Out of the Black (3 page)

Normally she didn't waste a lot of time focusing on her long-term issues: like being single at thirty-nine, like having a face only a mother could love- not her mother, but maybe someone else's mother- like tipping the scales at two hundred forty pounds with her lungs full of helium. Thank heaven for metrics! A hundred and ten kilos sounded positively slim compared to her imperial weight.

Ok, so maybe she thought about the big issues a bit, but right now her most pressing problems were the five blocks between her and the train station, and the sky full of water above her. On the bright side, she didn't have to worry about the rain smearing her makeup- she just didn't wear the stuff. One time in college she'd made an abortive try, but the sight of her round face staring back at her from the mirror with the first hint of blush inexpertly applied made her feel like an inexpertly polished turd. Makeup and design clothes were for some jet set, days-of-wine-and-roses, dating, frolicking-in-front-of-the-cameras subphylum of humanity to which she did not belong. Hospital scrubs and a clean face- this was her lot in life.

She grinned, part humor, part exasperation. She was big enough to admit her life sucked, but tonight had been something truly special. It had started out as usual with an over-snoozed alarm. She'd missed her train and been late to work, but the most unpleasant part of the commute was the grizzled eastern European cabby that had hurled a stream of poorly assembled insults at her for crossing the street legally in his presence. The part that stuck with her was something like, "box be on your family"- box? She'd probably be dreaming about "the box" tonight.

She rolled her eyes and let the smile spread across her face as she considered the hundred small frustrations in the workday of a professional vampire. Seriously, she couldn't see how Count Chocula had done it all these years without getting fed up and taking a stroll in the sun- that cartoon bloodsucker had the heart of a champion. Despite her most bubbly bedside manner, every patient at the hospital was not happy to see Anne and her little tray of needles and tubes. She had it worse than most phlebotomists since she worked the graveyard shift. No one liked to be in the hospital, no one liked to have blood drawn, but it really got personal when they had to wake up for their bloodletting.

Then there was her main occupational hazard: the plague of Harms that started showing up around eleven every night. The ER got between five and ten a night. They were restrained by the time they reached the hospital, but their incoherent verbal assault was always a treat. Eyes dilated before an incomprehensible hallucinoscape, they shrieked and cursed and wept. They were unpredictable, moving from pathetic sobs to merciless violence seamlessly. The police and paramedics who brought them in required first aid as often as not.

The ironic part was that Harmony was sold as a mood-elevator with mild hallucinogenic effects. It was the first and most effective connectivity drug on the illicit market. Though there was still debate on the subject, the prevailing wisdom was that connectivity drugs affected the areas of the brain that governed empathy and the sense of community. Many starry-eyed psychedelic types believed Harmony was the first scientific step toward telepathy, but Anne knew that speech, writing, and television had already blazed the pre-telepathy trail.

Harmony had been hot among the party crowd for maybe a decade now, gaining wide popularity with the post-psychedelic subculture. The psychotic incidents hadn't started until a few months ago in New York, but within three weeks, Harms had made their Chicago debut. In another two weeks, there were Harms in every major city in the world.

Anne understood the desire to escape, to feel like you belonged in a group of strangers, but she was completely mystified why anyone would continue to take a drug once it started leaving people in a state that came in second only to demonic possession in the creepy Olympics. From the number of Harms she saw at the hospital, she didn't need to see any disturbing statistics to know Harmony was a serious problem.

Drawing the blood of these nuts was the most unsettling part of her job. She usually got to wait until they were sedated, but even pumped full of sedatives powerful enough to tranquilize a carload of game show hosts, a Harm might still wake up cranky. A properly motivated Harm could even break the "unbreakable" plastic cuffs cops used. A month ago, the hospital had received new restraints just for the Harms, but she still didn't

The crown jewel in her work night came at three this morning. She'd been relieved to take a break from the ER and its swarm of Harms to draw blood from a slightly disoriented 84-year-old inpatient on anticoagulants. Carol was the archetypal granny: thin and fragile, with an easy disposition and plenty of stories of kids and grandkids. When Anne woke her up, she had been sweet, "You just do whatever you need, Dearie."

As Anne applied the tourniquet and sterilized Carol's arm, they'd had a pleasant conversation about Carol's grandkids. As Anne prepared the needle, she was smiling and laughing. She never saw it coming.

When the needle went into Carol's arm, she made a small surprised sound. Anne's next clue that something was amiss was the clutch purse that smashed into the top of her head. The old hag was screaming incoherently and repeatedly bludgeoning Anne cross-body with the purse. Anne got the blood sample, but it cost her both bruises and pride.

Expect the unexpected
- this should be the phlebotomist's credo.

It made her want to start a support group for the vocationally unloved. She could picture it now: listening supportively in the company of depressed IRS agents and dentists. "Hi, I'm Anne, and people hate my job," she mumbled as she trudged through the threatening sprinkle of rain. Humor had always been her shield. When things got tough, she'd go for the cheap laughs. She was starting to feel better when the rain came down like a tidal wave.

"Aw... crap...ola." was all the disappointment she could muster before the uncontrollable laughter started. She was still splashing and waddling, laughing and crying when she noticed the music- first like the tinkle of an elaborate crystal wind chime, but getting louder with the urgency of an approaching freight train. She didn't have time to process this information before the world exploded.

Her startled scream came out in a rather embarrassing squeak when the car parked to her left had a Wile E. Coyote moment. It seemed as if an anvil had dropped from some hidden mesa high above. The car's roof crumpled and the windows closest to Anne exploded outwards. A storm of broken glass showered down from above, exploding on the ground around her, tugging at her left arm and back, stinging her right cheek.

Not an anvil! Her mind locked, hitched, locked- stuttered between knowledge and denial. The body rebounded sideways off the car and continued its impact on the sidewalk with a horrifying prolonged bursting sound. It seemed as if the impact went on and on as time lengthened, or perhaps replayed, with the onset of shock. Then the body was a lifeless rag-doll on the sidewalk before her, shattered legs twisted at impossible angles, face partially covered by one arm.

Numb, she stared for a few seconds before becoming aware that she was standing on one foot with her arms crossed above her head, hands on elbows. The arm-head-cover she got, but what was the one-leg-stand for? She would never understand her reflexes. She was a Darwinian counterexample of the first order- but then she wouldn't be reproducing anytime soon, so maybe not exactly a counterexample. "Weeded out of the gene pool", or maybe "She died that we all might have better children", would mark her tombstone someday.

She put her foot down and rushed forward with a hopeless desire to help. She knelt and actually said, "Are you okay?" Yeah, she was sure he was probably fine! A quick glance above showed her buildings with more stories of unblemished glass than she could count, ascending up into the couds high above. "No." she mumbled, realizing this wasn't a worker fallen from a ladder or a low balcony.

She knew that she shouldn't move the body, so she sat helpless, her strained mind completely oblivious to her tablet and its emergency links. After a few more seconds, she looked about for help- nothing. The rain was her only companion on the dark street. The sound of it was static in her ears; its caress was a wet, tingling static on her skin; the sight of it was gray static in her eyes. The world was a fuzzy place getting darker and slower.

From the corner of her eye, she noticed something dark and serpentine slithering on the ground around her. She looked down and saw dark tendrils washing around her hands and knees- blood! She tore her right hand out of a puddle of bloody water and watched in horror as the falling rain did its best to rinse it clean.

Her eyes lost focus on her red-tinged hand as she noticed that, behind it, the dead man's arm had fallen aside, exposing his face. Her first impression was of a child, broken and lost. Fringed by short dark hair, his face was round and gentle. His closed eyes were small and narrowly spaced. The bridge of the nose was broad and slipped down into a small round nose. The upper lip was pronounced and looked even more so because the mouth hung slack. The chin and jaw were delicate.

Her throat constricted with pity. She didn't know this poor guy, but she could tell he'd been kind. She knew he didn't deserve to die like this. She reached out her hand to touch his shoulder, muttering inane apologies. The rain's static drone crackled all around, setting them apart from the rest of the world. They were together on the only remaining channel of a damaged television satellite floating through empty space. The blood continued to pool, continued to dissipate, she touched his cheek, her tears lost in the rain.

His eyes opened.

Unformed, powerful emotion covered her skin like a shorting electric blanket and every hair seemed to strain away from her skin. Her mouth dropped open as his closed. His eyes were incredibly blue; they held her like gentle hands, shutting out everything else, no more blood, no more rain- no more reason. This was not real.

His lips stirred. "Woohoo." he gurgled from partially collapsed lungs.

Not real. "What?" she sputtered as he struggled for breath. "It's going to be all right. Don't move." She stammered. "Help is on the..." realizing her oversight, she clawed in her pockets for her tablet.

"No. Got to tell..." he whispered, quieter than before. As his mind reasserted control over his face, the softness became less obvious. Though the innocence didn't disappear, it was surrounded by strength. Even broken, he was beautiful.

Something stirred within her. It was built on pity, formed of hope, but she wasn't sure at all what it was. Mesmerized, she leaned closer, straining to hear him above the sizzle of the rain.

"Sorry... sorry," he said so softly she craned closer to hear. His eyes never left hers. As she drew close to his face, it occurred to her that he was actually going to kiss her. Of course, this was nuts- she wasn't the kind of girl that dying folks kissed impulsively. With an effort, she turned her face from him and brought her ear close to his mouth.

"Sorry." his lip touched her ear causing the most unexpected shock. With a gasp, she realized that his left arm was over her shoulder, across her back, and holding her close with surpring strength. No thoughts came through her confusion until she felt his lips on her neck, and even then they weren't really thoughts: shock, fear of moving, distaste at being joined to someone so horribly hurt- but the weirdest and most prevalent feeling was the most embarrassing kind of excitement.

"Uhhh?" she got out before the pain blew through her. It shot from her neck inward to the center of her chest, where it seemed to ricochet around unchecked. Her throat closed, allowing no air or sound passage. Hot oily lightning filled her, deep-frying nerves, knotting every muscle.

The inner lightning pulsed, its rhythm filling every cell, blossoming and fading with her heart's beating. It slipped and pulsed like blood through her, synchronizing with the pulsing sparks that filled her vision, with the muted gong that filled her ears.

Her legs kicked out, but his arm held her tight, leaving her prostrate on top of him. The muscles around her lungs overcame the muscles around her throat and the air groaned out of her. Through the sparkling haze, she could now see her face reflected in a pool of watery blood behind his shoulder. She wondered what percentage of the blood was hers as she examined her contorted reflection. She hoped she didn't still look like this when the coroner arrived or he'd guess 'death by constipation' for sure.

The fog thickened behind her reflected image. Burning and fading, she seemed to slip away from him, from the pain, from herself. She drifted through thickening white fog until she was at last alone.

Thunderstruck and hazy, she stood in white mists, rubbing her neck absently, and wondering if Angels or Devils were next. She grinned, thinking it funny that twice in one day her carelessness had opened her to the cruel klonk of life's clutch purse.

"Hi!" a cheerful voice sounded behind her, startling her so badly she was glad her ghost didn't have a bladder. The mists seemed to quiver in response to the voice. She jumped and spun around. Where was she anyway?

Against an unbroken backdrop of brightness, he stood smiling. Not hurt, not helpless, not weak- not innocent.

He shrugged, "I did say I was sorry, right?" He gave a self-conscious chuckle with an apologetic smile and a twinkle in his eye.

And then he started talking. She saw his hands gesturing for her patience, saw the urgent look in his eyes- but mostly she saw his lips move. She could hear the buzz of his words, but she wouldn't understand. She wasn't listening because she was too busy watching the teeth behind his moving lips. They were fierce, sharp, and curved like shark's teeth. They were red with her blood.

She turned to run, but the foggy brightness went black.

The team of two forensic techs had arrived about twenty minutes ago in a van packed with impressive looking equipment. Another uniformed patrol team had arrived while the techs were still unpacking. The forensics guys poured over the car with their equipment while Ping went over the general area of the car, scanning and scratching notes. Malloy and Rodriguez had joined the other two uniforms in broadening the search/scan to the surrounding area.