mother’s anxious tone shook her further into consciousness, making her aware of her pain. Every part of her body seemed on fire, but it was a dull fire that she felt through a blurry film. As she looked for her mother’s face, her vision lit first on the morphine drip running into her arm. Her voice came out of her mouth fuzzy and thick, slow.
“Hi, Mom. I’m OK.”
Her mother was sobbing, and her father appeared with two nurses who immediately took over, asking her too many questions, getting her to move parts of her body. Although the pain was muted, it was still universally present when she moved anything, but to her relief, and everyone else’s in the room, everything did move. She felt the slow syrupy warmth of morphine coursing through her. Her mother sobbed and kept trying to grab her face and kiss her, but checking herself, knowing the pain it would cause. Her daughter’s face was swollen almost to ridiculous proportions, but the deep brown eyes were there, and they were awake and aware, if a little glassy.
“How bad am I?” she said, slurring, feeling tears sting down the side of her face. A nurse dabbed at them with gauze, trying to keep the scratches dry.
“You were bumped up pretty badly, sweetie.” The older nurse said, smiling at her. “But nothing’s broken and everything works. You’re just going to be in pain for a while.” Delcie wanted to sob, but the morphine seemed to make it unnecessary. She already loved the smiling black nurse who seemed to care so much for her, and whose voice was so soothing. She was aware of her mother’s hand in hers, and squeezed it. Then her dad’s face loomed into view.
“Honey, God, you scared us to death!” he said.
“You think you’re scared?!” she mumbled to her dad. He smiled and grabbed her other hand.
“Do you remember what happened, honey?” her mother asked.
Delcie thought for a moment. The morphine made her want to close her eyes again, to just go away, not feel, not think, and she fought it. She really didn’t remember anything much more than falling over into the seat for a second, but then the image of the figure in the back seat hit her, and she felt suddenly cold. She shivered, visibly.
“That’s ok.” The friendly nurse said. “That’s the morphine. I’ll get some blankets.”
“Are you cold, honey?” her mother asked.
She wasn’t. She was terrified. The second nurse, more serious and businesslike noticed the spike in the heart monitor, and looked at her.
“Don’t push yourself to remember, Dulcinea.” She said, then turning to the parents, “She’s tired. We can’t push her for too much.” Delcie didn’t hear this, and could only think of the thing in the car with her.
“Was he there? Where is he?! Is he here!?” she moaned, just before slipping softly back into the morphine. She was asleep again when Jen and Tanner arrived.
Recovery
A week had gone by and Delcie lay looking out the window at the sun she was missing. Her swelling had gone down, and the only persistent pain she had was a throbbing in her ribs when she breathed or moved too much, a result of hitting the steering wheel. She had coughed once, and thought she would black out from the pain. The passenger seat side air bag had saved her life. Tanner and Jen sat quietly watching her from chairs in the hospital room.
“All I can think about is what would have happened if I hadn’t hit the tree.” She said, still looking out the window.
“I really don’t think it – he - would have hurt you. I think the goal was to get you to run into the tree.” Tanner said, then, after a pause, continued. “I don’t think we should be alone anymore. Any of us”
These words hit Jen and jolted her back to the present. She’d been replaying her ride in the jeep with the “boy”. The reality, necessity, and gravity of what Tanner said hit her, and she realized, really for the first time, that they were all in very real danger. She shivered.
“How are we going to do that?” she asked, to no one in particular, looking at the floor as she spoke.
“Well, we’ll start by making sure one of us is here at all times.” Tanner said, nodding at Delcie.
“That’s just not possible. I mean, our parents wouldn’t allow it.” Jen said.
“I’m safe in here.” Delcie said.
“How do we know that?” Tanner said. “If he can show up in your car, what’s going to keep him from showing up here? One of us needs to be here!”
“To do what? Help me scream?” Delcie laughed sarcastically, clutching at her ribs. It was the first time she’d tried to laugh since the accident, and it hurt. “I mean, it’s not like we can sneak your shotgun in here.”
“He’d have a hard time getting past me, anyway.” Tanner said, tightness in his voice. Jen saw the tendons in his neck go hard. She imagined the thing floating into the room. Or would it just show up as the boy with tussled hair? Walk right in past all the hospital staff? He had the complete ability to appear normal, it seemed, or some semblance of normal. Holding Tanner’s hand loosely, she squeezed it.
“I think between your mom and dad, and the two of us, we’re going to be here most of the time, anyway. I think we’re in danger only when we’re alone – isolated. I don’t think it would do anything, for some reason. I mean, it’s never done anything to us when other people were around, or when we were in public. The only reason it appeared to all of us that night was because we were in its home.” He found that using the word “it” to describe the boy thing chilled him, giving “it” a supernatural importance that he was still uncomfortable with.
Jen looked at him, half-smiling. “I don’t think he’d put himself in that situation. I think he’s got certain power only at times. Like when it’s dark, or he’s on his own turf – or near it, like the woods near the house. And of course, in the house.”
Tanner had been thinking about sneaking out there without Jen and setting fire to the place. He knew she wouldn’t approve of him going by himself, and he damn sure wasn’t taking her back there again. He thought about going to his uncle Jay, and getting him to go along, but he knew what Jay would say about him going out there in the first place, much less to do arson. He’d go out there at high noon, under full sun, and he’d have the gun. That, and about 5 gallons of gasoline. He kept this plan close to his chest for now. Fire cleanses, he thought. It purifies, sanitizes.
Delcie rolled over to face them. “While it’s daylight, and you guys are here, this isn’t bad. I don’t feel too bad. But at night, when it’s quiet in here, it gets cold, and the lights are dimmed so patients can sleep. Mom or Dad – one of them – is asleep in that chair” she said, pointing to the chair Jen sat in “But the window is so black. Just jet-black. That’s when I’m scared. I feel like he’s everywhere. If he can turn up in a car anytime, I feel like he can anywhere, anytime.”
“Do you remember if you left the car unlocked that night?” Jen asked.
She didn’t, and said so. “No, but the doors locks when you start the motor. I don’t remember unlocking it when I got in, though.”
They sat in silence for a few moments, then Tanner spoke.
“We don’t know what the limits of his – its – powers are.”
“Or even, really, if he has any powers.” Jen added. They looked at her, questioningly.
“Well, really, has he hurt anyone yet? I mean, Janet’s right about that. Sure, the wreck was horrible, but as far as you remember, he didn’t touch you or the steering wheel, right?” she continued, looking at Delcie.
Delcie thought for a moment. The truth was she remembered very little of the last few moments before the crash. They told her this was common in trauma cases. “Retrograde amnesia.” The doctor said. The mind’s attempt to protect itself from pain historically.
“I don’t remember a lot, but I know that he was just sitting back there. It was what he was about to do that scares me. It might have been the best thing in the world that what happened, happened.”
Jen thought about the jeep ride, the writing on the gate, the horrible things at the house, b
ut in all of them, no one was ever harmed. Just about to be harmed. But she was never more afraid of being harmed in her life.
“Well, we’ve got to get you better, and until then, one of us needs to be here all the time, if only at night.” Jen said. Delcie smiled at both of them, her eyes moistening.
“Thank you, guys!” she said, her voice breaking a little, tears forming in her eyes. The morphine aided the emotion. Jen rose and stood by her, taking her hand. Delcie looked at their hands.
“We’re losing our tans.” She said, smiling.
“I know! I hate that. We’ve got to get this done so we can get back to the important things in life!” Jen said, laughing and squeezing her hand.
The three were quiet for a long moment. Then Jen, looking down, then back at Delcie reached behind her for something.
“Delcie, the state patrol gave your parents these.” Jen said, producing a small plastic bag. “I wasn’t going to tell you, or show you, but you deserve to know. I didn’t say anything to your folks…” she continued, reaching forward towards the bed with the bag. Delcie saw that inside the clear plastic bag, what first appeared to be random bits of torn paper were in fact dried and withered rose petals.
”They were in the back seat, sweetie.” Jen said, apologetically, taking the girl’s shaking hand as Delcie began to weep.
Later that night, Tanner sat in his pickup truck in the hospital parking