Good & Dead #1 (26 page)

Michael didn’t stop running until he reached the bright lights of the emergency room carport. 

His hands trembled as he filled out the paperwork.  They took Randy to a room straight from triage, and immediately began hooking him up to all sorts of machines.  Michael hovered around the group of scrub-clad nurses, craning his neck to see what was going on. 

“How is he?” Michael asked when yet another nurse entered the room with a caddy of vials to take blood.  “Is he okay?”

“Sir, we need you to wait outside.” A wiry brunette with a severe ponytail ushered him out of the room.  “We’ll let you know when we know something.”

Michael opened his mouth to protest, but she had already shut the door in his face.  He looked in through the narrow rectangular window in the door.  She pulled the curtain closed around Randy’s bed.

He glanced up and down the hall and then pressed his ear to the door.  He could hear plastic caps being popped off of things and the rustling of some kind of paper, and their voices crystal clear, but they weren’t talking about Randy.  Aside from ‘pass me that’ or ‘careful there’, they were gossiping about someone named Rebecca who was, apparently, quite loose.  A passing doctor looked up from his clipboard and narrowed his eyes at Michael. 

Michael muttered an apology and wandered back to the waiting room.  There were a dozen people in there, half of them in costume.  Michael passed a green-faced witch and a lady in a chicken suit, and sat in a small plastic mossy-green chair that somehow provided no back support and also tried to slowly slip him off onto the floor. 

He stood again and paced, fuming. 
I just took everything she said as truth
. 

“Sir.” A nurse at the desk called to him. “Do you need to be admitted?”  He was eyeing Michael’s blood-soaked costume.

“Oh.” Michael ran his hands through his curls. “No, sorry—it’s not real—just a costume.”

The nurse smirked at him and turned back to his computer screen.  “I hate Halloween.”

Michael marched to the little bathroom in the corner and tore it off. 
I believed every lie she fed me.

“Idiot!” he yelled, wadding the black fabric into a ball and throwing it into the trash can.  He watched the lid spin and swallowed hard against angry tears.  He’d made the wrong decision every step of the way.

Michael turned on the sink and splashed water on his face.  He looked up into the mirror
.
His t shirt was torn nearly in two and soaked in blood, but at least it looked more like an intentional Halloween costume than a randomly bloodied grim reaper.
 
Blood was dried in his hair and down the whole left side of his face.  He waved a hand underneath the motion-activated paper towel dispenser, tore it off and started scrubbing.  It shredded into little rolled-up fragments and did little to remove the red stain from his cheek.  He growled and threw the mess into the garbage can.

Joseph was right.  It was so obvious! 
Michael waved his hand under the dispenser repeatedly and cringed at the loud automated whir it produced along with each small segment of towel.

He saw himself in the mirror, ghostly pale and seething.
  Bell was right, too.  I am angry.

He scrubbed some more.  “If I had just thought about it for even a second I would never have gone along with her stupid plan!” 
And Randy may not be in the hospital now. 
In the mirror, Michael saw his bottom lip tremble, and that made him even angrier. 
If I hadn’t been so stupid, I would’ve just left them right away, and none of this would have happened. 

There was an urgent knock on the door.  Michael could hear a child whimpering and a Father threatening punishment if the kid peed himself.

Michael took the deepest breath he could muster and tossed his bloody paper towels into the garbage.  He wrenched the door open and forced a smile as the pair rushed past him without a thank you.

Michael eyed the doors into the ER on his way back to his horrible plastic seat.  He put his head in his hands.  Nurses came in and out with clipboards and urgent airs.  Michael’s stomach churned as though he had swallowed a mouthful of gravel. 
He better make it.
 

The intolerable scolding of Judge Judy was replaced by the news.  Michael stared at his shoes as two ER visitors squabbled over the channel all through the high-pitched weather man’s prediction of more snow.  He looked up when they returned to the news desk.

“A fire destroyed The Destin College Dinner Theater tonight, shortly after a disturbance called police to the scene.”  Michael stared, open-mouthed, at the shaky camera footage of the smoking remains of the school’s theater.

“It’s unsure at this point what caused the fire, which affected half the block.  Residents of nearby apartment complexes were evacuated and firefighters were able to extinguish the flames before those buildings were lost, but the theater itself is in ruins.

“A play let out only minutes before the blaze started.  No one was inside at the time.”

Michael remembered Bell’s promise to her Father.  ‘I’ll take care of it.’  It looked like she had.

The metal detector beeped angrily from the entrance.  Everyone turned to see what had set it off. 

Charlotte was standing in the computerized archway, anxiously unshouldering her purse and handing it to the security guard.  Michael stood when he saw her. 

“Michael!” she said, trying the doorway again.  It blared and flashed red.  “You’re alright!”

Michael let out a long breath.  “
You’re
alright!”  He rushed over to her.

“Sorry,” Charlotte said to the security guard, removing her keys from her jeans pocket. 

She stepped through and set it off again.  Michael stood there waiting awkwardly. 

“Geez,” she said, feeling inside her jacket pockets.  She pulled out a bright pink taser and placed it in the man’s hand.  “That should be it.”

She passed through the metal detector victoriously and immediately hugged Michael.  He breathed in her sugary scent.  But it wasn’t like the other hugs.  She jumped back almost immediately, and when she released him, she didn’t quite meet his glance.  Michael pretended not to notice. 

She cleared her throat.  “How is he?”

“They wouldn’t tell me anything.  I think he has a concussion, and his shoulder is messed up.  He was unconscious when we got here.”

“I am so sorry.”  She glanced at the swinging doors as a nurse came out in a hurry. “What happened?  At the theater?” she asked before turning to get her things back from the man working security. “I remember Tom and I were in the final act, and then Paole showed up—and then I was at home.  The same thing happened to everybody.  Half the cast called me, totally freaked out.”  Michael noticed she shivered despite her thick coat.  “What happened to you?”

“Oh.”  Michael hadn’t thought far enough ahead to have a story ready.  “I don’t know.  There was some kind of fight.  Maybe we were just in the way?  Randy and I were heading down the ladder when he…fell off.  I thought he was dead.”  Michael’s face felt cold.

Charlotte met his eyes, and took both his hand in hers.  “He’s going to be alright.”  Her eyes were so clear, so honest.  A shadow passed across her face; a glimmer of doubt.  Then she laughed.  “I’m sorry.”

Michael blinked.  “What are you sorry for?”

“I heard what the detective said— what he said you did.   It seems so stupid now, but I remembered I saw you with the costume on the street.  And then you had it again when the detective came around the theater this morning to get it.  For a minute, I—“she laughed again, and booped him on the nose.  “Not a chance.”

Michael faked a smile. 

“Michael Wallace!” a voice blurted from the nurse’s station.

Both Charlotte and Michael jumped and hurried to the desk. 

“Yes, ma’am?” Michael asked anxiously.

The nurse flipped a page of paperwork over on her clipboard and smacked her gum.  “You bring in Randy Phillips?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Your friend is going to be fine.” She gave them a shallow smile and turned to type at her computer with long faux-diamond-studded fake fingernails. “His mother asked me to tell you.”

Michael let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“Can we go see him?” Michael asked. 

“Family only,” she replied, without taking her eyes from the screen.

Michael deflated a little. 

Charlotte hugged him around the neck.  His arms encircled her slender waist.  Relief spread through his body.  When she pulled back, her eyes met his.  He would have loved to kiss her then.  But he couldn’t.  Randy nearly lost his life an hour before.  It was a miracle nothing worse had happened to Charlotte.  Everyone in the play had been put in terrible danger, all because of him.  He couldn’t make the same mistakes again. 

Michael cleared his throat, and released her, pretending he didn’t see the confusion in her eyes as he took a step back.

The metal detector blared again, and they turned toward the sound.  An impossibly curvy brunette walked through without any protest from the security guard.  She wore a nurse Halloween costume that looked like it had been purchased in an “adult” store.  He could hear her pleather creaking across the room as she waved to the rent-a-cop.  She turned eerily familiar honey-colored eyes directly at Michael.

Michael, could you join me outside as soon as you can?
She had a high-pitched voice that rang in his ears just like Bell’s had
.  Callista would like to talk to you before Bell puts another tail on you.

Charlotte pursed her lips at Michael’s stunned expression.  “Really?”

Michael blushed.  “Sorry. I know her from…my…apartment.”

Charlotte gave him a fairly disapproving half-smile.

Oh, I’m sorry
, the nymph said in his head,
I didn’t realize she was your lover
.

Michael choked but turned it into a cough as the nymph made her way toward them across the waiting room.  “Michael!” she called out, every male in the room gawking at her thigh-high boots shining in the florescent lighting.  “I can’t believe I ran into you here!  Oh, hi!” she said, pretending she’d only just seen Charlotte.  She held a manicured hand.  “Hi,” she said again, flirtatiously. “I’m Carrie, Michael’s neighbor.”

Charlotte blinked.  “Um, hi,” she said, “I’m Charlotte.”

The nymph called Carrie turned to Michael and made a pouty face.  “Michael, I locked myself out of the building again and no one will buzz me in.  My girlfriend works here and I was going to try to get a key from her, but it would be soooo much better if you let me in.  She hates working on Halloween and she’s going to be totally pissed if I page her but I really need to get in because I have a party that I have to go to because my friend’s ex is going to be there and—”

“Michael can help you,” Charlotte interrupted. “I’ll stay a while and see if I can’t charm my way in to see him.”

“I bet you could,” Carrie said, winking at Charlotte. 

“Thank you, Carrie,” she said with a smile.  She turned to Michael.  “I’ll call you if I find out anything.  You go home and get some rest.”

“Yeah,” Michael began, but Carrie was already leading him away, an arm hooked around his. 

You’re welcome,
Carrie laughed mischievously in his head.

Michael’s eyes grew wide.  He turned and waved at Charlotte, who waved happily back, shaking her head a little.

Carrie led him outside and they walked toward the packed parking garage next to the ER entrance.  “How is your friend?” she asked, still clutching his arm.

“They said he’ll be alright.”

“I’m glad,” she said, laying her head on his shoulder.

“Where are we going?” Michael asked, their footsteps echoing around the bleak cement landscape.

“Callista asked me to bring you home with me.” She patted his arm and sighed.

Michael cleared his throat. 

“What’s wrong, honey?”

“Nothing.  You just—aren’t what I expected.”

“And what were you expecting?”

“Um….” Michael figured no answer would be good there. 

Carrie laughed to herself as they approached a 70’s era Cadillac with leopard interior.  She opened the trunk and turned to Michael.  “Alright, I’m sorry about this.”

“About what?” Before Michael knew what was happening, Carrie pulled a silk bag out of her purse and pulled it down over Michael’s head.  It had a chemical smell that assaulted his nostrils.  He grabbed blindly for her wrists, but she was far too quick.  The world spun with dizziness.  He felt her lift him off his feet easily and set him onto the felt lining.  He had one thought before he heard the distinctive slam of the heavy metal trunk.

That’s more like it.

Then everything went black.

Jamie Wahl lives in Alabama with her husband and four kids where she works as a muralist.  She wrote most of this book sitting in the lobby of the YMCA, with her kids in childwatch next door.  She wore sweat pants so that when the trainers walked by she could pretend she was stretching.  Other than that, she’s totally professional.