10
Seconds after Kate fainted, four people flipped open their cell phones and dialed 9-1-1, the Natural Bridge tour guide radioed his supervisor, and two women sought to reassure Nicole and Tara that their mommy would be okay.
People became less helpful, in fact they pulled back in fear, when the medics revived Kate and she started ranting that her husband had dissolved into a puddle of water.
“He was there! Right there!” she screamed, pointing to the area beneath the span of the bridge. “He was right there, and then there was this downpour, and then, and then, he vanished!”
“It’s all right. Everything’s all right, lady,” soothed one of the EMS workers.
“No, it’s not all right!” Kate shouted, pulling out of the worker’s gentle hold on her elbow. “William turned into water! His body is evaporating into the air. Please help me!”
The two medics, both in their late-twenties, exchanged troubled looks behind Kate’s back and resumed their grip on Kate, this time a little more tightly.
“Come on, Miss, you probably hit your head when you fell. Let’s get you checked out at the hospital and…”
“No-o-o-o-o! I’m not going anywhere. That’s my husband there. William’s there, in that puddle of water, I can’t leave him!”
The tour guide operator was speaking furiously into his two-way radio and trying without success to move visitors away from the scene.
“Let’s give these medical men some room, folks, while we take a look at the other side of the bridge. Come on, let’s move along.” To the EMS workers, he hissed. “Get this crazy lady, and her kids, out of here now!”
The medics started to pull Kate to her feet, but she broke away and started cupping the water from the puddle in front of her.
“William, come back! William!”
“Look lady,” said a security guard that was assisting the medics, “if you think you can make yourself a husband out of that puddle of water, then how ‘bout you give me some of whatever you’re smoking ‘cause…”
His remark was interrupted by a punch square in the jaw. He fell backward, dazed, as one of the medics grabbed Kate in a bear hug.
“We’re trying to help you, lady, and we know you’re in shock from… something… but if you don’t calm down, I’m going to have to take you to the hospital in a strait jacket. Do you understand?”
“Yes, yes, I know I sound hysterical, but really, my husband was there and…”
“We understand, and we’ll get this sorted out at the hospital. If you promise to remain calm, I’ll help you up, and we’ll get you looked at. All right?”
“All right,” Kate agreed and was complacent when the medics began to guide her toward the awaiting ambulance.
Yet as soon as they released their grip, she darted to the spot where she had last seen William. Kate dropped to her knees and placed her hands flat over the wetness on the asphalt walkway.
One medic hastily followed her. The other, rushed to the ambulance and returned with a hypodermic needle in hand. Unsure what to do next, they both hovered over Kate, who was staring into the wet pavement.
“William, please come back.”
She felt the presence of the medics directly over her, she turned and faced them, demanding:
“Don’t just stand there. Help me collect this water. Please, don’t let it evaporate. Someone must be able to bring my husband back.”
People in the crowd voluntarily stepped away now, mothers clutched their children tightly, with a few casting sympathetic glances toward Nicole and Tara, who were in too much shock to react. They didn’t know what had happened to their daddy, or to their mommy; they just held onto each other.
While one medic tested the hypodermic needle, the other alerted his dispatcher via his two-way radio.
Kate remained over the wet area staring at the edge of it, as if able to magnify her focus like a hi-power camera lens recording the evaporation of what was her husband a few minutes ago.
“No!”
She screamed as she reached upward with both hands trying to grasp at the escaping water vapor. One medic grabbed her wrists, as the other plunged the hypodermic into Kate’s arm. He didn’t know if he’d found a vein or not, he just wanted to return some of the pain he had inflicted on his fellow public servant, but his aim was better than he realized.
The tranquilizer acted quickly. The blue jeans cladding Kate’s legs folded under her weight as if they were filled with straw.
This was too much for Tara and Nicole. They broke out of their trance and ran screaming towards their mother. Strangers grabbed at them and held them back, but they could not silence their cries.
“What have you done to my mommy?”
“I want my daddy!”
“Please help us!”