Soul Eater

Quick footsteps click-clacked in an echoing tympani somewhere close by.  In the cubical next door, a child whimpered softy about a belly ache while mother's low, soft tones sought to comfort.  A curtain pulled open across the hall, machines beeped and bleeped, doctors consulted and nurses laughed at some off-handed joke.

For Sam Hanson, the world had just come to a crashing stop.  Around him, the hustle and bustle of a busy emergency room continued it's inexplicable course.  In the ten by ten space that served as a  triage room in the Plains Hospital, the silence was deafening.

Digital screens and read-outs  continued to sing their swan song.  The steady whoosh-click-hiss of the respirator still counted off its eternal minutes.  His hand held his daughter's delicate and frozen fingers in a death grip.  Ha ha.  That'd be funny if it wasn't so damn tragic.  A single tear dripped from his cheek only to be caught by the corner of Michelle's own eye where it trickled past her ear looking for all the world as though it was the fruit of her own despair.

“I'm sorry daddy.  It was an accident.”

***

A stupid freaking accident.  A combination of warmer than normal temperatures, a child's dream of invulnerability, thin ice, and a misplaced hill that was too perfect for tobogganing to be passed up.  The result, his precious Michelle, frozen and comatose before him.

He had hoped. When they pulled her out, he recalled the story of a girl, three-years old, frozen on her doorstep in the middle of winter. It had made headlines around the world. She was fine today. Ten years old and alive and well.  She'll be okay, he thought frantically.  You'll be okay Michelle just breathe.  Just breath my little peach.

The EMT's worked frantically.  Sam was sure this was their worst nightmare as well.  No one liked seeing little kids hurt.  It was an affront to life itself. “Come on sweetie,”One of them soothed, “Just one breath, one little breath.”  Instead, she had gasped and the thin, silver mylar pouch they had wrapped her in began to move ever so slightly.

A cheer had gone up from the crowd, their voices sending frozen mists of vapor skyward in a triumphant cloud. Life would win today.  Death is defeated. She was not yet conscious, still near-frozen.  But there was hope.  Seven years ago one little girl had beat the odds. Today it was Michelle's turn.

***

“That's what I'm trying to explain to you Mr. Hanson. The two situations are very different.  The case you're thinking of happened on an extremely cold morning to a very small child.  Three years old I believe.  There is a level of resiliency and a host of other factors surrounding hypothermia and very small children that just don't apply in this case.”  Dr. Marcia Granger,  the pediatrician who had been called in to see to his daughter,  was an older, not unattractive lady.  Her hair was dark, her high cheekbones gently rouged, her lips thin.  She spoke in smooth, soft tones but spoke in earnest,  trying to force his understanding.

“But she's small too.  Only ten.  She's only ten.”

“I know Mr. Hanson.  But your daughter had drowned.  From the report it seems as though she was under for a significant amount of time.  Her body seems as though it might recover some,  but the brain can only go so long without oxygen...” She trailed off to allow her words to sink in.

Sam inhaled, his own deep gasp for life, “What does it look like then?”

“Right now her vitals are good and in a few hours we'll try to get her off that respirator before she becomes dependent on it.  She's warming up nicely and her heart is strong.  But...”, she paused again, giving him time to gird himself for what she would say next, “Michelle is in a vegetative state.  It's early to say for sure,  but the chance of even a partial recovery is slim.  It may be that we will not even be able to remove the respirator,  but we'll try.”  Another cursed tear trickled down his face as her words hit home.  “I know that is difficult for you to hear, but in my experience the truth is always better in the long run.  I'm sorry.” Sam slumped against the wall and slid down to the floor, defeated.  “I understand it's just the two of you.  I'm going to send someone over in a few minutes to talk with you. You really shouldn't be alone.”  She was trying to sound sympathetic,  but her words fell, cold and lifeless on Sam's ears.

Alone.  That's exactly what he was without Michelle.  Angie, his wife, her mother, had already succumbed to her own mortality five years ago.  Cancer had eaten her body from the inside out until she was begging for death, and Sam along with her.  Stricken though he was, her passing had been a mercy in the end. 

This,  this was insanity.  This was unspeakable horror.  This was life ticking by on it's merry way  before crashing down around your head on some inane and random Saturday afternoon when the fresh snow is falling, the kids are screaming their unbridled joy to the world, and somewhere behind it all the most beautiful girl in the world is drowning.

And there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

***

The social worker tried her best to be calm and caring, “Do you have any family in the city...may I call you Sam?”  he nodded. Her office was that bizarre combination of warm and cold you can only get when you throw a care worker into a sterile environment.  A richly polished, oak finished desk,  light gray carpet,  laden bookshelves, crisp white walls, green plants, a splash of art in the form of a Monet print and children's scribblings.  The same kind of scribblings he treasured on his fridge at home.

Oh God.

“It's important that you turn to others.  You don't have to go through this on your own Sam.”

“Yes I know.  Thanks.”

“Sharing this burden is important.”

“Michelle is not a burden.”

“No, of...of course not. That's not what I meant.  This grief, you need to let others help you with it.  Family, friends, maybe a faith community or support group...”

“You think a fucking support group is going to help her?”  That just slipped out before he was able to catch it and cram it back into it's cage.  She flinched, ever so slightly, but her recovery was cool.

“You're angry.  That's ok.  You're allowed to feel angry.  There's nothing wrong with that. With some other people to help you,  you can even move past it.”

“Great.  That's perfect.  Can I go back to Michelle now?  She needs me.”  Without waiting for an answer he pushed his chair back, stood on stiff legs, and turned his back on the whole, ridiculous, 'movie of the week' situation.

***

Her breath was so soft.  He could barely hear it. The tiniest whisper in the night.  Still wrapped in mylar foil, her head covered with a white knit cap,  warm fluid circulating through the pad under her, Michelle slept.  As far as anyone else was concerned,  that is all she would ever do.  It wasn't fair.  Sam combed her thick, brown hair with fingers that trembled with anguish and rage. 

They had given up. All of them.  The nurses, the social worker, Granger, that cold bitch who figured the truth was best served straight up.  She hadn't been back in more than an hour, almost two by his watch.  Did she know what it was like?  Watching your child sleep and knowing they would never wake up?  Not a fucking chance.  No way she had kids of her own if she could look you in the eye and strip away your hope, steal her life out of your hands like some white-coated demon.

Sam sat back in his chair, let the darkness surround him.  More than twenty hours had passed since Ralph Simpson from up the street had come careening into his driveway shouting about Michelle and the lake.  He hadn't eaten, and felt no urge to.  His stomach was a bitter, bile-ridden knot.  Anything he ate, he'd most likely puke back up anyway.  He hadn't slept and again, felt no need to.  Sleep would only bring him a comfort and escape he couldn't afford right now. His little peach needed her daddy, so here he would sit until his body could sit no more.  “You shouldn't be alone,” the social worker had said.  He wasn't alone.  Somewhere close-by, a cage door rattled in the dark, and a shadowy, bitter animal raged at a world that could be so cruel as to steal a father's only child.  It's lips pulled back in a snarl, this animal was hungry.

***

At some point, his body's need for sleep must have won out.  Still, it wasn't the escape Sam had hoped. His eyes shot open at some unknown sound; the rustle of fabric perhaps, a nervous breath? His first sight was of Michelle's face, turned serenely toward him, trapped in a fairy tale slumber no prince would ever penetrate.  He thought to reach out to her, caress her cheek perhaps, the way he would often do when checking in on her in the night.  Gently, lovingly, so as not to wake her.  The secretive and selfish act of a man desperate to confirm that, for the moment at least, he was not alone.

A tall, lithe shadow looming over his daughter's bed caught him short.  A hand, thin fingered and feminine, stroked a stray lock of hair off Michelle's forehead.  Thin, perfect lips bent close to her ear and whispered some soft comfort.  Perhaps he was dreaming?  Dreaming that some fairy queen had broken the bonds of her fabled story to bring succor, and healing to his precious,  ill-fated princess.

As Sam watched, the shadowy wraith carefully turned his daughter's head to face her then drew her lips from Michelle's ear, to hover, gently, almost seductively over her face. Obscured by the sharp shadows thrown by hall lights within and street lights without, the shift of sharp cheekbones turning up ever so slightly created the impression that she was smiling.

Sam heard her breathing next, about the same time he began to wonder if this were a dream after-all.  He did feel quite a bit more conscious than he would have expected.  He was aware of other sounds down the hall, soft whispering of nurses, muffled beeps of monitors from various rooms, and the breathing of this woman leaning so closely over his daughter.  Deep, rhythmic, almost passionate, as though his little girl were emanating some rich perfume and this woman wanted to drink it up before the scent had a chance to fade.

In one narrow beam of light that shone, hesitant and wary, through the blinds and over Michelle's bed, Sam could see what appeared to be a faint mist begin to form in the small patch of air between his princess and her fairy queen.  The queen moaned ever so slightly in the back of her throat and her breathing quickened, sounding for all the world as though she were trying to gulp in the vapor as it continued to coalesce.

A brief, hesitant movement caught his eye beneath the blankets and from there, things began to move very fast.

Her arm, it was her arm.  As his eye locked on the blankets, they moved again, confirming what he'd first believed,  Michelle was moving.  Now her legs began to twitch and her head tried to turn, though  the shadow woman still held it in place.

One of her arms tried to move up and push at the woman over her.

The woman shot out her own arm to pin her down across the chest.

Michelle turned her head.

The shade grabbed her hair and yanked it back.

Sam saw the glint of a stethoscope.  Stood suddenly. Shouted “Hey!” and dove for Dr. Granger.  He managed to get within inches of the doctor, “What the he--?” he started to demand before the arm pining his girl to the bed shot out and hammered into his chest sending him flailing and tumbling across the room.

“Daddy!” Michelle cried out. She actually cried out! She was struggling, kicking weakly. All the while the shadowy woman whom Sam now knew to be his daughter's pediatrician grunted and moaned and gasped and gulped at the light mist that rose from his daughter's mouth and nose.

Monitors began to bleep and warning lights on the myriad of machines began to flash.  Michelle's struggles softened, grew weaker as Sam picked himself off the floor  and threw himself across the room “Get away from her!”, he shouted, meaning to do his best to tackle the doctor to the ground.

Lights flashed on, momentarily blinding him.  Strong arms grabbed him mid-flight and wrenched him back down to the ground.  A swarm of nurses, and more equipment filled the room.

“She's in arrest.  Prep the cart, start CPR.”  Granger stood at Michelle's bedside,  holding her wrist in one hand, while her chart lay tossed to the foot of the bed looking for all the world like a doctor once again, coolly and efficiently directing the actions of the crash team that swarmed to his daughter's bedside.

Sam continued to struggle against the orderly who had grasped him from behind.  “What did you do you bitch?!” he snarled.  “She did something, she sucked something out of my little girl!  What did you do!?”

Granger was oblivious as she tore open Michelle's  gown and placed the paddles on her tiny chest “Clear!” A brief click and low thump were the only indicators that she had done anything,  but Michelle's limp body suddenly tensed and relaxed.  No arm flailing, no crying out,  no moaning for help.  She just lay as she had for the last twenty hours, only now, she was dying.

Granger watched the monitor for just a few seconds before clearing and and shocking his little girl again. Nothing.  The words being spoken began to echo in Sam's head as though he were hearing them from the bottom of some deep and dark mine shaft.  Lips were moving, nurses were nodding.  Someone emptied a syringe into Michelle's I.V. line and then they shocked her again.  Granger leaned over her and pressed her stethoscope to her motionless chest.

“Get your hands off of her!” Sam screamed and lunged forward.  The sudden movement surprised the orderly and he tore from the man's grasp, managed to dive three, maybe four feet towards the bed with his hands stretched out in gnarled claws, hoping to close them in a death grip around that murdering bitch's throat.

Instead, he felt the air whoosh out of him as the orderly, whose youth allowed him to recover from Sam's escape attempt in seconds, landed directly on top of him, pining him to the ground.  Granger glared at him from her place by his daughter's side, “Somebody please sedate him before he hurts himself!”  She turned back to Michelle then and the rest of the crash team closed in around her, still working frantically to revive the broken girl.

“Murderer!” Sam screamed.  “She's a murderer.  She did something.  I saw her. She did something to my baby!”  Sam felt a sharp prick in the back of his thigh. One more brief conversation reached his ears.  As short as it was, the words seemed to hang in the air an eternity;

“Doctor, that's it.  We've -”

“I know. I'm calling it...”

Then darkness carried him away.

***

Light pierced his skull like a lance as he cracked his eyes open.  Most of the room was cloaked in darkness, but a stray band of streetlight managed to peak through the shades and was splashed across his face.  He was squinting up at the tiled ceiling of a hospital room.  The tile directly above his bed had been painted. A single tree stood within a green field while a swarm of butterflies capered around it.  A scene of light and hope during the day, shadowed as it was by the current darkness of night, it disgusted him, made his stomach churn.

“Ah Mr. Hanson, you're awake.” The soft, cool voice of Dr. Granger greeted his rousing. “You caused quite a stir, but I suppose that is to be expected. How are you feeling?”  Her sharp-featured visage hovered over him, her dark hair framing her face like a cowl.

Rage and confusion welled up side-by-side within him.  Sam tried to form words, demand an explanation, shout an accusation.  His lips refused to cooperate.  Muffled gibberish was the best he could do.  He thought to grab her by the throat, choke the life our of her, the life he watched her steal from Michelle. 

Or did he?  Was he certain? He ran through the series of images again and again. Sleeping, then awake, a shadow over her bed.  He saw...he saw...something.  An evil shade sucking the life out of his immobilized little girl?  His child's doctor checking on her condition before heading home for the night?  Silent stalking to hide her crime?  Respectful, and care-filled quiet so as not to wake a harried, and emotionally spent father?

Could rage and anguish so alter his perceptions?  Could those dark seeds of despair so cloud his vision as to turn innocent care giving into something sinister and fantastical?

“Don't try to talk Mr. Hanson.  The sedative we gave you won't wear off for a few hours yet.”  Her smile was soft, sympathetic. Her hand clasped his in a gesture of comfort and concern. “I know this is a very difficult time for you.  You've lost someone very precious to you.  You feel robbed, scared, angry.  Those are all very normal emotions.” Granger's tone was soft, soothing. In the shadows that encased his bed, he could almost imagine the care and concern reflected in her eyes.

“You feel hurt.  Pain.  A pain so deep, that you can't imagine life without it.  Like a knife, twisting eternally in your belly.  Your wife gone, your daughter gone.  Alone. You're so dreadfully, horribly alone.  It pierces your soul. It cries out for release and you feel as though release will never come.”  Her words rose and fell in time with his breathing.  Her voice soft, smooth, haunting. Granger had moved back into the light so that he could see the sympathetic smile on her thin lips.  Her eyes shone.  “It doesn't have to be like that forever.  Pain, forever. Sadness, forever.  Loneliness, forever.”  Her eyes swam over him, a swirling mist collected in their depths.  What color were they again?  Blue? Green? Grey?  He watched as they grew closer to him. He could hear her breathing, slow and deep,  rhythmic.  His body responded to her proximity.  A calm, peaceful sensation swept over him.  His own breathing began to fall in with the doctor's and the comfort and peace it brought him was indescribable.  “You don't have to be alone Sam. Michelle needs you.”  She breathed.

The swirling mist of her eyes parted and in their depths he saw a face.  Long, brown curls danced around her cherubic cheeks.  She was far off yet, but her could see his Michelle already smiling.  Her lips moved and Sam knew she was calling to him, beckoning him to join her.  Granger panted over him and his body responded in syncopated rhythm.  His head was clasped between smooth, long-fingered hands.  Her grip was firm, her lips, shocking red in the dull, shadowed light, hovered inches from his face.  As they breathed together, Sam could feel a tingling lightness in his fingers and toes, a not unpleasant sensation of movement like a thousand butterflies fluttering along his limbs, gathering a moment in his chest, before coalescing in a fine, silvered mist in the air between Granger and himself.

She began to moan then, low and deep in the back of her throat.  Sam felt a pulling from deep inside.  A thousand butterflies turned into a thousand knives. He was being torn.  Ripped from the inside out. If he'd been able,  Sam would have screamed.

But the time for screaming had passed.

END