“So what now?” Steven whispered from the doorway.
The raining was hitting hard now. All his life, the pattering sound had made William drowsy.
“Need to try something. Give me a little bit.”
“I’ll try to scrounge up some food. Don’t know how long they’ve been without power here.” Steven quietly closed the door.
William lay down beside Lily, his arms behind his head. A familiar anxiety rose in his throat. For a year now, he’d fought falling asleep. He began to breathe, long and slow. He should have told Steven to give him a few hours. It could take that long to even fall asleep—
A moment later, he hovered above the churning waters, the storm barreling around him.
He realized it then. He wasn’t asleep. It had never been a dream.
It explained why he was so exhausted, so internally bruised afterwards. His body wasn’t resting. It was being infiltrated.
He struggled to take control. It was apparent at once he had made a mistake—he was a blade of grass trying to slow down in a rushing river. He looked around wildly, the winds and water pummeling him.
For a second, he saw the eyes, and then they were gone in the torrents of rain. He tried to find them, but he could already feel the familiar pull, wanting to take him elsewhere.
The eyes. He had to get to them.
He jumped.
At least he tried. It was terribly awkward, more of a collapsed leap than anything. All he could think to do was see if he could move on his own.
He leapt again. With each movement above the water, whatever bound him held tight, as if he were stretching invisible chains.
He tried to run. That, too, was a disaster, as if he were attempting it waist deep in snow.
As he inched closer, he caught a glimpse of not only the eyes, but a face. For the briefest of moments, he saw where she was.
The wind ripped at his skin, the water drenching him. The woman’s face and the hospital behind her were gone in a torrential wall of rain.
The doctor dropped her chart.
It clanged to the floor, echoing in the empty hallway. She reached for the wall behind her, steadying herself.
Had she momentarily blacked out?
She was certainly that tired. Irrationally tired. No-business-treating patients tired. But was she delusional tired?
Because it sure felt like, for just a moment, she’d fallen asleep standing up. She’d literally had the damn dream standing up. The crazy dream, where she was watching the hurricanes form, the waves fighting against each other, all of it rushing towards New Orleans. And, as always, hovering over it all, was William Chance.
She’d finally told Shelia about the dreams yesterday, and her friend had laughed until she cried. She loved to watch Shelia laugh like that, especially in these dire hours. Her face crinkling up, her hand rising to her heart to momentarily cover up her nurse’s badge on her upper chest.
“Jane, my heart, my heart,” Shelia gasped, in between laughter. “My heart is going to burst if you don’t stop. You mean the hot alien dude?”
“Trust me, he was never my type growing up. Which is what makes this so ridiculous.”
“I don’t know, girl. How long has he been showing up in these dreams of yours?”
Jane had sheepishly admitted it had happened on and off for about a year. Shelia had slapped the table so hard she almost knocked over her coffee.
She wanted to share in Shelia’s laughter, to think it was funny too. After all, it was ridiculous. Of course she was dreaming about hurricanes, they haunted the nightmares of every person still in the city. And the dreams were becoming more frightening each time.
“Wait, wait, Dr. Doogie,” Shelia had stammered when she finally caught her breath. Shelia relished in calling Jane by the nickname she’d earned by becoming the youngest resident in the hospital’s history. Now everyone on staff, even the janitors, called her Doogie Howser. “I want this dream. But in my dream, it’s going to be Denzel. Malcolm X Denzel. And he’s gonna be floating just like your William. I don’t even care if I drown, if Denzel is with me.”
Jane had laughed at that, but then the ambulance had screamed up to the emergency room with an older couple that’d refused to leave the city. The man was in the throes of a heart attack, and his wife had soiled herself because their bathroom was flooded. Nothing was funny from that point on.
She’d slept since then, hadn’t she? She truly couldn’t remember. There were so few doctors left to go on rotation.
And, she’d been walking; it wasn’t like she had stopped to lean against the wall or something. She hadn’t passed out, otherwise she’d have been on the floor with a wicked headache.
But she hadn’t injured herself either when she’d blacked out before. And substantial time had passed then.
Had it been a year now since that happened? A fellow runner had found her lying on the edge of the tree line along the Mississippi levee trail. She’d been so confused. She’d just gone for a long run. How had she ended up practically in the trees?
When the runner told her it was noon on Sunday, Jane had panicked. She’d gone for a run at one in the afternoon on a Saturday. She’d been lying there an entire night and morning.
The cops had been called. She’d undergone a full physical checkup. No drugs in her system, no signs of an attack. An MRI showed no tumors, no brain abnormalities. Everyone had come up with theories. You pushed yourself too hard, you collapsed. Your blood sugar was too low. A car sideswiped you and thought you were dead and left you.
Why, then, weren’t there bruises? How can I have simply no memory of being gone for an entire twenty-four-hour period?
Jane hurried down the hall to the nurses’ station. Shelia was there, sipping what must have been her sixth cup of coffee of the day. There weren’t many nurses left either.
“Word is the National Guard is going to force us to move,” Shelia said.
“They can’t. There are too many terminal patients. They can’t be removed from their life support, even for a minute.”
“They say they’ll airlift them out.”
“During a hurricane? That’s impossible. What does Dr. Parker say?”
“That even our backup generators aren’t designed to run this long. That we’ll be lucky to have an ounce of power once Hurricane Nancy is done with us. Is it just a tropical storm? Or was that the last one? How are we supposed to keep track?”
“Listen.” Jane leaned in. “Remember when I blacked out last year?”
“Of course. I about came unglued. We were supposed to go out that night and you never showed.”
“It just happened again, I think. Standing up.”
“Whoa, girl.” Shelia touched her shoulder. “Go lie down now. Dr. Wraf just came in; I thought for sure he’d skip town. Go lie down. I’d tell you to go home, but that honestly isn’t an option for any of us. I’ll wake you if something happens.”
“You know it will. But I don’t think I have much of a choice. I just checked on the head trauma patient in room seven.”
“Go now, before the next crisis flares up. Please. You know I’ll come for you.”
“I think, at the moment, everyone is stable. But that could change in a minute.”
“If it does, Dr. Wraf can handle it. Dr. de Riesthal and Dr. Stankewicz are still here too. If it gets bad, I’ll wake you. Seriously. I think you are just pushing yourself too hard and your body reacts in a scary way. Go. Now.”
Jane squeezed her friend’s hand and headed down to the doctor’s lounge. It was empty, of course. None of them had the appetite to eat anyway. The hospital had become the last lifeline for the desperate who had waited too late to escape.