Jabberwock Jack (24 page)

Jack decided the solution to his issue just like I've seen dogs and other animals do. Brute force. Swinging his head back and forth, Jack hoped to dislodge Szandor. But my brother still stubbornly and stupidly held on. To be fair, he was now high in the air, so maybe he just didn't want to fall with great force on the stone floor or the stalagmites. When his swinging wasn't enough to dislodge my brother, Jack resorted to bashing his head against the walls of the chamber, which also crushed Szandor into the rock. While Jack was also hitting his own body against the stone, his thick skin was probably better defense than Szandor's. My brother was being beaten against the walls in the chamber. No man could survive much of that, not even Szandor.

I finally kicked the grate out and hopped down into the chamber as my brother fell unconscious from the beast's mouth, at this point only about fifteen feet in the air.

"Szandor!" I shouted.

With a battle cry, I pulled the trigger on my spear gun. The long shaft of the spear embedded itself halfway in Jack's body, in the long snake-like neck not far under his head. Delilah had hopped down after me. She loosed a few rounds from her P90, the roar of the suppressed weapon filling the chamber. Jack's body burst with dark blood where each of Delilah's bullets struck. Jericho came last. He shouted his own cry and rushed at Jack, his wicked harpoon held aloft, ready to finally end their decades of vengeance.

But it was too late for Jericho. After my spear and the burst fire of Delilah's bullets, Jack roared in pain. His long form slid backward, retreating into that dark crevice, Diego's body pulled with him.

Jericho stopped short at the edge of the crevice, peering down into the darkness. For all his vengeance and bravado, he stopped at that dark chasm. He knew it was death to go down into that cramped space alone and he was too shaken by betrayal and the death of our allies. While there was blood all over the room, there was definitely a strong trail that disappeared down into the crevice that we could see even in the meager light. Diego's blood.

I ran to my brother. His limp body was unflatteringly splayed on the ground, his hand bleeding into a pool of water next to him. He was bruised, bleeding, and unconscious. I used my very limited medical knowledge to check his vitals. He was alive, but his pulse was erratic.

"Help him!" I screamed.

Delilah ran to me, pulling the first aid kit out of her pack. She began bandaging him to staunch the bleeding, but we all knew it was bad. Meat groggily sat up. He was bruised and a had a terrible headache, but otherwise seemed okay.

"We're going back up!" I shouted, mostly at Jericho, who stood staring into the dark crack.

Delilah and Meat nodded, but they weren't the ones I wanted to acknowledge my demand.

"We're going back up, we need to get my brother to a hospital!" I shouted again. "Do you hear me?"

Jericho said nothing, not turning from the crevice.

This was more than I could take. I pulled myself up and threw myself at Jericho. He wasn't expecting it, so I grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him to me. His typical stern and intense expression was gone. Now he looked shocked and disoriented.

"We're going up now. We're getting my brother to the hospital. Do you have a problem with that?" I snarled the last sentence to him.

Finally he shook his head and I let him go. I looked down to where Delilah was doing what she could for Szandor. We had to move him, even though that's typically considered a bad thing with the wounded. But there was no point in leaving him here. Was time an issue here? We were so deep down, I wondered if we could get him topside in time to save his life.

Sole Survivor

Too long. That's how long it took to reach the surface. My frantic panic had first slowed to a post-adrenaline worry as we were working on actually doing something.  But then it edged back up to full-on panic when it took us longer and longer to get back to the surface. In the back of my head, I checked off every minute, every moment as the one which was too far, after which there was nothing to be done, after which the doctor would throw up his hands and say, "Sorry, nothing we can do."

Three hours.

That's how long it actually took to get back to the surface. We were in the Undersystem, so we needed to find a way to get back up into the regular system of either Sewers or train tunnels and then from there discover an exit up to the surface. Getting up to the surface from the higher tunnels was easy. They were made for maintenance. Getting out of the Undersystem was the real problem. The largeness of all the tunnels and chambers made getting anywhere take a long time and access to the above tunnels was both less often and harder to find. We had come down here a day's journey from where we faced Jack. So we needed to discover a way back up we hadn't known before. Szandor wouldn't survive a whole day's march back.

I carried my brother what in my panic felt like a few miles through that Undersystem until we found a long ladder up. With the help of rope and climbing hooks, we got him up into the Sewers. From there, we climbed out of a manhole in an alley Southend, four filthy spelunkers and one unconscious body.

Not caring about anything else, I grabbed my brother in my arms and took off in a run, leaving my companions behind without a word. I ran out of the alley into the rain, seeing a busy street. Without a pause I ran out into the street, practically throwing myself in front of the first cab I saw to get them to stop. I didn't care about the screech of tires which could have ended my own life. All I cared was that the cab stopped. The driver's eyes were wide at me and the injured body I carried. My voice was too loud and too quick as I explained my brother had been in an accident. He quickly agreed to take us to the hospital. He even did it free of charge, which was a rare moment of compassion for New Avalon cab drivers. The only concession was that my brother couldn't bleed on the seats. Since Szandor was bandaged, we only had to contend with wounds opened from moving him. I did my best for the cab driver's sake.

I ran into the Emergency Room of South Avalon General Hospital, my brother in my arms. I came to a stop in the middle of the ER, filthy, wet, and stinking, my brother's limp body held tight. In a throaty voice thick with sadness, I shouted, "My brother needs help!"

Many stared at me strangely, and help didn't come to me as quickly as I wanted. But eventually two overworked and tired nurses came to me to find out what was wrong. A gurney was swiftly rushed out to me and they gently put Szandor on it.

"What happened?" they asked.

"He fell," I said.

The closest nurse, a cute but tired one with her brown curly hair tied back, looked down at Szandor's wounds, some which had already been bandaged. She raised her eyebrow at me. "Fell?"

I walked the story back, still knowing I need to lie. "He likes going down in the Sewers. I know, it's dangerous. But I hadn't heard from him in hours, so I went down to find him. He was there, unconscious at the bottom of some tunnel. I think he fell." Not bad for on-the-spot lying. It was sort of true, maybe if there had been a gigantic sea serpent that tripped him.

The nurse shook her head, still probably believing that this was a poor version of the truth and handed me a clipboard. My brother was taken away through those swinging doors in every medical drama. I had seen them enough times to know if I tried to follow, some huge orderly would force me back or some dramatic but important nurse would tell me doctors only and to chill the fuck out. I knew this all but the pain in my heart and the worry in my bones wouldn't go away. I sat down in a chair with the clipboard, trying to fill out as much as possible. There was a six year old boy next to me who had come with his mother and his brother who had broken his arm.

"You smell," said the kid.

Thanks, kid.

My phone woke me from sleep. I hadn't even realized I had fallen asleep, but somehow the exhaustion had overtaken me. I had filled out the multitude of forms, handed them in, and then paced around the waiting room asking the nurses for an update every few minutes until they told me to sit down or get out. I only knew that he was in the ICU and that I couldn't see him. They wouldn't answer the question of whether he was stable or not. So I had begrudgingly sat down, and without the constant movement, I guess I had dozed off. I was pissed I had fallen asleep, but somehow knew I needed the rest. Through the windows I could see it was dark now. I don't know what time I came in - maybe late afternoon?

My phone listed a bunch of texts, but the incoming call that was making all the noise was from Carly.

"Hello?" I said. My voice was still a little hoarse from shouting.

"So you told me I should give you a call some time so we can talk... I guess this became
some time
." Her voice was amused, flirty, and a little drunk.

And then I remembered the email I wrote her. I had wanted to decide whether I wanted to send it or not when we were coming back up. But I didn't think about that with Szandor's injury. So when I got back to the surface, the email had been automatically sent. As far as she knew, I sent her an email about getting back together and relationship stuff just a few hours ago. She had no idea about the hell of the last few hours.

"I..." I started, and then floundered. "I wrote that email last night, it got sent later. I... " I took a long pause before I blurted it out. "Szandor is in the hospital."

"What?" she said in shock.

"I'm here in the ER," I said. "He's been in there for hours, but they won't give me a good update..."

"Where are you?"

"South Avalon General," I said. "I've -"

"I'll be right there," she said.

"You don't have to -" I started, but she had already hung up.

I shrugged and looked at the text messages. They were from Meat, Delilah, and Paulie looking for some update. I didn't have it in me to answer them and put my phone back in my pocket. I just sat back in my seat. I looked over at the ER sign in desk and locked glances with the nurse on duty. It was the same one who had been there earlier. She gave me a look that said she'd give me an update when she had one and otherwise I should sit my ass back down.

I don't know how long it was, but when Carly came through those doors, it was like a shining light. She wasn't dressed up or anything, in fact she was in sweatpants. She probably ran right out when she had hung up the phone. But she was still beautiful to me, more so in this moment when I was hurting.

I stood and she ran right up to me, wrapping her arms around me. "Oh, Mikkel, I'm so, so sorry!"

For a moment I was stiff. For a moment I held back, trying to be strong, trying so hard not to be weak, trying so hard to hold onto some cautious part of myself and not let go when there was still so much unsaid and undone between her and I. For a moment, I managed it. And then that moment was gone and I melted into her arms. My whole body slackened and the tension I had been carrying fell away. For this moment, I got to be me, just me, not the monster hunter, not the tough guy, not the Big Brother. And that meant I cried.

Carly held me tight, whispering, "It's going to be okay."

"I'm so worried," I blubbered into her hair.

"It's going to be okay," she whispered, though I'm not sure if she even believed herself. She stroked my hair trying to be soothing.

I felt like a kid again, but not in the best way. I felt powerless and alone, like when our dad left. I was old enough to remember him and what it was like when he left, how it made Mom feel. She told me what I could do was be a good big brother to Szandor, who would never remember our dad. She gave me that job, Big Brother, a title I had hung on to for a long time. When Mom died, it was even more important that I be Big Brother. When we got into dangerous work, I worried about my brother's safety, but Szandor and I did it together. I could still be Big Brother, I could still look out for him.

But today I didn't look out for him. I was separated from him and then I got to watch as that creature slammed him against the walls. And I could do nothing.
Nothing
. I had failed as a Big Brother.

You know how when you're already feeling down, your heart figures out some new way to kick you, to force you down even lower, trying to get you to wallow in the deepest darkest parts of you, where you're the most broken? There was that too. The heart is an asshole.

If Szandor died... then I'd be alone. That would be my last relative gone. My dad was technically still alive, but he didn't count. He wasn't family, not after running out on us. My brother was my only family. If he died, I'd be alone.

And I'd no longer be Big Brother. I'm not sure if I can convey what a loss that would be. So much of my life was tied up in being Big Brother, of being there for my Szandor, of being that for Mom's sake, of supporting my family. If Szandor died, I'd not only be alone, but that whole role of Big Brother would slip away. I'd be alone and have no sense of who I was anymore.

I wasn't ready for that.

I wasn't ready for my brother to die.

I wish I could have kept those thoughts away while Carly held me, but I couldn't. That wasn't an option. The best that could happen was that she held me until the volume of those thoughts subsided. She held me until I at least stopped crying. Then she broke the embrace and only held my hand as we sat down.

"You really smell, by the way," she said.

An eternity later and they still had no update for me. The waiting was the most frustrating part of the experience. I needed to know if he was okay or not, but all I had was frustration. Every moment had me expecting the worst because they didn't tell me. Having Carly with me helped not freak out, but the endless tick of minutes slowly sucked away any solace she was giving.

I went outside to smoke a cigarette. For some reason, the nurses were adamant I couldn't smoke inside. I went and sat on the curb outside, in plain view of the ER in case they finally had information. Carly stood at the ER doors, her arms wrapped around herself, keeping a respectful distance so she wouldn't have to inhale the smoke.