Animal Instinct by Stephen Osborne

Author:Stephen Osborne
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2012-05-24T17:03:37+00:00

Chapter 12

THE following morning I stopped in at the hospital to check on Gina. No change there, not that I thought there would be. The doctors were still pretending to know what was going on, although they obviously had no clue. Mark the Dentist was there in the waiting room, so I sat with him a few minutes.

His thinning hair looked like it hadn’t been washed for several days, and his clothes were rumpled. I wondered how many kids were running around suffering from cavities while he was here waiting for Gina to awake. He smiled wanly as I sat down next to him.

“No change,” he said. “I’m beginning to wonder if she’s ever going to come out of it.”

“She will. Gina’s a fighter.”

Mark sighed. “I don’t know. The doctors try to be optimistic, but you can tell they’re stumped. Now they’re not even calling it a coma. They’re calling it a ‘coma-like state.’ What the hell does that mean?”

I stretched out my legs. The cot hadn’t been bad, but I still had some kinks to work out. I wanted to give Mark some words of encouragement, but I couldn’t think of any. I found myself wishing I knew the guy better. He seemed nice. And any guy that would give up a work day to sit on uncomfortable chairs in a hospital waiting room was pretty phenomenal.

He seemed to read my mind. “I’ve got vacation time, luckily. They’ve got some new doctor in there right now, checking her out. He’s some big noise from New York, and they’re hoping he’ll give them all the answers. I’m not holding my breath. Once they’re done, though, I’m going to spend the afternoon with her. We’re almost done with the Grisham novel.”

I patted the hand he had resting on his knee. “You’re a good guy, Mark.”

“Thanks,” he said.

“Gina hates John Grisham.”

“Really? Shit. That figures. And they say people in comas remember things being said. I wonder if that applies to coma-like states as well.”

“I’m sure she loves the intention. Who knows? Maybe you’ll make her into a Grisham convert.”

Mark the Dentist shrugged. “Well, we’re almost done with the book. Might as well finish it now. I just run out of things to say to her. It’s hard when the person you’re talking to can’t reply, you know? If only I could get inside her head. I’d yell at her and tell her to snap out of it.”

Get inside her head. I closed my eyes. Sometimes I’m too stupid to live. We could, of course. Not to wake her up. That would be too dangerous. Skull Stealer would know she was conscious and just attack again. But there were other things we could do. And I knew just the person to do it. I stood up.

“You finish reading that Grisham to her,” I said to Mark. “I’ll be back later.”

“I’ll be here.”

I didn’t doubt it.

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