by Brian Toal
That done, he hurried back to Chris. “Chris, I’m going to move you.” Todd put his hands on either side of Chris' face, hating the feel of the tacky substance under his hands, and rocked Chris' head from side to side. It would be easier to move him if he could wake him up first.
"Chris, can you hear me?" Chris' body suddenly spasmed below him, his heels flopping off the metal table, his bandaged right hand smashing Todd across the face.
Todd winced, thinking of the mangled flesh under the wrapping. He reached forward and gently placed the damaged hand back onto Chris' stomach.
"Chris, are you awake? Chris, can you hear me?" He shook Chris once more. "Chris, wake up." He reached forward, and with his thumb and forefinger, gently pulled Chris' left eyelid up, freeing it of the gunk that held it closed.
Chris' blue eye rotated slowly in its socket to stare directly at him, the black pupil expanding in the midst of the blue as he watched. Todd felt a touch of energy on his forehead, a touch that grew burning hot as an intense pressure suddenly exploded within his head. Vivid red and yellow streaks of searing, visible light shot through his brain - driving him backwards, his vision warped and fading - then stumbling over his own feet, he fell to the ground.
The noise began once again, the floor vibrating under his shoulders as he opened his eyes. Above him the sides of the metal box rose above him like a long golden wall.. His head throbbed and pounded, as he raised himself up on one elbow. Thick mucus slimed the back of his throat, disappearing in one chunk as he swallowed.
Slowly he pushed himself to his knees, the noise and vibration of the drill pulsating within his brain. Chris lay on his back, as before, his body limp and motionless. His left eye still open, lifelessly staring at the rock above him, oblivious to the dust and patter of small pebbles.
Todd crawled over towards the edge of the table. "Chris, wake up! Something is wrong with me too. We got to get away from this thing." With a huge expenditure of energy he pulled himself to his feet. Then bending over Chris he slid his arms under his shoulders. “Chris I got to get you away from this thing. It’s killing us both.”
Chris' eye slowly rotated once again, fixating itself on Todd's face and then, too late, he knew the cause.
A monstrous pressure expanded within his skull, his ear-drums squealing and then popping in protest. His mouth opened in a scream as he continued to stand over the prostrate form of his cousin, his arms pinned underneath Chris’ shoulders, locked in position as the world in front of him dimmed and distorted. The pain was astounding, growing without end as he felt warm fluid squirt into his throat. More poured from his ears, his eyes bulging from the pressure within. Suddenly his throat was full, thick mucus and blood filling his mouth and involuntarily he threw himself backwards, his jaw yawning open to eject the blood and fluids. Then gagging, he collapsed forward upon the stone floor, a pool of blood collecting by his mouth, even more dripping from his ears as unconsciousness washed over him.
The two boys lay side by side. Todd crumpled on the stone floor below and Chris laying prone above. His left eye remained wide open, staring, unblinking at a fixed point in space above Todd's now motionless body. It remained like that for several seconds more, the blue ring of the iris reduced to a thin line around the black of the pupil. Then once again the drill-bit tore through the wall spinning rock fragments and dust throughout the room. Only then did the eyelid slowly close, covering the power beneath.
CHAPTER TWO
ONE
Beth leaned back in one of the large reclining chairs provided for visitors in the private 'family room' of the Intensive Care Unit. She hadn't slept in over twenty-four hours although it felt more like a week.
In the past sixteen hours she had the boys admitted to two different hospitals seven hundred miles apart. The small hospital in Cochrane didn’t have the capabilities to deal with severe brain trauma, something that both she and the doctor who had examined them felt was the cause of their incapacity. So, the two boys had again been heavily sedated and the helicopter that had flown them from the bush was refueled for the four-hour journey to Toronto's University Hospital, this time with an intensive care medical team attending.
Neither of them had moved on the tie-down stretchers mounted on each side of the helicopter, although with the amount of sedatives administered to them over the preceding hours, both of them were barely alive. Beth had started that process almost from the moment Charlie’s men had pulled the stone slab free and she had rushed inside to discover both Chris and Todd incapacitated. Todd to a far worse degree than Chris, although Chris’ physique had incurred more damage. The clear fluid pooled in Chris’ ear and the severe bruising that was already appearing around his eyes indicated a massive brain trauma. Without a certified doctor to consult with, Beth knew that the safest routine was to heavily sedate him in order to prevent any further swelling within the cranium. He struggled beneath her for a second as the needle went into his vein, his left eye forcing itself open amidst the swelling surrounding it, but as the drug took effect, he slipped back into unconsciousness. Her diagnosis of Todd’s condition was far more difficult, as there was not a mark on his body, but he too had fluid trickling from his ears, was totally comatose and, unlike Chris, even his autonomous reflexes were diminished. As she heard the thump of the helicopter approaching, she slipped a needle into his arm as well.
The doctor in the small Cochrane clinic had agreed with her diagnoses, suggesting an even stronger medication be used to reduce their blood pressure further. Then he arranged to have them flown to Toronto, freely admitting the small hospital did not have the equipment or resources to treat the boys.
The doctors in Toronto did have both the equipment and resources, but came no closer to diagnosing the cause of their injuries. They arranged for a CAT scan for both boys looking for contusions or other injuries to the cranium. Found none and decided they would let Chris wake up. His condition was far better than Todd’s. He looked terrible, with his bruised eye, torn throat and bandaged hand, but besides those obvious and superficial injuries he did not appear to have suffered any brain damage. The doctors kneaded his feet, tapped his elbows and knees, shone a flashlight in his eyes and, although the drugs kept him in a coma, his auto-reflex system functioned perfectly. Todd’s condition was totally different. Although the exterior of his body was virtually unblemished, with only some superficial scratches, he had virtually no response to stimuli and the doctors had arranged for an MRI scan of his brain.
With a sigh, Beth leaned back in the over-sized recliner and closed her eyes. The IC nurses would wake her in three hours when their shift changed. She would sleep till then and take a shower when she woke up. Her sister was driving up from Detroit and would be here in a few hours.
Todd lay on the narrow hospital bed in a deep, drug-induced coma. An array of wires ran from his body and head, monitoring both brain and body functions. Both an ECG and EGG machine purred beside him, the wavy lines of his brain patterns and the spiked trails of his heart rate displayed on the small screens. Alarm settings had been programmed into the machines should any irregularities occur.
A nurse entered his room and checked the level of the IV fluid draining into his arm, providing nourishment and fluids to his heavily sedated body. She looked down at his sleeping form, his smooth features betraying no indication of complications beneath the unmarked surface.
She had just seen the results of his MRI and knew he had escaped death by only a narrow margin. His brain had swollen dramatically within its confines and had actually begun to force the brain case through the opening at the bottom of his skull. Extreme sedation, slowing brain activity, pulse rate and lowering the blood pressure, would often reduce this pressure, allowing the fluids to drain off over a period of time. But Hydrocephalus was a rare medical condition and, in her experience, had always been caused by one of two factors, severe concussion and the resulting brain trauma or a very limited number of viral diseases: meningitis, encephalitis or sometimes syph
ilis were the only diseases she was aware of that could cause this boy's symptoms.
Apparently, this boy was neither ill nor had he sustained any impacts to the skull and, although they had certainly not admitted it, the attending physicians were concerned, the cause of his condition beyond their medical experience. The nurse finished inspecting the IV bag and checked the electric blanket covering the lower half of his body.
She had heard there was another boy, suffering from similar symptoms at the other end of the IC wing, although apparently, he was in better condition than her own patient. When her break came, she would go down and talk with his attending nurses. She felt it was her duty to know as much as she could about the patients under her care. If this other boy was recovering, possibly she could learn more about her own patient’s prognosis.
Chris awoke while the nurse from Todd's room was conferring softly with the nurses in his section of IC. For perhaps a minute he lay still on the bed, his eyes slowly looking about the room. It was a hospital room, that much was obvious to his befuddled mind. He had no idea why he was here, although the pain that radiated from his arm and below his jaw, indicated he had hurt himself severely.
With great effort he slowly pushed himself up on the bed, noticing right away that his right hand was tied to a flat board, each finger bandaged separately and secured to the padded surface. Above that a long needle, attached to a clear tube, protruded from his forearm. He must be really sick, although he wasn't particularly fearful. His body hurt in all kinds of places, but he didn't feel ill. Not like when he had the flu last winter. He had felt far worse then, now it just hurt - like the many times he had fallen off his bike - the kind of pain he knew would go away after time.
He had been in a hospital once before when he had purposely stood on top of a light bulb from his mother's desk lamp. He had heard round glass objects were very strong, and supposedly could support tons of weight. He would have worn shoes, to be on the safe side, but his friend Jesse Hersfeld had been watching and Chris felt he had to prove his point. Luckily, his socks had stopped some of the glass, but the remainder that had penetrated his sole had required a hospital visit.
He knew from his previous experience that there was a button someplace near his bed that allowed him to call for a nurse. He turned his head painfully, careful not to twist his neck more than he had to. There it was. A long cord with a button attached to its end hung from the ceiling by the head of his bed. He reached back with his left hand, feeling for the button and hearing the buzzer go off in the nurses' station next to his room as he pushed it.
Chris laid back on his pillows, waiting for the nurse to arrive.
TWO - TWO
Sharon McCarter had been waved through Canadian Customs at Windsor, Ontario, without a problem, although other times she had crossed the international border between the United States and Canada, it had not gone so smoothly - possibly it was because of the car she drove.
She had begun to teach aerobics classes on a part-time basis five years previously, mostly to keep herself in shape and because she enjoyed the comradery of the other women. However, over the preceding years, she had broadened this small interest in her life into a prosperous business enterprise and now owned two health clubs with close to thirty full and part-time aerobics instructors working various venues across the city. It was more than a full-time job now, but she still continued to market the image. Her car, the clothes she wore, the shape she was in, all radiated youthful success - although she was closer to forty than twenty. She felt her customers didn’t join her health clubs or aerobic programs to get old gracefully. They joined to stay young, be fit, work their muscles, tone their body - and she had developed a series of reward programs for clients who did achieve their personal fitness goals. All of the rewards were clothing - with her company’s logo discreetly embroidered on the fabric - and all of the clothing was tight. She wanted her clients who had been successful, to go out and show off to those that hadn’t devoted the time and money. As the owner, she felt she too needed to live the look. Her long, red hair hung almost to her waist (it was her husband, Bob, who was responsible for Chris' black locks and deep tan). Her Mustang convertible was pink with a maroon interior and had a solid row of speakers raised on a platform above the rear seat. Canadian customs’ guards didn’t seem to like pink Mustangs and on many other occasions she had been waved over for a further inspection.
Sharon had never been in Toronto before. She had been through the city several times, but had never ventured off the 401 expressway. Consequently, her unfamiliarity with the city and its peculiar signage which allowed parking on one side of the street on certain days and parking on the other on alternate days, hindered her ability to find a parking place when she found the hospital. After circling the two blocks twice, she had parked in the Doctors' parking lot, the attendant's booth temporarily vacant. Let them tow it, she decided. It would probably be cheaper than paying for parking for three or four days.
She hurried inside the side doors and was directed to the Intensive Care Unit on the fourth floor by the parking lot attendant who was returning to his booth with a bag of chips and a steaming coffee. Sharon gave him a radiant smile as she hurried away towards the elevators, hoping he would link her with the illegally parked Mustang and possibly ignore its infraction.
She opened the door to the Intensive Care's Family Room to find Beth combing her wet hair in front of a mirror.
“Oh, Sharon, I'm so sad I had to bring you all the way up here." Beth cried, as she crossed the room and Sharon felt her sister’s tears on her cheek as Beth hugged her tight.
They held each other for a long moment until Beth pulled away, reaching into the pocket of her uniform for a tissue. "Chris is awake and wants something to eat," she said, wiping at her tears, then grinning weakly. "He's already playing with the machines and bugging the nurses. I think he’s going to be fine."
"What about Todd?" Sharon asked, knowing he was the more seriously hurt of the two.
Sharon noticed Beth's eyes leave her own as she replied. "He's still sedated. The doctors think he’s going to be alright, but we can't be sure yet. There definitely has been some brain damage," her voice catching on the last words.
"Beth, what happened to them?" Sharon walked over to sit in a straight-backed chair to one side of a low, magazine-littered table.
"We don’t know. Actually, Chris has more injuries than Todd..." Beth began and as Sharon looked up sharply. "...none of them real serious," she added quickly. "He lost the skin off four of his fingers, his neck has some deep cuts and he has an immense shiner around his left eye."
Walking over to a chair on the opposite side of the table, she continued. "Todd doesn't have any significant injuries on the exterior surface of his body. But he has received a blow to his head...or something. Something has caused the brain within his skull, to swell." Beth drew a deep breath and finished off, "Sharon, I don't know what happened to them. Charlie’s crew uncovered some sort of old building. I didn’t get much of a chance to look at it, because the helicopter arrived almost as soon as I got there. But there was a machine inside, and apparently Chris had been stuck in it. Todd left to get help, but then went back inside again, so Charlie could make an opening for the rest of us to enter. When I got there, both of them were laying side-by-side unconscious.”
"Could it have been gas?" Sharon asked. "Like that gas from old garbage dumps?"
"No... Todd’s condition is not consistent with methane inhalation and Chris definitely got banged up from something external."
"So, you think they got caught in this machine?”
Beth sighed, "I don't know. I don't think so...but it’s so strange. Both of their injuries are so unusual and yet so different from each other."
"Can I see them." Sharon asked gently.
"Yes!" Beth leapt to her feet. "I've been talking and..."
Sharon stood up and hugged her sister once again, silencing her apologies. "Beth don't...I’m sure everything
will work out fine. Let's go see them."
The next couple days were a blur for Chris. Shortly after his mother’s arrival, he was placed in a room with three other kids, although the long needle still remained in his arm and he slept most of the time. His mother and aunt rented a hotel room near the hospital, and one of them was with him most times he did wake up. They told him his father would be coming to visit him if he had to stay in the hospital more than three or four days. Later on, he heard they were going to allow Todd to wake up over the next couple days, and he realized Todd was still asleep from their afternoon’s adventure. He knew many days had passed since then and he figured Todd must be hurt real bad if he had slept that long, but he didn't ask his mother about it. He felt guilty about Todd being hurt, like when you convince someone to join you on a dangerous exploit and they get hurt, but you don't. He knew he hadn't done anything directly to hurt Todd, but he decided he would prefer not to know about Todd's injuries until he was better.
The IV needle was gone from his arm now and they woke him up regularly for his meals, although he was not allowed to get out of bed. And the only time he had tried (he was real glad his mother hadn't been beside him then) he had been horrified to find that a small tube ran out of the end of his penis to someplace under the bed. He had stared at the tube for some time, not daring to touch it, groggily trying to figure out its purpose - wondering whether it was just a bizarre hospital way of tying people to their beds - and then had drifted off to sleep again. The doctors came in and did their inspections, sometimes when he was awake. Other times when he was asleep. Gradually they reduced his medications until he was awake most of the time and then - after the special tube had been removed - they allowed him out of bed.
"Tomorrow morning, they are going to let me take you home." His mother stated, with a big smile on her face, as she walked into the room after her lunchtime visit to the cafeteria. "And your father is going to have a big dinner ready for us when we get there."