The Watchers (6 page)

They slunk in and sat in twin chairs at the far corner while the doctor settled on the end of her bed and gave her a smile not matching the cast of his eyes.

“Abby.”

He said it flatly, like a statement.

“Are you gonna level with me now?” she asked.

He shut his eyes against the frustration in her voice. “Now, there's no need to talk like that. We've told you everything we could at every step.”

She'd been hoarding this frustration since shortly after her admittance twenty-one days ago, and it was sweet release now to let it flow. “I don't believe that. You've been managing me all three weeks I've been here. My nurses won't even tell me my temperature without asking your permission.”

“We're unsure, that's all. We've been trying to figure things out.”

“But now you know, I can tell. What is it?”

He breathed in deeply, ponderously, then out again. “We're not sure—”

“Oh, stop it,” she interrupted, until he held out his hand to stop her.

“Abby, a very aggressive and destructive infection is moving through your body. We've never seen anything like it before. We've tried to analyze it against every known treatment known to medical science. And frankly, the results so far are inconclusive. But the effects on your body aren't.”

He sighed again, and from the corner of her eye she saw her father look down and wipe his eyes.

“As you already know, your left arm is fully engaged. The infection is traveling along your neural pathways, your nerves, and simply shutting them off. I don't know how long it will take, but without an effective cure—which we don't seem to have—it will reach your heart at some point in the near future, your brain soon after that.”

“Say it to me.” Her voice was a mixture of dread and defiance. “Say the words.”

Finally, he looked straight into her eyes, his gaze clouded with sadness. “You're going to die, Abby. Very soon. I could give you false hope, and I can truthfully say that we'll keep trying. But there's very little hope.”

She felt her breathing skip somewhere beyond her control, her lungs fight for breath. The room began to sway. Her thoughts suddenly slowed as if unwilling to process the knowledge pounding at the gates of her conscious mind.

Finally she felt her throat force out a few words.

“So you've done all you can for me.”

“No. We can give you our very best care. Manage your pain. Increase your comfort immeasurably. I'm so sorry, Abby . . .”

“Does this have something to do with Narbeli's murder?”

He shook his head. “Not directly. But it seems your infection started around the same time. I don't know how you could have acquired this thing. Only that it's on the move, and I have no idea how to stop it.”

She closed her eyes and wished the act could erase the sight of all of them—doctor and family together.

“Pretty ironic, isn't it, Dad?” He looked at her blankly, uncomprehending. “I mean, here you and I have been arguing the last six months over what I should do with my life. How badly I need to figure out what I want to
do with my life
. And now, it doesn't even matter. It's over. Do you think maybe now you and I can start getting along better?”

He shot her a brokenhearted smile. Blackness replaced the white light and stark expressions, then overtook her.

THE NEXT DAY

Abigail awoke to the sight of her father gazing down at her through eyes full of tears. His index finger lay poised atop her hand, grazing it like one afraid to apply too much pressure on a delicate object. Immediately the truth behind his expression burst upon her with an inner sensation like that of being drenched in ice water.

He was already saying good-bye
.

No doubt about it—her father was weeping with a shocked distance she had only seen him adopt once before: a week and a half prior, after returning from Narbeli's gravesite. At the time, she had barely possessed the strength to look about and register anyone else's reactions, for the murder had knocked her into a pall of depression from which she had yet to catch her breath. But her father's expression had been so altered that day, such a departure from his usually cool and competent demeanor, that even then she had taken note.

And now he was looking at her with that very same unhinged expression.

For a second she had the macabre sensation of already being in the grave, peering up at the mourners of her own funeral.

“Daddy?” she heard herself say in alarm.

Then the cause of his devastated expression came rushing back to her.

Third week in this bed. No answers. No encouraging signs. Not even a diagnosis to speak of. Only the knowledge that she was dying. Yes, dying. Inexplicably, inexorably, painfully.

At the age of twenty
.

Maybe his premature reaction to the sight of her wasn't so unjustified. “I'm still here,” she said in a weak voice. “Daddy. Please. Don't look at me that way.”

Startled from his grief, he stirred himself and allowed a paternal smile to warm his features once more.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean it.”

Instead of returning the smile, she scowled and peered at him. A fierce shudder cascaded down her spine.

She had just seen . . . felt . . .
something
. A breeze, a wisp, a flutter. A chill through her heart. A dark wing across the empty air just in front of her.

“Dad, did you just feel something?”

“Something what?”

“I don't know. Something passing, a shudder, a presence even?”

He stared at her. “No, sweetie . . .”

She sighed and shut her eyes. Yes, she had seen it—
or had she
? Had she glimpsed an eerie haze drift in front of his shoulders?

She saw something again, and almost screamed—for it was now clear.

And terrifying.

A gauzy face, revolting and horrific at once. A mouth, leering and ravenous. A palpable shroud of something that made her want to crawl out of her skin.

“Are you okay, sweetie?” came his voice through what sounded like a thick cloud.

She shook her head. “I'm sure it's part of the sickness. I don't know—this morning my vision started to get blurred with these optical illusions. These little vapors, wisps of something. And every hour they get more . . . distinct. And horrible. Sometimes it even seems I can see faces on them. Just now it became totally clear. It was the scariest thing I've ever seen. I can't explain it, 'cause they're very . . . I know it's childish, but they really give me the creeps.”

“They're just hallucinations, honey,” said the nurse at the foot of her bed. “I'm sure we can get you some drugs to make them—”

“No, please,” Abby interrupted. “No drugs. I don't want to spend my last . . .” She realized what she was starting to say and paused. “I don't want this time to be a haze.”

“I'm so sorry, sweetie,” her dad said. He sighed with a heaviness that made the nurse, even his wife, Teresa, who stood to one side, glance at him sharply. “But please, don't tell me. Don't bring up these things. Please. Just don't.”

“But, Dad, if I can't talk to you about it, who can I talk to?”

His head began an almost involuntary shake. “I don't know. One of your friends? A counselor? I'll pay.”

“Please. Don't make it about money.”

“I'm not, Abby. I'll even bring in a chaplain, if that'll help.”

Abigail stretched her face into an exaggerated look of surprise. Anybody who knew her father knew about his feelings toward organized religion. Ever since her mother had led Abigail in a sinner's prayer at the age of eight—during one of her calmer periods just before her disappearance—the subject had been a wedge between her and her father. After her mother had vanished, Abigail had clung to her new beliefs, and then her church, as a source of solace. Then, as she matured, it had turned into far more. It had blossomed into a truly voluntary, vibrant core of her character. At the same time, her father had angrily rejected Christianity, managing to remain grudgingly tolerant of his daughter's faith. The most he would offer was a continual complaint that on Sunday mornings, one of his most available times in a hectic professional schedule, it would have been nice to spend
quality time
together. Instead, she had to rush off to
that place. . . .

That was why this offer was indeed a concession.

“No, Dad. I want you to tell me why. Come on—I'm the one who's, who's . . .”

“Don't say it.”

“But I am. And that's why you owe me an explanation. This is too important; I can see it in your eyes.”

He sat down quickly, with the suddenness of someone whose knees had abruptly lost all their strength. Not a man who racked up a dozen treadmill hours a week.

“I always thought I'd go to my grave without ever telling you about these things. But now . . .” He raised his eyebrows as if to finish by saying,
Now with you about to go before me, it's all changed
.

“Tell me, Daddy. You're scaring me.”

“It's about your mother.”

Abigail felt a hard wall of inevitability rise within her.
Of course
, she told herself. What other topic would push him so close to the edge?

“Go ahead.”

He sighed and blew out loudly. “Right before the end, right before she disappeared, your mother started complaining of all sorts of strange sights. It started with these strangely real dreams. They seemed to involve folks who lived in ancient times. Biblical characters. She seemed to think these were more than your average dreams, but actually some kind of invasion, a
possession
almost. Except not like the normal possession. In these dreams, she was the one possessing the body of these historical people.”

Abigail inhaled slowly, self-consciously. It felt like her life depended on gathering that next breath. She felt an actual swimming sensation in her head and knew that she was in danger of fainting. She could hardly believe the words buzzing about her tympanic membrane.

“Anyway, that's not the most important part,” he continued. “But see, right around that time, she started talking about seeing things. About all of a sudden experiencing some kind of, what she called ‘spiritual vision.' She started really freaking out, talking about seeing things swimming around in front of her. Just like what you said. I'm sorry. But it was so pronounced . . . the similarity. The words you chose—they could have come out of her mouth. Some of the last words she ever spoke to me.”

“So, is that what you think drove her to abandon us?”

He paused and turned to Teresa, whose eyes seemed to have recently gone cold. As abruptly as the flicking of a switch.

“Honey, I have something to confess to you.”

Teresa exhaled angrily and stormed off toward the door. Her father watched her go, then turned back to Abigail with a weary expression.

“Your mother didn't exactly abandon us the way I've always told you,” he said in a low voice, as though someone was eavesdropping on the conversation.

“What?”

“Your mother didn't just leave. She disappeared under suspicious circumstances. If you were to track down her case with the FBI, you'd find that her file states her as presumed dead.
Murdered
, to put a finer point on it.”

“So you thought it would be better,” Abigail said, her voice rising, “to let me grow up thinking that my mom was a tramp who never loved me and thought it would be more fun to run off with a cult of dope-smoking hippies than stay and raise me?”

“Yes,” he answered, his lips stretched tight. “I thought that would be easier to live with than knowing your mother had transformed into a schizophrenic and ran off in sheer insanity, rejecting all my attempts to help her, and who, if she isn't a homeless junkie, is probably lying in a potter's field cemetery.”

Abigail dropped her head back on her neck in resignation. She let out a groan. Her father's explanation had been a convincing one. Neither scenario of her mother's fate seemed appropriate for contemplation by a young girl's tender heart and soul.

“I'm sorry,” he said softly. “I shouldn't have been so blunt.”

“Thanks,” she said, “but I did sort of provoke you. And so you're saying you have no idea what's actually happened to Mom?”

A look of regret flashed briefly across his face. “Before I answer that, let me tell you something. I spent much of your childhood years doing everything imaginable to find your mother. I was on a first-name basis with the missing person's coordinator of every state in the union. I hired so many investigators that I bet there's not a shelter west of the Mississippi that hasn't been visited by somebody on my payroll. I've personally driven every mile of the L.A. Basin's freeways and homeless areas. No man alive could have tried harder than I did.”

“I'm not calling you a failure, Dad. I'm just asking what you know.”

“Well, I did find her, and she came home. For a while.”

“Of course. When I was eight. I remember.”

“But I know something else still.”

She grimaced this time. “Dad, I'm not sure I can survive any more surprises today.”

“Then brace yourself, because this may be my last chance to tell you this. I'm pretty sure she was kidnapped and murdered.”

This time Abigail did not utter a word in response. She did not even move a muscle to entice him into going further. She was incapable of either. Finally, however, it became obvious that he did not have the will to elaborate unless she provoked him.

“Dad? Are you going to explain?”

He snapped back from some strange reverie and met her eyes. “It had something to do with these visions of hers. Many years later, after talking to several forensic psychologists, I became convinced that it wasn't a mental illness at all.”