Darkness Before Dawn

by Ace Collins

  “Justice,” Meg replied. “I want an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I want you to crawl and beg and I want to watch it happen. I want you to rot in hell. And I don’t even know if that will satisfy me. I do know it’s not enough for what you did to my husband.”

  “Listen, Mrs. Richards,” Thomas pleaded. “You’ve already ruined my life . . .”

  Her sharp laugh cut him off.

  “Your life? No, I’ve only ruined three months—ninety short days. That’s just the beginning of a life. There’s a lot more to it than just that. You’re young, and I’ve got a lot more time to make you pay!”

  Convinced that there was nothing more to say, she reached into the passenger seat of her car and pulled out a box. Handing it to him, she smiled and said, “Thought you might want some more posters.”

  Walking back around the front of her car, she got in, waved, and shouted, “See you soon.” She took one last look at her victim, switched on the starter, and hit the gas. In her rearview mirror, she watched as he turned and slowly walked to his front door.

  Meg had never felt more alive. Her heart was pumping a wild rushing torrent of blood through her body. Her baby, kicking up a storm in the confines of her womb, seemed to be enjoying this moment just as much as she was. When she got to the apartment, despite being almost six months along, she almost flew up the steps to her front door. Just as she unlocked it, the phone rang.

  “Hello.” Meg said, her voice almost gleeful.

  “Hi, this is Heather,” an unemotional voice began. “I tried to come up with someone else, but no one else could do it. Would you work the graveyard in the emergency room for me tonight? I’ve got a terrible headache, and I just can’t shake it. I may be coming down with the bug that everybody else has. I think making it through the shift would just be too much.”

  “Sure,” Meg answered without a moment’s hesitation.

  Heather had probably expected Meg to turn her down. She hadn’t worked an extra shift or switched out for a couple of months. So, Heather sounded shocked when Meg not only responded in the affirmative but didn’t complain about the late call.

  “You will? I appreciate it, Meg. I owe you one for this.”

  Meg’s singing voice replied, “No, you don’t. Just get well soon.”

  “Meg, you know with this virus going around you may not have much help tonight.”

  “That’s no problem,” Meg replied. “Not much usually happens on a Wednesday night anyway.”

  “Thanks, Meg,” Heather said again. “If you get into a bind, call me, and if I feel better, I’ll come up.”

  “Don’t worry about it, just go to bed. Now, bye, Heather.”

  Meg hung up the phone and then, picking up a notebook, spent the next hour recording the events of her confrontation with Jim Thomas. She had written down every experience since the trial and by looking back through her log, she was able to see clearly just how much she had broken the spirit of the young man. After she reviewed the whole journal, a deep feeling of satisfaction filled her heart.

  “Oh, Steve,” she whispered, “we almost have him.”

  Checking her watch, she decided a nap was in order. Turning off her phone, she set her alarm and fell into a deep, satisfying sleep.

  The alarm woke her at nine o’clock, giving her plenty of time to fix herself a light supper, take a long, warm bath, and then get ready. Before she stepped out the door, she looked at herself in a full-length mirror, something she hadn’t taken the time to do in quiet a while. Her breasts felt swollen and seemed almost unbelievably huge, and her stomach, that once thin, flat tummy that had made all the other nurses at the hospital so jealous, was now round and large. Patting it, she smiled. “Well, we’re stuck with each other, kid. And in a way, I’m glad now. I can use you to help me really put Jim Thomas through the wringer. He hasn’t seen anything yet!”

  Hitting the light switch, taking one last swig of a Coke, she literally ran out the apartment’s door, down the steps, and jumped into her car. Thinking of the broken look that she’d seen on Thomas’s face when she had left him that afternoon, she couldn’t help but smile as she drove to work.

  53

  HOPE YOU BROUGHT A BOOK OR SOMETHING,” MARSHA ANNOUNCED AS Meg strolled into the emergency room. ���It’s been like a morgue tonight. There’s absolutely nothing happening.”

  “Slow, huh?” Meg asked, surprised the other nurse was even talking to her.

  “Slow’s not the word,” Marsha answered. “There’s no one here and you don’t have to look at a single report. Count the drugs and you’re in. At the rate things are going, you’ll have the same count when you check out.”

  Taking her light jacket off, Meg picked up the report and began the process of checking in. It was a duty she knew as well as anything in the world.

  As Marsha signed, she asked. “Did Heather tell you that you’d probably be alone tonight?”

  “Yeah,” Meg replied. Then, right before Marsha walked through the door, she asked, “Who’s the doctor on duty?”

  Sticking her head back through the door, the departing nurse hollered, “McCullen.” Then the whoosh of the door signaled her exit.

  As Meg settled in for the evening, she immediately sensed what Marsha had been talking about. The hospital was so quiet and the activity level so light that the only sounds were made by an occasional nurse walking past ER on her way for a break. If the whole night continued like this, Heather could have stayed home and no one would have missed her. This promised to be the easiest gig she’d ever experienced. The phone didn’t ring, no one stopped to visit, and absolutely nothing stirred. It was almost eerie.

  Rummaging through one of the counter drawers, she came up with a fairly current issue of Glamour and slowly studied the magazine’s contents. Two Cokes and four complete passes through the periodical’s pages managed to kill only two of her shift’s eight hours. Six more to go! If they’re like the first two, she was going to have every page in the magazine memorized.

  Finding a new information brochure on the latest heart surgery techniques, she attempted to drum up some interest in its contents. Yet, after she looked up to check the clock for the third time, she found she had no idea what she’d just read or how far she had gotten. Pitching the brochure back on the desk, she leaned over the counter and eyed the blank hallway. Nothing was stirring.

  Now completely immersed into boredom, she thought back to her confrontation with Thomas. He’d been on the curb waiting for her? Why? Oh well, didn’t matter, by now he was probably fast asleep. Then remembering his haggard state, she grinned, no, he was probably lying awake and wondering if she’d call. Patting her stomach, she whispered, “We got him spooked, baby, you and I have him spooked.”

  Reliving the emotions of the confrontation could only bring so much satisfaction. Soon thinking about Thomas grew old. Getting up, she stretched and strolled through the ER looking for something else to occupy her time.

  Someone had tossed a newspaper in the trash. Recently she hadn’t given herself much of an opportunity to read the paper. She had devoted so much time to haunting Thomas that she’d usually picked up the editions, and then, without even opening them, thrown them away. Maybe the printed news would offer some escape from the dullness of her shift and also bring her up to date on many of the current local happenings. Retrieving it, Meg checked the date, found it to only be a day old, went back to her seat, and began to read.

  Scanning the front page, she noted a headshot of Cheryl Bednarz. Quickly reading the story, she discovered the assistant district attorney had resigned her position and was moving back home to Texas to open up a private practice in her hometown. Cheryl had predicted as much. Probably forced out because she won the case. If it hadn’t been the middle of the night, Meg would have called the woman and wished her well. But as she hadn’t talked to her since the trial, that bond had been broken anyway. They’d used each other and moved on. That was the way life was.

  Flipping throug
h the first and second sections of the paper, she finally found “Dear Abby.” She was halfway through reading it when she heard a car driving up to the emergency entrance. Maybe it was finally time to go to work. Setting the paper aside, she looked up to see who would come in.

  “Nurse?” The woman who asked the question looked to be in her late twenties. She was fairly plain and thin and had obviously been asleep before coming to the hospital.

  “Yes,” Meg answered, stepping out from behind the counter.

  “My husband, Ed.” Glancing behind the woman, Meg saw a heavy, balding man whom the nurse judged to also be in his late twenties, enter the doors, a bloody towel, covering his right hand. “You see, he couldn’t sleep and he got up to fix something to eat and cut his hand on a Spam can.” Looking back at the hulking figure standing behind her, the woman angrily barked, “He just can’t do anything on his own without making a big mess out of it.”

  Meg smiled and stifled the urge to say, “Evidently not even get married.”

  “Well, don’t just stand there, stupid,” the woman growled at the man. “Show the nurse your hand, Ed.”

  Meg took a look at the man’s cut, picked up the phone, and paged Dr. McCullen.

  Turning back to the couple, she said, “Okay, Ed, why don’t we go into room 2, it’s right across the hall and we’ll get this wound cleaned up. Then the doctor will look at it and probably give you a few stitches.”

  “Nurse,” the woman asked, tapping Meg on the shoulder. “What should I do?”

  Reaching behind her, Meg grabbed a clipboard with the proper forms already attached and handed them to the woman. “There’s a pen on the counter. Why don’t you fill these out?”

  Meg had just gotten finished cleaning the man’s cut, when she heard more noise outside.

  “Things are picking up,” she said to no one in particular.

  “What?” It was the first time Ed had said anything.

  “Ed,” Meg smiled, “you do have a voice!”

  Leaving the man by himself, Meg briskly walked out into the receiving room to find out what was going on. As she stood by Ed’s wife, who was still struggling with the paperwork, things looked normal, but there was a terrible commotion outside the emergency room doors. Excusing herself, Meg walked outside to see what the problem was. She had no more than gotten through the doors when she heard a female voice screaming hysterically. “He’s dead! He’s dead!”

  54

  WHAT IN THE WORLD?” MEG EXCLAIMED, AS SHE HURRIED DOWN THE ramp to the parking area.

  “Help me, please. Somebody help me.”

  Meg could now see it was a teenage girl who was doing all the screaming. She was standing by the rear door of her car, it was open, and she was jumping up and down, crying hysterically as she peered into the backseat. Seeing Meg, she ran up to the nurse and pleaded, “You have got to save him. Please, you’ve got to do something! Hurry. I think he’s dead!”

  The girl tried to pull the nurse back toward the car. Reaching out and grabbing the young woman by the shoulders, Meg demanded, “What’s wrong?”

  Still, crying and screaming, the girl sobbed, pointing to where the boy lay. “It’s my friend. I don’t think he is breathing . . . he’s in the car. I think he’s dead.”

  Rushing down the ambulance ramp, Meg reached into the darkened car. Finding an arm, she grabbed the wrist and searched for a pulse. Nothing. Reaching further into the vehicle, she found the boy’s neck and checked again. Nothing. Turning back to the girl, she hollered, “How long has he been like this and what happened?”

  “I found him in his garage,” she frantically replied. Then, she began crying so hard she couldn’t talk.

  Jumping up from the car, Meg grabbed the girl, shook her hard, and shouted, “I can’t help him unless you tell me what happened. Now!”

  Taking a deep breath, the girl rattled out. “He’d turned the car on in his garage and the door was down. I found him that way. I brought him here as fast as I could.”

  “How long since you know he was breathing?” Meg demanded.

  “It couldn’t have been over ten minutes.” Then she must have remembered something else. “No, he coughed once when we pulled into the parking lot.”

  If the young man had coughed as they entered the parking lot, he had a chance. Pointing toward the ER, Meg ordered, “Find a doctor and get him out here with a gurney! Go now!”

  Running back to the car, she pulled the young man out of the backseat and onto the ground. “Okay, kid,” she exclaimed as she fell to her knees, “don’t give up on me.” Pushing his body into the proper position, she put her hand behind his neck, and then, just as she was about to begin CPR, she froze. For a few seconds, she looked into the boy’s face, staring at the anguish written in his now twisted features. Jim Thomas! Reaching into her pocket, she took out a small flashlight. Lifting his right eyelid, she checked for a reaction. A big part of her was hoping she would get none.

  When the pupils responded to the light, she knew the kid still had a chance. Yet his only chance at life was if she reacted quickly. It was up to her.

  She heard the emergency room doors open behind her. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the teenage girl.

  “Is he going to be all right?” she sobbed.

  Looking up at the girl, Meg shook her head and said, “I think he’s gone. I think you got to him too late.” Turning back toward the boy, she almost choked on her own lie, but it was a lie that no one would ever catch her in. She was safe. The girl was too ignorant to realize that Meg was allowing precious seconds tick by and doing nothing.

  She looked back into Thomas’s face. This was a moment she thought she would have once given anything for. Victory was hers. But once the “dark music” started to play, as she watched the life slowly ooze from the young man’s body, she felt dirty. Only a monster would let this happen and that is what she’d become. She was a monster. Fighting with herself, she looked away from the boy and tried to think of Steve.

  He was in a cold grave and that was where this boy deserved to be, too. By letting him die she would be faithful to Steve. Her plan had worked. Luck had been on her side, and thanks to Heather’s illness, she was here at just the right moment to make sure it all played out. This was the way things were meant to be. So, she wasn’t a monster, only an instrument of fairness. This is the way it should be—an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Almost choking on her own thoughts, she whispered, “And a life for a life.”

  Looking back up at the girl, Meg shouted, “You can’t do anything out here for him. Go back inside. When you see the doctor, send him out.”

  For a second, the frightened girl stood anchored in place, anguish etched on her face. Then she turned and walked slowly back up the ramp. This was probably the first time she’d ever heard the “dark music.”

  Meg turned to once again face the young man she’d driven to suicide. Somehow, seeing the life drain slowly out of his body didn’t give her the satisfaction she had expected. She felt no thrill, no triumph. A small part of her, buried somewhere deep in the hidden recesses of her mind, actually wanted to help him—to save his life. Still, even though his life clock was running out, she did nothing.

  Noting a crumpled piece of paper in Thomas’s hand, she bent over and pulled it out. It was one of her wanted posters. Even in the palely lit parking lot, she could see that he had written something on it. Lifting the page closer to her face, she read the hurriedly scrawled words.

  I blew my shot at life. I had everything and I tossed it away. Worse, I killed a man I never knew and then turned his wife into an ugly creature filled with hate. I don’t deserve to live. The world is better off with me dead.

  Crumpling the note in her fist, Meg slowly rose from her knees and began to walk up the ramp. When she passed the front fender of the car, she stopped.

  What had she done? God had given her exactly what she’d asked for, and now she wondered if she really wanted it. Was this the way it had to play out?
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  Maybe I’m not too late. Maybe I can do something. God, please help me do something. I can’t let this happen. I can’t be a murderer. I just can’t! I’ve got to stop the “dark music.” It has played way too much in my life.

  Stuffing the note into her pocket, she turned and rushed back to car. Falling to the ground, she cleared his air passage and began the process of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. As she worked her one-woman CPR, she prayed her first prayer in months. With her lips to his, she kept working, praying, and hoping for a miracle.

  “Breathe, come on, breathe,” she demanded.

  Panic now began to come over her, and only her professional training kept her from breaking down into a pitiful mass of jumbled nerves and sobs. From out of nowhere, a light rain began to fall, the drops combining with sweat on Meg’s forehead and the tears now running down her cheeks blended together and ran down over the boy’s face. Still, even as the rain grew harder and the lightning began to flash and the thunder roared, she worked on.

  “Now, breathe. Come on, Jim, breathe! You can do it. You have your whole life in front on you. Breathe for me, come on, breathe!”

  As the rain began to strike her back with more fury, this time in big, cold drops, she glanced back toward the ER doors. There was no one, not a doctor or another nurse or even an orderly. It was up to her. As the lightning flashed again, she clearly saw Thomas’s face. It was just like seeing the cold mask of death.

  “No!” she whispered as she went back to work on reviving him. “Come on, don’t do this to me. Don’t you go away! Not now, not here. Don’t leave me with this kind of guilt trip. Breathe!”

  She felt her baby kick her hard as she continued to administer CPR.

  It is the right thing to do, Baby. I’ll explain why at another time. Then turning her face into the rain, she screamed, “C’mon, God, I know I was wrong. I’m sorry. Don’t do this to me. I can’t handle this. I thought I could, but I can’t!”

  She put her mouth to the young man’s and silently pleaded, “C’mon, breathe!”