by Mark Tufo
“Fuck!” Paul screamed as he fought in vain against the inertia. The front tires spun uselessly as he applied more gas, hoping he would be able to force-of-will himself out of this death slide. The speedometer read seventy but time had almost stopped for the two teenagers who were painfully aware of their situation. As the right front tire slid off the road and onto dirt the car almost righted itself, Paul whipped the steering wheel back to the front, his foot still planted firmly to the floor on the accelerator (as the cops would write down in their investigation). The car rocketed straight forward, the road, however, did not.
The car slammed into a two hundred-year-old oak tree that had taken up this unfortunate piece of real estate. The front end wrinkled up, Mike felt himself rising up from his seat and did not have enough time to move his hands to protect his head as it made a violent collision with the windshield. A loud popping in his neck coincided with the shattering of the glass.
The car was still attempting to fuse with the tree as Mike found himself airborne. He was less and less concerned as the world around him began to darken, his head caught the side of the tree veering and shortening his previous trajectory. The world and all thoughts were black as he hit the ground.
Paul watched as Mike was launched from the car as if he had an ejector seat underneath him, Paul would have also if not for the crushing force of Dennis’ body as he slammed into the rear of Paul’s seat and wedged him tight against the steering wheel. Paul wheezed as multiple ribs shattered, at least two puncturing his left lung. The pain was so intense his body thankfully shut down to prevent him from going into shock.
It was the smell that awakened him a few moments later. Burning plastic—something he was very familiar with. A month after Mike and Paul had met they had taken all their model cars, planes and Star Wars vehicles and used them in an epic battle replete with fireworks and lighter fluid. It was a symbolic burning of their youth, not that they realized it then but it was almost a rite of passage from youth to hooligan.
“That smells horrible,” Paul said groggily, as he fought to come back to consciousness. “Mike?” Paul asked as he looked around for his friend. “Which one are you burn—” The intense pain in his chest flared, he took ragged breaths, unable and unwilling to take in the smoke-clogged air. “What…what is going on?” he muttered, placing his hands on the steering wheel, crushed onto his belly and collapsed rib cage. This is bad, he thought. But not as bad as the flames he saw licking up under the hood.
“Mike!” he tried to yell, his voice coming out a decibel or two louder than an ant farting.
Through the haze of heat shimmer, Paul saw the brown shaggy hair of his friend as he attempted to rise from the ground. Something wasn’t quite right; the side of Mike’s head looked caved in, blood poured down his face and neck, collecting on Mike’s Ozzy Osbourne t-shirt where it eerily looked like it belonged. Add to that Mike’s neck had a pronounced bulge and his arms were twitching erratically.
“Mike, help me,” Paul begged as he watched in horror while his instrument panel began to melt under the intense and building heat. Paul looked back up and over the hood when he heard a soft thud as Mike’s head lost the war against gravity, his upper body falling back to the ground.
Paul heard the volunteer fire-alarm sounding at the center of town and was distantly aware that it must be for them. A glimmer of hope sparked in him. “We’re going to make it,” he said with relief…just as fire crackled through the air vent.
Paul passed in and out of coherent thought, the volunteer alarm turned into outright sirens, but they sounded so distant. He hoped it had more to do with his cognitive thoughts rather than physical distance. Mike’s seat was now on fire; the earlier burn mark completely erased. At least Dad won’t be mad about that now. Paul winced as he thought it. The smoke was so thick in the interior of the car that what little Paul could breathe was now laced with carcinogens and poisons. It hardly seemed worth the difficulty of pulling that foul substance into his body.
“Mike, please,” Paul pleaded one last time as the flame began to lick his right leg. Paul did not think he could be in any more pain until his leg began to sear from the blaze. His screams were cut short as a thick coil of flame entered into his throat and burned out his vocal chords, he had two heartbeats left with which to remember all the events in a life cut short.
Dennis had so violently struck the back of Paul’s headrest he had never awakened; he had died shortly after Paul from smoke inhalation. He still looked as if he were peacefully asleep when the fire rescue crew pulled his lifeless body from the wreckage. It took them forty-five minutes to put the conflagration out and they had to use the Jaws of Life to extract Paul’s charred remains. His mouth forever frozen in its final scream.
Mike was rushed out to Route 1 where the ambulance was met by Flight for Life. He was flown to Mass General where a team of doctors fought against nature. Three times he died on the table, and three times they brought him kicking and screaming back to the world of the living.
Please just let me die, he begged as he felt himself again being dragged back from the light. The pain, the hurt, the darkness, it’s too much.
CHAPTER TWO - The Aftermath
It was Mike’s sister Lyndsey who had initially received the news about her brother. She had been home that weekend from college and with friends the evening of the accident. One of the cops who responded to the car crash had recognized all three boys and told the hospital who Mike was. They had tried to reach the Talbot homestead at least a dozen times when they had finally called to talk to Officer McKinney to let him know they could not get in touch with the family.
Officer McKinney got into his cruiser and headed to Michael Talbot’s house. Mike was a good kid as far as he knew; he had only been out here once for a disturbing the peace call when a particularly big party had raged, but even then the kid had been respectful. He had been implicated in the burning of the Principal’s car, but no proof could be brought against him; and besides, Spindler was a prick. If someone had torched his car, too damn bad. McKinney had on more than one occasion been summoned to Spindler’s office back when he was in school. The self-righteous egomaniac got what was coming to him, was all Officer McKinney thought when he had responded to the burned out hulk of a late model Cadillac last year.
He had made sure to act sufficiently concerned as he took the report and did his job thoroughly, looking for a culprit, but was internally pleased when he came up short in the suspect department. Mike and the dead Paul Ginson had been suspiciously close to the incident, as they ‘studied’ at the library, but they had an air-tight alibi, even if the window in the basement of the library looked like it had been recently disturbed.
He got out of his cruiser and placed his hat on his head. He took in and blew out a gust of air; this was the part of the job he hated the most.
He knocked three times on the door when a pretty college-aged girl with ruffled hair and sleep-wrinkled clothes answered the door.
“Oh, shit, what’s he done now?” Lyndsey answered, instantly coming awake. “Mike, get your ass out here!” she turned to shout into the living room.
“He hasn’t done—” Officer McKinney started.
“He’s always pulling some bullshit when my parents are away,” she said, turning back to face him. “Come on, Mike, he said he’s going to come in and get you if you don’t hurry up!”
“Ma’am, you don’t understand.”
“Oh, yes, I do. He just thinks he’s all high and—”
“Miss, there’s been an accident.”
Lyndsey stopped in mid-sentence, her heart and head trying to reconcile the words the officer was telling her. “How bad?” she whispered, suddenly feeling like her legs weren’t going to be strong enough to support her.
“Are your parents here?”
“Oh, God, he’s dead!” she wailed. “I mean he’s a little asshole, but he doesn’t deserve to die.” She started crying, leaning heavily on the doorframe.
***
By the end of the day the entire Talbot family was at the hospital. There were his three older brothers – Ron, Gary, and Glenn – and his only sister Lyndsey. His parents, Mary and Anthony, the latter of whom had broken long held speed records on the Maine turnpike to get back home, was there as well.
“You would have been here sooner if you weren’t up in God’s country doing who knows what with the shit-kickers,” Mary said heatedly.
“For Chrissakes, Mary, is now the time for this?” Tony asked back.
“It’s good to see some things don’t change,” Ron said to Gary grimly.
It was another three hours of tense silence before the neurosurgeon came out to speak with them.
“Mr. and Mrs. Talbot?” the doctor asked. The entire family coalesced around him.
“That’s us,” Mary said, uncharacteristically grabbing her husband’s hand.
“Your son has suffered grievous wounds from the accident, we’ve revived him three times on the operating table.”
Mary gasped and nearly swooned as Tony held her up.
“Is he alive?” Ron asked.
“He is, but we don’t yet know the extent of the damage. He’s in a coma.”
Tony guided Mary to a nearby chair, the doctor followed. “We’ve had to remove bone from his skull in order to ease the pressure from his brain as it swells. He also has broken his neck and we have yet to be able to ascertain if he has motor function.”
Mary began crying as did Lyndsey, seeking comfort in each other’s arms. The Talbot men stood stoically, but more from shock than the denial of feelings.
“When will you know?” Tony asked, swallowing back the gorge threatening to rise up out of his throat. “When will you know if he can move again?” Tears were free-flowing from his eyes.
“Mr. Talbot, I’ll be honest. Mike’s not out of the woods quite yet. Although my team and I are amazed at his will to survive. The next twenty-four to forty-eight hours will be crucial, but there’s nothing any of you can do here. If you are the praying type, I suggest doing a lot of that and go home and get some sleep if you can. I will have the hospital notify you in the event that anything should change.
“Thank you, Doctor,” Tony said, numbly sticking his hand out to shake the doctor’s hand merely from force of habit.
***
“What do you think, Brent?” Terry, the anesthesiologist, asked the doctor who had just spoken to the Talbot family.
“I think he would have been better off if we had let him die,” Brent said as he went to check on Michael’s comatose form one more time before heading home.
***
I wanted to die, Mike thought as he lay huddled in the dark, damaged lining of his mind.
***
For twenty-three straight days the Talbot family alternated shifts at the hospital, keeping vigil on the ever still Michael. Occasionally, Michael’s consciousness was close enough to the surface to hear some of the words being said, most times, though, he found himself walking alone in the endless void and expanse of his mind, searching for a way out.
‘Sorry about not being there.’ ‘Did my son have any last words?’ ‘I might take next semester off.’ ‘I think he’s a vegetable.’
Mike caught snippets of conversations, some as crystal clear as if he were involved in the dialog, and others as if he heard them under water, and ever he moved, not needing to rest as he wandered. The landscape was rippled with memories, sometimes he was six and huddled in his mother’s arms as she shrieked with delight that ‘The Indians were coming’. He smiled at this thought now, but as a youngster he could think of nothing more terrifying than some injuns coming to scalp him. His first kiss, he stopped to linger and smile at his clumsy attempt to plant his lips on Patty Preston’s.
‘We could harvest his organs.’
That caught his attention, it sounded as if someone were standing next to him and had whispered it in his ear.
‘Let’s face it, he’s been a bag of bones for almost a month.’
‘A month?’ Mike asked, I bet Tara has broken up with me, probably going out with Paul now.
‘He’s not coming back.’
‘I’m right here!’ Mike shouted. No one was listening.
‘Do you want me to talk to the family, see what they want to do?’
‘I’ll do it tomorrow, at least he’ll do some good as opposed to laying here and taking up space.’
‘Fuck you!’ Mike shrieked. ‘I’m a person, I can still feel!’ Of that he was not entirely sure. He was not hungry. He did not sleep. ‘What am I?’ Mike asked. Blessed light began to shine around him, nothing more than a candle held a half mile away, but slowly it grew from the darkest obsidian to high noon. He would have shielded his eyes if he knew where his hands were.
“I’ll be damned,” Mike heard.
“Call his family,” a female said excitedly. “I’m not going to lie, Mr. Talbot,” the woman said. “I’m going to miss our conversations, you were the best listener I’ve ever had.” She planted a small kiss on his forehead and he felt it! He would have done a small dance if he could have remembered how to operate his legs.
This time he did sleep, the fight to consciousness had exhausted him. He drifted off with the wetness on his forehead rapidly cooling as it evaporated.
Seconds, hours?—later, Mike forced one eyelid open. He had once bench-pressed two hundred and seventy-five pounds and that had been a breeze compared to the effort he was expending to do this small maneuver
“He’s awake!” Lyndsey said excitedly. “What’s the matter with his eye?”
“Shush,” his mother said to her. “Mike, honey, can you hear us?” she asked soothingly.
Through the slitted left eye he could make out the outline of his mother, but she was blurry. As he struggled to open his right eye, his mother came into view as she should, the duality of the images had a disconcerting effect on him and he was afraid he was going to be sick.
“His heartbeat is beginning to race,” his brother Glenn said. “What’s that mean?”
Mike felt a small ripple leave his brain, travel down through his chest into his legs. By the time it cascaded into his toes it had grown like a tsunami; as the wave crashed, his body began to thrum wildly.
“Nurse! Doctor!” Mike thought it may have been his dad screaming the words, but by then he was in the full-on throes of a seizure. White foam poured from his mouth.
“What’s wrong with him?” Lyndsey shrieked for maybe the fourth time.
“Please, we’re going to need everyone out!” the triage nurse said forcibly.
Mike’s body arced violently on the bed, so much so that the doctor feared he’d re-break his neck or possibly his back.
“Should we restrain him?”
Mike’s world began to darken as alarms blared. “Flat line!”
“Charging—clear.”
Mike felt charcoal-like blistering heat points on his chest, his physical body again thrust heavenwards.
“Two-ten, charging. Clear.”
The blistering heat came again.
The alarm stopped wailing, a rapid series of blips was followed by the traditional, thump-thump of a functioning heart.
“He’s back,” the doctor said. “What the hell happened?”
“I don’t know. He was coming out of his coma and when he opened his eyes he went into cardiac arrest. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“How long was this kid down?” the on-call doctor asked.
“Twenty-three days,” the nurse who had kissed Mike’s forehead said.
“Alright, let’s bring him back up to ICU for at least a couple of days, I’d like to run some tests and see if we can determine what just happened.”
***
Mike was pretty sure it was night time before he thoug
ht about opening his eyes again. Foot traffic had died down significantly and he could only detect the softest of lights diffusing through his eyelids.
“Alright, we’re going to start with the right eye first,” he whispered. He slowly pushed his eyelid up, he could see a large window that faced the nurse’s station a few feet past. He looked to his side at the large machine that had three lines moving across it, one was definitely for heart rhythm, the other he figured was brain waves and the third he had no clue. He was already becoming foggy with the effort he was expending.
“You ready for this?” he asked himself as he lifted his left eyelid. The world on that side was now coated in ethereal lights, shadows passed by his field of vision. His right eye took note of the spike in brain activity at the very moment he opened the left lid. He quickly slammed it shut, the uncaring line on the paper moved back down to what Mike figured was the ‘normal’ range.
“Coincidence, right?” he asked, again moving the lid slightly up.
The line moved as a heavy dose of vertigo set in, spinning the room on a tilted axis. His heart monitor began to thump wildly. He saw the duty nurse rise and look directly into his room. She picked up the phone and was calling someone. His brain and heart monitors were closing in on the red danger zones. He quickly squeezed his eyes shut; the monitors that sounded as angry as a disturbed hornet hive were quickly coming back down to regularity.
“What’s the matter, honey?” the nurse asked. Hot tears streamed down his face. “Is it about your friends?”
“What about them?” Mike forced through a throat that didn’t quite want to work.
“You don’t know? Oh, dear.” The nurse quickly vacated the room.
“Know what?” Mike croaked. His throat burned, he thought he might have seen a water bottle by the side of his bed but he dared not open his eyes.