Black Lightning (11 page)

CHAPTER 14

H
e was hiding in the darkness, hoping nobody would find him, but from somewhere outside, out where it was light, he could hear the sound of footsteps. Heavy footsteps moving around not far away
.

He held his breath, terrified that if he so much as let out the tiniest gasp of air, his father would hear it and know where he was. Not that it made any difference, really, because his father already knew where he was. He always knew, no matter where the little boy tried to hide. Always, sooner or later, he heard the sound of the approaching footsteps, and the closer they came, the more frightened he was
.

Sometimes he was so frightened he felt like he was going to die, but he never did. And now, as he huddled in the darkness, making himself as small as he could, he was pretty sure he would never die, that it would just go on and on, and never end
.

He knew what was going to happen next, although he didn’t know why it was going to happen. He never knew why it was going to happen, because he could never relate it to something he had done. It wasn’t like it was punishment for anything
.

He guessed it was just something his father liked to do
.

The little boy couldn’t remember the first time it had happened, but neither could he remember any time in his short life when it hadn’t happened. It was just always there, hanging over him
.

As the thumping steps drew closer and closer, the
little boy tried to make himself even smaller, wishing he could just disappear, so that when his father finally opened the door, he wouldn’t be there at all. But he’d been praying for that to happen, too, and it never worked, even when he held real still, and didn’t breathe for so long his chest felt like it was going to explode
.

The footsteps grew yet louder, and now he knew the darkness was going to be torn away, and the light would flood over him. As if the thought had made it happen, the boy was blinded by a sudden flash of brilliance, and instinctively moved his hands to shield his eyes
.

Was it the movement that betrayed him?

His father’s hand—a huge hand—hovered over him, and the terrible fear that he was about to be squashed like a bug overwhelmed him. He began crying—tiny, sniffling sobs that he knew he had to control
.

Had to, but couldn’t
.

The huge hand closed around him, picked him up, pulled him out into the terrible light. Then he was in the gloom of the basement, and his father had stretched him out on the cot that stood next to the wall and tied his arms and legs
.

His father opened his shirt and pulled down his pants
.

Then the worst part started, when his father started attaching the metal clips
.

Some of them went on the boy’s fingers and toes, and those didn’t hurt so badly he couldn’t stand it
.

It was when his father put the ones on his nipples that he screamed out, but even as he screamed, he knew no one would hear him
.

Then his father put the last clip on, and as the metal dug into his penis, he moaned in agony
.

A moment later, when the first shock went through him, he screamed and tried to twist away from the pain
.

But his scream was mute, and no matter how he twisted and thrashed, he couldn’t escape the terrible pain
.

*  *  *

The silence in Room 306 of the Critical Care Unit was broken by a low moan from Glen Jeffers’s throat that quickly escalated into a terrified howl. Anne Jeffers, who had arrived only five minutes earlier to visit her husband before going on to her office, watched in stunned paralysis as her husband’s body began to thrash in the bed. Before she quite realized what had happened, the wires attached to Glen’s chest were torn loose and the monitors above the bed suddenly went flat. A second later the IV tube was ripped from the needle in his arm and clear liquid began dripping from the dangling hose as crimson blood oozed from the base of the needle. It was the sight of the blood—her husband’s blood—that released Anne from her momentary paralysis. Jerking the door open, she called to the nurse, but at the station a few yards away alarms had already started to sound. One of the nurses was running toward the room even before Anne could call out to her.

Starting back toward the bed where Glen was still thrashing, Anne felt a sensation of helplessness such as she’d never experienced before in her life. She wanted to do something, to take some action that would help her husband. But she hadn’t the slightest idea of what was happening to him, or how to help him. Instinctively, she reached out to him, but then stopped short, suddenly terrified that anything she did might make his condition worse than it already was. The split second of indecision stretched into an eternity of terror, then the door crashed open and the room filled with people. As the nurse and two orderlies brushed by her, Anne came back to life.

“He was sleeping,” she began. “Everything seemed to be fine, and then …” Her voice trailed off as she realized nobody was listening to her. She moved closer to the foot of the bed.

The orderlies were holding Glen down now, and the nurse was struggling to cap the needle in his arm that was still oozing blood. Glen, though, was struggling harder than ever, and now she could see that he was awake. His jaw was working as grunts of either terror or anger—Anne couldn’t be sure which—formed in his throat. He seemed to be trying to jerk his arms away from the two orderlies.

Suddenly Anne could stand it no more. “Glen!” she shouted. “For God’s sake, Glen, they’re trying to help you!” As the words exploded from Anne’s lips, Glen froze, then collapsed back onto the bed. His breath came in great ragged gasps. Now that the orderlies no longer had to struggle with him, the nurse began issuing a series of orders. Almost as quickly as it had begun, the crisis was over.

“What was it?” Anne asked as the nurse reattached the last of the monitoring leads and began checking Glen’s vital signs. The nurse said nothing until she was satisfied that her patient’s pulse, respiration, and blood pressure were within acceptable parameters, then took his temperature. As she at last turned her attention to Anne, Glen himself spoke.

“Hey,” he said, his voice weak but recognizable. The sound of his voice reassuring her far more than anything the nurse could have said, Anne suddenly felt shaky. Perching on the edge of the bed, she took his hand.

“Honey? What happened?”

Glen said nothing for several long seconds. The dream was still vivid in his mind, and even as he summoned up the memory, the terror of the nightmare threatened to close in on him once again. Shuddering slightly, he squeezed Anne’s hand. “Just a dream,” he told her. “And not a very nice one.”

“A nightmare?” Anne asked. “You never have nightmares—”

“He never had a heart attack, either,” the nurse interjected. “And from what his records say, he never had anywhere near the medication he has in him now.”

Anne’s attention shifted from Glen to the nurse. “You mean what he just went through was caused by the medication?”

“Maybe you should talk to the doctor about this,” the nurse replied, wishing she hadn’t said anything at all.

“Maybe I
should,”
Anne said.

Now Glen, too, began to wish he hadn’t mentioned the dream. Once Anne got hold of something, she wouldn’t easily let it go. “Hey, take it easy, hon. It was just a dream, and it’s over now.” He glanced at the clock on his bed stand. “Aren’t you going to be late to work?”

“If you had a reaction to one of the drugs—” Anne began, but this time Glen put his finger to her lips to stop her words. The effort of lifting his hand took much more energy than he would have thought possible just twenty-four hours ago.

“It was nothing,” he lied. “Just a dream, and I can’t even remember what it was about.” His hand dropped back onto the bed, and now his eyelids began to feel heavy. “Just go on to work, okay? I’ll be fine.”

As his eyes began to close, Anne glanced worriedly at the nurse. “Is he all right?”

“I gave him a sedative,” the nurse replied. “I know it looked pretty frightening, Mrs. Jeffers, but believe me, he’s doing just fine. If you’d like, I can call the doctor.…”

Feeling as if she’d foolishly overreacted, Anne shook her head. “It’s all right. I guess—well, I guess I’m just not used to seeing him like this.” She got up from the bed and leaned over to kiss her husband. For a moment she got no response at all. Then Glen’s fingers closed on her wrist and she felt his lips brush her cheek. His grip eased, and by the time she had straightened up, she was sure he’d fallen back into sleep. His eyes were closed and his breathing had quieted. Relieved, she moved quietly toward the door. His voice stopped her.

“Anne?”

She turned around to find him looking at her, his eyes barely open.

“What is it, honey?”

“Did you jog this morning?”

Anne blinked. Did she
jog
this morning? Why on earth would he be asking about that? “Of course I did,” she replied. Then she added playfully, “Can’t get out of shape, can I? Who’d take care of you when you come home?”

Glen smiled, but it was a smile that quickly faded away. “Just be careful, okay?”

“Careful?” Anne echoed. What was he talking about? “Careful of what?”

Glen was silent, and for a second she thought he’d finally fallen asleep. But just as she was passing through the door, she heard his voice once more.

“There’re a lot of creeps out there.”

She spun around to look at him once again, but this time his eyes were closed and his chest was rising and falling with the easy rhythm of sleep. She silently pulled the door to his room closed, nodded a good-bye to the nurse at the station and left the CCU, taking the elevator to the ground floor. As she left the hospital through the main doors on Sixteenth East and started toward her car, she turned, looking up at the window to Glen’s room.

His last words still echoed in her mind.

“There’re a lot of creeps out there.”

Coming to her car, she happened to glance up at the shabby-looking brick building across the street. Someone was looking out one of its windows, and for just a second their eyes met. He was a man, perhaps sixty, perhaps much less. He was wearing an undershirt, his face unshaven and his hair uncombed, but none of those details stayed in Anne’s mind. It was the look in his eyes. He looked beaten, as if the world had challenged him and he had lost. But it wasn’t just defeat Anne saw in his eyes.

There was anger, too.

The man turned away from the window, but Anne stayed where she was for a moment, her eyes fixed on the building. It struck her that the man looked very much like the apartment house he lived in: worn-out, uncared for. Sad. Was the whole building filled with people like that, people for whom life had become one desperate day after another?

Probably it was.

Anne turned and looked back toward the hospital, where the window to Glen’s room was clearly visible. Perhaps this was what he had meant. Perhaps he had awakened early and seen someone—maybe even the same man she herself had just seen—slipping back into the structure’s unwelcoming shelter as dawn washed away the protective shadows of night.

Shivering in the chill of the morning, Anne hurried to her car and drove quickly away.