“You okay?” she asked as she leaned over and looked at the blood. Her lips pulled back in a gasp.
“No, I’m not okay. Please call 911. Something’s stuck in my shoulder.”
She knelt beside him even though it was into a puddle, and touched his jacket. She slid the zipper down so she could slip the coat open, then pulled the left side open until she could see his wound.
“Nothing here. Blood,” she said, and their eyes met.
“It must have come out. Christ, it hurts so bad! I don’t guess you have some Tylenol or something stronger on you?” He tried to sound flippant, but he hurt too much to be in a humorous spirit.
The buzzing wouldn’t go away, and it was driving him crazy. He clenched his eyes and rubbed his temples. Was he dying? Was this how his world ended? Bleeding out on a sidewalk in Seattle?
She took a handkerchief from her pocket and looked at it. Oh no, if she was sneezing on that thing, he didn’t want it on his flesh. She might be a looker, but that wouldn’t save him from an infection.
She dug around in her bag and came out with a package of tissues. The girl pulled out a wad of them, then slipped her cold hand inside his shirt until she had the tissues over the wound. She pressed down hard enough to make him see stars.
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!” he gasped, again and again.
“Sorry,” she said, and she did look sorry. She looked downright miserable as she took his hand in hers and guided it to the wound. “Hold here. Help comes.”
“Thank you. What’s your name?”
“Kimiko. I’m Kimiko. Nice to meet you.”
“You’re very kind, but I can’t imagine this is in any way nice,” he said.
She looked at him quizzically, but he didn’t offer any follow-up questions. What was wrong with him? He’d been stabbed by something, left to bleed out, and all he could think about was being a smartass.
She glanced over her shoulder and up at the sky, worry etched on her face.
“You know, finding a guy on the ground with all this stuff going on overhead. It’s just nice of you to stop. Thank you for helping me.”
“You are welcome.” She smiled and pushed a wet strand of black hair out of her eyes, leaving a streak of his blood across her brow.
“Oh no. I’m sorry,” he said.
His words sounded hollow, and he had the urge to take the tissue from his shoulder and wipe her face. Then something lurched inside him, near the wound, and pain made him nauseous. It started in his shoulder and sent pulsing waves along his spine and sides. He tried to wave at her face, unthinking, only to find that his arm wouldn’t respond.
Kimiko had her phone out, and dialed over and over again. She hunched over and used her jacket’s hood to keep the phone from getting soaked.
“Oh, oh! Answer,” she said, and handed him the phone.
Victor gave her a tight smile, took the phone in his left hand, and slowly tilted his head to avoid straining the damaged muscle too much, but it wasn’t enough: he saw stars. He wanted to bite down on his tongue. His teeth ached as the pain overrode all other senses.
The buzzing was still in the back of his head. It whispered to him, and tried to reassure him, but there were still no words, just the feeling of peace.
Something wrenched in his arm again and he cried out. He reached out and grabbed hold of the curb, squeezed, and wept as the waves of pain built and washed over his body.
Then the ache faded and he felt—better? Not better; he felt different. It was the same feeling he used to get when he’d been a runner. After the first few miles, he’d reached a state of mind that was almost like ecstasy. It was called “runner’s high,” but that made absolutely no sense.
“Sir? Hello?” A female voice on the phone said.
“Ah crap, sorry, sorry. My name is Victor Barnes and I’m at the corner of…” He kept talking until he felt like he was going to pass out. Ten minutes later, the glare of flashing lights and the sound of a siren brought him out of his near-fugue state.
“Saved at last.”
When he looked around, Kimiko was nowhere to be found, nor was the phone he’d been talking into. At least she’d stuck around until she knew help was on the way.
The Victor noticed that the small section of curb he’d been clutching in pain had been crushed into chunks of concrete and powder.
Bryon had gotten away with a free day at home yesterday, but now he was back at school and his morning had been a hair’s width shy of being the worst of his life.
His report was due in second period English, and after blowing off school to spend the day gaming yesterday, he was going to have to scramble to keep up. His teacher had not been impressed that he’d picked a couple of comic book writers as his literary heroes, but he’d worked on his paper for weeks, and didn’t think he should have to write about novelists.
Comic book writers were every bit as important to literature as some stuffy jerk who liked to spend pages on flowery speeches and anything but tight dialog that carried a story forward.
His books were filled with action, sly looks, and occasional speeches, but only when absolutely necessary.
His class was probably going to be empty today. There had been talk on the news of an explosion or something in Seattle, but his mom was making him go to school anyway, because she had to work and didn’t have a sitter available.
Bryon had argued that he didn’t need a sitter. He was sixteen and would be taking driving lessons soon, but she had not relented. He hadn’t told her that a few times a month he blew off school, snuck back home to play video games, and then forged an excuse letter to turn in to the front office.
“Mom, what if they send us home?”
“I’m sure they won’t,” she’d said. She’d zipped up the side of her skirt and smoothed down the sides.
His mother, Anne, could be very sweet, but not in the morning, and especially not before she’d had her first cup of coffee. She always looked harried, though, because she never managed to leave the house on time. She screamed out of the garage with a piece of toast hanging out of her mouth and a mug tucked into her car’s drink holder. She worked at a stock firm, but she was a receptionist, and had to answer to five different bosses throughout any given day.
Bryon was pretty sure one of her married bosses was seeing her on the side, because she always cast furtive glances Bryon’s way when she got late-night texts. Sometimes she had to run out for an “errand” that took an hour or more.
Bryon kept his mouth shut. As for his judgment he kept that to himself, but if she was sleeping with some old married guy and they got caught, she was going to lose her job.
“But what if the thing in Seattle is really big and they cancel school?” he’d whined. As much as he loved the subject of his report, he didn’t relish getting in front of his class and being embarrassed when they made fun of him for his chosen subject.
“It’s nothing. Eat your eggs and go, shoo,” she’d said, and leaned over to kiss the top of his head like he was five again.
Jeez, mom.
The walk to the bus stop was annoying, because rain had started up a minute after he’d left the house, and didn’t shown any sign of quitting. His hood had seen better days and kept getting blown off of his head.
He considered going back home, but it was risky to take two days off in a row. The chance of them calling his mother increased every time he played hooky, so he kept his free days to a minimum.
Bryon stood at an intersection and got splashed by an old blue Ford sedan rushing by. It might have even swerved to hit the puddle. Jerk!