Trauma

CHAPTER 20

The badge dangling from a red lanyard identified the nurse as Lee Taggart. He wore crisply pressed white scrubs and unblemished matching canvas sneakers that carried him down the long hallway at a brisk pace. He stopped in front of Marianne’s workstation and leaned forward, hoping to catch her eye.

“Reading anything good?”

Lee’s warm voice drew Marianne’s attention. When she looked up, he flashed her a brilliant smile. Marianne smiled back. Lee had an athletic body and smooth ebony skin, and was not unaccustomed to flattering looks. He had never met Marianne before, but that was not so unusual here. Staff seemed to change as often as shifts, and Marianne would need only to see the red lanyard and white uniform to believe he was a staff nurse.

Marianne glanced down at the cover of her book, which featured a bare-chested Adonis riding a stallion with a scantily clad buxom woman clutched in his massive arms. She laughed flirtatiously.

“Oh, just something to pass the time,” she said, embarrassed enough to cover the book jacket with a clipboard.

The look in Lee’s brown eyes turned conspiratorial. “Another slow night, eh?” he said.

He knew it had not been slow in the least. Everything that could have gone wrong with Abington had gone wrong.

“I prefer that to the alternative,” Marianne said as she glanced at one of the dark monitors and caught a glimpse of her reflection within. She noticed her hair was a bit tousled, which she promptly corrected, using her hand as a comb.

“Well, I got assigned to Dr. Goodwin’s staff tonight,” Lee said. “Just got to go in and check on the patient. He’s in four, right?”

“That’s right. He’s in four.”

Marianne was having a heck of a time keeping her eyes off this new nurse. She was also struggling with Tinder, and every other dating site where she’d posted a profile. The VA offered slim pickings when it came to the opposite sex, so she was enjoying this pleasant surprise to the fullest.

Before Lee headed off to room four, Marianne checked Abington’s vitals in the only active monitor. His heart and pulse were optimal, but the patient had been in a blissful haloperidol stupor for the past couple of hours, with not a peep since his earlier outburst. She had been told to be extra vigilant for any Q-T prolongation or incidence of arrhythmia, but so far he and the drug were working well together.

Dr. Bryant had ordered ten milligrams of diazepam IV after Abington went crazy, and Marianne had bolted from her chair and gotten the syringe promptly. Within a few minutes, the patient was relaxed again, and his eyes closed.

“Looks like he didn’t need too much on top of that residual anesthesia,” Dr. Bryant had said.

Having had enough excitement for one night, Marianne had been satisfied with that explanation, but Dr. Bryant still looked perplexed.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” she had said. “It’s like he was hallucinating. Hearing voices, the same phrase over and over again. He repeated what I said, and then he answered my question multiple times. I only said it once, but somehow it never stopped for him.”

Marianne was not concerned. “They’re all agitated in some way,” she said, not sharing Carrie’s concern. “It’s not unusual for them to get extra sedation. The residents are used to it and they’re trained for it, so I can see why it was a shock to you.”

Marianne’s words did not seem to have much impact on the new DBS surgeon.

Dr. Bryant wrote a prn sedative order, administer as needed. She told Marianne to call if there was a problem, and to give the phone number to her relief at the eleven o’clock shift change. Sam Rockwell used to do the same. Marianne had looked in on Abington twice since then. He seemed a bit restless, his limbs moving involuntarily, shaking, but those were common side effects of the sedative.

“He’s been a handful, that’s for sure,” Marianne said to Nurse Taggart. “Very agitated. Not sure what’s going on with him.”

“Well, that’s why I’m here to check up on things.”

“If he starts to give you trouble, you just holler,” Marianne said.

“I sure will,” Lee replied, “but I’m pretty good at handling most any situation on my own.” With a wink, Lee headed to Abington’s room.

Marianne focused her gaze on his well-defined backside as he walked away.

I bet you are. She smiled and went back to her book.

Relentless heat bathed the back of Abington’s neck, and sandy grit somehow wormed underneath his eyelids to scratch at his corneas. Place? Time? Where was he? What had happened? Somewhere off in the distance, Abington heard the thunderous roll of artillery shells detonating as the ground beneath him rumbled and shook with each massive blast. He felt around for his weapon, but his arms responded spastically like they had a mind of their own.

One of Abington’s pawing hands felt something made of steel. He clutched his M16 and pulled the weapon close to him. He managed to get onto his hands and knees, but each breath came at a price. Something was wrong. Something was horribly wrong with him.

The air parted as bullets whizzed overhead. Abington forced open his eyes and blinked in response to the oppressive sunlight. When his vision cleared, he saw he was still in Afghanistan. Again, he was back where it all began, inside the foxhole, and Roach was with him just as before. Only now the indestructible Roach had had his guts ripped open by a peppering of bullets and he was bleeding out.

In lumbering, agonizingly slow motion, Abington flipped onto his belly and crawled over to his wounded comrade. He could not understand why his movements were so labored, dreamlike. But this could not be a dream. It was all too real. He could feel the heat scorching his skin, and a stench of gunpowder mixed with blood was visceral and genuine.

Gasping, Abington made his way toward Roach, who groaned and clutched at his injured stomach. If Abington did not stop the bleeding soon, his friend would die. All over again.

From close by, Abington heard a spit of gunfire. In the same instant, sand and dirt sprayed his face. With a burst of surprising adrenaline, Abington brushed his face clean and lurched forward, landing almost on top of Roach. With nothing to stop the bleeding, Abington placed his hands over the pulsing wound. He cried out in horror as his fingers sank deep inside the bloody cavity. Muscles and tendons pulsed around Abington’s probing fingers, but the blood continued to ooze out. Roach moaned deliriously, fading in and out of consciousness.

Abington was about to scream for a medic when he noticed a shadow looming. He looked up just in time to see the figure of a man leap into the foxhole with them. Abington blinked to clear his vision. He had thought the dark-skinned man was wearing white hospital scrubs, but now there were no scrubs. The man was dressed in camouflage, with the combat medic’s Red Cross insignia sewn onto his sleeve.

“What’s happening here, Steve?” the man asked.

Abington had so much to say, but he could not utter a single word.

Instead, the medic’s voice tumbled about his head and Abington heard the words “what’s happening … what’s happening … what’s happening” like a scratched record.

Abington pulled his hands from the gruesome gut wound and covered his ears to try and block out the sound. His red-stained palms lathered his face with warm blood, but those words kept rolling about his head like an endless echo.

What’s happening … what’s happening … what’s happening …

“Steve, you’re going to feel a little funny in a moment.”

Steve you’re going to feel … Steve you’re going to feel … Steve you’re going to feel.

“Stop! Stop saying that! Just fix Roach!”

Now it was Abington’s voice providing the echo.

Fix Roach … fix Roach … fix Roach …

The medic moved inches from Abington’s face as he produced a syringe full of clear liquid from his pocket. At first the medic appeared to be injecting the syringe into thin air, but Abington’s vision altered and he saw the needle had penetrated the tubing of his own intravenous line. How did he get a line in his arm when it was Roach who had been shot?

“It’s called potassium chloride, and while it’s not fatal, you’re going to feel very uncomfortable,” the medic whispered benevolently. “I’ll see you in a minute, Steve.”

The medic climbed out of the foxhole and was gone — but not his voice, which remained and echoed mercilessly in his ears.

I’ll see you in a minute … see you in a minute … in a minute …

Seconds later, a new sensation came over Abington, something strange and unnerving. He inhaled sharply and fought against the tightness in his chest, curling into a fetal position and rhythmically rocking. He rubbed Roach’s blood all over his head, hair, and neck in an effort to stop the noise in his head. Nearby, Roach lay on his back, mouth open, with a dead-eyed gaze up to the heavens.

The tightness changed into something else. Abington’s heartbeat began to flutter, then it morphed into a pounding. Abington could feel the palpitations in his chest, throat, and neck. He turned his head and locked his gaze on his dead friend, certain he would soon be joining him.

Lee Taggart had made it to the elevator bank when Abington’s alarm went off. While he was not at all surprised, Lee still made a show of it, and raced back to Marianne, who had a look of panic on her face. Some of the nurses were stoics — they could handle any stressful situation thrown at them — while others were not at all adept at managing crises. They tended to relish the relative calm of the neuro recovery floor.

“Something is wrong,” she said. “His heartbeat just went crazy.”

“He’s on haloperidol, right?” Lee said. “Arrhythmia can be a side effect. I’m here, let me rush him down to the med ICU.”

Marianne looked relieved. She was definitely not the good-in-emergencies type.