Trauma (16 page)

“I've never seen anything like that,” she had said. “It's like he was hallucinating. Hearing voices, the same phrase over and over again. He repeated what I said, and then he answered my question multiple times. I only said it once, but somehow it never stopped for him.”

Marianne was not concerned. “They're all agitated in some way,” she said, not sharing Carrie's concern. “It's not unusual for them to get extra sedation. The residents are used to it and they're trained for it, so I can see why it was a shock to you.”

Marianne's words did not seem to have much impact on the new DBS surgeon.

Dr. Bryant wrote a prn sedative order, administer as needed. She told Marianne to call if there was a problem, and to give the phone number to her relief at the eleven o'clock shift change. Sam Rockwell used to do the same. Marianne had looked in on Abington twice since then. He seemed a bit restless, his limbs moving involuntarily, shaking, but those were common side effects of the sedative.

“He's been a handful, that's for sure,” Marianne said to Nurse Taggart. “Very agitated. Not sure what's going on with him.”

“Well, that's why I'm here to check up on things.”

“If he starts to give you trouble, you just holler,” Marianne said.

“I sure will,” Lee replied, “but I'm pretty good at handling most any situation on my own.” With a wink, Lee headed to Abington's room.

Marianne focused her gaze on his well-defined backside as he walked away.

I bet you are.
She smiled and went back to her book.

*   *   *

Relentless heat bathed the back of Abington's neck, and sandy grit somehow wormed underneath his eyelids to scratch at his corneas. Place? Time? Where was he? What had happened? Somewhere off in the distance, Abington heard the thunderous roll of artillery shells detonating as the ground beneath him rumbled and shook with each massive blast. He felt around for his weapon, but his arms responded spastically like they had a mind of their own.

One of Abington's pawing hands felt something made of steel. He clutched his M16 and pulled the weapon close to him. He managed to get onto his hands and knees, but each breath came at a price. Something was wrong. Something was horribly wrong with him.

The air parted as bullets whizzed overhead. Abington forced open his eyes and blinked in response to the oppressive sunlight. When his vision cleared, he saw he was still in Afghanistan. Again, he was back where it all began, inside the foxhole, and Roach was with him just as before. Only now the indestructible Roach had had his guts ripped open by a peppering of bullets and he was bleeding out.

In lumbering, agonizingly slow motion, Abington flipped onto his belly and crawled over to his wounded comrade. He could not understand why his movements were so labored, dreamlike. But this could not be a dream. It was all too real. He could feel the heat scorching his skin, and a stench of gunpowder mixed with blood was visceral and genuine.

Gasping, Abington made his way toward Roach, who groaned and clutched at his injured stomach. If Abington did not stop the bleeding soon, his friend would die. All over again.

From close by, Abington heard a spit of gunfire. In the same instant, sand and dirt sprayed his face. With a burst of surprising adrenaline, Abington brushed his face clean and lurched forward, landing almost on top of Roach. With nothing to stop the bleeding, Abington placed his hands over the pulsing wound. He cried out in horror as his fingers sank deep inside the bloody cavity. Muscles and tendons pulsed around Abington's probing fingers, but the blood continued to ooze out. Roach moaned deliriously, fading in and out of consciousness.

Abington was about to scream for a medic when he noticed a shadow looming. He looked up just in time to see the figure of a man leap into the foxhole with them. Abington blinked to clear his vision. He had thought the dark-skinned man was wearing white hospital scrubs, but now there were no scrubs. The man was dressed in camouflage, with the combat medic's Red Cross insignia sewn onto his sleeve.

“What's happening here, Steve?” the man asked.

Abington had so much to say, but he could not utter a single word.

Instead, the medic's voice tumbled about his head and Abington heard the words “what's happening … what's happening … what's happening” like a scratched record.

Abington pulled his hands from the gruesome gut wound and covered his ears to try and block out the sound. His red-stained palms lathered his face with warm blood, but those words kept rolling about his head like an endless echo.

What's happening … what's happening … what's happening …

“Steve, you're going to feel a little funny in a moment.”

Steve you're going to feel … Steve you're going to feel … Steve you're going to feel.

“Stop! Stop saying that! Just fix Roach!”

Now it was Abington's voice providing the echo.

Fix Roach … fix Roach … fix Roach …

The medic moved inches from Abington's face as he produced a syringe full of clear liquid from his pocket. At first the medic appeared to be injecting the syringe into thin air, but Abington's vision altered and he saw the needle had penetrated the tubing of his own intravenous line. How did he get a line in his arm when it was Roach who had been shot?

“It's called potassium chloride, and while it's not fatal, you're going to feel very uncomfortable,” the medic whispered benevolently. “I'll see you in a minute, Steve.”

The medic climbed out of the foxhole and was gone—but not his voice, which remained and echoed mercilessly in his ears.

I'll see you in a minute … see you in a minute … in a minute …

Seconds later, a new sensation came over Abington, something strange and unnerving. He inhaled sharply and fought against the tightness in his chest, curling into a fetal position and rhythmically rocking. He rubbed Roach's blood all over his head, hair, and neck in an effort to stop the noise in his head. Nearby, Roach lay on his back, mouth open, with a dead-eyed gaze up to the heavens.

The tightness changed into something else. Abington's heartbeat began to flutter, then it morphed into a pounding. Abington could feel the palpitations in his chest, throat, and neck. He turned his head and locked his gaze on his dead friend, certain he would soon be joining him.

*   *   *

Lee Taggart had made it to the elevator bank when Abington's alarm went off. While he was not at all surprised, Lee still made a show of it, and raced back to Marianne, who had a look of panic on her face. Some of the nurses were stoics—they could handle any stressful situation thrown at them—while others were not at all adept at managing crises. They tended to relish the relative calm of the neuro recovery floor.

“Something is wrong,” she said. “His heartbeat just went crazy.”

“He's on haloperidol, right?” Lee said. “Arrhythmia can be a side effect. I'm here, let me rush him down to the med ICU.”

Marianne looked relieved. She was definitely not the good-in-emergencies type.

 

CHAPTER 21

The house was quiet when Carrie got home. The front porch light was on; it was always on when Carrie stayed out after her parents had gone to sleep. Traffic on the Mass Pike had been mercifully light, but it was still almost midnight when Carrie pulled into her parents' driveway.

She'd spent the drive running Abington's surgical procedure through her mind. It had been an exhilarating, terrifying, and utterly strange first day on the job and she was glad to be home. Carrie had given some thought to moving out now that she had an income stream again, but opted against it. Until she had some permanence she was not going to make any big changes.

When Carrie walked into the kitchen, she was delighted to find a card waiting for her on the table, propped against a small vase of flowers—daisies mostly, her favorite. The handwritten note from her mom and dad congratulated her on what they assumed had been a successful first surgery. She had debated telling them about Abington, but worried they would worry.

Reading her parents' note, Carrie became keenly aware of the soreness around her neck. It was tight, and every time she looked to the left, she felt a sharp, gripping pain that stretched across the back of her head. It was the pain of a muscle spasm, not a fracture. She also had additional pain along the outside of her right knee, but not with every step. In the morning she'd probably wake up with visible signs of the day's violence. Those would need to be explained, or perhaps just covered up.

Carrie heard a floorboard creak behind her and turned to see Adam in the entrance to the kitchen. He was wearing a T-shirt and sweats. For a moment she saw him as her little brother again, but that vision was blown apart by his haunted, hooded eyes. Eyes that resembled Abington's.

“Hey Carrie,” Adam said as he trudged over to the fridge. “How'd the first surgery go?”

“Pretty good,” Carrie said. “Nobody died.”

Adam returned a fractured smile. “Well, I'd call that a big success.” He chuckled. “Want some OJ?”

“Love some.”

Adam poured two glasses and joined Carrie at the kitchen table. Carrie moved the flowers and card to the side to make room, surreptitiously checking her arms to make sure there were no visible marks or scratches. If her parents found out, they'd certainly be concerned about safety, but Adam could go ballistic.

“Can I ask you something?”

Adam took a swig of OJ. “Anything.”

Carrie softened her voice. “What do you think would happen if you saw a virtual reality simulation of something that happened to you over in Afghanistan?”

“What do you mean by that? Like a computer simulation?”

“Along those lines,” Carrie said. “But hyper-realistic.”

Adam tossed his hands in the air. “I dunno.”

Carrie thought not only of Abington's initial assault, but of his second outburst after the surgery, which required a haloperidol drip to calm him. Having experienced Adam's explosive temper, it was not a stretch to envision her brother in Abington's place.

“Could you maybe … become violent?” Carrie asked.

This was a sensitive subject for the family. Adam owned several guns, including a pistol and rifle, and threatened to move out before he'd give them up. He was a lawful and responsible gun owner, and nobody disagreed, but nobody wanted him to have those weapons either. The worry was for Adam's safety, since PTSD and gun ownership were often a lethal mix. Adam returned an indifferent shrug.

“I hit a reporter for no real good reason. So I suppose anything is possible.”

Carrie laughed. “Did you call to apologize?”

“I did better than that,” Adam said. “I met the guy for coffee. Gave him everything he could possibly want to hear, and probably more than he expected.”

Carrie made a mental note to call David Hoffman; she'd agreed to a coffee date as well. Seeing sadness in her brother's eyes, Carrie reached across the table and took hold of Adam's hand. “Even I haven't heard those stories.”

Adam squeezed her hand. “For a reason.”

“If you ever want to talk about it—”

“You're here for me. I know that, Carrie. You've always had my back.” He raised his hands in a pantomime of a pneumatic drill. “Hey, what do you think of this work you're doing? Should I have you drill into my head and stick me with wires?” Adam gave a cartoon evil scientist's maniacal laugh.

Based on Abington's reaction to the treatment, Carrie could not say with certainty, but she still believed in the program and its promise. It might be worth the pain of reconsolidating bad memories through virtual reality therapy to get positive results, though Carrie had reason to worry about potential side effects.

Her mind picked at the odd verbal exchange with Abington right before he went off the rails. The man's voice had sounded so distressed as he repeated, “Follow my light, follow my light.”
It was like he heard my voice in his head over and over again,
Carrie thought.

“I don't know yet,” she said to Adam. “I need more time to see it in action before I can say, though I do think there's tremendous promise.”

Adam swallowed his orange juice in a long gulp and pushed back his chair to stand. “I'm beat.” He stretched and yawned.

“Hi Beat, I'm Carrie.” She held out her hand and Adam shook it, smiling at their long-running joke. “Have a good night. I'll see you in the morning.”

“Night, Carrie.” At the doorway Adam paused and turned. “Hey, it's good to have you here. It's good for all of us.”

Carrie blew him a kiss. “When are you going to take me for a ride in that Camaro of yours?”

“I almost got it running today.”

Carrie grimaced as she recalled the last time Adam almost got it running.

Adam noticed her reaction. “Don't worry,” he said. “I'm not going to go all
Christine
on it.”

Christine,
the film adaptation of the Stephen King novel, was Adam's favorite movie these days. He'd seen it on cable after he came home from the war. He was referring to the scene when the high school kids trashed the car named Christine using aluminum bats, only to be killed after the car magically repaired itself and sought revenge. Adam seemed to like the idea of a thing that was indestructible, perhaps because he felt so vulnerable.

“Good night, Adam,” Carrie said, crossing the room to give her brother a warm embrace. God, she hoped the DBS treatment worked. She hoped it was the cure for PTSD. She wanted her brother to feel whole again, but he was more like his Camaro he could not get running than Christine, which could magically put itself back together again.

Upstairs in her bedroom, Carrie went to put her phone on the dresser, and saw by the display that she'd missed a call during her drive home.