cookies. Those children, so well behaved, so blond, made Karen think of her own daughters. It was their birthday tomorrow. Tonight, asleep in their beds, she thought, they are only a day away from being thirteen. A day further from their childhood.
When you wake up, she thought, I'll be home.
She refilled her coffee cup, snapped on a plastic cover, and walked out to her car.
Her head felt clear now. She could make it. An hour, fifty miles, and she'd be walking in her front door. She started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot. A hundred miles, she thought. Only a hundred miles.
Twenty miles away, parked behind a 7-11,Vince Lawry and Chuck Servis finished off the last six pack. They'd been going at it for four straight hours, just a little friendly competition to see who could toss back the most Buds without puking it all up again. Chuck was ahead by one. They'd lost track of the total; they'd have to figure it out in the morning when they tallied up the beer cans mounded in the back seat.
But Chuck was definitely ahead, and he was gloating about it, which pissed Vince off, because Chuck was better at every fucking thing. And this wasn't a fair contest. Vince could've gone another round, but the Bud had run out, and now Chuck was wearing that eat-shit grin of his, even though he knew it wasn't a fair contest.
Vince shoved open the car door and climbed out of the driver's seat.
'Where you going?' asked Chuck.
'T'get some more.'
'You can't handle no more.'
'Fuck you,' said Vince, and stumbled across the parking lot towards the 7-11's front door.
Chuck laughed. 'You can't even walk!' he yelled out the window. Asshole, thought Vince. What the fuck, he could walk. See, he was walking fine. He'd just stroll into the 7-11 and pick up two more sixes. Maybe three.Yeah, he could do three, easy. His stomach was iron, and except for having to piss every few minutes, he didn't feel the effects at all.
He tripped going in the door — goddamn high threshold, they could get sued for that — but he picked himself right up. He got three six packs from the cooler and swaggered over to the cash register. He plunked down a twenty-dollar bill.
The clerk looked at the money and shook his head. 'Can't take it,' he said.
'What do you mean, can't take it?'
'Can't sell beer to an intoxicated customer.'
'Are you saying I'm drunk?'
'That's right.'
'Look, it's money, isn't it?You don't want my fucking money?'
'I don't wanna get sued. You just put the beer back, son, OK? Better yet, why don't you buy a cup of coffee or something? A hot dog.'
'I don't want a fucking hot dog.'
'Then just walk on out, boy. Go on.'
Vince shoved one of the six packs across the countertop. It slid off the edge and crashed to the floor. He was about to launch another six pack off the counter when the clerk pulled out a gun.
Vince stood staring at it, his body poised in mid-shove.
'Go on, get the hell out,' said the clerk.
'OK?Vince stepped back, both hands raised in submission. 'OK, I hear you.'
He tripped on the damn threshold again as he went out the door.
'So where is it?' asked Chuck as Vince climbed back in the car. 'They're outta beer.'
'They can't be out of beer.'
'They're fucking out, OK?Vince started the car and goosed the accelerator. They squealed out of the lot.
'Where we going now?' asked Chuck.
'Find another store.' He squinted ahead at the darkness. 'Where's the onramp? Gotta be around here somewhere.'
'Man, give it up. No way you'll go another round without puking.' 'Where's the fucking onramp?'
'I think you passed it.'
'No, there it is.' Vince veered left, tyres squealing over the pavement.
'Hey,' said Chuck. 'Hey, I don't think-'
'Got twenty fucking bucks left to blow. They'll take it. Someone'll take it.'
'Vince, you're going the wrong way!'
'What?'
Chuck yelled, 'You're going the wrong way!'
Vince gave his head a shake and tried to focus on the road. But the lights were too bright and they were shining right in his eyes. They seemed to be getting brighter.
'Pull right!' screamed Chuck. 'It's a car! Pull right!' Vince veered right. So did the lights.
He heard a shriek, unfamiliar, unearthly.
Not Chuck's, but his own.
Dr. Abby DiMatteo was tired, more tired than she'd ever been in her life. She had been awake for thirty straight hours, if one didn't count her ten-minute nap in the X-ray lounge, and she knew her exhaustion showed. While washing her hands in the SICU sink, she had glimpsed herself in the mirror and had been dismayed by the smudges of fatigue under her dark eyes, by the disarray of her hair, which now hung in a tangled black mane. It was already 10 a.m., and she had not yet showered or even brushed her teeth. Breakfast had been a hardboiled egg and a cup of sweet coffee, handed to her an hour ago by a thoughtful surgical ICU nurse. Abby would be lucky to find time for lunch, luckier still to get out of the hospital by five and home by six. Just to sink into a chair right now would be luxury.
But one did not sit during Monday morning attending rounds. Certainly not when the attending was Dr. ColinWettig, Chairman of Bayside Hospital's Surgical Residency Programme. A retired Army general, Dr. Wetrig had a reputation for crisp and merciless questions. Abby was terrified of the General. So were all the other surgical residents.
Eleven residents now stood in the SICU, forming a semicircle of white coats and green scrub suits. Their gazes were all trained on the residency chairman. They knew that any one of them could be ambushed with a question. To be caught without an answer was to be subjected to a prolonged session of personalized humiliation.
The group had already rounded on four post-op patients, had discussed treatment plans and prognoses. Now they stood assembled beside SICU Bed 11. Abby's new admission. It was her turn to present the case.
Though she held a clipboard in her arms, she did not refer to her notes. She presented the case by memory, her gaze focused on the General's unsmiling face.
'The patient is a thirty-four-year-old Caucasian female, admitted at one this morning via the trauma service after a high-speed head-on collision on Route 90. She was intubated and stabilized in the field, then airlifted here. On arrival to the ER, she had evidence of multiple trauma. There were compound and depressed skull fractures, fractures of the left clavicle and humerus, and severe facial lacerations. On my initial exam, I found her to be a well nourished white female, medium build. She was unresponsive to all stimuli with the exception of some questionable extensor posturing-'
'Questionable?' asked Dr. Wetfig. 'What does that mean? Did she or did she not have extensor posturing?'
Abby felt her heart hammering. Shit, he was already on her case. She swallowed and explained, 'Sometimes the patient's limbs would extend on painful stimuli. Sometimes they wouldn't.'
'How do you interpret that? Using the Glasgow Coma Scale for motor response?'
'Well. Since a nil response is rated a one, and extensor posturing is a two, I suppose the patient could be considered a… one and a half.'
There was a ripple of uneasy laughter among the circle of residents.
'There is no such score as a one and a half,' said Dr. Wettig.
'I'm aware of that,' said Abby. 'But this patient doesn't fit neatly into-'
'Just continue with your exam,' he cut in.
