Invasive Procedures (17 page)

“Get out,” he said in whisper. The sight of her made him want to cry for some reason, and he couldn’t bear the thought of her seeing him cry.

“Jonathan,” she spoke softly, “you have every right to be angry, but please listen to me.”

“Get out!” he screamed, finding his real voice now, his grown-up voice.

She discarded the bottle that had contained the narcotic and moved for the door. She stopped there. He didn’t look at her, but he knew she was watching him and crying quietly.

“I know nothing I can say will make a difference to you, Jonathan. And it shouldn’t. But know that I’m as sorry as you are that any of this ever happened.” She walked out.

He lay in bed, watching the sun disappear over the tree line and listening to the activity outside his door. Besides the occasional passing footsteps, all was quiet.

When the sky finally darkened and the stars appeared, Jonathan pulled out his IV, got out of bed, and locked the door. Keeping the lights off, he went to the wastebasket and retrieved the empty bottle of narcotic. Then, searching through the cabinet, he found four bottles of the same medication. He took the pillowcase off the pillow and made it into a sack, stuffing the bottles inside it. Then he packed syringes, clean bandages, scissors, and a blanket. The clean scrubs Dr. Owens had pointed out to him would give him only scant protection against the cold, so he cut a small slit in a blanket, making a poncho. He then changed into the clean scrubs and pulled the poncho over his head.

What he couldn’t find or make were shoes, and after a vigorous search, he decided to go without.

The ground outside was about ten feet below the window. He lifted the windowpane and was momentarily panicked to discover that it only opened halfway, meaning he would have to squeeze through a smaller
space than he had expected. The sack fit through easily. He tossed it to the ground below. Then, after several attempts, the last of which forced him to suck in his chest more than he had thought possible and to turn his head awkwardly to the side, he squeezed through and reached the ledge outside. He lowered himself as much as his arms were able, then dropped the remaining few feet to the ground.

When he landed, a pain from his abdomen shot through his body so explosively that he nearly passed out. He crumpled to the ground and grabbed his side, constricting his muscles in an attempt to minimize the hurting. It was as if someone was hovering over him, stabbing him repeatedly with a hot blade.

He writhed in the dirt a moment and then somehow, after catching his breath, got to his knees. He pulled back his clothing to examine the bandage. Small splotches of red had soaked through. He was bleeding.

He considered unwrapping the bandage and looking at the wound closely, but he feared he wouldn’t be able to wrap it as tightly when he was done, so he left it.

He heard a jingling noise, and his heart skipped a beat when saw the source of it: dog collars. Two Doberman pinschers appeared around the side of the building and ran toward him. The instant they saw him they began barking ferociously. Jonathan recoiled against the wall, trapped. The dogs surrounded him, their jaws snapping, thick saliva spraying.

But they didn’t come too close. They were guard dogs, not attack dogs. Jonathan, who had hopped many fences in his days, fleeing from police, knew the difference. Attack dogs bite. Guard dogs are all talk, no action.

Keeping his expression as calm as possible, Jonathan got to his feet and shuffled toward the back fence. The dogs circled him, barking constantly. But they didn’t charge. They kept their distance.

When he reached the chain-link fence, he felt exhausted. Every step took more energy than the last. The medication, he realized, had fooled him into thinking he had more strength than he did.

One of the dogs lunged and snapped dangerously close to his thigh. They were getting more confident now, building their aggression. He had to move.

He tossed the sack over the fence and began climbing, ignoring the tearing he felt in his abdomen. The pain was nearly unbearable, but the frantic will to survive was even stronger.

He reached the top and managed to position himself on the other side of the fence without falling. They would hear the dogs. They would come after him. He had to hurry.

He lowered himself to the ground. The dogs barked and pawed at the fence.

Scooping up the sack, Jonathan padded away.

He hadn’t gone twenty feet into the forest before cutting the bottoms of both feet. He had decided against taking the road they brought him in on, thinking they would find him easily on it if they discovered him missing. Now he wasn’t sure he had made the right decision. It was dark under the trees, and the forest floor was littered with twigs, pinecones, protruding stones, and a thousand other sharp things.

He considered giving himself another shot of narcotic. The pain in his side coupled with that of his feet was almost too much to bear.

What he didn’t know, however, was if it was safe for him to
take
another dose so soon. Dr. Owens had given him an injection only twenty minutes ago. Would another dose now knock him unconscious, or worse, stop his heart? As a junkie, Jonathan had seen overdoses before. Was he willing to take that risk? No, he decided. He’d wait. He could handle the pain.

A few minutes later, after a heavy thorn pierced his foot, he changed his mind.

He sat at the base of a tree and prepared a syringe, remembering how full the syringe had been when Dr. Owens had given him the last dose. Then, without hesitating, he stuck himself in the arm.

The relief came faster this time. Jonathan closed his eyes and relaxed, enjoying the process of giving himself a hit as much as the hit itself. His body tingled. His feet turned numb. He grabbed a low branch, pulled himself up, and, shouldering the sack, began walking again.

Soon his eyes adjusted to the light, or lack thereof, and he could step without cutting his feet further. He continued to stumble every so often, however, and when he did, the pain in his side shot through him like a bolt of lightning. Each time it happened, he had to stop and rest.

After half an hour, the ground sloped downward. Walking downhill proved more difficult than walking on level terrain. The slope forced him to put more weight on each foot as he stepped, and doing so aggravated the wound. For a moment he considered doubling back and looking for
another route, but he knew that he had a better chance of finding a road at the bottom of the hill than at the top.

As he moved he checked the bandages. They were wet now, partially from sweat, but mostly from blood. What had been a few splotches of red before was now a single spot of blood the size of a dinner plate.

A branch snapped in the distance behind him.

Jonathan stopped and looked back up the hill. Several flashlight beams cut through the darkness at the hill’s crest.

They were coming for him.

Jonathan felt panic rise inside him. He scurried down the hillside, slipping on a patch of gravel and landing on his side. He almost cried out in pain, but he gritted his teeth and held in the scream.

At the base of the hill he came upon a shallow creek bed and gladly stepped into it. The cold mountain water soothed the soles of his bare feet as he stood there catching his breath. He looked back, and the sight of the flashlights coming down the hill motivated him to move again.

Rather than cross the stream directly, he walked with the current for a hundred yards in an attempt to throw off his trackers.

When he left the stream, his heart was pounding, and the bandages were completely soaked through. He dug into the sack, found a syringe, and gave himself another dose on the move, worrying little this time about the exactness of the amount or the dangers of giving himself too much of it.

He could hear their voices now. They were faint still, but they were getting closer, gaining.

Jonathan pressed a hand against his wound to minimize the bleeding and picked up his pace.

Branches snagged at his face and clothes as he went. There was no time to step delicately now, no time to choose the best path. What he needed now was speed. He took off the poncho and threw it aside. It was wet, heavy, and slowing him down.

His foot hit a rock, but the agony in his side was so striking and so constant that he hardly noticed. Even the narcotic wasn’t strong enough now. He winced at the thought of how he would feel as soon as it wore off.

Then he shook the thought from his mind. Fear would only slow him down. All that mattered now was speed.

Lichen watched the two Healers with scent sniff the air around the creek bed. “Well?” he said.

“He entered the water here,” one of them said. “The smell of blood is still strong.”

“I want a direction, Pine,” Lichen said, “not a travel log. Where did he cross?”

“Difficult to say,” the Healer named Pine said. “I don’t detect a scent on the opposite side.”

“Nor tracks,” said another. They were shining their flashlights along the creek bank, searching for footprints or traces of blood.

“I should have brought the dogs,” Lichen said. “They at least can track.”

It was the deepest of insults. Dogs were weak. They tired easily.

“Perhaps he went downstream,” said Pine.

Lichen had already considered that, but he hadn’t thought Jonathan intelligent enough to have come up with the idea himself. Perhaps the boy was smarter than he gave him credit for.

Or perhaps his mind had turned already and he had acquired the intelligence of the donor. But then, if that was the case, why was he running?

Lichen spoke quickly. “You three go upstream. The rest come with me.

The group parted, Lichen taking the lead and running downstream, water splashing from each of his giant steps.

After a distance, Pine grabbed Lichen’s arm. “Wait.”

Lichen stopped.

Pine tilted his head back and inhaled deeply through his nose. “He went out here.”

“You’re sure?” Lichen said.

Pine shined his flashlight on the bank and found Jonathan’s tracks.

Lichen turned to another Healer. “Get the others.”

The Healer ran back upstream while Lichen charged headfirst in the direction of Jonathan’s tracks. Pine ran behind him, desperately trying to keep up.

At first Jonathan thought he might be hallucinating. Flashes of red and blue light were dancing on the trees above him. He was on his back, lying in the dirt and staring upward. He didn’t remember falling or passing out, but he couldn’t think of any other explanation for why he was suddenly in this position.

He rolled over onto his stomach and immediately wished he hadn’t. The pain was throbbing now. He didn’t know exactly how much blood he had lost, but he knew it was a lot. The bandage was doing little to stop the flow of it now. He could feel the thin trickle of it running from the wound and down his leg. And he felt lightheaded. It was becoming difficult to concentrate.

He struggled to his feet and saw that the light was coming from a source still obstructed by the trees ahead of him. He staggered forward and to his relief reached the end of the forest.

Before him was a wide grassy clearing, and beyond it and up an embankment was a police car. It was parked on the opposite side of a narrow country road with its lights flashing. A state trooper was standing with his back to Jonathan at the driver’s-side window of another parked car, probably writing a ticket.

It was more than Jonathan could have asked for. Here, precisely where he needed one, on an otherwise desolate country road, was a cop. He was going to get help. He was going to make it.

He tried to cry out, but only a hoarse whisper escaped him. His throat felt raw again. He needed a drink. Why hadn’t he drunk water from the creek?

Then he remembered the Healers. The Healers were coming.

He moved through the clearing as quickly as possible, his gait staggered and awkward. The footprints he left behind him were red and wet. Every muscle in his body screamed for him to stop, to give up, to lie down here in the grass and let sleep take him. He wouldn’t wake up, he knew, but sleep would be an end to the pain.