GENERAL HOSPITAL AM I THE KILLER
A Hairy Situation
He dropped the knife back down on the floor, and noticed the name tag on the outside of her white blood stained jacket; CARLY SPENCER.
He stared down at the face of the dead woman; the eyes were still open and stared back at him with the coldness of a hammer to the middle of his skull. He so wanted to look away, but he couldn't; so mesmerized by the black dots of lifelessness that stared at him with an air of disillusioned accusation, as if saying, why me…why me. Why take my life, the vile monster you are?
But he had absolutely no recollection as to who the dead woman was, or even the slightest perception as to how the two of them, the partially naked dead woman and he, had even come to be inside the hospital room. And what reality of a world awaited him outside the ridged door.
He couldn't stay in this in this place forever, as if wrapped inside the comfortable feeling of a fleece blanket; no indeed. For if there was a world beyond that door, what existed there for him would certainly by a register of guilt to anyone who waited beyond the confines of a simple turn of the doorknob just two feet from where he stood.
Perhaps he should use the window; perhaps it was the more logical exit from this setting, this place of death. But he also knew that the moment he went out the window, even if he could, it would be like declaring to the world I did this, thus I am a fugitive and that is why I have chosen to flee.
Just to take stock of his options, J.M., which is how he addressed himself, walked past the bed and back over to the table, where next to it was the draped window that waited to reveal the world to him.
What would he find when he pulled on the drapes' drawstring? How long did he have until someone came through the door?
Without further waiting, he pulled on the drawstring and then the red drapes, like a curtain inside a theatre, parted like the red sea. But what he saw, through the window, confused him.
He ran his hands over the hair on his head; an instinctive thing some people did when reality did not match up with their own anticipation. Before he could rationalize what the window revealed, a phone began to ring, and it startled him.
He turned in the direction of the medical bed, and sure enough, on a small round table next to the bed there was a simple white phone; with a rotary dial and five square lights in a line above the dial; one of the lights, one of the lines, was blinking.
The flickering light above the bed was changing the color of phone, altering the color from BRIGHT WHITE to dim light; BRIGHT LIGHT to dim light,
It rang a second and third time, and then, not wanting anyone to enter the room to answer its beckoning, and thereby seeing the dead woman on the other side of the bed, J.M. decided to answer the phone.
After the forth ring, J.M. reached down and snatched up the receiver, quieting the ringing instantly. He placed the receiver up to his ear and then he heard a voice on the other.
"Hello… Jason," a man's voice said.
"Am I Jason?" J.M. asked, his voice cutting the other person off even if for a second, so as to help fill in this strange blinking lighted reality with depth.
"Yes…your name is Jason," the voice said. "Please listen…we don't have a lot of time."
Jason, whom he now referred to himself as, didn't want to listen; he wanted answers.
"What is happening to me?" Jason demanded. "There is a dead woman in this room, on the ground, and it certainly looks like I'm the one who killed her."
At first there was no answer, but then the voice came back.
"I don't have time to answer your questions," the voice replied. "Listen to me; there are people on their way to that room, and if they find you, they will most likely kill you. You need to go out the window."
Jason looked over to the window, and then again he ran his hair through his head because, once again, it didn't make sense what he saw.
"I can't go out that window, even if I wanted to," Jason told the person on the other end.
"What can't you?" the voice asked.
Jason took a deep breath, as he contemplated hitting the telephone receiver upon his head, just to make sure he was awake; but he was awake, and he knew it.
"I can't go out that window because," Jason said, pointing at it, "there is nothing but a brick wall right up against the window on the other side."
The voice didn't respond.
"WHAT DO I DO?" Jason came back with.
"Reality is changing," the voice said. "You have no choice but to go out the door," the voice concluded.
"Then what will I do next?" Jason asked.
"Run…" the voice simply said…
This issue featured
Steve Burton as Jason
This issue featured;
Steve Burton as the unnamed man7