The Last Hour (Thompson Sisters), Sheehan-Miles, Charles [reading an ebook .txt] 📗

was shuddering, and she closed her eyes and said, “Okay. How?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Just ... imagine. Pretend you’re back in there. Believe it.”

She closed her eyes, her face slack. I could still see the terror in her expression, but she was fighting it. I was afraid too ... afraid that she wouldn’t go back, and that being separated from her body for so long would break whatever tenuous hold she still had on the real world, that she would drift off, that her body would die and she’d be condemned to wander out here, not dead but not alive, not anything. I had to do whatever it took to help her get home.

Whatever it took.

I was still holding the sides of her face, and I said, “Promise me you’ll take care of her.”

“What?” she screeched.

“Promise me, damn it,” I said, my voice breaking again. “Promise me you’ll watch out for Carrie!”

Her voice didn’t hold terror any more. It held grief, as tears began to pour out of her eyes, welling over. My own tears fell down on her face, mixing with hers, and she said, in a shaky, quiet voice, “I promise.”

And then I closed my eyes, and willed her back into her body. I pictured her at the Morbid Obesity concert, a huge grin on her face as she banged into the punk rockers in the mosh pit, every inch of her alive and vital and beautiful. I pictured her as Carrie had described her, a tiny little girl with a huge personality that could fill up a room all on its own. I pictured her holding Carrie’s hand.

And that’s when something crazy happened, as if all of this wasn’t crazy enough. I stopped deliberately picturing things, but my mind was still filled with images. Images from her memory. I saw her, looking in the mirror, five years old, as she and Jessica took a ballet class together, two tiny twins, one light, one dark. I saw her in a park, staring as blood welled up out of her palm, and her much older sister Carrie, reassuring her as she pulled the glass out.

I saw her at a crowded table in a restaurant, all of her sisters around her, as she made faces at a blonde, spiked-haired, much younger Crank Wilson.

Sarah tumbled to the ground when a young, red-faced Randy Brewer stuck his foot out and tripped her, and then he chuckled and laughed as she ran away, mud on her dress.

The visions kept coming, more vivid, more colorful as she grew older. Now she was in middle school, walking down the hall hand-in-hand with Jessica when a boy pushed between them and said, “Freaks.” Six months later, staring in the mirror at herself the first time she’d worn all black. The next morning she punched a boy who had been bullying Jessica.

I saw her, improbably, in a bowling alley. I could feel the weight of a pair of combat boots, a tight t-shirt, the hand of a boy on her side, the boy who was the first—and last—to ever kiss her.

I saw her standing across the room from Jessica, throwing books and screaming.

I saw her sister Andrea, crying. Packing. Refusing to say what was wrong, why she was leaving.

I saw her in the backseat of Carrie’s Mercedes, behind me, arms crossed over her chest as she stared out the window and then saw the approaching Jeep and panicked.

I swallowed, feeling a lump form in my throat when I realized that if she didn’t make it, if I wasn’t able to get her back in her body right now, then she might not ever get that second kiss. She might not get a chance to go to another concert. She might not get a chance to see Andrea again and find out what went wrong. Just like the boy in Dega Payan, the boy whose life was cut short too soon, the boy who I couldn’t save, no matter how many times I went back there in my dreams, no matter how many times I wished it away, no matter how many times I begged God for forgiveness that I hadn’t saved his life.

I couldn’t go back and save that boy’s life. But I could do what I could here. Maybe this was a chance for me too, not just for Sarah. Maybe this was a chance to do something right.

Her eyes flew open, and she whispered, “I’m sinking. Don’t let me go.”

I poured every inch of love that I had into her. Every instinct of compassion. Every moment that I wanted her to have. I closed my eyes and wished. And then my hands slipped, no longer touching her spirit, but instead, flailing against the insubstantial but all too real body below me. The air left me in a sudden rush as I exhaled, and I opened my eyes, suddenly feeling all alone.

Sarah was gone.

I stumbled back, feeling myself waver, as if I were in shock. I stared down at my hands and flinched, because I could see through them. I could see the floor through them. I held them up in front of me, and they were shaking, and right through my insubstantial fingers I could see Sarah, with the doctor pounding on her chest.

And then the nurse shouted, “We’ve got a pulse!”

I collapsed beside her bed. And then I saw Daniel, standing in the doorway. His eyes were wide with fear.

Little bits (Carrie)

“Doctor Thompson? I’m Richard Moore.”

I smiled and shook his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Doctor Moore. Please ... call me Carrie.”

“Richard, then.”

I was standing in the main lobby of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, one of the many buildings on the sprawling NIH campus. Doctor Moore, who would be my fellowship supervisor, was one of the preeminent scientists in the Infectious Diseases Division. He was a tall man, almost my height, with gaunt, angular features and sunken cheeks.

“A little bit later this morning we’ll