"Well, thank you," Carson smiled.
"Oh, I almost forgot. We're having a small get-together this Saturday night at my house around seven. You and your wife are invited. It would be a good opportunity for you to meet the others involved. Here's my address," Hansen said pulling a wrinkled business card and a pen from his shirt pocket. He began writing on the back of the card.
"Call me if you can't make it, otherwise, I'll assume you're coming."
"Well, thank you, Dr. Hansen," Carson said extending his hand.
"Thank you, Carson. I hope you will join us."
Hansen stood up wiping his mouth and still chewing the tuna fish sandwich.
"I have to run," Dr. Hansen said wiping his mouth again. "Hope to see you Saturday."
"Thanks again," Carson said.
Carson sat there for a few moments and looked at the business card. He could barely read the handwriting. He turned it over to read the other side. It said Jersey Medical Supply in plain black type.
Carson pocketed the card and headed back to the ER. After he checked in, he visited Mrs. Whitehead. She was sitting up watching television with a white, small stuffed dog under her arm.
"Hello, Mrs. Whitehead. Looks like you're feeling a lot better today."
"Oh, yes, doctor. When do you think I can go home? The nurses are nasty. They wouldn't let me watch Jay Leno last night!" she protested. "Puddles and I always watch Leno together."
"Well, they're only trying to help you get better. They know you need your rest. Is Puddles your friend, there?" Carson said.
"Oh, yes. This is not the real Puddles. He died years ago...before your time. He looked just like this," she said displaying the stuffed poodle.
"By the way, do you remember what you ate on the day of your accident?"
"Let's see...I had my usual tea and toast in the morning. I can't remember lunch," the old woman explained.
Carson wrote the information on her chart.
"Did you eat anything different like something that you don't normally have or something that you haven't eaten in a long time?"
"No, not that I can remember. Getting old is terrible. You forget a lot of things. Don't let it happen to you, sonny," she said.
"Don't worry I won't. Have a nice day. I'll see you again tomorrow," Carson said and left.
The Cooked Man - Chapter 7
The next day Carson walked into the hospital lab feeling a bit sheepish as he carried a paper bag with three jars of preservatives from his newly discovered canning cellar. It was 6:30 am - a half-hour before he was on duty in the ER.
"Hi, Jeffrey," he said. "How are things going for you?"
"Fine. Just fine," Jeffrey answered not looking up from a microscope.
"I found something interesting," Carson said pulling the jars out of the bag and placing them on the black slate counter top.
"So, what are they?"
"Preservatives. I found them in my basement and I was wondering if you'd be willing to check them to make sure nothing was wrong with them," Carson explained. "I'd be willing to give you a dozen or so if they're good."
"They don't go bad as long as the seal stays intact," Jeffrey said uninterested.
"You mean they'll stay good for years?"
"That's why they call them preservatives," Jeffrey replied.
He walked away and looked into another microscope on a table across from the lab sink. Carson stood there and watched him. Jeffrey walked back towards Carson and grabbed one of the jars.
"Look. You open it, listen for the vacuum seal, and then look inside. If there's no mold, it's fine. Then you taste a tiny bit of it to make sure. It should taste sweet, a sour or bitter taste indicates it didn't preserve well. That's all there is to it," Jeffrey said sarcastically.
Carson watched Jeffrey closely wishing he had been a bit nicer the other day. What goes around, comes around, he thought to bite you right in the ass.
"They were old lady Hibbin’s. She was into canning. She would sell them at the county fair. She had the best around," Jeffrey explained. He picked up one of the jars and stared at it for a moment. "Okay, when can I get my twelve jars?"
"Tomorrow. I'll bring them in tomorrow morning. Can you run some tests on it by then?" Carson said holding out his hand, but Jeffrey just looked at it and turned away.
"I guess," Jeffrey said reluctantly from the other side of the room.
“Thanks. I was in a bad mood the other day and I apologize for my behavior.”
Jeffrey raised his hand in a gesture that said it is all right, but I'm on the fence about being friendly. Carson left feeling that he would never know if he could believe Jeffrey. He headed for the ER and forgot about it. A nurse sitting behind the ER station stood up as he approached.
"There's a message for you from the chief of surgery," the nurse informed him. "He wants to see you in his office right away."
"Doctor Stokes?"
"That's him. He is chief of surgery," the nurse replied shaking her head.
"Okay. I'm on my way," Carson replied thinking that he was in trouble from the fracas with Graber the day before.
When he walked in Stokes was sitting behind a cherry wood desk with a green banker's lamp sitting like an island in a vast dark brown sea in the center of the desktop.
"Hello, Doctor Hyll," Stokes said smiling.
"Hi," Carson said.
The room was silent.
"Sir, I would like to apologize for yesterday's outburst. It's just that I'm feeling very frustrated lately."
"Typical doldrums," Stokes cut him off. "I experienced the same feelings when I was just starting out back in the ice age."
Carson laughed.
"I shouldn't have sounded off yesterday," Carson said.
"Nonsense," Stokes said. "Graber must have sounded pretty ridiculous telling one of my colleagues that a patient's symptoms are an act of God. I think if I were you, I would have reacted the same way. It's just that Graber has a pretty good reputation around here - a lot of doctors respect him, and I suspect his head has gotten a bit too big for his shoulders. You took a stand against something you didn’t believe in and I liked that."
"Well, I did think his statement was ridiculous, especially when I had identical symptoms," Carson replied. "We're not talking about hypothetical situations here - I experienced it first hand."
"Yes, I know and that scares me," Stokes said.
"You? What do you mean?"
Well, first I'd like to say that I misjudged you. For years now, doctors like yourself would come here, stay for a while to get experience, and leave. There are always plenty of residencies here because we are the last choice. So we get all the interns that couldn't get a residency anywhere else. I feel like we're used all the time. They all leave for the bigger hospitals. I thought you were that type of person. But after I witnessed your determination to save Mrs. Whitehead, I was convinced that you really cared about Ocean Village and its residents, even if we are a bunch of holy rollers with graying hair and polyester pants," Stokes explained. "As for Graber, he's a bit too much with religion. He takes it too seriously sometimes. What scares me is that I used to be just like him."
"You were? What changed that?" Carson asked.
"Vietnam. I was one of the lucky ones - my lottery number was 386. We lost fourteen from Ocean Village. Fourteen young men, boys I should say, and that convinced me that religion wasn't the most important thing in life - life is much more important and how you live it. The clincher was that of those fourteen, some were very religious and some were not, yet they all died, so it didn't matter if they went to church every Sunday. What mattered is what they did while they were alive and what they did for this community and the people who live here. What mattered is how they treated others and what they did for them."
"Why are you telling me all this?"
"Because things are happening here that have no explanation and it's got me rattled," Stokes said.
"You? Rattled?" Carson blurted out.
/> Stokes' face was a mask of stone.
"A man died here about fifteen to twenty years ago. He was hysterical just like you and Mrs. Whitehead, and he had the same symptoms," Stokes explained. "And just like you and Mrs. Whitehead, his blood was clean, nothing that could cause the symptoms..."
"Do you remember his name?" Carson asked.
"Never knew his name. I just heard about it through the other doctors. I often thought of looking into it, but I was always too busy."
"Maybe we can pull his records and see if there is a correlation," Carson said. "Do you remember the year?"
"Around 1985 I think."
"That's close enough. We can start at that year and go back to 1980 and forward to 1990."
"It's an awful lot of records. Are you sure?" Stokes asked.
Carson nodded.
"Okay then, I’ll have accounting pull the records for you between those years. That's what I like about you, Carson - we think the same. You have a lot of work ahead of you. Nothing was computerized then. You'll have to sift through the records by hand. I don't know where you are going to find the time."
"When will they have the records?" Carson asked. "I'm on call tonight, so I might be able to get through some of them. We have to know if there’s a correlation. We have to try to find out what it is."
"You're right. You're going to do well here," Stokes said. "Again, I apologize for misjudging you."
"Thanks. What did he die of?" Carson asked.
"He was cooked. His skin had 2nd degree sunburn and all of his internal organs were cooked as if he were in a microwave.
Kyle Mabus - Chapter 8
The woman struggled to reach the top shelf of her bookshelf to retrieve the box of Tarot cards. Her stubby fingers barely touched the box as she stood on her toes. Finally, she could no longer hold the stretch, already out of breath and puffing hard. The cards tumbled off the shelf and spilled onto her worn, dirty Persian rug. She struggled to bend over and pick up the cards - all faced down except one. She stared at the Death card and shuddered slightly and her hands began to shake, but she quickly blew the thought out of her mind and continued to pick up the Tarot cards.
The woman slowly stood up, still out of breath, and moved cautiously to the flowered, overstuffed couch in her tiny apartment. She placed the cards on the dust-covered glass coffee table and waited. She knew that in eight minutes her seven thirty appointment would knock on the door. She knew he would be five minutes late. At exactly 7:35, the door thundered with a knock.
"Come in," she struggled to get out. The door opened and the young man with brown hair down to his shoulders entered the cluttered room. He looked exactly like she had seen him in her mind's eye two weeks ago when she talked with him on the phone to schedule the appointment. She knew he would wear his faded yellow t-shirt with several holes around the seams, and she knew he would be her last appointment that day.
"Hello, Kyle," she said as if she knew him.
The young man hesitated at her tone then said, "Hi."
"Sit down. Would you like something to drink?"
"No."
The tall, young man moved his lanky frame into a worn rattan chair next to the sofa. The interwoven straw let out an agonizing sigh as if it were too tired to hold the man's weight. The woman watched him carefully.
"Is this your first time?" she asked.
"No. It's fifty, right?"
"Yes."
Kyle dug into his black jeans and pulled out two twenties and a ten. He handed the money to the woman. She took the bills and stuffed them into a pocket located somewhere in the lower part of her boring paisley dress that floated on her body like a bed sheet flapping in the wind.
"Okay. Let's start," she said.
The woman leaned over and picked up a small silver wire that looped to form a lower case letter "l". She held both ends of the wire, closed her eyes, and shook the wire in front of Kyle. Then she opened her eyes.
"You were not born here. You were born in Asia...Vietnam I think. Your father was an American soldier, but your mother was not an American. She was Vietnamese. Your father was killed there and you have never met him, you don't know him..." The woman shook the wire again. A frown formed on her bulbous head.
"Your father has been trying to contact you. He is very troubled...he is standing behind you right now!"
Kyle quickly turned and saw nothing. His eyes were wide and he tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair.
"How do you know this?"
"I don't know. I just tell what I see."
The woman shook the wire at Kyle again.
"You will meet a young girl who will betray you, but she will have good reason to do so. She will see things differently from you," the woman said. "You have met this woman before...she will be your lover, and then your enemy."
She shook the wire again. "I see you in a soldier's uniform, but... I can't see your face. I know it's you though. It's another time...everything including the clothes the woman next to you is wearing is from that time. I see...I see...a Nazi insignia on your shirt sleeve!"
The woman opened her eyes and took a deep breath. "I saw one of your past lives," she said. Her forehead began to shine slightly. "I better open a window."
"No, wait. Tell me more. I want to know more about this past life."
"I sensed something very evil there, something that was trying to get into me...something that wanted to leave that time and enter ours..." the woman looked deeply into Kyle's eyes. He shifted his weight and the chair groaned again.
The woman took a deep breath, and then shook the wire again.
"I see you again. You are standing next to a table, a map table. You have stood there many times before...you have made many decisions that have affected the lives of hundreds...no hundreds of thousands of people..."
The woman's eyes suddenly rolled up into her head and her body collapsed onto the sofa. A few seconds later, she picked up her head and gasped for air. She started talking again.
"I know who you are. I know you're the Antichrist and you must be destroyed. I have proof. You are evil incarnate! You must be stopped. You are EVIL! EVIL! EVIL! I will not allow you to enter our time!"
The woman spit into the air. Kyle moved back on his chair. The spit landed on the rug and slowly disappeared.
The woman's eyes rolled downward and she looked at Kyle. "Oh...Oh...how awful...you killed her right there! I must stop! That was horrible."
"What happened?"
"You aimed a gun at a young girl's head and fired. You killed her instantly because she spit in your face. It was terrible," the woman explained. "Her hands were tied behind her back. She was responsible for disrupting your plans. She even tried to assassinate you several times. You were some kind of leader of something big...not a company...something bigger, much bigger." The psychic's face was flushed.
"Tell me more! Tell me more!" Kyle said. "I want to know more!"
"The girl is the same woman who will betray you in this lifetime..." The woman turned pale and her eyes filled with fear. The beads of sweat rolled down the side of her face.
"That's all I know now," she said.
"Go back! I want to know more!" Kyle said.
"No. I don't want to. I can't! Something evil is trying to escape that time into our own - something very evil," the woman explained. She reached down into the pocket in her dress and drew up the two twenties and the ten-dollar bill.
"Here, take your money back. I'm not going any further," she said standing up and holding the money out.
"You know more, but won't tell me!" Kyle yelled.
"No, I don't. Something evil is..."
The woman's hand holding the money stopped moving forward. Her flushed face froze and her large round body lost its stature and she collapsed to the floor crushing the glass coffee table under her weight. The glass cracked into several large pieces and the table's metal legs were distorted into unnatural shapes. Kyle leaned down to get closer to the woman. Suddenly, her
eyes came to life and she started speaking another language in a deep, haunting voice. Kyle was surprised that he could understand the language.
"Wait. I want you to know that this is not the end, Eva. It is the end of the Third Reich and National Socialism, but it is not the end of my work. I will return near the end of the millennium. I have been here before and I will come again," the deep voice said.
Absence of Faith Page 5