Glimpses: The Best Short Stories of Rick Hautala (12 page)

“Whaz’ that?” Sheila asked, surprised by the thick drag of her voice.

“All part of the preparations,” Doctor Scott said. “You don’t have to concern yourself with it.” He covered one of her hands with both of his, squeezing it\desperately. “Tell me. How are you feeling?”

Sheila shrugged but found the effort to be too much. The light in the room was growing dim and blurry around the edges, shattering into shifting blue splinters. Every sound she or the doctor made was oddly magnified. Her breathing sounded ragged and irritating, like someone was crumpling tissue paper close to her ear.

“If you’re absolutely certain that you want to continue ...” Doctor Scott said.

Sheila nodded but then barely reacted when he took another hypodermic needle from the cabinet, filled it with a clear liquid from a vial, and then slipped it into her arm.

She didn’t feel anything this time, but within seconds, a strange, dull leadenness embraced her body. She knew it was futile to try, but if she had, she was positive she wouldn’t have been able to raise even her pinky finger. Her lower jaw felt like it was made of iron when she said, “This ... won’t ... hurt ... now ... will ... it?”

Doctor Scott smiled reassuringly and said, “Oh, not at all. The immediate pain is over. There’s a sedative in the first injection I gave you.”

He walked over to the intercom beside the door, pressed the red button, and said into the speaker, “Nurse Becker. Please report to O.R. 22.” Then he went to one of the cabinets, pulled open a drawer, and withdrew a scalpel. After peeling off the protective plastic covering, he held it up, turning it back and forth in his hand so the blade caught the light. The reflection hurt her eyes like a sudden flashes of lightning. Her throat felt like it was packed with sand when she asked, “What’s ... that ... for?”

Doctor Scott looked at her, his bushy eyebrows rising with concern.

“Why, to cut the baby out, of course,” he said.

His voice seemed to be coming from the far end of a long echoing tube. It took several seconds for the meaning of what he’d said to penetrate Sheila’s mind. Realization dawned slowly, rolling over her like the deep growl of distant thunder.

“Didn’t they review the entire procedure with you at the clinic?” Doctor Scott asked.

Sheila wasn’t sure if her head moved or not, but she tried hard to shake it back and forth in denial.

“I—well, you see, that first shot I gave you was to relax you, for the operation,” he said. “The second needle was the suicide solution.”

“Su ... i ... cide?”

“Yes ... Of course,” Doctor Scott said. “All that’s left to do now, once Nurse Becker gets here, is to make an incision in your uterus to take out your baby.”

My … baby …?

A rush of sadness filled Sheila even as a dull stirring of panic spread through her as she stared up into the doctor’s glistening eyes. She tried to lick her lips so she could speak, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t make a sound.

“You don’t have to worry,” Doctor Scott went on, his voice now a deep, soothing buzz. “You’re way past feeling much of anything now. Once we remove your baby and get him—It’s a boy, right?”

Sheila grunted but wasn’t sure she made a sound.

“Once we get him into the incubator,” Doctor Scott continued, “we’ll administer the third and final shot. That’s the lethal one.”

“Le ... thal ...?”

“Yes. So you can die, assured that your baby will continue to develop and be maintained by the best life support systems available until he is ready to be ‘born.’ Then I assure you, we’ll find him a suitable family.” He glanced at a chart on the table beside him and smiled. “We’ll carry your son to full-term and see that he’s adopted.”

When he was finished speaking, Doctor Scott shrugged helplessly and shook his head.

“But ... I ...” Sheila found it almost impossible to speak. “I ... don’t ...”

“There, there. Just relax,” Doctor Scott said, leaning close and staring at her. His face was an exaggerated mask of concern.

From her point of view, Sheila thought he looked like a deranged demon, not a doctor, but she attributed it to the drugs. Her eyes widened, the light stinging them.

“Do you mean to tell me you actually thought we were going to destroy your
fetus?
”

Doctor Scott’s expression shifted to one of deepening concern.

“When you first came in here, I asked if you knew what you were getting into. Don’t tell me you don’t know about the changes the government regulations made in the abortion laws. It’s been on the holovid news every night.”

Sheila tried to shake her head but couldn’t move. Her mouth was locked tightly shut, and all feeling was seeping from her body. Her eyes remained wide open and staring, unblinking, as she looked at the ceiling. It was vibrating with subtle waves of blue light and deeper shadow. She sensed motion behind her and wondered if the assisting nurse had entered the room.

“Surely, you must have heard about it on the news,” Doctor Scott continued. “Why, just two months ago, the government finally accepted the medical reports that showed that, because of an accumulation of environmental pollutants, pregnant mothers can no longer carry their babies to full-term. Usually in the seventh month of gestation, all fetuses are removed from their mothers and put through a thorough detoxification in artificial wombs. You know—test tubes babies. The government’s policy on abortion has also changed, so we’re now required by law to save the baby and abort the mother.”

Sheila was desperate to speak or move, but her mind was so clouded she could barely think. Her body felt like it was encased in clear, solid plastic. She would have opened her mouth and screamed … if she could have.

“Look, Miss ... uh, Miss Dobson,” Doctor Scott said. His voice had an edge of resignation, and his expression was one of deep regret. “I—I’m terribly sorry for the misunderstanding, but it’s too late now. That second injection I gave you is working quite fast. If I don’t proceed right now, you’ll be left paralyzed for life, and the state can’t possibly care for you.”

His expression softened.

“But don’t worry. The other injection acts fast. You’ll be dead within minutes.” He glanced at something behind her head and nodded.

“I really must get to work now if I’m going to save your baby.”

And then, without another word, he began to cut.

Just like every other Friday night, The
Wheelwell
—a working man’s bar just up from the docks in Cape Harvest, Maine—was filled with rafts of drifting cigarette smoke. It hung, suspended in the air in several clearly defined strata—some charcoal gray, some as blue as the ocean at dawn. Glenn Chadwick had always suspected that on any given night, with a careful analysis of the layers of smoke, you could tell exactly which of the locals was there without even looking around or listening for any particular voice. On this chilly, late-September night, however, such ruminations were the furthest thing from his mind when he burst through the barroom door a half hour before closing time.

Perched on stools in their regular place at the brass rail were his buddies, Tony “Plug” Miller and Jake “Butter” McPherson. Plug nodded and raised his forefinger, which was pretty much the extent of his “good to see yah” greeting for anyone. Even if he did smile, you never would have seen it behind the thick tangle of his salt ‘n pepper beard which was usually stained by the juice of his plug of “chaw.”

Butter, who was clean-shaven, spun around and smiled widely, exposing the single large front tooth of his which was stained yellow from nicotine and internal decay. It was the bright yellow color of that damaged tooth that inspired his nickname “Butter Tooth”—or “Butter” for short.

“Where the hell you been, boy-o?” Butter said, his voice slurring from the numerous beers he’d already consumed. “Marsha was by an hour or so ago, looking for yah.”

“I’ll catch up with her later,” Glenn said, waving his hand dismissively. He barely smiled as Shantelle, the barmaid, slid his usual—a twenty-two ounce Shipyard—across to him. Glenn noticed that his right hand was shaking a little as he clasped the ice-rimmed glass and raised it to his mouth. The first gulp made him snort and shiver, but it felt damned good going down.

“What’s that you got there?” Plug asked, indicating the black leather carrying case slung over Glenn’s shoulder. His voice was raw from a lifetime of cigarettes. “You ain’t started carrying a purse around, now, have yah?” A few of the locals nearby burst out laughing, but Glenn hardly noticed or cared. Shaking his head from side to side, he eased up onto the vacant bar stool next to Butter.

“Been out to the Nephews,” he said.

Although he tried to sound casual, he could hear the tremor in his voice and wondered if his friends noticed it, too.

“You don’t say,” Butter replied, raising one gray, bushy eyebrow. Glenn saw Plug’s posture stiffen a little as he leaned away from the bar railing and cast a sidelong glance at him.

“What the hell you wanna be doin’ out there?” Butter asked. “’Specially this time ‘a year?”

He took a pack of Luckys from the breast pocket of his denim work shirt, shook one out from himself, then offered one to Glenn. Again, Glenn noticed that his hand was trembling as he slid the cigarette into the corner of his mouth and accepted a light from Butter’s Bic butane before he lit his own.

“Remember that writer fella up from
Portland who was in here a day or so ago, asking about the lighthouse out on the Nephews?” He exhaled noisily. The smoke flattened out and joined the blue reef above their heads.

Both Butter and Plug grunted and nodded.

“A-yuh.”

“Well, he wanted me to take him out there today. I just got back.”

Butter inhaled deeply, then tipped his head back and blew a stream of smoke up at the ceiling before responding.

“Wanted to see the haunted lighthouse, did he?” he asked with a wide smile.

Glenn had always thought Butter would be more self-conscious about that big yellow tooth of his, but he never seemed to mind. Maybe he didn’t have any mirrors in his apartment. In spite of it, Butter still did all right with the ladies, which wasn’t bad for a suntanned, weathered man in his late fifties.

“You gotta admit,” Glenn said, shifting uneasily on the barstool, “there’s some pretty weird stories about that place.”

“’N all of them’s horse-pucky, too, if you ask me,” Plug said, craning his head around and looking Glenn straight in the eyes. “Ain’t nothing on that island but a derelict lighthouse ‘n the keeper’s old house that’s gone to shit.”

“That’s pretty much what I told this guy,” Glenn said, noisily sipping some more beer, “but he was bound and determined to see it for himself. Wanted to see if he could rustle up a ghost or at least hear the music.”

“There’s no ghosts on that damned island, and there sure as hell ain’t no damned music,” Plug said. “Ain’t nothin’ there ‘cept a couple of old buildings ‘n rocks covered with seaweed and seagull shit.”

“Yeah, but lemme tell you what happened, ‘cause I’m gonna need one or both ‘a you to go back with me in the morning to find him.”

Plug moaned softly as he carefully placed his half-empty glass on the bar and then shifted all the way around so he was looking past Butter and squarely at Glenn.

“Let
me
tell
you
something.” Plug’s voice was so low Glenn had to strain to hear him above the general noise of the barroom. “The last damned thing we need is another story in some friggin’ fancy magazine or newspaper ‘bout that lighthouse. All it means is we’re gonna get even more n’ more curiosity seekers pokin’ around out there. An’
that
can only mean trouble.”

“Trouble for you, maybe.” Butter turned to Plug and winked. “I’m thinkin’ you don’t want anymore boats around than’s necessary so no one will catch you haulin’ in them bales of weed you get every month.”

“’N maybe I got a wife and three kids to feed,” Plug snapped, “unlike you, you butt-ugly piece of—”

“Only three kids you admit to,” Butter said, overshooting him. “From what I hear, you got a passel of bastids running ‘round from here to
Bangor.”

“Hey, c’mon. Lighten up,” Glenn said. His whole life, it seemed, he’d been stepping in between Butter and Plug. For two men who swore they were such good friends, and cousins to boot, they sure as hell did argue and insult each other plenty. “Lemme buy the next round. That writer fella paid me an extra fifty bucks to wait around for him ‘til dark. That’s why I’m so late.”

Butter smiled, and Plug nodded slowly as he stroked his tobacco-stained beard. Once Shantelle brought the new round, Glenn started to feel at least a little bit more fortified. What had happened out on Nephews Island already felt more remote … a little easier to deal with.

“Tanguay was s’posed to ferry this guy over there today, but he never showed. Probably went to the fights in
Lewiston. But this writer fella’s name’s Mike ... Mike Kimball, I think. Mike-somethin’-or-other. Anyways, he’s heard the stories ‘bout the lighthouse keeper and his wife. You know, how she was so lonely ‘n isolated out there all winter that she made her husband buy her a piano and bring it out to the island. Problem was, she only knew how to play one tune, and she played it day ‘n night, ‘night ‘n day until it finally drove the poor fella nuts. So’s he took an ax to the piano … ‘n then her.”