The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley

by Shaun David Hutchinson

  “Rusty, I can’t—”

  “Let’s run away,” he says. “We’ll leave the hospital together.”

  I think of Death closing in. Of her long fingers encircling my throat. “Better late than never,” she’ll say. And then she’ll whisk me away like she did my parents, my baby sister Cady.

  “I can’t leave.”

  “Your parents aren’t here anymore,” Rusty says. His kiss is preferable to the harsh punch of his words.

  “They’re here for me.”

  “No they’re not.” Rusty clasps my hand inside his own. Both our palms are sweaty, our fingers grasping tighter than necessary.

  “You really want to leave?” I ask. “Together?” I think of the lovebugs. Joined together, drifting on the wind. Their lives short and brutal but meaningful. I think maybe Rusty and I will be like that. Maybe our ends will be swift, but at least we’ll be together. We’ll go out there and face the unknown side by side.

  “Yes,” Rusty says. I know it’s the truest thing he’s ever said to me. “We’ll run away. Disappear into the world. You and me. Rusty and Drew.”

  “Drew isn’t my real name,” I say, and Rusty replies by kissing me so hard that the blowback makes me dizzy. But I grab him behind his neck and kiss him back, our lips, our plans and desires, blurring into one nameless moment. The fire hidden in Rusty’s bones flares to life and threatens to consume us, to turn us to ash with our fiery need.

  I pull away. “When do we leave?”

  “Now,” Rusty says. “Let’s leave now.”

  “Yes.” I kiss him again. My hands find his hands and his chest and his back. I’m gentle as I touch the bandages, afraid of hurting him. “No,” I say.

  Rusty pulls back as if I’ve slapped him.

  “We have to make sure that, when we leave, no one can find us.” A plan is already forming in my mind. “We’ll need money and supplies.”

  “How long will that take?” Rusty asks. His voice is shallow, panicky. I touch his hand to reassure him.

  I try to think it through, but I’m dizzy with the taste of Rusty McHale. “A couple of days,” I say. “Give me a week, and then I’ll come back for you, and we’ll leave together.”

  Rusty squeezes my hand. “I may not be here in a week. They’re moving me.”

  “Three days,” I say. “Hold out for three days and I’ll come for you. I promise.”

  • • •

  I no longer care whether I’m seen. Doctors and nurses hustle past me as I march toward my destination. The hospital walls breathe shallowly as I pass through them, aware of my plan, aware of my resolve. Once I made the decision to run away with Rusty, everything else ceased to matter. Not Trevor and Lexi, not Arnold or Aimee, not Steven or Jo or sweet, sweet Emma. Not Death. Not even my family. Only Rusty matters now. He and I will leave the hospital and disappear. The two of us together. We’ll make our own family.

  But before that can happen, I have to erase us. I have to make sure that Death can’t follow our trail.

  The administrative offices are dark. It’s after midnight, and everyone’s gone home. I briefly wonder whom Death goes home to. Does she have a husband or a wife or children or cats? Is there anyone who eagerly awaits her return? But those thoughts fade as I step into Death’s office. There are more files than last time. Chaotic towers that threaten to tumble. Sheets of paper. People’s lives.

  The two files I’m looking for are on top of the desk. Prominently displayed. Rusty McHale and Andrew Brawley. She barely knows me and now she has a file on me. It’s only a matter of time before she realizes the truth. I swipe the files and tuck them into the waistband of my pants.

  I try to leave, but I can’t.

  This office belongs to the woman who took my family. She robbed me of Mom’s smile and Dad’s long-winded speeches and Cady’s nonsensical songs. They were my whole world and she stole them.

  Miss Michelle.

  Death.

  I fucking hate her.

  I shove the stacks of files, flinging them with all my strength. Papers sail into the air and arc back down, littering the chairs and the floor. My blood rushes in my ears, and adrenaline pumps in my veins, and I feel good. Powerful. I push the computer monitor to the floor, watching the glass pieces shatter and spill over the carpet. Rage takes hold, and I tear her drawers from the desk, raining pencils and pens and coins all around. I uproot the chairs, leave them lying on their sides.

  When I’m done, I lean against the door, wheezing, admiring the destruction. And I laugh. Because fuck Death. She wasn’t late at all. I was just too smart for her. And I’m too smart for her now.

  I kick around the bits and pieces of Death’s office until I find a pack of matches. I pull the files out of my pants. I know what my paperwork will say, and I don’t want to read the words. But I open Rusty’s file, curious.

  My eyes are drawn to a highlighted phrase that reads “Injuries inconsistent with victim’s account.”

  I blink, confused. What does that mean?

  A flashlight shines down the hallway, and I hear the jingle of keys. I panic and run in the opposite direction. I run all the way up up up to the roof, and I don’t stop until I’m there.

  The night sky is dark, heavy with clouds. I put the files on the ground and stand over them with the matches. Injuries inconsistent with victim’s account. I hesitate. But it doesn’t matter, does it? Rusty was burned. It doesn’t matter how it happened. All that matters is escaping, and leaving no traces behind.

  With the acrid smell of sulfur in my nose, I watch our histories disappear. When Rusty and I run away from the hospital, no one will be able to find us.

  Not even Death.

  By the end of the second day, I have everything I need.

  I don’t even call it borrowing anymore. I’m stealing. Outright. The thing is, I don’t care. This hospital owes me, and I’m only collecting on that debt.

  In the corner of my room are two backpacks filled with clothes, snacks, and music for the quiet nights. My big find was a wallet with four hundred dollars tucked inside. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have considered taking it—with all the iPods and clothes I’ve been hoarding, a wad of cash going missing will definitely raise suspicions—but tomorrow Rusty and I will be long gone.

  Not seeing him has taken its toll. My heart beats in time to a rhythm I can’t hear, and I think that it must be Rusty beating in the ICU, panicky, waiting to see if I’m going to keep my promise. But visiting him would be too risky. Visiting anyone would be. Instead, I stay in my hideout, drawing Patient F. I imagine a life for him and Ophelia outside of Maligant City. He does catch her, despite the Scythe. Patient F is invincible. He destroys the Scythe and saves Ophelia, and they begin life anew.

  Though it’s dangerous, I sneak to the roof of the parking garage to watch the sun set over the concrete horizon. The fear of going out there makes bile rise in my throat, the sharp acid of it burning my nose.

  The world looks so alien. The seconds and hours that made up my life before the accident are faded celluloid, images that melt when I shine light through them. I shake when I think about taking care of Rusty. Fear chokes me when I consider running off and leaving my friends and the one place I feel safe, even with Death stalking me. At least with her I know my enemy.

  Out there, my enemy could be anyone. Everyone. Except Rusty.

  And that’s the thought that anchors me. I’ll have Rusty. My constant. Someone to watch my back. There’s still a niggling suspicion about the truth behind Rusty’s attack, but we can sort that out later. Or never. Who cares? No one will ever hurt him again.

  As the sun disappears and night bleeds across the sky, my fear subsides until it’s just another memory that I toss into the air, into the breeze that carries the smell of the ocean.

  Tomorrow we leave.

  I sneak back down, in the direction of my room, but my feet carry me to Peds. One last time. I know I shouldn’t risk it, but I want to say good-bye to Lexi and Trevor
. Now that they have each other, I’m not worried about them. They are each other’s present and future. But I still want to see them, thank them for showing me what happiness could look like, and what it was worth risking.

  Nurse Merchant isn’t at her station. Instead, there’s a small Hispanic woman who doesn’t appear to be paying close attention to anything happening around her. I’m able to tiptoe to Lexi’s room unseen. I’m working so hard to be careful that I don’t notice the lights are out until I turn around.

  Lexi’s room is pitch black.

  “Lexi?” I whisper.

  The blinds aren’t open. Something is wrong. In all the time that I’ve known Lexi, she’s never closed the blinds. Not once, day or night. Not even when she changed clothes. She didn’t want to shut out the world for one single second.

  “Lexi!” I yell, not caring that the nurse will hear me. Not caring that Death may come for me. Not caring, not caring, not caring. Where’s Lexi?

  I stumble toward the light switch and jab it with my hand. The lights flicker and illuminate the empty bed, the sheets turned over and rumpled. Lexi’s wig is still hanging over the back of a chair, and her SAT prep books are stacked on the table by her bed, and there’s even a little bear nestled against the pillow that I’d bet my four hundred dollars Trevor bought her.

  But Lexi’s not here.

  “Where the hell is Lexi?” I scream at the nurse, but she’s on the phone now, staring at me with wide, scared eyes. She should be scared. I’ll tear this ward apart if someone doesn’t take me to Lexi now.

  Each terrifying beat could be the one that causes my heart to explode as I imagine all the horrible places Lexi could be. I lean against the wall. It holds me up, saves me from crashing to the floor. My feet are useless now. Stupid, stupid feet.

  “Droopy?”

  Trevor ambles down the hall, blood from where his IV should be dripping off his fingers. Disconnected tubes dangle from his body. The nurse drops the phone and rushes to him, but he pushes her away with strength he shouldn’t have. He stumbles to me and punches me in the stomach so hard that I double over, gasping for breath.

  “She’s gone!” he screams at me.

  “Trevor?” I wheeze. His words confuse me. “Gone? Gone where? Home? Thank God. I thought—” I rub my stomach, trying to breathe. I’m not certain what I did to deserve that punch, but Trevor must have had a reason—

  “Drew . . .”

  The nurse runs back to the phone, and I know I need to leave before security—or worse—arrives to apprehend me. “I just came to say good-bye to both of you. You’ll tell her for me, right?”

  Tears bleed from Trevor’s eyes. His lip trembles, and I can’t believe he’s getting this emotional just because I’m leaving. “She’s gone, Drew. Lexi is gone.”

  “I know. You already told me.”

  “Dead,” Trevor says. “Lexi’s dead.”

  And I die too. Right here, right this second. Dead. I’m still breathing, still beating, still standing and talking, but dead. Except I’m not standing anymore. I’m on my knees. Pain rips through my legs, but it belongs to someone else.

  Trevor’s saying, “She’s dead. Fuck, Drew, she’s fucking dead,” but the voice is someone else’s and not Trevor’s, and I scream back: “Stop saying that! If you say that again, I’ll rip out your goddamn throat!”

  Nurse Merchant materializes with her hand on my back, whispering “I tried to find you” in her soothing, maternal voice, but the words are so far away. So far. She tries to pull my arm around her shoulders and lift me, but the density of my grief glues me to the floor.

  “Lexi’s dead,” Trevor says again. I lunge at him, fists swinging. He stumbles back, sobbing and trying to catch my wrists. I collapse to the floor again, crying. Sobbing.

  And I see Death. “You did this,” I yell. “You took her!” I scream. Death hovers in the air a few feet away from me, her black cape billowing in the foul, chill wind that sweeps through Peds. She’s come for me like she came for Lexi. She’s going to reap me, take my soul and lock it away.

  “You can’t have me,” I say. “You had your chance.”

  Before anyone can stop me, I leap to my feet and run. I hear them chasing me, but I know this hospital inside and out. They’ll never find me. Never.

  Death doesn’t play by the rules.

  It’s almost three in the morning. For the last few hours, I’ve been hiding in the wardrobe of some woman who’s on a respirator, trying to keep quiet, trying to keep still. Wondering how everything went so wrong.

  Lexi wasn’t supposed to die. It was supposed to be Trevor. Always Trevor. Not Lexi. She was the one who was going to leave and take on the whole bloody world. Tear it apart block by block and rebuild it better. It’s who she was and who she wanted to be. This shouldn’t have happened.

  I have to know why.

  Carefully, I crawl from the wardrobe and gesture a silent thank-you to the unconscious patient in the bed for granting me sanctuary. Moving around the hospital is going to be tricky now that everyone is looking for me. I could see it in Death’s eyes earlier. She knew who I was. I was the soul she’d lost, the one she was hunting. There would be no more guessing and no more games. She would find me and take me and put an end to it all. To me.

  The hospital is quietest now. Doctors are catching what little sleep they can. Nurses are joking and finishing up paperwork and mainlining IV bags of coffee to keep dreams at bay for a few more hours.

  I steal a pair of scrubs from a bin and put them on over my jeans and T-shirt. I keep my head down and walk. Not fast, not slow. Purposefully. As if I know where I’m going.

  And I do. I know where I’m going. I was here once before. Once. That night. I didn’t mean to see them. I only wanted to take those things that belonged to me. But they were there, and they were saying the most horrible things to me, and I swore that I’d never return.

  Yet here I am. Standing before the cold metal doors. There are two tiny windows at eye level. I peer through to see if I’m alone.

  I am. Alone.

  I stand at those doors until the rest of the world turns to dust around me, until nothing is left except me and the doors and my fear of what awaits me behind them.

  When I push them open, dead air rushes out like I’ve broken a hermetic seal. The morgue smells like iodine. A chemical bath of disinfectant. Not like the ER, where you can smell the mingling odors of the patients. The bodies here carry nothing of their former lives with them. They’re scrubbed clean of out there.

  The morgue is quiet but for a murmuring sound that reminds me of a typewriter. It’s so low that I barely notice it, but it’s there. A staccato whisper in my ear.

  A table crouches in the middle of the room, and my friend lies upon it. She’s the only body in the room tonight. Last time, there were three bodies. Two and a half, really. Now it’s only Lexi. She’s draped with a white sheet that tents at her toes and her breasts and her forehead, draping down to hug the rest of her body like first snow.

  My feet are cemented a yard from the body. My eyes glued to the two fingertips of her left hand that are dangling from under the sheet. They’re pale, more pale than Lexi had ever been in real life.

  There are no windows down here. No way for her to see the sun or the skyline or the future. Her future. This is her future. A body and a box and a plot in the ground where Mrs. Kripke can visit and leave flowers, whisper story after story about her bygone days as a beauty queen. My only solace is that Lexi no longer has to worry about disappointing her mother. Lexi will always be a beauty queen now.

  “Hey, Lexi,” I say. My voice sounds cavernous in this room. It bounces off the body-size refrigerators lining the wall. “I’m so sorry.” It’s a stupid thing to say, and I don’t know why I say it. She can’t hear me or accept my apology. She doesn’t even know she’s dead.

  “That’s what you think, A-Dog.” Lexi sits straight up, and the sheet falls into her lap. She’s naked, with a gruesome Y-shaped incisio
n that begins at her shoulders, meets at her sternum, and continues down her belly, where it disappears under the sheet. It’s a bloodless wound but puckered where the skin was stapled back together.

  For some reason, this doesn’t shock me. I’m relieved, really. “Lexi?”

  “In the flesh,” she says. “Sort of.” When she speaks, her mouth doesn’t move. Her eyes are pasty and white, and she stares through me rather than at me. “It was a blood clot, before you ask.”

  “It was my fault,” I say.

  Lexi laughs, but it’s a hollow, sick laugh that makes me want to puke. “Yeah, Drewfus, you caused the clot that killed me.” She’s quiet.

  I shake my head. I want to run. Coming here was a terrible, terrible idea. “I should have prayed for you. Protected you from Death the way that I protected Trevor.”

  “Trevor’s going to die too,” Lexi says.

  “I saw him earlier,” I say. “He’s okay. I think he’s okay.”

  Lexi rolls her white eyes. “Not tonight, not tomorrow night. But eventually, Trevor is going to die. Like you. Like Rusty. Like everyone. Suck it up and deal.”

  “This isn’t happening,” I say.

  “I think I was wrong about all that God stuff, you know,” Lexi says. “I think I was wrong about a lot of things. But not about you, Drewfus. Never about you.”

  “I have to leave.” I try to back away, but I can’t move. “Let me go.”

  “You’re so dumb,” Lexi says. “Stupid, stupid, Andrew. Except, that’s not your real name. I know everything now, including that.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want you to leave.”

  “I’m trying!”

  “This hospital,” Lexi says. “Leave tonight. Walk out the doors, into the world, and be afraid but be alive. Of us all, you’re the only one who ever could.”

  I cover my face with my hands, trying to cry, trying to scream, trying to do anything that will break me free of whatever spell she’s cast. Nothing works. I end up stepping even closer to her, my legs and feet beyond my control. “Fuck you for saying that. You don’t know what’s out there.”