"You're alive," Travis said.
It was supposed to be a reassuring statement, but to Matthew Cahill, it sounded more like a question, one that he was expected to answer.
CHAPTER TEN
Matt was fortunate that he was taken to a university hospital, not so much for their medical expertise and wide resources, but for their selfishness and greed.
The university was known in the scientific community for offering lucrative salaries to researchers in return for retaining the patents on anything that anybody created or discovered, accidentally or intentionally, while on their payroll.
The university was also known among pharmaceutical companies, military contractors, equipment manufacturers, and third world dictatorships as a shameless whore that would sell those patents to whoever offered the best prices, the biggest endowments, the most endowed escorts, the highest bribes, and the most decadent perks.
So it was in the university's financial interest, over the three short days that followed Matt's admittance to the ER, to downplay reports of his miraculous rebirth and to keep him, and whatever lucrative secrets his body might hold, all to themselves.
The hospital's public affairs director did an excellent job deflecting press inquiries by not exactly denying the facts, but by pointing out how ridiculous and unbelievable they were, implying that it was all either an elaborate hoax or a big mistake.
The university was helped in their efforts by Matt's refusal to grant any interviews, take any calls, see any visitors, or allow any information about his condition to be shared with the media.
But most of all, the university benefitted from the media's short attention span, their insatiable hunger for news, and the timely discovery of video of a teenage Disney starlet enthusiastically engaged in a naked three-way with a couple of shockingly tumescent Nick at Nite boy toys.
Life after death couldn't compete with celebrity jailbait sex, so Matthew Cahill was forgotten even faster than he'd been discovered.
But not by the doctors or the scientific community.
They all wanted to take a sample of something, anything, from Matthew Cahill.
Unfortunately for them, they would have to make do with what they got from him in the first few hours after his arrival in the hospital. Because after that, as he rapidly regained his strength and became fully aware of his situation, he refused to allow any further blood tests, or X-rays, or CT scans, and rejected virtually all medical treatment beyond IV fluids the first day or so, and stitches to the cut the coroner made.
Dr. Travis and all the other doctors on the team, now numbering well over a dozen, strenuously objected to Matt's decision, warning him of all sorts of dire outcomes. But having survived the most dire of all outcomes, Matt was not swayed.
So on the morning of the fourth day, the doctors went off to conspire with hospital administrators and left him alone in his room to ponder his strange fate.
The last thing he remembered was looking over his shoulder and seeing that wave of snow closing in on him. And then he woke up in the ER.
He didn't much care how, or why, he'd managed to survive. He certainly didn't consider it a miracle. If anything, it was a cruel joke that his demise was quick, painless, and revocable, while his wife's demise was comparatively slow, unbearably agonizing, and utterly final.
Where was her reprieve?
Why was he spared the suffering and finality of death when she was not?
He would gladly have traded his survival for hers, only nobody had offered him that opportunity.
But Matt was a practical man, not one for pondering the philosophical meaning of things. He took events as they came.
And the fact was, he was glad to be alive, to feel the warmth of the sun and the light breeze coming through the open window.
He didn't care how it had happened.
He simply accepted that it had.
And all he wanted to do now was get on with life as if his death had never happened.
And to see Rachel again. He found himself longing to be in her arms, to feel her warmth, to hold her close as he fell asleep.
As he thought about that, and how comforting and safe it would feel, he drifted into a light sleep, waking up again moments later when he sensed someone else in the room.
It was another doctor, standing at the foot of the bed, looking at his chart.
"I thought I told you that I'm done," Matt said. “You can take that chart with you when you go."
The doctor looked up, and Matt saw that he wasn't Travis or any of the others on the team.
But Matt knew him.
Even without the old-style reflector on his head and the enormous stethoscope around his neck. It was in the mischief in his eyes and the jauntiness of his pose.
It was Janey's doctor.
From hell.
"Aren't you supposed to be dead?" The doctor grinned, toying with his stethoscope. “Should I listen for a heartbeat?"
Matt remembered the horrible things that had happened when the doctor listened to Janey's heart.
But that was a nightmare.
Which meant…
"You're not real," Matt said.
"What about all the rest?" The doctor said. “This hospital room, the sunlight through the window, or you in that bed?"
There was something unnaturally still about the air. The window was open, but the drapes weren't fluttering in the breeze. Matt could see flecks of dust floating in place in the streams of sunlight.
"All of that will be out there when I open my eyes," Matt said. “But you won't be. You're nothing but a cartoon character in my nightmare."
"Has it occurred to you that perhaps it's the other way around?"
"That doesn't make any sense."
"And what happened to you does? C'mon, Matt. You were consumed by an avalanche, swept off a cliff, and buried in snow for three months. But here you are, alive and well, not a scratch on you. We both know that's impossible. So what does that tell you?"
The doctor from hell had a point, one that made more sense than everything else that had happened to Matt over the last three days. Matt was nothing if not pragmatic.
"I'm dead," Matt said.
"Don't look so sad," the doctor said. “Death has its advantages. For one thing, there's no need for pricey medical insurance."
"What are you talking about?" Matt said. “I don't give a shit about insurance."
"You may not, but we do." It was a woman's voice, and it came from the foot of the bed.
Matt turned to her. She was a young, short-haired woman with glasses, wearing a crisp white blouse and a tight skirt and holding a file folder to her bosom.
"We are not in the business of giving away medical care, Mr. Cahill. That wouldn't be much of a business, would it? You left your job at B. Barer and Sons the day before your accident and, as of that moment, lost your company medical coverage. You are uninsured. That means you are financially responsible for all the costs that you have incurred since being-how should I put this?-disinterred. The cost is well into six figures."
"Who are you?" Matt asked.
"I told you when I came in. Janet Dorcott, senior vice president of hospital administration. This inability to focus is yet another reason why you should heed your doctor's sound advice and remain here until we know the true nature of your medical condition."
"I'm dead," Matt said.
"You would be if not for the heroic efforts of our physicians and the resources of this hospital. But as I said, that all comes with a price."
"Now this really is a nightmare." Matt turned to the doctor, but he was gone. In fact, so was the strange stillness. The drapes were fluttering in the light breeze again.
That led him to conclude that the conversation with the doctor wasn't real. But that this conversation with Dorcott was actually happening.