B. Johnson - Deadgirl

He wasn’t as heavy as he should have been—it felt like his bones and muscles had been scooped out and replaced with foam. He didn’t quite pass-out, but he wasn’t there anymore. His eyes were half-lidded, moving in strange circular motions in his head. I managed to drag him over to the hood of a nearby car and prop him up against it. After a few tests, he managed to keep his feet, even if he looked completely rocked.

I tried to distill my panic into something useful. I closed my eyes, leaned forward, and touched my forehead to his. I made very sure to hold my breath as I did.

I kissed his forehead.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I hope I did more good than harm.”

I grabbed his phone and turned toward the St. Elias sign. Jackpot. The number for the hospital. I dialed it, and in a frantic tone I explained that I saw a man lying on a car in the hospital’s parking lot, completely tanked out. Probably a drunk, I told them, but he might be in real trouble. The girl on the phone told me to wait right there and that someone would be out in a few seconds. I thanked her, shut the phone, and tucked it back into my dad’s pocket.

I checked one last time that he was stable, half-laying on the hood of the car. Then I turned and ran full speed toward the doors of the Intensive Care building.

I felt the gut-wrenching, run-for-your-life panic before I was half-way into the lobby.

My eyes darted around the cold, sterile lobby, trying to find the source of the… what had Puck called it, in his journal? The bête-noire . The relentless, stabbing panic—the primal sensor Phantoms had, tuned to their particular Mors. But as the seconds stretched on, and nothing leaped out at me with a loud Boo! I realized that while he was close, he wasn’t exactly on my six.

But it felt so—I looked up. For a second, my heart hiccupped—I don’t know what I’d been expecting. Maybe Abraham, his ruler-straight black hair hanging around his long sharp face as he clung to the ceiling like a giant version of some sickening white spider. But, the only thing I saw was the spongy-looking perforated ceiling tiles and long bars of throbbing florescent lights. He seemed so close though…maybe he was right above me. In a room one floor up, twisting the tap and filling my friends with barbiturates, or maybe squeezed in a supply closet, ready to leap out like a monster in a Halloween maze.

I didn’t know, but then again, maybe it didn’t matter. I wasn’t here to defeat him, or seek him out. Today, Ms. Lucy Day would be playing the part of bait—I was just the little fake rabbit on the metal track. Just something for dogs to race for.

There wasn’t anyone at the front desk. I crept forward, trying to glance down a hallway perpendicular to mine without sticking my entire head out into the gap. I saw a nurse drift into a room down the hall far on my left, and I heard gentle murmurings down that way.

I vaulted over the front desk, slapped my hand against the top, and managed to land on the other side and keep running without shattering my ankle into tiny fragments. I did stumble, and hit the set of double doors on the other side of the desk with more shoulder and momentum than purely intended. They blasted open, and I skittered to a stop in front of a bank of elevators. Bingo.

I stabbed the up arrow with my hand, and as it came to life with a soft yellow glow, my mouth fell open. I’d hit the button with my bad hand—and the more I thought about it, I was pretty sure I’d vaulted the desk with the very same hand. I raised my bandaged-and-braced hand up to eye level, wiggling the fingers as much as I could, imprisoned as they were in their little aluminum cells. I felt no pain—just a sort of dull stiffness. I flexed my fingers. Then I made a fist and punched it, hard, into the palm of my other hand. Nothing. Well, the metal of the braces stung the opposite palm, but that was all.

The elevator in front of me—hey, convenient—slid open, and after checking that it was empty, I stepped inside. I stripped off the Ace bandage and the four little braces, dropping them to the floor with four little tiny tings . My fingers were straight, pink, and fine as wine. I flexed them again, as if to convince myself.

When I guessed the source of my miraculous, Wolverine-like recovery, my smile faded. My dad, lying on a hood or, hopefully, on a gurney. I’d attacked him. There wasn’t another word for it. I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to push it away. I reached out and slapped the button for the second floor.

The doors slid open within seconds, and I took another long breath. Now, or never? It wasn’t the easiest decision I ever made, that’s for damn sure. But finally, staring down at the remnants of the finger braces, shining on the thinly brown-carpeted elevator floor, I felt as invincible as I was going to be.

Now or never, Lucy Day.

I jumped out of the elevator, both of my hands in my coat pockets, gripping the weapons I’d stowed away. Nobody stood in the long taupe hallway. I glanced to my left and saw the women’s bathroom and a long row of hallways. To my right, the men’s, and pretty much the same. Leaving it to fate, I headed left. I didn’t make it three steps before a door down the hallway opened up. I saw a hand gripping the doorway, and with a tiny squeak of panic, I bolted sideways into the little girl’s room.

One quick, leaning peek told me that no one was hiding in any of the stalls. Determined to change those statistics, I ran into the last stall, hopped up into a crouch on the seat—the grade-school special—and latched the stall with a tiny click just as the bathroom door opened.

I peeked out through the gap created by the stall door and the frame, the same crevice I always stared at whenever I used a public stall, fearing that some great monstrous eyeball would appear and stare hungrily at me. Two women came in…and I felt my guts drop out of my body. That God had a quirky sense of humor, there was no doubt.

The two women couldn’t have been more opposite in appearance—one, a blonde woman who looked just like an aging beauty queen, the other a mom-haired brunette wearing tennis shoes, jeans, and a sweatshirt. I knew them both. The beauty queen was Morgan’s mom—Mama Veers. The momish one, appropriately, was my mother. I tensed my entire body like a gigantic spring, and a powerful pressure to pee came over me. I would have laughed if I’d been in any other situation.

The feeling passed quickly—as it had been a week since I’d needed to eat, drink, pee or…well, you know, I figured the urge psychosomatic in nature. I wasn’t wrong. I took a stealth-conscious, shallow breath, and listened as they began to talk.

“Her dad—” Ms. Veers said, and ran her hands under the sink before lightly dabbing her sweaty forehead, “—I…don’t even know what to tell him.”

Mom shook her head, “Let’s just wait for now. The doctor said they weren’t sure…that they could wake up any second. No need to get yourself talking with Sal again.”

Ms. Veers nodded, let out a deep breath, and leaned her forehead against the mirror. It felt deliciously cool to the touch, a fact I knew I shouldn’t be aware of.

I noticed that both of their eyes were sunken and dark. They had the look of sleep-deprived college students or heroin addicts. Knowing I was responsible for their tears, the Hell that had become their lives…I closed my eyes, and I listened.

“Any word yet?”

Mom shook her head.

“David is still out there,” Mom said, her words gaining strength. “And the police…we’ll find her. I don’t think she just ran off. She didn’t even take anything, from her room.”