Brittany could only stare at the man. He had black spots all over his arms and face. She could not see the rest of his body, but she did not have to. She knew this man did not have long to live, so she tied her mask tighter, picked up the man’s son, and said a quick prayer. The boy started to cry, but Brittany hugged him close to her. She could feel how skinny he was.
“We need to get some stew inside you.” Brittany smiled at him from behind her mask, then remembered. They called stew something else back then—right, “hotpot.”
“Would you like some hotpot?”
The boy’s face lit up.
Brittany heard her name called. The girl who had awakened her earlier that day yelled for her to hurry. “I need your help. We need to clear off some of these beds for the new arrivals.”
Brittany said, “Why hurry? There is no hope for these people, and the line of sick ones just keeps getting longer.”
The girl gave her a hard look. “Let me tell you a quick story while we pull the dead out of these rooms.” She yelled for another girl to come take the small boy from Brittany. “Give the lad some hotpot, and put him away from the adults.”
Brittany said, “I don’t know your name.”
“My name is Abigail, and I have been here longer than any other nurse here. Actually, I’m a nun. I believe God is watching over me.”
“What story were you going to tell me?”
“Let’s start in this room first.”
The two girls checked pulses to see who was still alive. Brittany checked the pulse on the first patient, who was a middle-aged woman. “Abigail, am I doing this correctly?”
“You have the placement of your fingers correct, inside on the wrist area, but you use your index finger and next finger to take a pulse. You can’t take a pulse with your thumb, you will only be feeling your own pulse, and you will assume all of these sick patients are alive. Even if they are barely breathing, they are still alive—which brings me to my story.” Abigail took in a deep breath.
“You shouldn’t do that!” Brittany interrupted her.
“Do what?” Brittany tore another piece off her skirt, causing Abigail to remark, “You’re not going to have much of a frock left if you keep doing that.”
Softly, so she would not upset the dying, Brittany said, “Put this around your mouth and nose. It will protect you a little from breathing in germs.”
Although she did not know what a germ might be, Abigail understood Brittany’s intention. “Brittany, I have been here for so long that I doubt if I’m in any danger.” Still, Abigail took the material and put it around her neck, saying, “If I need it, I will know where to find it.”
Brittany and Abigail started dragging the bodies out into the hall and down the stairs. Brittany tried to be very careful, but Abigail sighed. “Brittany, they can no longer feel anything. At the rate you are going, we will never clean out these rooms. You never get used to it, but it has to be done.”
To take her mind off the task, Brittany reminded Abigail of the story. As Abigail rolled a large man onto the floor with a thud, she began.
“Just last week, I was extremely tired after a deadly day. I was clearing out a room by myself—the nurse that was helping me died a few days prior—when I reached a young boy. He looked dead. He had the black spots and his skin felt cool, so I thought he was dead. All the sick here feel hot to the touch, so when they feel cool, it usually means they are dead. I started to remove him from the room, but he let out a groan. He became one of the lucky ones. He has been recovering on the third floor. He has a long way to go, but he makes little strides each day. The doctors even think he may provide a cure. They scraped open some of his blackened sores and have rubbed the fluid on other patients. So far nothing has happened, but we all have hope.”
Brittany knew what would help, but she had no antibiotics to give them. She didn’t even know how to explain such a medication, so she said nothing.
“Trust me, Brittany, when I say that if they are not dead when you move them, they will moan or cry out in pain, just as that boy did.”
Unable to think of a reply, Brittany simply nodded and decided to change the subject. “When do we eat and sleep?”
Abigail just shrugged her shoulders.
When Brittany had removed thirteen bodies with Abigail, she told her friend, “I’m going to go check on the young boy I brought in earlier and then lie down for a bit.”
“Lie down for the night—you need to get your rest,” Abigail replied cheerfully. “Oh, Brittany, can I ask you how old you are?”
Brittany yawned, “I’m twelve years old.”
Abigail started to say something, but Brittany interrupted, “I know, Abigail. My language does not fit my small stature. I’m a very old soul living in a young body.”
Brittany went to the third floor, where she found the boy playing with a top and brilliantly colored stones.
These stones looked like the ones the nurse had given to her in the hospital for reading to the little boy in room 292. Brittany had never seen this little boy before, so she knew she hadn’t read to him. One thing she did know was that these were the same stones. She picked up the boy and kissed him. He gave her a hug back. Brittany sat down with him, and the boy offered her the top to spin. She took the top and gave it a quick turn. She watched it twirl among the shiny rocks.
Her smile faded as the top bumped the rocks, causing them to glow. Soon they lit up the entire room. The room began spinning, and Brittany’s body was hurled through the air to the back wall, where she was pinned, as if in a giant centrifuge. Screaming, Brittany blacked out, only to wake, gasping, in her room at Granmama’s house.
CHAPTER 20
Great-Grandmother said, “Alastair, we need to see about Jon’s adventure. It is time to wake him up.”
“Yes, I know. I was just letting him sleep as long as possible before throwing him to the sharks. If you could keep an eye out for the other three, I’ll be back to help you in just a while.”
Great-Grandmother hated overseeing the other three Hellandback children by herself, but Great-Grandfather would be back soon. Or, she hoped he would. “I don’t know if Jon will relate to this adventure.”
Alastair said, “We had to make Jon older in this lesson. He has to set up his AP classes in high school to go along with his future. There is no reason to make him fifteen when the lesson he will learn is in the adult world. I’m sure, my dear, he will take away from this adventure what he needs to.”
Jon slept deeply his first night at Great-Grandmother’s house. Although the night started off frightening with his great-grandfather dragging some creature to the basement, he woke up ready to have a good time in Scotland. He yawned, stretched, and threw off the covers.
Then he saw that the room had changed.
He had gone to sleep under the Murphy bed, but woke on a leather couch in an office. It was a very nice couch, but it was still a couch. The room seemed the type of office a big executive would have, a corner office with a large mahogany desk and top-of the-line furnishings. Just then, the door swung open, and a petite woman walked in.
Without greeting him, she briskly outlined Jon’s schedule for the day. When she finished, she looked at him for the first time, saying, “I see you spent another night sleeping at the office. Why do you even have your penthouse?”
She went to the closet and pulled out a crisp new shirt, a dark suit, a tie, and a pair of Oxford shoes. She put the items over a chair and said, “You’d better get a move on—the meeting starts in less than twenty minutes.” She pointed to his private bathroom. “This looks like a large coffee day.”
While he showered, some fuzzy memories surfaced. Jon was a CEO-in-training for one of the largest software companies in the world. Recently, they had ventured out into developing and manufacturing new inventions. He had no time for a personal life, no family, no friends, not even a dog. His fish only stayed alive because the housekeeper sprinkled food into the aquarium several times a w
eek at his penthouse.
As Jon came out of the bathroom, his assistant—her name was Linda, he “remembered”—was watching him.
Something was wrong, or different, about Jon today. “Are you all right?”
Startled, Jon snapped, “No, I’m not all right!”
Linda knew that Jon had a lot on his mind, especially as one of the youngest employees in the company and the one who was being groomed for the CEO’s position. He had enormous responsibilities, including overseeing the associates, some of whom were new to the company. Jon looked out the glass door of his office and into the hallway, where a stream of people headed for the conference room. He seemed to hear Linda’s voice describing each person.
“Some of these people are new, and some aren’t, but since we hired a lot of them when you were away on business meetings overseas, let me tell you what I know about each of these individuals, and please keep this to yourself.
“Now, let me see, that man in the black suit is Mr. Rodent. He is somewhat of a weasel, but you know that from your accounts, and when you caught him going through your desk, and when he tried to break into your computer.”
Just as Jon heard the word “weasel,” Mr. Rodent turned into one.
Linda continued. “He likes to get the dirt on people so he can blackmail them at a later date. Most of the information he gets on people is irrelevant to our work, like whether someone is cheating on their spouse. No one knows if he has ever threatened anyone with the information he finds. Word is that if he spent the same amount of time doing his work that he does snooping around, he would own his own company by now.”
Jon watched the large weasel walk by, tearing and devouring a huge turkey leg.
“Next comes Mrs. Devious, a two-faced liar.” Mrs. Devious suddenly grew a second head. “Don’t ever trust her. She will tell you one thing and do completely the opposite. She lies to everyone, about everything; I think she even lies to herself. She is close friends with Mr. Viper, who is a real snake in the grass.”
Mr. Viper walked by Jon, darting his tongue in and out and making a hissing sound. Mr. Viper glared at Mr. Rodent and said, “Let’s do lunch.” The snake could not take his eyes off the weasel.
Linda shuddered when she saw Mr. Blade walk toward them.
Jon asked, “Who is that? He looks normal.”
“That would be Mr. Blade, sir. He looks normal from the front, but he is a backstabber.” Just at that moment, Mr. Blade walked past Linda and Jon, and they could see a huge knife sticking out of his back with blood dripping from the open wound. Jon, still squeamish about blood, had to look away. Jon remembered the giant like figure with the knife protruding from his back, who an old, odd man—he presumed it was his great-grandfather—was dragging down to the basement.
Linda looked at Jon, who seemed pale, “Are you all right, Mr. Hellandback?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Just a little toxic on the blood, though.”
A witch, a pit bull, and even a mole walked down the hallway. “Be careful what you tell Mr. Dirt there. Rumor has it that he is a mole for another software company.”
Jon said, “It doesn’t look like I can trust any of them.”
Linda replied, “You can trust me, and you can trust Mr. Little.” Mr. Little walked by. He was absolutely normal looking. He was somewhat challenged in terms of height, but other than that, he looked like a nice man.
Then a man walked by in a diaper. Jon said, “Linda, please tell me he is on the wrong floor.”
“No, that is Mr. Child. He is a crybaby. If he doesn’t get his way, or convince the others to vote his way, he pouts and whines.”
Jon opened his mouth to comment on Mr. Child, but the hallway filled with a gust of air. Anything not tied down went flying.
A huge man came by, saying, “Jon, get into the meeting now!”
Linda said, “That is your boss. Mr. Windbag always uses his outside voice indoors. When he asks someone to do something, they do it immediately.”
Jon hustled, gathering his things while Linda completed the briefing.
“Here come the employees who always arrive late, like Miss Snail.”
Miss Snail looked like a slug and left a slimy, sticky streak wherever she went. Never on time, she moved slowly, like she had all the time in the world.
“She knows she can’t be fired because she is related to Mr. Windbag. Mr. Burrow acts like a badger; he never lets anything go and stays in people’s faces until they give up. Everyone knows why he’s single—no woman could put up with his constant bullying. He has to win at any cost. Of course, Mr. Rat always comes in late.”
Jon glanced up. Mr. Rat looked like an actual rat.
“He tells everyone about everyone else’s business, he keeps no secrets, and he apologizes for nothing he does. Some say he runs an underground organization of some type. Certainly, he has thousands of connections throughout the world. If you ever need a favor, he is your man, but you will pay dearly for that favor.”
A big pair of lips and a huge nose arrived last, rolling a cart loaded with all types of breakfast food. “They usually arrive before anyone else, but not today,” commented Linda. “Miss Lips is a butt-kisser, and Mr. Nares, a brownnose. Some claim that they were dating, but neither one of them will confirm it. You know that the company maintains a strict policy against employees dating other employees, no matter how high up in the company they might be. Well, Miss Lips and Mr. Nares always sit close to the boss and agree with everything he says. They laugh at his jokes, which usually aren’t funny, and jump at the chance to do him a favor.” Linda’s voice trailed off as she realized the meeting was about to start. “Jon, you had better get in there before he yells again.”
Most of the associates resented Jon for coming into the firm so young and being in line to take over the most important position. Jon had given up a normal life and settled into a life where he traveled all over the world at moment’s notice. He tried to save some of the spider companies, those that feed into the main company. He had an excellent way with people, and he was a whiz with numbers and figures. He almost always saved the spider companies, thus saving the main company millions, if not billions, of dollars.
As Jon walked into the conference room, Jon took the only chair left, directly across the table from Mr. Windbag. He looked around the table at all of his associates and wondered how they all had gotten to this point. Everyone wanted to make a quick buck. Isn’t that why he started at the company? He had interned one summer and gotten a taste for power. For him, there was no going back. He did not get a paycheck for the long hours he put in as an intern, but he enjoyed hanging out with the CEO. He noticed that employees treated him differently when he was alone as opposed to when he was with the boss. He actually got called “sir” a few times when he was tailing the boss. He was just some smart kid when he walked the halls by himself.
Mr. Windbag cleared his throat and proceeded with the meeting. “Mr. Little, can you please go get those papers I left on my desk, the ones under the paperweight.” Mr. Little excused himself, then turned into a gopher.
At least a gopher is better than the rest of the people in the room. You can trust a gopher, Jon thought.
Miss Lips and Mr. Nares argued back and forth quietly. They each had wanted to go get the papers for Mr. Windbag, who now yelled, “Silence!”
There was a lot of small talk going on, but Jon just sat there—he did not know with whom or about what he should speak. Soon Mr. Little came back with the papers in his hand, and the meeting officially began. At one point Jon, overwhelmed by the constant bickering between the company executives, wished he could leave.
Mr. Windbag said, “Jon, you will fly out to England first thing in the morning. Your assistant has your plane tickets, and I want Mr. Rat to go with you.”
Jon mumbled, “I had planned to visit my parents tomorrow. I haven’t seen them for nearly a year.”
Mr. Windbag roared, “Nonsense, Jon, you do what I ask, and soon you wi
ll be running this company.”
Miss Lips stuck her tongue out at Jon, who thought, Why would I want to be in charge of this circus? I will fire all these lunatics and hire people I can trust when I become CEO.
Just as they wrapped up the meeting, the door flew open. Jon recognized this individual—even when he was little, people would make jokes about attorneys like his father. In walked a shark wearing an expensive suit and red tie, picking his teeth with something. He flicked the object on the table when he finished. It was a human finger bone. Jon stared as it hit the table and spun around, pointing in his direction.
The shark bellowed, “I have plenty of fingers, Jon. Go ahead and keep that one.” He laughed so loud the table shook, and the finger bounced closer to Jon. “I hope this little meeting is over. I need to talk with Mr. W about some important issues.”
The meeting was, indeed, over. Mr. Rat walked out with Jon and said, “I love going to England. I have many family members there. How about you, Jon, any family members in England?”
“Not that I know of.”
Linda handed Jon a bag as he left the company’s conference room in their enormous New York City office building. “Here are your and Mr. Rat’s plane tickets to England. Once again I will call your family with an excuse for why you can’t come to visit them. I’m sure they will understand.”
“Yes, I’m sure they will.” Jon did not really think his family would understand. They did not understand how important he was to the company. Just a few more years at this hectic pace, and then he would be in charge. Things would change then—he would take some time off.
Alastair reappeared and said to Great-Grandmother, “Jon is all set. I just hope he understands why he is traveling through this section of his life. If he doesn’t change the way he thinks, he will turn into a very lonely old man. And since no one has figured out how to cross their wealth over to the other side, all is for naught.”
CHAPTER 21