TWENTY-ONE
AMID ALL THE jostling and the shock, it crossed George’s mind he’d never been in an ambulance before.
The oxygen mask and the gurney straps limited his movement, so he couldn’t get a good look at his chest. The woman with him—he wasn’t sure if she was a paramedic or an EMT or something else—kept asking him questions. His name. What year it was. Who was President. He was pretty sure they were supposed to distract him.
The woman had strapped an oxygen mask over his face and stabbed at his arm with three different needles. She cut open his shirt and probed at his chest with her fingers. She pushed a wad of gauze against him and held it with one hand. The driver said something and she turned her head to talk over the sirens.
She looked worried.
He’d been shot. Madelyn had shot him at point-blank range. He’d seen enough cop shows to know what that meant. He was maybe an hour from death, crippled if he was lucky. He tried to wiggle his toes, and it felt like they moved, but he couldn’t see them. He knew amputees felt phantom pain and itches in limbs they hadn’t had for years.
He also remembered reading somewhere people never felt extreme pain. The human body had some kind of built-in system for deadening nerves. People never felt the full pain of broken bones or other severe injuries.
George felt a dull throb in his chest. Nothing else. Combined with the woman’s worried expression, it had him on the edge of panic. He tried to talk but she pressed the oxygen mask against his face.
They pulled the gurney out of the ambulance and rolled him down a hallway. There were white panels and fluorescent tubes, just like the endless ones he changed at work. A new woman and two men leaned over him. He glimpsed a police uniform on one.
The gurney slipped through another door and came to rest inside a circle of curtains. The police officer had vanished. The new woman moved her hands around his chest. She was younger with dark hair tied back in a short ponytail. She pushed and prodded and asked if he could feel any pain. Then she vanished, too.
Had they given up on him? There was a word for it, when they stopped wasting resources on hopeless cases. His heartbeat felt strong. He wasn’t having any trouble breathing. He couldn’t feel anything in his chest. Even the dull ache had passed. He guessed it was all the shots they’d given him in the ambulance, even though his mind still felt very clear.
The dark-haired woman reappeared. “George,” she said, “I’m Dr. Velez. We need to take some X-rays. It’s just going to be a few minutes. Don’t worry.”
She was gone before he could ask anything. The gurney moved again, through the curtains and back into a hallway. It was chilly without a shirt on. A few minutes later a new face loomed over him. “George,” the man said, “we’re going to shift you.” They didn’t wait for him to respond, but lifted him onto a separate bed. It was cold, and a machine like a cannon loomed over him. The cannon made a loud click, he heard things clack beneath him, then another clack as the man switched something out.
Then he was back on the gurney and moving through more halls. He settled back inside the curtain just in time to hear people arguing. Velez reappeared. “We’ve got to do this again,” she said. “Sorry.” The ceiling shifted and he went back down a familiar hallway. They slid him under the X-ray machine again, the plates click-clacked below him, and then he was headed back to the curtain room.
His hand felt its way across his torso. He couldn’t feel any stitches or bandages. He wondered if he was numb.
He was there for twenty minutes before he heard a voice. “You,” said Dr. Velez, “are a very lucky man.” She patted him on the arm and unfastened the strap across his hips.
George looked at her, then craned his head to look at his bare chest. “What do you mean? Am I going to be okay?”
The doctor smiled. “You’re going to be fine,” she said.
He tried to think what “fine” could mean. “It missed organs,” he said. “I’ve seen that on television, when the bullet goes through you but misses everything. Is that what happened?”
“Not exactly.” She pulled an X-ray from an oversized folder and pushed it up into the light box. The black and gray image flared to life. In real life, an X-ray was a lot darker than they looked on television. She looked back at him and her stubby ponytail swished on her collar. “You the morbid type?”
“What?”
“Do you read about attempted suicides? Darwin Awards? That kind of stuff?”
“Now and then,” he said. “No more than anyone else, I guess.”
“Ever hear any of those stories where somebody gets shot in the head in just the right place, at just the right angle, and it bounces off?”
He looked at the X-ray, then back at the doctor. “What?”
“It’s rare,” she said, “but it does happen. Bones are strong. A lot stronger than people give them credit for. Think about the punishment you can put a body through, and figure the skeleton’s taking most of it.”
“I … I’m not sure what you mean.”
She pointed at the gray skeleton on the light box and traced a line down the center of the rib cage. “You were shot, but the bullet hit you right on the sternum, between the fifth and sixth ribs.”
His fingers pressed against the thick bone in his chest. It felt tender, but he couldn’t find the wound. “What do you mean?”
“It bounced,” she said. “Hit dead center against the bone and flicked off. No breaks, no fractures. Didn’t even break the skin. You’ve got a bruise where it hit, but that’s it.” She tapped the X-ray with her pen. “Just the right place at just the right angle.”
The temperature in the room seemed to rise three or four degrees. A wave of relief washed over him. “I’m not hurt?”
Velez shook her head. “A bit of shock, understandably, but I can’t see anything. No fractures, lungs are clear, your heart’s in sinus rhythm. We could do a CT scan, but if you’re not in serious pain I think it’d just be a waste of time.”
He tried to sit up, but she’d left the one strap across his chest. He bent his arms back to fumble with it. She walked back over and released the clasp. George sat up and looked down at his body. A faint purple-blue spot sat at the center of his chest. It was a little smaller than a quarter. It ached as he moved, just enough to remind him it was there.
He waved a hand at the dull X-ray. “You’re sure there’s nothing?”
“Positive.”
“It’s really dark.”
“Yeah, we did two sets. The first films were dark and we thought it was bad stock. Turns out our machine needs maintenance, the levels are really down. Or maybe X-rays can’t get through your skin, either.” She smiled and winked. “Seriously, though, don’t start thinking you’re bulletproof or you’ll end up right back here. Just be happy you can tell the coolest bar story ever. I can give you a prescription for some ibuprofen. Or just go home and have a good stiff drink. In a day or two you won’t even feel it.”
Dr. Velez pulled the curtain aside. Doctors flitted around the rest of the emergency room. George glimpsed what looked like a dog attack victim before another curtain was yanked shut. He heard the click of instruments on trays from the other side of the green cloth. “I don’t mean to sound harsh,” said Velez, “but if you feel well enough to walk, we could really use this bed for someone who needs it.”
“Yeah, I see that,” said George. He looked down at his stocking feet. “Do I have shoes somewhere?”
The doctor shook her head. “I think that’s how you came in. Sorry.”
He slid off the bed. The cold floor reached up through his socks and prickled his feet. He patted his backside. No wallet, either. It was still sitting back on his kitchen table with his phone.
He followed a line that led him to a set of wide double doors. No shoes, no shirt, no wallet, and he needed to get home from whatever hospital they’d brought him to. After he’d been shot. This was not going to be one of the better nights of his life.
He pushed through the doors into the waiting room. It was a large, antiseptic chamber with rows of blue plastic chairs and a television showing an episode of Seinfeld. The far wall was all windows and a sliding door to a glassed-in foyer that led out of the hospital.
The woman by the door was Karen Quilt. She stared at him from across the room. Her arms were crossed over a dark trench coat that looked made for substance more than style.
They looked at each other for a moment before she crossed the waiting room in eight long, precise strides. She settled less than a foot from him. “You were supposed to meet me for coffee.”
“Yeah,” said George. “I ended up meeting the President instead.” A vein pulsed behind his eyes as the words left his mouth.
Her lips flattened out. “It is a very rare thing for a man to miss an appointment with me.”
“I wasn’t really given a choice.”
“You also did not return my calls.”
“Yeah,” said George. “I was busy being shot.”
“You did not return my calls before you were shot.”
“Sorry. What are you doing here? It must be close to midnight.”
She crossed her arms again. “I have been waiting for you. I heard the shooting reported on my father’s police scanner. I went to your apartment to investigate, then came to make sure you were uninjured.”
He patted the bruise on his sternum. “Pretty much, yeah,” he said.
“There is no entry wound?”
“They think the bullet bounced off my rib cage.”
She mulled over the idea.
“Did you say you investigated at my apartment?”
“It was important to examine the scene before the police contaminated it,” Karen said. “While their methods are fine for standard crimes, I thought your shooting might require a more open interpretation of the facts.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Where are the rest of your clothes?”
He shrugged. “This is all I’ve got. I wasn’t wearing shoes when they picked me up, and they cut my shirt up in the ambulance.”
Her eyes ran down his body and back. “Wait here,” she said.
“What? Why?”
She turned on her heel and stalked out the door.
George settled into a plastic chair and crossed his arms over his chest. It was odd, sitting around with no shirt on, but with the random homeless people scattered through the waiting room he didn’t stand out too much. One bulky man was barefoot. Another one looked like he hadn’t bathed in months. They both drew more stares than him.
He turned around and looked into the face of a little girl with pale eyes. She was standing on the chair behind him. Her teeth banged against each other as she chomped on her gum.
He was pretty sure she had gum.
She leaned toward him. George got up and the little girl tumbled over the seats to land where he’d been sitting. She didn’t cry. She kept gnashing her teeth as she slid off the chair and onto the floor. He took a few more steps away, around one of the homeless people—a tangle-headed woman—and settled himself against one of the windows.
Shouldn’t there be police waiting to do an interview? George thought. Take a statement or something like that? He looked around, but didn’t see any uniforms or anyone who looked like they might be a detective.
It didn’t feel chilly, but he could hear lots of teeth chattering in the waiting room. The little girl’s father turned around to stare at George. The man’s neck popped twice as he moved. The homeless woman had twin cataracts that made her eyes white. The nurse behind the counter let her jaw hang open as she stared. Her dark red lipstick contrasted with her ivory teeth.
He blinked and they looked away. The little girl whined. On the television, George Costanza tried to explain the difference between coffee and coffee.
The automatic door whisked open behind him. Karen reappeared with a large bag and handed it to him. “Everything should fit,” she said.
He checked the inhabitants of the waiting room one more time, then looked in the bag. It held a new dress shirt, some generic-looking sneakers, and a pullover fleece with the hospital logo on it. He unwrapped the shirt and pulled out the first few pins. “Where did you get all this?”
“The hospital gift shop.”
He saw the tag on the shirt wrapper and tried not to flinch at the gift shop prices. “How much do I owe you?”
She shook her head and brushed the question away with a wave of her hand.
He pulled the cardboard out from under the collar and unbuttoned the shirt. It was stiff and had sharp creases in the fabric, but it fit fine. He rolled his shoulders. “How’d you know my size?”
“I have been a runway model for twelve years,” she said. “I can size someone on sight.” She glanced at him as he buttoned up the shirt. “It is even simpler when they are not wearing clothes.”
“I’ve got pants on,” he said. He leaned against the door frame and pulled one of the shoes on. The sneaker had thick Velcro straps instead of laces. It was a perfect fit. He tugged the other one on.
“We should go,” said Karen. “Now.”
He looked up. The waiting room inhabitants were all staring again. A half dozen of them had climbed to their feet. The sound of chattering teeth echoed in the large room. They staggered toward George and Karen. The little girl was at the front of the small crowd.
Karen led him out the door and across the parking lot. He paused to stuff the bag and packing material in a trash can and then took a few quick steps to catch up with her. “It would be best if we did not separate,” she said. She held up her keys and a sports car a few yards away chirped. “Whatever these hallucinations are, it is clear they are more difficult for you to process alone.”
“Why do you say that?”
She looked at him. “Did you not say you had a meeting with the President?”
He tugged the fleece over his head. “Yeah, but that really happened.” A spike pushed its way into his head as he spoke.
Her mouth flattened again. It wasn’t much more than a line at this point.
“It did,” he insisted. The spike in his head grew long barbs that pushed in every direction. He could feel them against the back of his eyes, his sinuses, scratching the inside of his skull. He ignored them.
Then he paused. “How did my car get here?”
Karen stood by a Tesla Roadster. It was a convertible, low to the ground and glossy black. It looked fast. “I beg your pardon?”
George pointed at the Hyundai. It was a few spaces down from the Tesla. “That’s my car,” he said. “Did you get someone to bring it here or something?”
She shook her head.
He walked over to it. He glanced at the back and recognized his license plate and the parking sticker from work. His battered Payless sneakers sat in the space behind the passenger seat.
The door was unlocked. He lowered himself into the seat. The ignition was empty. He glanced at the dish under the gear shift and saw the small collection of coins. He looked in the glove compartment and checked the CD holder strapped onto the sunscreen. “What do you think the chances are someone stole my car, didn’t take anything, and ended up at the same hospital?”
“Unlikely.” Karen studied the Hyundai. She placed a hand on the hood. “Is it possible you drove yourself here?”
He shook his head. “Up until about twenty minutes ago I thought I’d been shot and was going to die. I’m pretty sure I was deep in shock.”
“People have driven vehicles under similar situations.”
He got out and walked around to look at her over the hood. “So where are my car keys?”
She looked back at the hospital. “If you were in shock, it is not hard to believe you could have dropped your keys somewhere between your car and the entrance.”
He shook his head. “I was brought in by an ambulance crew.” He got out of the car. “I’ll have to come back and get it later.”
The engine started. It revved twice, hard enough to make the chassis tremble. The headlights lit up a nearby shrub and a section of cinder-block wall as they flickered on and off.
George and Karen exchanged a glance. “Are we seeing things?” he asked.
“Perhaps. I believe your car is attempting to communicate in Morse code.”
“What?”
She gestured at the shrub. The headlights blinked in a series of long and short flashes. George watched for a moment before he saw the pattern.
“Is that an SOS?”
“The pattern it is repeating is OSO,” said Karen, “which is why I said ‘attempting.’ It is a common mistake for those who do not know Morse code.”
The engine growled and the pattern of flashes changed. The radio switched on and shouted some talk radio at them. Outside the car, with the engine running, it was just distorted squawks.
“Do you think it’s going to turn into a giant robot?”
“Doubtful,” Karen said, “but I am becoming more open to what I would normally consider foolish ideas. I believe we should contact Madelyn Sorensen. I would like to hear more of her insights into this other world we are glimpsing.”
“That could be a little difficult,” said George. “She’s probably in a jail cell right now.”
“Why?”
Karen shook her head. “As of one hour ago no arrests had been made and no suspects named. Your next-door neighbor across the hall heard gunfire and called the police. She claimed she did not see the shooter.”
“So she’s still out there somewhere?”
“I believe she did not intend to hurt you, George. She believed you would not be harmed and was attempting to prove it.”
“She could’ve just pricked me with a thumbtack or something. Next time I may not be so lucky.”
Karen gave him an odd look.
He gestured at his chest. “Like I told you, it was a million-to-one shot. The next bullet could’ve—”
“The next bullet did nothing,” said Karen.
“What?”
She stared at him over the car’s hood. “I told you I examined the scene of the shooting,” she said. “I discovered eleven bullets and shell casings. All were on the floor in the doorway of your apartment, all flattened from impact. Based on estimated range and damage to the surrounding walls, it was clear all of them struck some impenetrable object which had been removed since the shooting occurred.”
George looked down at his chest.
“At this point,” Karen said, “I believe it was taken away in an ambulance.”
His hand slipped up onto his ribs. Even through the fleece and the crisp new shirt, he could feel the sore spot fading. “You’re lying.”
“All the evidence suggests Madelyn Sorensen fired eleven rounds into your chest. Six while you stood, five more once you were on the ground.”
He rubbed his chest. His head was throbbing again. “The police would have said—”
“The police report said multiple shots fired. Their training tells them the bullets could not have hit you because that number of gunshot wounds would be fatal.”
George shook his head. He could feel moisture swelling in his nostril. Another nosebleed getting ready to go.
“Were they all lucky shots?” Karen asked. “Did each and every one of them hit a bone and bounce off?”
“There was only one bruise,” he said. It felt like a stupid excuse.
“I believe your doctor has succumbed to the same line of thinking as the police,” said Karen, “rationalizing something she cannot explain with traditional knowledge. She claims one bullet hit your sternum and was deflected. I believe only one bullet struck a bone. The rest hit soft tissue in your shoulders, abdomen, or throat which absorbed the impact.”
George remembered the huge pistol in Madelyn’s hands. The sound of it going off in the narrow hallway. The punch in his chest. Had it been dead center? He’d been looking right down the barrel, so shouldn’t the bullet have hit him …
Had she shot him in the head?
The pain behind his eyes faded a bit. He sniffed once, hard. The blood flow dried before it got severe enough to leak.
“Get in the car,” he told her.
She looked at the Hyundai and raised an eyebrow. “My vehicle is better suited for any—”
“Just get in,” said George. He got back into the car. The radio started to babble and he slapped it off. “I need to think, and it’s not going to happen here.”