I hope everyone enjoys this chapter as it kind of begins the action. Like I said earlier, this will begin on primarily original ideas and then move to more closely follow certain events in the book. Before you decide whether to continue with this story, I hope you read the chapter following this one. Though this is mainly a suspense story, I do plan to include a fair amount of darker romance. And, for the few Raoul fans who are reading, I promise a share of tender R/C moments as well. I aim to please everyone!
Finally, I did include a line from the song Amazing Grace, which, like just about everything else, I do not own.
Christine inwardly cringed as she made her way down the vacant corridor of the hospital, her heels clicking against the cold, sterilized linoleum. From somewhere in the distance, she heard the humming of a machine, followed by a high-pitched tone. Two nurses walked by, talking quietly as they looked over their charts, and a grave voice over the intercom echoed down the hall as it paged a Dr. Richardson.
She hated hospitals... the nauseating smells of foreign chemicals, the pale shades of grey that colored every wall, and the general aura of disease and death that seemed to emanate out of every room.
For two long weeks, she had sat in a frigid, leather armchair inside one of those rooms as her father slowly succumbed to pneumonia. Vividly, she was able to recall his hacking cough as he had attempted to speak to her in those last days, telling her that he loved her and would somehow pull through this. He had looked so frail as he clutched her hand. Most of all, Christine remembered the nurse's words as she had changed the IV bag on the day right before he died. "Much of this could have been prevented," she had said, "if he had just come in a little sooner."
Her father had delayed coming to the hospital for a long time, thinking that the "cold" would quickly pass and not wanting to pay an unaffordable doctor's bill. The illness had not passed, though, but instead turned into the deadly virus. As she had sat by his bedside sobbing into his frail shoulder, he had told her that he would always be with her, would always be watching from above. He would be listening to her whenever she sang in her god given voice, and one day she would shine for all the world to see. Then he was gone.
Now she found herself walking down the hall of the very same hospital, the familiar sights and sounds forcing her to remember things that she had pushed far back into her mind. To some relief, Christine saw that this floor was not quite as morose as the one that her father had been in. For the most part, there were people with casts and bandages, wearily moving down the halls in wheelchairs or on crutches. Doors to most of the rooms remained open.
After searching for a short time, Christine finally found the room number she was looking for and slowly opened the door. Her eyes immediately settled on Mrs. Valerius, who was calmly laying in a white hospital bed with her leg propped up and in a thick cast. Next to her stood a doctor holding a manila folder full of papers and medical charts. He glanced up and nodded as Christine walked in.
"Hello, dear!" Mrs. Valerius exclaimed with a smile. "I'm glad you were able to get here so fast!"
Christine sat Mrs. Valerius's purse down upon a counter and quickly ran over to give her guardian a tight hug. "I'm so glad you're okay! I wish I had been there to help you."
The doctor took several steps backward to give them room, looking slightly annoyed as he stuffed the papers back into the folder. "I'll allow you some privacy now," he said to Mrs. Valerius as he walked to the door. "We'll have the test results in tomorrow, and I'll discuss them with you at that time."
As soon as he left, Christine turned to the older woman with a puzzled look on her face. "Test results?"
A look of concern passed over Mrs. Valerius' face, but she quickly replaced it with a cheerful expression and patted Christine's hand reassuringly. "Oh! They just wanted to do a quick bone scan, what with the terrible pain I've been having lately. I'm sure it's nothing more than my arthritis."
"Oh," said Christine softly, somewhat unconvinced. She could see it both within the doctor's eyes and in her guardian's eyes that something was not quite right, but she did not press any further. A part of her did not even want to know.
"Well," said Mrs. Valerius, maintaining an upbeat tone. "I suppose I am getting on in years. There's bound to be an accident sooner or later when you're my age."
Christine glanced up and smiled weakly. "Yes, I guess so. I'm still sorry that I wasn't there to help you down the stairs, though. Anyway, I'll help out a lot more while you're off your feet. I think my boss will let me work fewer hours for a while, and classes won't be as busy after midterms. I should be—"
"Christine," Mrs. Valerius interrupted, firmly but kindly. "I don't want you to worry about me."
"I know, but I—"
"Please let me finish. Before I get too old, I would like to see you happy again. It's events like these that make me see how short life really is, and you shouldn't spend it miserably. Ever since your father passed, you've seemed almost like a ghost, always staring into space with a vacant look in your eyes and hardly saying a word to anyone."
"I'm not miserable," she protested. "I'm fine. I…." she tapered off, not wanting to get into an argument with her ailing friend.
"I know that you're fine, Christine, but I wish you could be happy. Find some friends! Go out on a date sometime! All you do is work, study, and sleep. And..." She hesitated a moment before continuing. "Your face always lit up so much when you sang, Christine. Have you ever thought maybe you could find joy in that again?"
Christine looked to the floor for a long moment, her hand clenching the iron bedpost. "I am happy," she softly replied. "I mean, I do have a couple of friends in school. Guys aren't all that interested in me, but I'm busy most of the time, anyway."
Mrs. Valerius sighed and leaned backward on the pillow. "You are a hard worker. There is no doubt in my mind of that. But for once, I'd like to see a real smile on your face." She paused for a long moment as if debating something. "Christine," she finally said. "Bring me my purse."
Christine obeyed and waited apprehensively as Mrs. Valerius zipped it open and pulled out a small object from the side. She saw that it was an old, unlabeled cassette of some kind. "Do you know what this is?" the older woman asked, handing it to her. Christine shook her head and curiously turned the tape over in her hand. "It's the last tape I have of you and your father singing together. I think you had just turned fifteen."
"Oh," she stuttered out, nearly dropping the cold plastic box onto the ground. She had purposefully blocked its existence from her mind.
"I found it when I was helping to go through some of your father's things, and I've kept it with me all these years, wanting to give it to you. I had a friend make a copy yesterday so I could keep one, too."
Christine continued to numbly stare at it. "Thanks," she finally said, mechanically placing it into her purse. From over the intercom came a woman's voice politely announcing that visiting hours were almost over.
"Listen to it sometime, Christine," Mrs. Valerius said, closing her eyes and beginning to drift off to sleep. Her face appeared weary, and Christine could not help but think that it was the oldest she had ever seen her guardian look. "Listen to how good you are. I think you'll be surprised. And if not singing—please find something that makes you happy again."
"I will," she murmured with a lump in her throat as she headed toward the door. "Have a good night. I'll be up again tomorrow afternoon."
There was no response as the older woman had already gone to sleep, and Christine blindly turned and made her way back down the corridor. She didn't even notice her surroundings as she took the elevator back to the ground floor and walked out to her car in the cold evening air. In the light from the parking lot lamps, she could see her billowy breath, and she felt a shiver run through her body as she climbed into her Accord.
As she turned the silver ignition key and the engine and heaters hummed to life, she sat there for a long moment in silence and pondered the previous conversation. Why was everyone trying to change her? Why did they insist that she smile and open up more? Didn't they understand that she was fine with the way things were? She was content to go about life busy and preoccupied with the tasks in front of her. She didn't want to have to think about the past or about finding friends or about relationships.
A morose laugh escaped her lips. Christine supposed she did seem pathetic. Most girls her age were out having fun, meeting people and going to parties or joining new activities. And she was simply—stuck. She kept busy to avoid feeling depressed. And yet she had no passion for the tasks that occupied her time. Yes. She was stuck.
With a distraught sigh, she pulled the tape from her purse and forcefully pushed it into the cassette player of her twelve-year-old car. If she didn't listen to it now, Christine knew that it would haunt her. As the player slowly clicked on, Christine shifted the car into reverse and backed out of the parking space, carefully making her way through the endless rows of cars and back out onto to the highway.
"Are you ready, Christine?" asked her father's jovial voice from the cassette. Her breath caught in her throat as she drove down the nearly empty interstate. For a moment, Christine considered shutting it off and at least waiting until it was daylight to listen to it. Something made her keep her hands firmly on the steering wheel, though, and she could not bring herself to push the stop button.
"I'm ready!" replied her young, cheerful voice. A few chords were strummed on a guitar, and several sheets of paper crackled as they both turned to the first page of the song.
"Here we go!" said her father. Immediately, the first chords of Amazing Grace began, and her soft soprano voice rang out from the speakers. After a few lines, her father joined in with his pleasant baritone as he continued to lightly strum the guitar. Suddenly, Christine remembered making the tape. It had been her father's fortieth birthday, and he had wanted to hear his daughter sing one of his favorite hymns.
As she turned off the highway and onto a side road in order to avoid the heavy evening traffic, she felt several unwanted tears stream down her cheeks. It had been so long since she heard his voice, and she was both devastated and entranced at the same time. Choking back a sob, she continued to listen as they sang on, feeling a tightness overtake her chest at the onrushing memories.
T'was grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved...
God, how it hurt to hear this. Quickly brushing the tears from her eyes, she felt the car start to veer left and attempted to put her concentration back on the road. It was getting darker by the minute, and she felt a cloud of overwhelming exhaustion suddenly overtake her. As the street lamps began to blur together in her tired and teary vision, Christine began to wearily fumble around in an attempt to turn the cassette off, knowing that listening to it was becoming a driving hazard.
Looking back up, she realized that she had entered into an unfamiliar rural residential area and wondered if she had taken a wrong turn. Scattered houses and farms lay around the narrow road, their lights dim and distant in the evening sky. Just as she was about to reach down in another attempt to turn the song off and focus on her surroundings, Christine made out something small moving in the distance, perhaps a hundred yards away from her.
Squinting, she at first wondered if it was an animal but immediately realized that it was too tall. As she drove nearer and her headlights fell upon the figure, she saw that it was a man in exercise attire, running forward at a leisurely pace in the direction that she was going. Ignoring the cassette for a moment, Christine started to swerve left and quickly pass the evening jogger. It was at that very moment, though, that she noticed a dark object coming toward her in her rearview mirror. She let out a soft gasp as a car with its headlights off approached her at an alarming rate. It had not even been there a moment ago!
To her shock, the dark automobile began to quickly pass her on the left side, and she soon found herself tightly sandwiched between the jogger and the ghostly car. As the man turned to look behind him at the two approaching vehicles, Christine saw a look of surprise and fright pass over his bearded face. Her only choice was to speed up and get out from between them, but she was afraid that she would somehow swerve and hit the elderly jogger. At the same time, the dark car was so close by now that it was nearly about to sideswipe her.
Suddenly, the jogger stopped running and attempted to dodge out of the way, leaving her room on one side. As the black car came even closer, Christine frantically slammed on the gas pedal and swerved right to avoid being hit. The green Accord drove off of the road and pummeled downhill into a wooded area, and she was violently jerked around by the bumps and rifts on the unpaved ground. Desperately she attempted to keep control of the steering wheel and get her seemingly paralyzed foot off of the accelerator before she rammed into a tree.
As the car hurdled forward, it suddenly hit what felt like an enormous hole. Christine was rapidly thrown to the side, and she winced in pain as her head slammed into the window. A throbbing ache quickly engulfed her skull, and a series of bright lights flashed in front of her eyes. From somewhere on the brink of consciousness, she noticed that the car had finally stopped moving forward, likely stuck in the pit that it had landed in. The engine continued to run, though, leaving both the headlights and cassette player on.
Laying her head back onto the seat, Christine felt herself drift in and out of the darkness, unable to move without feeling dizzy. In the background, she heard the cassette continue to play. She could hear herself and her father singing but wasn't coherent enough to make out what song it was.
"I have to get up," Christine mumbled to herself, trying to focus her blurry eyes. A heavy feeling came over her, though, and all she wanted to do was sleep...sleep to the sound of her father's voice as it now sang an old folk song.
Opening her blue eyes once more, Christine suddenly wondered if she was hallucinating, for it looked as though someone were standing right next to her left door. She blinked once but the silhouette remained, and she groaned as she attempted to pull her head up and get a closer look.
As she lay back down again in a haze, she vaguely wondered if she had landed next to a tree, but all ponderings suddenly stopped as she became aware of her unlocked door being opened. A cold gust of air rushed into the automobile and over her body. Turning her neck slightly, she could at first see nothing. Within another second, though, she became aware of something reaching out toward her-a hand...a long, thin hand was reaching forward.
She gasped as the icy fingers touched her forehead, and she struggled within the confines of the seatbelt to move away. As she started to open her mouth to let out a sharp shriek, the cold hand moved to the area directly above her lips and nose, nearly blocking her airway. Christine could feel her own warm breath reflect back onto her face as the hand continued to hover inches in front of her.
Then, as some clarity returned to her foggy mind, a feeling of terror rapidly surged through her exhausted body.
Good God! It was going to suffocate her!