Out of the Black - Lee Doty [8]
When the needle went into Carol's arm, she made a small surprised sound. Anne's next clue that something was amiss was the clutch purse that smashed into the top of her head. The old hag was screaming incoherently and repeatedly bludgeoning Anne cross-body with the purse. Anne got the blood sample, but it cost her both bruises and pride.
Expect the unexpected- this should be the phlebotomist's credo.
It made her want to start a support group for the vocationally unloved. She could picture it now: listening supportively in the company of depressed IRS agents and dentists. "Hi, I'm Anne, and people hate my job," she mumbled as she trudged through the threatening sprinkle of rain. Humor had always been her shield. When things got tough, she'd go for the cheap laughs. She was starting to feel better when the rain came down like a tidal wave.
"Aw... crap...ola." was all the disappointment she could muster before the uncontrollable laughter started. She was still splashing and waddling, laughing and crying when she noticed the music- first like the tinkle of an elaborate crystal wind chime, but getting louder with the urgency of an approaching freight train. She didn't have time to process this information before the world exploded.
Her startled scream came out in a rather embarrassing squeak when the car parked to her left had a Wile E. Coyote moment. It seemed as if an anvil had dropped from some hidden mesa high above. The car's roof crumpled and the windows closest to Anne exploded outwards. A storm of broken glass showered down from above, exploding on the ground around her, tugging at her left arm and back, stinging her right cheek.
Not an anvil! Her mind locked, hitched, locked- stuttered between knowledge and denial. The body rebounded sideways off the car and continued its impact on the sidewalk with a horrifying prolonged bursting sound. It seemed as if the impact went on and on as time lengthened, or perhaps replayed, with the onset of shock. Then the body was a lifeless rag-doll on the sidewalk before her, shattered legs twisted at impossible angles, face partially covered by one arm.
Numb, she stared for a few seconds before becoming aware that she was standing on one foot with her arms crossed above her head, hands on elbows. The arm-head-cover she got, but what was the one-leg-stand for? She would never understand her reflexes. She was a Darwinian counterexample of the first order- but then she wouldn't be reproducing anytime soon, so maybe not exactly a counterexample. "Weeded out of the gene pool", or maybe "She died that we all might have better children", would mark her tombstone someday.
She put her foot down and rushed forward with a hopeless desire to help. She knelt and actually said, "Are you okay?" Yeah, she was sure he was probably fine! A quick glance above showed her buildings with more stories of unblemished glass than she could count, ascending up into the couds high above. "No." she mumbled, realizing this wasn't a worker fallen from a ladder or a low balcony.
She knew that she shouldn't move the body, so she sat helpless, her strained mind completely oblivious to her tablet and its emergency links. After a few more seconds, she looked about for help- nothing. The rain was her only companion on the dark street. The sound of it was static in her ears; its caress was a wet, tingling static on her skin; the sight of it was gray static in her eyes. The world was a fuzzy place getting darker and slower.
From the corner of her eye, she noticed something dark and serpentine slithering on the ground around her. She looked down and saw dark tendrils washing around her hands and knees- blood! She tore her right hand out of a puddle of bloody water and watched in horror as the falling rain did its best to rinse it clean.
Her eyes lost focus on her red-tinged hand as she noticed that, behind it, the dead man's arm had fallen aside, exposing his face. Her first impression was of a child, broken and lost. Fringed by