed the tobacco pouch in Dak’s hand. “Should I leave my boots on, then?”

  Wendy, who had been standing aside, slid Nikonha’s jacket back onto the shorter woman’s shoulders and retrieved her own from the front closet. She slipped one more time into the room of her sleeping son and, content that that she wasn’t needed, joined them in the small garden.

  The wind was unkind to them, lashing at their legs, whipping dust into their eyes, chilling their bodies through the thickness of their jackets, as though Flint was trying to push them back into the house. Seeing Nikonha’s sparse hair flip about, Dak offered to get her a hat, but she waved his concern away. The Elder smelled the wind, tasted its poison on her tongue, felt its clutching fingers, and set about her task with an expediency that put the others at ease. From a duffel bag she’d carried on her shoulder, Nikonha drew a prayer blanket that she quietly laid on the worked-up rows of earth. A wild draft twisted up the fabric until Sarah and Jesse hurried stones onto the corners.