Delirious (21 page)

Grasping the underside of the laundry bin, Charlie leapt forward, using his momentum to force the empty bin knee level into the surprised security guard. The guard let out a cry as he went down, and Charlie thought he heard the electric buzz of a Taser gun.

“I see him! I see him!” the other guard shouted. Charlie had the edge he needed to scamper out of the room. He’d make a quick exit through the fire door. After that, he didn’t have much of a plan. From his peripheral vision Charlie could see the guard he’d knocked over pushing the bin aside and getting back on his feet. The other guard kept shouting at him to freeze.

“I’ve got him in my sight, Dave!” his partner called out. “I’m taking the shot.”

Charlie sprinted down the corridor. He didn’t know the range of a Taser gun. He prayed it was less than thirty feet, because that was about the distance he had on the security guards. Racing down the hall, Charlie saw Dr. Asha John emerge from the ER and stand in the corridor, right between him and the fire exit door that was his escape. He looked past Dr. John and saw Anne Pedersen standing behind her, waving to him.

“Turn around! Turn around!” Charlie screamed. “She’s right behind you! Turn around now!”

Anne Pedersen kept waving to Charlie from the end of the corridor. Dr. John kept her eyes fixed on Charlie. Charlie took one glance behind him. The guards had closed in. They were no more than twenty feet behind. When he looked past Dr. John again, Anne Ped-ersen was gone.

Charlie held up his hands. Dr. John did the same. But her intention was to stop the security guards from shooting Charlie in the back with a Taser.

“She’s here! She’s here!” Charlie said, panting to catch his breath.

“Yes, I’m sure she is.” Dr. Asha John took a step toward Charlie.

“I can explain everything. Everything,” Charlie said. He was surprised at how hard it was to catch his breath. The adrenaline from the chase and seeing Anne Pedersen again made it nearly impossible to slow his heart rate down.

Dr. John approached him. She kept her hands up, indicating to
Charlie that she was unarmed. “You need to calm down, Charlie. It’s important that you calm down.”

“I’m calm. I’m calm. I need to get that woman. I need to find Anne,” Charlie said.

“Yes,” Dr. John said. “We’ll find her together. I just need to make sure you’re okay. May I do that?”

Charlie felt his heart continue pounding in his chest. Anne Peder-sen was still in the hospital. He could wait a moment. Calm himself, then find her with the doctor’s help.

“Yes,” Charlie said. “I’ll catch my breath. Then we’ll find her.”

“Yes, catch your breath, Charlie. Then we’ll find her together.”

The security guards stayed back as instructed. Crowds were now in the corridor, watching everything unfold. Dr. Asha John moved in next to Charlie. She kept her eyes fixed on his.

“We have to go find her. She is the key to all of this,” Charlie said.

“Of course she is.”

Dr. Asha John moved with the speed of a mongoose making a kill. Charlie felt a sharp jab in his left leg.

“What have you done to me?” Charlie shouted.

“I’ve injected you with a sedative to help calm you down. If you try to run, they will shoot.”

“You have to listen to me. There is a woman. She is here in the hospital. I have to find her.”

The security guards moved closer. They held their weapons pointed at Charlie’s back. From the end of the corridor Charlie saw a woman’s figure emerge again. She was silhouetted by shadows from the light streaming into the corridor from two large bay windows nearest the emergency entrance.

The drug hadn’t taken hold. He felt completely in control of his faculties. As she approached, he compared her figure to Anne Peder-sen’s—same long hair, willowy frame, familiar gait.

“Behind you,” Charlie said to Dr. John in a near whisper. “Doctor, please turn around and look behind you. I’m trapped. There is no place for me to go. Look. That’s all I ask.”

Dr. Asha John turned her head to look behind her. “Do you know who that is?” she asked.

“It’s Anne Pedersen,” Charlie said, his voice shallow, his breathing still erratic. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

The woman from the end of the corridor continued her approach. Her features came into focus.

“It’s … it’s …” Charlie’s eyes widened as the realization set in.

“It’s going to be all right, Charlie,” Rachel Evans said.

Those were the last words Charlie heard before the corridor went dark.

“D
o you know where you are?”

Charlie blinked his eyes, trying to focus on the person seated across from him. His vision stayed blurred; the only way Charlie knew she was a woman was by the tenor of her voice.

“Do you know where you are?” the woman asked again.

For the first time in what felt like days, but was probably no more than hours, Charlie tried to speak. His mouth was parched and his throat dry. His jaw felt tight, as though it had been wired shut. Charlie wanted to scream, to beg her for something to drink, but his thoughts were too cloudy and confused. All he could manage was to stare at her. Any signals his brain was sending to the rest of his body—speech, movement—were either cut off or delayed. Panic started to take hold.
Could this condition be permanent?
He shook his head from side to side but couldn’t clear the fog.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “You may be feeling groggy from the drugs we gave you. It’s normal. There is nothing to worry about.”

Charlie’s vision began to return. A filmy cloud shrouded the scattering of familiar objects in the room: a chair, a desk, and a lamp. To his left were three small hopper windows. Through them he could make out the top of an adjacent building. Wherever he was, he wasn’t on the ground floor. The warming colors of the setting sun contrasted with the starkness of the room’s fluorescent lights and their unforgiving glow cast off a white tile floor.

Charlie tried to speak again. He could move his jaw this time but struggled with speech. At least he could move his mouth. That small victory was enough for him to let out a sigh of relief. The lethargy
was beginning to subside. He hoped that his vision would soon return to normal.

“Water. I need water.” Charlie croaked out the words.

“Of course. Here you go. Drink slow,” said the woman.

She handed him a paper cup. He put the drink to his lips and swallowed the entire contents in a gulp. The water felt blissful against Charlie’s chapped, dry lips. He closed his eyes again and rubbed them with his hands. Removing his hands from his face, Charlie squinted into the light and tried once again to focus on the woman. This time he could see her face more clearly. She had brown hair and wore glasses. She also had on a white coat and looked to be some sort of doctor. She held a clipboard in her hands and was writing something down. He noticed other voices in the room besides hers. He looked up and saw a man standing behind her. No. There were two.

Charlie crushed the paper cup in his hands. It was an unconscious release of nervous energy.

“I can take that from you if you’d like.” She reached forward as Charlie handed her the crushed cup.

“Thank you.” Charlie’s voice sounded weak and hoarse.

“Do you know where you are?” she asked again.

“No.”

“Do you know what day it is?”

Charlie thought a moment.
What day it is?
His brain was starting to come back to life. For a person accustomed to making million-dollar decisions on a weekly basis, sometimes after only a fifteen-minute meeting, being asked to confirm the day of the week felt belittling at best. He didn’t respond.

“Do you know what day it is today?” she asked again.

Uneasy at the prospect of some sort of penalty for not answering, Charlie decided it was in his best interest to respond.

“Thursday,” he said.

“The month?”

“Nineteen thirteen,” he said. He remained expressionless.

“Was that a joke?” she asked.

“Did you think it was funny?”

“Was that your intention?”

Charlie sighed. “September. It’s September,” he said.

Nothing in her mannerisms indicated pleasure or displeasure at his attempt at humor. “You are in a hospital, Charlie. You’re at Wal-derman Hospital. Do you know why you are here?”

Anne Pedersen’s face flashed into his thoughts. Then he pictured Rachel Evans. He could see her walking toward him down the long corridor at Mount Auburn. He searched his mind for other memories, but there were none.

“I saw a woman in the ER at Mount Auburn,” Charlie said. “I needed to talk to her. She ran away from me. I chased after her. Then I woke up here.”

“Where is here? Do you know where you are now?”

“You said a hospital. You said that I’m at Walderman.”

“Yes. That’s right. That’s what I said. I’m going to tell you three words, Charlie. I’d like for you to remember them. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“The words are
piano, magazine,
and
wheel.
Can you remember those words?”

“I think so.”

“I’d like you to close your eyes now. Can you repeat the words I just told you?”

“Piano, magazine, and wheel,” Charlie said.

“Very good. Can you tell me what floor you are on?”

“You didn’t tell me that,” Charlie snapped.

“Please just answer the question. Can you tell me what floor you are on?”

“I don’t know. How should I know that if you didn’t tell me?”

Charlie watched as she wrote something on her paper.

“What? Is that bad? Is it?” He heard his voice rising and regretted the weakness.

“It’s not bad, Charlie,” she said. “I’m just making a note, that’s all. I’m just trying to assess your condition, Charlie. It will help us with your treatment. I can tell you find these questions frustrating. Please trust me when I say that they are extremely beneficial in helping us assess your current state of mind. Can we continue?”

“Do I have a choice?”

She paused. “Not really.”

“Then please, by all means.” Charlie waved at her with open palms. He hoped she knew he intended it to be mocking.

“Do you know what country you live in?”

“America.” Charlie felt anger rising again but managed to suppress it. Hostility would do him no good.

“And the state?” she asked. “Do you know what state you are in?”

“A state of confusion?” Charlie smiled when he said it.

Again she gave no indication whatsoever that his answers were appropriate or expected. It bothered him that he had no idea what it was she was looking for, the purpose of these questions. She offered no clues, in body language or otherwise.

“Do you know what state you are in?” she asked again.

Charlie looked at the two men looming behind her. Both were young. One was dark-skinned; the other fair. Both stared at him, with arms folded tightly across their chests. They regarded him as visitors to a zoo might look at a caged animal.

“I am in Massachusetts. If I’m at Walderman Hospital, then I’m in the town of Belmont,” Charlie said.

“Thank you,” she said.

“There are approximately twenty-five thousand residents in Bel-mont,” he added.

“Are there?”

“And about four point six square miles of total area.”

“I see.”

She continued to write as Charlie spoke. He knew those statistics from the research he did years ago while selecting a town to move to for his relocation back east. He seldom forgot information that he’d read—especially if it was a meaningless data point. Perhaps, subconsciously even, he hoped reciting obscure facts would inspire her to judge him competent and send him on his way. Instead, she remained stoic, turned to the two men standing behind her, and held up her clipboard for them to see.

“Is that a twenty-seven or twenty-eight?” the fair-skinned man asked.

“Twenty-seven,” she said. She made a subtle nod toward Charlie.

The fair-skinned man’s face reddened. He scribbled something on his notepad and looked down at the floor.

She turned to face Charlie again. “Do you know why you’re here?”

Charlie let out another exasperated sigh. “Do you mind telling me
what the fuck this is all about?” He didn’t mean to use profanity, but his frustration got the better of him.

The men standing behind her moved in response, positioning themselves on either side of Charlie. The fair-skinned man got as far as reaching under Charlie’s armpit to pull him out of the chair. But the woman stopped him by holding up her hand.

“It’s okay. Let him go.” She spoke calmly.

The man lowered Charlie gently back onto his metal folding chair. Charlie straightened his clothes and rubbed under his arm where his skin had been pinched.

“Thank you,” Charlie said. “I’m sorry. But I don’t understand any of this.”

“That’s not uncommon. Can you answer my question, though? Do you know why you are here?” said the woman.

“Because somebody thought I was crazy.”

“Do you think that you’re having difficulties?”

Charlie hesitated before answering. “No … yes … I … I don’t know anymore.”

“Do you think that you need to be here right now?”

Charlie gave a long, hard stare into her cold eyes. She was no more than thirty. Unlike Rachel, she seemed more practiced at this than natural. For someone so accustomed to always having the upper hand, Charlie found her control over him extremely unnerving. He felt that she was purposefully shaping him with her questions, forming quick conclusions, but he was powerless to do anything about it.

“I’m not going to hurt anybody, if that’s what you’re asking me.”

“Do you think it’s a good idea if you stay here?”

“Clearly, you think it’s a good idea,” Charlie said. “What does that say about me if I say no?”

“What do you think it says?”

“That I have poor judgment.”

“Do you?”

“And if I say yes … well, doesn’t that mean that my bed is waiting for me? So you tell me. What choice do I really have here?”

She scratched more notes on her clipboard while he spoke. All he wanted to do was rip it out of her hands and toss it out the window.