Death Watch

by Elizabeth Forrest

  The nurse shrugged, her starched whites rustling. “I’m not going to be doing anything.” She set the chair brakes with the toe of her shoe. “I’ll be back in an hour,” she directed at Susan Craig.

  Miller sat at a computer console and monitor, leaning back in the chair he’d swiveled around to see the action. A smirk crinkled his features.

  The doctor looked up coolly. “Is there a problem?”

  “Damn right there’s a problem. He needs to be in bed, recovering. You’re hauling him around, monitors and all—”

  Susan Craig parted her lips slightly, pleasantly, icily. “This is part of his recovery.” She looked at Ibrahim Walker. “You’ve had a stroke, Mr. Walker, and part of what you’ve lost is your speech. Therapy session will be short today, working the soundboard takes training. We’ll also be asking you to do some exercises to build up the strength you’ve lost in your left arm and hand, but I’m not going to ask you to do anything beyond your limit. These measures will help, whether your impairment is short-term or long-term.”

  She looked up then, over Ibie Walker’s grayed head and said, “Is that understood?” to the young woman’s heated expression.

  The male aide put an arm in between them, saying smoothly, “Sounds jus’ like what the doctor ordered.”

  “Since I am a doctor,” Susan commented, getting to her feet, “I couldn’t agree more. Mr. Walker?”

  The young woman’s café au lait skin flushed slightly darker. “As you all remarked, he can’t speak for himself.”

  “Of course he can,” Susan interjected. “As I saw when you wheeled him in. You’ve already worked out a few hand signals. Well, is this session yea or nay? If you don’t feel strong enough, I can reschedule you for tomorrow.” She swung the headset in her hand, cord dangling.

  Walker moved his right hand. It trembled, but even Mac could see there was a definite pattern to it.

  His aide took a deep breath, then set her jaw. “All right,” she said. “But I don’t want to leave him.”

  “You don’t need to.”

  The Hispanic man shifted weight. “I have those faxes—”

  “All right, all right, Rafi. Go on. I’ll see you after the office shuts down, at six.” Still flushed, the young woman looked up angrily, then dropped her hand protectively to Ibie’s shoulder.

  “Good enough.” He turned and left.

  Susan shook out the cable to the headset and leaned forward, placing it on Walker. It wrapped over the top of the skull conventionally, but there were three fingerlike arms that lay over his cheek, temple, and jaw. The doctor took a few minutes to satisfy herself with the placement. When she was done, she unlocked the wheelchair’s brake, and said to the aide, “Steer the monitor, will you?” as she drove the chair to the computer setup where Miller sat waiting.

  “What’s going on here?”

  Susan fed the cable to Miller, who plugged it into the setup. “Know anything about biofeedback?”

  “A little.” The muscles along the young woman’s jaw worked.

  Susan looked amused. It seemed she had noticed the tension as well. “Actually,” she said, and pointed to the aide’s face with her finger. “That’s how it works. This picks up muscle groups as they tense. Even very minor shifts. It converts the tension to sound groups. The computer interprets the sound groups and signals the soundboard to electronically make that sound. That is somewhat simplified, but basically, that’s what we’re going to be doing.” She looked down at Ibie. “Arch an eyebrow and you could be telling them of a personal need. Whatever. Conversations will be basic, but you will be able to voice some of your concerns.”

  The young woman rocked back on a heel. “Really?”

  “Really. It’ll take some training. Tomorrow the speech therapist will be up here, doing most of the real work. I’m just introducing it for her today. It’s new, but it’s been a successful program.”

  “How limited is the speech?”

  “It’s expanding every day as we learn more about the technology. Though,” and Susan dropped a fond glance down at Walker, “we won’t hear any of your oratories from the soundboard. We haven’t come that far, yet.”

  He jerked his hand impatiently.

  Mac sat back. The real warmth in Susan Craig’s voice was reserved for the technology, not the patient, and she supposed that was what set Brand off about her. Kids were always so much quicker to pick up the phoniness. The doctor set off a certain uneasiness in McKenzie, too, but there was no doubt Craig had been there last night when Mac needed her.

  At Ibie Walker’s bedside.

  Craig stepped back.

  “What are you doing?” the aide demanded.

  Susan swept an arm at the station.

  “All it takes is Miller. We’re going to let Mr. Walker see just what kinds of noises certain movements produce.”

  Across the room, the computer began to grunt and squeal. Then it made a series of “Ta” sounds.

  It was not a human voice, but by the time Susan indicated satisfaction, Ibie Walker had learned to make vowel sounds and the consonants T and N. His aide had put one curved hip against the table, body language reading that her judgment, at least for the day, had been suspended.

  Under the VR helmet, face partially obscured, the wizened hand Velcroed into its glove, the councilman looked less assured.

  His aide stared defiantly at Susan. “What are you doing now?”

  “This is a virtual reality program. All we’re doing is asking him to react to the simple 3-D exercises he’s watching. One hand and then the other. It’s strictly repetitive. Tomorrow, again, the program will be more specialized for him.”

  Walker brought up his right hand, made a gloved fist. The left wobbled, wavered, almost accomplished a like maneuver. After five minutes of raising, opening, and closing, the left could scarcely lift off his robed lap. Susan reached over and tapped Miller on the shoulder.

  “That’s enough for today.”

  Her assistant shut down the program and helped strip the helmet and gloves from Walker. The elderly man’s color had grayed slightly, but the monitor showed his vitals still strong.

  Susan said, “That was a good session.”

  She leaned down, and looked into Ibie Walker’s eyes. “Tomorrow,” she added, “we’ll have something special for you. We’ll make some real progress.”

  Ibie’s hand quivered as though he tried to make a gesture, but fatigue defeated him. He sagged back slightly into the wheelchair.

  Susan straightened. “Miller, please help Mr. Walker and his assistant back to ICU.”

  Miller took the chair, rotating it around, leaving the monitor and IV stands to the aide.

  As they passed, the councilman’s measuring gaze wavered over McKenzie again. The coffee-dark eyes held hers.

  Then Miller leaned into the chair, hurrying it across the lab. Mac wet lips suddenly gone dry. There had been a look in the elderly man’s eyes, a plea, a fear that had not been there before. She sat there wondering if she had seen what she had seen.

  “You’re next.”

  McKenzie started. Susan had crossed the lab room without her even noticing.

  “Already?”

  Craig reached for the virtual reality helmet connected to the computer station at Mac’s elbow. “You’re the one who’s going to be getting a real workout.”

  She settled the helmet over McKenzie’s brow and darkness descended.

  The doctor’s voice, when it reached her, sounded very muffled. “First, I’m going to run a program we have here, it’s an architectural program, shows the basic layouts and floor plans of homes. I want you to talk to me, describing the house first, where the doors are, the furniture, and we’ll animate it. Let us know when we’re close.”

  Mac looked into the visor, seeing the program as if a projector had been starting—showing nothing. “California tract home, mid-fifties,” she said. “Stucco outside, three bedrooms, one bathroom, a living room, kitchen with eating nook. No din
ing room. About fifteen hundred square feet, built absolutely square.”

  A 3-D outline of a house played onto the screen, rotating on its axis. It made her ache dully somewhere behind her eyes to watch it. It settled into place.

  “Porch?” asked Susan faintly.

  “A step up porch, two steps, to the front door. Two column beams on the porch. There’s a little rooflike eaves over that.”

  The porch roof came out of nowhere as if a genie had blinked it into being. And, how odd, it looked a little like her home, if her home were only a stick figure of a building, with no solid walls. She looked into the architectural rendering. As she spoke, the bedrooms and kitchen and bathroom realigned themselves, the drawing a virtual carousel until she said, “That’s it.”

  “Close enough?”

  If it were any more accurate, she’d say they’d were dead on. “Yes,” Mac murmured, intent on the drawing. “Except for the back steps.”

  “Is that important?”

  “Yes. It’s where—it’s where Jack attacked my father.”

  “Okay, then we’ll work on that. Tell us what you want to see.”

  She wondered what Miller was doing, if he was punching in numbers, if he saw what she saw, through cables wire thin. The helmet weighed on the bridge of her nose. She felt a drop of perspiration run across her cheek and along her jaw. She put a hand up to wipe it away, and the VR glove stopped her.

  “Whoa!” Miller’s voice. “What are you doing?”

  “Twitching,” she said apologetically. “Sorry.” Her house had begun to come apart, sliding off its foundation as if sundered by an earthquake. “The kitchen door is here,” and she traced an index finger lightly as the house was righted, and Miller focused on the kitchen from the inside out. A door outline appeared. “Three steps down, pipe railing on the left. Then a small sidewalk to the right, to the driveway. The driveway leads back to the garage.”

  The details became part of the sketch. It wasn’t exact here. She couldn’t quite figure out what was wrong, but it was close enough. Then, as she looked at the back of the house, she realized the windows were just white outlines. Not the wood-framed, prettily curtained eyes to the world that she’d remembered.

  Virtual reality lacked the finesse. Mac took a deep breath, somewhat relieved.

  “Now,” Susan said softly. “Tell us what happened. We’re recorded visually as well as in audio. The computer eye is your viewpoint.”

  Mac heard the voices. She picked up the baseball bat. She headed out of her bedroom door.

  A thin film began to edge downward from the ceiling. It tinged everything blood-red in its wake. She could feel a tightness in her chest, squeezing her voice as she talked. Her jaw ached. She blinked fiercely, trying to dash away the crimson tide which slowly, inexorably, began to obliterate all that she saw.

  She went through the line-drawing back door and described the two men she saw there. A simple, stocky line drawing of a man represented her father, but when she focused on the other, Jack grinned at her. “We’re the real flesh and blood, babe,” he said.

  McKenzie gripped her bat tightly as he began to push through toward her.

  She remembered screaming.

  Running. Furniture crashing, lamps exploding, pain thundering. Someone was right behind her. Someone grunting and cursing, pounding steps, right behind her, sleeping fury, growling like a dog trapped in a nightmare— Don’t let him wake! Don’t. Let. Him. Wake!

  Mac sat up, eyes staring, breasts heaving, sweat running off her face, her naked face, as though she stood in a Seattle rain.

  “Whoa, whoa!” Carter was there, reaching for her flailing arms. “No wonder your rails are up.” He caught her, pinned her, made soothing noises in her ear until she realized that she was in her room, under cool sheets, with strong arms protectively about her. “They’d said you’d had a rough time this afternoon.”

  The dream so real—

  She’d been re-creating it in virtual reality. What had happened? McKenzie swallowed tightly. Her head throbbed, her eardrums felt as though they could burst with the drumming of her heartbeat. She swallowed again and began to pull back, fighting his restraint.

  “I’m all right—”

  “Actually, I kind of like this.” He held her a moment longer, hands patting her shoulder blades in that rhythmic soothing motion mothers use with babies and lovers with each other, a familiar caress. Pat, pat, pat.

  Her heart slowed down to match it.

  “They told me you were napping.” Carter loosed her, letting her sit back in the bed. He fluffed a pillow behind her back. “Nobody told me you came out fighting.” He grinned widely. “Actually, I take that back. I heard about the doctor you decked down in triage.”

  “Carter.”

  “Yes.” He stayed close to her, leaning over the railing, one elbow hooked over it.

  Her vision blurred, separated, so that she saw two of him. Kind eyes, two, three, no, four, no, three of them, watching her. She closed her eyes tightly, dizzy. When she opened them, it came with a blinding flash, ruby-red and wet.

  His hands and arms dripping with the color.

  Mac gasped.

  “What is it?”

  She backpedaled away from him, pulse shooting sky-high again.

  “McKenzie, what is it?” He reached for her.

  “Don’t touch me!”

  “What?”

  “Don’t!” She shied away, against the other railing, hitting it so hard the bed shook violently.

  Carter recoiled. “All right. I won’t touch you.” He took a step away from the bedside. “Do you want me to call someone? Someone else?”

  McKenzie put her hands to her skull, gripping hard, tight, as pain like an ice pick shot through. “No,” she got out. “Don’t call anyone.”

  “Then I’ll just, ah, go. All right?”

  She didn’t want him to leave. She peered at him through her fingers. “No. I’ll be ... this will go away.” She closed her eyes again and then pounded her forehead onto the railing. “I. Want. It. To. Go. Away.”

  He came around the other side, catching her up again. “Mac, stop it!”

  She refused to look. Refused to open her vision to one of blood. She kept her eyes squeezed tight and just listened to his heartbeat, pacing hers, then quieting, his breath. He smelled faintly, she realized, of his own odor, and a touch of aftershave, and pizza.

  “I’m listening,” he murmured, running his hand over her hair. He avoided the sore patch behind her ear. McKenzie felt a touch of shame that he knew it was there. “What is it?”

  “If I tell you,” she said ironically, “they’ll never let me out of here.”

  His stroking movement stuttered, then started again. “In this ward, you mean.”

  “I see things, Carter.”

  “You had a head injury. Double vision, dizziness, that’s all part of the game. You should hear the sportswriters talk about the jocks—”

  “Stop it!” She took a deep breath. “You’ve got to listen, now, because I don’t think I’m going to have the nerve to talk about this again.”

  She put her head back, and opened her eyes, so close to his face that her nose grazed his chin. Carter said gently, his breath tinged with coffee, “Are you seeing things now?”

  “No.” The pain in her head had gone, suddenly, inexplicably.

  There was that moment when the tension between them thickened and she thought, How odd, he’s going to kiss me, and Carter pulled back abruptly, letting go of her. He messed about with the pillow again, from this side of the bed.

  Then he said simply, “Tell me what it is you see.”

  McKenzie took a deep breath. “Blood. I see blood.”

  “Where?”

  “Sometimes, everywhere. Sometimes, just ... in certain places.”

  “On me?” His face never changed expression. Kind eyes, intent on her.

  “Not until just now.”

  “Where?”

  “Your arms. Your
wrists. Your hands. Oh, God.” And she ducked away, unable to look at him any longer.

  He took her right hand in his. His skin was warm, but dry, slightly callused as if, at one time in his life, he’d done a fair amount of hard labor. She heard a rustle of fabric and then he was taking her hand in his, guiding her fingertips over the inside of his wrist with his other hand. Soft hair interrupted the skin, and then she felt welts, gnarled tracks.

  She looked.

  Her fingertips rested across scars that were old enough so the pink had gone from them. Carter traced her touch the length of one set, and then the other. He dropped her hand and rolled up his other sleeve.