Pulse

Pulse
By Brandi Vincent


Kelly knew it was going to be one of those days. She’d felt it coming on the day before, but dismissed it; it only felt like a little sinus headache. She’d taken some allergy medication and went to bed like normal, never thinking the next day, (Monday of course) was going to be “The day from Hell.”

The first thing she noticed, on that unbelievable Monday, was the fact that the alarm clock woke here with a deejay screaming about a local car sale. “That’s right folks, at Billy-Bob’s used cars Billy’s gonna treat you right, I gawrontee...” he said in a horrible Cajun accent. She slammed her fist down on the snooze bar to shut him up, instead advancing the hour by 3.

Frustrated, Kelly yanked the cord out of the wall. Finally the deejay shut up. She took a deep breath and noticed an ungodly pounding at her temples. Oh shit, she thought, groping around on her nightstand for her muscle relaxers. She fumbled against the bottle and snatched it before it could hit the floor and opened the top, her eyes tightly closed against the pulsing of her skull. She fought down a wave of nausea as she realized the bottle was empty, the prescription run out.

Whimpering, she rolled carefully off the side of the bed, wincing and cringing in agony as her scalp tightened from the goose bumps that prickled her body as her bare feet hit the cold, wooden floor. Oh geez, please God…don’t tell me I’m out of my migraine stuff too, she thought as she opened a wary eye in the dark bathroom and saw an empty pill bottle next to her contact lens case. She thought briefly about calling in the prescription again, but the thought of listening to the phone blare into her already aching head was too much to bear. She knelt in front of the toilet as the nausea hit again, dry heaves sending her into spasms of agony as her head demanded that she quit making things worse and just die already.

She crawled back to the bedroom where her cat, Merlin, lay snoozing on her bedroom slippers. Holding her head to gentle any sudden footsteps, she moved the cat with one foot, eliciting an outraged grumble from the large black Persian. “Shut up!” she hissed at the obese cat and he turned, proffering his tail as he sauntered out to the kitchen. She sat on the edge of the bed, slipping her feet into the warm slippers with a sigh of relief. She had one more spot to check for a hidden stash to ease her pain.

She slid out to the living room slowly, not lifting her feet for fear her head would explode from such a maneuver. Her slippers making a shhing sound on the floor, she skated to the sofa where she spied her purse through slitted eyes, leaned against the arm where she’d tossed it the night before. She sighed a gusty sigh of relief and reached in to find…nothing.
Her eyes widened, her headache momentarily forgotten. What the hell? I know there was a bottle in here damnit she thought as she fumbled through the large satchel in vain, dumping lipsticks, gum wrappers and change onto the floor in her haste to find the missing bottle. She still couldn’t find the damn thing, but the headache seemed to have eased momentarily. She opened her eyes completely and blinked a few times. While my head’s stopped pounding, I better call Dr. Craig and get that prescription filled. Can’t miss work today the thoughts tumbled randomly through her aching skull.

She walked into the kitchen and noticed the cat was not at his usual spot in front of his food dish. Curiously, she called to the little monster in a quiet voice, ever mindful of the pounding that lurked behind her eyes, just waiting for an excuse to come back en force. “Merlin, you little creep…get in here so I can feed you. Fat old thing,” she called, looking around the table and under the chairs for the missing feline. Well fine then, he can starve she thought to herself and picked up the phone, dialing her doctor’s number from memory.

“I’m sorry Miss McClure, Dr. Craig isn’t in today.” The receptionist told her in a polite, antiseptic voice. “Well doesn’t he have someone covering for him while he’s out?” Kelly asked, growing irritated. “No ma’am, we are a small practice you know. Dr. Craig is allowed to take a day off every now and then…” the receptionist told her in acidic tones. “Look, I don’t know if you’ve ever had a migraine before but I MUST get something for this pain” Kelly told the woman, impatience turning to worry as she started to realize that this woman was not going to get her prescription filled for her. “Well, Miss McClure, I have had headaches before. I understand what you are going through..” The woman almost sounded sincere in her tone, but Kelly was beyond sympathy. “Hush for a minute…let me tell you something. Your headache cannot possibly feel this bad, no matter what caused it” Kelly hissed into the receiver. “Imagine a thousand little monsters, inside your skull, trying to pound their way out with bloody sledgehammers!”

The receptionist started to talk again, but Kelly cut her off abruptly by slamming down the phone. Oh hell, here we go again, Kelly thought as she felt the little demons start pounding after their coffee break. She could almost hear their little voices singing a mining chantey in her head, the voices mingled to cause a blinding white noise that screeched in her skull; a television on a snow channel at full volume. She staggered toward the kitchen table with her eyes closed. The table, a glass-topped affair with brass legs she’d gotten from a yard sale, was her favorite piece of furniture.

Suddenly Merlin decided to put in an appearance, twining himself around her ankles. She stumbled and fell against the table, her slippered feet finding no purchase on the gray marbled floor. She struck the table with her face, hearing from a distance the glass shattering. Abruptly the pain in her head ceased and she opened her eyes to find herself staring down at her limp body in the midst of the broken glass. Shit that’s gonna be expensive to replace she thought and then her mind came screeching to a halt. Wait a minute; what the hell was she doing looking at herself? She peered closer at herself in the mass of blood and shards of glass. Her eyesight was dimming as she noticed a few tiny figures crawling about her head. They were ugly little critters, covered in her blood and standing only centimeters tall. I knew it was Kelly’s last thought as she faded into nothing.

“Bill, we have a DOA at the apartment building on the corner of Ash and 5th street” the call came for Bill Wiggins, paramedic, over the C.B. “Gotcha Helene, I’m on my way” He put the mike back on the radio and turned on the flashing lights, but no siren. The siren was only necessary if he had someone that MIGHT benefit from getting to the hospital faster, not for someone that has no hope of recovery. His partner, a large black man affectionately known by the staff as Cadillac, sighed and adjusted his bulk more comfortably in the passenger seat. “Wonder what the hell it was this time?” he said out loud, more to himself than for Bill’s benefit. Bill answered by pulling into the apartment building’s front driveway, parking right under the eaves.

The two men got out, opening the back and grabbing the gurney. The manager, a small, profusely sweating bald man in faded jeans and an oversized sweatshirt stood mopping his brow at the entrance. “Room 207 guys...Miss Kelly McClure. She’s pretty bad…” his reedy voice wavering off into silence as the paramedics went to the elevator. The doors closed as the manager paced at the front entrance.

The elevator stopped and the two men got out, the gurney between them, rolling along on squeaky wheels that had seen too much action. They stopped at the half open apartment door, the damage clearly visible through the opening. Blood and hair mingled with the shattered table. A large black fluffy cat sat next to the body’s feet, the tailed flicking back and forth. “Cool cat, eh Caddy? Wonder what it thinks it’s going to accomplish by sittin there?” Bill snorted, shooing the animal away so he could get to the body. He grabbed the ankles, as Caddy reached the woman’s head, or what was left of it among the debris. They lifted simultaneously, their white shirts being splattered by the blood that dripped from the lifeless body between them. Slipping her carefully into a body bag, they strapped her down, covering the black plastic with a sheet and wheeled her out. Caddy nudged the apartment door open further with his foot and the cat ran out , darting down the stairs at the far end of the hallway. “That thing didn’t stick around long, eh?” Bill said as they wheeled the rickety gurney onto the elevator.

Small prints mingled with the glass and body fluids in the living room. They led to the cat’s water dish, where three small figures were clustered. To the side of the dish, a small bottle marked with Kelly’s prescription lay on its side, the cap pried off and the cotton shredded. The last two pills lay on the floor, being slowly mashed to powder by two other tiny figures. The figures chuckled as the job was completed, the powder scraped up and thrown in the water dish. They collected their tiny sledgehammers and scampered over to the apartment door, peering into the hallway to make sure it was empty and then ran off to the open window at the end.

In the apartment next door, an old lady sat rocking by her window, wondering when Kelly’s television had been turned on, the sounds of evil chuckles floating through her open window. “Darn cartoons,” the woman muttered as she sat quietly knitting.