Service Not Available (Part 1)

Service Not Available

The waiter refilled my wineglass for the third time, and I tried not to look at my watch. My wife Karen was late, which was no surprise, except that over half an hour had passed since our reservation. That was unusual. As a nurse, her hours were long and rarely synchronized with mine, but we had planned this night out all week. It had been too long since I had taken her out to dinner. I knew that. She and I had become distant over the past few years, ever since I quit my medical research job at Mican. She didn’t understand why I would leave the job I loved, the salary that allowed us a comfortable lifestyle, a big house, and the prospect of having kids, for a crappy entry-level position in the marketing department. She didn’t understand, and I couldn’t tell her why. She was pregnant at the time.

I took a sip of wine, my eyes peering over the glass to search the restaurant, as if I could find her hiding behind one of the five-foot tall plants in the corner, or peeking out at me from underneath one of the linen tablecloths like a child playing hide-and-seek. Pretending this was a game, and that I wasn’t worried.

My new income wasn’t enough to support us alone. After five years, no raise in pay – my halfhearted performance didn’t merit a raise, I had to admit to myself. Karen had been planning to quit her nursing job so that she could stay at home with the baby. She had only learned a month ago that she was pregnant, when I told her I was quitting. With my new salary, we could still afford the car payments, the bills, the mortgage, but not a baby. I tried to deny that, but she knew. We had been ready, but now we weren’t.

She made the choice without asking me. I would have made it work. It was more of an act of defiance, to prove a point, to get back at me for throwing our life into upheaval. At least, that was what I felt she was doing.

I wanted to keep it.

Glancing around the restaurant, lost in thought, my eyes caught the gaze of a man sitting at a table across the room. His head was bald, but a thick black mustache hid his upper lip. He was dressed in an expensive-looking business suit, but the clothes were wrinkled and he was missing a tie. The man appeared to be dining alone, if he was dining at all – a cocktail glass of amber liquid and floating ice cubes sat before him, but no plates and no menus.

I nodded politely and continued looking around the restaurant, but I could feel his gaze locked on me. I glanced over surreptitiously, and he was indeed still looking. Staring. I didn’t recognize him, and I didn’t see any cause for the attention as I glanced uncomfortably at the menu in front of me, pretending to read. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him watch me, feeling uneasy.

“Sir, would you like to order an appetizer while you wait for the lady?” the waiter asked me, sounding pushy despite his polite tone.

I declined and stood from my chair. I had to get out of the lone man’s sight. He was agitating my already frayed nerves as I wondered where my wife was. Digging my cell phone out of my pocket, I stepped out the front door to the restaurant back into the needling January cold. Punching Karen’s cell number, I watched the couples on the sidewalk, holding hands and walking slowly, the ladies laughing and tossing their hair, the men smiling and looking pleased with themselves. It was like I had walked in on a photoshoot for the cover of a Sears catalogue by accident.

There was no ring, rather an apologetic chime from the phone in my hand. I looked down. “Service not available.”

I frowned. My signal was strong, and I knew the battery was charged. I tried again and got the same message and the same chime, which was starting to sound less like an apology and more like a mockery. “Service not available.”

I pocketed the phone and tried to ignore paranoia crawling up my throat like some slimy rodent, clawing frantically and trying to escape.


My head hurts and there is a sour taste in my mouth that makes me gag. I don’t know how much time has passed since I felt a strong arm grab me from behind, clamping a large hand and an antiseptic-smelling rag over my nose and mouth. I carry pepper spray but it didn’t do me any good – I dropped my purse in fright. I struggled. I tried to scream. I managed to kick him before my limbs grew heavy, digging my stiletto heel into his shin. My eyes fell shut, even though I tried to keep them open. Now all I can feel is the pounding in my head and the coldness on my skin, the hard floor beneath me. I can’t see – it’s too dark. I know I’ve awakened and fallen unconscious again – you can’t call this sleep – but I can’t count how many times. There’s a man’s voice coming from the other room, gruff and impatient, but I can’t concentrate enough to hear what he’s saying. Purple dots begin to appear, bleeding into each other, and I fall back into this unsleep.


Back in the restaurant, I returned to my table, keeping my eyes on the ground so as to avoid the man staring at me. The menus had been taken off the table, the wineglasses cleared. Clearly, they have no use for a single man who’s going to nurse a $20 bottle of shiraz by himself for the night.

“May I have my check?” I asked my waiter as he tried to hurry past.

“It’s already been taken care of, sir. The gentleman over there picked it up,” he nodded towards the table where the staring man had been sitting, and I noticed for the first time that he had left.

“Did he pay with a credit card? I’d like to get his name so I can thank him,” I inquired.

“No, he paid in cash. Very nice man. He said he knew your wife,” the waiter smiled and angled past me, disappearing into the kitchen before I could regain my ability to speak. He said he knew your wife.

I turned back to the exit, my head reeling. Was he telling me something? How did the staring man leave without me seeing him? I was standing right at the only door to the restaurant when I tried to make my phone call. I should have seen him.

“Excuse me, sir?” the young hostess called to me. “Here’s your cell phone. The busboy cleared it from the table by accident.”

I looked at the device she was holding out towards me. “No, I’m sorry, that’s not mine.”

“Were you sitting at that table?” she asked, pointing to the spot where I had been sitting. “It was sitting on that table.”

I took the phone from her hand. The sleek black device looked sinister somehow, ominous. Karen always used to complain about cell phones causing a breakdown in human interaction, and hated when I’d answer the phone while I was with her, even if it was a business call.

Outside, I jogged to my car, wanting to run but feeling too self-conscious. The silver Mercedes beeped, the lights flickering, as I unlocked it and got in. For a moment I sat, alternately worrying and scolding myself for being melodramatic. Karen probably got hung up at the hospital, or had some car trouble. The man at the other table was probably a doctor, and was staring at me to determine whether or not he recognized me. A lack of social skills isn’t a crime. And the phone… Another customer probably set it down for some reason, and the busboy took it off the table before he could retrieve it. I shouldn’t have taken it. In fact, I was going to go back and give it back to the hostess.

As I reached for the door handle, my cell phone rang, the same generic ring that every cell has. I snatched it from my pocket and flipped it open, praying I would hear a woman’s voice apologizing for being late, I got caught up with this patient and then I couldn’t find my car keys and I had to talk to Dr. Hazel about the man in room 113…

No voice came from the phone, and the ringing continued. I looked at the one sitting on the seat next to me, the one I had taken from the restaurant. The display was lit, a cheery blue, the words “UNKNOWN” in all capitals across the screen. I picked it up, flipped it open, and put it to my ear. A voice came through, familiar and terrifying.

“Hello Dr. Foster. It’s been awhile.”


There are two men now, helping each other life me from the backseat of this car and setting me into a wheelchair. I’m wearing some sort of pajamas, a pair that isn’t mine and still feel scratchy and new. My neck can’t hold my head upright, and my chin sags to my chest, pointing my face at my lap. I try to roll my eyes upward so that I can see what’s in front of me, but it takes too much effort. The men push the wheelchair forward over the sidewalk – clean sidewalk, probably swept often, I note. Neither of them are speaking. Two doors slide open with a hiss, and the sidewalk becomes a grey mat like at the entrance to buildings, and then switches to white square-foot tiles that reflect the lights overhead and hurt my eyes. I can’t see anything but the floor, but I don’t have to. I recognize the smell as one I’m closely familiar with. I’m in a hospital.


“Dr. Haden?” I knew the answer before I asked.

“Yes, it’s me. Heartwarming that you still remember my voice.”


“What is this? Where’s Karen?”

“She’s being cared for, I promise. How’s the new job treating you?”

His voice was so jovial, so normal. Just the way it had always been, all those years ago. He used to clap me on the shoulder – young and inexperienced as I was, his approval meant everything to me – and tell the other doctors in the facility that I was the only person he’d trust with his secrets. I used to eat dinner with him and his wife, on the back porch of his house, watching his kids kick a soccer ball around the yard. He treated me like a younger brother, one that he was proud of.

Oh, how times do change.

“I want to know where my wife is,” I said through clenched teeth, trying to keep my voice steady.

“Sorry, David, can’t tell you that. Not yet. All I can promise is that we have no plans to hurt her in any way. We just needed to get your attention.”

“You have it,” I replied, trying to sound macho and James Bond but instead sounding desperate and pleading. “Where are you?”

“I’m at your house,” he replied, as if surprised that I hadn’t guessed already. “You have a lovely kitchen, by the way. Although I’m not fond of the wallpaper. Really, David, ducks? Couldn’t you do better than that?”

He had let himself into my house. Fair’s fair, I guessed, remembering how I’d let myself into his office years ago, shortly before I tried to quit. Before I learned the names to people I had never known, people who still appeared in my nightmares even though I never saw their faces.

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” I hung up without waiting for a reply and threw the Mercedes in reverse.

They haven’t run any blood tests on me, even though I’m obviously drugged. Propped up in the bed, I can see faces, but I can’t make out features. My vision is fogged up, as if someone tried to wipe away the condensation on a car’s windshield but only made the problem worse. Someone will recognize me, I tell myself – I know all the doctors in the city. Eventually, someone will see me and wonder what has happened to me. I feel snot running from my nose, snot and probably some blood, given the way my nostrils still burn. I run the night through my head, trying to keep myself awake and to keep the details fresh. I had finished my shift and changed into a cocktail dress and heels. I brushed my hair until it was glossy. I put on red lipstick. I was walking to my car, a little apprehensive about the evening ahead. Whenever David tried to be romantic recently, it felt staged, forced. . I thought of all of this, and didn’t hear footprints behind me. Wasn’t paying attention. Wasn’t being cautious.

A nurse comes into the room, brisk and businesslike, not looking at my face. I open my mouth and try to say something, but all that escapes my parched throat is a whisper, a breath. She pokes a needle into my arm. I try to swat it away, but my arms won’t respond. A sting, an injection, and I feel that dark, thoughtless unsleep slithering into the corners of my consciousness, tendrils unfurling and wrapping around me until it enveloped me in blackness once again.