Joey's body was taken to the morgue early the next morning.
What had happened was around eight the nurses at the front desk saw Joey's vital signs on the main base machine flat line. Paging the doctor they ran into the room and found him seizing. They surrounded him, trying their best to hold him down as the doctors came in all at once and started to shout for what they needed.
A pen light was shinned in the boy's blank eyes.
Before Dr. Sims and his parents even took wind that something bad had happened he had flat lined completely. They work on him for twenty minutes before finally the doctors gave up.
One nurse was pumping an air bag over Joey's mouth and looked up as one of the doctors slowly shook his head and snapped off one of his rubber gloves.
"Time of death 8:23...come on."
Everyone looked at each other, still in utter shock that one moment this teenage boy was sleeping peacefully and the next dead.
Physically he seemed healthy…then why did his heart stop? First was that they blamed the sedative and thought he had a bad reaction to it. But by the time Joey's parents were told the heart breaking news that their son who they had fought for so badly was now dead.
They couldn't explain much, only that they were allowed to see him before he was taken downstairs. Mrs. Crusel broke down on the floor sobbing as Mr. Crusel shoved one of the doctors against the soda machine and screamed that he wanted to see his boy now. That there couldn't be any way for Joey to have died in that short period of time. He was safe…he was just sleeping, nothing was wrong with him. No, their only son wasn't dead…he couldn't be.
Word spread quick around the hospital and the Crusel's stayed with Joey's body for almost a full two hours. They soon were taken into one of the doctor's office to be spoken to, and they wrote down that an aneurism had caused the young man's death…nothing more.
Dr. Sims was talking to the other doctors and blamed the stress of everything that had happened, and maybe the lack of sleep the boy had been going through. It was truly a shame for what happened…she cared for Joey, but now the children were all gone.
Joey's mother was given something to relax, after she broke down screaming that he knew this was going to happen.
His body was placed in a plastic body bag and taken downstairs to be examined. Around that time Alice had woken up and received the bad news about Joey. Anderson and Jarvis were both there asking questions. They knew how strange this all sounded. Still the young boy's cries haunted Anderson as he asked the last of the nurses what he wanted to hear.
"Your killing me!"
Did he know…did he know he was going to die in his sleep?"
Anderson shook it off, it had been a long week and there was yet another death to write up on the books. He just couldn't see how this had happened, he thought they were playing it safe with this one.
Sighing Jarvis brought up how that girl had also been taken to the hospital…maybe it was a suicide pact.
No, Anderson couldn't believe that.
Leaning against the wall he looked at the clock thinking, maybe if they had let those two kids go…maybe that boy would of still been alive. Alice meanwhile refused to be put to sleep, her father was downstairs talking to the police and doctors again as Debbie sat on the bed with her with a small paper cup of coffee. The whole entire room was in pitch darkness.
Debbie held her friend as she shook and cried, trying to sooth her she brushed back her hair and kissed her on the head.
Had this man that Alice talked about kill Joey?
She didn't know what to believe .
"I think I met you must have been last July, I can't remember cause there were tears in my eyes, bands of rockets lit up the sky…then you left me and now I know why."
She sang softly to her friend.
Downstairs right before the doctors cracked Joey's chest they noticed something.
Scars…maybe a year old…written across his chest.
"Come and…"
The rest was faded.
Looking down at the boy's white face they sighed and started up the saws.
Alice upstairs cried silent tears and then broke into Debbie's singing.
"Nine ten, never sleep again."