“He was stabbed numerous times in the upper torso,” the physician said, relating the clinical details in a calm, yet caring manner. “Two of them were flesh wounds, but the other three were very serious. The other wounds are life-threatening and unusual.”
“Unusual? How? I don’t understand?”
The doctor glanced at Vince; he looked hesitant. He’s hiding something, Vince thought. “He’s currently on a ventilator to help him breath, and his blood pressure is low,” the doctor continued. “We’ve got him on—”
“Is he going to make it?” Vince asked.
They reached the door to the room Frank was in. The doctor looked hopeful, but grim. “We’re doing everything we can. The next forty-eight hours will be critical.”
Vince took this information well and nodded. Frank was tough. He could get through this.
“I’ll leave you with him for no more than two minutes,” the doctor said. “Then you’ll have to leave. He’s going to need his rest.”
“Yes,” Vince said, as the doctor opened the door to the room and allowed Vince entry.
Vince stepped into the room. It was a large triage area and Frank was the only patient, lying in a bed in the middle of the room. He was hooked up to a myriad of machines; ventilator, IVs, blood pressure gauge. It seemed to take forever for Vince to cross the room, but when he approached Frank’s bedside he saw that Frank’s eyes were closed. Vince winced at the sight of Frank’s bandaged, battered body. He was looking at a different man than the longhaired, menacing tattooed figure he’d met at Baxter’s in Irvine. Frank’s chest was heavily bandaged, as was his abdomen. His shirt and pants had been peeled off and a blue hospital blanket was pulled over his legs and groin. There was a bruise covering the left side of his face that extended to his temple. The only thing colorful about Frank now was his tattooed arms; his skin was deathly pale. As Vince leaned closer, he thought to himself, he’s gonna be all right. He’s gonna be all right.
Frank opened his eyes.
Vince jumped back, startled. Frank stared up at the ceiling and, for a moment, Vince wondered if Frank was even conscious. If perhaps the act of opening his eyes was some sort of subliminal command, the way comatose people will behave when they are in a deep sleep. He watched Frank for a moment, unable to breath, and then Frank’s eyes rolled toward him, resting on him. “V… Vince,” Frank sighed.
“Frank,” Vince said. He reached out, touched Frank’s arm gingerly.
Frank’s eyes were droopy; his pupils dilated. The drugs were taking effect. “H… Haow…”
“Easy, buddy,” Vince said, whispering, leaning closer to him. “It’s okay, just take it easy.”
“After the thing… got me,” Frank began, “they took me. My mother… she was furious with me.”
Gladys Black? The woman who had abandoned Frank as a child, had sacrificed Frank’s sister in a satanic ritual? Vince nodded, not knowing what to say.
“They took me to their home,” Frank said, his voice clear, struggling to maintain the strength of its former timbre. “Can you believe that?” His eyes went blank for a moment, his features slackened, then the muscles in his cheeks grew taut as he fought to control himself. “They took me home…”
“Take it easy,” Vince said, trying to calm Frank down. Frank was trying to tell him something, but he didn’t want the doctor or any of the nurses to interrupt him. “Easy does it.”
“…to somewhere… near Laguna…” Frank said. His eyes drew closed and he sighed. Vince waited, the hum of the machines in the room sounding very loud all of a sudden. “Laagunaaa Hills…”
“Yeah?” Vince whispered, trying to calm his own nerves down.
Frank’s eyes drifted open again, locked with Vince’s. His hand reached out, gripped Vince’s arm. “They took me… to one of their rooms… they let… they let it out again.” Frank winced, motioned to his heavily bandaged torso. “They let it… loose on me again. They… let it… eat me.”
Vince glanced back at the doorway; the coast was still clear. “Frank, listen, you need to relax. You can tell me everything when—”
“I don’t know why they let me go” Frank continued. He swallowed, then coughed. “Next thing I remember, I was outside… in… Fountain Valley? Huntington Beach maybe? I… started walking… saw how bad it was… found a phone booth…”
“—you get out, okay?” Vince was trying to calm Frank down, trying to get him to just relax and sleep, but he was still listening to what Frank was saying. Did he just tell me that they ate part of him? Is that what the doctor didn’t want to tell me?
“Tracy… where is she?” Frank said, his voice failing.
“She’s safe, Frank,” Vince said, his mind racing. “You’re going to be okay.”
“You… knew…” Frank was struggling to speak. His pupils dilated to wide discs, obscuring the whites. “…Tracy…”
Vince’s heart began to pound as Frank’s breathing became more labored, his eyes grew wider. The beeping of the heart monitor was racing as Frank’s heartbeat accelerated and Vince glanced at the monitor. Surely that couldn’t be a good sign. The green indicator on the machine was blipping like crazy. Frank had stopped talking and was lying slumped on the bed, staring sightlessly upward.
Vince turned toward the doorway. “Help! Doctor! Somebody!” He raced toward the nurse’s station just as a nurse rushed in, almost knocking him over. “The monitor—” he began, hovering in the doorway, watching helplessly as the doctor that had escorted him to Frank’s bedside rushed in.
Another pair of medical professionals joined them, and Vince could only watch in growing shock as a defibrillator was wheeled over. The dark-haired physician squeezed a dollop of gel on the defibrillator pads, placed them on Frank’s right pectoral muscle and on his left side. He watched the cardiac monitor as the nurse watched the dials on the defibrillator. “Clear,” she said.
Whump! Frank’s back arched as his body was jolted with electricity. There was a short pause as all eyes went to the monitor. Flatline.
“Damnit!” The doctor placed the pads back into position. “Increase the voltage, in five.”
The five seconds that passed were the longest Vince ever experienced, and when the nurse shouted “clear!” again and Frank was jolted with the defibrillator pads, Vince turned and bolted out of the room. He couldn’t bear to watch anymore, couldn’t bear to be in the same room as the doctors and nurses fought to save Frank’s life. He couldn’t bear to be in the same room because the sinking feeling that he had when he watched Frank flatline was that it was over. Frank wasn’t coming back.
Vince stood outside the triage room for a moment, collecting his bearings. Other medical personnel breezed past, some clutching charts, some pushing gurneys with patients. They didn’t pay attention to Vince. After a moment, Vince could hear what was going on in the triage room and he closed his eyes. They zapped Frank a third time, then a fourth. Each zap was followed by a bustle of activity—the administering of oxygen and CPR and fluids, then the all-clear signal, followed by another zap. Vince waited outside the closed triage room door, unable to move, transfixed by the sound of the medical personnel fighting to save Frank’s life. It felt like he was in a holding pattern, frozen until the final verdict was pronounced.
When it finally came it was in a single sentence, from the dark-haired doctor. “Time of death five minutes after five p.m., Pacific Time.”
With no clear destination in mind, Vince moved.
He headed down the hall, away from the triage room, not really knowing where he was going, only knowing that he had to get away.