In Limbo

by E. C. Marsh

  Sandy headed straight to the ICU. Her stomach growled, and after she checked on Ralph, she would get a bite to eat. He was sleeping when she got there. His face looked flushed and his skin felt hot and dry. She pushed the call button at the side of his bed and quietly asked the nurse how he was doing. The nurse was a young brunette, with medium length hair that she wore pulled back in a simple ponytail. The maroon scrub uniform did not hide her obvious pregnancy, her name tag identified her as Mary RN. Mary stepped into the cubicle and glanced at Ralph. “Hmm,” she said with a frown. “I've been keeping an eye on his monitor out at the desk. He was sleeping, and I didn't want to wake him up. But I think we need to. I'd like to check his temperature. He looks a little flushed to me.”

  His temperature had risen to 104.4 degrees. He didn't really wake up, but just mumbled when Mary called his name. Sandy got about the same reaction, although he did turn his head toward the sound of her voice. Sandy felt panic rising within her.

  “What's happening here?”

  “Well, his temp is pretty high, higher than it has been just a little while ago, and people do get delirious with a high fever. Mrs. Holtzer, I need to check a few more things, but you can stay right here by his side. He would probably like that a lot. Then I'll call the doctor and then we'll know more, okay?”

  Sandy didn't answer. She just sat down. Don't say “okay,” she thought. It's not okay, nothing connected with this weekend has been okay. This is how Marty started, only sooner. She was confused and feverish, and from there went downhill. If Ralph dies, then I know I'll be next. Then it will be Tom and Chris, and eventually Sam. I wonder who will be last? Whoever that is, he or she will bury all of us first.

  She didn't notice the nurse leaving the cubicle, but she suddenly became aware of her voice, obviously talking to someone on the phone. Then Mary returned.

  “Ok, I just spoke with the on-call doctor. He wants us to do some blood cultures, and then he'll have the ER doctor come up and put in a central line. It's faster that way than waiting for him to drive over here. He'll be here himself in a little while.”

  “Blood cultures?” asked Sandy. “Central line? What for?”

  “Oh, we'll do blood cultures to see if the infection in his wound has perhaps gone into his blood. That could be causing this high fever. And then he would need to get lots of medication. Some of that can be pretty irritating to the blood vessels, so we like to run it through a big vein. Unfortunately, all the good big veins are deep inside the body, and that's why its called a central line. Now, excuse me a moment while I get my stuff together.”

  Sandy sat stunned. The she quietly began to cry. She stroked Ralph's hand.

  “Don't you dare croak on me!” she whispered. “Who will I fight with?”

  The nurse returned and arranged several items on the bedside stand, then she put on gloves.

  After putting a tourniquet around Ralph's upper arm, she drew two vials of blood. These she handed to a young tech who had appeared behind her

  “Tony, tell the lab this is stat. And I mean STAT.”

  Sandy fled from the ICU. In the little waiting room, she curled up in the recliner she had slept in and tightly wrapped the blanket around her, rocking back and forth.

  A tabloid tossed on a table caught her eye, the headline screaming something about aliens.

  She sat staring at it. Under more normal circumstances, she would not have given the headline a second glance. These past couple of days had been anything but normal. At the bottom of the article about people who had encountered aliens was a phone number and the request to call if you had an unusual event you could not explain.

  Sandy did not think twice. She walked over to the phone and dialed the toll free number. It did not take long to get someone to listen to her story, and she turned her back toward the waiting room door and told about the weekend, about Marty's death, and about Ralph's being shot. With her back to the door, she did not see Ron enter and stand listening. They wanted details, and Sandy was ready to deliver. How long would she be at the hospital? At least 24 more hours, she told them. They would send a couple of people over. Satisfied, Sandy returned to the ICU to check on Ralph.

  *

  The night had not brought them much rest. Dave Smith and Jeff Craft were impatiently waiting for daylight. At five a.m., the phone finally rang. The message was short and to the point: Be at the Camp Crowder airstrip by six o'clock sharp.

  Both were bleary-eyed and unshaven when they arrived, David carrying a large folded up map of the area. They found a young pilot waiting for them.

  “Mornin',” he said, entirely too awake and cheerful. “Are we ready to roll?”

  Smith and Craft nodded. Craft was a bit disappointed. He had expected the corporate helicopter. He wanted to keep an outside agency out of this. It would be so difficult to observe and take notes with some outsider right there. How would he explain what he anticipated? The young man calmly went through his takeoff checklist.

  “Okay, lets talk about where we will be going. If you put these helmets on, you will have headphones and microphone readily available to you, and we can communicate with each other. I control the switch to communicate with the tower. As I understand it, you have some campers in a restricted area, and we will be flying over the area to see what we can find. We have a couple of ground crews out there also, but they are probably still sipping their coffee and trying to clear the cobwebs from their heads.”

  Dave Smith explained the map. The young pilot listened, but never stopped chewing his gum. Finally they took off. The view was spectacular. The clear blue morning sky contrasted nicely with the greens of the forest. They easily identified the targeted area. Its brown foliage stood out in stark and obvious contrast to the lush green of the surroundings. They saw a few vehicles traveling on roads in the area, but they did not see anyone in the targeted area. They followed the river, but still did not see anyone near or on the river. At lunchtime, they returned to the base. After thanking the young pilot for his efforts, they returned to the corporate retreat.

  There was no longer any way to avoid the inevitable. They had to report to Jonathon Brooks. Obviously, he had been expecting their call, as he answered his phone on the first ring. He listened patiently, then said,

  “Well, gentlemen, it seems to me you have done all that could be done. I'm not quite ready to declare the experiment a total failure. No, I'd rather say we have come upon a few challenges and were unable to overcome all of them. Let's just move into Phase Two as we had originally planned. I'll dispatch the Phase Two teams. They have been standing by since Day One.

  “They will continue to monitor and record everything in the targeted area for the rest of the growing season. Since we've had so many unusual events, I think we should monitor the area for a while longer. Would you consider three years to be an adequate length of time?”

  Craft and Smith uttered agreement.

  “Well, gentlemen, I must say I am very pleased. We've had a number of obstacles to overcome and we've had the unfortunate loss of Mr. Messer, but aside from that everything has gone well. Now comes the arduous task of sorting through the data. I'll have the corporate driver pick you all up in, oh about an hour. The corporate jet will be standing by at KC International and you'll be home in time for dinner.

  “Oh, I almost forgot, you won't be expected in the office for the rest of this week, take some time with your families. SERPAC takes family life very seriously. Have a safe journey.”

  Both men looked at each other, somewhat relieved, somewhat puzzled. Jeff Craft was even a little disappointed. This was a far cry from the “Jeffrey, my boy.” speech he had received earlier. Had he fallen out of graces already? David Smith just sat quietly.

  “I want to get away from here as fast as I can. How is he planning to get us home with the corporate jet by dinner? You're headed to Houston, I'm headed to the east coast.”

  He stared at his companion. Jeff Craft just shrugged.

  “At least we
are headed home.”

  Chapter 40

  The drive home was wonderful. I felt giddy, like a little kid. It seemed to take no time at all to get back. We stopped by Grandpa's to pick up Allen before we went home and I'm glad we did. He took one look at us in our tie-dyed attire and said, with mock sincerity:

  “If this is what you look like after a little campout, don't go camping any more. You look weird in those clothes.” I laughed and cried and held him until he protested, and then I still gave him one more hug.

  Nothing had changed at home. The coffeepot still had a drop or two left in it, and the beds were still as unmade as they had been on Saturday morning when we left. I deeply inhaled the familiar smells, cherishing every nuance. Allen just headed for the neighbor's house to make sure his friends had not abandoned him during his absence. Tom came up to me from behind and cupped my breasts with his hands.

  “Glad we're home, babe?”

  I nodded, my eyes were filling with tears.

  “I'll go get our stuff and put it in the garage for now.”

  I nodded. “I'll check the phone for messages, and give Sam a call. I'm also thinking about calling Ginny and Doc to thank them once more.”

  “Good idea.”

  There was a message from Sandy, she obviously was bordering on hysteria. She said Ralph was in the ICU, that the leg was badly infected, and that he had a very high fever. She was saying something about Ralph possibly being transferred to the University Hospital, but she was rambling so much it was hard to tell exactly what she was talking about.

  She said something about having talked to some sleazy tabloid about our weekend, and that she would be calling some TV talk show in New York if Ralph got any worse. And then abruptly she hung up. I was glad we have an answering service, not a machine with a time limit on the message. It took just two calls to get the number for the Holsum Community Hospital from Directory Assistance, and the hospital's switchboard transferred me to the ICU. The nurse I spoke with was noncommittal. She just said Ralph's condition was considered guarded at this time, that his wife was with him and that she would put me on hold and fetch Sandy. Within moments I had a sobbing Sandy on the phone.

  “Thank you for calling me. I am so lost here. This is like being on a different planet! Chris, I think he's dying! Oh God what am I gonna do?”

  “Settle down, Sandy,” I said. “Tell me what happened. You took him to the ER and then what?”

  “We got here, and the Doctor said it was pretty nasty and infected from all the river water and whatnot. He had them clean it up real good, and then a surgeon came by to look at it, also. He said he didn't want to operate because of the extensive infection. He said it would be okay to leave it open for now, and that he'll deal with closing the wound after the infection is better.

  “He had a little bit of a fever at first, but now it is over 104! They say they've done everything they can, but it's not coming down at all. They say its the infection, that it's in his blood, and it's probably a bug that is resistant to the antibiotics they are using. Chris, what am I gonna do without him?”

  “He's not gone yet, Sandy! Come on now, he needs you to be there for him. Tell him you love him! Tell him everything will be all right.”

  “He doesn't respond to me anymore, Chris. They said it's something like a coma.”

  Oh shit, I thought, he is septic.

  “Sandy, tell him anyway. Talk to him, no matter what. Okay? Promise me that.”

  “Yes, okay, I promise.”

  “Tell me Sandy, did they do blood cultures?” There was a moment of silence.

  “What? Blood cultures? Yeah, they did that. They drew a bunch of blood, man! And they put in a central IV line. Is that good?”

  “Yes, that's good. The blood cultures tell them what kinds of bugs he has in his system. Did they tell you something yet?”

  “Yes, the nurse said something, but I don't remember the name, E-something.”

  “E-Coli?”

  “Could be, sounds like it. Is that bad?”

  Oh what to say, what to say?

  “Could be. And now they want to take him up to the University?”

  “Yes, that's the last word I have.”

  “Are you okay to drive? Tom or I will come to Holsum and ferry you.”

  “No, no, no. I'm fine to drive. You're just the first sane person to talk to me in normal english.”

  I heard a loudspeaker announcement through the phone. “Code Blue ICU, Code Blue ICU, Code Blue ICU.”

  “Sandy, what's going on there?”

  “I don't know, just a bunch of people running back and forth. Listen, I'm gonna go. I need to go to the restroom and then I'll get a bite to eat. I promise I'll call you later.”

  “Okay, then. See you. Hang in there!”

  But she was already gone. My hand was shaking and I must have had “I'M SCARED SHITLESS” written on my forehead. Tom stared at me and asked what was going on.

  With a sense of foreboding, I told him what Sandy had said.

  “That doesn't sound all that bad. Am I missing something?”

  “Could be. Just before she hung up, there was a code in ICU being announced on the intercom.”

  “A code?”

  “Yes, a Code Blue. You know, you heard me talk about that. People crash and you resuscitate them. The code announcement brings the Code Team together. In a small hospital, they usually don't have enough staff in the ICU to run a code and still take care of the other patients. So, every shift has specific staff members designated as Code Team. They deal with the CPR, the resuscitation and all that.”

  “And the significance to Sandy and Ralph?”

  “He's running a high fever they cannot control. They have a bad blood culture report and he is unresponsive. Yes, I'd say he's is at high risk for cardiac arrest.”

  “Did you tell Sandy that?”

  “Are you kidding? I already had to scrape her off the ceiling, without that bit of news.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “I don't know, I suppose I could play dumb and call into the ICU for an update.”

  “Okay, lets do that.”

  I dialed the number and the operator connected me with the ICU, warning me that she'd come back on the line if the phone wasn't answered by the fourth ring: “They're kinda busy at the moment.”

  A male voice answered on the second ring. I said I was Ralph's sister from Kansas City, calling to see how he was doing. I was really listening to the background noises, to try to get an idea of what was going on.

  The man on the phone said, “Holtzer? Oh, the man in Four. I'm just helping out here right now. Hold on a moment I'll see if there is any news.”

  He didn't put me on hold, but just put the phone down on the counter. I listened to the familiar sounds of a cardiac arrest being worked. But I didn't like what I heard. Apparently someone, fairly close to the phone, gave someone else a report and I could pretty much hear everything being said.

  “... male, I don't recall his exact age, early forties probably, gunshot wound to the, lemme see, thigh. He was on a fishin' trip with the wife, they were so far out in the woods, we didn't get him until more than twenty-four hours post-injury.

  “Wound cultures grew a nasty assortment of junk, just as you would expect. Yes, a pretty nasty wound. Started him on antibiotics, and he almost immediately starts to spike temps. He's been steady above one-oh-four for over twenty-four hours now. Blood cultures show e-coli. Yes, I think that's interesting. He's been pretty much unresponsive for hours now. Yes, I think so too. Well, about fifteen minutes ago he went into some arrhythmias. There was nothing organized at first, then he became tachy, went into V-tach. A Code was called and he became asystolic. That's where we are now. We've had some electrical activity, but nothing cardiac. Yes, yes. We've been at it now, uh, at least 20 minutes. Yes, still asystolic. Yes, family is here. Ok, we'll wait for you then.”

  I heard a click and his voice became louder.

  “OK, gu
ys, that's it, lets call it. Time of death....”

  The male voice faded, replaced by a firm, slightly out of breath female voice.

  “Hello, this is Mary, may I help you?”

  I couldn't talk. I just hung up the phone. I don't know how long I stood there. Tom didn't say anything, but just took me in his arms and held me there, letting me cry.

  It felt like an eternity had past when the tears finally stopped and I was able to talk. I blew my nose.

  “Ralph coded, he's dead. I listened to someone give report.”

  “You sure?”