I was back in that strange place where I had first met Crispin only this time, I was not alone. Dozens of children and young adults were there with me. All shapes, sizes, sexes and colors. I saw blacks, Asians, Native American, whites, Hispanic. One of every nationality that existed in the US. The really weird thing about it all was that I seemed to know all of them. As if they were a part of me.
One of the girls nodded as she approached me. She was pretty, dark with long black hair, bright blue eyes that were haunted and sad at the same time. An expression that she wore on her face and deep in her eyes, as if her soul was wounded.
"My name is Sara Beth Hutchens," she said. "I was you in the 1890's. Raped and murdered by the soul of Johannsen, only he was a priest by the name of Harry Callahan from Boston. They never solved my murder."
"I was a girl? “I asked in amazement.
"A few times. Twice, we were a young woman." She looked around the crowd of a dozen spirits. The oldest was a young man about twenty years of age, wearing overalls but no shirt. He was a walking cliché of an Okie from the Dust Bowl era and he told me so.
In fact, all of them told me their names and I knew them. I remembered each of their life stories because I had lived it. Yet, I did not see Crispin among them.
They answered my thoughts almost before I asked them. I supposed that having shared the same mind, we shared the same thoughts. As if I could read their minds. They agreed that it was so and told me that Crispin was no longer apart from me – being the first of the murdered and I, the last. Regardless of the outcome, we were now joined. One soul.
I asked if I was dead, having remembered the awful feeling of my brain short-circuiting and going blank. Nothing since. But I still sensed a tenuous connection to my body – as if a heavy weight sat on my chest.
Sara Beth answered for the group. Neither the oldest or the youngest, she seemed the strongest and was the spokesman. She bore a decided likeness to mom.
"That's because I was a cousin of your mom's grandmother. You are still alive, Crispin. Your body breathes on its own, but your brain suffered severe damage from your high temperature, swelling from the concussion and the seizures. Your body is slowly shutting down, dying as your brain dies."
"So, my father, Johannsen wins this final time," I said, unhappy. "It's not fair. I want to live with my real Dad, I don't want him to kill himself or be killed by Tempe Neige or those Beilby ass-wipes," I burst out. "Can't I do anything to stop me from dying?"
"That's why we're here, Crispin," she said. She laid her soft, little palm on my chest, right over my heart. "We're part of you. Your lives, your memories, your experiences. We can give you those back, so your brain will be working. But you won't be as much Cris as Crispin, the rest of us, our memories will be more prevalent. Can you live with that?"
"I have no one left alive who remembers Cris Snow, but myself," I said slowly. "So, I'm not really losing anything. In fact, I'm gaining more than I'm losing. Will I know stuff when I come back? I mean, will I know who I am or was, will I remember Matt, Jake, Bally?"
"Everything we did, and you did will be there as your memories. Everything you shared with Cris, I don't know if those things will still be there in your mind. The damage to your brain is extensive."
"Will I remember that Tempe is our enemy?" I asked in fear. As the crush of spirit bodies grew closer, I could almost feel them pressing against me. I would have stepped back but there was no place for me to go. No place for me to escape.
All placed their palms on my chest, yet instead of the weight from dozens of hands, I felt only one – hers. Sara Beth’s. She gazed into my eyes, a solemn smile barely there on her pale, peach lips.
"We will always be with you, Crispin. No matter what happens after this. Whether your soul will live on or Johannsen murders you for the final time, you will never be alone. Your love will be with you, forever and always."
My eyes widened in shock as she spoke mom's signature phrase and then, from her hand came a jolt of agonizing pain that tore through my chest and burst into my head.
I screamed and felt myself falling for an endless period, in brilliant light, not darkness. When I finally landed, it was not with a jolt, but with a whisper of words.
"Remember, Crispin," a girl's voice whispered in my head. "When you feel the safest, that is when danger is the nearest."
My eyes opened. They roamed the space around me and recognized...nothing. The walls were pale yellow in a room that was curved, not square. Above me on the wall were bright lights behind a rectangular piece of plastic strip that spread diffuse light over my head. I could see the lump of my feet under a thin blanket, but my right leg was twice the size of the other. Both legs were bent upward at the knees at a slight angle.
Something pinched my right index finger, something bit at my elbow on the opposite side. Beeps slow and rhythmic kept time at my right side. There were several lines feeding off me.
Metal rails on both sides kept me secure on the bed. I was in a hospital bed, in a hospital. I did not know where or what the hospital was called. I knew that I had never been in one before even as I knew that I had lived in one for years.
I was confused. Scared. Hurting. I moved, and my legs screamed at me, my ribs groaned. My legs weighed a lot and when I reached down to feel, my fingers ran over harsh plaster that went from my crotch to my ankle. There were soft bandages on the other leg, and it didn't hurt as bad as the cast one.
Memories told me that it was Plaster of Paris, a hard cast used to treat broken bones. I was in one because I had fractured both my thighbone and my lower leg in two places. My horse had been shot out from under me, falling and breaking my leg and some of my ribs. I also remembered being strangled and tied onto a horse after I was killed.
I moved restlessly, and the beeps changed in tone, becoming harsher, louder and faster. I turned and looked at the machine making the noises. On the top were two lines that moved up and down in spikes of valleys and peaks. Numbers that read 65 but climbed rapidly into the 90's. I could feel that in my chest as my heart pounded beneath my ribs. The harder it beat, the higher the numbers climbed. It was my heart rate, the machine was reading my pulse, taking my temperature, 98.8 and my breathing. Twelve per minute but rising into the twenties as my heart and lungs responded to my fear of the unknown.
I heard rapid footsteps beyond the heavy wooden door directly in front of my feet. As I watched in sudden trepidation, the door swung outward and a large woman dressed in blue pants and top rushed into the room. She was the same age as my memories of my mother, in her thirties. A tiny woman of surpassing beauty, her name Violet. This woman had the same blonde hair, but it was streaked with purple, cut short in feathery wisps all over her leonine head. Her eyes were golden brown, not aqua and shaped like that jungle cat. Around her neck hung a white plastic card with a picture of her and her printed name.
Priscilla Stevens, R.N. Prissy. She was a registered nurse. I was in a hospital. My name was –
I made a sound of distress and she raised the bed up, so we could see each other more closely. She pulled a tiny light from her pockets and flicked it into my eyes. First, the right and then, the left. What she saw when she did that seemed to please her.
"Hello, young man," she grinned. Her smile was huge, all brilliant white teeth and her bright golden eyes twinkled as if her Christmas came early.
"How are you, Cris? Do you know where you are? What year this is?"
I asked instead, "do I know you?" Or thought I had. The words made perfect sense in my head, but what came out was complete gibberish. The more I tried, the worse it got until I was crying in frustration. Finally, I just shook my head and cursed.
"Shit-fire and damnation!"
She looked startled and then, laughed, her hand busy at my pulse points. Other people began arriving and soon, my room was so crowded that it began to close in on me. My heart pounded in fear, it was suddenly hard to breathe, and I felt as if I were going to pass out.
As soon as the Oriental man in a white coat entered my room, he chased everyone out but the large nurse, Prissy. He too, checked my eyes with his penlight, asking me to follow his finger as he moved it in front of my nose, in, out, side-to-side.
"Cris, what do you remember? Do you remember your name? Your mother, father, friends?"
When I attempted to answer, the words made no sense to either of us. He asked me questions to which I could answer 'yes or no' and I fared little better. I realized in horror, that he was trying to assess the damage to my intellect.
"It's okay, Cris," he said briskly. "I'm Dr. Soong, your neurologist. That's a doctor who treats diseases of the spine, nerves and brain. You had a very high fever from an infection which damaged portions of your brain. We're here to help you train other parts of your brain to take over from the diseased sections. Okay?"
I nodded, staring at his chocolate brown eyes. He was tall, dark-haired and very slim. He smiled a lot and it showed in his eyes.
"You clearly understand me, directions and follow orders. You know what year this is, who is the President and how old you are. You're having trouble with words, speaking which is not uncommon for patients who have had your trauma. It's called aphasia. With speech therapy, we can bring you back.
"Do you remember the accident?"
Hesitantly, I nodded. Not sure if he was referring to the bus accident, the horse one or the car t-boning. Had no way to ask which one he meant. I wasn't sure if he even knew about the first two.
I tried to indicate that I wanted to write, but my hand shook like a palsied dog. Still, he got the idea and sent the nurse out for a clipboard and a pen. She returned, placed the pen in my right hand, watching as I switched it to my left. I parked it on the white paper clipped to the board and wrote out my many questions.
He looked at the words and from the blank expression on his face, my heart dropped. I looked, too. Saw only the aimless scratching of an illiterate monkey. A sob caught in my throat and I threw the pen and board across the room, swatting at their hands.
I kicked the rails, pulled at the IVs in my arms as the pair attempted to hold me immobile. He barked orders at her, and she fled the room but returned seconds later. A loud voice on a speaker boomed over my head, calling for a Code Orange in a calm female tone.
Men came running into my room. Big men and each held me effortlessly on the mattress as the RN stabbed me with a needle which made me instantly limp and boneless. My brain fluttered, unable to hold a single thought.
I sagged in the bed, tried to curse them but all that came out of my mouth was the word, 'connard'.
The weird thing was that I knew the word was French for 'pig', a deadly insult at one time. If my language skills were only going to work on curses, I needed to increase my vocabulary. Which was a very strange thing to think about while my brain was unconscious.
I didn't have any dreams. Or nightmares. Nothing that I remembered, anyway. I did wake briefly to the sight of the aide coming in, checking on me. I was quiet, the drugs still held me mute and limp. They tried to be quiet, but I still woke as they rolled me, checked my IVs and took my vitals. They asked if I needed to use the bathroom, but what they really meant was did I need the bedpan. I didn't have to pee at all, I assumed that they had put one of those tubes in my wiener to drain it.
I woke hungry. My stomach growled as if it had awakened long before me. I groped around my bed until I found the call button with the red picture of a nurse head. That made me realize that no one had tied me down after my fit, one of the things I had feared most was to be restrained as if I were nuts. I still had mobility, even though my body didn't want to move unless I forced it.
I pushed the red head button and thirty seconds later, a short, slender teenage girl came in wearing purple printed scrubs with spiders and webs all over them. Purple and black. Maybe it was Halloween time. Last season I remembered was Memorial Day, but I had a sneaking suspicion that those memories might be from two years ago. With mom. Cris' Mom. I decided it was easier to think of her as our Mom.
I didn't see any decorations on the walls of my room. Not any Get-Well cards from anyone. Not even from my lawyers.
"Hi, Cris. My name is Angie. I'm your aide tonight. What can I do for you?" She was Hispanic, dark-haired and eyed. Pretty with her hair in a ponytail down her back to her hips.
I rubbed my belly rather than trying to speak and mangling the words. She caught on quickly. In ten minutes, I was eating lunch. Not quite on my own, but she helped me with the tomato soup, held my glass as I sucked through the straw. I was able to chew the tasteless chicken salad and hold it with both hands. Even though they shook like the old man down at the diner.
I ate every speck of food off the plate and found myself sleepy, yawning like a baby after a bottle. I was gone before I could even burp.