Mind + Body by Aaron Dunlap (free books to read TXT) 📖

Through all of this, the one thing I’d never felt was helpless. I conned my way into bank records, broke a guy’s arm without caring, slipped into a double-locked hotel door, and escaped a slow-moving car drifting through oncoming traffic; through all of it, the only fear I ever felt was that it wouldn’t be enough. I’d never feared that there was just nothing I could do whatsoever. I never felt my heart beat echo in my own ears and my breathing stutter because something was completely out of my hands.

My hands were gripped around the back of Amy’s neck and her arm as she lay on the cold, cement floor of a Costco Warehouse. Her muscles twitched rhythmically as her eyes darted in all directions. A few feet away a man was half-screaming into his cell phone about a girl having a seizure, or something, in the middle of the store. The guy tried to repeat instructions and questions from the 911 operator, but he made a poor proxy and I couldn’t concentrate on anything except the girl in my arms. The only language I could process was the “No, no, no” playing on repeat throughout my skull and escaping as whispers from my lips.

What was going on? I had no idea. My mind raced in circles but couldn’t stop on anything. Sixteen-year-olds didn’t have seizures. People don’t die when you care enough about them.

A slight panic spread outward from my position like ripples on the surface of a sea of self-concerned shoppers. What’s all the commotion? Is someone hurt? My God, she’s just a kid. Is she on drugs? Is there a doctor? Does the coupon for applesauce apply if I buy the single-serving cups or is it just for jars?

After the first concerto of dread finished in my mind and the encore was about to begin, a guy who didn’t seem much older than myself filtered through the forming crowd and knelt on the floor across from me. He said some words I didn’t hear, pulled up his sleeves, and put one hand on Amy’s chest. What kind of pervert, I thought. I tried to focus my consciousness onto something nearby with which I could bludgeon him to death. He repeated the same words, but they were again lost to the thick soup my brain had turned into. I had a knife. I could flick it open and swing it up into the base of his jaw. The blade wouldn’t reach his brain, but it would get him the hell away.

“I said, is she a diabetic?” he said again, much louder this time.

The volume seemed to trump my hysteria. My thoughts pulled together slightly.

“Are you a doctor?” I asked in one quick breath.

“I’m a medical student,” he said, dismissively. “Do you know this girl? Is she a diabetic?”

I tried to process the words. “Diabetic. I don’t think so. Medical student?”

“I’m a third-year. I started my internship at the hospital a month ago,” he said, leaning in and putting his ear near Amy’s mouth. “This looks like hypoglycemia. Insulin shock. You don’t know if she’s diabetic? Has she eaten or drank anything yet today?”

Diabetic. Diabetic. The word hung for a moment before I remembered what it even meant. “I haven’t seen her take insulin or anything before,” I said.

I let go of her arm with one hand and grabbed a hand, looked at the tips of her fingers. I didn’t see any puncture marks. I pulled the sleeves of her shirts up to look at her arms, saw no needle marks or scabs. There were a few long, very narrow scab-looking scars on her bicep in a neat row. Was she a cutter? Did she ever mention that?

“I said did she have anything to eat or drink? If she’s hypoglycemic she has to get a certain amount of sugar. These spasms are severe.”

I tried to remember. We had coffee on the way over and she drank from that bottle of tea back at the hotel, but she didn’t have much because she said it was bitter. Bitter. Something about that stuck in my mind. Bitter. The groceries. What was it? My mind tried to tell me something. Why is my mind trying to tell me something? That doesn’t make sense. I am my mind. What does it know that I don’t? Well, besides all those handy ways to kill people…

“Wait,” I said, then let my mouth hang open. Amy had stopped spasming for a moment. They seemed to come and go.

“What?” the guy said.

It was coming to me, but it was coming slow. Ways to kill people. How did they say Comstock died? Spasm something. Where did that tea come from? The first time, someone had to sign for the groceries when they were delivered to the room. This morning they were just sitting there. Bitter tea. Plastic bottle. Comstock. What was it all? The lady said Comstock may have been dosed with VX nerve gas or something else, but I was too focused on VX having a cool name. Can you put nerve gas in tea? Is it bitter? Shouldn’t nerve gas be a gas? What was the other thing? Damn it. It started with S.

“Strychnine,” I said at last, in a low, somber voice.

“Strychnine?” the med student said, incredulously. “What about it?”

“She might have been poisoned. Do you know what strychnine is?”

“Yeah,” he said, “it’s poison. How could she have—”

Amy started spasming again. The muscles in her chest and back seemed to crunch against each other. The medical examiner said most people die by breaking their own spines.

“Oh God,” the guy said, looking down at her.

“What?” I asked.

“This is going to be bad.”

I swallowed.

He looked up, tried to pick out the guy in the crowd who had called 911. He was still on the phone, seemingly narrating the events.

“Is that still 911?” the med student asked the narrator.

The man said yes.

“Tell them to inform the ambulance dispatch that it’s strychnine poisoning. They’ll probably want to prep the ER for her arrival.”

The man nodded slowly.

I looked back at Amy. Besides the twitching, she looked almost peaceful. Not yet.

“So it’s poison,” I said. “Can’t we just induce vomiting?”

The med student placed a hand on her throat. “No,” he said, “I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?”

“No, I mean. If the throat muscles are in spasm, reverse peristalsis is impossible. She’ll choke on the vomit.” He sounded like he was reciting study notes from memory.

“What can we do, then?”

“Wait,” he said. “And try to stop her from snapping her spine. Strychnine activates all the skeletal muscle tissue at the same time, her muscles are flexing against each other at once. If they ever get into a contrary rhythm, they could tear themselves apart or break her bones.”

“There are couches over there,” I said, “we could move her off the floor.”

He thought about it, and then said, “No, motion can make the spasms get worse.” He turned around and asked the crowd, in general, to go fetch a pillow for her head. A few people scampered away.

Wait? Wait. Amy was lying there on the floor, her body turning against her and we just wait?

The med student repositioned himself and pressed one hand against Amy’s chest and the other against her stomach, like he was pushing her into the ground. He told me to hold her legs, but the words bounced right off me. I had an idea, but I didn’t understand it. For a moment I wondered if I had slipped into the other me, but I didn’t care.

“I’ll be right back,” I said as I stood up and ran through the circle of onlookers and down the aisles of the store.

I ran full speed, bobbing my head in all directions like a robin to look down the aisles as I passed them. Office supplies. Desk chairs. Clocks. Kitchen knives. Water filters.