Jack's Last Summer

Part 26

Garland’s eyes opened sleepily.

The room was pitch black; the glowing digital clock beside her read 2:59AM. She tried not to groan in annoyance. Why was she awake? Beside her Seth slept like a baby, his hair mussed and drifting over his face, which seemed permanently set into his cute cocky grin. During the shenanigans of the night before he had actually caught a small fish with the only piece of lolly snake he didn’t eat. Trust Seth to be good at something as obscure as that.

Slowly she rolled out of bed, trying her hardest not to wake him. She needn’t have worried. Seth rolled into the middle of the bed and spread himself out like a starfish, completely undisturbed. Ghost stood at the door, tail wagging and ears back. He pranced around nervously and whined somewhere in the back of his throat.

“Do you need to do a wee?” She asked him quietly and opened the door a crack. Instead of waiting for her to follow, Ghost nosed it open just enough to squeeze through. He bolted down the hall and down the staircase, his claws scrabbling for purchase loudly. The pup began to bark, and not the normal excited puppy yips. These were proper, grown dog barks. Something was wrong.

Garland followed him quickly in her bedsocks and nightgown, slipping and sliding everywhere on the boards. Like his namesake, Ghost appeared to glow in the darkness as he raced towards the front door and slammed against the screen door. It wasn’t like David to leave the wooden door open.

The van was gone.

Her stomach dropped.

She ran upstairs, leaving Ghost behind, and continued up the stairwell to the third floor. Jack’s door was wide open, his wheelchair sitting forgotten. How had they stayed asleep through what happened?

“Wake up! Wake up wake up!” She shouted and ran through the halls, banging on the doors as she went. It burned her knuckles. Her heart felt like it was about to burst through her chest and something swirled in her stomach.

Matilda was the first to peek her head out of her room.

“What is it? Garland, what’s wrong?!” Matilda caught onto Garland’s wrists and held her still.

“Jack’s gone!”

---

The group of teenagers ran up the dirt road like a group of strange, messy feathered birds in their pyjamas and bedhair. Gravel bit into Garland’s socks and cut her feet but failed to hinder her pace. She could hear Ghost barking from back inside the empty house.

Gradually it began to sprinkle with rain.

Skylar had disappeared too, gone into the night, presumably to wherever it was that Jack and David had gone. The van wasn’t there, no note was left, no texts or calls. Jack’s clothing and diary were left as they had been when the weary group had returned the night before. It was as if he simply vanished.

After stepping on a particularly painful rock, Garland whipped out her phone and shone the torch on the road in front of her. The shadows from the little pebbles on the road cast garish shapes over the track and the shaking motion of her run meant that everything appeared to swirl. In hindsight, the light didn’t help that much.

“Where is the hospital from here?” Puffed Mattie when they finally emerged onto the asphalt of the small suburban street that seemed to house the entirety of the town’s maverick populous. Surfboards lay on lawns and porches, largely unmoved from the day before.

“Down and to the right. It’s only a few blocks away.” Kyle pointed aimlessly, eyes still focused on the glowing screen of his phone as he scoured google maps with his whole body contorted over the screen in an attempt to shield it from the strengthening rain.

“Everything looks so different at night!” Seth groaned and broke into a jog again. He had pulled his crazy hair into a ponytail to keep it off his face and his hastily thrown on tee was inside out. Garland hurried her pace to catch up with him and attempted to make eye contact; but her boyfriend was in his own world, with a face so pale and distraught he appeared a million worlds away, inaccessible. This was not Seth. It hurt her heart.

“It’ll be okay, Seth. Whatever happens. I love you.”

That’s what she wanted to say, but bit her tongue. Who was she to say it would be okay?
 Would it ever be okay?

---

By the time they reached the hospital, the whole group was well and truly drenched.

“Where would he be?” Matilda asked and wrapped her arms around her body, teeth chattering as she shivered in her soaked sleeping shorts and singlet. They took shelter under the eaves of the main hospital entry, gathering a few strange looks from staff and the visitors that were few and far between.

“Well, Emergency would have moved him on straight away. Oncology or..?” Garland racked her brains.

“Let’s just go towards Intensive Care.” Kyle urged.

Seth took Garland’s hand as the group half walked half ran through the automatic doors and dripped their way down pristine white halls, trying not to attract much attention to themselves. Kyle picked up a pile of towels from a cleaners trolley and distributed them to the rest of the group. It occurred to Garland that every time they entered the hospital for Jack they had been soaked – last time from the fateful beach trip, now from the driving rain.

Maybe there was something poetic to that, but she couldn't bring herself to think it through