My Soul to Take
Page 38
Nash ignored the volunteer at the help desknot that it mattered; she was asleep at her postand guided me toward a bank of elevators at the end of the hall.
My shoes squeaked on the polished floor, and each breath brought with it a whiff of antiseptic and pine-scented air freshener. Either would have been bad enough on its own, and together they threatened to overwhelm both my nose and my lungs. Fortunately the elevator on the left stood empty and open.
Inside, Nash pushed the button for the third floor. When the doors closed, the welcome scent faded, replaced immediately by the generic hospital smell, a combination of stale air, cafeteria meat loaf, and bleach.
Tod works on the third level? I asked as gears grinded overhead and the elevator began to rise.
He works all over the hospital, but Intensive Care is on three, and thats where were most likely to find him. Assuming he wants to be found.
A new chill went through me as his statement sank in. We were most likely to find Tod in Intensive Carewhere people were most likely to be dying.
My palms began to sweat, and my heart pounded so hard I was sure Nash could hear it echo in the elevator. What were the chances Id make it through the ICU without finding a soul to sing for?
Slim to none, I was betting. And since we were already in the hospital, if I freaked out this time, theyd probably put me on the express gurney to the mental-health ward. Do not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.
I was not going back there.
My hand clenched Nashs, and he stroked my fingers with his thumb. If you feel it starting, just squeeze my hand and Ill get you out. I started to shake my head, and he ran the fingers of his free hand down the side of my face, staring into my eyes. I promise.
I sighed. Okay. Hed already helped me through two panic attacksI couldnt stop thinking of them as suchand I had no doubt he could do it again. And, anyway, I didnt really have any choice. I couldnt help the next victim of an untimely death without finding Tod-the-reaper, and I couldnt find Tod without checking all his favorite haunts.
The elevator dinged, and the door slid open with a soft shhh sound. I glanced at Nash, bolstering my courage as I straightened my spine. Lets get this over with.
The third floor stretched out to either side of us, and one long, sterile white hall opened up directly across from the elevator doors, where a man and a woman in matching blue scrubs sat behind a big circular nurses station. The man looked up when my shoes squeaked on the floor, but the woman didnt notice us.
Nash nodded toward the left-hand hallway, and we headed that way, walking slowly, pretending to read the names written on disposable nameplates outside each door. We were just two kids hopingto pay respects to our grandfather one last time. Except that we didnt find him on the chosen hallway, or anywhere else on the third floor, which was almost a letdown after my initial fear of entering the ICU. Fortunately, Arlington wasnt that big of a town, and only three of the beds in Intensive Care were actually occupied. And none of those occupants was in any immediate danger of meeting a reaper.
Tod was also absent from the fourth, fifth, and sixth floors, at least as far as we could tell. The only places left to look were the surgical tower, the emergency room on the first floor, and the maternity ward, on two.
I did not want to find a grim reapereven if he didnt carry a scythein the maternity ward, and we would definitely be noticed in the surgical tower. So we checked the ER first.
During my one previous trip to Arlington Memorial, my aunt and uncle had called ahead, and the mental-health ward had been expecting us, which meant we didnt have to stop in the ER. So Id never seen one in person until Nash and I crossed the front lobby and pushed through the double doors into the emergency waiting area. I have, however, spent plenty of time in the psychiatric unit, which is no trip to Disneyland. Its populated with nurses who look at you with either pity or contempt, and patients in slippers who either wont meet your eyes or wont look away. But the ER holds its own special brand of misery.
Far from the energetic rush of adrenaline Id expected based on certain television hospital dramas, the actual emergency room was quiet and somber. Patients waited in thinly cushioned chairs lining the walls and grouped in the middle of the long room, their faces twisted into grimaces of pain, fear, or impatience.
One old woman languished in a wheelchair beneath a threadbare blanket, and several feverish children shivered in their mothers arms. Men in work clothes pressed crusted gauze bandages to wounds seeping blood, or ice packs to purple lumps on their heads. At the far end of the room near the triage desk, a teenager moaned and clutched one arm to her chest as her mother thumbed through an old tabloid, blatantly ignoring her.
Every few minutes, employees in scrubs entered through one end of the room, crossed the faded, dingy vinyl tile, and pushed through a set of double doors on the other end. Those alone read from charts or stared straight ahead, while those in pairs broke the grim near-silence with incongruous snatches of casual conversation. Regardless, the employees went out of their way to avoid eye contact with the people waiting, while the patients eyed them in hope so transparent it was uncomfortable for me to watch.
Do you see him? I whispered to Nash, skipping over the sick women and children to scan the faces of the men.
No, and we wont until hes ready to be seen.
My shoes squeaked on the polished floor, and each breath brought with it a whiff of antiseptic and pine-scented air freshener. Either would have been bad enough on its own, and together they threatened to overwhelm both my nose and my lungs. Fortunately the elevator on the left stood empty and open.
Inside, Nash pushed the button for the third floor. When the doors closed, the welcome scent faded, replaced immediately by the generic hospital smell, a combination of stale air, cafeteria meat loaf, and bleach.
Tod works on the third level? I asked as gears grinded overhead and the elevator began to rise.
He works all over the hospital, but Intensive Care is on three, and thats where were most likely to find him. Assuming he wants to be found.
A new chill went through me as his statement sank in. We were most likely to find Tod in Intensive Carewhere people were most likely to be dying.
My palms began to sweat, and my heart pounded so hard I was sure Nash could hear it echo in the elevator. What were the chances Id make it through the ICU without finding a soul to sing for?
Slim to none, I was betting. And since we were already in the hospital, if I freaked out this time, theyd probably put me on the express gurney to the mental-health ward. Do not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.
I was not going back there.
My hand clenched Nashs, and he stroked my fingers with his thumb. If you feel it starting, just squeeze my hand and Ill get you out. I started to shake my head, and he ran the fingers of his free hand down the side of my face, staring into my eyes. I promise.
I sighed. Okay. Hed already helped me through two panic attacksI couldnt stop thinking of them as suchand I had no doubt he could do it again. And, anyway, I didnt really have any choice. I couldnt help the next victim of an untimely death without finding Tod-the-reaper, and I couldnt find Tod without checking all his favorite haunts.
The elevator dinged, and the door slid open with a soft shhh sound. I glanced at Nash, bolstering my courage as I straightened my spine. Lets get this over with.
The third floor stretched out to either side of us, and one long, sterile white hall opened up directly across from the elevator doors, where a man and a woman in matching blue scrubs sat behind a big circular nurses station. The man looked up when my shoes squeaked on the floor, but the woman didnt notice us.
Nash nodded toward the left-hand hallway, and we headed that way, walking slowly, pretending to read the names written on disposable nameplates outside each door. We were just two kids hopingto pay respects to our grandfather one last time. Except that we didnt find him on the chosen hallway, or anywhere else on the third floor, which was almost a letdown after my initial fear of entering the ICU. Fortunately, Arlington wasnt that big of a town, and only three of the beds in Intensive Care were actually occupied. And none of those occupants was in any immediate danger of meeting a reaper.
Tod was also absent from the fourth, fifth, and sixth floors, at least as far as we could tell. The only places left to look were the surgical tower, the emergency room on the first floor, and the maternity ward, on two.
I did not want to find a grim reapereven if he didnt carry a scythein the maternity ward, and we would definitely be noticed in the surgical tower. So we checked the ER first.
During my one previous trip to Arlington Memorial, my aunt and uncle had called ahead, and the mental-health ward had been expecting us, which meant we didnt have to stop in the ER. So Id never seen one in person until Nash and I crossed the front lobby and pushed through the double doors into the emergency waiting area. I have, however, spent plenty of time in the psychiatric unit, which is no trip to Disneyland. Its populated with nurses who look at you with either pity or contempt, and patients in slippers who either wont meet your eyes or wont look away. But the ER holds its own special brand of misery.
Far from the energetic rush of adrenaline Id expected based on certain television hospital dramas, the actual emergency room was quiet and somber. Patients waited in thinly cushioned chairs lining the walls and grouped in the middle of the long room, their faces twisted into grimaces of pain, fear, or impatience.
One old woman languished in a wheelchair beneath a threadbare blanket, and several feverish children shivered in their mothers arms. Men in work clothes pressed crusted gauze bandages to wounds seeping blood, or ice packs to purple lumps on their heads. At the far end of the room near the triage desk, a teenager moaned and clutched one arm to her chest as her mother thumbed through an old tabloid, blatantly ignoring her.
Every few minutes, employees in scrubs entered through one end of the room, crossed the faded, dingy vinyl tile, and pushed through a set of double doors on the other end. Those alone read from charts or stared straight ahead, while those in pairs broke the grim near-silence with incongruous snatches of casual conversation. Regardless, the employees went out of their way to avoid eye contact with the people waiting, while the patients eyed them in hope so transparent it was uncomfortable for me to watch.
Do you see him? I whispered to Nash, skipping over the sick women and children to scan the faces of the men.
No, and we wont until hes ready to be seen.
