Through the Fog

by Michael C. Grumley

“Is he okay?” she asked urgently, standing up. They both held their breath.

  The doctor frowned. “I wouldn’t describe it as okay, but he is stronger than when he got here, which is promising. Unfortunately, he’s still unconscious, and we can’t seem to bring him out of it without some aggressive medical intervention, which we’d rather not do.”

  “My baby.” His mother moaned. Shannon saw her begin to slump, as if she might faint, and quickly put a supportive hand under the woman’s arm. “What does that mean?”

  “Now, please understand,” the doctor held up his hand in a cautionary gesture, “that even though we can’t revive him at the moment, he’s also not showing signs of internal trauma, which could indicate something more akin to a coma. So that’s the good news.”

  Connie placed her hand on her chest and took a breath. “And what’s the bad news?”

  “Well,” he said delicately, “the bad news is that without aggressive treatment, the alternative is to simply wait this out.”

  Shannon folded her arms across her chest. “So is there anything else wrong, physically?”

  The doctor raised a brow and shook his head. “No. As a matter of fact, his vital signs are stable, so we have some reason to be optimistic.”

  “Can I see him?” Connie asked.

  “Yes, of course, just give us a few minutes to finish some tests and one of the nurses will bring you in.”

  She frowned, but accepted his answer. The doctor shook both their hands and headed back through the large door.

  The women turned to face one another again when someone called out from behind them.

  “Shannon!”

  They turned to find Mary running toward them, with her friend Sue Bales following quickly behind. They reached the two women a little out of breath.

  “How is he?”

  “He’s improving.” Shannon glanced at Evan’s mother then looked back to both Mary and Sue. “We’re . . . optimistic. Mary, this is Connie Nash, Evan’s mother.”

  “It’s very nice to meet you,” Mary said, shaking her hand. Sue reached around her friend and did the same. After a long moment, Mary turned to her sister.

  “Shannon, can we speak to you for a moment?”

  “Sure,” she replied. She apologized to Connie and excused herself, following the two women back down the hall and out of earshot. Mary noticed a small private room with a sign on the door that read “Counseling.” She peeked inside to find it empty, stepped in, and held the door open for the other two.

  When the door closed, Mary almost screamed at her sister. “What the hell did you do?”

  Shannon jumped and looked at both women with a helpless expression. “He, he wanted to try again.”

  Mary stared at her aghast, trying to comprehend her sister’s actions. “He wanted to do it again, so you said yes?”

  “Wait, wait,” Shannon stopped and closed her eyes, trying to calm the stuttering. “Listen, I didn’t have a choice. He came to my office, wanting to try it again. He wanted to help.”

  “Who the hell cares what he wanted!” cried Mary. “This is dangerous and you knew it. You should have told him no!”

  Shannon shot back: “Listen to me! I couldn’t . . . just say no.” She stopped and stared hard at her sister. She took a deep breath. “He was going to do it anyway.” Shannon briefly eyed her sister’s friend, then looked back to Mary. “He told me he wanted to try to help. He’d do it at home if he had to. What was I supposed to do, let him do it again completely unsupervised? He thought he could control it this time, but he couldn’t. Obviously. But if he had done it at home, he probably wouldn’t even have made it here!”

  “You could have talked him out of it.”

  “No, I couldn’t have. I tried. But he was convinced he would be all right.”

  “Then you could have at least called me.”

  Shannon’s eyes widened in anger. “I tried! I got your voice mail.”

  Mary didn’t answer. Instead she stood steadfast with crossed arms, glaring at her sister.

  Sue, who had remained quiet during their exchange, cleared her throat. “So what did the doctor really say?”

  Mary finally dropped her hands and placed them on her hips, still glaring at Shannon. “You remember my friend Sue.”

  “Yes.” Shannon nodded, and turned to face her. “He told Evan’s mother that it wasn’t a coma, and she should be optimistic. But the real message was that they have no idea what’s wrong. And they can’t wake him up.” Shannon dropped her head. The message wasn’t lost on anyone in the room. A thought suddenly came to her and she looked back to Mary. “What are you doing here anyway?”

  “Looking for you. We called your office, and Tania told us what happened, so we came straight here.”

  Shannon thought for a moment, and backed up, sitting down on the edge of a small, round table. “Why were you looking for me?”

  Mary frowned, and looked at Sue. “Show her.”

  Sue stepped forward and slid a large leather satchel off her shoulder. She turned it sideways and plopped it onto the table next to Shannon. “Your sister came to see me after the episode at your office on Saturday. I’m not sure if you know, but I head up a medical research team at my company.”

  “I remember.” Shannon nodded.

  “Mary gave me the details of what happened and asked if I could help try to track down any records of similar cases. Well, I found one,” she said, and reached into the satchel, pulling out a tall, leather-bound book. “In the early 1990s, a medical student writing her dissertation cited a little-known medical journal. She specifically referenced an article submitted by a family doctor in Montana in 1982.” Sue unwound a small string from the front of the leather book. “In the journal entry, the doctor describes a patient who began experiencing very strange symptoms after a driving accident. The patient was twenty-three years old and not only experienced the exact same problems, but also started having visions.”

  Shannon gasped. “Visions, like Evan’s?”

  “Yes.” Sue opened the book and turned it to a page she had marked. “The company that published this journal went out of business just a few years after the article was published. It took me almost two days to find a copy of it. Fortunately, I have a friend in San Diego who is even more obsessed with this stuff than I am.” She turned the book toward Shannon and pointed to the text near the bottom of the left-hand page.

  Shannon leaned over the book, reading. There wasn’t much more detail than what Sue had already mentioned. “It doesn’t list the patient’s name, just the doctor.”

  “The journal doesn’t list the patient’s name,” replied Sue, “but the medical student’s dissertation did. The name is Dan Taylor. I don’t know how that girl found it, but she did.”

  Shannon read the short paragraphs three times before straightening back up. “Butte, Montana?”

  “Butte, Montana.” Mary nodded.

  Shannon looked at her sister and then to Sue. “So where is Dan Taylor now?”

  “He’s dead.”

  Shannon was stunned, and stared blankly down at the open journal.

  Behind her, Mary approached and placed her hand quietly on her sister’s shoulder.

  “What did he die of?” whispered Shannon.

  “This.” Mary lowered her voice. “Whatever is happening to Evan was happening to him too, and it eventually killed him.”

  Without a word, Sue slid a piece of paper across the table. It was a photocopy of the death certificate.

  Shannon looked at it for a long time. “My God, what have I done?”

  Mary sighed, and put both hands on her sister’s shoulders. “Listen, Shannon, I’m sorry for what I said. It’s not your fault.” She could see the tears in her sister’s eyes. “If he was going to do it, then he was going to do it. You couldn’t have stopped that. And yo
u’re right . . . at least you were able to get him here quickly.”

  Shannon didn’t reply. She stared at the death certificate on the table, motionless. Very slowly, she reached down and picked up the photocopy. Was there going to be another one just like it with Evan’s name? “There’s another reason,” she said, and covered her eyes with the palms of her hands. “There’s another reason I helped him again.”

  Mary and Sue exchanged puzzled looks. “What do you mean?”

  “Evan said he would do it himself if he had to, it’s true,” she sniffed. “But there’s something else I haven’t told you.” She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “I’ve been having a . . . feeling. A feeling that something is about to go wrong, really wrong. It’s been absolute torture this whole time without Ellie, eighteen months of pain and despair so deep that most of the time I just want to curl up and die. And yet now I’m feeling something even worse.”

  Mary reached out and took her hand. “What is it, Sis?”

  “I don’t know,” Shannon answered, as tears streaked down her face. “I don’t know what it is or what it means. I just feel like something horrible is about to happen, more horrible than everything else.” She wrapped her arms around Mary. “I helped Evan today, even after last time, knowing it was dangerous. I did it because whatever this feeling is, it feels like I’m running out of time.”

  “Out of time for what?” Mary asked.

  Shannon raised her head from her sister’s shoulder. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  “What did you just say?”

  All three women whirled around in response to the loud voice behind them. It was Evan’s mother standing in the open doorway with her hand on the doorknob.

  Shannon gasped.

  “What the hell did you just say?” Connie Nash demanded. “Did you just say you did this to my son again, already knowing he was in danger?”

  The three women stared at her in shock. Shannon’s and Mary’s expressions quickly changed to guilt.

  “M-Ms. Nash,” Shannon stammered. “How long . . .”

  “I’ve been standing here longer than you think! Tell me I heard you wrong,” she screamed. “Tell me!”

  Their mouths hung open, as they tried to think of what to say. But Shannon knew there was no backtracking. God, why hadn’t she turned around and locked the door?

  Connie Nash was seething. “You put my son in this hospital and now he is fighting for his life! All to serve yourself! I trusted you. I knew who you were when we came to you, and I still trusted you. My God, I actually felt bad for you, and now you’ve sacrificed my son!”

  She abruptly took a step toward them, which made the other women move backward. “Tell me I’m wrong!” she yelled again. “Can you? Can you?” Her voice was icy. “I’m calling my lawyer, and I swear to God I will see you in jail!”

  15

  Shannon looked upward, at the huge glass arch over the front entrance of the hospital. Mary and Sue stood behind her. This was all she needed. She was already struggling with so much; now Evan was in the ICU, and his mother wanted to put her behind bars. She felt like she was suffocating. What else could possibly go wrong?

  Shannon turned and wearily faced the other two. “Now what?”

  “Sis,” said Mary, “you need to go home and rest.”

  Shannon shrugged. “I think I should call my attorney.”

  “Fine, but then go home. Even if she’s serious about a lawsuit, it’s going to take some time. Right now, you need rest.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Mary glanced back to Sue, who gave her a nod of support. “We’re going to the airport.”

  “What! Why?”

  “We’re going to Montana, to find that doctor.”

  16

  The CRJ-701 airliner lowered its landing gear and banked to the left as it continued down through its descent. Even from some altitude, there was just enough light on the horizon to see the large patches of snow on the ground below.

  Mary looked out across the small city of Butte, Montana, once named the Richest Hill on Earth after the copper mining boom created by the advent of electricity in the late nineteenth century. That electricity now powered the streetlights stretching throughout the small town, giving off a warm, golden glow as stars began to dot the dark-blue sky above. A rising crescent moon hovered atop the mountains far in the distance.

  She leaned back from the window and watched as Sue powered down her laptop computer and slid it into her bag. Both women were anxious to land and check on Evan’s condition, not having had time during the rush for their connecting flight in Billings. They were praying for good news.

  They also knew it was going to be a long night. The County Recorder’s office would not be open until 9 a.m. the following morning. Sue hadn’t found a death certificate for Dr. Jim Rief, the doctor who originally submitted the strange medical case, and they were hopeful he was still alive. But the doctor had long since retired, and there was no record of a home address for him. To make matters worse, according to satellite pictures, his office had been bulldozed long ago. Their first priority was to find out what happened to the doctor and what he might know about Evan’s malady. They prayed he would know something that could help Evan before it was too late.

  The bounce onto the runway shook the passengers from side to side, and the plane began to slow. After a brief taxi to a tiny terminal, both women stood up, grabbed their bags, and awkwardly shuffled down the aisle with the rest of the passengers. As they stepped from the plane and into the Jetway, both felt a momentary chill of cold air seeping in from the outside. They quickly made their way up the ramp, where Mary pulled out her cell phone to call the hospital.

  A few minutes later her heart sank. She ended the call, dropping the phone back into her purse. “No change.”

  “At all?” Sue asked.

  “No. He’s still unconscious and his vitals are the same.”

  Sue grabbed her bag and kept walking. “Then let’s hurry.”

  The motel was just a few minutes away. After opening the door to their room, Sue set up her laptop. Once she got an Internet connection, Sue opened a browser window and started typing, while Mary watched.

  “I had a thought on the plane,” Sue said. “Trying to verify the doctor’s status by searching through the death certificates may take too long, especially since we can’t get in until tomorrow. I may have a better idea.” She typed an address and waited for the page to load. “It may be faster to trace the ownership of the physical address. If we can find out who the owner of the lot was in the early 1980s, we may be able to find them and ask if they know what happened to the doctor. At the very least, we might glean some personal information from records or applications from Rief. Even an old home address would give us a place to start.”

  “I’m getting the feeling this could take a long time.”

  Sue stopped her typing for a moment. “It might. Small towns don’t usually have the most accurate records, but Butte has a lot of theirs digitized. I noticed they partner with a software company to maintain their archive data. That could really help us, assuming the outfit is archiving things like business licenses, and not just birth and death certificates.” Sue typed in the ID and password she had created earlier for this site, and waited for a list of records to display.

  Mary bent down and peered over her shoulder. “Well, at least it’s a small town. People tend to know each other.”

  “Right.” Sue navigated to the County Assessor’s page and clicked the Real Estate Parcel option. She took a small notebook from her purse, where she had written the address of the old lot, and she typed that into the blank on the screen. The site took several moments to search, but eventually displayed the ownership history of the parcel, highlighted in yellow. It appeared the same person had owned it for most of the 1980s.

  “The owne
r’s name was Evelyn Sutton,” Sue said, pulling her phone out of her purse. “And it has an address and phone number. They’re old, but it’s a place to start.”

  “Give me the number for the hospital,” Mary said as she stood up. “Maybe I can track down Dr. Rief from another direction.”

  Sue looked up the hospital’s phone number, wrote it on a piece of paper, and handed it to Mary. She turned her attention back to the property owner and dialed her number.

  Mary walked to the other side of the room and dialed the hospital on her own phone. The main number didn’t pick up but the recording referred her to the emergency room for after-hours assistance. When she dialed that number, a woman’s voice answered.

  “Hello,” Mary said. “I have a strange question for you. I’m trying to find a doctor that worked in town a long time ago and am wondering if you have any records indicating where I might find him.”

  “What’s his name?” the nurse asked on the other end.

  “James Rief. I believe he had a small practice in town in the ’80s, off of Harrison.”

  “Who’s calling?”

  “My name is Mary Creece. I’m a nurse in Los Angeles. I’m trying to find Dr. Rief regarding a patient we may have in common.”

  “In common” was a bit of a stretch, Mary thought, but she knew most hospitals these days were leery about divulging information, especially to strangers over the phone.

  “Mmm,” said the other voice. “And who are you again?”

  Mary could sense the woman hesitating. She needed to act quickly before the woman simply put up a wall of hospital procedure. “I’m Mary,” she said, softening her voice. “I’m sorry to bother you. I know it’s a pain when people call me for this stuff. I never thought I would be the one on the other end.” She feigned a friendly laugh, and could hear the other woman chuckle in response. “It’s just that I’ve got this sick kid, and I think Dr. Rief may have some experience with whatever this is.”

  “I see,” the woman replied. “Unfortunately, I don’t have access to any of the older records at this hour. We’re pretty much the only part of the hospital open right now. Is this urgent?”