Walking Ghost Phase (2 page)

Darkness.

Voices. Jackhammers.

Darkness.

A constant pulse of light sent throbs of pain across her temples. The faint sound of clicking and clacking echoed below her. She slowly opened her eyes, and the fog at the edge of her vision seeped into the walls. Directional signs and room numbers blazed past her.

Then the face of a black man hovered over he
r. Through the blur of tears, Emily made out the glow of his pudgy cheeks and bald scalp. His lips moved, but a piercing whistle drowned out the words. When she rubbed her ears, trying to clear the noise, her fingers slid across something moist. Bright red droplets trickled down her palm.

The man dabbed at her ear with a bandage and leaned closer, near her cheek.
“Miss, can you hear me?” The ferocity in his face didn't match the whisper coming through his lips.

“
Barely.”

“
You're at Georgetown Hospital. Do you remember how you got here?”

Emily
's brain processed his question. An image of the White House, an elderly couple and a flock of pigeons passed in her mind. The whistle in her ears was now the slow and dull melody from an ice cream truck.

“
Do you know your name?” the man shouted.

Emily looked at him, her face blank. He might as well have spoken in a foreign language. Name? Her name? Now tears welled in her eyes. For a moment the sensation of loss crawled over her skin. Then a spark of light shone in her mind, and as if she raced to beat anyone else to the answer, the words spilled from her mouth.
“Emily. Emily Heath.” She took a deep breath and wiped her cheeks.

The man patted her shoulder.
“Nice to meet you, Emily.” He smiled. “I'm Ron. You have a nasty bump on your head, but we're going to take good care of you. Just relax and enjoy the ride.”

As Ron pushed the gurney through the hospital, the annoying buzz in Emily
's ears slowly dulled. Now she heard the squeak of his shoes. Moans and sobbing cries came from somewhere distant. Before she could pinpoint the cry of a child, the gurney came to a sudden stop. Her insides churned, the contents sloshing, pressing on her stomach lining. Blurred outlines of what she suspected were doctors and nurses ran past her. To Emily's left, a woman who was wearing dress slacks and a conservative, yellow blouse paced behind a nurse's station as she squished a phone between her ear and shoulder. The length of dangling phone cord restricted her to a small back and forth walk as if she were a dog on a leash.

“
One more,” Ron said to the woman.

The woman
's hand, still gripping the phone, flopped to her side. “Christ, will this ever end?”

An acidic pressure built in Emily
's chest, and the room spun in a blur of white and baby blue. She twisted over on her side and hung her head off the edge of the gurney. By then, the woman was snapping her fingers at Ron. In one uninterrupted motion, he grabbed a white trashcan and slid it beside the gurney. Once the gags subsided, Emily stared at the bottom of the canister, at the red threadlike swirls in the partially digested matter. Blood.

“
Take her down the hall,” the woman said. She scribbled something on a piece of paper and handed it to Ron. “Once you find a spot, give that note to the first nurse you see.” As she looked at Emily, her expression of frustration became one of unmistakable worry. She turned her back and shoved the phone to her ear again. “No, you listen to me. I wouldn't care if you had the President himself en route. Don't send anyone else here.”

Ron now pushed the gurney faster than before, the plastic wheels rattling, the metal frame vibrating. In the next hall, they passed a front-to-back line of adults and children who lay on beds or leaned against the walls. A few had blood on their faces and arms, while others had wiped the stains on their shirts. Still, none of the injuries appeared life threatening, and three nurses attended solely to the children, applying bandages to minor cuts and scrapes.
“What happened?” Emily asked.

“
Some damn fool set off a bomb near downtown. Nuclear, I hear.” Ron nodded at something in the distance. Ahead in the next intersection, three armed soldiers stood, eyeing anyone who passed them. “This place is already crawling with Army. They're taking fingerprints from everyone.”

Until now, Emily hadn
't noticed the black stains on her hands. She rubbed her fingers together, rolling up the ink and dried blood rolled like miniature carpets, but before she could expose the clean flesh beneath the ink, the gurney came to a dead stop. The remaining contents of her stomach sloshed; her mouth salivated. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

“
What the hell are you doing?” Ron said.

“
Emergency procedures, sir,” a man said. “Please, stand aside.”

“
I need to get this girl to a nurse.”

A short pop of metal on metal resonated in the hall. Someone might have clicked a pen, or maybe Ron tapped
his shoe against the gurney wheel. But Emily's mind registered the sound as something else, a sound she remembered from every horrible action movie. The sound a gun made when someone wanted to say
Shut up and do what I tell you.
“This will only take a second.”

She opened her eyes. Ron was standing a
gainst the wall while a soldier who held out a white box no larger than his hand approached Emily. He waved the device above her stomach, and the box squawked like the rapid croak of a frog, growing louder when he touched it to her shirt. “Are you feeling nauseous?” the soldier asked. “Vomiting? Dizziness?”

“
Why do you think I'm in a hurry?” Ron answered for her. “She needs treatment.”

“
What's your name, ma'am?”

Emily hesitated but not because of any mistrust toward the soldier. She didn
't want to vomit over her words. After she told him, a different soldier jotted down something on a clipboard.

“
My apologies for any inconvenience, ma'am,” the main soldier said. He slapped the end of the gurney. “You're free to go.” The soldiers huddled together, and before Ron pushed Emily out of earshot, the clipboard-holding soldier spoke something into a handheld radio.

Now deeper in the hospital, Ron guided the gurney through a corridor of the seriously injured. The wheels lost their usual click and clack, replaced by the sound of tearing Velcro. Up ahead, streaks of blood on the floor
veered down each hallway. Ron slowed, navigating the tight space. They passed a man with bloodstained bandages covering his face. Above his flat nose, a slit revealed glossy eyes teaming with confusion and rage. A moment later they went by another victim, and Emily turned her head and cringed. The young woman, maybe in her mid-twenties, screamed as a nurse tightened a bandage around the bloody stump of what was once a forearm.

“
They were close to the blast,” Ron said. “Lots of tourists.”

Emily concentrated on her location at the time of the explosion. She could see the awning of the hotel but couldn
't recall the name, that the street had a number, but she didn't know which one. It was as if someone had cut those frames out of a film, and the harder she tried to splice them back in the roll, the more her head throbbed.

In the next hallway, Ron pushed the gurney into an empty spot against the wall. He approached a lone nurse and handed her the note from the woman on the phone. Then he looked at Emily.
“Good luck, kid. Nurse Collins here will take good care of you.” He jogged down the hall, careful not to slip in the puddles of blood, and disappeared around the corner.

Nurse Collins rolled an IV stand toward Emily
's gurney. “This says you're having stomach issues.” Without looking, she hooked her foot under a nearby rolling stool, pulled it to her side and sat. “We're going to fix that.” Collins swabbed the crease of Emily's elbow and pushed the needle under her skin. Clear liquid soon filtered through the IV line. “Give the medicine a few minutes.” Collins glanced down the hall. Her legs trembled, seeming ready to propel her to her feet as if she expected a new arrival at any moment. “Emily, is it?”

Emily nodded.

“Are you from Washington?”

“
No.” Her voice was hoarse, but she felt a sudden urge to talk; a flash of memories returned. “I'm on vacation. I was staying at the Constitution Hotel. The one with the green awning and obnoxious bellhops. It's on—”

“
17th avenue,” Collins interrupted, and her face glowed. “My husband and I went there for our tenth anniversary. Oh, and tell me about it—those bellhops
are
pushy for the tips. Did you come here alone? Travel with your parents? Friends?”

The film roll of Emily
's memories spliced again. She stared at Nurse Collins, ashamed, as if she had forgotten the most important memory of her life. “I don't—I can't remember.”

Collins gently grazed Emily
's forehead, brushing back a few strands of hair. “Do you remember hitting your head?”

“
Not really.”

“
You have a pretty nasty bump. I think you might have a concussion, which would explain your memory loss.” Collins sighed. “A doctor can order up the tests to confirm, but I doubt any are available right now.”

“
Is it permanent?”

“
Memory loss from a concussion?” Collins shook her head. “The effects usually go away in a few hours. You'll notice soon enough.”

A sense of relief washed over Emily, and she caught herself smiling at Collins. Then a blur of green appeared in the corner of her eye.
“Excuse me, nurse,” the man said. It was the main soldier from the intersection. He handed Collins a note.

“
Who's Ric—?” Collins started to ask.

“
My unit doctor,” the soldier interrupted. “We need a sample taken to the lab ASAP.”

“
We don't have the equipment for this type of testing.”

“
It was just delivered.”

Collins gave an uncertain nod and then turned to Emily.
“I need to collect some of your blood.”

“
Why?” Emily asked.

“
Precautionary,” the soldier said. He hovered beside Collins until she filled the vial.

“
I'll be right back,” Collins said, and hurried down the hallway. The soldier stayed right on her heels.

Alone now, Emily watched a few gurneys careen past her. On the opposite wall, the hands of a hanging clock had stopped at eighteen minutes past one. An Asian girl, about ten years old, sat beneath it and dangled her legs off the side of the gurney mattress. When a guttural cough came from somewhere down the hallway, the girl leaned forward and stared with a curious tilt in her eyebrows. A glaze of dried tears covered her cheeks. Moments later the girl seemed to have lost interest in the terrible sound. She now looked at Emily.

Emily smiled, but the girl had already turned her head. Her eyes appeared bewildered by something in Emily's lap. Emily stared at her fingers, which moved with an unconscious twiddle as if she held an object, a camera it seemed. An image of the LCD screen flashed in her mind—fuzzy pictures of landmarks, outlines of ghostly apparitions.

A patter of footsteps came down the hall, so Emily shoved her hands under the sheet. Nurse Collins stopped beside the gurney.
“How are you feeling?”

Until Collins asked, Emily hadn
't noticed her normal breathing. The acidic burn in her chest had also eased. “Better. Thank you.”

“
Great.” Collins held out an empty vial. “Do you mind if I take another sample of your blood?”

“
Is something wrong?”

“
The lab tech said he needed another.” Collins leaned near Emily and whispered, “I think he lost the original.
I'll
make sure he tests this one right away.” Emily nodded, and Collins sat and began drawing the blood.

“
I came to Washington with three others,” Emily said.

Collins smiled.

“But I can't remember their names—or their faces.”

“
Give it time. I left you alone for what—five minutes?” After filling the vial, Collins grabbed a clipboard off the wall and set it on Emily's lap. Under the clamp was a blank sheet of paper and a pen. “Once I get back, I bet you'll have written down their names, addresses, phone numbers and even favorite colors.” This time her departing smile showed a slight waver.

Emily held the pen against the paper. Her memory focused on the scenery in the pictures: the murky waters of the Reflecting Pool, the etched writing on The Lincoln Memorial, and the marble slabs of the Washington Monument. Now the people in the photos appeared as featureless masses, leaving only a black outline around their bodies. Her head throbbed, and the blood flow in her ears sounded like waves crashing on the beach. Her hands fidgeted with the invisible camera again.

Then her mind locked on a single picture. It was something in the background. At the edge of the Washington Monument, a man in blue coveralls was talking to a park ranger. She didn't sense anything familiar about him, but her thoughts locked on his corner of the image.