Lucidity

by CJ Lyons

  Alex raised his hand to the window, skipping a quarter over his knuckles without looking at it. The girl nudged her companions. The coin danced back and forth over his fingers, mesmerizing them as the gleam of the overhead fluorescent lights twinkled off the quarter. He finished by pretending to throw the coin into the air, catching it, then opening his hand to reveal it vanished from sight. His adoring audience applauded. Alex folded his arm across his chest and bowed from his waist, the oxygen tubing tugging over the back of his wheelchair.

  "Come on," Kat urged her friend. "You're too old for these kind of games."

  "I was born too old." Alex sighed and straightened up in his chair. He was ten years old and he was dying. Had been dying, in fact, since he was a few weeks old and the first exacerbation of his cystic fibrosis landed him in the ICU.

  "You haven't said anything about my new do," Kat chided him, grabbing the wheelchair's handles and rocking him back and forth. She ducked her head down over his, shaking the purple licorice whip electrodes that snaked beneath the gauze dressing wrapped around her shaved scalp. The wires had been gathered in several strands of loosely woven braids before they inserted into a small recorder, slightly larger than a pager, which Kat wore on her waistband.

  "So, do I look like a technopunk Rasta, or what?" Eleven, almost twelve, Kat prided herself on her inventiveness. After all, what else did a girl with half a working brain and no hair, who'd spent the majority of the past two years in the hospital, have to work with?

  "What happened to your Pirates' hat?"

  "Needed a change of pace. C'mon, let's blow this joint."

  "And do what? Go back to the ECU where you belong?" The seventh floor of the new Tower housed the Extended Care Unit where patients on research protocols resided. Right now Kat was its only pediatric patient.

  "Back to the Freak Show?" Kat asked, using her favorite derogatory for the ECU. "No way Jose. Let's tail a perp."

  Alex and Kat shared a passion for detective stories. They'd read the books, watched the shows and movies to the point where they could repeat much of the dialogue verbatim. And now, they practiced the real life skills necessary to crime fighting. They'd spend hours on stake outs, following hapless visitors and staff members through the hospital, then retreat to their secret hideout in the old Annex on the seventh floor to compare notes.

  They were perfect for undercover work. Who would ever suspect a girl with half a brain and a boy with lungs so crippled he could barely walk, much less chase down a bad guy?

  "There's a likely subject." Kat pointed through the glass windows to a petite, dark-haired woman watching the tea party from the other side of the play room. Her skin was pale enough to warrant a transfusion, yet somehow, she didn't look hollowed out, empty, like a HIV or cancer patient. Instead, she seemed filled with an edgy energy. Her right hand was splayed against the window, long, narrow fingers yearning for what was beyond the glass. "I'll bet she nabbed something from the gift shop and stashed it in that bag she's carrying."

  "Or drugs from the pharmacy."

  "Right, the top-secret formula that will cure cancer. You got enough juice?" Kat leaned down to check Alex's oxygen tank. "Yeah, good to go."

  When she straightened, the woman was staring right at her. Their eyes met, separated by the expanse of the play room, and Kat was surprised to see that the stranger's eyes were the same startling blue as Alex's. Then the woman broke the connection and bowed her head, moving away, her pace brisk, hardly the gait of an invalid. More like the panic of a sneak thief caught in the spotlight.

  "Did you see that?" Alex asked, a spark of animation in his voice for the first time in a long while.

  Kat hesitated. Her scalp itched. Not the usual irritation from the implanted electrodes or their dressing, more a creepy-crawly, I've got a bad feeling about this kind of tingle.

  "Hurry, we'll lose her." Alex obviously had no such misgivings.

  She followed his command. "Aye Cap'n, warp speed coming up."

  CHAPTER 3

  Lightning Strikes

  Grace ignored the elevators and jogged down the steps from the third floor Pediatrics Unit. Not because elevators were one of her phobias--they weren't. It was because Grace knew hospital elevators intimately, the ones at Angels of Mercy in particular. They were all slow, often stopping at every floor, and smelled of urine, vomit and the dried sweat of fear.

  Angels of Mercy Medical Center had changed since Grace was last here. The new research tower was finished, all gleaming glass and chrome, a tribute to modern science.

  The faces were new as well. The only familiar face she'd seen was Helman's and he had no reason to recognize an Emergency Medicine resident from four years ago, especially after all the changes she'd been through. Now she had a different name, a different face, was a different person.

  The old Grace had wiled away boring nights on call practicing her climbing holds on the metal railings that encircled these stairs. She craned her head up toward the flights above and sighed.

  The new Grace only wanted to get home and crawl into her bed, pull the covers over her head and imagine Jimmy there beside her, counting down the breaths until she could rejoin him forever.

  A wave of vertigo hit. She leaned against the wall of the stairwell, clutching her plastic bag of possessions. If she had a seizure now, here on the concrete steps, she could do some serious damage.

  She imagined her body tumbling, bouncing down the steps, landing in a crumbled heap at the bottom.

  The thought didn't frighten her the way it should.

  It wouldn't necessarily be a bad way to go. If she could guarantee the results. She moved over to the railing, looking down two and a half flights to the bottom. Soaring, flying over the edge, down, down, that would be a better death than her brain imploding under pressure from the tumor. Poetic even.

  She shook her head and the wave of vertigo subsided. No seizure, no drop attack followed. Probably just good old-fashioned hunger.

  Besides, she didn't want to die here surrounded by sterile walls and strangers. She wanted to die at home, with Jimmy.

  She continued down, her steps clattering and echoing throughout the stairwell. Home, she needed to get home.

  Kat and Alex rounded the corner in time to see the stairwell door swing shut. "Shit," Kat said, ignoring Alex's frown of disapproval. He hated it when she swore, so Kat made a point of doing it loudly and often. Whenever any adults were around, she'd go off on jags of scatological tirades, shake the electrodes planted deep within her brain, then grin at them like the madwoman of Challot.

  Most of them ran away after that, leaving her and Alex in peace. Kat had a million ways to get rid of prying adults--from volunteers to nurses to her own parents. After a dozen hospitalizations, each longer than the last, she was a pro.

  She jabbed the elevator button and was rewarded when the doors opened immediately. "Hold it," she told Alex, pushing him inside where he could reach the controls. While he held the door, she sped to the stairwell, listening for footsteps. She hopped back on board the elevator.

  "Down," she said breathlessly. "Definitely going down."

  "There's nothing on Two but radiology." Alex debated, his finger hovering over the buttons. "I say One--the main lobby, cafeteria, pharmacy, ER." Kat nodded her agreement, and he pushed the button for the first floor.

  Kat drummed her fingers impatiently on the back of Alex's chair. They'd never had a suspect use the stairs before. Usually the hardest part was trying to look inconspicuous while crowding on the elevator with the people they tailed. "We need to steal one of the elevator keys. Then we can call an elevator whenever we want."

  It wasn't an impossible idea. Kat's distractions and Alex's sleight of hand had already garnered them keys to the old rooftop helipad, the seventh floor Annex, and the basement boiler room. Not bad for a couple of kids.

  Finally, the elevator came to a halt on the first floor. Kat pushed Alex out, parking him at the junction between the corridors leading to
the cafeteria and the ER. She pushed the stairwell door ajar, listening. At first, there was silence and she worried that they'd lost their quarry. Then the tap-tap of sneaker clad shoes began to approach.

  "Keep your eyes open," she told Alex. She took up her own position in the hospital gift shop where she could watch the paths to the main lobby and the pharmacy. The volunteer at the register looked at her in disapproval as Kat grabbed a copy of Cosmopolitan to hide behind.

  The dark-haired woman emerged from the stairwell between her and Alex, moving past Kat without glancing in her direction.

  The itching beneath Kat's scalp grew from annoying to nerve-jarring, now accompanied by the tell-tale smell of wet horse. Shit, not now. The magazine began to rustle then shake as Kat's hand twitched uncontrollably, her fist clenching without direction, crumbling the magazine into a wrinkled cylinder.

  Damn seizure. She forced herself to breathe deep, willing the seizure to remain partial, only usurping her arm and hand, refusing to allow it to spread further through her brain or body.

  "Are you all right?" the volunteer asked, her voice sugary with politeness.

  "Go 'way," Kat said through clenched teeth, all her concentration and will power focused on her renegade brain.

  Their suspect turned toward the main lobby. She heard the wheels of Alex's wheelchair graze across the carpet, stopping in front of the gift shop.

  "Come on," he urged, breathless with the exertion.

  "I'm calling for help." The volunteer went behind the counter to the phone.

  Kat tried to drop the magazine. Her hand remained clenched tight. To hell with it. She took her place behind Alex and began pushing him with one hand.

  They couldn't lose their prey.

  Grace disapproved of the new decor in the lobby. It must have been updated when the Tower opened. She crossed over thick cinnamon-colored carpet that reminded her of rotting peaches. From the volunteer desk wafted the odor of flowers not-quite-decayed.

  What designer had convinced them that this decor evoked feelings of confidence or a healing atmosphere? The wood was stained an ochre color. The art covering the walls consisted of twisted pieces of rusted steel. To Grace's eyes it appeared splattered with blood as if it was evidence recycled from crime scenes.

  She shuddered and quickened her steps toward the large revolving doors at the entrance. Here was her escape, her way home. Back to Jimmy.

  Rain buffeted the glass, creating an impenetrable grey shroud beyond the brightly lit lobby. Grace hesitated, pulling her hand back from the cold steel surrounding the vibrating glass. Her breathing quickened and the hairs on the back of her arms stood at attention. Beyond the doors, storm clouds stacked high, threatening to swallow the sky.

  She gathered her strength--couldn't keep Jimmy waiting--and entered the revolving door, leaning her weight against the bar to propel it forward.

  As soon as it began to move, trapping her within its embrace, she realized her mistake. Wind pummeled the glass walls of her cage: blows from an invisible assailant, amplified to a mind shattering intensity. Grace struggled to push the door further, to escape.

  It didn't move. She pounded her fists against the walls, trying to alert someone in the outside world to her predicament. Water sluiced against the glass and the only figure visible was a silver-haired man dressed in black. He stood in the middle of the drive, impervious to the wind and rain. Cars passed him on either side, yet he did not move. The rain blurred his face, but the way he stood, something about him seemed so very familiar.

  Grace pressed her palm flat against the frigid glass in supplication. The man nodded his head as if he saw her. She was saved.

  Wind gusted, blowing a sheet of water horizontally against the door, shaking it violently. When the glass cleared, the man had vanished.

  Fear tightened its grip on her. Her pulse throbbed in her temples. Then the buzzing started. Hordes of wasps stinging, taunting. They crawled under her skin, the panic attack drenching her in sweat, stealing her breath as she hyperventilated.

  Home, she had to get home. She focused her entire being on her goal, ignoring the ringing in her ears, the pounding of her heart and head, the numbing void conquering her limbs. Still the wasps stung and buzzed, the rain thundered, and the door refused to yield.

  She dropped her bag and pushed with all her might, rushing halfway past the exit, almost imprisoning herself within the glass coffin once again. Cold air swept in to embrace her, to coax her out into the open. She took one tentative step toward freedom.

  Lightning shattered the world. Thunder followed close on its heels.

  The pounding in her head grew to blinding proportions. Grace closed her eyes against the blue brilliance of another lightning strike. Its ferocity stabbed through her eyelids and she winced in pain.

  She cowered against the door as thunder shook the building. Then the cold air and blinding light were gone. Grace opened her eyes to the smell of burnt flesh and almost collapsed in anguish. She had fallen against the door, pushing it further along its circumference. Wheel of misfortune.

  The glass cage trapped her once more. The wasps whirled in a victory dance. Grace shuddered, ignoring the tears that warmed her cheeks. She bowed her head and slumped against the unwelcoming, cold glass wall.

  Alex watched in dismay as the woman entered the revolving doors, becoming trapped before she could escape to the outside world. He looked around at the other people in the lobby: two blue-haired women sitting behind the volunteer desk, the clerk with the thin mustache and thinner lips at the registration desk, a security guard reading a newspaper, his back to the rain and cold of the world beyond the lobby.

  None of them noticed the woman's look of panic, the terror that widened her eyes.

  Alex did, his own body breaking out in a sweat. The hairs on his arms prickled as she pounded her fists against the glass doors. He wanted to dash forward, to take the blue-eyed woman's hands in his, to save her.

  He bounced in his chair, frustrated that there was no way he could help her. Fear of an unseen menace clamped around his throat like the cold hand of a murderer.

  "Closer," he urged Kat.

  "She'll spot us."

  "Closer, I need to be closer."

  Kat pushed his chair over the carpet toward the doors. Their quarry was trapped, like a lab rat caught in a maze. Kat reached up to stroke her electrodes. She knew the feeling well. She found herself leaning forward, unable to tear her eyes from the woman's silent struggles.

  Alex's breathing became rapid with excitement when the woman finally broke free. But then two blinding lightning strikes crashed just beyond the doors, between her and freedom. He watched her recoil from a peal of thunder and become trapped once more in the prison of glass.

  Kat gripped his hand so hard his fingers cried out in protest. So he wasn't imagining it. She too saw the invisible forces driving the woman, herding her like a panic-stricken lamb to slaughter.

  "Wait here," Kat told him. Alex admired her courage as she crossed the lobby, purple electrodes whipping behind her. She paused in front of the frozen doors. He wanted to call out a warning for her not to enter but kept his silence.

  Kat studied the situation. Instead of moving inside the partitions, she reached out to grab the door's edge, her fingers barely fitting between the rubber gaskets that held it in place. She wrenched it forward. The door fought her, writhing in her grasp like it was a living, breathing creature.

  There was a high-pitched whine and the glass grudgingly moved. Then came a gust of foul-smelling air as if the woman was being belched from the smoldering pit of Jonah's whale. With a final surge of effort, Kat tugged the door far enough open for it to disgorge its captive.

  "Hey, that door's not a toy." A meaty hand landed on Kat's shoulder. The security guard had left his newspaper to chastise her. He bent down and picked up the woman's abandoned plastic bag. "This yours?"

  Kat nodded, her breath choking against the stench of brimstone and hell fire emanating
from the doorway. The guard handed her the bag, oblivious to anything except his need to return to the sports page.

  "Thank you," she breathed, turning away before the guard could ask any more questions.

  Tsch, tsch, it's all right, everything's all right, love. Jimmy's arm was warm comfort around Grace's shoulders, banishing the wasps and the terror that accompanied them.

  He was there--she could feel him this time as well as hear him. Would he still be there if she opened her eyes? Would he be whole once more? Or merely the transparent wisp of memory that had taunted her ever since she woke from her brain biopsy?

  Did it even matter anymore? Grace kept her eyes closed as Jimmy led her from the revolving doors, back to the lobby with its overwhelming fragrance of dead carnations.

  Come with me, love, he coaxed.

  She opened her eyes when she felt his fingers under her chin, tilting her face up. He looked down at her. His face was whole, unblemished, a mischievous grin curling his lips. A mop of unruly red-gold curls circled his head and his hazel gaze sparked with life.

  His hand slid down to wrap itself around hers, and he took a step further into the lobby. He looked over his shoulder at her when she froze. Have I ever led you wrong?

  It didn't matter where he led. Grace was amazed at the peace his presence settled upon her. She would follow wherever he would go.

  He tugged at her like a child, leading her across the desolation of the lobby, back onto the elevator. Grace stood, watching as her hand moved without volition, following his pointing finger to press a button. Seven. What on earth was on the seventh floor, why was he taking her there?

  "Where did those men come from?" Alex asked after Kat escaped from the guard and re-joined him.

  "What men?" Kat heaved hard against the chair to get it started on the carpet. "The guard?"