Page 42 of Spooked
It's hard to ground myself as my head spins. It doesn’t help when the nurse turns her attention back to me, shining a light into my eyes, making me flinch. Then, stepping back, she grins reassuringly. “All seems good, Ms. Sullivan. The doctor will be in to see you shortly.”
Is it wrong that my focus isn’t on my health, but on the experience I’d just been living? If it was only a dream, it’s the most powerful one I’ve ever had in my life. I can’t imagine why I remember it so well and so clearly, in technicolour as well. I recall smells, feelings, sounds, as well as sight.
Common sense tells me I’m here in the hospital, and that I’ve never left. Maybe the drugs they’ve been giving me have had mehallucinating. I’ve not been anywhere, except in my head. I’m vaguely impressed at how my brain can manufacture situations and people in such detail.
These are the facts. A dream drove me to want to visit the home where I spent most of my teenage years, a desire so imperative I couldn’t ignore it. On the way to Tucson, my car was totaled. I’m lucky to be alive. It’s probably the morphine I’ve been given that has caused these vivid imaginings. I’ll just have to get the medical staff to back off the painkillers, then maybe my brain will come to rights.
Or give me more.If under the drug’s influence, I conjured up someone like Hound, who makes my body come alive and sing, why wouldn’t I want to go back there again? Though didn’t I meet him in real life when he visited me in hospital? Or was even that a dream? I don’t know what’s truth or fiction, but oh, how real those emeralds had felt in my hands. Maybe once I’m out of here, I’ll see if I can turn my hand to writing fiction. My brain obviously knows how to summon up stories.
Resting my head back on the pillows, I try to relive my dream once again. Unlike so many others, I can recall every detail. How Hound came to the hospital, along with his Native American friend. How he’d saved me, not once, but twice, and how I disappeared when we were just getting to the good part, even if it was in a rapidly disintegrating house. My face flushes as I remember his touch.It was all too real.
But it can’t be. I’m sure the nurses would have noticed if I’d been walkabout. I didn’t meet ghosts, watch spirits kill my despicable aunt—while what happened was all in my head, that there was another will she’d been trying to find or ultimately destroy does explain a lot. I wouldn’t put that past her.
My thoughts are interrupted as a man in a stereotypical white coat appears, stethoscope hanging around his neck—a thoroughly useless bit of kit now, as the machines I’m hooked upto give him all that information without a need to get close. He’s wearing a serious expression.
“Ms. Sullivan,” he begins, his eyes narrowing as he gets a closer look at me, then up at the statistics on the screen display. “Your heart went into atrial fibrillation. We needed to perform a cardioversion to get it back into normal rhythm.”
While that sounds serious, I’m here, I’m breathing, and I actually feel better than I have for days. I no longer feel sleepy, and I no longer have that persistent throbbing in my head. There’s only one thing I want to know now. “When can I be discharged?”
His brow furrows. “I don’t think you understand. The injuries caused by the crash shouldn’t have affected your heart. You need to stay while we run tests and find out the underlying causes. I can’t in all good faith discharge you. If you hadn’t been here and able to immediately receive our care, you would have been in trouble.”
Now more compos mentis than I’ve been since I first awoke, practical worries start going around my head at the mention of tests. A long hospital stay is sure to be expensive, and I can only hope the driver who crashed into me was insured so I can recoup the expenses of the injuries he caused. The costs of investigating a hitherto unknown heart disease are surely going to be far more than I can afford. I have health insurance via my job, but even so, my co-pay is ridiculous. Ifeelfine. Better than I did before I passed out for the second time.
Hey, look at me. Even with the stress of dealing with the doctor’s words and my worries about being able to afford them, there have hardly been any spikes in my blood pressure. Nor much of a rise in my heart rate.I can read a monitor as well as anyone.Not feeling at death’s door, I fix my eyes on the doctor. “I want to leave. I’ll accept it’s against medical advice.”
A deep sigh suggests he’s been here before, and his eyes soften with what I interpret as sympathy. “I can’t force you to stay, but I strongly advise it.”
I throw him a bone. “I’ll see my own doctor when I get home.”
His jaw clenches. “If you have a heart attack, you might not survive.”
I may be crazy,but due to my detailed dreams, that's probably true; however,I feel completely normal. “Nevertheless, I want to go home.” There’s my work, for one thing. I haven’t been able to contact them up to now. All they know is that I took a week’s leave and disappeared off the face of the earth.Have I even got a job anymore?I bite my lip as that thought adds more impetus to my wanting to leave.
He flinches. “You’ll have to sign a document, agreeing you discharged yourself against medical advice.” After I jut out my chin, my agreement obvious in my stance, he despairingly adds, “Just tell me you have someone accompanying you wherever you go. Who will be there to monitor and look after you, and get you medical attention the moment there appears to be something wrong?”
I hate lying, but sometimes situations call for the truth to be blurred just a bit. I summon the words, open my mouth to reassure him I won’t be alone when another voice answers for me.
“I’ll be taking care of her.”
Just as I’d accepted that my dreams had been just that, the deep tones of the man whom I shouldn’t know cause my head to swing round. “Hound?” I gasp, drawing in air sharply. “You’re real?”It can’t be, can it? I can’t be faced with the man who literally is right out of my dreams.
His very solid-looking grin speaks volumes, along with his words. “In the flesh.” He steps forward, taking hold of my hand,squeezing my fingers reassuringly. “I’ve got you, Maeve.” His dark eyes focus on mine, deep meaning flooding out of them. “I’vealwaysgot you.” While his serious expression doesn’t change, he winks at me. “You know I’ll give you anything. I’ll shower you inemeraldsif that’s what you desire.” His brow rises.
My heart literally skips a beat, as evidenced by that damn monitoring machine, and my mouth gapes open as I stare at him. Giving an awkward glance toward the doctor, I see that he’s stepped back a pace, eyes on my chart as if giving my visitor some space. I want to ask if he, too, can see Hound, but can’t force out the words. If he didn’t want me to leave the hospital, he’s hardly going to be more encouraged if I admit I’m seeing people who aren’t there.
As if cognisant of my confusion, Hound leans closer, speaking softly into my ear. “I don’t understand it myself, but if you dreamed you were in the Sullivan House, then I was right there with you. And in my pocket, I’ve got the emeralds that belong to you, and the will that names you as the owner of the house…” he shrugs wryly. “Or at least, the land on which it once stood.”
Then he stands back, as though waiting for my reaction.
Where the house once stood?I don’t disappoint him. “It’s gone?”
Again, he lifts then lowers his shoulders. “I think so. Or, at least, that’s what I saw. Fuckin’ place demolished itself.”
Is it wrong that I don’t care if what he says is true? Visiting the Sullivan House was the sole reason I came to Tucson, or was it? Maybe it was to find something else. Answers to questions that plagued my life.
A cough reminds us that the doctor is still here. “Ms. Sullivan, I’d like to request that your friend step out so I can talk to you privately.”
My heart leaps.He can see him.As Hound gives me a wry look before turning to go, I grab for his hand, not wanting to take the chance of him disappearing again.
