JК
Ыоуве Been Warned :: Patterson James
Страница: 136 из 138“I’m not dead! Please, please, won’t you stop?”
They raise my arms to tuck them in close to my sides, and I glimpse the blood dripping from my right hand.
“One, two, three,” they count. Then they lift me and deposit me into a body bag.
My God, my God, please, no. Don’t do this!
They close the zipper even as I continue to beg them not to do it, to give me a second chance for some reason that isn’t even clear to me.
I’ve never felt more helpless, more frightened oral one.
As they wheel me down the hall, into the elevator, and across the lobby, I stare out in horror and dread. Through the dark, dingy plastic, everything looks gray.
Even the red awning as I’m taken out of the hotel.
They push me toward the curb, the wheels of the gurney squeaking like sick birds as they spin against the pavement.
I listen to the murmuring of the crowd that’s gathered outside on the street. They’re wondering what happened.
Who died in there?
I keep screaming, “There’s been a horrible mistake. I’m not dead!”
But no one hears me.
Not the businessman in his pinstripe suit, the bike messenger, or the mother with her stroller, the same ones I saw in my dream. The strangers… who are now attending my funeral, so to speak.
I’m so scared now.
Please, God, make it stop! Please, God, please, God!
But he can’t hear me either.
Or worse, maybe he can and just doesn’t care about Kristin Burns.
Overhead, all I see are the police and EMS lights spinning against the buildings.
“Somebody do something! Get me out of here! Please! Somebody!”
The zipper to the body bag is inches from my eyes. It’s so close, but it might as well be miles away. I can’t reach it.
I can’t move.
But then the zipper starts to open – jarred, perhaps, by a crack in the sidewalk.
And that’s when I hear it – out on the street, pushing through the crowd – someone desperately screaming as loud as I am. The voice is thick with panic.
“HELP! THAT PERSON IS ALIVE!”
Closer and closer comes the voice, until the moment arrives when I see the face behind it, and all hope dies.
The horror comes full circle. The woman screaming outside the hotel?
She’s me!
And I understand everything.
In a few minutes, very soon, the dream will start again. I’ll wake up in my bed, screaming. I’ll hear the song. I’ll hear the knocking at my door. Mrs. Rosencrantz will be there.
They raise my arms to tuck them in close to my sides, and I glimpse the blood dripping from my right hand.
“One, two, three,” they count. Then they lift me and deposit me into a body bag.
My God, my God, please, no. Don’t do this!
They close the zipper even as I continue to beg them not to do it, to give me a second chance for some reason that isn’t even clear to me.
I’ve never felt more helpless, more frightened oral one.
As they wheel me down the hall, into the elevator, and across the lobby, I stare out in horror and dread. Through the dark, dingy plastic, everything looks gray.
Even the red awning as I’m taken out of the hotel.
They push me toward the curb, the wheels of the gurney squeaking like sick birds as they spin against the pavement.
I listen to the murmuring of the crowd that’s gathered outside on the street. They’re wondering what happened.
Who died in there?
I keep screaming, “There’s been a horrible mistake. I’m not dead!”
But no one hears me.
Not the businessman in his pinstripe suit, the bike messenger, or the mother with her stroller, the same ones I saw in my dream. The strangers… who are now attending my funeral, so to speak.
I’m so scared now.
Please, God, make it stop! Please, God, please, God!
But he can’t hear me either.
Or worse, maybe he can and just doesn’t care about Kristin Burns.
Overhead, all I see are the police and EMS lights spinning against the buildings.
“Somebody do something! Get me out of here! Please! Somebody!”
The zipper to the body bag is inches from my eyes. It’s so close, but it might as well be miles away. I can’t reach it.
I can’t move.
But then the zipper starts to open – jarred, perhaps, by a crack in the sidewalk.
And that’s when I hear it – out on the street, pushing through the crowd – someone desperately screaming as loud as I am. The voice is thick with panic.
“HELP! THAT PERSON IS ALIVE!”
Closer and closer comes the voice, until the moment arrives when I see the face behind it, and all hope dies.
The horror comes full circle. The woman screaming outside the hotel?
She’s me!
And I understand everything.
In a few minutes, very soon, the dream will start again. I’ll wake up in my bed, screaming. I’ll hear the song. I’ll hear the knocking at my door. Mrs. Rosencrantz will be there.