Night Falls

Night Falls (aka: Introduction)

         She stared through the lens of her camera at the scene she wished to capture.  Staring at the water of the lake and the reflections from the shore had taken up most of her day.  While other people were out on their boats enjoying a warm summer day in the south, Carrie was practically hidden in the shadows along the shoreline, trying to find that special image that would catch the attention of a buyer.  How could she get the moment just right?  Taking a deep breath she pushed the shutter release and waited for the image to appear on the view screen.  The image of rippling water lapping against the hull of a wooden boat where a cane fishing pole lay forgotten filled her screen.  Not bad, she thought to herself.  Maybe next time she would get to try out some different angles.  Right now Carrie was in a hurry and needed to pack her equipment up before she began the drive home.  The sun was beginning to droop below the horizon line as she loaded the camera bag and tripod into her car.  Carrie turned to stretch and prepare for the drive ahead of her.

         There was a time when Carrie never would have imagined having the chance to go out and capture the world on film, or memory card as it was.  Her life had always revolved around paying the next bill and training the next mind.  For as long as she could remember she had wanted to see what she could do with a camera, but teaching had been her means to pave the way and enjoy what she was doing.  It didn’t take her long to realize that, although she was good in the classroom, she was infinitely better with a camera.  Now if she could just figure out what to do about her love life she’d be in business.

         Love life?  What love life?  That was her real problem.  Carrie took the car out of park and began the drive home from Lake Sorrent.  Home.  That was another odd thought to Carrie.  A house of her own, that remained lonely and waiting for her to return to it every evening after work.  In her mind, this house had the potential to be her dream home.  Three bedrooms that longed for a family to fill them and make them more than just a house, but a home.  Plain beige walls filled the lovely Southern Victorian styled house that she had scraped together the money to purchase the previous year.  Plain beige walls that almost felt like they were swallowing her soul whole when she looked at them alone. 

         Had it really been a year since she had signed on the dotted line for the house?  Amazed at how time had flown by for her Carrie almost missed her entrance onto the interstate.  One whole year, all alone.  It wasn’t just a year since buying the house, but it was also a year since a new life had started in every area for her.  A new house, a new job at a new school, a new look at photography options…and the biggest change of all, a new chance at love when she got her divorce.

         How she had thought that it was real love at 18 she certainly couldn’t figure out now, but it was over and she rarely looked back.  Married at 18 years old to her high school sweetheart, and divorced from him ten years later.  Approaching the big three-oh in just a couple of years, lonely and scared.  It was true, no matter how hard she tried to deny it to herself.  Carrie may have been miserable when she was married, but she was still not truly happy after the divorce.  Something was missing, and those beige walls just made it that much more obvious to her.

         Maybe she should paint.  That might help!  She’d just stop at the paint store on the way home and look at some samples so she could think about it and plan what to do with those darn walls.  Her next paycheck might have enough money left after the bills were paid to make a splurge for at least one of the rooms to be done.  A few color samples should do the trick.  Maybe a wine or a sage in the bedroom, a twilight blue in the bathroom, a grey in the living room….SHIT!

         It was at that very moment that fate took over and made up Carrie’s mind for her of what she would be doing that night.  A mass of back moved into her frame of vision right as she heard the wretched sounds of metal against metal.  Her mind screamed at her to do something, but she was puzzled from being lost in her own thoughts.  What was happening?  What should she do?  Brakes?  Gas?  Turn?  SHIT!  Carrie released one cry of desperation as her vision faded to grey and then black.  Her world stopped and turned to night.



Mental Eclipse (aka: Chapter 1)

         What is that sound?  Sirens?  Why does my head hurt so much?  All of those thoughts and more began to pass through her mind as she light began to creep back into her vision.  She struggled to force her eyes to open and see what was happening, but her mind simply refused to relay the request to the rest of her body.  There were aches everywhere.  The more awake she became the more she began to realize that something was terribly wrong.  The sirens that screamed in her head were growing louder and all she could think was how much she wished they would just shut those damn things off and give her ears a break.

         “Hey!  Wake up!  Come on, wake up already.  Are you okay?”  She heard the voice of a rather demanding man calling out to her.  Her only available response was that of a moan before she slipped back into a state of mental eclipse.

         The next time that she attempted to open her eyes was several minutes later, and it half scared and half delighted him.  She looked up from a stretcher where paramedics were surrounding her injured body and the first thing that came into focus was the face of a man.  Vibrant green eyes that felt like they could see into the soul lit up as she opened hers.  He was scraped, she noticed, across the brow and the cheek.  Blood had hardened a little in the creases near the corner of his mouth.  An EMT was trying desperately to convince this man to let him have a look at him, only to be rebuffed several times.  His attention was entirely on her.  Why?  Did she know him?  Should she?  What had happened to her?  Where was she?  Then she had the scariest thought of all: Oh, no, WHO was she?!

         This thought was simply too much for her to handle so she allowed her eyes to close as the capable professionals tended to loading the stretcher into the ambulance.  When her eyes closed, the last thing she saw was his face.  It was almost like her mind snapped a picture of him at that moment and stored it away.  She could still see him, no matter how hard she tried to clear her mind and focus on herself.

         The next time that she awoke she had no trouble opening her eyes, though she wished that she had when she looked around.  Machines beeped and whirred around her in a sanitary white environment.  She knew that this meant she had made it through whatever had happened to her alive, and that she was recovering in the hospital.  Her mind took a moment to wonder which hospital she was in, then let the thought slide away when a nurse walked in.

         “Well, it’s good to see you coming around.  Thought you might be out for another night,” said the nurse whose smile beamed like sunshine.

         She struggled to sit up and asked, “What happened to me?”

         The nurse replied calmly, “What do you remember?”

         “Nothing.  Nothing, but a man,”  was all she said.

         The nurse excused herself and left the room, returning a short while later with a doctor in a starched white lab coat.  The doctor and nurse stood at the foot of her bed and flipped through charts and notes in a folder for a few moments before even acknowledging her, which was rather annoying in her opinion.  When they finally decided to address her it was with the question, “So, how are we feeling today?”

         “Well I don’t know how WE are feeling, but I’m aching from head to toe and I want to know what happened to me.”

         “I see you have some spirit in you.  You must be feeling much better.  My name is Dr. Tift and this is Nurse Johnson.  We’ve been taking care of you since you arrived.  Can you tell me what you remember?”  The doctor stared at his notes after he had addressed her, and only glanced up again when the silence had hung in the air between them for what he deemed was too long of a duration.  “Well?  What do you remember?”

         “I remember how to treat people when I feel genuine concern, something you obviously don’t know a thing about.  Get me another doctor,” she stated before lowering her head back to her pillow and closing her eyes to rest.  It had taken considerable energy to hold that brief confrontation and she needed all of her energy for getting better quickly.

         The next time she awoke it was to the poking and prodding of Nurse Johnson.  The machines still beeped and whirred around her, and when she opened her eyes fully the antiseptic white of the room felt blinding. 

         “How am I doing?” she asked Nurse Johnson.

         “Let me go get your new doctor and we’ll see,” was the response that she received from the nurse as she softly smiled and turned to leave.

         Already the nurse’s demeanor had made coming out of the dark fog she had been in seem a bit more bearable.  When the new doctor walked in she had to blink hard to make sure she wasn’t asleep and still dreaming.  That face!  Those eyes!  They were etched into her memory.  They were the only thing etched into her memory.  A slight line over the brow and cheek confirmed that the face in her mind was the same as that of the man who was walking in as her doctor.

         “I know you,” she whispered.

         “Do you?” he replied with raised eyebrows.

         “Your face.  What happened to your face?” she questioned.

         “Let’s talk about you first.  How do you feel?”

         “I thought I was feeling better, but now I’m not sure my brain is working.  I do know you, don’t I?”  She couldn’t help but stare at this man who seemed to be the only real memory her brain was willing to connect to.  How could that be?  What was his connection to her?

         “Tell me what you remember about what happened to you?” the doctor prodded.

         “Not again,” she mumbled.  “Ok.  All I remember is darkness up until I woke up in this bed.  That’s it.  I don’t know how I got here, and I want answers.”  Now she braced herself for the answers that would certainly come.  She was sure that he would tell her all that she needed and wanted to know.

         “You remember nothing?  Are you sure?”

         What kind of a response was that?  Hadn’t she just answered that question?  “Yes, I’m sure.”

         “Let’s start simple.  What is the last thing that you do remember?  Maybe, what year it is?”  He lifted one eyebrow in a quizzical stance that almost made him look like he was waiting for an answer that he knew would be too easy.

         “Ok, that one I know.  It’s sometime in June of 2008, but the rest is a jumble that I can’t sort out.  I need to know what happened to me.”

         “I see.  Well, let’s keep going with this line of questioning until we figure out where you’re missing things from.  What is the last thing you remember doing?”  The doctor waited expectantly for reply.

         “I remember that school was out for the summer.  I remember that I am a teacher.  That sounds great and all, but I can’t remember where I was teaching, what I was teaching, or what I was doing since school was out.  I still want to know WHAT happened to me!”  She was becoming agitated and the machine next to her hospital bed began to beep faster, letting her and anyone else around know that her heart rate was increasing along with her frustration.

         “That is frustrating, I’m sure, but I need you to relax and try to help me if we are going to solve the mystery together.”

         “I’m trying!  Can’t you understand?  This is terrifying to know only so much about yourself and your world.  I was completely lost until I saw your face walk through that door.  I feel like I should know you, but I just can’t make that leap to figure out why.  It feels like I’m losing my mind,” she stated as the tears began to stream silently down her cheeks. 

         Grabbing a tissue from the bedside table the doctor wiped away her tears and handed the tissue box to her.

         “I understand where you are coming from.  You’re scared and frustrated, but getting worked up about it may just help your mind to continue to block out what has been traumatic for you.  If there is any way that you can keep calm, without medication, then you might be able to allow some of the memories to flow back into your mind.”

         “Are you really my doctor?”  That was all that she could say after that speech.

         “Actually I’m the staff psychiatrist who was called in to assist you when you regained consciousness and demanded a new doctor.”

         “Well, Dr. Tift had a terrible bedside manner.  He needs the shrink services more than I do if he actually thinks anyone would want him around when they feel ill.”

         “He’s a respected doctor, though I’m sure that does little to resolve your feelings towards him based on the experience you’ve had.  Let’s move on.  There is one question I haven’t asked you yet, that I need to ask.  What is your name?” The doctor cocked his head to the side and looked at her with eyes that seemed to soften and almost glow towards her.

         “Carrie,” she said slowly, “and I didn’t remember that until right now!  I’ve been worried about that since that other doctor was in here.  I couldn’t remember that earlier, but suddenly, with you, I can remember!  My name is Carrie.”  She was so delighted that even that one piece of information had returned to her that she could have leapt from the bed to hug the man if she weren’t connected to so many different cables and monitors.

         “But wait,” she continued softly, “I stilled don’t know why it is that I recognized your face.  Do you?”

         “Let’s take this one step at a time, Carrie.  Do you remember anything else?”

         “Black.  Screeching metal.  Screams.  That’s what I remember.  Those little pieces keep floating through my mind, but they don’t add up to a whole memory for me.”

         “We’ll take a break for now so that you can have your lunch and I’ll check back in on you later on to see if you’ve remembered anything else,”  the psychiatrist said as he turned to leave.

         “Wait!  How do I have them call you in if I remember something while you’re gone?  I don’t even know your name,”  Carrie called out.

         The man with the eyes she felt she knew turned them on her once again before exiting the room.  “Dr. Emerson,” he stated, then turned away and left her to wonder what else there was to know about this mystery man.





Light of Dawn (aka: Chapter 2)

         It was well after lunch when Carrie awoke the next day in her hospital bed.  She was quickly growing weary of the plain white walls that felt like a cage.  All of the machines that surrounded her sounded like some type of a twisted hospital version of elevator music.  Her muscles were either beginning to heal or they were pumping some tremendous drugs into her system.  Either way, what she really wanted was to go home.

         Her memory was returning about most things, even though it was a slow and arduous process.  She was sure that there were things she needed to be doing at home.  Her mail must be piling up by now.  How long had it been since she had been home?  It hurt to try to pinpoint that information, so she relinquished control and stopped trying for now.  It would all return to her when the time was right, but she sure hoped it would be soon.  She had to remember to check with the doctor or nurse when they returned to see when she could go home.  It seemed to her that she would remember things better and heal more quickly in an environment where she felt comfortable.

         Carrie couldn’t quite place how long she had been in the hospital, and that place a needle of fear in her heart.  She recalled at least two days, but it terrified her not to be sure.  Could she really have been there for longer than that without knowing?  Was it possible that her memory, and her body, had been so severely damaged that she had been here for an extended stay without realizing it?  Oh, how she longed to be home and feel safe.

         As soon as Dr. Emerson walked into the room she began to barrage him with requests to know when she could go home.

         “Why the sudden interest in going home?  This is the first you’ve mentioned it since we met, so I have to wonder why.”  Dr. Emerson pulled up a chair beside Carrie’s hospital bed and took a seat, almost like settling in to watch a movie.

         “I don’t know.  It just feels like that’s what I need to do and where I need to be.  There’s nothing strange about someone in a hospital wanting to go home is there?”  Carrie wondered aloud.

         “No, I don’t suppose that there is anything strange about it.  Just seems to me that if there was something or someone waiting for you that you needed to get back to you would have mentioned it sooner, that’s all.”  Those cool eyes of his felt like they were piercing her soul with that comment.

         “Excuse me?  Doctor, what exactly are you trying to say?”

         “I just meant that you are in a hospital after some type of a traumatic experience and you haven’t once asked for anyone to be contacted.  That stands out to me.  Is there someone that the hospital should be contacting for you?  Someone who may be worried about where you have been perhaps?” 

         She couldn’t help it when her eyes opened wide like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.  Was there anyone?  Would she remember if there were?  There were so many pieces of her memory still trying to be filled in that she just couldn’t be completely sure of what her answer should be.

         “I don’t know.  I want to believe that I would feel it in my heart if there was someone waiting and worrying about me, but I just don’t think there is.  How sad is that?  Here I am in hooked up to machines after what I can only guess was an experience that could have left me dead, and I can’t think of anyone that would miss me.  What kind of life do I have?  Why isn’t there someone worrying about me?”  It began with a single tear rolling down her cheek, but if quickly became a torrential downpour of sadness.  Carrie felt her control slipping, however she could do nothing to regain it.  Her chin began to quiver and her breath came in gasps as she fought to control emotions that were coming on her like a powerful avalanche.  How could she not be missed?

         “Carrie,” it was the first time he had spoken her name and it felt like a quilt of comfort being laid over her on a cold winter night.  “What can be done to make you feel better?”

         Dr. Emerson reached out to take Carrie’s hand in his.  They both felt it at the same time.  A connection so powerful she thought there would be visible sparks.  A warmth so strong she felt her whole body flush with its power.  He quickly pulled away, which immediately told her that he had felt it as well.

         “I want to go home,” was all she can say, and even that came out in a whisper.

         “Will you agree to still see me?  Meet with me while your memory returns for sessions, I mean.  Maybe it would help more once you are at home.  Would you do that?” It all tumbled from his lips as though he were pleading for mercy. 

         “Yes, I think we could make that work.”

         “Then I’ll see what I can do,” Dr. Emerson reached out, as if to pat her hand, but quickly pulled back and left the room.

         Carrie couldn’t believe what she had just felt.  Was that real, or just an overactive imagination looking for someone the play with?  This man was supposed to be one of her doctors, and he was the man with the oddly familiar eyes.  Why the sudden jolt of electricity from only the touch of his hand?  It had felt as though every nerve in her body was suddenly on edge and waiting for something more.  Could she really be having this type of a response to a man whose job it was to take care of her?  She’d was sure she had heard of this type of thing before.  The Hero Complex or something like that.  Where people developed irrational feelings for those who rescued them.  This man wasn’t rescuing her, he was a psychiatrist.  If that wasn’t it, then what in the world had just happened?  She almost felt the anticipation build inside of her as her body begged her to find out more.