Zod Wallop by William Browning Spencer Page A

her , the dark water said.
    No , Harry thought, pulling away from that voice. I don’t have time for that .
    He spoke to Raymond, surprising himself with the steadiness of his voice. “When Helen pushes the plug in, Emily is going to jump. Keep the contact, Raymond. I’ll be the one to break the contact. Okay?”
    Raymond nodded.
    “Are you ready, Helen?”
    Helen looked up from where she was crouched by the sideboard. She looked like she might say something, but she simply nodded her head.
    “Now,” Harry said.
    Emily twisted on the bed, tortured into momentary levitation, her pale bright body pitifully exposed as the robe fell back, her frail rib cage gleaming through the flesh like some sad icon of martyrdom. An electric whip crack, the ultimate bug zapper, sounded in Harry’s ear, and a portion of the sheet was smoking. A red welt gleamed on Emily’s chest—and no doubt a similar scar marked the site of Raymond’s wire—while the air was charged with the blue, hot odor of overheated train sets.
    Harry pressed his ear to the girl’s chest. Her heart was out of control, spinning until it toppled. He had failed.
    “Again,” Harry shouted. And when Raymond hesitated, Harry shouted, “There’s no time.”
    He nodded to Helen, crouched on the floor, and, with a knifelike thrust, she found the receptacle again.
    This time they were spared the puppet agonies of the girl, for as the electricity crackled through her frame and began to animate her, the lights went out; the power died. The room fell into the waiting night. The hum of the refrigerator, unheard until that moment, died and silence fed on it.
    Harry leaned forward, rested his head on the girl’s chest with a sense of intense despair, rested there as though she might comfort him. He could hear no heart beat. And then he heard it, that sweet, slow cycle of a washing machine, that lub dub, lub dub that seemed as leisurely as the measured flight of some large bird. And more incredible than the sound of her heart were the words she spoke in his ear. “We don’t have much time,” she said, “They are coming.”

Chapter 7
     
 
     
    T HE E MERGENCY R OOM was harshly lit and smelled like stale cigarettes and disinfectant. Harry sat in a metal folding chair and watched a small, wizened woman in a white uniform type on what had to be one of the first typewriters ever made. She typed gingerly, while a cigarette smoked in her mouth. It was obvious that the typewriter was the source of much disappointment and grief in her life. “Ahhhhhh,” she would say after hitting a key. “Bah.” She would shake her head sadly.
    The emergency room would have been empty were it not for Harry and his companions. Harry’s companions, however, furnished the room with more than enough fidgety life.
    Raymond Story loomed over Harry. “I think we should get Emily and leave,” Raymond said.
    Harry could see the girl, Rene, who had donned round dark glasses, now hunched owl-like on a bench on the other side of the room. She leaned forward as though preparing to take flight. The large, unhappy young man named Allan was looking out the plate-glass window at the lighted parking lot.
    “Raymond,” Harry said. “We have to see if Emily is really okay. I’m sure…”
    “She’s okay, she’s okay,” Raymond said, bouncing slightly on his toes. “She’s okay for now. But they are coming. Didn’t you hear her? They are coming. This was a bad idea coming to the hospital. We don’t need a hospital. They will find us here.”
    “Who are they, Raymond?”
    Raymond turned abruptly and marched to the receptionist’s desk. “We’ve got to go,” he said. “I need to get my wife and go.”
    The receptionist looked up at Raymond, crushed her cigarette in an ashtray, and said, “This ain’t 7-Eleven. This is not easy come, easy go. This is a hospital, young man. You just sit down and wait. The doctor will see your wife just as soon as he can.”
    Harry got out of his