Dying To Live

by Sam Carter

  “Dr. Allred. He asked me to update him on his patients throughout the night, so I did.” Lucy braced herself for the inevitable barrage of insults and profanity. Instead there was silence. Silence and a smile.

  “It was Dr. Allred, huh? Then why were you blushing when you got off the phone?”

  Now it was time for Lucy to be silent, but there was no smile. She sat and stared at Dr. James in disbelief.

  “Have you and the doctor been fooling around, Lucy? Well, well, well. Isn’t this a pleasing bit of news?”

  “You’re a moron.” Lucy couldn’t believe that left her mouth, but as frightening as the consequences might be, it felt good. “You think because I was blushing, Dr. Allred and I are hooking up? Seriously? He just paid me a compliment about my work. Something you should try doing every once in a while.”

  “Don’t you call me a moron. You may call me doctor. Only ever doctor. Got it? Now get back to work,” Dr. James said as he stormed off and out of sight.

  This had to be the strangest night of Lucy’s career, and that interaction made it even stranger. Nothing was going smoothly, and nothing made sense. First Dr. Allred showed up and invited her to the break room and acted like he didn’t know what the staff often used it for. Then he ran off when it was starting to get good. She was also sure she saw Clara sneaking around the floor, too. And now, Dr. Allred was asking her out on a date? Something didn’t add up. Although she didn’t really care, seeing that she got a date out of it.

  Truthfully, the thing that threw her most for a loop was the lack of help from the lab. Especially from Rex, the lab tech, who would always go the extra mile for Lucy. Actually, he would go that extra mile for anyone.

  But not this time. This time he nervously, more nervously than normal, said that was all he could do, and there was nothing there. Even when she brought up the fact, the indisputable fact, that something was there before, Rex told her it was a mistake and to let him get back to work. It was strange, and it just didn’t make sense.

  Lucy pulled out two different results. The first read, “Unidentifiable substance found at high levels.” Clear as day. But the second read, “Normal.” That was it. All levels were normal. Nothing unidentifiable found. Nothing. How could that be?

  She was determined to figure this out, to get to the bottom of it. For the patients, of course, but for Dr. Allred, too. She could use some more praise from him. She looked closer at the two reports. There had to be something there, even something small.

  And there it was. Something small and seemingly insignificant, but Lucy felt it had to be something. The first report, the one that got their hopes up, had been run by Leah Purser, another lab tech at the hospital. The second was by Rex. Had he changed it? Had Rex changed the results?

  She wasn’t sure that it was the smartest thing to do, but she decided to confront Rex. This didn’t seem like him at all, but it would explain why he had been more nervous and even snapped at her. That really wasn’t like him.

  Because it was late, outside of Rex being there, the lab was empty. As Lucy walked in she saw him sitting at one of the desks with his head in his hands. She figured he was just tired, resting his head for a moment, until she saw what looked like a tear fall between his hands to the floor.

  “Rex?” Lucy gently tried to get his attention. She didn’t really want to disturb him, but this was important.

  When he didn’t look up, she said his name again, a little louder. “Rex? Everything ok?”

  Rex looked up at her with tears streaming down his face. It looked like he had been walking outside without an umbrella during a hurricane. When he saw it was her, he attempted to wipe the tears away like nothing had happened. But there was nothing he could do to hide his tear-soaked face.

  “Oh. Hey, Lucy. What can I do you for?” Rex said, trying to sound casual.

  “What’s going on, Rex? Is something wrong?”

  “No. No. Everything is good. Just a busy week. And my wife’s been sick, real sick. It takes its toll.” He had a wife? Lucy had no idea. “But it’s nothing to worry about. And you didn’t come down here to listen to my life story. What’s up?”

  Lucy felt guilty moving forward, but she wasn’t sure what else she could do for him right now besides let him know how sorry she was. So, she at least did that, before accusing him of falsifying a medical document. Nice, Lucy. Nice.

  “I’m so sorry to hear about your wife, truly. If there is ever anything I can do, let me know.” Rex seemed to smile when she said that. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

  “There is one thing though. It’s about the labs from the kids on the fourth floor. There are a few strange things that I need your help with.”

  She showed him the two reports, pointing out the two big differences. The most recent being that Rex had put a different result in than the first lab run by another tech. Lucy wasn’t sure what she expected to have happen. Maybe he would point the finger at Leah. Or say it was just a lab error the first time. Or maybe he would fess up and this would all be over.

  But none of those things, or anything Lucy could have ever imagined, happened. The second Rex realized what Lucy was saying it was as if a switch in his mind was turned off and no one was home. His eyes glazed over, and he blankly stared right at Lucy.

  “No, no, no. This can’t be. It can’t. No.” Rex was mumbling like a crazy person. He kept mumbling and started to walk toward Lucy. “What have you done? What have you done?”

  What was he talking about? The vacant look in his eyes never wavered as he got closer. What was he going to do to her?

  “What, what do you mean? I haven’t done anything. What are you doing?”

  This momentarily snapped Rex out of it, and the vacant look left. “Not you. Me. What have I done, Lucy? What have I done?” A tear slowly rolled down his cheek. Lucy wanted to comfort him and tell him it would be ok.

  But before she could, Rex reached his hand into a drawer, pulled out a gun, and pointed it in Lucy’s direction. Lucy couldn’t move. Her life was over, and there was nothing she could do.

  “Please. Please don’t. Please, Rex. Don’t shoot me,” Lucy pled, but his gun didn’t move. It stayed pointed at Lucy.

  Finally, Rex smiled a bit and looked at Lucy. “You’ve always been my favorite,” he said with a gleam of hope in his eyes. Perhaps he would spare her life.

  “Please do one thing for me. Tell my wife I loved her. Tell her it was all for her.” And before Lucy could even react, Rex calmly placed the gun inside his mouth and pulled the trigger.

  Chapter 33

  As Harlan drove to his home, it began to rain. Of course it would. Harlan was terrified of being late and this rain, even though it was normal and expected in Seattle for nine months of the year, always slowed him down—especially since the night of the accident which had brought Stacy into his life.

  The rain and everything going on with Stacy made it impossible for Harlan not to think of that night. The more he thought about it, the more he thought about his earlier discussion with Cole. He had always blamed himself completely for his divorce, but now he wasn’t so sure. In fact, that night when he came home, everything was different. Everything had changed.

  That night he got home around 11:00 after performing the surgery on Stacy. Right before he left they had gotten word that Stacy’s mom hadn’t made it. In a few hours Stacy would wake up and would eventually be told the news. The weight of it all pushed down on his body until he wanted to collapse. He knew he wasn’t supposed to take these tragedies to heart, but he had always struggled with this, and this case was even harder. As he walked in, all he wanted was a shoulder to cry on and some reassurance that everything would work out, that he wasn’t to blame. He needed Emily to be Emily.

  But he didn’t get any of that. He found Emily sitting on the couch reading some cheesy romance novel, like he had so many times before when he was running later than usual. Only this time, she didn’t look up and give him a kiss. No, this time she jus
t stared right past her book and right through him.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Emily said with an icy calmness. This caught Harlan off guard. Emily was not one to wear her emotions on her sleeve and especially not one to use any type of four letter word, no matter the situation. Unless she had one too many, and that was as rare as ice water in, well, Hell.

  “At the hospital. There was a horrible accident, and a little girl came in, and I was there to perform her surgery, and it was . . .” He was rambling on and the tears were starting to flow. If Harlan thought that this would change Emily’s attitude toward him, he was sorely mistaken.

  “How come whenever you come home, you don’t ask me how my day as been? How come when you’re going to be late, you don’t call?” She still wasn’t yelling. Her voice was quiet, just above a whisper. And she still wasn’t looking at him, even when Harlan tried to move into her line of vision. She would ever so slightly move her eyes.

  “I do ask. At least I try to.” Guilt was running through his veins. Did he never do these things? “And I couldn’t call you. I was in surgery. I’m sorry. I should have . . .”

  “Should have what? Called me after? Wow. What a novel idea.”

  “I know. I got distracted by what happened. You should have seen her. And her mother.”

  “What about her mother, Harlan? What about the mother of your children?”

  Where was this was coming from? Had he screwed up so much without even realizing it? He knew he wasn’t the perfect husband and father, but he had tried to be better. To be there.

  “She died. She died at another hospital and this little girl doesn’t even know. She’s going to wake up soon, and then she will find out. She’ll find out that because some idiot wasn’t paying attention while they were driving, she no longer has a mother.”

  He thought his explanation was the right thing to do. But he was clueless, as he so often was, when it came to emotional conversation. Clueless about how to hear cues for what was important.

  She didn’t yell at him. He wished she would. She didn’t even talk to him. She just got up, grabbed her glass of water, and went upstairs. When he heard her get to their room, the door closed and the lock clicked. She had wordlessly made it clear he wasn’t welcome near her that night, that he wasn’t welcome in the room that they had promised to share forever.

  Harlan sat down, stunned, unsure of his next move. Should he follow her up there? No, she had locked the door. She didn’t want that.

  Even though he had much bigger issues to deal with, Harlan’s stomach had screamed at him. So, he did what any intelligent person would do in this situation. He opened the fridge in hopes of some leftovers. And there were some, but that’s not what caught his attention.

  In the middle of the first shelf was a new six-pack of beer that he was sure he had not bought. This was odd in and of itself because Emily hardly ever bought any alcohol but wine. What made it even stranger was that three of them were already gone. Emily had been drinking that night. And it was Harlan’s actions that had led her to it. He had failed the most important person in his life. He had never felt lower at any moment.

  Harlan grabbed one of the three remaining beers and turned on the TV. He wanted to watch some sports and hopefully get some distraction from the day he was having, but the channel was on the news and the story of the car accident was staring him in the face. Mocking him. Just another reminder of his failures that night.

  He didn’t hear much of the news report, except a few choice sentences. “No one knows what caused the car to be in the Montgomery’s lane . . .” “The little girl involved in the crash was rushed to Seattle Children’s Hospital . . .” “Although there were eye witnesses, it appears the rain made it difficult for anyone to get a clear view of the car as the driver sped off . . .” “We just received the sad news that the girl’s mother, Linda Montgomery, has passed away.”

  Harlan shut off the TV, grabbed another beer, and began to cry.

  Just as Harlan was about to be swept away into the dark abyss of this memory, his new phone let out a series of beeps. One after another. He didn’t have to look to know what they were. His instructions. The instructions that he had to follow 100 percent or who knew what would happen next.

  His throat burned as a scream built up. He yearned to open his window and toss this stupid phone out onto the road and watch it explode—to speed over to Emily’s house and take them all away from this danger. But he knew that would never work. This voice knew everything. He probably had someone constantly watching Emily and the kids, ready to take them, to hurt them, to ruin Harlan’s life even more at any moment. The only way this would end would be if he ended it. If he found the cure. If he took away whatever leverage this person had over him, this would go away.

  He wanted to read the texts, but ever since the accident he pledged he would never read or send a text while driving again. Before he could pull over to check, Cole’s loaner phone rang and he was happy to see that he recognized the number—it looked like Clara was calling. Maybe they had already figured it out.

  “Hey. Please tell me something good.”

  “You’ve got beautiful eyes. I could look into them all day.” Cole. Of course it was. Clara would never say such a thing to him.

  “Tell me something I don’t already know. Like, how things are going?”

  “We are working on it. I’m thinking of all sorts of things it could be, ya know? So many possibilities. You have any thoughts?”

  “If I did, we wouldn’t have stolen a patient’s blood to test with your chemistry set.”

  “When you put it that way, it makes it sound like what we did was illegal. Or at least immoral.”

  “I’m not sure what it was. Actually, I know exactly what it was—illegal, and I could lose my license, but it still feels like the only option. Something we had to do.”

  “Who needs a license to practice medicine anyway? You could be a street doctor. Traveling the streets of Seattle. Saving lives for free. A real-life superhero of the people. I like that idea.”

  “Wow. That really is a wonderful idea.” Harlan hoped that his sarcasm was coming on thick. Sometimes he had to for Cole to get it.

  “Shut your mouth. Moving on to the real reason I called. How you holding up? You almost there?”

  “Yeah. Just about. Hard to concentrate on what’s ahead. But I’ve got this. I hope.”

  “You do. We just wanted to check in and remind you that you do, in fact, “got this”, my brother. You do.” Harlan needed to hear that. He was a man in his forties and yet he still needed daily affirmations from his best friend. And he didn’t care.

  “Aww, thanks buddy. You make me feel so good about myself.”

  “That’s the idea. Now go get ’em and call us when you’re done.”

  “Will do,” Harlan said as he hung up the phone and turned onto his street. He expected to see one of two things. Either one unmarked police car with the detectives waiting for him or nothing. Instead, sitting right in front of his house, were not only the detectives but two more police cars with the boys in blue. Waiting for him. And he had no idea why. Why would they need so many people just for him?

  Chapter 34

  Harlan kept driving past the chaos in front of his house, hoping no one would recognize him. He was glad he wasn’t driving his car right now. He pulled into a side street a few blocks past his home. He needed to think and figure this all out. Was it just yesterday that he woke up with all the optimism in the world? How could life have changed so quickly?

  Harlan let all the anger, fear, frustration, and worry he had been holding in for the last few years finally come out. He was sick of pretending he was strong. He just couldn’t do that anymore, be that person.

  He violently slammed his fists into the steering wheel of the car. Normally, the fact that he was in someone else’s car would have stopped him, but not tonight. Not at this moment. He was sure that Clara would understand. Or maybe not. This was her baby he
was driving. And now abusing.

  After he had severely beaten this inanimate object, he felt a little better. The issues were still there, but he felt he could face them better without all that pent-up rage.

  Right now Harlan wanted to talk to his parents. He wanted some reassurance that all would be ok. Once again, he knew he was not a child anymore, and it was probably time he grew up a bit, but he could still use their guidance. They would never stop being his parents, no matter how old he got.

  He could even hear his mother say something like, “As long as you did what you knew was right, it doesn’t matter what people are saying.” Then his father would say something sarcastic, but helpful. And he would feel much better. He would know they believed in him, so no matter what happened next, he could do it. He really did need a lot people backing him to accomplish most tasks. Just another thing he had never grown out of but hoped one day he could.

  Plus, Harlan reasoned with himself, he was sure they were worried. He had been all over the news earlier for his Twitter exchange with John Samson. His dad had even texted him about it, but Harlan had not reached out yet. He wasn’t always the best communicator, but they would still be concerned they hadn’t heard from him. He really would be performing a service by calling them. Yup, this would be more for them than him.

  As he attempted to call them, he noticed it was close to midnight. His mom had never been a great sleeper, while his dad had always fallen asleep before his head hit the pillow. Even if there was a chance his mom was up, pacing the floors, eating leftover dessert as she worried about Harlan, it was still too late. He would call them first thing in the morning. He had to.

  Harlan began to drive back toward his house when the phone let out a loud beep letting him know he had a new text. The instructions. He had forgotten about the instructions. Truthfully, Harlan had decided he wasn’t going to follow them. He didn’t care what the voice had to say. He was going to do this his way. Even if he wasn’t so sure he knew what his way was.