Dastardly Bastard(38)

The world began to filter in. Voices were coming and going. Justine stepped back and took in her surroundings.

The vending machine was one in a line of three. The other two sold coffee, cold sandwiches, and microwavable burritos. A microwave sat on a counter. Next to it stood a sink that could be operated by foot pedals on the floor. Turning around, she saw a large room with rows of seating set up in the middle and around the outer wall. Above a door on the other side hung a sign with three letters on it: I.C.U.

The area behind her was large and mostly empty. One lone boy sat in the corner with his head down. A black cloth was wrapped diagonally around his head. When he lifted his face to look off at a nearby wall, Justine realized the boy also wore an eye patch. Her heart ached at the sight. Loss poured off of him; Justine could feel it in her soul. Tears ran down one cheek. He never looked at her. Just sat there, weeping, his chest hitching from the effort.

Justine had no way of knowing what time it was. Like bars, hospitals mostly kept clocks out of sight. A comforting feeling could be had by not knowing just how long you’d been waiting for someone to die.

Someone to die.

Memories flitted to the surface like faeries on an updraft. Justine’s mind swam, the world tilting before her. The warm pink color of the walls started to darken, a deeper maroon coming to the surface. The one-eyed boy stood, brushed off his shirt as if crumbs had settled there, and stepped forward, moving away from Justine, to the double doors at the opposite end of the waiting area. His movements were slow, languid, as if he were moving underwater.

Keeping her distance, not knowing if the child was to be feared or not, Justine followed. The smell of disinfectant assaulted her senses as she moved into a long hallway. The walls were bisected into two colors—deep blue for the top half, black at the bottom—with a plastic handrail running the length of the hall. Someone had thought it clever to speckle white dots on the black section of wall, making it look as if stars floated in an evening sky. Justine thought she remembered something, but let it go when the boy turned right into an alcove. She came to the spot and looked inside.

Lying on the bed in the center of the room was Nana Penance. Her breaths were shallow, labored. Justine knew there should be nurses and doctors fighting to save her—she remembered that the chaos had been almost soothing—but no one was there.

Justine heard herself praying, begging not to be there. She had lived it once. Wasn’t that enough? Why should she have to be witness to the tragedy all over again? Nana had been like a mother to her, as Justine’s own mother had been severely lacking in the nurturing department.

She went to the side of the bed and gripped the railing. She felt the tears coming, but sniffed them back. She had shed too many. What she saw was not happening, and she would not give in to tarnished memories. Justine felt that she must fight. There was something to fight for; she just knew it. Even if that something was hidden at the moment, it had to be found. Whatever it was.

Nana Penance was gone. Dead. Justine’s grandmother was not the woman lying in that bed. The scene wasn’t real. Because that wasn’t how it had happened.

When Nana died, Justine had felt as though the world had become a broken place. Everywhere she turned, she was stabbed. Too many people wanted to console her. There were arms everywhere, wanting to hug, to comfort. She had just wished to be left alone. She’d only wanted to be angry at the wonderful woman who’d helped to raise her, mold her into the woman she had become.

There had been no sadness. No tears. Only anger directed at Nana Penance for leaving her alone. But Justine hadn’t been alone. No. Someone else had been there, someone she’d lost. Someone she needed to find. “Trevor?”

“Why don’t you learn to just leave well enough alone?” Nana Penance’s jaw worked like a ventriloquist’s dummy, hinged and loose. Her eyes remained closed, and she was no longer breathing.

“Where is he?” Justine asked.

“Why don’t you ask the boy?” Nana Penance’s mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. The sight made Justine sick to her stomach.

“What does he have to do with this?”

“Oh, just everything. Ha-ha, ha-ha.” The laughter was robotic as the unseen puppeteer played with Nana Penance’s mouth in sharp, jarring movements.

The last time she’d seen the boy with the eye patch, he’d walked into the hospital room, but she didn’t see him anywhere. “What’s his name?”

“I think you know. I think you’ve known all along.”

Justine didn’t have the slightest clue. She’d never seen the boy. He was no taller than the boy she’d met on the trail—what had his name been? Kyle? Lyle?—and probably about the same age. She didn’t know any blond-haired kids, didn’t know many white kids, period, aside from the ones in Trevor’s family. Still, she knew there was something she wasn’t seeing, a piece of the puzzle missing.

Nana Penance bucked with a violent, sporadic movement of her hips as she was lifted off the bed and folded in two. Justine backpedaled away from the bed and hit a wall behind her, the back of her head bouncing off the surface.

Justine screamed as her grandmother’s body was pulled apart, separating at the waist, flesh coming away like sticky tape. Both sections flopped back down onto the mattress. From out of the torso, a black, viscous fluid gushed and poured over the side of the bed. The substance moved of its own free will, bubbling and churning, oozing along the floor toward Justine. She tried to back away, seeking the entrance, but the door was no longer there, just a smooth wall.