“Are you in pain?” the nurse asks.
“Throat. Hard to talk.”
“That’s from being intubated. It’ll go away in a bit.”
I close my eyes. The next thing I know, I hear a familiar voice. “Miss Margaret? How are you doing?”
I open my eyes and see a lovely, familiar-looking young woman leaning over me. She resembles my Brooke, but she isn’t. I don’t recognize the man beside her. “Where’s Henry... Julia?” I rasp.
“They’re not here,” the young woman says.
I’m vaguely aware that disappointment and something else, something monstrous and dark and sinister, is in the room. The dark thing slithers around in a black corner. It’s too terrifying to look at directly.
I open my eyes again and stare at my visitor. There seem to be several of her, and they’re all fuzzy, like a TV screen that needs the antenna adjusted.
That’s been a while, though. TVs don’t have antennas anymore.The concept of time as an ongoing, one-way street comes floating back; when I was in the other light, time didn’t have any constraints. Here, under the greenish glare of fluorescent tubes, time confines me like a plaster cast, so prickly and painful it might be lined with cactus.
The beast in the dark corner rattles and snarls.
I didn’t realize I’d closed my eyes until I force myself to open them again and try to focus on my visitor. “You—you look familiar.”
“I’m Quinn. Remember? I’m Brooke’s friend.”
Brooke. Why isn’t she here? Something flickers in my memory, and the monster growls.
“Are you in pain, Mrs. Moore?” the nurse asks.
Did I groan, or was it the creature? “I... yes.” My hip and chest and head are throbbing, but I fear pain more than I feel it. I want to go back to the other light.
The nurse adjusts something by the bed. “I’m giving you some morphine. You should be more comfortable in a moment.”
“Don’t worry about anything, Miss Margaret. I’m taking care of Lily,” my visitor says.
Lily! My memory flashes on the plump cheeks and blue eyes of an angelic child. My heart warms as I struggle to place her. She’s Brooke’s child, isn’t she?
Brooke.Something happened to her—something monstrous. That’s the dark thing lurking in the room, the thing I sense, but can’t quite see.
It’s suddenly beneath me, jaws open, swimming up like a shark, about to clamp razor-edged fangs around me. I try to get away; my heart rate rockets.
“V-tach!” someone calls. Immediately three people hover over me.
“I’m giving you something to lower your heart rate,” the nurse says, messing with a tube in my arm.
The meds drag me under, and then, mercifully, everything goes black.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Zack
I DECIDE TOleave the hospital around five that evening, after making sure Margaret’s heart has stabilized after that scary arrhythmia. A friend of Quinn’s has shown up—a short young woman named Annie with big glasses. She eyes me curiously, but doesn’t question who I am. I imagine Quinn told her on the phone.
“Can I give you a ride home?” I ask Quinn in the ICU waiting room.
“I want to stay for the next visitation time,” she says.
“That’s not for another three hours. You should at least let me take you to get your car.”
“I’ll take her,” Annie says. “A friend who lives nearby has invited us over for dinner, so I’m planning on getting Quinn out of the hospital for a couple of hours anyway.”
