by Richard Amos
“You don’t need to try and change the subject, Jake. I won’t fall apart.”
“I, erm... You’re right. Sorry.”
“I’d better go. Take of yourself. See you when we get home.”
“You too. Bye, Luuk.”
He was gone.
I checked on Lou, who was busy working on some more maths.
“You okay, honey?”
“Yes, Daddy. Chillin’.”
“Great. You want a snack? A drink?”
“Could I have come milk please, Daddy?”
“You can.” I went to fetch it for her.
Rivulets of water ran down my kitchen window from the melting snow on the roof. The sun was brighter too, making the tiny rivers sparkle down the glass. I opened the back door to check the small garden space for potential flooding. The ground was soaked, but there’d be no floods. The Dutch were famous for being hardcore about drainage and stuff, which applied to every house on this street. I mean, the county was made up of land reclaimed from the sea, so the reputation was earned big time. I didn’t understand the technical bits, but there was stuff going on beneath my feet that kept my house, garden and flooring safe.
The rate of the changing weather was scary, one big fucking omen to a shit storm down the road. This was a world of increasing freaky weather events.
I hadn’t noticed it straight away on account of the brightness of the day, but over in the left corner of my garden was a yellow pod. Great. Poxy thing.
I closed the door and took the drink in to my daughter. “Here you go.”
“Thanks, Daddy,” she took the glass, gulping half of it down.
“You’ve got a milk moustache.”
She giggled and wiped it off with the back of her hand.
“How’s the maths coming?”
“Good, Daddy.”
I checked her work so far. “Who’s my cleaver girl?” I ruffled her curls.
“Mind the barnet.”
I loved how she picked up some of my lingo. Well, the good bits. Thank God the swear box was a deterrent for her. Not that she was old enough for pocket money, but it was there as a scary consequence. Good. I did try and behave myself with the curse words. It was one tough battle.
While she continued doing her thing, I went to the front window, my index fingers scratching my thumbs in a steady rhythm. Anxiety spiked at the pit of me. It’d been a crazy twenty-four hours.
Staring at the spot where Sander had lay dead, I tried to flood my mind with fun things. Like the coming Friday night—Valentine’s Day. Give me all the soppiness. If we could pull this off, I’d savour every mushy moment, embrace every cliché, and be so fucking happy. Yeah, so looking forward to soaking it up with my man.
Something caught my eye at the bottom of the stoop, sticking out of the snow.
I pushed my face against the glass, straining for a better look. All I did was leave a cheek mark.
“I’m just popping outside, Lou.”
“Okay, Daddy.”
“Nothing bad. Don’t worry.”
“Cool, Daddy.”
I took my spear anyway because only a dickhead wouldn’t. Slowly, I went down the steps, looking left and right for any potential threat. There were a few more people around now that the paths were clearing, though everything was wet and slushy and dirty and looking like total shit. Melting snow was always a bit depressing.
The thing in the snow was half buried, the exposed bit part of a hexagon. I crouched beside it, not going for a touch. It was that shade of red blood goes when its congealed. What was it? Carm…carmine, and there were purple veins running through it.
Yeah, I so wasn’t touching that without the proper equipment. Wasn’t even giving it a prod with my spear.
I called Dean, seeing if he could run something over from the office even though he’d be busy.
His phone was off.
Strange.
“Hey. It’s me. Call me.”
Might be on the phone. Maybe I should take Lou for a walk, swing by the office myself.
Hmmm…
No. She was way better off without fresh air today, staying safe behind the wards.
I tried Dean again.
Still no answer.
He never turned his phone off. I told myself again that he might be on the line to someone else, talking to Lars or something. He. Was. Busy.
Five minutes, I told myself. Yeah, I’d give him five minutes. But at the same time, that weird thing a few feet away couldn’t just sit there. We had some stuff at the house, but Dean was so much better dealing with this stuff. Like a proper detective. I was, well, the sidekick who tried to pull his weight as best he could but was much happier being the homemaker.
No, I had to check it somehow. I couldn’t always rely on Dean. We had a handheld device that could detect harmful magic. It was like Dean’s UV light, but less cool. He’d got the parts online a few weeks ago and had put it together with the help of Mila and her concoctions. In three days, they’d made a fuel for it. The pair of them should go into an inventing business together. Talk about wasted!
The detector would tell me if thing was deadly or not.
Oh, shit! What if it was a bomb or something? Fuck!
I dashed inside, retrieved the device from the kitchen.
Back outside, praying this thing wasn’t about to go off in my face, I waved the black metal pebbled-shaped detector over it, holding it by the cool metal handle.
It ran on a frequency that put magic on a scale of aggression and potency. There were two screens—one with a dial, the other with a number. A little buzz was nothing, a middle buzz worrying, a hardcore buzz meaning you should run like hell for your life. The numbers indicated the level of magic, not the danger. One being the lowest, ten being the highest.
A little buzz and a potency reading of eight. So not dangerous, but pretty powerful. What the fuck was it?
Research time. I’d fire up the laptop and run a search through the Paranormal Eyes VPN with a description of the thing to see if anything came up. I was guessing was a hexagon in shape but what I could make out. That was my best shot for now until the snow melted, and I wasn’t gonna sit around and just wait. Had to be as proactive as I could.
If I couldn’t get hold of Dean again, I’d call Mila.
I had one more, responsible thing I needed to do. Using some of Lou’s white card from the stash in her room, I wrote a warning in big red letters:
Beware! Pod! Keep away!
I grabbed a broom, stuck the sign on the top, then rested it against the stoop. Not bad for a crappy makeshift sign, and a pod warning would be enough to keep the sane people away.
I went back inside, grabbing my laptop for some searching. I typed in ‘carmine hexagonal object’. Nope. Wasn’t having it. That was all I had go on for now. What else was there to say about it? I typed in carmine objects, even charms. All that came up was a love charm, which was a pillar box red, nothing like that thing outside, and love charms were decagons. Plus, it was supposed to have a really strong strawberry scent—which wafted up into the intended lover’s face, infecting them with infatuation for the person who’d put their mark all over the charm. They sold for around eighty euros. Expensive. How the hell were these things allowed to be on the market? Man, some new regulations seriously needed to be put in place.
Okay. Not dangerous, but potent. What the bloody hell was it?
I called Dean. Still nothing. My tummy fluttered.
I tried Mila. Nothing.
I tried the office. Nothing.
Shit.
I stood by the window, watching the object, waiting for the rest of the snow to melt away, my phone almost crushed in the grip of my right hand.
ONE AGONISING HOUR LATER, my phone rang again.
It wasn’t Dean or Mila.
It was Luuk.
“You okay?”
“Jake!”
I didn’t like that greeting one bit. “What’s wrong?”
“I
t’s Dean! He’s here. They’ve just brought him in.”
“What do you mean they’ve just brought him in? What the fuck is going on?”
“He’s at the hospital. There’s been an accident.”
TEN
JAKE
The world had slowed down the moment that word had left Luuk’s lips.
Accident.
Dean had been in accident.
The phone slipped from my hand, Lou’s voice from behind me sounding so far away. Everything was grinding to a halt.
Accident.
“Daddy?” So far away…
Accident.
“Daddy? Daddy!”
Tugging on my arm.
“Daddy! What’s wrong? Daddy! DADDY!”
Wham. Her shriek struck me like a cold slap to the face. I looked down, her scared face even more of a force for restoring my senses.
“Fuck.”
For once, she ignored my bad language, reaching for me. I picked her up and she started to cry.
“What’s wrong, Daddy?” she buried her face into my shoulder, gripping me tight.
“Papa’s at the hospital. We need to go see him. Okay?” There was no point in hiding the truth, trying to put together some bollocks story. Her papa was hurt, we were going to the hospital—there was no other way to spin it. Lying to her wasn’t protecting her.
“Is he alright?”
“There’s been an accident. We need to go.”
My phone. Crap! Luuk’d been talking and I’d seized up. I bent with Lou in my arms, fishing it off the floor. No damage. One robust gadget.
I called Luuk back.
“Jake?”
“We’re heading over there now.”
“Call me when you arrive.”
“Is he okay, Luuk?”
“I can’t say for sure, there’s so much chaos. I’m trying to find him, but he was awake. I saw him awake.”
That was something. He was awake.
I could hear the chaos in the background. People were really freaked out.
“I’m calling a cab now,” I said and clicked off.
He was awake.
Accident.
“Right.” I put Lou down. “Let’s get our coats.”
The phone rang again. Unknown number. “Hallo?”
“Hallo. Is this Jake Winter?”
“Speaking.”
“I’m calling from Bosje hospital. You’re the emergency contact for Mr. Dean Tseng, correct?”
“I am. Is he okay?”
“He was involved in an accident earlier. If you come to the emergency department, you’ll be able to see him. We are extremely busy here, but reception will help.”
“Thank you. I’m on my way now.”
“I’ll let him know.”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but I really need to go. He’s fine. There was an incident with a wand. Just go to the emergency department.”
The phone call ended.
A fucking wand?
Oh, God!
But he was okay. Fuck knows how with a wand involved.
LOU’D BEEN SO good in the taxi—calm as anything, not even a sniffle. Sometimes I thought she was stronger than me. I’d been biting my nails, something I didn’t do anymore, on the verge of having a complete meltdown with fear over Dean.
I’d called the hospital again on the way, trying to get some more info, and got nothing but chaos and then the phone going dead. What was I expecting? There was nothing I could do but get there and see him.
He was fine. Even though something had happened with a wand, he was okay. I held onto that.
I got that a dead body attacking a doctor was terrifying, but seriously? It’s not like people weren’t aware of things that went bump in the night being a reality. Maybe I was being insensitive, frustrated that this taxi didn’t have the ability to just teleport. Plus, there was so much traffic clogging up the main road to the hospital which wasn’t helping my anxiety.
“Sorry,” the driver said. “Looks like there’s going to be a wait.”
Those vehicles weren’t going anywhere fast. How far away was the hospital. A mile? A mile and a half. Maybe two?
The driver’s radio crackled. “Hallo?”
I barley heard what the woman on the other end said.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“There’s been a crash up ahead. Ambulance crash.”
“Oh, God!”
“I know.”
“Anyone hurt?”
“I don’t know. Hope not.”
So did I, but I couldn’t wait. “Here.” I handed him some cash. “We’ll walk the rest of the way.”
“Are you sure? You’re looking at two miles.”
There was my answer. “It’s fine. I need to get to the hospital as quick as possible.”
“Well, I see your point. You’re not getting there through this. Probably better walking.”
I took Lou’s hand as we exited the car.
“Come on, honey.” I picked her up and hurried along the path of slushy snow and dirt, a chorus of honking horns filling the air.
FORTY MINUTES LATER, we arrived. My whole body was hot and sweaty, my socks wet where the slush had leaked in. And carrying Lou for two miles had played heavy on my back. I didn’t give a shit, though. We’d done it, we were here.
The traffic had barely moved, the police having blocked off most of the road and only letting dribbles of vehicles through. On the other side of the road, and now some yards back, was the overturned ambulance. I didn’t stop like the people gawking to ask what’d happened. I hoped whoever had been involved was alright, but I had my own shit to deal with.
There were people everywhere outside the hospital, shouting into their phones, crying. I kept my head down, carrying Lou inside.
I tried calling Luuk and couldn’t get through, so I fired off a text to let him know we’d arrived.
The crazily busy reception area of the emergency department threatened to swallow me whole in a sea of frantic patients and people hollering at doctors, red-faced, puffed up, or full of terror. Every single member of medical staff was uber-harassed, looking ready to knock some big mouthed wanker the fuck out.
I held my daughter tighter as she whimpered. “I’m scared.”
“It’s okay.” I cradled her, pushing my way through the throngs of bodies to the desk.
All this over one reanimated corpse?
The phones were going mental. There was a man and a woman behind the desk, grabbing phones, placing people on hold, trying to deal with bark after bark from people demanding information.
There was a gap, so I made for it.
“Don’t push in!” a man hissed at me, giving me a shove and blocking the gap.
“Touch me again and I’ll break your face.”
“You talk like that in front of your little girl?”
“Tell you what, mate, don’t talk me, yeah?”
He was taller than most people in the room and looked a bit ashen. “Gladly. Just don’t push in.”
“I wasn’t. I saw a gap. Not like there’s a queue or anything.” Getting into a fight with Lou in tow wasn’t happening.
The man looked behind him, then his shoulders sagged. “I’m sorry.”
Okay, that was a shock! “You what?”
“I’m sorry, okay? I’m not usually that much of an arsehole. If I scared your girl…”
“It’s fine. She’s fine. We’re trying to find her papa.”
He nodded. “I’m looking for my wife. She was brought in here. Cut herself on a kitchen knife. When I got here, there was this.” He gestured with his long arms. “It’s just…you can see for yourself.”
I nodded, not wanting to talk. Dean was here and hurt and I needed to touch him, to see his chest and see his lungs fill with air, feel his heartbeat—experience all the things that made him alive. “The body,” I answered.
“Not just one.”
“You wh
at?”
“I heard someone shouting about all the dead people waking up.”
“Has anyone been attacked?”
“No. Not like the doctor in the morgue.”
That didn’t mean anything.
“She must’ve been a zombie,” he added.
The woman receptionist was free. “Next?”
The guy leapt into action, demanding answers about his wife.
“He’s right.” I turned to see an old woman on my left. “They’re all waking up. My friend’s husband passed away at lunch time. She was refusing to leave his side, so they’d given her some time to say goodbye. Then he sat up and said her name. That’d been his last word to her. And now he can’t stop saying it. He’s not alive, anyone can see that. But my friend is beside herself with relief, won’t let anyone into the room. Not like the nurses can spend time worrying about her when the same thing is happening all over the hospital.”
Oh, bollocks! I didn’t know what to say. I needed to get to Dean.
The tall guy had gone from being an initial prick, to ushering me into the gap. “This man was next!” he bellowed.
I looked up at him. “Thanks.”
“No problem.” Then he was gone.
“Yes?” the male receptionist asked.
“I’m here to see a patient. Dean Tseng.”
“Are you family?”
“Yes.”
The man checked his computer as a woman roared in my ear about the poor service. Even though she’d almost burst my eardrum, I ignored her. Ninety percent of the crowd were doing the same.
“Go through those doors,” he pointed behind him, “and you’ll find him in bed seven, bay fifteen.”
“Thank you.”
“Next!”
I battled my way back through the sea. Generally, when people saw I had a kid in my arms, they moved out the way, keeping their frustration and aggression to a minimum. Lou hadn’t looked up, keeping her head on my shoulder, her eyes closed.
More bodies getting up? What the actual hell?
I pushed through the double doors and followed the signs to bay fifteen.
My heart almost stopped with the shock of seeing him attached to a drip, with cuts over his face, gauze on his forehead.
“Papa!”
I put her down, letting her run to his bed. It was taking me a moment to catch up, glued to the spot.