ANOM: Awakening (The ANOM Series Book 1) (5 page)

“Sir,”
the loud, deep voice came from Sergeant Mandel standing to the right side of
the hangar door.

Ellison
turned around to face him. On either side of the hangar door, soldiers stood at
rigid attention; Mandel was on Ellison’s left, and a private, last name
Williams, stood guard to his right. Both Mandel and Private Williams wore their
military-issue cold-weather caps, trousers, and coats in gray camouflage. They
both wore a pair of black gloves and dark brown neck gaiters around their
throats. It was the prescribed uniform for service in cold weather.

Mandel
and Williams stood at perfect attention, their M-4’s slung around their right
shoulders and their right hands locked in salute. Ellison returned the salute,
and then he stepped toward Mandel. Lieutenant Brown followed him.

Sergeant
Marcus Mandel was tall, dark-skinned, and broad-shouldered. More than that,
Ellison judged him to be an exemplary soldier, respected by his men and favored
by his superiors, and that’s why Ellison changed the duty roster to make sure
Mandel was here. He could trust Mandel to follow orders.

Ellison
started talking, his voice loud as if he were reading off a script. “It seems
that Sergeant Mandel has been having trouble with standing at attention during
his watch. Lieutenant Brown, you did such a good job of marching around the
command center today that I told Sergeant Mandel you would demonstrate how a
soldier is to stand watch.”

“Sir,”
Brown’s voice wavered.

“You
are to stand guard, Lieutenant, at attention, until the end of the watch.”

“Sir,
you can’t! This—,” for a second, Brown’s voice was panicked, but then he fought
to steady himself, and he started again, “Sir, I am protesting this order to
Colonel McCann. You can’t—”

Ellison
cut him off, “Unfortunately, Lieutenant, you are not relieved from your watch
at this time. As matters of base security are given priority, you are not
authorized to go anywhere to protest anything. Now, at 0700, when your watch is
over and you are relieved, you can protest to whomever you like. Sergeant
Mandel.”

“Yes,
sir,” Mandel barked his response.

“If
Lieutenant Brown tries to abandon his post, have him arrested.”

Ellison
turned back to the hangar, ready to leave, but before he could take a step,
Hayden’s low Irish voice stopped him from behind. “So this is how you spend
your free time, Major? Forcing your men to stand around half naked? I think
that’s covered in the army’s harassment policy, isn’t it?”

Ellison
immediately started to boil. Disagreeing over a course of action behind closed
doors was one thing. This was something else. McCann had warned him…no, he
ordered
him not to lose his temper, but Hayden was the one forcing the issue. This was
on him. He was the problem, and Ellison knew how to deal with problems.

Ellison
turned around. For a second, he couldn’t find the man; Hayden was still wrapped
in the shadows, but then an orange glow from a lit cigarette gave him away.

Ellison
watched as Hayden’s thin silhouette stalked forward. “Agent Hayden, I didn’t
realize you had permission to be out here.”

Hayden
laughed. “Good thing I don’t need your permission. Not for anything really.
Isn’t that right, Major?” As Hayden spoke, he stepped out of the shadows, and
Ellison could see that he still wore the same dark suit from earlier in the
day, only now he was also draped in a long camel-hair overcoat.

Ellison
clenched his jaw and said, “That may be the case, but I’m still the Executive
Officer at Blaney, and Colonel McCann wants to know—”

“Let
me try that again. I don’t answer to you, Major, and I sure as hell don’t answer
to McCann.” Hayden dragged on his cigarette, then flicked the butt to the
ground. “As for what the colonel wants to know, maybe we should start with how
you’re disciplining his men.”

Ellison’s
whole body went taut; it was all he could do to keep his voice steady. “I’m
responsible for all discipline on Fort Blaney, and this—”

Hayden
stepped closer, eyeing the half-clothed lieutenant. “Doesn’t look like
discipline to me. Looks like some asshole trying to compensate for something.”

Before
Ellison could answer, Lieutenant Brown darted forward, his words spilling out
like water over a dam. “Agent Hayden, if you could speak to Colonel McCann.
Tell him—”

Brown’s
voice was lost in a high-pitched wheeze, gasping for air. Hayden had moved like
lightning. An open-hand check to Brown’s throat had cut off his wind. Then a
knee to the stomach doubled the man over, and it all happened so fast that
Ellison couldn’t intervene.

Hayden
still held Brown by the shoulder, keeping him upright. He reached around under
his coat, pulled a 9mm Sig out from behind his back, and shoved the muzzle down
into the back of Brown’s neck.

“Put
the gun down!” Mandel shouted in his deep voice.

Ellison
glanced to his right and saw the sergeant with his rifle raised, leveled at
Hayden. From the other side of the hangar door, Private Williams was doing the
same.

Hayden
kept his eyes down, fixed on the lieutenant. “What do you think, Major?”

Ellison
didn’t answer.

Hayden
pushed down on the Sig, forcing Brown’s head lower. “You know the difference
between you and me, Major? I would pull the trigger, and these men know it.”

“Shoulder
your rifle, Sergeant,” Ellison ordered.

Mandel
lowered the M-4, his eyes never leaving Hayden. Then he slung the rifle over
his shoulder. Private Williams did the same.

For
the first time, Hayden looked up and met the eyes of Ellison. “I think we’ve
all learned a valuable lesson tonight. Haven’t we, Major?”

Ellison
stood rigid, staring back without expression.

Hayden
tucked his Sig behind his back. Then he pushed Brown sideways. The lieutenant
sprawled face-first into the ground. Without another word Hayden started into
the hangar.

Ellison
still didn’t move; he waited until Hayden was far inside before he finally
spoke. “Sergeant.”

“Sir.”
Mandel straightened to attention.

“Get
Lieutenant Brown back up on his feet. Keep him at attention until 0700.”

“Yes,
sir.”

Ellison
looked down at the lieutenant, still writhing on the ground. Mandel knelt down
next to him, hooked a hand under his arm, and pulled him to his feet. Brown
staggered upright.

Ellison
nodded, satisfied at the effort from Brown and confident that Mandel would
follow his orders even if Brown couldn’t. One problem, at least, was solved.

As
for Hayden, he was right. They had learned an important lesson tonight. Ellison
saw now that he had underestimated the man. A simple mistake he wouldn’t make
again. Hayden was going to be a very different problem, and sooner or later,
Ellison knew he would have to handle him.

“Sergeant,”
Ellison barked.

“Sir.”

“I
want to know everything Agent Hayden does on this base. Watch him. Make note of
his movements. Report it directly to me; no one else.”

“Yes,
sir,” Mandel answered, raising his hand in salute. Ellison returned the gesture
with a quick swipe of his brow. Then he turned and walked back inside the
hangar.

“Jeremy,”
a whispered voice in the darkness—low, familiar, pleading.

“Jeremy,”
the voice called again, louder this time. It sounded close, like it was right
in front of him. But why couldn’t he see the speaker?

Jeremy
blinked his eyes, and the darkness melted into white, fuzzy light. It didn’t
last. The shadows crept back in. Then Jeremy realized the shadows were forming
into people. He blinked his eyes again, and the blurred images sharpened into
focus. That’s when he saw him, the person standing closest to him, the one who
had been calling his name. It was his father.

All
at once Jeremy was aware of everything. He knew where he was. He was standing
in the emergency room at the University of Pennsylvania—his dad’s hospital. He
hadn’t been there since the explosion, but it didn’t matter. Everything still
looked the same. The beige walls. The off-white tile floor. The pale
fluorescent lights.

On
his left, out of the corner of his eye, Jeremy could see a huddle of doctors
and nurses standing around a patient. Over his dad’s shoulder, in the waiting
room, he could see a row of chairs filled with more patients. Some of them held
gauze bandages to their faces or on their arms, but no one was moving. At least
Jeremy didn’t think they were moving—not the doctors or the nurses or the
patients—they all looked frozen in place. He looked closer and then he realized
they weren’t completely still either, not entirely. They were moving, only very
slowly. It was like everyone in the hospital was swimming through tar.

Then
there was his dad. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, Jeremy knew that his
father was dead. He knew that what he was seeing was impossible, but right now
he didn’t care.

Jeremy
found his voice. “Dad!”

“Hey,
bud. How you feeling?”

Jeremy
laughed. “I feel like I got hit by a bus.”

His
dad laughed too. “Well, you look good, all things considered.”

“Dad,
how is this even possible? How are you here?” Then a sudden thought, “Am I…?”

“No,
you’re not dead, Jeremy. You’re here in a memory—my last memory, a couple of
seconds captured and stretched in time. You’re here because I need to talk to
you.”

Jeremy
looked closer at his dad. Something was off. Even though he was talking, his
dad wasn’t looking at him. Instead, his father’s head was turned away to the
side and his eyes were fixed on something in the waiting area.

Jeremy
turned his head too, following his father’s eyes toward the ER doors. “What are
you looking at?”

Then
Jeremy heard his dad shouting next to him, “No! Jeremy! Don’t—”

It
was too late. In the waiting area, Jeremy could see a man wearing a gray
uniform. He was standing between two rows of chairs, but the man wasn’t a
patient. He was dressed like a paramedic. He held his right arm up to his
chest, and his hand was clenched in a fist. Jeremy looked closer at the man’s
face. He was young, maybe a few years older than Jeremy, with dark hair and
patchy stubble across his jawline. His heavy brows were knit together and his
lips were contorted as if in the middle of a voiceless scream.

Then,
all at once, life came back to the emergency room. There was the dull hum of
hushed conversation, and everyone in the waiting area looked like they were
moving again at normal speed. Jeremy heard his name. It was just a whisper this
time from his dad. He turned back to look, to see what his dad wanted, but then
Jeremy ran out of time.

In
an instant, it was all gone. His dad, the medic in gray, the patients sitting
in their chairs, the whole emergency room—everything was gone, lost in
brilliant, blinding light. There was no sound.

Jeremy
felt himself jerked back into the air, and for a moment, he was falling. He
landed heavy on his back, and his head slammed against the floor. Then the
blinding light from before went suddenly black, and Jeremy’s ears buzzed with a
high-pitched ringing. And he couldn’t breathe.

*****

Jeremy
sat straight up in the bed, gasping for air. He gulped in a deep breath, but it
wasn’t enough. He took another, and then another. The whole room felt like it
was spinning under him. Jeremy reached for the heavy plastic railing on the
side of the bed. He closed his eyes, took another deep breath, and then the
vertigo passed.

He
opened his eyes and looked around the room. The floor, the counter on the
opposite wall, the curtains over the window, and even the painting next to the
door all existed in various shades of beige. Then he noticed the plastic tubing
laced under his nose, and Jeremy knew exactly where he was. He looked over at
his left hand, still holding onto the bed railing, and his suspicions were
confirmed. He saw a pair of white hospital bracelets around his wrist, and
farther up his arm, a thin IV needle stuck under his skin, taped down in place.
Jeremy looked over to his right. On his right hand a gray plastic clip covered
his index finger, and a single gray wire snaked from the clip to an electronic
monitor. Jeremy reached down and pulled the clip free from his hand. The
electronic monitor sounded an alarm.

“Hey,
take it easy, kid.” The dull voice behind him took Jeremy by surprise. He
didn’t know anyone else was in the room with him, let alone standing that close
to his bed, but now Jeremy could see the nurse over his shoulder. He wore mint
green scrubs and had a thick black goatee. His thinning hair was slicked straight
back over his head.

Jeremy
tried to focus. “What are you—what am I doing here?”

The
nurse looked around at the door to the room, then he turned back to Jeremy.
“Open your mouth, kid.”

Jeremy
did as he was told. The nurse reached up with a long cotton swab, sticking the
end in Jeremy’s mouth and rubbing the cotton up and down the inside of his
cheek. Then the nurse put the swab inside a long plastic tube and sealed it
with a cap.

Jeremy
rolled his tongue over where the swab had been, trying to get rid of the taste
of cotton; he tried the nurse again. “Can you tell me why I’m here?”

The
nurse looked over his shoulder again, toward the door, and then back at Jeremy.
“You tell me, kid. Rumor is you got hit by a bus. That true?”

It
sounded familiar. Jeremy remembered the bus bearing down on him, but at the
same time it wasn’t right. He didn’t actually get hit by the bus, did he?
Something else must have happened. The bus stopped. Jeremy shook his head. He
was dizzy again.

“All
right, kid,” the nurse opened the door. “Your doctor’ll be here in a minute.”

Jeremy
fell back on the bed. He closed his eyes, and for a second he thought he would
go back to sleep, but then the door opened again and a new nurse walked into
the room. Like the man before, she wore a set of green scrubs. Jeremy propped
himself up on his elbow and faced the door.

The
new nurse stopped. “Oh, so you’re awake.”

Jeremy
didn’t bother with an answer, and the nurse didn’t wait for one. She stepped
over to the bed, picked up the phone, and pressed the call button for the
nurse’s station.

 “This
is Maria. Can you page Dr. Patel for me? Tell him room 324 is awake. Thanks,”
the nurse spoke as she reached down for the pulse oximeter and clipped it back
to Jeremy’s finger.

She
looked for a minute at the electronic screen. “How do you feel?”

“Sore.
Tired. Hungry. Not necessarily in that order.”

The
nurse pushed a button on the railing of the bed, and the top half of the
mattress started to tilt forward, helping Jeremy sit up.

“I
bet you’re hungry. You’ve been under for about eight hours now,” she said.

Under
what?
Jeremy heard the words, but he couldn’t exactly follow the thought. What did
she mean? Unconscious? He tried to think about it, but then he felt like he was
back on the Tilt-o-Whirl down at the shore and he had to stop.

He
reached for the bed’s railing again to steady himself. “What—why was I under?”

“We
don’t really—”

The
door to the hospital room pushed open, and a man, presumably Dr. Patel, stepped
inside. He was followed by Jeremy’s mom. As soon as she saw Jeremy in the bed,
she pushed past the doctor and wrapped her arms around her son.

Dr.
Patel laid a hand on her shoulder. “Mrs. Cross, may I?”

Emily
stepped back from the bed, wiping a quick hand across both of her eyes,
smearing her mascara.

Dr.
Patel stepped forward, holding out his hand. “Hello, Jeremy. My name is Dr.
Patel. I’m your physician.”

Jeremy
shook his hand.

Dr.
Patel pulled a penlight from his lab coat pocket. “Try to keep your eyes open,
please.”

He
reached out for Jeremy’s right eye, holding the lid open as he shone the light
directly into Jeremy’s pupil. He did it again for the left eye.

Patel
stepped back. “So, Jeremy, how are you feeling?”

“I
feel sore. A little dizzy sometimes.”

Patel
nodded. “Mmhmm. Any nausea? We can give you—”

“Dr.
Patel,” Jeremy interrupted him, “what’s going on? Why am I here? Was I…was I
hit by a bus?”

The
doctor laughed, shaking his head, “No. Certainly not. That would be impossible.
You have no broken bones, no scrapes, no external injuries; there’s no internal
bleeding. So no, no bus, I’m afraid.”

Emily
spoke up from behind the doctor. “The bus driver said she turned at the last
second. She hit a parked car.”

“Yes,”
Patel said, “From what I understand, you are a very lucky man.”

But
it still wasn’t right; Jeremy said, “If I didn’t get hit by the bus, why did
the nurse say I was under for eight hours? What happened?”

The
smile that Patel wore so easily since he came into the room suddenly looked
strained. “Honestly, Jeremy, we don’t know. At least not yet. We did some
initial tests, x-rays and CT scans, but there was no physiological reason for
your coma. We think, maybe, it was a psychological defense. A way for your
brain to cope with the trauma of
almost
getting hit, but we don’t know.”
And then the easy smile was back on the doctor’s face. “What we’re going to do
is keep you overnight for observation. We want to run some more tests, and
hopefully we’ll have better answers in the morning.”

Jeremy
pushed a button on the railing of the bed, and the mattress started to recline.
“What are the tests? Some guy already came in and got my spit.”

Dr.
Patel glanced over at the nurse. Maria shrugged.

He
looked back at Jeremy. “And who did this test?”

“Some
other nurse, I guess. A guy with a goatee.”

Patel
chuckled. “No, that doesn’t sound like anyone here. Maybe you were still
dreaming.” The doctor laughed again. “And we don’t test your spit. We are going
to take some blood though, and we want to get you in for another CT scan. Other
than that it should be food and rest for you. The good news is, Jeremy, that
you’re going to be fine.”

Patel
stepped aside, talking now in a hushed voice to the nurse, and Emily Cross
returned to her place by the bedside.

She
reached down and brushed her hand over Jeremy’s hair. “I thought you were dead.
I thought you were dead and I was all alone. What were you thinking?”

Jeremy
could see the tears filling her eyes, but then she took in a quick breath and
said, “That was so stupid.”

Jeremy
forced himself to look up at her. “I needed to help. I couldn’t just—I needed
to do something.”

He
knew his mom wouldn’t understand that answer. She didn’t understand his dad or
the choice he made either, and she would never understand this. In a way,
Jeremy doubted she would even try.

Instead,
Emily straightened the front of her dress. “That girl—I mean, Kate. Your friend
Kate is here. She wouldn’t leave, actually. I’ll send her in to see you, if you
want.”

Jeremy
nodded. “Thanks, Mom.” Then his mom stepped out of the room, followed by Dr.
Patel and then the nurse.

As
soon as they stepped out of the door, Jeremy felt like he could breathe again.
He was glad they were gone. Between their questions and the fake smiles and his
own nausea it was all proving more than he could take. He wanted them out. He
wanted to be left alone, but when the door opened and Kate walked into the
room, Jeremy was glad to see her. At least with Kate he could be himself.

She
waited just inside the door. “Hey.”

Jeremy
pushed himself up higher in the bed. “Hey yourself.”

Kate
walked over, pulled up one of the chairs, and sat down; she spoke again, still
hesitant. “How are you feeling?”

“I’ve
been better, I guess.”

Kate
looked away from the bed, staring for a moment out the far window, but when she
turned back to Jeremy, for the first time since she entered the room, she
sounded like herself. “You know, you owe me, like, at least dinner and a movie or
something.”