The Rising(17)
Payne shrugged, the gesture abandoned in mid-effort. “Let’s wait and see what the second scan shows. Try not to worry until then.”
Right, Alex thought, good luck with that.
*
For the second time in twenty-four hours, Alex eased himself onto the CT scanner’s table, the cold metal’s chill slipping right through his hospital johnny. Knowing the drill now, he made himself as comfortable as possible and waited for the technician to slide the table robotically forward into position.
“You ready, Alex?” a voice called over a speaker.
Alex nodded. The nurse had backed behind a screen, no longer visible. He realized the technician might not be able to see him.
“Ready!” he called.
“Okay, here we go.”
And the table began to move, positioning his head directly beneath the X-ray tube and over the detector panel. Alex watched the lights in the room dim and closed his eyes, trying to keep his breathing steady.
“Try to relax, Alex. Just breathe normally.”
Is it that obvious how nervous I am? Alex would’ve asked if he’d been allowed to talk.
“Time to get started,” the technician announced, and the irregular whirring sound began.
Alex closed his eyes as the machine began its work. He wished he had a happy place to go to in his mind, but he’d never needed one before and the only thing he could think of was the football field, which hadn’t proven to be so happy the night before. Think of that and all he could picture was the bone-crunching impact that had put him here.
“Stay still, Alex.”
He hadn’t realized he was moving.
“Stay still. Take a deep breath and hold it.”
Alex obliged as the table started to move through the scanner, accompanied by a humming sound that seemed to make the inside of his head feel warm. It stopped and he let his breath out before taking and holding another to avoid “artifacts” on the images, as a different technician had explained during his initial CT scan. This one would probably take about ten minutes, just like that one had. Only, he felt different this time, something fluttering inside his head as if a bird were trapped there flapping its wings.
“Seku nura fas turadi.”
“Please don’t talk.”
“Seku nura fas turadi.”
That indecipherable language again, sounding like it was coming from someone else when Alex knew it was coming from him. And then the room was suddenly filled with the machines from Alex’s daydreams, moving this way and that. But this time he was wide awake, as the horde seemed to spot him and glide over en masse.
“Can you see them?” he cried out.
“Please, keep still. We’re almost finished.”
“Can you see them?”
“See what?”
How could the guy not see them? The machines were everywhere!
“Bassa, bassa, bassa—”
“Alex!”
“—bassa!”
The bulbs lining the scanner’s internal chamber burned out in a rapid series of pops and crackles that sounded like misfiring firecrackers. The stench of scorched metal flooded Alex’s nostrils and he opened his eyes to the sight of glass spraying in all directions.
“Alex!”
He felt as if his brain were outside his head, roasting. He remembered hearing at some point that the brain itself didn’t feel pain. Well, it certainly felt heat, and Alex realized he couldn’t move. Again. Just like last night on the field. Same, exact sensation that had stolen most of his breath and the rest of it now.
Pop, pop, pop!
Now the room’s overhead lights were igniting, erupting, blowing apart with not even their filaments left behind. Alex’s brain whistled in his head, a teakettle signaling it had come to a boil, when big hands grabbed hold of his legs and yanked him free of the machine.
The hands tried to restrain him once he was out, but Alex brushed them off, shaking free as easily as he dodged multiple tackles en route to the end zone. He looked down to see an orderly bigger than any lineman he’d ever faced lying on the floor, trying to push himself up.
Alex stretched a hand down to help him and ended up toppling off the table, hitting the floor hard enough to rattle his brain and send a fresh surge of pain through his head. A burst of light like a flashbulb went off in front of his eyes and he felt a pressure in both ears until one popped and then the other, leaving behind a persistent throbbing.
“Alex! Alex!”
He heard Payne’s voice and looked up to see the doctor standing between him and the giant orderly Alex had dropped like the tiniest of running backs.
“Don’t move,” Payne was saying.
“I … can’t,” Alex said fearfully, his whole body feeling like it was frozen in place.
16
HOME INVASION
“TAKE ANYTHING YOU WANT,” Li Chin said from the armchair in which the men had placed him. “Anything we have is yours—just don’t hurt us.”
The four of them had barged in as soon as Li cracked open the front door of their Millbrae home. The door had rocketed backward, slamming into Li and knocking him off his feet. An rushed from the kitchen when she heard the sounds of a struggle to find two of the men lifting her husband into a chair. Before she could scream, another of them was upon her, hand clamped over her mouth. He jerked her into the matching armchair and dragged it closer to Li’s.