Chapter 24- Injection

"Visiting hours are over" the soft hands and manicured nails of the nurse shook me awake. I looked at my watch. "Have you been here all day?" I asked, running my eyes. She smiled. "Do you even know what time it is?" she said flirtatiously. I looked at my watch. 2:30am. I sat up, and the jacket I'd been using as a blanket fell to my lap. "I just got back in" she said with a smile. "You hungry?" She held up a white paper bag. "We can split my sandwich."

"So what's your name?" I asked between bites. She smiled and tried to say something, but her mouth was full. We were splitting a reuben sandwich from the local deli. "Oothy" was all that came out. "Oothy?" I laughed. "That's such a common name. We're you named after someone famous?" She poked a finger in my direction and squinted with a smile. "Don't make fun of me or I'll take away the rest of that sandwich!" I put my hands up in surrender. "So 'Oothy' what's your real name?" She looked at me, clearly interested. "Suzie." She said. I smiled back. "Susie, I need your help. With my mother." I nodded my head in the direction of her room. She looked at me quizzically.

We quietly rolled a wheelchair into my mother's room. As Suzie positioned it beside the bed, I lifted my mother under her arms and slid her into the chair. Suzie flipped her legs an pit them on the pegs at the bottom of the chair. My mother didn't say a word, but sat staring motionless at the wall. I I moved to get a better look at her face. Her eyes were more yellow than before, and it was beginning to reach her retinas. I also noticed there were small blue veins weeping outward from the edges of her eyes. "Mom? Give me a sign, please!" I looked for any note of recognition. Nothing. I looked up at Suzie and shook my head. We pushed the chair to the door and she held her hand out to stop me as she peeked out. Waving me through, I rolled her quickly toward the elevator. Pressing the button I waited impatiently until I heard the familiar ding of the car arriving on my floor.

The doors opened and the man in the labcoat was standing there, a look of shock moving across his face. I was about to turn and run, but Suzie showed up right beside me. "Doctor!" she said cheerfully. "You didn't have to come help us!" She began to push the cart into the elevator and his expression went from shock to confusion. I stood there, frozen, waiting to see how the situation played out. "Nurse, where are you taking this patient?" he asked sternly. She held out the clipboard to him. "Downstairs to Radiology, like Dr. Winston requested." He looked at the clipboard and over at me. His suspicion turned to recognition as he saw my face. "You!" he said. Suddenly his eyes rolled in the back of his head and he collapsed. There, standing behind him, was Suzie, a large hypodermic in her hand. "Hoped I wouldn't have to use that."

We moved slowly but purposefully off the elevator and into the lobby. Stopping at the guard station I smiled casually at the guard, who handed me my gun. "Got your Mom out, huh?" I nodded and smiled. "Thanks for holding onto this for me." I tucked the pistol into the holster in the back of my jeans and pushed the chair out the door.

In the Jeep, Suzie stretched out in the back seat, pulling the band out of her hair and letting it fly in the wind. In the front seat my mother stared out the front window, unmoving. I turned back to Suzie and said loudly "We need to find out what they did to her." She pointed ahead. "Go left up here. I have a friend who can help us." We turned into a small neighborhood and she directed me to a modest but well kept home. "This is it." She said. We pulled up to the curb and parked, and I lifted my mother and carried her to the door while Suzie knocked. The front porch light came on and a man opened the door. When I saw him I was so surprised that I had to struggle to keep from dropping my mother. "Mr. Munn?!?"