Death Watch

by Jack Cavanaugh

  “There is no medical reason to take the baby now,” the doctor said. “It would be irresponsible to do so.”

  “Doctor, I have one day left to live. I don’t want my baby extracted from my dead body. The risk is too great. Surely you realize that.”

  “Mrs. McCormick,” the doctor said with forced patience, “you’re not dying.” He looked at the chart again, lifting several pages. “I have examined your records. You’re a healthy woman.”

  “Josh. In my purse. There’s an envelope with my name on it. Would you get it for me, please?”

  Josh jumped up and dug into Cheryl’s purse. It was odd to watch a man she’d known for only a few hours rummage through her purse.

  He handed the envelope to Cheryl, who gave it to the doctor.

  Boscacci read the death watch notice. He shook his head. “I wouldn’t worry about this, if I were you.”

  Cheryl stared in disbelief, with color rising in her neck and cheeks. “Not worry about it?” she said, a little too loudly. A scowling nurse appeared at the door and closed it.

  “You are a healthy woman,” Boscacci repeated.

  “Are you aware of what that is?” Josh said, coming to Cheryl’s aid. “Or have you had your head stuck in the sand for the last two days?”

  “I’ve seen the news reports,” Boscacci said. “Mass hysteria, that’s all it is. I assure you, Mrs. McCormick, you will not die.”

  “Well, I’m going to need more than your assurances,” Cheryl shouted. “I want this baby out of me.”

  The doctor placed the death watch letter on the bed. “I will not authorize it,” he said. “But, if you insist, I will admit you for twenty-four hours. Should anything happen, you will be surrounded by medical personnel who are trained to handle every emergency. But I’m only doing this because of your near-hysterical state.” He wrote on the chart. “I will also insist you have a psych consult.”

  “I want another doctor,” Cheryl said.

  Boscacci’s eyes hardened. One more time he wrote on the chart. “Very well. I will ask Dr. Isaacs to look in on you in the morning for a second opinion.”

  The door swung closed behind him as the last syllable of his last word sounded.

  Josh stood beside the bed helplessly. “I can’t believe that guy.”

  “Thanks for being here,” Cheryl said.

  She held out her hand. Josh seemed eager to take it. He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze, then let go. But she didn’t let go of him. His hand was warm. Comforting. It surprised her how much she needed the touch of another human being right now.

  “I can’t believe how kind you’ve been,” she said. “We haven’t known each other for a day and yet you flew halfway across the country with me, and now you’re here in the hospital with me.”

  Josh shrugged. “If we’re going to lick this thing, we’ve got to stick together.”

  He looked at her with understanding, as only another person living in death’s shadow could do.

  “Stay with me?” Cheryl said. “I’m scared.”

  “Shaquille O’Neal couldn’t muscle me out of here,” he said.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Itake offense to your remark about crazy evangelicals,” Sydney said to Hunz. “I am one.”

  “Really?” Hunz said, surprised. “I never would have guessed.”

  Sydney didn’t know how to take his comment. Was it a compliment or an indictment? She raised her chin a notch. “I was raised in an evangelical church.”

  “Huh. I just can’t see you standing at airports handing out gospel tracts.”

  “I’ve never done that.”

  “Isn’t that what evangelicals do?”

  Memories of witness-training sessions came flooding back to Sydney. She had attended her fair share of personal evangelism classes, each with a different approach. One had taught her to create opportunities by asking a provocative question: “If you were to die right now and God were to ask you, ‘Why should I let you into my heaven?’ what would you tell him?” Another class advocated the use of a tract similar to the one Lony had given her. She was taught to read the tract aloud. Four steps led to a prayer of decision. Then there was the approach that tied witnessing to other activities, like visiting first-time guests, holding neighborhood block parties, doing door-to-door canvassing, or inviting people to Bible study.

  As with most people who attended these training sessions, Sydney liked the thought of being able to represent her faith if called upon. However, when it came time to actually go visiting or knock on doors, inevitably she came down with an acute case of timidity.

  She compared her training to CPR lessons. It was something that was good to know, but something you hoped you never had to use.

  Like now. World-renown newscaster Hunz Vonner was sitting across the table from her asking about her personal faith. Why was she so nervous about telling him?

  “Actually,” Sydney said, taking up the gospel tract, “if Billy Peppers is right—just assuming for the moment that he is—and the Death Watch is a spiritual assault, then this tract pretty much outlines what a person would have do in order to . well, the term is to be saved, that’s pretty much the evangelical… well, actually the Bible, lingo. In this case, though, it would be the way to. . well, to break the power of the Death Watch.”

  She never once looked at Hunz as she spoke, focusing instead on the tract in her hands.

  “Sydney St. James, are you trying to proselytize me?” Hunz asked.

  Sydney sat up, her eyes wide. His was no small accusation. She could get fired for doing what she’d just done. The network had strict rules against proselytizing.

  “We. . we were talking about Billy Peppers,” she stammered. “You asked what he said about the Death Watch and . . well, naturally, in such a discussion.”

  Hunz laughed at her.

  “Relax,” he said. “I’m not going to turn you in. I just wanted to see you squirm.”

  “I well, I you can do what you want,” she said. “You asked me. I told you. Simple as that.”

  Hunz was still smiling at her even as he sipped his coffee. Merry eyes peered at her over the rim of his cup.

  “We didn’t go to church when I was growing up,” he said. “I was thirteen when the Wall came down. I was raised on the Communist side. The State, the Party, was everything. I grew up in the youth organizations. We saluted, marched, sang songs that glorified Communism. Our god was the land and the Communist philosophy. We had churches. Only a handful of people attended them. They were viewed as weak-minded and superstitious, people to be pitied. The first time I stepped into a church, I was twenty-two years old. A wedding. An old friend.”

  He smiled warmly at the remembrance.

  “An old girlfriend, actually,” he said, laughing. “She said I was too intense for her. Too work-oriented. Can you imagine that?”

  “If I try real hard,” Sydney said.

  “Had I done it any differently, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

  “Do you regret losing her?”

  Hunz grinned at his coffee cup, which he twirled in his hands.

  “I never knew how much I missed her until I met you,” he said. “You remind me of her.”

  That was certainly unexpected. Sydney didn’t know what to do with it. All she knew was that it brought warmth to her cheeks.

  “To some degree your appearance,” Hunz said, “but mostly your outlook on life. Strong, yet always feminine. Compassionate. Caring.”

  “You said she got married in a church.”

  Hunz nodded. “That was the other reason I lost her. She met a man who spoke to her of spiritual things. She converted, and that made the gap between us even wider.”

  “She became a Christian?”

  “It lit her up, is that an expression?”

  “It’s an expression.”

  “It made me angry to think that a mythical philosophy could steal her away from me. Angrier still to think that it could make her happier than I could m
ake her, that she would choose it over me.”

  Sydney listened. Sometimes you interact, and sometimes you just listen. The tone of Hunz’s voice indicated this was a soliloquy, not a dialogue.

  What struck Sydney was how much the man delivering the soliloquy had changed in just the last few moments. Hunz Vonner, media celebrity, had left the room; in his place was Hunz, the man. It was as though he’d shed a suit of armor to reveal flesh and blood beneath all the polish and shine.

  “To tell you the truth, I haven’t given God much thought since then,” Hunz said, “which makes these last few hours that much more puzzling.” He grew animated. “Think about it. Just for the sake of argument, let’s say Billy Peppers is on to something. What I want to know is, what is Satan’s strategy? He has the whole populated world to choose from. Why Cheryl McCormick? Why Lyle Vandeveer? Why Josh Leven?”

  “Why you?”

  “It doesn’t make sense that, given the scenario that’s been described to us, Satan would respond with a lethal lottery. If indeed there is a battle between him and God, he’d eliminate people in order to gain a strategic advantage, wouldn’t he? So the question is: What threat am I to him? What threat is Cheryl?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have—”

  “And then there’s the other side of this celestial drama,” Hunz said. “Why Billy Peppers? Who’s going to believe a street preacher convict who carries around a shoe box full of angels? And why was Billy Peppers so insistent on delivering his message to you?”

  “He said the angels told him—”

  “There you are,” Hunz said. “Back to all this angel nonsense again.”

  He was breathing heavily now. Worked up. He dug into his pocket.

  “And how do you explain this?” he said, tossing Billy Peppers’s cross onto the table, the one he wore around his neck.

  “Where did you get that?” Sydney cried.

  “It fell to the ground when he jumped.”

  Sydney examined it. There was no doubt it was Billy’s cross.

  Hunz leaned forward, both arms on the table. “And when he fell, why was it that you and I were the only ones who saw him—”

  “You saw it!” Sydney shouted.

  “I don’t know what I saw,” Hunz said. “Flames. Two men, one on each side

  “Billy’s angels,” Sydney said with tears.

  “Why didn’t anyone else see that? Why didn’t the cameras record it?”

  “You lied to me! You said you saw him fall.”

  “Of course I lied to you! “Hunz shouted. “Because what we saw is crazy!”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  7:00 a.m. (CST)

  Cheryl was still holding Josh Leven’s hand when Dr. Amos Isaacs shoved the door open, talking, walking, and reading Cheryl’s chart as he entered the room.

  Josh had pulled a chair beside the bed. When the doctor entered, he released his grip and stood up to step aside. Cheryl tightened her grip. She felt stronger holding it.

  “Mrs. McCormick,” said Dr. Isaacs, looking up. “I understand you want a consult.”

  Isaacs was of average height, portly, with reddish-blonde hair so thin, you had to look twice to see how neatly he’d combed it over. Fatherly eyes peered over a pair of reading glasses, and he wore a genial expression that had undoubtedly served him well over the years.

  He seemed surprised to see Josh.

  “Mr. McCormick. I didn’t expect you to be here at this hour of morning.” He noticed Stacy asleep on the floor. “I see the whole family’s here.”

  Cheryl spoke up before Josh could correct him.

  “Doctor, you’re mistaken if you think I want a consult,” she said. “What I want is to deliver my baby while I’m still alive.”

  Her directness caused Isaacs to blink. He checked the chart again, flipping pages. “I don’t understand. I see nothing on your chart to cause alarm, Mrs. McCormick. Why do you think you’re dying?”

  She told him about the death watch notice.

  “Ah!” He smiled and nodded in a fatherly though condescending way. He furrowed his brow as if pondering a deep thought. “What can I do to convince you that you’re not going to die?” he said.

  “You can tell me you’ve solved the mystery of Death Watch,” she said.

  “I’ve solved the mystery of Death Watch,” he said.

  Stunned. At first, Cheryl didn’t know what to say. Finally, she managed, “You have?”

  “You have?” Josh echoed.

  It was too much to hope for. Cheryl’s heart beat freely, as though the cords that had bound it for the last twenty-four hours had suddenly been cut.

  “Really?” she said.

  “Really,” Dr. Isaacs assured her.

  Cheryl stared up at Josh; he stared down at her. They must have looked like a couple of grinning monkeys, but Cheryl didn’t care. For the first time since Los Angeles, she felt hope, and it felt good. It felt so good, it surprised her.

  Until yesterday she hadn’t realized the effect hope had on a life. She had to lose it to appreciated it, much the same way a person takes her internal organs for granted; but let one of them stop working .

  And now Isaacs—bless his heart—had revived the invisible organ that dispensed hope, and she was whole again.

  She could see beyond tomorrow, a week, a year, decades into the future. She could see Stacy growing up, going to school, falling in love, having children. She would get to know Stacy’s little sister or brother. She could look forward to getting to know Josh better, to…well, it was too soon to go down that road, but that was the point, wasn’t it? She would be going down that road. She would see where it led.

  Cheryl had her life back. And Josh, too.

  “Oh, Dr. Isaacs, you don’t know what this means to me!” she cried. “This is wonderful news! What needs to be done? Is it a painful procedure?”

  Dr. Isaacs smiled. He wrote on her chart. “In your case, nothing. It’s already been done. Have a good day, Mrs. McCormick.”

  He turned to leave.

  “Wait!” Josh cried.

  A single word, and just like that Cheryl found herself back on the edge of the precipice. She felt his alarm. He’d communicated it through their linked hands. She shared it.

  Isaacs turned back.

  “You said nothing needs to be done,” Josh said.

  “That’s correct.”

  “How about for me? I have the Death Watch too.”

  Isaacs smiled. “I suggest you consult your physician.”

  “Dr. Isaacs,” Cheryl said. “Let me put it to you another way. How many death watch patients have you saved?”

  Isaacs fidgeted. And with that fidget, Cheryl’s fledgling hope died a stillborn death.

  The fatherly tone returned. “Mrs. McCormick .”

  “Just answer her question,” Josh said. “How many death watch patients have you treated that have lived past the appointed time of death?”

  “Mr. McCormick, there is no need to—”

  “The name is Josh. Josh Leven.”

  Isaacs raised an eyebrow. “You’re no relation to this woman? Mr. Leven, is it? I must insist you leave. You are in violation of hospital policy. Visiting hours—”

  “They’ve all died, haven’t they?” Cheryl said.

  Isaacs made a show of dipping into his reserve of patience.

  “They died because they all had preexisting conditions,” he said. “Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, hypertension, arteriosclerosis, adrenocortical carcinoma. You, on the other hand, are a healthy young woman. To put your baby at needless risk at this stage of pregnancy would be foolhardy and criminal.”

  Cheryl was squeezing Josh’s hand so hard, he squirmed. “Doctor Isaacs,” she said, “one way or another, this baby is coming out today.”

  She wanted to say more, but she was already close to losing control and she was afraid additional words would open the floodgates.

  All traces of Isaacs’s fatherly image vanished.

  Sternly
, he said, “Mrs. McCormick, you are emotional and irrational. This fixation you have regarding death makes you a threat to yourself and your unborn child. Now, I’ve tried to be patient. I’ve tried to reason with you. But you persist in being irrational, leaving me no choice but to confirm Dr. Boscacci’s recommendation of a psych consult. I warn you: If you persist in this unreasonable behavior, or attempt to leave this hospital before a psychological evaluation can be administered, we will be forced to restrain you physically to keep you from harming yourself or your unborn child. Do I make myself clear? As for you . ” He pointed a sausage-fat finger at Josh. “Either leave these premises, or I will have you forcibly removed.”

  It was a hit-and-run threat. Isaacs was out the door before either Cheryl or Josh could respond.

  For a time, neither of them spoke. Having hope handed to them and then jerked back like some kind of bad practical joke left them numb.

  “Maybe I should…,” Josh said.

  “Please don’t go,” Cheryl said. She pulled his hand against her cheek. Her tears fell on it.

  “I was going to say that maybe I should check on Stacy. But I can see from here, she’s still asleep.”

  Josh Leven sat down in the chair beside Cheryl’s bed.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  5:30 a.m. (PST)

  The red digital numbers on the hotel radio clock read 7:30 a.m. Sydney turned its face to the wall. The two-hour differential gave her heart a start every time she looked at it.

  According to her watch, Hunz had three hours and seventeen minutes to live.

  Sydney told herself not to look at her watch so frequently. She couldn’t help it. But with each time check, she died a little herself.

  She was alone in the room. Hunz had retreated to the bedroom. He said he needed to do some things, make some calls. Sydney didn’t pry. Not because she’d known him for such a short time—it was amazing how quickly you could get to know someone when you share a crisis—but because of the shortness of time. A man with only hours to live should be allowed to call the shots. Lyle Vandeveer had welcomed company; Hunz wanted to be alone.