More Than Life Itself (2 page)

The people around them were still, Sam's anger shocking them all into silence, and his last comment echoed in the confined space of the hallway.

Cool down,
he thought, suddenly realising that his hands were clenched into fists and his body trembled with the overflow of adrenaline pouring into his system. He stepped back from the other man, trying to regain control, trying to prevent himself from striking out in his disgust and anger at what had happened to his family. Everyone was staring, and as Sam looked around he saw fear and anger in more than one face.

It's time to get out of here before someone gets hurt.

The hallway remained eerily silent as he stalked past the prayer group on his way to the elevator. He gave them one last glare and then they were cut off from his view as the elevator doors closed with a gentle snap.

His anger was still with him as he strode through the hospital lobby and outside into the cold morning air. It propelled him down the street at a brisk pace, the early September chill perfectly matching his mood. He had no destination in mind. All he wanted to do was walk. He needed to get away from the hospital for five minutes of fresh air, find time to gather his thoughts and decide just what he was going to do, now that it looked like Jessica wasn't going to be coming home anytime soon.

Suddenly, the reality of it all hit him like a ten-ton truck.

The unthinkable had come true; he was going to outlive both his wife and his child.

The thought proved too much for him to bear.

With a cry of pain and despair, he ran from it as if chased by demons.

***

When Sam became aware of his surroundings again, he discovered he was leaning against a wall halfway down an alley, the stench of garbage and human waste wrapping him in its embrace like a long-lost lover. He didn't know where he was or how far he had come from the hospital. A quick glance at his watch showed it was just before 8.00, so he'd been gone roughly an hour, give or take a few minutes.

Couldn't have gone too far in that amount of time
.

Yet when he staggered to the mouth of the alley some twenty yards away, he didn't recognise the street on which he stood. A crumbling tenement and a vacant lot stared back at him from the other side of the road. Beside him, on the left and on the right, were three-storey factory buildings, long since abandoned.

At the corner a few yards away, the street sign had been replaced by a makeshift one spray-painted with the words, "East Nowhere."

How fucking appropriate.

He turned left and started walking, figuring any random direction would eventually lead him somewhere he recognised. The neighbourhood around him remained the same for several blocks, until it dead-ended at a small city park. A few trees, a wide square of concrete in the centre, small plots of grass here and there for people to gather on; a typical bureaucratic vision of utopia. On the other side, he could see an intersection with more activity than the streets he had just left behind. After having walked several blocks without seeing a soul, the busyness drew him like a magnet.

He hadn't travelled more than ten yards into the park before he heard the voice.

"Repent! Repent for the end is near!"

The man stood atop an old wooden crate in the middle of the square, shouting out his message. His arms were outstretched, his palms extended up toward heaven, his head thrown back to catch the warming rays of the morning sun. His raspy voice echoed in the still air.

"The Horsemen shall ride and blood shall flow in their wake. Confess your sins and receive salvation before it is too late!" His clothing was an assortment of obvious cast-offs, several sizes too large, and his long, matted hair was partially obscured by a grimy baseball cap. A shopping cart full of plastic garbage bags bursting with discarded junk stood a few feet away.

Having dealt with enough religion for one day, Sam gave the street prophet a wide berth as he continued on his way to the busy intersection he could see on the other side of the park. He'd walked only a few feet …

"She doesn't have to die."

The phrase was spoken so matter-of-factly that at first Sam was uncertain if he had heard the man correctly. His steps faltered, then stopped as he tried to puzzle it out.

The voice came again, and this time there was no mistaking what was said. "She doesn't have to die."

Sam turned. Looked back.

The man now stood upright, his arms at his sides. His face was angled away from Sam, still looking at the rising sun, and the falling waves of his hair kept his features obscured, but there was no question to whom he was speaking.

"Excuse me?" Sam asked.

"Your daughter. She doesn't have to die." As he spoke, the man slowly turned to look at Sam, revealing two empty sockets where his eyes should have been. The edges of the pits were raw and inflamed, as if their former occupants had just been ripped free from their moorings and tossed casually aside, forgotten. The empty sockets stared at Sam with furious accusation.

The sensation of being seen, being watched, by that ruined face sent chills racing across Sam's body. Staring at the man, he suddenly had a hard time finding his voice. When he did, it came out weak and uneven. "What do you know about my daughter?" he stammered.

The prophet jumped down from his perch and moved forward without hesitation, despite his obvious lack of sight. He crossed the distance between them unerringly, without a single misstep, until they stood just over a yard away from each other. A wave of bitter cold travelled before him, an Arctic wind stolen from the depths of the north, and Sam was suddenly enveloped in its hoary clutches. He felt dizzy, overwhelmed, as if the cold was affecting his thoughts, numbing his capacity to think. As if from a distance, the other's voice reached his ears faintly, hollowly. "I know she's dying. And I know you can stop it, if you've got the courage. If you care enough about her to do what must be done."

Sam took a step back, his nerves jangling. "Who are you? What do you want with me?"

"Who I am is unimportant. I want you to save your daughter, and I'm the only one who can give you the knowledge you need to do so."

"
You
know how to save my daughter?"

Rather than responding verbally, the man reached inside his shirt and withdrew a parcel wrapped in a stained cloth and tied with what appeared to be twine. He offered it to Sam.

Whatever it was, the sight of it made him instantly nauseous, as if his body knew something he intellectually did not. He stumbled back another step and made no move to accept what was offered.

"What's this?" the stranger asked, surprised. "Don't you want to save your little girl?"

Despite a growing sense of fear, Sam croaked out another response. "I don't need your help."

The other laughed. "Of course you do, you just don't know it yet." He slipped the package back out of sight. "When baby Jessica starts screaming in pain as her internal organs slowly rot away, you'll realise the truth. Of course, by then, I might not be so inclined to help."

A grinning leer crept over his features, and the sight of it was enough to jar Sam out of his peculiar daze. This close, the stink of the man's unwashed body filled his nostrils, reminding him whom he was talking to, and the rational part of Sam reacted to the mention of his daughter's fate with anger.

He surged forward, closing the gap between them, and grabbed the man's clothing in both hands. Hauling him close, Sam said, "I don't know who the hell you are, but you'd better leave my daughter alone. If I catch you anywhere near us or the hospital, I'll …"

He never got any further. The world around him seemed to shimmer, as if a giant wave had suddenly washed through reality. The sensation was overwhelming, and he dropped the other man out of reflex as he sought to keep his balance. His vision swam, then stabilised. When he could see again he looked down to find the homeless man on the ground at his feet.

Gone were the empty eye sockets, the leering, demeaning grin. Gone were the mocking voice and the hint of powers beyond the norm. In their place was a simple street bum, cloaked in ragged clothing and weeks of grime. Light blue eyes the colour of a robin's eggs stared at him out of a face streaked with dirt, framed by long locks of hair that hadn't seen soap in months.

"I don't want no trouble, man," he said to Sam, the fear in his eyes obvious. "I don't know who Jessica is, but I won't preach here no more if it upsets you so."

Confused, ashamed, afraid that he might be cracking under the strain, Sam turned away without a word and continued on his way across the park.

He moved quickly, doing what he could to leave the park, and his fear, behind as swiftly as possible.

A few blocks later he found a street he recognised. Turning left, he travelled north until he returned to the hospital.

He'd gone out for breakfast and had come back afraid he might be slowly going crazy.

It didn't seem like a fair trade to him.

He kept his hands in his pockets to keep them from shaking, just the same.

***

That afternoon, Jessica took a turn for the worse. Her pain escalated, so much so that the doctors decided to put her out completely for the night to give her body a chance to rest and to try and fight back against the invader. With Jessica unconscious for the next ten to twelve hours, Sam used the opportunity to return home for the first time in several days, where he hoped to get a decent night's rest in order to recharge for the battle he knew lay ahead.

But it was not to be. His thoughts would not shut down, his mind wrapping itself tighter and tighter as he sought some avenue that they could pursue, some as yet untried means of a cure, anything to keep his little girl alive.

Unable to sleep, he rose from the bed and wandered through the darkened house, letting his familiarity and the light of the moon seeping through the windows guide him in his passage. He ran his fingers over the furniture and stared at the many photographs that decorated the walls. Here was the couch on which Jessica had been conceived one passionate summer night six years earlier. Here was the corner of the rug he'd taped down time and time again because she kept tripping over it. Here was the door jamb where they had measured her growth ever since she'd turned two. Everywhere he looked, everything he touched, had some special memory attached to it, something to remind him of the wonders he'd held for such a short time, wonders stolen from him by the capricious hand of fate.

When he reached the mantle over the fireplace in the living room, his hands automatically sought the picture of his late wife, Denise. The picture stood centre stage, in the place of honour. Taken the same day as the accident that had claimed her life, it showed Denise as she had always been; smiling, happy, content with who she was and what she'd gained in life.

Every second of that horrible day was etched indelibly on his memory, from the taste of the French toast he'd had for breakfast that morning to the smell of crushed fruit that had floated around him as he'd screamed for an ambulance with his wife's body lying limp in his arms. The three of them had gone for breakfast at a local restaurant, just a simple family excursion, the kind of thing they did on the weekend. Afterward they'd done a little shopping, picking up fresh bread from the bakery and some fruit from the display stands outside the corner market. He'd been inside with Jessica, paying their bill, when it happened.

He'd seen it all, looking back from the cash register through the open door to where his wife was still searching through the peach display. She'd looked up at him and smiled, one hand rising to give a little wave, her eyes filled with love and hope and joy, only to be swept from view in the next second by a black Mercedes as it moved with the steady surety of a striking snake.

One moment she'd been there, the next … gone.

Not a cry or even a sound to accompany her passage.

Just that one last, love-filled smile, that tender little wave.

Witnesses had later said the car had jumped the curb, struck Denise, and then just as quickly disappeared back into traffic as if nothing had happened. It had never even slowed down. The doctors had assured him she'd died instantly, her skull crushed by the impact, that she probably hadn't even known what was happening. To this day, Sam couldn't figure out how that was supposed to have been reassuring. Dead was dead, and his Denise had died horribly; quickly or slowly didn't make much difference to the end result.

He stared at her picture, his sorrow and regret for what they had lost almost overwhelming in its poignancy. He would give almost anything to have even one more day with her.

His gaze fell upon several of the other pictures standing on the mantle, photos of the three of them together, of the happy times they had shared; and the horror of his present situation reared its head once more.

He'd lost his wife, now he was about to lose his daughter, too.

You should have taken the package.

The thought was unbidden, unexpected, but not altogether surprising. The events of earlier that day had left him shaken and confused. Something extraordinary had happened, he knew that, but its very nature had caused him to look at it with wariness and not a little fear. He couldn't see how something that caused such feelings in him could be good for his girl.

And yet…

What else did he have?

Nothing. That was the cold, stark truth of it. Over the previous month he'd called every expert he could think of, every hospital and government laboratory that might have some knowledge of what they were dealing with, all to no avail. Next he'd turned to private foundations, charities; hell, he'd even tried the CIA, just in case it was some experimental government virus that had gotten out of control. Still nothing. From there, his list had gotten progressively poorer; faith healers, talk show hosts, and quack doctors touting the latest herbal remedies.

The latter group had wanted to help, but none of them had been able to give him any sense of confidence, and he had finally given up.