“Be quiet,” the nice man whispered. “We can’t wake them.”
Christopher squinted in the darkness and realized where they were.
The nursery.
Row after row of babies. Some in incubators. Most in glass bassinets. All of them sleeping. The nice man pushed the gurney through the nursery like a boat through a swamp. Inch by painful inch. Christopher saw one baby stir as if having a nightmare. Then, another. They started to twitch like the first kernels of popcorn on a skillet. Pop. Pop. Pop. The nice man picked up his pace. More babies twitched. Christopher could feel the room waking up around them. The babies would begin crying soon. Sounding the alarm. As if left on a porch. One baby opened its eyes. It looked around in the darkness. It began to whimper. Another opened. Another. Christopher felt the gurney go faster. And faster. Racing to the other side. The first baby began to cry.
“Waaaaaaaa,” it said.
It woke up its neighbor.
The sound traveled around the room like a pinball, waking up neighbor after neighbor. Baby after baby. The babies began to wail.
“WAAAAAAAAA!”
“It’s the alarm,” Christopher said.
“No. It’s the dinner bell.”
The lights turned on. Christopher saw them. Little babies with glowing eyes watching them. Drooling. Their mouths filled with sharp baby teeth. The babies began to crawl. Out of the bassinets. Cracking the walls of the incubators like serpent’s eggs.
There was nothing left to do but run.
The nice man picked up the gurney on two wheels and raced to the exit. Babies climbed down from the glass and scurried on the floor like little spiders. The nice man crashed through the exit doors and aimed the gurney right at the end of the hallway. Christopher looked up and saw a laundry chute sitting in the wall like an open mouth. He felt the nice man pick up the pace. Three more thundering steps. Then, he climbed on the gurney behind Christopher like the anchor of a bobsled team.
“Hang on.”
The gurney hurtled toward the wall. Christopher braced himself for impact. The laundry chute opened, and in a flash, the gurney went through it like a mat on a waterslide. Twisting and turning in darkness. Christopher screamed. Part fear. Part joy. Like the best and worst of all roller coasters. He looked up ahead and saw something dancing.
A reflection. Of stars. In water.
“Brace yourself,” the nice man said, tensing his body.
Christopher clutched the nice man the way he used to cling to his mother after he saw Dracula. The water got closer. And closer. And then…
SPLASH!
The gurney hit the water like a skipping rock. It sliced through the creek bed, slowing, then stopping. The freezing water felt soothing on his feverish skin. For a moment, he thought that maybe the water was his mother putting ice cubes on his body. Christopher looked up. He saw the shooting stars in the night sky and the stones of the billy goat bridge.
They were back in the Mission Street Woods.
“What was that?” Christopher asked.
“Escape tunnel,” the nice man said. “We have to get you out of here. They can see you at night.”
The nice man is…
The nice man is…terrified.
“Hi, Christopher,” the voice said.
It was the man in the hollow log. He was standing. Wide awake. His eyes black as coal. His face still scarred from the time Christopher saw the deer eating it.
“I’ve heard so much about you,” the man said.
Then, he lunged at Christopher.
“Get me out of this!” he screamed.
The nice man grabbed Christopher’s arm and ran. The man in the hollow log dropped and rolled after them. The nice man took a hard turn down a narrow trail. The man in the hollow log was about to run over them when he hit a thicket of branches and stopped like a fly in a web. The nice man jumped Christopher through a small space in the trees. Christopher heard the man in the hollow log’s screams echo through the woods.
“GET ME OUT OF THIS!”
“He’s sounding the alarm. Others will follow. Go!”
Christopher and the nice man reached the clearing. They raced to the tree house.
“How did you find me?” Christopher asked.
“Your mother,” the nice man said. “She was right there with you. I just followed her light. She promised to get you out of here. And that’s what I’m doing.”
The nice man helped Christopher to the tree. It was warm like a mug of his mother’s coffee.
“But what about you?”
“I don’t matter. You do.”
“You matter to me.”
Christopher walked over and held the nice man, who flinched at being touched. It reminded Christopher of soldiers who listen to fireworks and can only hear bullets.
“Are you my dad?”
“No. I’m not your dad. Christopher, you need to go. Now.”
Christopher nodded and climbed the ladder. He reached the top step and put his hand on the doorknob of the tree house. He turned it.
But it was locked.
“Christopher, stop stalling,” the nice man said below.
“I’m not. It’s locked.”
“What?”
“The tree house door. It’s locked.”
“Oh, God!” the nice man said.
The nice man climbed the steps. He put his hand on the doorknob. He turned it with all of his might. It wouldn’t budge. The nice man’s face went white.
“NO!” he screamed.
“What’s happening?” Christopher asked. “Why won’t it open?”
“You’re still in the hospital on the real side. You can’t get back to your body. You can’t wake up.”
Fear pushed the word to Christopher’s throat.
“What?”
The nice man banged on the door, turning his knuckles bloody. He bashed his fists on the windows. The glass didn’t even bend.
“This is a trap. She arranged all of this,” the nice man said. “She locked you in.”
Finally, the nice man’s arms gave out. He stopped hitting the tree house and slumped over with bloody fists.
“But what does that mean?” Christopher asked.
The nice man turned to Christopher. Unable to mask his despair.
“It means you’re dying.”
Chapter 70
Beeeeeeeeep.
Kate Reese turned her attention from her son to the machines keeping him alive. They were suddenly flashing red.
Beeeeeeeep.
Before she could utter a word, the ICU nurses and doctor rushed into the room.
“What’s happening?!” she asked.
“His pressure’s dropping,” the doctor said to the nurse, ignoring her. “I’m going to need ten cc’s of…”
Thus began an assault of medical jargon that was too fast to follow. Christopher’s mother didn’t understand much, but she understood perfectly the doctor’s “polite” request to…
“Get her out of here!”
“NO!” she shrieked.
The orderlies entered the room.
“That won’t be necessary,” Nurse Tammy said. “She was just going. Please, Mrs. Reese.”
Christopher’s mother allowed Nurse Tammy to persuade her into the hallway seconds before the orderlies dragged her out kicking and screaming. Broken ribs or not. She stood outside her son’s room, trying to will herself through the walls.
“He’ll be fine, Mrs. Reese,” Nurse Tammy said gently. “It was just a sudden drop in blood pressure. They’ll stabilize him.”
After three minutes that felt like hours, the doctor came out and repeated what Nurse Tammy had said. Minus the compassion.
“Mrs. Reese, as long as your son is in the hospital, we are bound by law to resuscitate him, but I must say respectfully…”
Pull the plug already.
“…your son shows no sign of brain activity. He will never wake up,” the doctor said.
“Can I see my son now?”
she asked, ignoring him.
His eyes narrowed to angry slits.
“No, Mrs. Reese. The nurses are turning the beds over. You can come back in half an hour,” he said.
“Half an hour for a bed?! Are you kidding me?”
“…or forty-five minutes. Your choice,” the orderly said, scratching his arm.
He wants an excuse to call security. He wants you to lose it, Kate.
Christopher’s mother saw the officious little look on the vicious little man. She wanted to punch him, but punching got her detained. Punching got her son killed. So, she swallowed her “fuck you” and forced a nod.
“Thank you, Doctor,” she said.
I’ll get you out of here, Christopher. I promise.
Christopher’s mother set the alarm on her watch for thirty minutes. She didn’t want to be away for a second, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to waste this time. She ignored the pain in her side as she quickly made the long walk back through the ICU. She reached the end of the ICU hallway and waited to be buzzed out. She looked over as a nurse whispered to an orderly. Staring at her. Scratching. Their eyes swimming with thoughts. That’s the horrible woman who won’t pull the plug. We need that bed for other people. She saw Mr. Henderson, the librarian’s husband, in one of the rooms. He was sitting up in bed with his hands on his throat.
The door buzzed.
Kate walked through the waiting room of the ICU. Everywhere she looked, people were desperate. Yelling about how the cafeteria was running out of food. Arguing about which channel to watch on the television. They flipped back and forth between the CNN coverage of the Middle East and a Bad Cat cartoon.
“My kid wants to fucking watch this!” a man yelled.
She saw a man viciously kicking the vending machine.
“Fucking thing took my last dollar!” he screamed.
The man kicked it three more times, finally cracking the plastic Coca-Cola swoosh. Then, he sat down and cried like a child.
“My wife is sick. I don’t have any more dollars,” he said.
Kate instinctively reached for money to help the man, then realized that she was wearing a hospital gown. Her backside was exposed. She covered herself with one hand and hit the elevator button with the other. Some construction workers looked at her from down the opposite hallway. She could see their eyes cross her bare legs as if sampling food at a grocery store.
“Hey, honey. What’s your name?” a construction worker asked.
She reached for her cell phone. It wasn’t there. No pockets.
“Wait. Don’t go, beautiful!” the man called out, rushing toward the elevator.
The elevator finally opened. Kate hit the button. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1.
“Stuck-up bitch!” the man yelled just as the elevator door closed.
Kate found her breath and focused. There had to be a way to get Christopher away from this hospital. She looked at her watch. Twenty-eight minutes. The elevator door opened. She walked back to her room on the east wing. The hallways were packed. There wasn’t a free bench. A free chair. A free space on the floor. The people were scratching their arms. They all looked sick. And angry. And murderous. And desperate.
“What the fuck do you mean there are no pillows?!” a voice called out.
Kate reached her room. She quickly traded her hospital gown for street clothes, now torn and caked with her son’s blood. She found her cell phone in her coat pocket. There was a little more battery left, but there was no signal in her room. She wandered back into the hallway. She kept walking down the hall, looking for a signal. She passed Mrs. Keizer’s room. The old lady was still unconscious on the bed while her grandson Brady read to her from a chair.
“All the better to hear you with, my dear,” he said.
Still no bars on the phone.
She passed an empty room that was being readied for the next patient as orderlies grabbed a middle-aged man holding on to the bed for dear life.
“My insurance didn’t lapse! I have rights!”
Still no bars.
She walked through the emergency room entrance.
“We’ve been sitting here for forty hours, you son of a bitch!”
“So have I, asshole! Now sit down and wait your fucking turn!”
She walked outside to the parking lot.
She finally got a bar.
She dialed the sheriff. It rang once. Twice. Maybe the sheriff could call in a favor. Get an ambulance to take Christopher out of the hospital. Far away from Mill Grove. Far away from the hissing lady. She checked her watch. Twenty-four minutes.
The phone kept ringing. Three rings. Four rings. Five.
They could get out of here. Run away to some safe place. She would sell the house. They could send her the check. She would spend every dime of it on Christopher’s medical care.
My son is not going to die today.
More rings. Six. Seven. Eight.
The voice mail clicked on.
“Bobby,” she said. “I don’t know how to say this in a voice mail, so you’ll just have to trust me.”
She heard an ambulance wailing. She covered her ears and shouted into the phone.
“I need to get Christopher out of here. Can you get anything? An ambulance. A medevac helicopter. I’ll pay for it. I don’t care.”
The ambulance screamed into the parking lot. The EMTs rushed out.
“But I want you to come with us. I want you to be safe. Because something very bad is happening here. And right now, you are my son’s only—”
She was about to say “hope” when she saw the EMTs wheel out the sheriff on a gurney. The sheriff’s eyes were closed. His shirt cut open, his chest a mess of bloody bandages, an oxygen mask over his face.
Christopher’s mother was speechless.
She looked on, dazed, as the ER doctor rushed out to meet the gurney. Through all of their shouting, she realized that there had been a shooting in the sheriff’s station. Mrs. Henderson, the school librarian, had escaped from jail and shot the sheriff in the chest. The sheriff should have died already, but somehow he was hanging on.
Christopher’s mother raced after the sheriff, but the orderlies stopped her. They would not let her into emergency surgery. It took a minute of stunned silence for her to realize that her phone was still on, and she was still leaving the sheriff a voice mail. She hung up and sat down outside. Her ribs like a toothache in the cold.
She didn’t know what to do. So, instinctively, she just started calling friends. Anyone she thought might be able to help. Special Ed’s mother and father. Mike and Matt’s mothers. She got nothing. No voice mails. All texts were returned. No emails would go through.
She was completely alone.
Christopher’s mother looked down at the phone in her hand. The time snapped her out of anything resembling self-pity. She had fifteen minutes until she could see her son. Her eyes darted back and forth, trying to think of what to do next. Was there another person to call? Someone she hadn’t thought of? She looked back through the emergency room. She saw two men fighting each other for a chair. On the TV, the blond newswoman said that traffic accidents had already tripled the record high for December, and it was only the twenty-third.
“And now on to happier news. Christmas is only two days away. And what was the number one present kids asked for this year? Bad Cat dolls,” she said with a smile.
“That’s right, Brittany. The number one present adults asked for? Guns.”
Someone turned the channel back to CNN.
“And now on to international news and the growing unrest in the Middle East…”
“I’m sick of this shit,” a voice called out. “I don’t care about the Middle East.”
“My family is from there, asshole!”
“Then, go back to where you came from and help.”
“The refugees are desperate, Anderson. The talk on the ground is that more bloodshed is imminent.”
Christopher’s mother closed her eyes. She didn’t
realize she was praying until she had finished.
“Please, God. Help us.”
Suddenly, she sensed something. It wasn’t a feeling so much as a smell. It smelled like baseball gloves.
Ambrose.
The name came to her from out of nowhere.
Ambrose Olson.
When you’re in a war, ask a soldier. Who said that? Jerry of all people. Drunk and watching grainy footage of the Allies saving the world from ruin.
Ambrose could help us.
Christopher’s mother dialed Shady Pines. As she waited for the phone to ring, the EMTs carried in the rest of the deputies, all of them gravely wounded. For a second, she had a chilling thought.
There are no police left. There is no law anymore.
“Shady Pines?” the voice said on the other line.
“Sheila…it’s Kate. I need to speak to Mr. Olson.”
“He ain’t here.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s in the hospital.”
“What?”
“Sorry. I gotta go. Natives are restless with this God damn flu.”
Click.
It took Christopher’s mother all of five minutes with the ER admission nurse to find out that Ambrose Olson had been rushed to the hospital from Shady Pines after he had gone blind. Thanks to being a favorite among the hospital staff, he received a bed about thirty-nine hours ahead of schedule. He had been placed exactly three doors down from her son’s room in the ICU. Kate Reese knew it could be fate. It could be coincidence. Or it could be help from the nice man. Whatever it was, she did not question it anymore. She needed whatever friends she could get.
Even imaginary ones.
She found Ambrose in his room. His eyes bandaged. Clutching his brother’s old diary. She knocked on the door.
“Mr. Olson?” she said.
“Mrs. Reese? Thank God. I’ve been asking around for you.”
“Me?” she said, surprised but somehow not at all surprised. “What for?”
“I need you to finish reading my brother’s diary,” he whispered.
“Why are you whispering?” she asked.
“You promise not to laugh?” he asked.
“Nothing is funny right now,” she said. “Try me.”
When Ambrose got done explaining about David’s experience with tree houses and hissing ladies, it didn’t take long for Kate Reese to realize it was happening again. But this time to her son. She sat down and took the diary.
Imaginary Friend Page 40