Tales From The Pizzaplex #1: Lally's Game

Frailty

Jessica leads a double-life from her friends and coworkers in the children's wing of a hospital.

~~~

THE NIGHT WAS COLD. RAINDROPS SCATTERED ACROSS

THE ROAD LIKE TINY PELLETS. THE FLASH OF RED AND

BLUE EMERGENCY LIGHTS REFLECTED OFF THE WET

PAVEMENT AND THE WRECKAGE OF A CRASHED SEDAN

AGAINST A BROKEN TREE.

"Come on, kid. Stay with me, stay with me," Jack, the EMT, whispered.

Drops of rain rolled off his face while he pumped his hands against the rib cage of a teenaged boy.

"Clear!" his partner, Dave, yelled.

Jack raised his arms as Dave charged an electric current into the boy's heart. The boy's body jerked on the wet gravel road.

Jack started pumping the kid's chest again. "Come on, kid. Come back to us."

"Still no pulse, Jack. It's been too long. We got to call it."

"Once more. Come on, kid."

Again, they tried to revive the boy, but to no avail.

"Dang it." Jack sat back, wiped rain and sweat off his nose with his wrist. "Call it." After a moment of regret, Jack covered the kid with a tarp.

He stood up, gave himself a minute. It was always painful to lose someone so young.

He heard a rock skitter across the ground.

Jack swiveled his head toward the black brush from behind the tree.

Was someone there? Maybe an animal? He couldn't see anything through the curtain of rain. He rolled his shoulders, picked up a medical bag, and turned away. "Let's pack up and get the coroner here."

"Kid didn't make it?" Officer Manor asked him on his way back to the ambulance.

Jack shook his head. "Not this time."

"Too bad. This road is dangerous, let alone during a storm like this."

"Don't I know it with the calls I've had here in the past ..." Jack trailed off as he placed the bag into the van.

Officer Manor nudged his flashlight toward the dark. "And right here, near a cemetery of all places. Bad vibes, I think."

"Just a coincidence," Jack said.

A sudden movement caught his eye. Jack squinted against the rain and shifted his attention toward the body. There was a dark form in the rain.

Was someone leaning over the corpse?

For a split second, the hairs on the back of his neck raised; then he shook the feeling off. He blinked to make sure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him.

There was someone. Short, slim, frail. The form hovered over the dead boy's body, doing some kind of motion with its hands, back and forth. Then he saw it.

A knife.

Jack stepped forward. "Hey! Get away from him!"

The dark form jumped up, long wet hair covering a face, light glistening off the weapon, and something swinging from the figure's hand. Then the little thing ran away back into the darkness of the brush.

"What happened, Jack?" Officer Manor asked, scanning the darkness.

Jack pointed toward the dark brush. "I saw someone. Leaning over the body. It—uh—it was a-another kid, I think. Maybe a girl."