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Zara
Escapingfrom a hospital when a patient was bedridden and unconscious was possibly harder than escaping from Alcatraz. It would’ve been simpler to push Val out the window. Only five stories down. If only Neme and the faery could catch him.
I found my lucky break—an X-ray was scheduled for Val for the afternoon, a short trip where he’d be disconnected from the machines, except for on a gurney. There’d be no warning if he disappeared.
I began preparing. I’d done something similar to this once before. Letting my mind drift while pretending to daydream in a chair, I found the patients in critical care, and a few outside it, who were clinging to life and seemed lost. The man at the hotel had been the same. Life and death had blurred within them. Frozen people, neither here nor there. Modern medicine could keep one going and going long past the time when one should move on.
On the day of the X-ray, on the moment everything was plugged in and set, at the very second the nurse gave the orderly thewe’re ready, I gave the clingy, dying people a subtle push...toward death.
I was probably going to Hell for this.
They all coded at once. Distantly I heard the buzz of alarms. A few people ran past.
“Four have coded!” someone said crisply at the nurse’s station. “God damn,” was muttered more quietly. “They’ll need everyone.”
After one quiet swear and a glance at Val, the nurse beckoned to the orderly. “They’ll need you too.”
I kept myself plastered to the wall of the corridor. More people passed me. The clatter of shoes, the rush of staff died away. If they saved any of them, it would be a miracle.
What if they were meant to live?
No time for fluffy thoughts. I had seconds to get Val out. I’d timed the run before, pretending to need to catch a lift.
Thirty.
Grabbing the gurney weighed down by battery-powered life support machines, I pushed and jogged.
Twenty-one.
With each stride I counted down the seconds. Soon the staff would be back.
Fifteen.
Four.
I stretched and hit the button. Neme whined next to me, and the faery fluttered in front of the doors staring at the floor lights as if captivated by their glow.
Two.
One.
The doors opened, and I tugged, hauled, slipped to a stop after I pushed in the gurney. Heart pounding, I hit the button to close the doors, just as I heard voices back at the nurse’s desk.
Breathing out, I watched the numbers descend the levels until we reached the basement.
My car was parked down there. Waiting.
Two...colleagues were ready. Both were currently semi-blinding me. There were few dream creatures to be detected this close to the hospital, and I guessed the clutter of tragedy and sadness here that outweighed the good emotions repelled the creatures. The eyeglasses had come in handy, had let me scan the surrounding streets from a hospital window.
Then, I’d called them. Simple. My skills were blossoming.
One of the creatures was a jackalope, a bouncing cross between a rabbit and an antelope. The red particles among his whiteness made me wonder at his trustworthiness. The other was a white stag, and I had doubts about how it could really help without any hands. At least the jackalope had front paws.
Beggars could not be choosers. I could not lift him by myself.
A wheelchair might’ve been easier to push, but not with an unconscious man.
The gurney had to be left behind, as well as all the beeping machines, all the damn things keeping him alive and breathing.
