“Christ.” Missy bit her lip. “When did she pass?”
“Just now. Maybe in the last hour.”
Missy nodded, gripping the counter for support. She felt unusually unsteady.
“I know how close you were.”
Missy cleared her throat. “She was a good woman.”
“Alice wanted me to find you, in case you wanted to say goodbye.”
Using her thumb, Missy wiped a teardrop from her eyelash. “Yeah, I'd like that very much.”
Emily held her hand as they strolled down the hallway, no hurry in their pace. The whole way there, Missy felt lightheaded. Like a piece of her had been taken, forcefully and without mercy. It was a strange way to feel about someone she'd only known for a year, but Emily was right—she'd grown close to the woman. She had made her laugh, had told her riveting stories, treated her as if she were family. It was the mother/daughter relationship Missy had never had with her real mom, the one who'd raised her, if she could call it such. If spending all afternoon scoring drugs and all-night shooting junk into her veins counted as parenting.
“You okay?” asked Emily. They were outside the woman's door now. Alice, the head CNA, was waiting there with two other nurses. They looked sad. It was a sudden loss, one that would be felt from the top on down.
“Yeah, I'll be fine.”
Emily helped her to the door.
“Take as long as you like, dear,” Alice told her.
(dead)
How can she be dead?
Sixty-nine was too young. Way too young.
Missy sat down across from the woman who'd died sitting in her chair, her head tilted back, staring at the ceiling. She held a pen in her hand. A note had been left on the desk. Missy stared at it, wondering why she'd scribbled down two numbers the moment before she succumbed to death's touch.
6.
9.
Sixty-nine?
“I'm so sorry, Miss Guerrero,” Missy said, reaching out and taking her cold, freezing hand. Her flesh felt like an ice cube.
(dead)
Something moved in the woman's throat. Her flesh danced. Missy jumped back, shrieked. The other nurses quickly filled the room, each whispering their concerns, asking questions Missy didn't have answers for.
Are you okay?
Is everything all right?
Instinctively, Missy reached out, felt for the carotid artery in Miss Guerrero's neck. She knew she had found it when she felt the woman's pulse.
“Amanda?”
Nothing.
Still.
Frozen.
(dead)
“Oh my god, I think she's alive.”
Sixty-nine.
Too young to die.
Acknowledgments
Until we meet again, friends.
Tim Meyer
6/14/2019
About the Author
Tim Meyer dwells in a dark cave near the Jersey Shore. He’s an author, husband, father, podcast host, blogger, coffee connoisseur, beer enthusiast, and explorer of worlds. He writes horror, mysteries, science fiction, and thrillers, although he prefers to blur genres and let the stories fall where they may.
You can follow Tim at https://timmeyerwrites.com