Book I: The Others - Prelude (part 1)

Christmas Eve at St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital in central London was quiet, for the most part. The rain had just slacked off after coming down hard all day. A clock on the wall in the main lobby clicked over to 11:45pm ... the graveyard shift was about to begin. Everyone who was able looked forward to leaving for the night. Some would take the next day off to celebrate Christmas with their families and busied themselves in an effort to wrap up as much as possible before they left. Others, though, would be coming back in just over eight hours, while a few of the interns wouldn’t be leaving at all and were already exhausted.

Wrapped up in their own jobs and lives, no one noticed as two men entered the busy hospital. The shorter of the two wore a tailored suit that accentuated the masculine lines of his body from his shoulders to his narrow waist. He was clearly the leader as they moved through the lobby. His companion was a full head and a half taller and proportionally wider by comparison. He was dressed casually compared to the leader wearing a slightly wrinkled black polo shirt and jeans. He had no need of fancy tailoring to show off his physique. His shoulders were so broad, he had to go through most doors sideways. He walked with a visible tension that suggested a constant readiness for whatever came his way be it an errant wheelchair from a side corridor or a pair of armed security guards. But for all that, his gentle eyes and tussled, reddish hair engendered trust in everyone he met. He absently held a red and gold baseball cap in his hand as they made their way out of the hospital’s front lobby and deeper into the maze of corridors lined with colored stripes to guide the way. They took the yellow elevator to the sixth floor, followed the green-red lighted floor stripe to Hematology/Oncology, and finally the red stripe to the Isolation ward.

They made almost no impact as they walked the halls. There was always a strange hush around them, a bubble of separation that followed their movements through the labyrinth. As they approached from around a corner or behind a door, whoever might be there suddenly felt the need to be elsewhere. It wasn’t a bad or foreboding feeling; it was just that at that moment it was vitally important that they to do something somewhere else. As it was, nobody saw the two men enter though the door marked “Terminal Isolation” that opened off of the main nurses bay for that ward.

The dimly lit room contained twelve glass chambers, all dark, except the one at the far end. A small fluorescent fixture cast cold light over the head of the bed. The rest of the enclosure was in deep shadow. The harsh light completely washed out the color of what would otherwise have been a fan of brilliant red hair beautifully spread across the white pillow. The little girl seemed to be asleep, but she was almost too still. The only indication that she lived was the incessant but comforting beep of the nearby heart monitor. The time between beeps was abnormally long.

“I can help her,” said the larger man. “I don’t think she’s going to make it through the night. If I go in now she might survive.” Although he was speaking in low tones, the emotion in his voice was evident.

His companion spoke calmly, but with authority. “That’s not why we are here. We are not in a position to interfere. We watch as we have always watched.” He paused long enough to focus his full attention on the big man. “You know this.”

“Then why did you bring me here. Just to torture me? To make me watch all of our hopes just fade away? The Great Tree forgive us ... we’re as responsible for this as anyone. So many lives ... just ... gone.” He leaned his forehead on the glass nearly weeping.

The well-dressed man placed his hand on the other man’s shoulder and spoke the same words he’d repeated so many times before. “The Great Tree holds all life in her limbs with love and tenderness. If this one must go to her now, we will not interfere. We are not responsible for the actions of those that brought her to this place. There was nothing we could do then ...” he paused, squeezing his companion’s shoulder tenderly, “... as there is nothing we can do now. Whether or not she lives through the night, her fate has been decided. We have no right to change it ... and you know it.”

As the well-dressed man turned to leave, he whispered, “We must leave now. The shift is changing.”

With his head still against the glass the other man whispered, “It’s not right.” As he spoke the words, he placed his palm on the glass as if trying to make contact with the sick little girl in the hospital bed. “Not right,” he repeated.

As he turned away, the tiniest voice spoke from the glass room. “Daddy is that you?”

He turned and saw the girl looking at him ... through him. Looking into her eyes, he spoke softly in his mind, “Catherine, can you hear me?”

To his surprise she answered in a barely audible whisper and for the briefest moment her eyes focus on him. “Who are you?” Her eyes were already drooping as she began slipping back into unconsciousness.

Did she sense his thoughts? Or was it luck? There was no way to tell. There was no time to tell.

He couldn’t stand it. With a tear running down his cheek he replied, “Just a dream. Go back to sleep.”

Another voice intruded on his thoughts. “We’ve got to leave now before they notice us!”

“I’m right behind you”, he responded in thought.

They exited the wing without incident, the well-dressed man in the lead, keeping to the shadows, but as they again passed the nurse’s station, alarms sounded, and doctors and nurses appeared from nowhere to answer the call.

“What’s the problem?” called a doctor on the run, heading through the doors to the Terminal wing.

“Doctor, we’ve got a flat line on number twelve ...” answered the nurse as he fell in step beside the physician.

The rest of the conversation was lost in the din of activity, and, as the well-dressed man turned to discover, so was his companion. “Where are you?” he called out with as much energy as he could. Silence was the only reply.

The well dressed man smiled to himself as he continued out of the building alone.

Prelude (Part 2)