Harry just barely heard the softly spoken female voice, what appeared to belong to the surgeon, a woman dressed in theatre clothes. She didn’t sound like a nurse.
Harry wanted to tell her that death was not all it was cracked up to be, now that she confirmed he was there, albeit briefly. He didn’t remember any bright white light though, something others had seen when they were hovering on the edge of mortality and the what might be the next life.
“But, they got you here just in time. You are a very lucky man. From what they tell me you were in a dump where no one ever goes, that you could have been there for years before anyone found you.”
Harry noted he should thank the man who discovered him when he was released.
She put the folder back in the bin at the end of the bed, took another look into his eyes with her penlight, and checked what he took to be her handiwork, and then said, “I’ll be back in a few hours. Got another gunshot victim to patch up. Self-inflicted this one, and by all accounts, the man is a fool.”
It was interesting that she had such an opinion, but she might be in possession of the facts of the case. Still, he had to wonder what her candid opinion of him was. He tried to nod, but nothing was working.
Perhaps when she returned later.
Harry’s memory was hazy.
He knew his name was Harry Walthenson, he knew he was a Private Detective, and he knew he had been working on a case.
But it was not that case that earned him a ticket to the ICU.
That was about something else, the details of which, at the moment, he couldn’t remember. It would come back to him, eventually
He also knew he had been beaten, very savagely, by a man whose face he would never forget, and another man, less recognizable.
All because of an address, a place that was nothing more than a wasteland.
Why?
As he drifted off to sleep, he heard a commotion outside the door to his room, the raised voices of two men, perhaps a doctor, and someone else, a voice that sounded familiar.
Sykes, Detective. Nemesis or friend, he couldn’t quite tell.
Who just then burst through the door with a doctor in tow, telling him, angrily, that Harry was not to be disturbed.
“There, see, he is awake.”
Both men looked down at Harry as he looked up blankly at them.
Awake yes, but not exactly in any sort of state to answer questions.
Because, the moment Harry opened his eyes, the equipment next to the bed started making loud alarm like sounds, and, for some reason, Harry started convulsing, struggling to breathe.
Perhaps his luck had just run out.
© Charles Heath 2016-2019
No comments:
Post a Comment