Chapter 4: Tachycardia
“Tachycardia” said, a man in green scrubs with little compassion unlike the nurses.
The nurses were astounding, always offering more than disruption of his nightmares, food, and meds. Still, he did feel more relaxed and cared for than he had in a long time. The sentiment somehow made him lonelier than ever. He wondered if it was real or just too many meds.
“Tachycardia means, we don't know what the hell caused such an elevated heart rate and blood pressure. The good news is your heart isn't damaged. The radio isotope we did confirms that.”
The man continued as Whit's consciousness rediscovered him there in the room. His name tag read, Dr. Logan, “Your blood pressure is back to normal; though your heart rate is still a little high. We suggest an immediate follow up with your family physician. I'll get your release ready. Just take it easy for a while...” Logan trailed off noticing Whit's slip back into self reflection.
“Hey.” Logan said to Whit, grabbing his attention again. “I noticed your address and where they found you. That's got to be eight miles or so. How did you get there?”
“I ran.” Whit said.
Logan chuckled. “I figured. You were pretty scratched up and bruised. How often do you run...how far?”
“I don't.” Whit said.
“That explains a lot.” Logan said resigned, turning to leave, pausing as he opened the door. Then, turning back, “I saw the medications you listed. It's pretty apparent what they're prescribed for. I suggest that you have a follow up visit with the doctor that prescribed them as well.” Logan finished with a smile upon leaving.
The taxi ride home was living hell. Whit prodded the driver to hurry more than once until at each stop light, he felt he would bolt from the cab, running home. The foreign driver would just nod, holding the palm of his hand up to the rear view mirror that a substantial portion of his reality undoubtedly shrank away in. Whit wondered about the karma of it until noticing an elderly lady of the same ethnicity as the driver in the mirror sitting beside him.
“Aaarti said she wants you to get your ass out of this cab and start using your degree,” he said a little more harshly than intended, throwing two twenties at the astonished driver, bolting from the cab.
His house was still blocks away but he needed the walk.
It seemed only short moments after retrieving his phone, laptop, and car that he was back at Sharon's library, unsure of what he intended to accomplish, but certain he was supposed to be there. The open, high, yet small space was bustling compared to his last visit. The patrons were quite young. Tables of books filled the center with signs on each reading, Required reading 4th Grade, Required Reading 5th Grade, and so on, all junior high grades represented. Finding Sharon took a little more work this time. She turned from directing a couple of tween girls to a shelf.
“Hey! It's you.” She said upon noticing him, trepidation casting a shadow across her face upon taking him in. “Uh, are you okay?”
Whit nodded, trying a smile.
“You're pretty pale and sweaty, and...” she trailed off motioning to the scratches on his face and neck.
Whit glanced at the girls behind her giggling, noticing something beyond them... another one remarkably like Sarah walking past the end of the isle.
“Oh! Yeah,” he said. “—Stupid landscaping accident. I fell down an overgrown hill in my yard.” He said, laughing a little too loudly.
The giggling girls fell silent, moving off with a cautious eye on him.
“Okay.” Sharon replied lightly.
“Okay.” Whit parroted, then, “You seemed pretty knowledgeable about ghost hunting.”
“I guess.” Sharon said. “It is kind of a hobby of mine. I pretty much have a P-H-D in useless information after years of this.” She said, lighter still while motioning around the library.
“Great.” Whit replied. “I could really use your help with something, I can't quite explain.”
“Try,” she said.
Sharon took the explanation of his ghost sighting at Quarry Lake much better than Whit expected. He enjoyed leaning in toward her to share the Mac screen at the information desk where he first met her, pleased with himself that she didn't seem to mind.
“See,” she said, “Many investigators believe that places rich in certain types of minerals like granite or quartz are haunted more.”
“That's amazing. I wonder how several tons of copper, steal, motors, and magnets would affect that sort of thing.” He said.
“What's amazing is what you saw there.” She replied intrigued. “You saw them?”
Whit nodded, “Yeah. Just shadows though.”
“Still that's common too. They're called shadow people. There's lots of circumstantial evidence of them appearing in other very specific areas of the country—places like prisons, dams, rivers... Places a lot like Quarry Lake.”
Whit basked in her excitement.
“Hang on.” She said, hurrying off through the doorway behind the counter, leaving Whit shocked, trembling, and breathless as his vertigo returned.
...Her dash away revealed Sarah behind her not six feet from him. She stood dripping wet this time. Her gaze bore into him from deeply set, darkly shadowed eyes. She was thinner—emaciated—her skin loose and waxy. She seemed far more solid, dead than before, rotting before him.
“What's changed Sarah?” was all he could manage as the room spun. He thought that he caught a faint smile at her purple lips. “Something changed after I followed Johnny back out there.”
“I'm sure it did.” Sharon called from the room, reemerging confused, “Who's Johnny?”
Sharon slowly moved back to the counter oblivious to Sarah who side stepped her, still gazing at Whit. He gripped the counter for support.
“...I just grabbed the card of a ghost hunting television crew that came through town. I thought that this may be big.”
“They're gathering Whit, more and more every day. You're quite the celebrity.” Sarah said smiling wickedly, exposing browning teeth, one dropping out.
“Do you want it to stop?” Whit said to Sarah.
“What to stop? The haunting?” Sharon said, concern growing on her face.
“I want her to know!” Sarah shouted, her voice rising into the painful shriek he heard at the lake.
“No Sharon. No.” He said, stumbling upon trying to cover his ears. He paled in a soaking sweat again.
“Whit!” she said, grabbing for him, steadying him by his arm. “Something's wrong. I'm calling an ambulance.”
“No!” he and Sarah shouted simultaneously, shocking Sharon who seemed to hear both.
“You're pale and sweaty; it's frigid in here.” She said, holding herself now, noticing the fog of her breath with stark realization.
Huge, cankerous sores and deep lacerations began appearing all over Sarah's skin now, her smile never waning.
“She needs to make her own decisions based on the truth... Just like you need to about what I really am... Tell her!” She finished with the same deafening shriek.
Whit blurted out “I'm a medium!” the gravity of some unseen realization hung on Sharon's face, goose bumps rising on her exposed shoulders. “The boy, you remember drowning at Quarry Lake was my brother.”
“I'm so sorry...” Sharon said. Whit stayed her with an extended hand.
“Your aunt, she didn't disappear. She drowned there too.”
“Okay. Okay.” Sharon said with a waning smile. “I should've seen this coming. Good show. Sorry but, I don't have any money, or...whatever it is, you need... sick satisfaction. I don't know. But it's time to go.” She said, grabbing keys from beneath the counter, moving out from behind it.
She strode to the large front double doors flanked by tall windows now darkened by night. Whit didn't follow.
“Tell her Mom—Grandma—loves the cobblers that she brings to the home but not to eat. She doesn't eat them. She gives them away to bring
you back sooner.”
Whit did.
“Oh. So you're following me now.” Sharon said disgusted. “That helps.”
Whit turned back to Sarah who seemed confused now.
“Tell her that Mary Ann didn't steal Mom's cameo. I did. I was trying to impress the boy I was going to meet the day I died.”
Whit obliged again, freezing Sharon in her tracks. She turned back to him hurt and confused.
Sarah continued this time Whit speaking as she did.
“Dad was right. I was going to meet a boy, Red. But he didn't do anything to me. He never showed up. I got angry and kicked the picnic basket into the lake and ripped the cameo from my neck, throwing it in too. I jumped in right after it as soon as I realized what I'd done. I hit my head on something.” Sarah trailed off, bloody tears streaming from her withering eyes. “Tell her I know that Mom never forgave Mary Ann, thinking that she was jealous that Mom wanted to bury it in my memorial. ...And that Mary Ann never even saw me though I was there when she died of cancer when she was nineteen. I don't know why. I'm sorry. For everything...”
And with that Sarah was gone. Whit, steadying himself with his back against the counter, slid to the floor, sitting, holding the sides of his head with both hands. Sharon slowly moved back to Whit as he breathed deeply through his nose, exhaling through his mouth.
“What do you want from me? What does she want from me?” Sharon said.
“I want it to stop. She's gone. I think that she got what she needed. But I want to do it right. I have to go back. But I can't go back alone. I can't. And I don't want to sneak onto that property again.”
Long moments later Sharon extended her hand to him. “I'm sure that you got to the hospital somehow. The police report will have that. They have to share it with you because you're involved.” Sharon said.
She was right.