Dean Koontz - Lost Souls

After a while, Bryce steered the boy from worries to shining memories. His mother was his hero. When he recounted their good times together, his eyes were bright with love, his voice tender.

Jean-Anne Chouteau came to the hospital to visit her sister, Mary-Jane Vergelle. She arrived with Julian, Mary-Jane’s husband.

As president of the VFW Auxiliary, the lay chaplain of her church, and the founder of the Rainbow Falls Red Hat Society, she visited Memorial at least once each week, to sit a spell with one afflicted friend or another.

Jean-Anne carried a Tupperware container filled with miniature homemade muffins, some walnut-carrot and some pecan-zucchini. Julian clutched a bouquet from Fantasy Floral and a paperback book wrapped in kitten-patterned paper.

Even before they went through the glass door, Jean-Anne saw Chief Jarmillo and four deputies, and she said, “Oh, Julian, some poor soul must’ve been shot.”

“Police don’t always mean gunplay,” Julian said as the automatic door slid open in front of them.

But three years earlier, when Jean-Anne was leaving the hospital after paying a visit to a friend recovering from an encounter with a drunk driver, an ambulance followed by three squad cars came racing along the approach road to the ER entrance. Don Scobey-the Don Scobey of Don Scobey’s Steakhouse-had been shot by a stickup artist. Ever since, when from time to time Jean-Anne saw a police officer at Memorial, she steeled herself for the news that someone had been gunned down.

As they stepped into the lobby, Officer John Martz-who was married to Anita, a Red Hat lady, and who always took the microphone as auctioneer at the annual charity auction for the hospital-came toward them, smiling.

In spite of John’s smile, Jean-Anne said, “Who’s been shot?”

“Shot? Oh, no, Jean-Anne. It’s nothing like that. There’s been a contamination problem. Nothing serious but-”

“What kind of contamination?” Julian asked.

“Nothing serious. But anyone who’s been to the hospital the last few days, and anyone who has a friend or family member currently here as a patient-we need you to give us a blood sample.”

“Is Mary-Jane all right?” Jean-Anne asked.

“Yes, yes, she’s fine.”

“Is she infected with something, after what she’s already been through?”

“No, Jean-Anne,” John Martz said. “She’s already been tested, and she’s fine. We don’t need much blood, just a drop, a thumb prick will do it. If you’ll follow me… ”

Moving with the officer as he crossed the lobby to the elevator alcove, Jean-Anne said, “Her gallbladder wasn’t just inflamed and full of stones, poor thing. She said on the phone it was abscessed.”

And Julian said, “I hope this contamination thing isn’t going to lead to complications for her.”

“No, like I said, she’s fine,” John Martz assured them. “She tested negative.”

“What do the police have to do with any kind of contamination?” Jean-Anne wondered. “Where are the doctors and nurses?”

“They have their hands full. They asked us for assistance. By law, we’re obligated to help in a health emergency.”

“Emergency?” Jean-Anne frowned. “But you said it was nothing serious.”

“It’s not that serious,” John Martz said, escorting them into the elevator. “They’re short on staff because of the flu, and when this situation came up, they had to declare it an emergency for us to be able to assist.”

As the doors closed, Julian said, “What kind of contamination? You still haven’t said.”

“I’m no medical scientist, Julian. If I tried to explain it, I’d only make an idiot of myself. Dr. Lightner will lay it out for you.”

The elevator was already descending when Jean-Anne said, “John, I think the blood lab is on the main floor.”

“Yes, it is. But Dr. Lightner has set up a second testing station in the basement to speed things along.”

The elevator doors opened, and they stepped into the corridor. John Martz turned right, with Jean-Anne at his side and Julian a step behind.

A strikingly handsome young man came out of a room on the left. His looks were so singular that Jean-Anne thought he must be someone famous, perhaps someone she had seen on TV.

She glimpsed a few peculiar objects in the room beyond him: what seemed to be bags made of a silvery fabric, hanging from the ceiling, approximately pear-shaped and evidently filled with something heavy.

Then the young man closed the door behind him, and John Martz led them farther along the corridor as he said, “It only takes a few minutes to get the test results. And they’re gentle with the needle.” He held up a thumb. “Can’t even see where they pricked me.”

Jean-Anne thought she might have seen the young man on American Idol. She glanced back, but he had disappeared.

John Martz ushered them into an unfurnished room in which sat five patients in wheelchairs. Closing the door and remaining beside it, he said, “It’ll only be a minute.”

Of the patients, three were strangers to Jean-Anne. The others were Lauraine Polson and Susan Carpenter.

Lauraine, a waitress at the Andy Andrews Café, had been admitted on Monday with a severely prolapsed uterus. She was supposed to have had a hysterectomy this morning. The previous evening, Jean-Anne visited her, bringing a book of crossword puzzles, to which Lauraine was addicted, and a small basket of fresh fruit.

“Dear, you didn’t have surgery?”

Lauraine grimaced. “It’s annoying, but there’s nobody to blame. There’s a shortage of surgical nurses because of the flu. I’ve been rescheduled for tomorrow.”

“Until tonight, I haven’t heard anything about the flu going around,” Julian said.

“It’s hit a few of our guys in the department,” John Martz said.

Susan Carpenter, a beautician at Rosalie’s Hair and Nails, indicated the semitransparent Tupperware container in Jean-Anne’s hands. “Are those your mini muffins, Jean-Anne, like you brought us at the shop last Christmas? I usually don’t like muffins but they were fabulous.”

“These are for my sister, dear, and low-fat. She’s held over from gallbladder surgery for intravenous antibiotics, since it was badly abscessed. I didn’t know you were here, or I’d have brought you some.”

“They just checked me in this afternoon.” Susan pointed to the wrapped paperback that Julian held. “I love that giftwrap.”

“Mary-Jane is crazy for cats,” Julian said.

“I know she is,” Susan said. “I didn’t think she’d ever get over losing Maybelle.”

“I don’t think she really has,” Julian said.

The door opened, and into the room came a different young man from the one in the corridor a minute earlier. Remarkably, he was even more handsome than the first, his face so compelling that again Jean-Anne felt sure he was somebody.

In the service room at the top of the stairs to the hospital roof, Travis consulted his wristwatch and said, “It must be dark enough now.”

Bryce Walker wasn’t yet chilled to the bone, but he was cold enough that he wanted to get moving.

From a wall hook, he took down a broom. Before opening the outer door, he switched off the lights.

Because of the overcast, the bleak October heavens appeared nearly as dark at the start of twilight as they would be at the end. In the stillness of the evening, the low cloud cover was as motionless as a painted sky.

Travis stepped out onto the roof. Bryce followed him, laying the broom handle across the threshold to prevent the door from falling completely shut.