Absence of Faith
Anthony Samuel Policastro
Absence of Faith. Copyright 2009 by Anthony Samuel Policastro. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America by Smashwords. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
For information contact Anthony Samuel Policastro at aspolicastro@earthlink.net or visit the author’s blog at http://aspnovelist.blogspot.com
All of the characters and events in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual events or actual persons living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Smashwords Edition
April 2009
Cover illustration by Emily E. Policastro
For
Joann, my loving wife, soul
mate and best friend, who has
always
supported me.
In
memory of my father,
Samuel Anthony Policastro, who gave me a
hands-on approach to life and the inspiration to always reach for the
stars.
1925-1999
Many
thanks to Marion McBride,
my beloved Mother-in-law
for her
invaluable editing and
insight.
1933-2006
The Bridge - Chapter 1
He was tired and looking forward to sleeping late the next morning. He and his wife, Linda, had just left an annual reunion with his fellow classmates from medical school. They had become close and vowed to get together once a year to refresh their friendship no matter how far the winds of their careers had carried them. It seemed like only yesterday that they made that vow and now two years had slipped between that evening before graduation, and the night of this particular get together.
Carson and Linda approached the aging Red River Bridge; a forgotten wooden structure built in the 1920s and scheduled to be torn down in the summer. Carson enjoyed the clanking of the loose boards as the car went over them; Linda hated when he took this way home; she believed the bridge would collapse any day now and most likely it would be their car that caused the collapse. Below them, the river moved steadily marking their passage - a point in time captured like the click of a camera captures a split second of realty. Carson wondered what mysteries lay beneath the escaping, fouled water. He wondered how much history the river had seen - he knew that the river was old, very old. He knew that the river once flourished with crabs and oysters - the older men spoke of those days when they were children and the river teemed with edible sea life. It's hard to look at an old man and imagine that he was once a child - fresh, new and naive to the world he inhabited. The river could have been here since the early beginnings of the earth, but today no one cared about such meaningless things. They regarded the river as a means to get out to the ocean or illegally dump unwanted chemicals or sewage. No one cared about the river - no one defended the river. His thoughts seemed to melt into others like a dream that progresses with random happenings all unrelated and all illogical.
* * *
The tiny orange light grew brighter as he was pulled downward at an ever-increasing speed. Shadows at the sides of the tunnel came to life and thrust out thin, spiny arms that grabbed at him. When the arms made contact, they were transparent and they transmitted an electrical-like pain through his skin that sliced his arms and legs into shredded raw flesh. He tried to avoid them but he couldn’t. He fell faster and fear washed over him like the wind in his face as he thought of his impending doom. Suddenly he stopped falling as if he landed on a pillow of soft air. He was eased down on his back and he felt the back of his head sink into something soft, something familiar. He was in his bedroom lying in his bed, wondering how he got there. The curtains on the window were moving and he could see there was something outside pushing against the glass trying to get in. He tried to get up, but he couldn't feel his arms. The window shattered and a black entity resembling a long black scarf snaked into the room, stopped at the foot of the bed, and metamorphosed into a giant, angry dog with an over sized head and mouth. The dog jumped up on the bed and bit into Carson’s left thigh violently shaking its head from side to side ripping the leg from Carson’s body. Within seconds, the dog bit into Carson’s other leg tearing it off with several quick turns of its violent head. Carson screamed in pain and tried desperately to move away kicking and pushing with a virgin terror that scared him more than the dog. The dog hovered over Carson its long pointy teeth dripping with Carson’s blood and pieces of his skin and sinew. The beast opened its mouth wider and thrust its disfigured head towards Carson and Carson knew a new terror more intense, more frightening than all the others. This dog was familiar! Instantly, his mind reeled back to when houses were still being built in his neighborhood and he played in the wooded lot next door. The lot had a narrow dirt path that was well worn by all the neighborhood kids, and on this day, Carson, his friend Georgie, who lived across the street and tiny Sara from the house next door were on an adventure. The threesome walked down the path, Carson in the lead, Georgie behind him and Sara trailing when there was a rustling in the bush ahead. Suddenly, a large black dog appeared on the path with its teeth drawn and a low growl in its throat. A gold tag hung from its black collar ringed in silver studs. Sara immediately turned and ran screaming; Carson and Georgie stood there paralyzed in fear.
"Nice, doggie," Carson said putting up his hand and slowly backing away.
The growl intensified and turned into a loud bark and then the dog lunged towards Carson knocking him to the ground. Georgie ran as fast as he could, screaming and crying down the path. The dog bit into Carson’s thigh and dragged him into the bush where it was hiding earlier. The dog released Carson, then bit into his foot, and violently shook its head back and forth. Carson kicked the dog in the head and the dog released his foot and then moved on top of Carson. He stood there a few seconds growling and spewing its hot, acrid breath onto Carson’s face, its eyes filled with hatred and evil. Then the dog opened his mouth wider and moved towards Carson’s neck. Carson screamed and pushed the dog’s head away.
"Crack!"
The dog’s head flew to the left and the dog fell to the ground howling in pain. Carson looked up and saw the angry face of his father holding a baseball bat. The dog got up, shook its head and growled at Carson’s dad. Carson’s father hit the dog again on top of its head and it slumped down onto the ground whimpering. He hit the dog several times and the whimpering stopped. Carson only remembered riding in an ambulance and then waking up in the hospital, his mom and dad looking down at him his leg and foot in pain.
* * *
Carson could feel the pointy teeth pierce his neck and throat and his warm blood quickly squirt out over his chest. He screamed again, but there was no sound and he sensed his mind melt into the nothingness, into the darkness. He woke up standing in front of a dark figure surrounded by intense and wild fire. The flames burned behind the dark hooded figure so that Carson could not see its face. Then the figure spoke.
"You have been doomed to Hell! Your punishment will go on endlessly and each time you will have no memory that it occurred before."
Carson's throat burned and he couldn't breathe, but he could move again. He was crying, but there were no tears and fear thundered through his body again. He moved farther away from the dark figure and ran, but his legs moved as if they were in a thick sludge. Then he saw Linda trying to reach for him under water! A golden light washed over them casting warm streams of light into the darkness. It was a light filled with love and familiarity, and it was the most beautiful light he had ever seen. A tiny voice told him to go towards the light, but he didn't want to - he wanted to go with Linda. He began to swim towards her and when he was close enough he grabbed her hand and a coldness he had never known rushed through his body. The cold blackened his mind and there was nothing.
* * *
Linda was jarred out her sleep by the clanking of the loose boards on the Red River Bridge as the car started over the quarter mile structure. She looked over at Carson and noticed his unmoving, glassy eyes.
"Carson!" she screamed as the car drifted towards the bridge's railing.
She lunged toward the wheel, but it was too late - the car crashed through the wood railing and plunged downward into the river about twenty feet below. Instantly, her world went black except for the dim, green hue of the dashboard lights. The car moved downward, scraped on some submerge tree branches, and slowly stopped. She could see a faint outline of the branches pushed against the windshield. She gasped when the icy cold water reached her ankles and numbed her feet.
"Get out! Get out! Get out now!" the voice screamed in her head.
She rolled the window down, but stopped after a few inches when the cold water sprayed in like hurricane rain. She gulped in a huge amount of air in anticipation of a scream, but before she could let it out, the cold shock of the water hit and she nearly passed out. She watched in horror as the water filled the car covering her legs, her stomach, and her breasts. She could no longer feel her body.
"GET OUT! GOTTA GET OUT!" a voice screamed in her head nonstop like a broken record skipping and playing the same message over and over. Within seconds, the water covered her face and she instantly thrust her head up and saw a large air bubble forming in the ceiling of the car. She tilted her head up, let out her breath of death and gulped the sparse air like a hungry animal. Renewed with the life sustaining air, she put her head under and groped for Carson finding it more difficult as the ethereal light from the dashboard faded into the cold death.
"GOTTA GET OUT! GOTTA GET CARSON OUT! GET OUT!" screamed in her head again. She found his limp arm and pulled, but he wouldn't move. She panicked and then as if something was thrust into her brain like a bullet piercing her skull she had a revelation - the seat belt! Carson still had his seat belt on! She groped again in the icy blackness to what seemed like hours trying to find the belt, and then her hand touched something smooth and long. She thought an hour had passed when only a few seconds had elapsed. Everything was moving in slow motion. She ran her hand down along the belt's length, found the buckling device, and pushed on it. She pulled on the belt to get it off Carson, but it would not give. She panicked again and pushed all over the buckling device trying to find the release button. Her face hurt, her hands were numb and she could not feel her fingers touch the buckling device.
"GOTTA GET OUT! MUST GET OUT BEFORE THE BATTERY GOES DEAD! GOTTA GET OUT!"
Instantly, the belt broke loose and she pulled Carson towards her. Then she went limp. The pain in her chest increased and she tasted death for the first time. It was swallowing her, licking her, consuming her from within. She raised her head and saw a faint outline of what appeared to be a bubble of air. With little energy she had left, she raised her head and sucked in the elixir of life and was born again. She pushed the door open with her right leg, but it only moved several inches. Bubbling sounds filled the darkness as more air escaped from under the roof and rose up to freedom and life.
"OH NO! NO! NO!" screamed in her head. "GET OUT! GET OUT!" The voice seemed to be someone else shouting at her from inside her head - a being motivated only by fear and the will to live. The voice was alien to her as if she were watching everything happen as an observer.
She placed her back against the seat and used her legs to push the door open like a human wedge. The door slowly opened, but only enough for her to squeeze out. She looked up and saw another tiny bubble of air still trapped in the ceiling and thought she should go for it, but decided Carson was more important. She squeezed out of the car holding Carson’s hand. Then she realized that she no longer had Carson’s hand! She struggled to pull the door open and finally wedged her leg between the door. She could barely see, but Carson was on his back floating across the front seats like a watery corpse. She grabbed his ankle and pulled him towards her. His legs spread apart as she pulled and she reluctantly let go his ankle to grab his other foot. She finally pulled him through the tiny space. Then something touched her leg in the black darkness. "The tree branches," she thought with a new adrenaline fix.
She locked her arms under Carson's and around his chest. The water felt like a giant fist slamming into her body - her skin hurt and her head ached from the coldness. The darkness swallowed her completely, but she kept moving what she hoped was upward toward the surface. The dim green lights of the dashboard vanished into nothingness, and the pain in her chest grew stronger as she struggled to swim to the surface with Carson. She could not feel her arms or legs, but she knew she had to keep sending signals from her brain to keep her legs kicking and her arms wrapped tightly around Carson.
"This is too hard, too much trouble - I can't take this anymore," she thought. "It would be easier to stop and rest. Yes, rest would be nice. I need to rest. I need to rest..."
Her thoughts drifted away, along with the pain in her chest and suddenly images of her life flashed in front of her one right after the other like the slide shows she often had to sit through when her husband was a speaker at one of the medical conferences. Her mom coming to help her when she fell off her bike and skinned her knee; her dad bringing in the large doll house for her eighth birthday; Jeremy picking her up for the prom dressed in a black tuxedo with a pink carnation pinned to his lapel; her friend, Denise from college kissing Tom Sanders on their first double date; her wedding day with her father giving her away to Carson standing at the altar in his white tuxedo. The images stopped there and the one of her wedding began to play out in slow motion. After her father released her arm, Carson turned to face her. He was crying - a terrible sadness oozed out of his face - sadness so intense she felt it squeeze her heart like a vice.
"Carson! Carson! What's wrong! Carson!"
"Don't let me die!" he said. He grabbed her hand and squeezed it.
Intense fear slammed into her again like a waterfall spilling into her. Suddenly the pain in her chest was very intense, and the images of her life vanished, and she could see a tiny inkling of fused light above. Her head exploded with an intense revelation - she remembered where she was. Fear mixed with adrenaline shot through her like a lightening bolt.
"I'M NOT GOING TO LET US DIE!" the voice screamed in her head. "I CAN'T LET CARSON DIE!"
She instinctively focused all of her strength and will on getting to the surface. She didn't know how she did it later, but she kicked her legs in one last surge of energy, kicking, kicking, kicking. Seconds later, she felt her face hit the warmer air, and her lungs exploded as she let out the foul air of death and gulped the sweet breath of life. She pulled Carson's head up and swam for the embankment barely visible from a distant street light on the bridge. The water was like thick sludge and it took all of her remaining strength to move her arm and legs. She reached the shore, grabbed hold of a small tree, and paused there to catch her breath. She dragged Carson out of the water - his body slid well on the mud and swampy grass. She gasped for air and her limbs started to tingle as her life force slowly revived itself. Despite her winded condition, she began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on Carson. His forehead and hair immediately turned red with blood from a two-inch gash in his forehead. Moments later, lights appeared on the bridge and then a voice.
"Hello, anyone there?"
"Over here! Over here! Call 911!" Linda yelled between tears.
Minutes later the sky lit up fire red - an ambulance and a police car arrived - their sirens piercing the quiet darkness like a saw blade.
"Over here!" She screamed.
Bright, narrow light beams from several flashlights danced into the darkness below the bridge.
"Over here!" Linda screamed again.
The beams rushed over to her. Bill Watkins immediately grabbed his black bag and rushed down through knee-high brush and small trees to the riverbank. He went to Carson who was lying on his back. His skin was gray and his lips were blue. Linda knelt beside him – she shook violently from the cold fear. Several others swarmed them paramedics, police – it all became a blur to Linda. Someone draped a blanket over Linda.
"I've got no pulse and he's not breathing," one man said. "Ready for CPR?"
The man gave Carson mouth-to-mouth while another stuck a needle into Carson's arm. The paramedic blew into Carson's lungs several times, but Carson did not respond. He placed one hand just under Carson's rib cage and took hold of his wrist. Then he used his weight to push down in the hopes that it would jump-start Carson's heart. He pushed several times and then went back to mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
"Don't let him die!" Linda screamed. "He can't die!"
Her screams startled the paramedics. The other man pushed on Carson's chest, but Carson did not respond. The men became frantic in their efforts to save Carson.
The paramedic giving CPR stopped and gasped for air and placed two fingers on Carson's artery. "I think I've got a pulse," he yelled between sucking in gulps of air.
"Let's go! He'll do a lot better in the hospital."
They quickly placed Carson on a stretcher and hurried toward the ambulance. His body was like a giant rubber doll. One man slipped on the muddy bank.
"Oh God! No!" Linda screamed.
The man recovered quickly and moved off the slimy muddy bank.
Linda cried when she entered the ambulance - the reality of what was happening suddenly hit her like a tidal wave. Carson's skin was gray, his hair was soaked with blood, and he looked like a corpse. Within minutes, they arrived at Red Bank Hospital and Carson was wheeled into one of the emergency rooms. Several doctors and nurses followed the gurney into the well-lighted room.
"It's Doctor Hyll!" one of the nurses shouted. "I worked with him when I was at Ocean Village." The others looked at each other and picked up their pace. One nurse attached wires to his forehead, chest and fingers. Another felt along his arm looking for a vein to start an IV. Linda followed the activity - her face a distorted mask of fear. They worked frantically on Carson - mouth-to-mouth, shots of adrenaline and finally electrical shock.
"Clear!" the doctor holding the electrodes yelled.
Carson's body jerked and Linda wailed in fear, as the green line on the EKG monitor remained flat.
"Clear!" the doctor yelled again.
After several more attempts, the energy in the room paled and a shroud of silence overwhelmed everyone.
"We're sorry," said the doctor holding the electrodes.
"Nooooooooo! You can't stop now! You can't stop now!" Linda screamed. "Try again! Try again! NOW! Pleeeeeeeeeease!!!"
A nurse ushered her out of the room and slowly the other nurses and doctors left the room as if they were in a funeral procession - a procession for Carson.
The nurse squeezed Linda's hand and said, "He's gone, Mrs. Hyll. I’m sorry."
The Awakening - Chapter 2
He could only lift his hand a few inches. Something was all around it. He only had enough space to bring his hand to his chest and feel the cold skin on his ribcage. He began to shiver. He felt along his hips and then down along his right leg. He was naked. He opened his eyes and saw only blackness. He closed his eyes and saw the same blackness and it scared him - black on black. He frantically ran both hands all around him with the slim hope that he could push the blackness away and find the light. The obstruction felt like smooth, cold plastic, and then his hand hit upon a metal object. The metal ran in a straight-line parallel his body and stuck out a bit. He continued to feel it - the metal line was about as thick as a pencil and it had grooves. Carson continued to run his finger along the metal line. It went past his face and over his head, and then stopped. He traced the metal line again with his index finger and found a small square smooth spot along the line above his head. Suddenly, his throat tightened.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" He screamed. The noise swallowed his consciousness, his entire being in a white noise of fear. The scream would not stop and completely controlled him, his thoughts, and his soul.
He knew where he was.
* * *
Dick Harrington, a thin man with a round head covered in closely cut white gray hair, got off the elevator and pushed an empty ER stretcher past the double swing doors into the dark corridor near the morgue. He heard what he thought was a scream. It was 5 am and he had a couple of hours left as the senior orderly on the third shift. Probably, a patient on one of the upper floors having a nightmare, he thought. In the past, the sound had moved down along the heating pipes in the ceiling echoing through the dungeon-like halls. It was common. He continued and thought of his granddaughter, Dawinda when one of her braids got caught in the chain on her backyard swing and she began to scream in fear.
"Helpppppp!" a second scream. He stopped and listened more intently. The screams came in a continuous volley. He backed up towards the double doors and pulled the stretcher with him. The screams were louder now, his chest tightened, and his hands shook as he slowly entered the dark, cold room. A strong scent of formaldehyde and disinfectant filled his nose, but he was used to it and hardly noticed. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead as he felt along the wall for the light switch. The room flooded with white cold light and he looked along the wall of giant silver drawers, each numbered, and each containing a dead person. He walked towards the rear of the room and the screams stopped.
With a shaking hand, Harrington reached down and opened a drawer near the floor. He unzipped the black shiny bag and saw blue-gray face of an old man with his mouth open. He quickly zipped it shut and turned away feeling a rumbling in his stomach. He closed the drawer and walked towards the double doors holding one hand over his mouth and the other on his stomach. His shirt was soaked with sweat. As he reached the doors, the screams started again. He froze – that moment when everything even your consciousness stops consumed by a single powerful force. He turned and stared at the wall of drawers. One door seemed to move slightly. The shrieks overwhelmed everything in the room. Harrington cautiously walked toward the drawer and with his shaking hand pulled on the large handle; the drawer slid towards him effortlessly. The black bag inside was writhing like a snake. He reached for the zipper, missing it several times because he couldn't control the shaking in his hand and because the bag kept moving out of his reach. The howling from inside the bag set every one of his nerves on fire. When he finally pulled the zipper back, two wide eyes filled with terror met his and he screamed, and the body screamed back at him. Then the "corpse" reached out, grabbed his arm, and squeezed it like a vice. Harrington pulled away yelling, slipped and fell, but the "corpse" held him securely. Now its arms were half out of the drawer holding Harrington's arm with agonizing strength. Tears ran down Harrington's face as he struggled to get free and then the "corpse" let go. Harrington slammed his body against the double doors, bolted down the hallway, and vanished up the stairs screaming the entire way.
The Revelation - Chapter 3
The light hurt his eyes as he opened them. He couldn't see very clearly - there seemed to be a mist over them.
"Where am I?" he asked.
A man standing near the edge of his bed looked up from a chart and smiled, his blue eyes sparkled.
"You're in Red Bank Hospital. I'm Doctor Westwood. We're glad you're back - you were in a car accident and suffered a concussion. The concussion must have triggered some bad memories," the man explained.
"More like nightmares," Carson said. "What happened?"
"We don’t know. All we know is that your car went off the Red River Bridge. Lucky for both of you your wife was not knocked unconscious," he explained.
"Linda? Is she?"
"Oh yeah she’s fine. She pulled you out of the car or you would have drowned," the doctor said. "The water is pretty cold at this time of the year and hypothermia sets in in less than fifteen minutes. It's really a miracle that she got both of you out."
Carson moved his arm to brace himself up and then stopped.
"Ouch! Why is my arm burned? Boy, that hurts," he said. "Did the car catch on fire?"
"It's not only your arm, Carson. It's your whole body. We think it's some kind of psychological reaction to the crash or maybe something was in the water and you're having an allergic reaction to it. We're still doing tests. It's not that serious - the burns are like a severe sunburn so you should feel better in a few days," Dr. Westwood explained.
"How could that be?"
"We don't know. We first thought there might be some kind of pollutant in the water and your skin reacted with that, but our tests show that your internals were slightly damaged by...well, some kind of heat. You show all the symptoms of a person who suffered a heat stroke...someone who stayed in the sun for days without water," Dr. Westwood explained.
"The hottest day we've had so far has only been around 50 degrees and I wasn't sun tanning," Carson said.
"We're aware of that and we’re still doing tests. Don't worry you're recovering nicely. You should be out of here by Saturday."
"It's probably from waking up in the body bag," Carson said.
Doctor Westwood was silent and looked down at the chart.
"Strange. I don't remember falling asleep while driving," Carson added.
"Well, we'll have one of our staff psychiatrists look in on you if you want. You hit your head pretty hard."
"No, that's okay. I'll be fine," Carson replied. "Why was I in the morgue?"
"I don't know. I wasn't the attending physician."
"Where's Linda?"
"Your wife? I believe she's on her way. Now get some rest. I'll see you again tomorrow."
Carson noticed a foul, burnt odor. He began to smell the sheets, and then he brought his arm up to nose, and discovered the origin of the smell - it was his own skin. The skin smelled burnt, foul and rotted, yet his skin was only damaged to the degree of severe sunburn. Only burn victims would have such an odor, he thought. He was puzzled. He thought about it for a moment and then drifted into a peaceful sleep staring at the flickering images of the TV floating above his bed.
* * *
When he opened his eyes, a face stared down at him.
"Linda!" he said.
"Oh, Carson I thought I lost you. I was so scared," she said her eyes watering.
"I love you," Carson said weakly putting his arms around her despite his pain.
"What happened?" Carson asked.
"You fell asleep, the car went off the bridge, and I pulled us out," Linda said between tears.
Her face hardened. "You damn near killed us! You should have let me drive or we should have stayed at Sean's if you were that tired!"
"But, I wasn't tired. I was wide awake and then there was nothing."
"You must have passed out from exhaustion. From now on I’m driving home from any parties."
"I guess so..." he said.
"You were DOA, Carson," she said. "I watched them try to revive you. You were dead."
"DOA? No wonder I can't remember any of it," he said. "I came back...in the morgue." He shuttered at the thought.
"It's a good thing that orderly was there. I would have been pretty damn mad if you left me," Linda said squeezing his hand and smiling.
"All I remember is holding onto your hand. I'm still puzzled how I could have fallen asleep. I was wide-awake and having fun driving on the bridge," he said.
"You remember holding my hand?"
"Yeah and I floated towards you, and grabbed your hand, and together we floated to the surface."
"You didn’t grab my hand. You were unconscious the whole time," Linda said. "I remember waking up and staring at you. You were in a daze. The next thing I know the car is drifting towards the railing and then it crashed through. I was thrown forward, and the dashboard seemed to float downward, and my whole body lifted slightly. I screamed as the car fell and I remember the seat belt suddenly getting very tight against my shoulder. The car hit the water, I was thrown forward, and then everything went black except for the dashboard. There was a scraping sound and the car came to a stop. I could see a faint outline of tree branches pushed against the windshield from the headlights. Then water sprayed into the car from all over. It all happened in slow motion, and I remember every detail - it was the most frightening experience of my life!"
The Symptoms - Chapter 4
"Hello, Doctor Hyll," said Doctor Matthew Stokes as he passed Carson in the hospital corridor. Stokes was the prominent chief of staff of the Ocean Village Hospital and towered at least a foot over Carson. "Good to have you back," he said as he scratched the side of his round, baldhead.
"Thank you, Doctor Stokes," Carson said. "Three weeks seems like an eternity. I was beginning to get into the soaps."
"Well, you take it easy these first few days. We don't want you back here as a patient," Stokes said and disappeared down a hallway.
Carson raised his hand slightly in a sort of half wave and kept walking towards the ER. Within seconds after arriving, the police radio alarm came to life.
"Here we go!" a nurse yelled. "We have a white female coming in with head injuries from a car accident. Age seventy plus. Vitals are iffy."
The double doors slammed opened and three paramedics hurriedly pushed a stretcher through. Several nurses rushed towards them along with Carson.
"It's Mrs. Whitehead!" one nurse screamed. "What's she doing still driving?"
"Her forehead is lacerated. Get me a saline pack," another nurse said.
"The old woman is delirious. She's mumbling something," another nurse said. They pushed the stretcher into the closest empty room. One nurse rubbed her wrist looking for a suitable vein to plug in an intravenous needle. Another wiped a large section of blood off the woman's head; another attached contacts to her chest, which led to an EKG machine.
"We've got cardiac arrest!" the nurse yelled who had just placed the contacts in place.
"Bag her, now!" Carson yelled.
"Doctor! We don't have air flow!" A nurse yelled.
"Grab that tank over there!" Carson responded. "NOW!"
"Pads! Hurry!" he yelled. "Two hundred. Charge!"
A nurse handed him the pads, then spread the conducting jelly on the bases. She set the voltage at its minimum setting of 200 Joules. He placed the oval units on the old woman's chest.
"Clear!"
Carson pushed the buttons and the lifeless body flopped violently on the stretcher.
"Pulse?"
"Nothing." a nurse replied.
"Charge, 360! Clear!" Carson yelled.
The body bucked again.
"Still no response," said the nurse by the EKG monitor.
"Charge! Clear!" Carson yelled again.
"She's gone! She's gone!" the nurse said between tears.
"No activity," the EKG nurse said. "I think we lost her."
"Bullshit! Nurse, help me with CPR!" Carson said.
He pressed the heel of his hand so hard onto the woman's frail chest it looked as if he would touch her spine.
"Nurse, I want an Epinephrine IV push," Carson ordered.
A nurse hung a second intravenous bag to the hanger and connected the thin, clear tube.
"Any pulse?" Carson said between gulps of air. "Any breathing?"
"Nothing."
"Pads! Charge! Clear!" he yelled.
"Atropine, now!" Carson ordered.
Twenty minutes passed and Carson stopped. He gulped air through his small narrow mouth like a hungry animal, his skin flushed and sweat cascaded down his temples.
"Are you all right, doctor?" a nurse asked.
"Yeah," he replied softly. "She was the first patient I've ever lost and I didn't know it felt this way."
Carson stared at the old woman.
"No. No. This is not happening! I'm not going to let this happen! No. No. Clear! Clear!"
Carson placed the defibrillator pads on the dead woman again and pushed the buttons. The body bucked again. The nurse near Carson placed her hand on his arm to tell him it was not his fault.
Suddenly, the doors swung open and a large figure appeared.
"Carson! I got here as soon as possible!" Stokes said rushing towards the table. "Is everything okay?"
Carson looked up startled.
"No, we lost her," Carson said, the volume of his voice trailing off.
"Oh, no," Stokes said.
A nurse slowly pulled a white sheet over Mrs. Whitehead's face and turned to leave. The others followed. Carson and Dr. Stokes remained.
"This your first?" Stokes asked.
"Yeah."
"First one's tough," Stokes added.
"Does it ever get easier?" Carson said.
"No, not really, but you tend to feel less. You know not to get too close because it will destroy you."
"So we should all be cold, unfriendly bastards!" Carson shot back.
"No. Just keep it professional and don't take it personally. You have to learn to accept that these things are not your doing. There are other forces working here...forces none of us can control or hope to influence, but we try anyway...try to beat the odds...save a life, prolong another."
Suddenly, the beeping of the EKG machine broke the pall. The screen showed a jagged, moving green line. Then there was an agonizing, piercing sound.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
"She's come back!" Carson screamed.
"Please! Please! Save me! Oh, the pain, the pain..." Mrs. Whitehead wailed.
She flailed her arms and kicked her feet like a wild animal.
"She's hallucinating! Nurse! Nurse!" Stokes yelled.
Two nurses ran in and took their stations next to Stokes.
Ten milligrams of Valium IV now!" Carson said.
The nurse administered the drug into the intravenous tube connected to the old woman's wrist. Mrs. Whitehead's wild ranting slowly faded.
"Put her in intensive care," Carson said.
"This is very peculiar, but not unheard of," Stokes said.
"You mean her coming back to life?" Carson asked.
"Yes. The Lord didn't see fit to take her just yet. It wasn't her time.”
"Yes, that could be true, but I think we should run some tests on her anyway," Carson said.
"Of course," Stokes said.
"I just think there is a reason other than the Lord's intervention that caused her to come back. Maybe, she never died. Maybe, her metabolism slowed to a point where the EKG couldn't detect a heartbeat and we thought we had lost her," Carson replied.
"You could be right. I'm just feeling a little pious today. It's been awhile since someone died in the ER and her dying was a bit unsettling," Stokes said.
Carson left the ER and went to check in on his patients. He checked on Mrs. Whitehead periodically during the day and when he entered her room found the entire room smelled foul. He leaned over and looked at the old woman - all of her skin had turned red and some of it had blistered as if the woman had spent the day at the beach. He pushed the emergency button and a nurse with short red hair appeared.
"Nurse, have you noticed these symptoms on Mrs. Whitehead? Her skin looks like it was burned," Carson asked.
"No, she didn't have it when we brought her in. Look at that! It's like she was in the sun all day," the nurse said picking up the old woman's arm to examine it.
"What's that smell? It smells like burned flesh," she said.
"I noticed it, too when I came in. Have her blood tests come back yet?"
"No."
"Call Stokes. I want him to see this. Ask him to meet me here in about twenty minutes. I'm going to the lab. I want to know what's taking so long for her blood tests," Carson explained.
"Yes, doctor."
Carson left the hospital and walked across the street to a small brick building with a glass door. Painted on the glass in gold letters was "Medical Laboratory." He pulled on the door and was instantly pulled back into it when it didn't open. He peered in, but the overhead sun reflecting off the glass prevented him from seeing anything. He frowned, walked back to the hospital and checked into the main nursing station.
"Nurse, why is the medical laboratory closed?" he asked. "I was just there and the door was locked."
"Closed? What are you talking about?" she said, a large frown forming above her tiny oval glasses. "I just spoke with them. Let me call down there to see what's going on," she replied. She picked up the phone and dialed.
"Hello, Jeffrey. Did you leave for a while and lock the door? Doctor Hyll said he was just there and the door was locked. He thought you were closed," she said.
"Closed? We got so much work here I'll be putting in overtime. Send him down. I'll keep an eye out for him," Jeffrey explained.
"They're there, doctor," the nurse said.
"But I was just there and the door was locked," he said.
The nurse looked at him incredulously.
"You went across the street, didn't you?" she said smiling. "That's the old lab. They closed it last month because it was too small. They use an entire wing now in the basement. Didn't they tell you?"
"No," Carson said.
"Don't worry. You're not alone...many of our doctors make the same mistake. Have a nice day," she said.
"Thanks," he said.
He took the nearby elevator to the basement and walked down a long hallway enveloped in white light from the overhead florescent lights. He pushed on a double set of wooden doors with black stick-on letters that identified the lab.
"Are you Doctor Hyll?" Jeffrey asked pushing his ashen face into Carson's.
"Yeah," Carson said pulling away to avoid his stale breath and crooked front teeth.
"Well, glad to meet you. I hope you are feeling better these days. I heard about your accident," Jeffrey explained rubbing the hair net covering what little hair remained on his head. "What can I do for you?"
"Do you have Mrs. Whitehead's results yet?" Carson asked. "She's developed additional symptoms."
"Doing it now. I'm going as fast as I can," Jeffrey said. "These tests aren't simple and they take time. If you want to wait a few minutes..."
"Do I look like I have a few minutes?" Carson shot back.
"Cool your jets. You're not the only doctor that needs results," Jeffrey replied. "I'm doing the best I can."
Carson backed away and stood near the double doors. Jeffrey moved to the other side of the room and pressed his eyes into a microscope that sat on a large black slate table.
"So how do you like Ocean Village?" Jeffrey asked after several minutes. "I like it okay, especially since they gave me more room down here. The only thing is I feel like a mole working in the basement. I wish this place had windows. I miss the windows in the old lab, but I guess you can't have everything.”
"What do you have so far?" Carson asked.
"So far she's clean as a whistle. Everything is negative. She's a little anemic and I'm doing the last one now for HTLV. Give me a few minutes - I'm almost finished," Jeffrey explained.
Jeffrey took a few drops of blood from a test tube with her name on it and placed them on a slide. Then he added a few drops of green dye.
"This dye stains the antibodies so we can see them," Jeffrey said. "Looks like she's negative on this one, too. Would you like to take a look?"
Carson moved towards the microscope and placed his eyes on the eyepiece. He didn't say anything.
"I'll have the report done in about an hour," Jeffrey said sheepishly.
"Fine," Carson said and left. "And…ah…thanks."
"No problem."
He went back to Mrs. Whitehead's room. Stokes, Nurse Janice Doherty and another doctor were there.
"Well, what do we have?" Stokes asked.
"Negative. She's clean. No viruses, HTLV negative, nothing to explain the symptoms," Carson said looking down at the sleeping Mrs. Whitehead.
"Could be an allergy or a reaction to the car accident," Stokes said.
"I don't think so. The same thing happened to me with the same results," Carson said. "Something would have to show up in the blood for that kind of reaction."
"Surely, we would see something that could cause such a severe symptom," Stokes said. "By the way, Doctor Hyll, this is Doctor Henry Graber."
"Hello," Carson said extending his hand. "Nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you. Dr. Stokes and I go back a long time. If you need any help with anything just call," Graber said taking Carson's hand firmly.
"Thank you. I will."
"She's coming around," Nurse Doherty said.
The old woman opened her eyes and looked at Carson. Her eyes were cloudy, red-streaked ovals filled with tears.
"Oh, it was so terrible. I don't want to go there again. Where am I? What did I do wrong? I'm so sorry..." she managed to get out. "Oh, I'm so thirsty...so thirsty."
"Mrs. Whitehead, Mrs. Whitehead? You're in the hospital. I'm Doctor Hyll and this is Doctor Stokes and Doctor Graber. You were in a car accident and you're going to be okay."
"Yes, you are going to be fine, Mrs. Whitehead. Nothing to worry about," Stokes added.
"Oh, oh...but the pain. There must be something wrong. The Lord must be mad at me. I was falling into a dark tunnel...it was so terrible! Can I have some water now?"
"It was just a very bad nightmare, Mrs. Whitehead," Stokes said. "Nurse?"
Nurse Doherty poured water out of the plastic pitcher into a tiny cup and held it up to woman's lips. She took meager sips.
"Was there a faint flickering light at the end of the tunnel?" Carson asked.
"Oh, yes. And then the pain..." the old woman said. “I've always been afraid of the pain.”
Carson walked away from the bed and stared out the window at the parked cars below. Stokes approached him.
"What's the matter? You look like you've seen a ghost?" Stokes asked.
"She had the same nightmare I had. It just doesn't make sense," Carson said.
"Guilt. That's all it is. Guilt. You must being feeling guilty about something you did," Graber said from the bedside. "The mind works in strange ways and so does the Lord. Maybe she’s being punished on account of you."
"I don't think so," Carson shot back. "I don't feel guilty about anything I did in my life past or present. And how do you explain the blistered, burned skin? They thought it might be something in the water, but Mrs. Whitehead...she didn't crash into any river. How do you explain her symptoms?" Carson walked back to Mrs. Whitehead's bed.
"I think you’re a little out of line," Stokes added.
"Well, Doctor Graber here thinks her symptoms are divine intervention!" Carson said staring down Stokes. "How can you say that, Doctor Graber! If most people thought like you did, we'd still be in the dark ages!"
Carson stormed out. Stokes started after him, but stopped and looked at Graber. Nurse Doherty shrugged.
"I apologize for that outburst," Stokes said. "Doctor Hyll is a bit short tempered these days, and he's still recovering from that awful car accident. This is his first day back."
"It's okay. I understand, Matt. He's not a native and he doesn't understand our ways, but I'm sure he'll come around," Graber said. His thin lips parted into a tiny smile.
"Yes, our ways..." Stokes replied staring right through Graber. "Yes, our ways..."
Nurse Doherty shook her head and left; Graber followed her.
The Subbasement - Chapter 5
Carson's stomach was upset when he finished his shift probably from that stupid nurse who worked only one day a week. She often forgot the processes she was supposed to follow, but insisted she had done it correctly. He could never figure out people who thought absolutely in black and white and who saw the world with no gray areas. In addition, he didn't like working Sundays, but people just don't get mysteriously well on Sundays and then sick again during the week. When he pulled into the river stone driveway of his 1894 Victorian home, his wife was just starting to unload grocery bags from the trunk of her Nisson. Luckily, for both of them they could drive their cars on Sundays. The use of all vehicles was prohibited on Sundays in honor of the Sabbath until 1985. The town gates were chained shut from midnight Saturday until midnight Sunday and no wheeled vehicles of any sort were used on the town's roads. The courts ruled that the practice was a conflict between church and state and the gates had to remain open.
"I need some help," she shouted to him on her way into the house with several bags in her arms.
"Be right there!" Carson yelled back. He was exhausted and didn't feel up to carrying grocery bags into the house.
He looked down his street as the last streams of the sun cast a burnt orange glow on some of the houses. A cool breeze blew off the ocean carrying a briny smell into the neighborhood. There was a breeze almost all the time because most of 19th century homes in this tiny coastal town were built on streets running perpendicular to the coast and high on a hill. The layout created a funnel that channeled the ocean breezes westward past the homes and their front porches. Their house was closest to the edge of the hill and setback from the road several feet. The next house was set several feet closer to the road. It looked like the builders made a mistake, but everyone had a view of the ocean from their porches.
He hurriedly grabbed three bags of groceries, walked up the steps to the wraparound porch, and opened one of the antique French doors. He entered the kitchen and placed the bags on the oval cherry wood table in the breakfast nook.
"Hi," Linda said kissing him on the lips and placing her bags next to his.
"Hi," he mumbled.
"What's the matter? You have that puppy dog face."
"I had an argument with Stokes today," Carson said dropping his eyes.
"Stokes? Want to tell me about it?" she asked.
"Yeah...well, I can't believe that I had an argument not only with Stokes, but with one of the senior doctors there. How could I be so stupid? I don't understand how Graber ever got through medical school with his preoccupation with religion. He tried to explain away Mrs. Whitehead's symptoms as an act of God and Stokes seemed to agree with him. Could Stokes be a religious fanatic? This is not what I expected of the man who is a pillar in the community, the man whom I admired and looked up to all this time.”
"Maybe, he was having a bad day, too," Linda suggested. “I take it Mrs. Whitehead was one of your patients?”
"I'd hate to see one of his good days. You know I chose Ocean Village because of Stokes. Stokes had publicly denounced the government in the 1970s when those four students were gunned down at Kent State for protesting the Vietnam War. He had kept the younger people of those years from straying from their roots, from their beliefs, and their religion. He was a powerful man, a persuasive man, a man who said things that were important, but now he appears to be a ridiculous religious fanatic. I wanted to live here because I wanted morals and values in our lives, and I wanted to pass them down to our children."
"We don't need to live here to pass them to our children," Linda explained. "We just have to have them and teach them to our children when the time comes. It doesn’t matter where we live."
"I guess so."
"Don't worry about it," Linda said kissing him gently on the cheek. "Stokes will probably forget about it in the morning. He's got more important things to think about."
"Yeah, I guess you're right. What's for dinner?"
"Chicken, fish, or spaghetti?"
"Chicken."
"Chicken it is. I just got a new recipe for your favorite from Flora. She lives two houses down. That's why I went to the supermarket."
“Chicken Cordon Bleu?”
“That's it!”
"Thanks honey."
Linda unpacked one of the bags and noticed a few items on the floor near the garbage can.
"You know, Carson, I really wish you would put these paint cans in the basement now that the kitchen is done. They're just in the way," Linda said.
"Sure. I'll do it now."
Carson picked up the two used cans of latex paint, and entered the narrow stairwell into the basement. The aching wooden stairs went straight down, and then made a sharp left turn, and stopped at a dirt floor. The air had a musty, damp dirt smell. Carson's hair touched the ceiling as he carried the paint cans toward the back of the cellar. He had to stoop slightly to avoid hitting his head on the large oak beams that crossed the ceiling. The dirt cellar had walls of earth with six by six inch wooden beams placed strategically throughout the space to hold up the house. The wall facing the ocean had been cemented to prevent its collapse during hurricanes if the water rose high enough to reach the house. However, there were no records that the water ever rose that high.
Carson pulled a small metal chain hanging from the ceiling and a single suspended bulb came to life revealing a tangle of furniture, boxes, and old lamps - objects of many lifetimes. Carson stared at the potpourri of items wondering what type of people used them, what were they like, and how they lived. There were several generations of belongings haphazardly strewn about. He wrapped his fingers around the brass neck of a standing parlor lamp trying to imagine the time and the world this lamp once inhabited.
He took his hand away and worked his way towards a crude, handmade workbench made of chewed and paint-stained planks of wood. Small clouds of dust curled around his shoes as he walked. He placed the paint cans on a shelf above the bench and turned to leave, but stopped when he spotted an old steamer trunk tucked away in a far corner. It had leather side handles now dried and cracked. He had seen many of them at the Red Bank antique center and he didn't think they were worth much. He lifted the center hasp, and unlatched the metal side clasps, and opened the large lid. A fold of white lace curtains that had since turned yellow lay next to several issues of National Geographic magazine. The dates on the magazines were from several months in 1960. The forty plus-year-old dust from the trunk smelled ancient and dry, and made him sneeze. Someone else's junk, he thought. He moved the curtains and saw a large object under them. He lifted it out and brought it into the light. It was a hand-cranked coffee bean grinder with a small wooden drawer in the base for the ground coffee. He knew what it was because his grandmother had had one. He stood up and held it closer to the light to get a better look. Suddenly the grinder spun in his hand and he watched it fall to the floor and split in half.
"Damn," he said staring at the broken grinder. He stared at it for several minutes. Wait. It shouldn't have broken, he thought, the dirt is soft. He moved the broken grinder and pushed some dirt aside. It was hard underneath. He got a small broom, brushed a small area, and found a wooden plank. He brushed more dirt away and another plank appeared. Slowly, as he brushed more and more dirt aside, other planks appeared. The wood was placed together vertically with a single small hole in the left side. Carson placed two fingers in the hole and lifted. The stubborn hinges creaked, but Carson was able to pull the door open. The door revealed five wooden steps that went down into nothing. He went back to the stairway and took a rechargeable flashlight from its charging base. As he descended the steps into the subbasement, a cool, damp, musty smell flowed past him. The subbasement was only four feet high forcing him to crouch down. When he threw the light on the walls, the light reflected back silvery light and colorful hues. Further in the walls were lined with shelves holding hundreds of Mason jars filled with preserves. All had crudely made hand-written yellowed labels taped to the jars identifying their contents.
"Linda! Linda! Come here! Quick!" he yelled and raced back up the stairs towards the entrance of the basement.
"Linda! Linda!"
"What is it? Where are you?" she said in a far away voice.
She came to the stairway and looked down into the ancient basement.
"Over here. Look, the rest of Mrs. Hibbin's preserves," Carson explained. "This reminds me of my grandmother. She had a canning cellar and we used to love to go down there and pick out our favorite jam when we were kids. This is great!"
Linda reluctantly entered the canning cellar brushing cobwebs out of her way as she navigated into the dark hole.
"Wow! Look at all these jars! They're the same as the ones we found in the kitchen cabinet," she said. "Are they any good?"
"I don't know. The ones upstairs were good, maybe these are too," Carson said. "There's only one way to find out."
He took one off the shelf labeled "Blueberry Jam" and twisted the top. The jar hissed slightly as he opened it. He moved the flashlight beam into the jam.
"Looks okay and smells okay," Carson said. "But I would feel better if they were checked before we eat this stuff.”
"Yeah, that's for sure," she said. "What's over there in that corner?"
Carson moved the light.
"Looks like a few blew up, and recently, too. Look the stuff is still wet," Carson said.
"No not that. Shine the light over there again. Look the wall is darker," Linda said.
"Looks like water leakage. Look the floor is green. There's mold all over the place. The water must be leaking in for that much mold to survive here," Carson said. "Look, there’s more broken jars. They must have blown up months or even years ago. You know, I had a feeling something was here. I smelled something funny down here a couple of months ago. It was right after it rained. Now I know what it was."