Scrape, crunch, thud, warble.
Scrape, crunch, thud, warble.
Underscoring the odd rhythm was an off-key hum, and the nag became very interested in it. I focused on the hum and noticed that it ran in an audible parallel to a severely muffled background of driving bass.
I despised the nag. It was making me take notice of my surroundings, and now I was starting to be curious. I didn’t want to be curious. I wanted to be comfortable like before. But, that was slipping further away with each scrape, crunch, thud, and warble.
Now I was noticing that labored breaths interrupted the hum at random intervals, falling in and out of cadence with the crunch and scrape that seemed to be setting the beat.
On the heels of a metallic clunk, a tinny stream of noise masquerading as music suddenly vomited into the blackness. Severe notes, squealing outward from what might have been a guitar, intermixed with the heavy bump of a frenzied drumbeat. In reality, it wasn’t very loud at all, but given the disparity of it against the otherwise quiet darkness, it may as well have been a thunderclap.
The nag started down a new path.
It wanted to know about this driving thrum that insisted on being called music. I was just about to appease the annoying little monster when a hot stab of pain shot through my chest.
I felt myself jerked upward, without warning or apology.
Stark, blue-white brilliance exploded in my eyes, hot and fierce like an arc of lightning.
The afterimage of a swirling tunnel and a wooded grove began fading from my retinas.
Blackness.
Crashing luminance, intense and stark.
Nude flesh. Pale, flaccid, and marred.
Blackness.
Again, the impressed image began to fade.
The violent strobe burst, casting a woman’s body in harsh light.
Woman. Corpse. Blood.
Blackness.
Scrape, crunch, thud, warble.
Light, coming faster and faster.
Blood. Shoulders. Blood.
Blackness. Light. Corpse. Blackness. Light. Blood. Blackness. Light. Shoulders. Blackness. Light. Head. Blackness. Light. Shoulders. Blackness. Light. Face. Blackness. Light. Brittany. Blackness. Light. Blood. Blackness. Light. Brittany. Blackness. Light.
Headless.
Pain.
Pain.
“…Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.” I heard Cally’s steady but frightened voice calling out.
With each number she recited, focused pressure drove into the center of my chest, released, and then instantly repeated. I felt something tightly pinching my nose and something pressed against my mouth. Hot air rushed down my throat, and I was suddenly overcome by a need to cough. I tried, or at least I thought I did, but nothing happened.
I spasmed suddenly and felt my body jerk as I sputtered and gagged. With a heavy wheeze, I drew in a deep breath.
Whatever it was that was trying to smother me let go of my nose and moved quickly away.
I tried to cough again and this time I succeeded.
Then the cough came hard. I felt my shoulders lift from the floor as I sputtered and hacked.
The next breath was easier.
“He’s breathing.” This time it was Felicity, relief in her tenor.
Soft fingers pressed against my neck, and I heard Cally announce, “He’s got a strong pulse.”
The clamor of hurried footsteps met my ears, reverberating through the hardwood floor before halting with a heavy thump.
“An ambulance is on the way.” RJ’s frantic tone now entered the mix of voices.
“Rowan?” A handed patted my cheek lightly as Felicity called my name. “Rowan?”
The back of my neck was on fire, and it felt as though it was creased with an open, festering wound. My head was already starting to throb, and I involuntarily let out a low moan.
There was a frightening image dancing around inside my skull, insisting that I share it. My stomach soured at the very thought of trying to describe the horrific tableau. I wanted nothing more than to chase the vision from my mind and slam the door behind it, but a tickle in the back of my skull said no.
The vision was beginning to fade, and I tried desperately to let it. The tickle objected. It was important even if I didn’t want to think so. I had to tell someone before it was lost forever.
“Rowan?” Felicity called again.
“No head,” I heard myself whisper.
“What?” she asked.
I felt the warmth of her face near mine as she bent closer.
“No head,” I repeated as my short brush with consciousness rushed toward its end. “Brittany. No head.”
“His vitals are fine. He’s coherent; he knows his name, day of the week, the year, who the President is…” the paramedic was telling my wife, letting her voice trail off as the list grew. “I’m sorry, but there’s not much we can do if he refuses to go with us.”
Her partner was already loading equipment back into the life support vehicle, which was still lighting up our front yard with its wildly flickering light bar. I hadn’t checked, but I was sure that neighbors were standing on porches and peering out from behind their drapes at the commotion surrounding the ‘Witch house’. This wasn’t the first time we’d provided a light show, and unfortunately, it probably wasn’t going to be the last.
As was procedure, a police officer from the local municipality had responded along with the paramedics. He had stepped out onto the front porch himself, and I could see him through the glass of the storm door as he was speaking into his radio.
In sharp contrast to the activity in the immediate vicinity, Ben was still sprawled on the sofa, unconscious and oblivious to everything.
Luckily enough, the afghan Cally had laid over him earlier was still in place, hiding his sidearm and badge, so we didn’t have to explain to one cop why another cop was passed out in our living room. Although, there had been some question as to why he was sleeping through the ruckus. We had simply explained it away as us not letting a friend drive drunk, and fortunately, that had been satisfactory.
“But, his heart stopped,” Felicity insisted, still trying to convince the paramedic to cart me off to the hospital.
The young woman shrugged and shook her head apologetically. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I’ve got no proof of that. His EKG looks perfectly normal.”
“Felicity…” I started.
“Your heart DID stop, Rowan,” Cally pitched her offering into the fray, cutting me off.
I shot her a glance and frowned. I knew she was just being concerned, but at the moment, I needed someone on my side not Felicity’s. Fortunately, RJ was staying out of the way in the kitchen with the twins, Shari and Jennifer, who had arrived with Felicity’s Jeep somewhere in the middle of all this. I’m sure they were hearing the whole story from beginning to end.
Still, if there was a silver lining to the situation at all, at least the seizures were happening to me again instead of Felicity. For that, I was thankful. It also didn’t hurt that I was now back on the side of the fence I was used to occupying. For all its pressures and pitfalls, it was still a path I had grown accustomed to walking.
“Look, Felicity, I…” I continued.
“What if I tell you to take him?” Agent Mandalay took her turn at interrupting even though her question was
