Phoenix Lights - 5. CONCERN

Saturday, March 22, 1997

Jeffrey didn’t have the mental wherewithal to scream out in pain. He didn’t remember anything, his brain wasn’t working right, and he couldn’t really process thought; someone had sedated him.

His mind was blank, but he could feel a stabbing in his scalp, then a tugging. Someone was putting in stitches, and he could feel every single one with excruciating detail.

When the cyclical stabbing had stopped, it wasn’t long until he started hearing a strange mechanical tapping noise, which turned into a loud, repetitive clattering bang. There was a white hot pain in a little spot behind his right ear, as if something under his skin, maybe in his skull, was trying to break out.

He could not move; he could do nothing. Once again, he was a prisoner in his own body.

*****

“Are you safe, Jeff?”

Jeffrey opened his eyes and glanced around. He could see a white ceiling, but couldn’t tell how far above him it was. He sat up and looked around; he was in a large room, laying on a white tile floor, but couldn’t see anyone in sight.

“Hello?” he called.

Slowly, he got to his feet, spinning circles, scanning the infinite distance.

“Jeff, are you safe?”

It was a familiar voice, but it wasn’t Sean. “Who are you?!” Jeffrey yelled.

“Please, don’t worry. I won’t harm you.”

A familiar smell greeted his nose, a smell of a certain individual that brought some of Sean’s best childhood memories flooding into Jeffrey’s mind. “Brett?” A hot tear ran down his face.

Brett stood in front of him, holding a warm hand to his cheek.

“Are you real?”

He smiled warmly. “You know the answer to that.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Horrible things are coming,” he said. “Protect him.”

“What’s coming? Protect who?”

Jeffrey suddenly started awake. He was in a hospital room, with his mother and sister sitting in chairs off to his right.

His mother stood up and came to the side of the bed. “Honey,” she said quietly, stroking his face.

“What happened? Where am I?”

“Let me go get your father.”

He watched her walk out of the room. Emily stood up, looking back over her shoulder toward the door. She stood next to the bed.

“Emily, what happened?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Are you okay?”

“What. Happened?”

“You were laughing at really weird times. I just thought you were being a jerk. But you suddenly stood up and just stood there, and you turned white as a sheet. I was so scared, I didn’t know what was happening to you.” She sighed deeply. “Your nose started bleeding and mom called out your name. You turned to look at her, then your eyes rolled back and your legs went out. You hit your head on the coffee table and wouldn’t come around. You split your head open and there was blood everywhere. Dad and mom were both crying on the way to the hospital. Everyone was so worried.”

Jeffrey tried to register it all.

“What’s going on with you, Jeffrey?”

He shook his head and squeezed her hand. “I don’t know.”

She leaned in and spoke quietly. “You’re not doing drugs, are you? I bet cocaine would do that.”

“Emily! I’m not doing drugs.”

They stared at each other for a long moment. Then, she asked, “Who is Brett?”

His heart jumped. “What do you mean?”

“Before you woke up, you were mumbling something. All I could understand was Brett.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lied.

Behind her, his mother shuffled into the room with his dad at her elbow.

“Buddy,” his dad said with worry in his voice. “Tell me what hurts. Can I do anything. How are you feeling? What happened?”

“Jesus, Dad. I’m fine.” He gently rubbed his head, his wrist tangled in IV lines.

“They still haven’t come back with your MRI scans yet,” his mother said.

“MRI scans?” Jeffrey looked around the room, from face to face.

Tom patted him on the chest. “Yeah, after they stitched you up, they put you in an MRI machine to run some tests, and they took some of your blood for a workup. One of the doctors thought you might have a blockage in your brain or something. Oh, dude, don’t do this to me again.”

Jeffrey stared at his father, and in a deadpan tone, said, “Okay. I’ll tell my brain to knock it off.”

His dad stared at him.

“It was a joke, Dad.”

His father hugged him, while his mother rubbed his arm. “You’re normal. I bet you’re fine.” Tom held him at arms length, by the shoulders. “You know what happened?”

“Emily said I passed out and hit my head on the table.”

“What do you remember?” His mother asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. We were watching Homeward Bound. I remembered a joke someone told me at school, and I laughed. You guys didn’t think it was funny. That’s about it.”

“You don’t remember standing up, or the bloody nose?” Tom asked.

Jeffrey shook his head.

What room are you in?

“Sean?”

Everyone stared at him.

Yeah. I’m in the lobby. Where are you?

“What about Sean?” his mother asked.

Shit. “We were supposed to talk before I went to bed,” he lied.

“Don’t worry about Sean. You can see him when you get home.”

How did you know I was here? Jeffrey asked Sean.

I saw the ambulance take you off last night. Jeffrey could sense Sean talking to an orderly in the lobby.

Last night?

I took the Metro over. Hang on, I’ll be up in a few minutes.

Jeffrey didn’t know what to say to his family without giving himself away. “How long do I have to stay here?”

“We don’t know,” Tom said. “Depends on your test results.” He tugged at a band on Jeffrey’s wrist. “You’re a fall risk, so you have to stay in bed for a while.”

“Didn’t you have patrol today?” Jeffrey asked.

“Do you think the captain would make me come into work when someone in my family was rushed to the hospital? Come on, he’s not a monster.”

Jeffrey had met Captain Delgado when his dad had been promoted to a sergeant; he was a pretty cool dude, but a little too intimidating for Jeffrey’s liking.

Emily turned toward the door. “It’s Sean.”

Jeffrey’s parents turned and glanced back; Jeffrey leaned forward in his bed.

Sean stood in the doorway and gave a nervous smile. “Knock knock,” he said quietly. He took a small step into the room.

“I’m going to find the doctor,” Tom said, glancing at Jeffrey’s mom. “See if we can get some answers.”

“I’ll go with you,” She said, pulling her wallet out of her purse. She handed Emily a five dollar bill. “Why don’t you go down to the cafeteria and get something to drink.” She forced a smile.

Tom grabbed Sean’s shoulder and squeezed as he walked out of the room, Jeffrey’s mom not too far behind. Emily glanced suspiciously between the two of them, and left the room without saying anything.

Sean sat down in the chair next to Jeffrey’s bed. “Hey.”

“Hi.”

You look pretty banged up.

I’ve felt better.

It was weird. When I got home, I could feel you, but it was like you were just… turned off.

Did something strange happen to you?

Sean shook his head. “I don’t know.” He remembered the homunculus, and remembered just suddenly being in Tyson’s mom’s car.

You blacked out?

I lost an hour. Tyson found me in the lobby all sweaty. Apparently I walked out of the theater and didn’t come back. I don’t even remember the movie. I scared the crap out of my mom.

Why?

I was standing on the lawn for ten minutes staring at nothing. She came out and I had a panic attack. She almost didn’t let me out of the house today.

I collapsed just after that Elevator scene in the movie. Did they take you or something?

“I don’t know.” Did something strange happen to you? Other than collapsing?

Jeffrey tried to relay that he’d seen Sean’s brother, but something blocked him from doing so - from sharing the memories or speaking of his mental encounter.

What is it?

“Something’s blocking me from saying it. It’s strange.”

“This just keeps getting weirder and weirder.”

Yeah.

Good save, by the way.

I don’t know how I’d explain it if I just told everyone that you were on your way up and you just happened to show up.

Your sister looked a little suspicious.

“She’s always like that,” Jeffrey said. “The homunculus.”

It was hiding behind someone’s purse. I spotted it just before I blacked out. I remember hearing strange sounds when I was trying to go to bed last night. Banging noises.

“I think that was the MRI I had. I was out, but I heard them, too.”

The boys stared at each other for a moment.

A doctor walked in and pulled a clipboard out of the tray mounted on the wall next to the door. His parents shuffled in behind him. “Morning, Jeffrey. Came by to let you know what we found in your scans.”

Tom turned toward Sean. “Can you wait out in the hall for a bit, buddy? I’ll come get you when you can come back in.”

Jeffrey gulped, wondering what he was about to be told. Shit. What if it’s cancer or something?

Sean nodded and stepped out of the room. It’s more than likely them than cancer. I’ll be here.

Jeffrey perceived Sean sitting in the hallway, in a chair across from his sister, as the door to his room was closed to the outside world. Emily stared hard at Sean, unmoving and silent.

“So…” the doctor started. “We looked over the MRI scans several times. There is absolutely nothing that we can see that’s physically wrong with your brain. The only strange thing with your scan was something embedded in the tissue behind your right ear. Probably a bone fragment from hitting your head. It’ll either work itself out, or you’ll have to get it removed at some point.”

Jeffrey’s skin tingled. He ran his fingers over the skin behind his ear, and could feel a slight bump there.

Hey, I have one, too, Sean thought.

“It’s not serious. A little local anesthesia and ten minutes with a doctor in an OR. You’d be awake the whole time, and probably walk out of the building within an hour. What worries me, though, are your blood results.” He paused and stared at Jeffrey.

Jeffrey and Sean both held their breath.

“Do you know what myoglobin is?”

Jeffrey shook his head.

“It’s a protein that gets released into the blood. If there’s too much of it, you kidneys can take damage trying to clean it out. We’ll flush it out with some saline. It can be caused by several different things - one is certain drugs or alcohol.” He turned toward his parents. “None of that came up in the test. Don’t worry, he’s not doing drugs or doing shooters at the bar.” He turned back toward Jeffrey. “What worries me, though, is that it can be caused by muscle trauma. We see it a lot in marathon runners when they get done with long races, and sometimes people who have been in bad accidents.”

“Like my fall?”

“You wouldn’t see it in something like that, no.” He tapped his clipboard against his hand. “It also happens with heart attacks. But your heart sounds normal, your electrocardiograms look perfectly healthy for a fourteen-year-old. We’re going to do a few more tests on your heart to be sure something didn’t happen, like a heart attack or some sort of undiagnosed heart issue. I have someone coming up in a few minutes to wheel you down to have an ultrasound done on your heart.”

“Isn’t he too young to be having a heart attack?” his mother asked.

“Depends on weather or not there was an undiagnosed deformation in his heart. If we don’t find anything, I’ll probably schedule another MRI to make sure, just so we can get a really good look at his ticker. Maybe a full set of X-Rays before that.” He turned back toward his parents. “I want another set of blood panels done. He’ll have to stay until the myoglobin is out of his system. From there, if we don’t find anything else, he’d be free to go home.”

“What do you think it is?” Tom asked.

The doctor shook his head. “I don’t know. We’re a little bit stumped. No bruising to indicate muscle trauma, no recent accidents, only a collapse and cut on the head. No drugs or alcohol detected in his system. It has to be the heart.”

“What if it’s not?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. A fluke, maybe.” He turned toward Jeffrey. “When you go home, you’ll have to watch for dark colored urine - like the color of iced tea. If you have that or any nausea, fever, vomiting, stomach pain, well, you’ll have to come back.”

Jeffrey could feel the fear and concern in Sean, but he couldn’t hide his own fear.

*****

It was Tuesday night when Jeffrey was allowed to leave. They turned off one road onto another, and suddenly, Sean came into range.

Did they find it? What’s wrong?

Jeffrey sighed. They found nothing. I’m apparently very healthy. They said I probably collapsed from dehydration or something. I have pills I have to take. And I have to drink lots of water. I have to go in every few weeks for tests for a couple of months. Mom has me out of school for the rest of the week.

The heart specialist didn’t see anything?

No. Just a normal heart. He said my lungs were a little larger than average, but that just means I’d be good at sports. My dad’s been talking my ear off about joining baseball and cross country next year.

When is your spring break? Mine starts next week.

Jeffrey hadn’t thought about it. Mine’s weird. It starts and ends on a Wednesday for some reason, and I think my sister has hers a few weeks after mine. I’ll look when I get home. Why, what did you have in mind?

*****

Jeffrey spent Friday at home alone. His mother had gone back to work, but would be checking on him throughout the day. She left him little notes everywhere, with easy chores for him to do if he was feeling okay, but not all at once. She’d even left him a note in his lunch she made for him; it was stuck to the top of the tupperware container.

Lunch today would be leftover lasagna from the night before, with some carrots and celery, to be washed down with the same volume of water that was in the Tempe Town Lake.

Love you, the note read. Call me at work if you need anything. Take the hamburger out of the freezer to thaw for Tacos tonight. XOX Love you!

Jeffrey could see that there was something written on the other side. He lifted the sticky note from the top of the container and flipped it over.

In his sister’s handwriting:

homunculus?