Wink (20 page)

“You want me to call them in? They’re off today.”

He took a deep breath, crossed his arms, and turned his back on Jennifer. To Sadie, he seemed like a man holding a very deep, very hot breath, and was about to explode with it. She heard him mumbling.

The female doctor whispered to Jennifer. “Get them in here, Jenn. This is a big deal.”

As Jennifer was leaving, Marty coughed and began convulsing. His arms thrashed, and his legs kicked, and his head arched backward. The nurse jumped to Marty’s bedside and yelled, “Help! Help! He’s having a seizure!”

Christine began screaming as nurses and doctors rushed into Marty’s room. Sadie’s aunt spun her around, and dragging Christine behind her, shoved her into the hallway, out of the sudden chaos of the hospital room.

Nurses and doctors wheeled equipment into the room and hovered over Marty shoulder-to-shoulder. Marty’s arm flashed out between two doctors and there rose up the unmistakable sound of a hoot from his mouth.

“Get that tube out! He’s breathing!”

Sadie wasn’t sure who said that but she saw those near Marty’s head lean in closer. She heard coughing, and another hoot. “Hold him down! He’s trying to sit up!”

“Hoo!” Marty said. Sadie saw his head lift off the bed and heard him say, “Stop it.”

“Lay down,” someone said. “Quit trying to sit up.”

“I’m fine,” Marty said. His head appeared between the shoulders of those around his bed. He sat up, and there was still a tube in his nose which he slid out and laid on the bed, and coughed and sniffled.

He looked around at the doctors and nurses and said, “I am the owl.” He winked the Dead-Eye and those around his bed took a sudden step backward.

Sadie had never seen Marty smile, but he did so now when he looked through the doctors and nurses at her. “I got something for you,” he said.

They all stared at Marty, unmoving, with people in the hallway leaning into the doorway, tip-toeing behind the charge station, doctors and nurses and other families in the ward standing silent and still as soldiers in a minefield. The noise of the chaos slid away like an echo. They held their hands at the ready, some of them cocked almost into a boxer’s stance, others with needles uncapped, and one of the doctors with the back of her hand to her face as she pushed up her mask.

It was the ringing of the coffin’s bell, Sadie thought, the burning bush, the walking of water, the raising of the dead. The unbelievers had just witnessed a miracle.

Marty held his arms out to Jennifer and motioned for her to remove the IVs embedded there.

After a moment, Jennifer said, “Marty, you need to lay down. We need to check you out.”

In a rapid flurry of activity, Marty pulled the needles out of his veins. “I don’t need these no more,” he said. “You don’t understand. I am the owl. I eat Boogerbears. They can’t touch me. See?”

He held his arms out to those around him, and Sadie could see they were looking for pinpricks and bruises and blood spots that were not there. “I eat Boogerbears easy as you chew gum. Where are my pants?”

He hopped off the bed, shoved his way between the doctors and nurses; wearing only his diaper and with a piece of tape still clinging to his face, he looked around the room until he found his blue jeans folded on the couch beneath the outside window. Nobody stopped him as he walked to his pants, sifted through the pockets, and pulled out a pair of wood-carved legs.

Without taking his eyes off Sadie, he walked to her and laid the legs in her palm. “I got the Boogerbears in your legs, Sadie. I got them good. I tore off their wings like they were little old bugs. I am the owl.”

He winked, and Sadie’s legs tingled again. She looked down at her toes.

Marty turned back to the doctors and nurses standing in silence around his bedside. “You said you had a heart recipient waiting on me? Show me, and I’ll kill them Boogerbears. I’ll kill all I can catch.”

Acknowledgments

I’d like to thank my editor, Summer Ross, for taking on this project with me. My book and my craft are better because of your sound advice. Thank you to my family for your patience while I write, and for your never-ending confidence in me. Without your support, I could never make it through the gauntlet of publication. Most of all, thank you Dear Reader, for giving me your time. I hope to see you again soon.

—Eric Trant
Jan–Dec 2012

About the Author

Eric Trant is a fantasy-thriller author who lives in North Dallas with his wife and family. His work blends believable stories into a mixture of realism and supernatural elements, while always keeping the reader engaged with deeply-drawn characters, stunning visuals and constant motion. His goal is to create stories which linger with the reader long after the book is read.

Wink
is his second novel. Visit Eric at
www.EricTrant.com
.

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