F. Wilson - The Select

It couldn't be Tim. Not in Ward C with the burn patients. Anywhere but Ward C.

If she said anything about it, they'd think she was losing it. Hallucinating. Breaking with reality. Word had already spread around The Ingraham about Tim having a breakdown and running off—pulling a Prosser. The administration would think she was cracking too. They'd send her home. Maybe for good. One breakdown per class was more than they wanted to deal with.

"My period," she said, improvising. "I always get bad cramps the first day."

The nurse's face relaxed. "I get some whoppers myself. Come on over here. I'll give you a couple of Anaprox."

Keeping one hand on the wall to steady herself, Quinn followed her to the nursing station where she sat, blotted the beaded perspiration from her face with a paper towel, and choked down the two blue tablets.

After a few minutes, she felt strong enough to move on. She thanked the nurse and made it down the hall to Dr. Emerson's lab where she told Alice that she didn't feel well enough to work today.

Alice took one look at her and bounded out of her seat.

"I should say you don't! You look awful! You might have the flu. Dr. Emerson won't be in until tonight, so you get right out of here and over to the infirmary right this minute. As a matter of fact, I'll take you there myself."

"That's all right. I'll be okay. Just tell Dr. Emerson I'll be in tomorrow."

Alice shooed her out and Quinn stood outside the lab, looking down the hallway. The elevators were on the far side of Ward C. She was going to have to pass the window to get to them.

She wasn't sure she could handle that.

But she didn't feel strong enough for the stairs right now, so what choice did she have?

None.

Taking a deep, tremulous breath, Quinn straightened her spine and marched back down the hall. The nurses station was empty as she passed it, and she intended to keep walking past Ward C, but when she reached the window she had to stop. No way she could breeze by without one more look.

Both nurses were in there now, standing around the patient who'd signaled her. Marguerite was just removing a syringe from his IV line. Was something wrong?

Quinn pressed closer to the glass. The blinking lights bordering the window made it difficult to see, but she still could make out the patient's left hand, the one that had been stretched into the hang-loose sign—it now hung limp and lifeless. As she watched, the nurses gently rolled him to his left and repositioned him on his back. Everything so normal. Just another day of routine patient care on Ward C.

The nurse who had helped Quinn a few moments ago looked up and smiled at her. Quinn gave her a friendly wave, then forced herself to walk on.

Half dazed, still weak and shaky, feeling as if she were in a dream, Quinn found the elevator control slot and slipped her card into it.

What had just happened here? What was real? What was not? The questions whirled about her in a maelstrom of confusion. Nausea rippled through her stomach and inched up toward her throat. She feared she might get sick right here in the hall.

She had to get out of here, back to the dorm. Back to her room where she could lock the door, crawl into bed, pull the covers over her head and think.

Maybe Mom and Matt had been right. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to stay down here the extra week.

When she got outside, the snow was falling heavily. Everything was covered with a thin coat of white. At any other time she might have stopped to appreciate the silent beauty of the scene. But now she broke into a careful run for the dorm.

*

Tim stared at the ceiling.

What was wrong with Quinn? She'd been looking right at him as he'd given her the hang-loose signal. She'd even reacted as if she'd seen it, looked like she'd been about to faint, but she'd done nothing.

Nothing!

Maybe she hadn't really seen it, or maybe she didn't believe she'd seen it. It didn't matter which. He'd never get a chance like that again. It was over. Might as well pack in the hope and forget about ever getting out of here.

Still staring helplessly at the ceiling's mottled whiteness, Tim felt himself tumbling into a black hole of despair.

TWENTY-TWO

This isn't a highway, Matt thought. This is a parking lot.

The New Jersey Turnpike wasn't exactly stopped dead, but for an hour now it had been moving too slowly for the speedometer to register. As far ahead as the he could see, the three southbound lanes were a stagnant river of glowing brake lights fading into the falling snow.

Not falling, exactly. Racing horizontally was more like it. And lots of it. The windows on the passenger side of Matt's Cherokee were caked with an inch or better of white. It was piling up on the road and the shoulders.

Matt banged impatiently on the steering wheel and glanced at the dashboard clock. Nine o'clock. He should have been there by now. Instead he was just south of Exit 7A, only halfway through Jersey. And the longer he stayed here, the worse it was going to get. He'd played all his CDs twice, and the radio had nothing but traffic reports about the snarl-ups all over the East Coast and weather reports about how much worse it was going to get during the next few hours.

This little jaunt was turning into an ordeal.

A sign on the right with logos for Roy Rogers, Big Boy's, and Sunoco told him that the "Richard Stockton Service Area" was two miles ahead. Matt glanced at his gas gauge and saw it edging onto "E". At his present pace, those two miles could take an hour, maybe more. Running out of fuel now would be the icing on the cake.

He edged the Cherokee to the right and began riding along the shoulder at around twenty miles per hour. It wasn't legal, but at least he was moving. He just had to hope he didn't run into a cop. A ticket would be the candle on the icing on the cake.

He slammed on his brakes and skidded to a halt as a beat-up, twenty-year-old Cadillac DeVille with New York plates pulled out in front of him and stopped. Matt flashed his high beams and honked, but the Caddy didn't budge. He had two choices: sit here behind the guy, or try to slip past him on the right, but that meant risking the snowy slope that dropped away from the shoulder at a good forty-five-degree angle.

He got out and walked up to the Caddy. The driver window rolled down as he approached and a bearded face glared at him.

"Don't fuck with me, man."

"How about letting me by," Matt said. "I'm trying to get to the service area."

"You wait like the rest of us."

"I'm going to run out of gas."

"Tough shit."

Matt stared at him a moment. Everyone was fed up, but this guy was looking for a fight. Matt was tempted to help him find it, but for all he knew there could be three others like him in that car. He looked at the big heavy caddy, at the snowy slope beyond it, and had a better idea.

Without a word, he returned to the Cherokee. He put her in four-wheel drive and slowly eased to the right. The Cadillac responded, moving right to block him. Matt edged further onto the slope, and the Cadillac mimicked him, matching Matt's every rightward move.

When he was sure all four of the Caddy's tires were on the slope, Matt pulled sharply to his left, darting back uphill. The heavier car tried to respond but its rear wheels spun uselessly on the snow. It began to fishtail as it slipped further down the slope, swerving ninety degrees until it was sliding back-end first, its rear wheels spinning madly. It stopped with a jolt in the gully at the bottom, its headlights pointing skyward.

Back on the shoulder again, Matt gave two quick toots on his horn and drove away.

"All I wanted to do was get by," Matt said softly.

No one bothered him the rest of the way to the service area.