Authors: Kenneth G. Bennett
Stan-ton must not die
, murmured the strange voice in his mind, as the icy sea swallowed him, body and soul.
Stan-ton cannot die.
JOE STANTON AWOKE TO SHOUTS
and the sound of running feet, but for several seconds he could not find the strength to open his eyes.
“Damn! It’s him!” yelled a man. “The guy off the ferry.”
“He’s alive!” cried a woman, as she dropped to the ground at Joe’s side.
Together, the pair rolled Joe gently onto his back.
“Jesus, Hank,” said the woman. “Look at his face.”
The man stepped away and spoke into a cell phone. “Yes, I’d like to report an emergency,” he said. “It’s the guy from the ferry.”
“Jesus, Hank,” the woman repeated. “Looks like he’s been run over or somethin’.
“Mister?” said the woman as Joe’s eyes finally opened. “You okay? You’re breathing at least. My daughter’s gone to get a blanket.”
A gravelly whisper was all Joe could manage. “Where am I?”
He was lying in tall grass, on his back, staring up through tree branches into a pale-blue sky. But when he tried to move, everything hurt.
“You’re on Lopez,” answered the man. “Lopez Island. And they’re sending a medevac chopper for you right now. Plenty of room to land in our pasture.”
The woman gripped Joe’s hand, “You must be an awful good swimmer,” she said. “Everyone thought sure you were dead.”
Joe could hear waves lapping against a beach now, though that peaceful sound was soon overwhelmed by the noise of an approaching siren. Joe twisted his body around, enough to peer out. Beyond the grass, down a gentle slope, he could see haphazard piles of smooth driftwood, and a wet gravel beach. Lopez Sound stretched out wide and deep beyond that, the wave tops flashing like diamonds in the early morning light. He had no memory of swimming beyond mid-channel and no recollection whatsoever of climbing onto the shore.
The promised blanket arrived, and paramedics soon after. Joe looked up to find a face he recognized. A paramedic from the ambulance ride the previous morning.
“Well, hello there,” she said warmly, rushing in to check his vital signs as her partner readied a gurney. A name badge stitched above her left shirt pocket read “Arnaz.”
“San Juans used to be kinda boring ’til you showed up,” she said. “You’re definitely kickin’ it up a notch on the ol’ excitement meter.” She studied the ugly blue-green bruises around Joe’s eyes and lower jaw and touched his face gently with a latex-gloved hand. “Somebody throw you off that boat?” she asked, as her partner prepared a neck brace. “What the hell happened?”
The incident with Spinell’s son replayed, painfully, in Joe’s memory, but he decided he didn’t want to discuss it. He gave a small shrug.
Arnaz stared at him, concern in her eyes.
“You lucked out,” she said as she started an IV with practiced speed. “I do one shift a week on Lopez.”
Joe managed a smile, though the effort hurt like hell. He searched her eyes. “My girlfriend. Ella. Is she—”
“Dude, everybody and their dog is looking for you. I’m sure your girl got the good news by now. She’ll probably just head to the hospital when we know which one they’re taking you to.”
Joe gripped Arnaz’s sleeve and whispered, “I can’t do an air-evac.”
Arnaz smiled and helped her partner lift him onto the gurney.
“Not up for debate, man,” she said cheerfully. “We’re looking at possible multiple fractures, shock, concussion, hypothermia, exposure—”
“I don’t have insurance. I can’t pay for it. I can’t. And anyhow, I’m fine.” He tried to sit up, to prove his point, and cried out in pain.
“Uh-huh,” said Arnaz. “You bet you are. Ready to do an Ironman.” Her radio crackled and she raised a hand, signaling for Joe to hang on. He followed her with his eyes as she retreated a few paces into the meadow. He could hear the
thump
,
thump
,
thump
of a helicopter now.
“Sounds like they’re taking you to Bellingham,” said Arnaz, returning to his side and checking his pulse again. “Super quick flight.” She smiled. “I hear you’re a priest. For real?”
Joe squinted at her. “The dispatcher tell you that?” He’d almost stopped shivering.
“Word gets around, dude,” she said, “even up here in the sticks.”
Arnaz and her partner hefted the gurney—with the landowner’s help—and carried Joe toward the meadow.
“Your adventures are being tweeted about even as we speak. You made the Seattle news.”
“Wonderful,” said Joe, feeling suddenly sick to his stomach.
The helicopter—a bright red Sikorsky S-76—landed and a flight nurse jumped out and helped Arnaz and her partner lift Joe aboard.
Arnaz leaned through the door. “You’re gonna be fine,” she said, squeezing Joe’s hand.
The chopper lifted off, bound for Bellingham. It never got there.
“HE’S IN CARDIAC ARREST,”
the flight nurse yelled, ten seconds into the flight. “We need to get him down.”
Joe heard the pilot through a speaker mounted above the door. “We’re seven minutes from St. Joe’s.”
“Not good enough,” replied the nurse—a burly, bearded young guy with a photo ID badge clipped to his shirt. Joe saw that his name was Reggie Knutson.
“The
Northern Mercy
’s in Haro Strait,” said Reggie. “Full cardiac unit. We can be there in three.”
“A hospital ship?” said the pilot. “Lemme check.”
Joe wasn’t really in cardiac arrest. But it sounded plausible, given all he’d been through. And Reggie needed an excuse. A man had approached him at tiny San Juan airport moments before takeoff. The man had offered him five thousand dollars, cash, to get Joe Stanton to the hospital ship
Northern Mercy
. To show his sincerity, the man had given Reggie ten crisp new one-hundred-dollar bills. “Get him to the ship and you’ll get the rest,” the man had said. “Simple as that.”
“What’s this all about?” Reggie wanted to know.
“No questions,” replied the man. “Do you want the money or not?”
Now, they were zooming toward the
Northern Mercy
, and Joe felt himself losing consciousness again. He’d heard Reggie say he was in cardiac arrest, but couldn’t get his muddled brain around the idea. The pilot and nurse seemed to be talking about someone else. Whether it was Arnaz’s IV or recent events that were scrambling his thoughts, Joe could not discern. But he felt curiously removed from the situation, and his eyes swam in their sockets.
“Big helicopter,” said Joe.
Reggie nodded. “You got the freighter. This one can carry six patients and two attendants. But you’re the star of the show today.”
Joe blinked and the helicopter’s beige vinyl ceiling swam before his eyes, warping and twisting and morphing into an odd grid pattern.
“
Stan-ton
,” whispered the now familiar voice, deep within Joe’s brain, as the ceiling continued to organize itself into a psychedelic tapestry worthy of
Alice in Wonderland
. Joe was dimly, peripherally aware of Reggie studying him intently, but he couldn’t stop staring at the ceiling. Joe saw the nurse turn and look at the ceiling himself—fascinated by Joe’s intense focus. Clearly, the nurse could not see what he was seeing.
I really do need a doctor
, Joe thought to himself, as the grid pattern kaleidoscoped before his eyes.
Maybe I’m really, really messed up. Maybe someone dropped LSD in my coffee.
His body convulsed and the grid pattern warped into a forest-green tunnel. The tunnel, in turn, bent and stretched, until it spanned a vast black chasm. Joe gaped, eyes fixed on the scene before him.
Like a living tentacle, the tunnel twisted and probed, arcing through the darkness, searching for something.
“It looks organic,” Joe whispered, eyes riveted on the ceiling.
“What looks organic?” asked Reggie. “The ceiling?”
Joe didn’t hear him. “But it glows like an LED. Not organic. Made. Created. But by whom?”
The nurse had vanished from Joe’s field of vision along with the ceiling. Only the tunnel remained.
There was a faint glow at the end of the tunnel now. A daylight kind of glow. Joe wanted desperately to see it.
A light at the end of the tunnel? What could it be? Heaven?
Joe continued his slow, forward movement through the tunnel.
Or, maybe I don’t want to see any light
, he thought
. Maybe if I get to the light, I’ll be dead. Lord knows I’ve come close enough the last couple days.
Then, for the third time in two days, Joe’s mind went dark, and he lapsed into unconsciousness.
JOE’S EYES SNAPPED OPEN.
He felt peaceful and warm. Comfortable and content. He lay on his side as shapes swirled around him, transiting his field of awareness like planets spinning silently past the sun. The shapes were indistinct. Amorphous. Unthreatening.
He stayed like that for a long time, breathing, listening to his heartbeat, feeling no desire to move. Only his eyes were active.
Gradually the swirling shapes clarified.
People
, Joe thought.
They’re people.
His focus improved. The people were wearing cotton gowns. Latex gloves. Surgical masks.
Clusters of lights—brilliant, blazing lights—hovered in the air above them.
One of the people came to a stop at Joe’s side. Then a second person. Joe’s eyes flicked up and he saw that they were regarding him intently.
They look surprised
, Joe thought.
Surprised because I’m awake?
He couldn’t be sure. It was hard to think. Hard to ponder anything. His thoughts seemed to dart away like shadows.
Joe lay there, trying to focus.
Soft classical music played on a speaker somewhere high overhead, but no one spoke. The people just stared. It was odd, but he felt no concern. No worry.
He looked past the people. There was a screen. A monitor displaying scans. X-rays. Medical images. He saw instruments. A robotic arm with tweezer-like fingers.
Joe focused. The robotic fingers were holding something. A miniscule wafer dangling a hair-thin wire.
Joe looked again at one of the gowned figures staring at him and saw a gloved hand pressing a button, pressing it slowly, steadily, like a syringe. He thought maybe he should be concerned; then he let it go. He was too comfortable. Too relaxed and peaceful. He saw liquid moving slowly through a clear plastic tube, and warmth and drowsiness overtook him again.
“LOOK CLOSELY
and you can see the fracture,” said the doctor. She swung a computer monitor into position so that Ella could see the X-rays of Joe Stanton’s skull more clearly. “A linear fracture. Here.” She tapped on the screen. “Behind Joe’s temporal bones. Should heal fully on its own. Assuming he avoids further trauma.”
They were in a sunny private room aboard the hospital ship
Northern Mercy
. Joe slept peacefully in a bed with crisp white sheets. Ella and the doctor—a sixtysomething woman named Andrea Heintzel—sat nearby, and Detective Palmer watched via video feed from his office in Friday Harbor. Ella and Dr. Heintzel could see Palmer in the upper righthand corner of the monitor.
“We cleaned and dressed the wounds on Mr. Stanton’s face and scalp,” Heintzel told them, adding, to Ella, “Keep an eye on things. If the healing goes well you can remove the stitches in a few days.”
Ella smiled. “I’ll take good care of him.”
Palmer spoke via the video link. “What about the hallucinations? The voices?”
“We did a complete neurological workup,” said Heintzel. “The good news is, we see no sign of a stroke or tumor. None at all. All of Joe’s neurological processes are robust. Exactly what we would expect in a healthy twenty-eight-year old.”
“So how do you explain what happened?” Palmer asked. “At the motel? On the ferry? Some kind of…psychosis?”
“I don’t think so. We’ve seen no evidence of that.”
“What then?”
Heintzel sighed. “My strong suspicion, after considering this from every angle, is that Joe ate or drank something that caused the event.”
Ella looked surprised. “What? Really?”
“Yes. Not knowingly. I’m suggesting that Joe ingested something tainted—without realizing it. A fast-food item spiked with one chemical or another, perhaps as a sick joke.”
“A
joke
,” said Ella. “Who would do that?”
“It happens,” Heintzel replied. “Unfortunately. The public seems to think food tampering is a thing of the past, but I assure you, it is not.”
Palmer nodded. “Happens to cops. I can vouch for that. I read about an arrest last month…Two Burger King employees in Fort Worth. They’d see police in line or in the drive-thru, and spit or urinate in the food. As a joke.”
“That is beyond disgusting,” said Ella.
“Of course,” said Heintzel. “But it is a viable possibility. There are some very sick people out there. It may be that someone thought it would be amusing to drop a little psilocybin or PCP into the beverage or entrée of a young priest. Or perhaps it was totally random, and the perpetrator had no idea who would consume the tainted food. Maybe it was planted surreptitiously. Like with the Tylenol poisonings decades ago. I’ve ordered a toxicology screen for psychoactive substances—but we won’t have the results for a day or two.”
Ella frowned. “Screen shouldn’t take that long, should it? It’s usually an hour turnaround, max.”
The question seemed to catch Heintzel off guard. “Yes, well, our lab is having computer issues at the moment. But things should be back to normal soon.”
Ella looked at Joe, lying on the bed, bruised and battered, and tears welled in her eyes. She’d been on board twenty-four hours, almost as long as Joe, and she hadn’t slept much. “Could this have messed him up permanently?”
“I don’t think so,” Heintzel replied. “I believe the substance—whatever it was—will work its way out of his system completely. I don’t foresee any long-term damage.”