So she waited in the deep, at the base of a steep shoal, where her bulk would go unnoticed by the enemies still seeking her out.
When the light man woke and the dark man returned, she would rise to exact her justice, first on the dark man, and then...then, she didn’t know.
22
I wake to the sound of wheezing mixed with a chorus of beeps. With my eyes still shut, I know where I am. The antiseptic scent and background voices of a busy hospital are easy to identify.
My eyes flutter and open. I have a spectacular view of the speckled white, drop ceiling above me. I dwell on the night sky in reverse image, my mind slowly returning to me.
I remember Gordon, the new Kaiju, Nemesis and the wave. And the pain, which regrettably hasn’t really faded. Movement to the left draws my attention. A wall-mounted television. The Golden Girls. An involuntary groan escapes my lips. My mother watched The Golden Girls religiously, starting in 1985 and ending on the day of her death, twenty three years later, when I found her in front of the television, a smile on her face, Betty White playing dumb to some kind of accusation.
That had been a hard day. My father had died five years previous. But it wasn’t until mom went that I felt...free. When her soul left, she mercifully pulled away a burden that I had buried long ago. But she’d forgotten to take my loathing for the Golden Girls.
Estelle is talking. Loudly. Something about spaghetti sauce.
“Fuck you, Estelle,” I say to the TV, hoping my mother is somehow able to hear how I feel about the show, which I could never express while she lived.
“Ehh?” says a too loud voice that hurts my head. “What’s that?”
My neighbor looks old enough to be Estelle’s father. He’s gotten to the ripe, old age where liver spots cover more of his skin than not, no hair remains on his head and the size of his nose is dwarfed only by the girth of his ears. If we were in a jungle rather than a hospital, I might mistake him for a proboscis monkey.
“Nothing,” I say, waving him off. My voice is raspy and deep. I feel like someone took a cheese grater to my throat. Tubes, I think. They had tubes down my throat. I look at my hand. An IV line runs up to a clear bag hanging nearby. A heart monitor—the beeping—is attached to my index finger.
“Suit yourself,” the old man says, but he knows. He’s clutching the TV’s remote. Golem’s precious. No one with any good taste or sense of decency watches The Golden Girls, especially the spaghetti episode. He knows, all right. He catches me looking and hugs the remote tighter.
“Hey,” says a sleepy voice.
It’s Collins, sitting on the other side of me. Looks like she just woke up, but she’s otherwise just as smoking hot as usual. A couple of details leap out at me, though. Her tactical gear is gone, replaced by jeans and a t-shirt. And her red hair has some bounce to it. She’s had time to shower and change. Assuming Woodstock flew straight here, during the middle of the day, and Collins stayed by my side through the night—like she would—until someone sent her home to change out of her stink, all that and the now missing throat tubes tell me a few things. First, I was in bad shape. Second, I’ve been here for at least a day.
“Two days?” I guess.
“Three,” she says.
“Nemesis?”
“Gone,” she says. “Gordon, too. It’s been all quiet.”
“Too quiet?” I ask with a chuckle that makes me pay in pain.
“Try not to laugh,” she says.
“Is that why The Golden Girls is on?”
“What?” she asks, glancing at the TV. I’ve never told her about my loathing for the show. She’d probably think I just hate old people. I glance at my neighbor. Right now, I kind of do. He catches me looking and makes a face which communicates an unmistakable ‘fuck off.’
I raise my middle finger at him and he turns away.
“Hey!” Collins says, smacking my shoulder, which actually hurts a lot.
I sigh, slowly and carefully, managing the intensity of the pain. “So, what’s the damage?”
“Two broken ribs. A scratched lung. They said it was very nearly punctured. And a lot of internal bruising, but no bleeding. You hit your head pretty good when you fell in the chopper.”
“I thought I jumped.”
“If you jumped, it was the most pitiful jump I’ve ever seen. Like this guy—” she nods to my neighbor, “—doing hurdles.”
The image of the old guy tumbling through a line of hurdles brings a smile to my face. I nearly laugh, but tamp it down with the memory of pain. Collins smirks at my struggle. “Jerk,” I say.
“So, have you picked out a ring yet?” she asks.
I involuntarily convulse with surprise, which sends lightning bolts of anguish through my body.
Collins covers her mouth, laughing at my pain.
“Asshole!” I say, smiling despite the pain. When the pain subsides, my thoughts turn back to my last memories. “What happened to Endo?”
She motions to the wall behind me. “Next room over. He’s...in a coma.”