Ken Douglas: Death Glitch

“ Stings,” she said.

“ Looks like it would,” he said.

“ Right.” She turned back to Marlan, still bleeding a little. She’d do her best not to mix any more blood, but she was afraid the damage had already been done.

The area around Marlan’s vagina started to bulge out.

“ Can you push for me?” Izzy said. “Not too hard right now.”

“ Yes.” Marlan pushed.

“ Are you feeling contractions now?”

“ Yes, only seconds apart.”

“ Push between the contractions, not at the start, okay?”

“ Okay.”

Another contraction. Marlan pushed and all of a sudden Izzy could see the baby’s head. She was crowning. Izzy hadn’t expected it to happen so fast. It was unusual for a first child. But then again there seemed to be a lot of unusual going on with this couple; this crowd, too.

“ Okay, Marlan, I need you to blow through your mouth at the peak of your contractions.”

“ You think I’m going to push too hard. I won’t.”

“ Alright.” This was one pretty savvy woman.

“ Okay then, take slow breaths and breathe deeply.”

Marlan obeyed as she gently pushed between the contractions.

“ It’s coming,” someone from the crowd said.

“ Really?” Marlan was smiling.

“ Really!” Izzy guided the head out, saw that the umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby’s neck.

“ Oh my God!” a woman said.

“ It’s not a problem.” Izzy reached her index finger between the cord and the baby’s neck, gently loosened it and the baby’s head slipped through the loop Izzy had made as she started to make her way silently into the world.

Izzy held the baby’s head in her hands, supporting it, guiding the baby as she turned her head to the side.

“ It’s time, Marlan.” Izzy steeled herself. “One more push.”

“ I’m ready.”

And then the baby came, crying into the world.

Lila watched Eisenhower deliver the baby from the safety of the parking garage as she pulled on a pair of latex gloves. Then she pulled the pistol from her backpack. She never used the same kind of weapon twice. And she never carried it far from the scene of the crime, preferring to drop them in the nearest trash can.

However, this was Reno and there were security cameras everywhere. She was lucky to find a spot not covered to watch Eisenhower birth the baby from, but she didn’t want to trust carrying the weapon to a trash can and be recorded dropping it in. She’d have to leave it here.

It almost seemed a waste to lose such a good weapon on such an old woman, but Lila’s mind was made up. She sighted in on Eisenhower’s chest, aiming for the heart. She watched for a few seconds, thinking this was a fitting ending for a heart surgeon. Then she pulled the trigger.

Izzy was cold. She curled her knees to her chest, subconsciously seeking warmth and found none. She moaned, dreaming of snow. She was outside in a brisk Reno winter. She was naked, lying in the snow. Her teeth were chattering, she was powerless to stop it.

She had to pee and now she was in one of the campgrounds on Highway 49, between Susanville and Shasta City in Northern California. She was in front of an outhouse, but the door was jammed. She had to get in, couldn’t. She had clothes on now and she wet herself and all of a sudden she knew she was dreaming and that she’d just wet the bed.

“ No,” she muttered, awake or in her dream, she didn’t know. Her throat was dry, like she hadn’t had a drink in forever. “No,” she muttered again. She had a headache, like she’d had too much wine, but the deep pain she’d been living with for the last few months was gone. She had to be dreaming, otherwise it would be front and center, reminding her of the cancer that was going to take her life in a few month’s time.

But it didn’t feel like a dream. The hangover was real, but she couldn’t remember drinking enough last night to cause it. The cold was real, too. She’d never been cold in a dream before, not like this. And the warm wet between her legs, that was real.

She opened her eyes to a hazy, green, cocooned kind of place. She was under the covers and the light was on, filtering through a green sheet.

She didn’t have green sheets.

She wasn’t in her bed.

She pulled the sheet back and gasped.

She knew where she was straightaway. She’d been here before, several times, though it had been years. She recognized the fans whirring above her head, the green room, the sterility of it. She looked right, saw that familiar door. She looked left, saw a body covered in a twin of the sheet which covered her.

She sat up in a panic, threw the sheet aside. She was naked and her right toe had been tagged. She was in the hospital morgue at St. Catherine’s, waiting to be transferred to the county morgue. She didn’t feel dead. On the contrary, she felt more alive than she had in years. Then she saw her legs and gasped.

“ What the-”

These were not old lady legs. She looked down at her breasts. They’d been sagging for the last three decades, but they were jutting out now, like a teenager’s. And her nipples were hard, like she was sexually excited.

She was excited, alright.

And she had to be dreaming.

But the puddle of warm urine she was sitting in felt real.

She pinched her cheek. That felt real. She pinched her thigh. That felt real. She took a deep breath, waiting for the pain to shoot through her lungs. Didn’t happen.

She bent forward, surprised to find she could reach the toe tag without bending her knees. She’d studied ballet when she was young. Back then she could touch her head to the ground without bending her knees. She pulled off the tag, instinctively knowing her body was in that kind of shape now.

There was a case number on the tag. That she expected. Date and time of death too, she also expected. Cause of death: Gunshot wound to the heart. That was a shocker, she’d expected cancer.

She looked down again at her breasts. Beautiful and perfect, no sign of a gunshot wound.

She shook her head, testing the hangover, which seemed to be gone now, but something not gone was the mane of hair that swished around her shoulders. She tugged on it, expecting the wig, but the hair was real.

“ Okay, Isadora, let’s figure this out.” She got off the gurney, half expecting her legs to buckle. They didn’t. She picked the sheet up off the floor, went to the deep sink, ran some water on a dry part of it, cleaned the urine away.

She wanted a mirror, wanted to see her face, but that would have to wait. She needed to get out of here before someone discovered she wasn’t dead, before they discovered that something very strange had happened. She’d been around long enough to know if she were found-dare she even think it, with her youth restored-that they’d lock her away. Then they’d poke, prod, test and retest her till they found the secret.

She didn’t want to be poked and prodded.

She didn’t know why this had happened, but it had. She’d always taken things as they’d come, played the hand she was dealt. Lately she’d gotten some bad cards, now she’d been dealt a royal flush. These were her cards now and she was going to bet them like there was no tomorrow.

To do that she had get out of this room, away from this hospital. But first she needed clothes. Fortunately she knew the hospital as well as she knew her own home. She padded to the door, opened it. The office was empty. She went to the door, checked the hallway. Not a soul, but for how long?

She jogged down the corridor to the stairway. Safely inside the stairwell, she went up two flights, opened the door a crack, saw an intern with blood on her scrubs enter the intern’s locker room. That was her goal.