The Sick Stuff by Ronald Kelly Read Free Book Online Page A

in angry protest, but she
simply ignored him, going back to her own work. Zachary took a
pencil from a cup on the desk and headed back to the far end of the
waiting area.
    On his way, he was again assaulted by the
horrible faces of injured and dying children. Some were curled into
fetal balls, while others writhed and spasmed in the concerned arms
of mothers and fathers. He saw faces that he hadn't noticed during
his first walk. They were vaguely familiar; the faces of children
that he might have encountered on Halloween nights before, perhaps
in Houston, Seattle, or Denver.
    He turned his eyes away from those ashen
faces with their shredded, bleeding lips and pain-glazed eyes, and
stared down at the hospital floor. It was an inch deep with blood
and vomit. Floating in the filth were needles, ground glass, and
razors. They twinkled at him like sharp-edged stars in a violent
and turbulent sky.
    He reached the end of the narrow hall and
found an empty seat. He sat down heavily and gasped out loud. His
entire intestinal track felt as though it were being butchered from
within, as well as his lungs. It was becoming difficult to breathe,
but still the air wheezed in and out, whistling almost musically
around the razor blade wedged in his teeth. He looked down at the
insurance forms in his hand and shook his head in bewilderment. It
seemed to be in some language he couldn't comprehend. His trembling
hand jittered above the paper and, slowly, the pencil did a jerky
dance across the forms, filling them out despite the muddled
consciousness of his agonized mind.
    He stared up, eyes pleading for someone to
help him, but he found no one sympathetic to his misery. A small
girl who was dressed up like Ragged Ann smiled brightly at him. She
reached into a Halloween sack and took out a bite-sized Snickers.
Zachary's heart leapt as he recognized the candy bar as one of
those he had sabotaged. He tried to say something, but was
physically unable to. He watched as the child bit the candy in half
and swallowed it. Moments later, convulsions wracked her
six-year-old body and a bubbling, white foam shot from her nose and
mouth.
    Zachary looked back down at the forms and
found that they were all neatly filled out and completed. The
dark-haired nurse walked up and took the paperwork from his shaking
hands, which were jittery and black-veined from the poisons that
coursed through his bloodstream. "Good," she said with a flat
smile. "I see that you're finished. It may be quiet a wait, though.
Due to the chaotic situation, we're calling all patients
alphabetically, rather than order of arrival."
    Alphabetically! his mind screamed. He
gagged and gurgled, trying to talk some sense to her, but the
effort only brought on an agonizing sneeze. A thick spray of bloody
mucus erupted from his nostrils, staining the nurse's clean white
dress with gore. Zachary stared at the fragments of broken glass
and shredded nasal tissue that decorated the material. Again the
nurse seemed not to notice. She turned and headed back to the front
desk.
    Waves of sickness and pain washed through
him, and he watched in horror as the twinkling tips of a thousand
tiny needles and nails forced their way from the pores of his skin.
They skewered the flesh of his arms and legs, making it torturously
uncomfortable to sit in the hard plastic chair. I can't
wait, he told himself. I'll die if I have to wait here much
longer!
    He started to get up, but when he turned his
eyes to the double door of the emergency room, he found that they
were no longer there. Only a wall of stark white cinderblock
stretched before him, blocking his exit. He turned his gaze back
toward the narrow corridor. It seemed to stretch to infinity. The
nurse station was so far away that he could barely see it.
    "Next," called the nurse. Her voice echoed
off the sterile walls of the clinic as if she were yelling from the
pit of a deep canyon. "Andrew Abernathy."
    He saw a miniature clown stand up a short
distance away.