by Sam Carter
Then, without any warning at all, those reassuring eyes rolled back into her head and she began to shake with a fury that Harlan had never seen before. It seemed like the whole hospital was now moving under the weight of this fragile little girl’s pain. Or maybe that was just how Harlan felt watching it take place. He took a deep breath and got to work, and boy, did he ever work.
During a crisis, Harlan felt like a world-class athlete in an important big-game situation. When everyone else was on edge, he entered a zone that no one else could penetrate no matter how hard they tried. It was like his mind went completely blank; not blank as if he didn’t know what he was doing, but blank like the rest of the world wasn’t there. He knew nothing else but how to save a person’s life. All the doubts and fears that plagued his life were gone. Completely gone. And everyone knew it. Every nurse, every tech, every ward clerk, heck, even the dietary and environmental services (the politically correct way of saying janitorial crew) knew it. They either worked with him and did whatever he asked, or they rightly stayed out of his way.
Clara knew exactly what Harlan was like during these times. They were a team, moving in rhythm and perfectly in sync. Without fail, as Harlan was about to ask for something, an instrument or fifty cc’s of some sort of medicine, Clara had it in his hands before the words were out of his mouth. And this time was no different.
Actually, it was different. It was more like they were in the middle of a perfect game. Every thought, every movement, every action was perfect. They were—and not just Harlan and Clara, but the whole medical team—perfect. The color returned to her face. The swelling was almost completely gone. And her eyes, those ever-believing eyes, were back staring at Harlan and the rest of the team with what appeared to be a look of gratitude. They were going to beat this, and they were going to beat this now. Stacy and the other patients would be home in no time. They would be whole again.
Until it all unraveled with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. Just as it was all about to come together, it all collapsed again. Why was there always an until or a but or a maybe? Why couldn’t those types of limiting words be removed from the dictionary and everything just work out for once? Why?
Right at that moment when Harlan felt he had finally saved little Stacy’s life, her heart stopped. Completely stopped. And so did Harlan’s. As the flatline screeched across the screen, taunting him and showing him that, once again, he had failed, his knees buckled, and if it hadn’t been for Clara holding him up, he would have collapsed to the ground.
“Get with it. Get back in the game,” Clara whispered to Harlan as she held him up. “You can’t lose hope. Not now. Not ever. We’ve got this.”
Harlan looked at her and nodded to show her he was back. Back as much as he could be. Back as much as he needed to be for Stacy. He began again to bark out orders. Helen, one of the nurses, pulled out a “miracle” drug for children they were researching at the hospital for this kind of life-threatening situation. It had been successful many times, so it made sense that Helen would want to use it now.
As she prepared to inject the medicine into Stacy’s IV, Harlan felt strongly that they should not use it, as though a small voice in the back of his head was shouting a warning that would not go away, and there was no time to second-guess his instinct.
“Don’t use that, Helen! Now is not the time.” Helen stared blankly at him, like he had lost his mind. As she opened her mouth in protest, Clara stared a dagger right through her that Harlan was positive every person in the room felt, and Helen quickly put the medicine down.
“What she needs is something we know will work. Helen! Michael! Use the defibrillator! What are you waiting for? Now!” As they sprang into action, Harlan turned to Clara and quietly said, “And you, grab my hand. We are going to do something that I have no idea if it will work or not, but it’s what Stacy would want us to do: say a prayer for her.”
While they stood next to the bed with the rest of the crew hard at work, they did just that. They did something Harlan was positive he hadn’t done in over twenty years. A quick plea for help. A quick plea for strength to help Stacy. A quick acknowledgment that they couldn’t do it all by themselves, and this God Stacy so adamantly believed in would pick up what they couldn’t and add the needed push to get Stacy back where she belonged.
Moments after they ended their prayer, Helen yelled clear and Michael sent a shock through that little helpless body one more time. Harlan watched, just as he had hundreds of times before, the little body in front of him jolt under the electricity pulsing through her. This act would always amaze and terrify him. The person, an incredible man of science, who came up with this unbelievable idea to pulse electricity through a dying person’s body, was a genius of the highest order.
The next few seconds felt like days, but as they were about to give up all hope, the monitor next to her bed started to beep, those beautiful beeps that meant life was back in the room. Call it a miracle or call it science, Harlan didn’t care at this point. Stacy wasn’t dead. She wasn’t better, no, but at least she wasn’t dead.
Chapter 17
Harlan slumped down in the chair in his office after another incredibly long day. He could not understand how he could possibly survive, either mentally or physically, any more days like the last few.
His patients were suffering pain that he could not explain. His patients. Yes, other doctors’ patients were having the same horrific issues, but the majority spent time with him. He had spent most of that day trying to remedy similar episodes like Stacy’s that so many of his patients were experiencing.
Every time he, or the other doctors and staff for that matter, got close and felt they were turning a corner, the world would stop and everything would once again go wrong. No, he didn’t lose a single patient; they always came back from the brink of death, but he was, once again, a failure. A massive failure. And he was a failure in something he had spent close to ten years studying and training to become. Come on, Harlan. Snap out of it and figure this out.
Through all the commotion today, he had forgotten about what had happened the night before at the long-awaited baseball game. Now, it was extremely unimportant that Luke Masterson hadn’t shown up for the last game of the season. People think that while doctors are at work, they are completely focused on work. But they need distractions too. Something to keep them sane. He decided that meant it was time to finally read John Samson’s article about Luke and his dark side.
As Harlan picked up his phone to find the article, he noticed he had missed an incredible amount of phone calls, emails, and texts. Sure, it had been a few hours since he’d had his phone, but this seemed excessive. What had he missed? Had something happened to Jack or Leslie?
Was everything ok? It had to be, Harlan reasoned with himself. If it were something serious, something that was life-threatening or involved the health of his family, they would have called the hospital and tracked him down. It must have been messages from his adoring fan club. Yeah, that was it.
As he scrolled through his phone Harlan noticed that the calls and texts were almost 100 percent from three people: his dad, his son, and his best friend. They hadn’t left any voice messages, but their texts all pretty much relayed the same message, although in different lingo according to the age of the sender.
“Harlan! (Or Dad! or Son!) Have you heard about John Samson?”
“Where are you? Call me as soon as you can!”
“Dude! (Or Son! or Dad! or Stud! Ok, not that one.) Your Twitter conversation with Samson from last night is all over the Internet and the news!”
What in the world were they talking about? What could have happened to a sports writer that had even Cole freaking out? And the little Twitter conversation he had with Samson was all over the World Wide Web? That was not only strange, but it sounded ridiculous. Now Harlan really needed to read that article and find out what was causing all this insanity.
Quickly, Harlan opened a browser and went to the sports secti
on of the Seattle Times website hoping he wouldn’t have to look far to find what he was looking for. He didn’t, but it wasn’t what he expected. Not in the slightest. There, right as he opened the page, was a headline that made his knees buckle underneath him: TIMES WRITER, JOHN SAMSON, FOUND DEAD.
Found? Dead? What? Where was he found? Dead? How could this be? He just tweeted with him less than twenty-four hours ago. How had he died? He wasn’t that old, was he? And why was Harlan getting so worked up and depressed by the death of someone he didn’t even know? Yes, he had been reading his articles for as long as he could remember, so Samson had strangely become a huge part of his life and now the life of his son. But did that give him any reason to freak out the way he was right now? No, but it just seemed so surreal and hard to wrap his head around.
As he sat there going through all these questions and crazy scenarios, Harlan came to the realization that he could probably get answers to these questions if he would just read the article that was opened on the screen right in front of him. Using that sound and complex logic, he did just that.
“Being ever the quintessential newspaper man, John Samson always went back to the office after any game had ended to write his report or his article for the next day’s paper. He often said he never felt like writing while sitting at the game because he was sure he would miss some sort of magical moment. He wanted time to reflect and take it all in, and it always showed in the work he delivered day in and day out. Last night was no different and all of us at the Seattle Times wish it had been. Around 3 a.m. a member of our cleaning staff found our beloved colleague dead in front of his computer. While it is early in the investigation, the police believe that foul play was involved and are currently ruling this a homicide.”
A homicide? Harlan blinked hard and read that last word again, but it didn’t change. It still amazingly said homicide. Sure, someone who works in the media makes enemies, but Samson didn’t really seem the type to do something so horrible, so slanderous, to warrant something like this happening to him. He couldn’t wrap his head around this or anything that was going on right now.
Harlan continued to read the article that, up until the very end, was mostly a eulogy of the life of John Samson. The last paragraph was a plea for anyone who had any information, but it had a little twist that made Harlan glad he was reading it while he was sitting down.
“The police believe the article Samson was planning on writing that night may have a connection to these tragic events. If anyone knows anything more about this or has any other credible leads, they are asked to reach out as soon as possible.”
Like a tornado sweeping a trailer park and not missing a single home, Harlan was blown away by what he read. He knew what Samson was going to write about, and he wondered if he was the only one who knew, which meant he needed to do his civic duty and take this to the police.
But it was such a convoluted theory that he couldn’t really see the purpose of wasting the police’s time with it. Come on now, why would an article about an athlete being a bad seed cause someone to murder Samson? It seemed like a stretch, a plausible one he guessed, but a stretch nonetheless. Maybe he really should call the police to give them the information he had just to get them off this strange tangent and back in the right direction to find Samson’s killer. Yup, that seemed like a good idea.
As he was about to close the browser on his phone so he could use it for what it was made for, Harlan noticed a headline on the bottom of the article about Samson: SAMSON’S TWITTER EXCHANGE SPARKS CONCERN.
Harlan clicked on the link and, while he waited for the article to open, he remembered the texts he had just gotten that said his Twitter conversation with Samson was all over the Internet. Is this what the article was about? Once again, Harlan’s now increasingly fragile heart skipped a few beats as he thought what this simple social media site had gotten him into. He couldn’t believe that this had anything to do with him. This had to just be some sort of coincidence, but since he started going to AA, he no longer believed in coincidences.
At almost every meeting he went to something would happen, something would be said, someone would do something that seemed like a coincidence. This would always lead someone to say, “There are no coincidences in AA.” Everyone would laugh but only for a second, because after a while they had all begun to really believe this was true, that, religious or not, everything happened for a reason. This was no different.
At the same time, Samson probably engaged in hundreds of Twitter conversations each week. This story could be talking about any of those. He just needed to calm down and apply the logic he had used with the earlier article—read the story and maybe get some answers to all the questions bouncing around in his head instead of speculating for hours and driving himself mad.
“This morning we all woke up to the horrible and saddening news that John Samson was found dead at his computer. As the police continue their investigation, they currently believe that the article Samson planned to write may have led to his death. The question on everyone’s mind is if he never actually wrote the article, how could the police come to this conclusion? The answer is Twitter. That’s right, it was a Twitter exchange that Samson had with the user @DocAllred during last night’s Mariners game that led them in this direction.
“Around the fourth inning Samson sent out this tweet in regards to Luke Masterson, the Mariners star, who was nowhere to be seen last night:
Hearing Masterson is not even at the game and hasn’t been seen all day. Not surprising, if you ask me.
“This tweet seemed to surprise many and led to over 5,000 retweets from all over the country and hundreds of responses from Twitter users wondering what Samson meant. As is his custom, he only responded to one person’s tweet, which led to the discussion in question.”
And there it was. Printed on the screen in front of Harlan. His Twitter conversation with Samson. Why? Why did this matter? Harlan continued to read, hoping for an answer.
“As anyone can see, Samson tells the Twitter user that Masterson is not what everyone thinks he is, and that tomorrow he would be printing an article that would explain what he meant. From this simple exchange the police see a motive for someone to go after Samson to shut him up. Initially, many expressed skepticism that this exchange would have anything to do with what the death of Samson as negative articles are written about athletes often. That was until one last tweet that Samson sent at 1:30 am was released by the Seattle Police Department.
@DocAllred Help me.
“That’s it. Samson pleads with what is believed to be a random Twitter user to help him moments before he was murdered. This addition, this very simple addition, has changed my mind. There is something that was going to be in that article that caused this to happen to Samson. The police are asking anyone . . .”
At that point Harlan’s head started spinning, and the words on the page followed the same pattern. He put down his phone in hopes that it would stop him from passing out. It didn’t help. The article may have answered the questions he was asking himself before he read it, but it added many more.
He did not remember seeing any additional tweets from Samson, but he was in a rush that morning and had not checked his Twitter account at all. Why, seriously why, in the name of all that is good and holy, would Samson tweet him for help? There was nothing logical about it at all. Aside from reading his articles every morning for years, he didn’t know the man from Adam.
He opened his Twitter account and went to his notifications to see if he could find this tweet pleading for his help, and at first, he couldn’t. That was because his “mentions” were filled with tweets from people he didn’t know but had seen his exchange with Samson.
He found one from someone named @cheesedancer2001 (what kind of name is that, and were there already 2000 cheese dancers out there?) that said why didn’t you help him, bro? He clicked on it, and it expanded to show the whole thread. There it was, plain as day. The tweet, @DocAllred Help me, was staring
him right in the face. And as he read it his head began to spin again, and he wasn’t sure it would ever stop as long as he lived.
Harlan rested his head for a moment on his desk, and that moment gave him some clarity. He needed to call the police. He needed to let them know that it truly was just some simple Twitter conversation. He needed to help them try and apply some logic to the whole situation. Samson was probably just looking at their conversation when the attack happened and that was the only way he could reach out for help. It wouldn’t take any more time than sending a text. They were overthinking this, and if anyone could identify overthinking, it was Harlan. He would call them and let them know to move on to an actual theory. That seemed like the best plan.
Once again, Harlan went to use his phone as a phone. When he went to push the button to open the phone (another thing he would never get over, just how much work it was to get into the phone on his phone) he saw a red little one on the corner. When he cleared out all his missed calls from earlier he must have missed the notification of an actual voice message.
Curious, he went to his voice mail and saw that it was from a blocked number. He made the choice not to let this linger and to listen to the message now from what was probably a telemarketer or pharmaceutical rep. He clicked the play button and listened.
“Well hello, Doc Allred. It appears that you and I have a mutual friend. Or should I say, HAD a mutual friend. Your life, if it hasn’t already, is about to become more exciting, and, dare I say, fun. Stay prepared for what comes next. And don’t say a word about this to anyone. We wouldn’t want your boy Jack to suffer like your patients.”
Harlan listened again. And then again. And then one more time. The message stayed the same. Some insane madman, whose voice he felt he maybe had heard before but could not place, was using these tweets and connecting Harlan to John Samson.