The Terror #wattys2017 #TNTHorrorContest

Heather

Shortly after my awakening, everything came back to me. Still in the hospital licking my wounds, reliving the whole ugly mess, wide awake and in my nightmares. Mostly though I was distracted by poor Heather, still comatose just down the hall from me. We had history, she and I. I used to go with Dale to her little bungalow apartment she shared with her blond harelipped bestie Mischell.  I was just a kid then, fourteen or fifteen and she knew I had a crush on her and entertained herself by exposing my shyness and inexperience with the opposite sex. 

After the third week, Heather was still in a coma, but they said that the skin grafts they had performed on her back were doing well and they would be waking her up soon. My own wounds were doing well enough, I was going to have some nasty scarring but as long as my mom kept my dressings changed and I didn't get any infections, I would be good as new in nine months.

        Heather wasn't going to have it so easy, she had a fractured collarbone, two broken wrists, a busted nose and a shattered pelvis.  Where she was lucky was that they were able to take all the grafts they needed from the inside of her thighs so they wouldn't be readily visible in a bathing suit and though they believed her to have a lot of third degree burns on her back they were mostly bad second and first degree.  This meant fewer scars and faster healing.

       Today was the day they were going to bring her out of the coma for the first time in three weeks and I was planning on being there when she woke up.  She was still a bundle of tubes and wires but a lot fewer bandages than a week ago.  She was still in a cast that kept both of her arms in front of her, bent at the elbow almost as if she were going to give you a hug, with her hands at the same level as her shoulders.  there was also a cast around her hips and the two casts were connected to each other by stainless steel rods, two in front and two in the back that kept her verticle.  Her legs were in a sling in a sitting position with a couple smaller bandages on her knees and a couple of exposed scabs where she had scratched her shins.

        This whole fixture was suspended from a frame that was connected to the bed so that her poor burned back could have it's dressings changed every eight hours.  There was another sling behind her head and still a bandage on her face where the road rash I saw at the crash site was.  Her crimson hair had been freshly brushed and draped nearly to the surface of the mattress below.  She was still on the ventilator and the sound of it breathing for her with the syncopation of the heart monitor made me uneasy.

        As there was no family that they could find, they allowed me to visit, though never for long. They said it would be good for someone she knew to talk to her while she was in the induced coma, so I made it a goal to be there every day after I was released to do just that.  The doctor told me that her back was doing fine and that they were going to allow her to lay down in the bed once they woke her. They also warned there was going to be a lot of pain and that she was still going to have to remain heavily sedated.

         Finally, around noon, the doctor came in with a nurse and an orderly to begin the sequence of bringing her around.  An injection was given in her I.V. by the nurse then cleaned out with saline before a second shot was given.  The doctor held her exposed fingers and gently stroked her cheek as he spoke loudly and clearly to her.

        "Wake up Miss Craig, It's time to wake up now!"

         He lightly slapped her cheek and shook her body tenderly, there was no response.  I watched this with rapt attention, silently praying to the God I knew she believed in, please let her wake up, please let her wake up!.

        "Ten more cc's nurse," said the doctor.

        Obediently the nurse prepped another needle and put it to her I.V.  She began to stir groaning slightly. My heart skipped a beat and I gritted my teeth thinking of all the things this poor girl was going to have to confront.  Part of me wished she could just continue to rest and put off all this terrible stuff till she was all better, but of course, this was a fantasy and the reality was that this was happening and happening right now.

        "Wake up Miss Craig, it's time to wake up now."

        The doctor repeated the procedure and this time Heather moaned in a way that sounded more like an orgasm than pain. Her head shook slowly and the doctor wiped her eyes with a damp cloth.

        "That's a good girl, let's see those beautiful eyes, Miss Craig, that a girl, time to wake up for me."

        I watched her struggle to open her eyes, her breathing quickening and her heart monitor beeping faster, then...she blinked...and squinted, furrowing her brow.

        "Can you cough for me Miss Craig, I need you to cough as I pull the tube out of your throat, can you do that for me? OK, here we go, now cough sweetie, good girl."

        He pulled the tube while she tried to cough, sounding like she was throwing up and it was over, just like that, she was breathing on her own and I was in awe.