Mayday (2 page)

THE THOUGHTS OF C. RAINE

The hour of departure has arrived and we go our ways; I to die, and you to live. Which is better? Only God knows.

Socrates

“CROW?”

This irritated. She said my name like a question. As if my little sister needed permission to enter its room. As if Lifeless could even answer.

Adele looked good—tan to my pale, healthy to my bony—though I do wish she would've asked to borrow my jeans.

This time, I might've said yes.

“Hi, Addy,” I rose from the corner and moved nearer. “I'm over here.”

I heard me. The mirror reflected me. The chair supported me. Dead things knew I was there.

“I came alone.” Adele quietly rounded its bed. I stretched out my hands and closed my eyes and stilled for Adele's embrace. She entered my arms. I tensed, then relaxed. I turned and saw Adele behind me. She had passed . . . through.

I never got used to that.

“
He's
not here,” Adele whispered. She swept the chair toward the bed and the hair off Lifeless's cracked lips. “You look better today.” Sis forced a smile, but it couldn't stay. “Maybe a little more color?”

She paused and her head bowed. “Won't you wake up?”

Tears fell and Addy draped her body over Lifeless and I hated it all the more—the stupid thing was comatose but still received the touch I wanted more than anything in this world.

Adele visited every day. She's the only one who did.

And after what I did to her . . .

I walked around the bed and hugged her from behind.

“Will is recovering fast. He's sitting and talking.” She sniffed and swiped her eyes with the heel of a hand. “The doctors say he'll probably be released in a week. So that's good.”

I straightened. “No, it's not. He has plans for you. Mayday plans. The same ones Jude had when we were little. Stay away from him.” I folded my hands. “You know, I was driving him as fast and as far away from you as I could, but now I . . . I can't protect you anymore.”

Adele didn't know how much time I spent in Will Kroft's room, yanking at his IV drips. Harsh, I know. But what do you do to guys who want to destroy the one thing on earth you've sworn to protect?

My sister hummed, the same song I had hummed to her when the nights were bad and sleep was hard to find. I stared at Adele, her hand on its cheek, and marveled.

Why do you still come?

Not for confessions. Other people did that. Whether or not they knew me. People told Lifeless everything, like she was an ancient priestess. They dumped their trash on the vegetable, and left feeling light and free.

Things I learned since the train clipped my car:

• The harshest, most feared girl at Central had exactly zero real friends.
  
• Adele hated me, for about one week.
  
• The double-latte night nurse cheated on her husband.
  
• Jude, my stepdad, had Mom so blinded with his therapeutic excuses that she couldn't see his hand destroying us all.
  
• The first of May is out to get me.
  

 

Adele paused midsong and whispered, “You really need to wake, sis. Jude is starting to talk about some things. You just need to wake soon 'cause the doctor . . .”

“Go on, say it.” I exhaled slow. “We took the elevator together yesterday. Ambrose needs the bed. He needs the room. Lifeless is a vegetable.”

“He says you don't think, but I don't believe him.”

“He's close to right. It dreams though, if that counts.”

Adele said nothing more. She rested her head on the bedrail and held its hand. In this moment, Adele gave me the greatest gift. The gift of pain. A deliberate rend that tore me in two, though there was no me to grasp. How clear it was: Adele was both my kite and anchor in this world. The one person I would die for, and the only one I could not leave.

What I would have given to feel her hand, to believe that beyond this hospital room, that chance might come around again.

I plopped into the recliner and watched Adele's face. So innocent. She was worth it. My disembodied state . . . She was worth it all. Adele stood and kissed its forehead . . . and I gasped. Whatever air souls breathe grew thick. That was my kiss, the one meant for me. I jumped up to receive mine.

“Addy? Please, don't go.”

She left. I followed a short distance down the hall, reached the nurse's station and froze.

A force gripped my middle, and I yawned. I raised my hands and let it pull me back toward Lifeless.

Time had taught me there was no escape, no weapon to fight this foe.

My eyelids grew heavy.

I knew what came next.

We're starting to dream.

THE THOUGHTS OF C. RAINE

Dreaming men are haunted men.

Stephen Vincent Benét,
John Brown's Body

THE RECURRING DREAM BEGAN IN A FIELD,
green and lush and surrounded by woods. I never actually walked through waves of tall grass, and Lifeless might have dreamed the country all wrong. Maybe peaceful glades hid broken bottles and serial killers, but if so, I liked the delusion. The field was light and joyful and felt like spring. My heartbeat quickened—scary fast—but I wasn't too worried. Lapsing into a second coma seemed a stretch.

I kicked off my shoes and ran, circling the field, feeling stronger and wilder with each step. Rabid dogs also ran in circles—the similarity was not lost on me. Sure, I could explore the woods, but I clung to every green moment. The place calmed me, reminded me of
The Sound of Music
, opening scene, without the mountains, or Julie Andrews.

I slowed and spun and smiled and felt warmth on my face . . . and there stood Adele and Mom. We leaped like fools through waist-high grass of soft green. Mom was beautiful as the field was beautiful. She laughed, and the sound
was
music.

Such a strange sight—Mom's carefree smile. In life, I never saw it. Such a gentle laugh she owned. In life, I don't remember hearing it.

Mom also spoke. We all did. And of all the things I can't remember, these unknown words haunt me the most. Words dribble fast and pointless off the tongue throughout our lives. Useless, meaningless . . . until after. Then every word feels weightier.

I had so many questions. Did she ever believe me about Jude? Why did she blame me for so much? Was I precious to her?

I wish I could remember what Mom said to me in that dream.

Adele sprinted ahead; only in Lifeless's unconsciousness was she faster. I gave chase, and around me daffodils, yellow and brilliant, exploded the grass with color.

If only the dream ended there.

I slowed and glanced up. The sun scorched, expanded. Adele seemed happy. As if it was her first romp through the subconscious. That was Adele. Naive. Trusting.

Vulnerable.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Fear always springs from ignorance.”

He obviously never met Adele.

But I knew the dream's course, and my jaw tightened.

The sun. The flowers.

The dream burned yellow. Alert, slow down, use caution.

I shielded my eyes. Behind me, Dad's voice whispered, “My Coraline, look after Addy when I'm gone.” I whipped around and lunged at the rustling. I crawled, blind and frantic. Though I never found him, Dad's voice alone swelled my heart. Again, he called my name. More rustling, and I swept aside a swath of grass.

A snake, coiled and black, slithered toward me
.

I jumped to my feet, lifted my heel to stomp. It spoke with Jude's voice. “Where's Adele?”

“Run on, Addy!” I screamed. “Hide!” The snake slithered after my sister.

I fell to my knees and hid my eyes.

Red. The dream turned red.

Wake up, Crow, wake up!

I pinched myself, slapped myself, knowing that this would be a good time to exit, but Lifeless's subconscious held me fast.

Red lights flashed. Train-crossing lights. Fire-engine lights. Squad-car lights.

Before me, my body lay limp and bloodied in a ditch. Thankfully, the nightmare was almost over.

“Ambulances,” I whispered. “Time for you to come pick me up.” On cue, three sets of flashing lights rounded the curve and approached.

I strolled to the bus-stop bench across the street, the best seat from which to watch me bleed. Here is, perhaps, where it all began, for the bench was different. The
KROK
rock 97.5 ad no longer covered its back.

Where's my
KROK
?
I eased down, leaned back against a new ad:
CROW INSURANCE
:
BECAUSE YOU RARELY GET A SECOND CHANCE.

“Okay, who changed this bench?” I yelled, and slapped a hand over my mouth.
That's a new line! I'm seriously off grid.

Sirens wailed in the distance. I stared down the street, wondering, Who are these people driving cars in Lifeless's dream? Do they know they're here? Do they drive in other people's dreams—like a second job?

Ambulance number one screamed to a stop. “First, the foggy one. Okay, that's normal. We're good.” I eased back.

A thick cloud filled that vehicle. Nobody got out, nobody got in. It seemed excessive to spring for an extra ambulance, but hey, it wasn't my dream. Well, not really.

“Now the busy one.”

The second pulled up, stuffed with the grim faces of EMTs. Latte Nurse hopped out, coffee in hand. She walked by the body in the road and sneaked into the Caribou Coffee shop. Probably to meet affair guy.

“And last, the empty—”

The third ambulance slowed to a stop. It's empty. It's always empty. For forty straight dreams, ambulance three drove itself.

Not this time.

A woman sat in the front seat and knitted. She glanced toward me, waved, and smiled.

I didn't wave back.

Dream intruder. You probably repainted my bench.

I glanced around. Everything else was in place. The man cross-country skiing to my left. The bum resting against the Wells Fargo Building exhaust grate on my right.

“Hey, C.”

Mel, one of my two best friends, sat down beside me, rubbing her arms. “I'm shivering out here.” She peeked at me. “How you doing?” Her plasticized beauty and paranoid tilt made each conversation an adventure, which made her interesting, and worth my time.

I didn't turn. Did she sound a little cheerier than normal? Mel belonged in the dream—she remembered her lines—but her tone was different this time. More superficial, more . . . Mel, as though she were here for her own benefit and not mine.

Steam rose from a manhole and filled the street. Five construction guys walked lazily toward my death, stopped, and blocked my view. “Hey!” I called. “Move over!”

They didn't budge, and I turned to Mel. “Have you ever watched yourself die?”

Mel exhaled. “No . . . But when you want something so badly and can't get it . . . well, that feels a little like death, I suppose.”

That was new . . . that little dark moment? Even the slightest change unsettled my mind.

I craned my neck to watch a policeman rolling out yellow tape. “You know, I didn't feel anything. It happened so fast.”

“Living fast. That's the story of your life. But you never deserved to end up in a vegetative state,” Mel said. “Basil told me you'd toe the line and then one day, you'd slip over. Maybe that's what he saw in you. The whole living-on-the-edge thing.” She paused, and her voice dropped. “Really hard to compete with that.”

“I never tried to mess things up for the two of you. I didn't do anything to—”

“No, you just were. That was enough.”

We sat in silence.

Mel shouldered me and pointed across the street. “Will's sure a mess. You got him good.”

I peeked at my crunched car. Will lay groaning, propped against the wheel well. “Yeah.” I glanced around. “Is Basil here? It'd be nice to see him again, you know?”

“You'd like that, wouldn't you?” Mel snapped, then calmed. “No, he heard you were with Will in the car and didn't want to come.” Mel paused and whispered, “Why'd you do it?”

Why'd I do it? I suppose it's the only question that really matters.

I turned to face her. “The train wasn't in the plan. Getting Will one hundred miles away from Addy was.” I paused for a moment. “You knew the danger my sister was in. You knew what Will was going to do to her. Everybody at school did, except for trusting Addy.” I clenched my jaw. “Nobody touches my sister.”

That's my last line. Here, Mel rises and walks away.

But not this time. She didn't move, and my words kept coming.

“Have you ever sacrificed a life for something you had to prevent? Have you ever loved anyone that much?”

Mel's face blanched, and her eyes grew large. “I think I have.”

I need to get out of this.
Come on, Mel, you're supposed to be gone.

She offered a nervous chuckle. “You didn't prevent anything, Crow.”

Did you catch that? You don't say that to a friend in her most unfortunate of moments. I didn't put it together until later on. Even Lifeless knew it, dreamed it, deep down inside. But back to the dream.

“Gotta go, the dream ends here.” I rose, stepped into the street, and waited for the tug, the tug that yanked me toward the middle ambulance. I'd hop in and ride toward consciousness and wake up beside Lifeless.

Time passed. The tug never came.

From inside the last ambulance, Dream Intruder gestured toward me with her knitting needle. I slowly approached and opened the passenger's-side door.

“Who—”

Adele sobbed, and I glanced over my shoulder at the scene I knew so well. She hit the policeman who held her back from dying me. Even on this day. Even after I destroyed her Will, she fought to reach me. The intruder interrupted my thoughts.

“Get in, child.”