74: Alive

My eyes snapped open.

"Run!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. But there was no sound. I couldn't see anything. My mouth wouldn't move. "Run!" I tried again. Lexi. Samantha. Dani. I couldn't save them. How many did he kill? Why was I alive? I could feel tears leaking from my blind eyes. I couldn't stand this. It was too much to bear. Suddenly, I couldn't breathe. Pain shot through my whole body. I smelled the sudden release of fear through my pores, my bowels, my bladder. I couldn't save them.

Just let me die.

Screams. Shouts. My name. Doctor! Everything was on fire. I was burning. Why was I burning? I'm in hell. Doctors can't help. John was right. His religion was right. I was burning up and my head was filled with the screams of my cónyuge as they died. Died. They were all dead. I was in hell. I would spend eternity hearing them crying my name for help. I deserved it. I failed.

Please, let me die.

"Brian. It's okay. Your fever spiked when you regained consciousness. You'll be okay now. Stay with us, Brian."

Someone was talking to me. A calm voice. As if I was a spooked horse. I tried to answer. I couldn't form words around the things in my throat. I had to get to Sam and Dani. Poor Lexi. I struggled but couldn't move.

"You've been out for a long time. We're going to get you through this. You've fought a hard battle, but you're winning now. Stay with us."

I was winning. I was no longer on fire. There was something cool on my head. Ice. When hell freezes over. Everything else was silent.

Except the screams in my head. Except watching my loved ones die.

I was alive.

But I'm still in hell.

A drip on the back of my hand.

Then on the other.

I screamed as I came awake. Blood was dripping on me. I tried to move my hands but they were held in place. I squeezed. They squeezed back.

"I love you." A duet of angels beside me.

How can anyone love me? How can I ever again be loved? I failed. I let them die.

Tears ran from my eyes down my cheeks. They were kissed away.

"You're here. You're really back."

I blinked my eyes. So watery. Rose. Rhonda. How could they hold my hands? Kiss my cheeks? I let our cónyuge die.

"You're our hero," Rhonda whispered. "You've always been my hero. You saved so many lives. Oh, Brian. How can you be so brave?"

Brave? Saved lives? How could she be so wrong? I'd seen our cónyuge fall. My poor sweet Samantha.

"Oh, god! You don't know." Rose said. "Brian, Samantha is recovering. It was nasty but she's home. Courtney was just a flesh wound. You deflected the bullet down that could have killed her." Courtney? I didn't know she'd been hit.

"Dani?" I croaked. Rhonda put a straw to my mouth and I sipped in water. Blessed water. My throat still felt like it was on fire.

"She'll be okay. It will take a little while. Be patient, lover," Rose said. I couldn't hold back any longer.

"Lexi?" I knew the answer as soon as they dropped their heads.

"She never had a chance. They say she died instantly."

"No!" I cried. "I tried. I tried. I tried."

"There was nothing you could do, Brian. There was no way you could have saved her. He chose her and her sorority big sister first. Before anyone knew what was happening. There was nothing anyone could do," Rose said.

"And Addison is okay," Rhonda said. "But ... her boyfriend didn't make it. He was a hero like you and protected her."

Oh, god! Three dead. Three more wounded. Four if you counted me, but I don't count. Samantha and Courtney and Danielle were alive. Oh, poor Samantha! She saw her sister gunned down. How can she ever live with that? How will we ever recover? How could I ever face her?

"The doctor wanted to be notified when you woke up again. I pushed the call button," Rhonda said.

The doctor talked. He went on about wounds. I didn't really listen. He examined my stomach and my hip. Gastrointestinal perforation. I knew what that was. I was gut-shot.

I should have died. Why didn't they just let me die?

"No!" I yelled. I jerked up and fell back with the pain. "Ah!" It was dark. The screams were in my ears. A hand clasped mine.

"Honeybunch, we're here for you," Mom said.

"Mom! Mom! Don't die! I let them die! Run!" The nightmare was still in front of my eyes. Lexi! Sam! Dani! I'll kill you, you bastard!

Mom was crying. Anna and Jennifer looked at me, horrified. Tears ran down their cheeks as they gasped. They couldn't stand the sight of me. Then Dad. He put his hand on my shoulder.

"You scared us, son. But we're so very proud of you. We thought we'd lost you. You died. They resuscitated you. But then you were in a coma. Now you're back. You are my beloved son and you are back with us," Dad said. He was crying. Fuck! I was crying. I'd never stop crying. If I'd attacked him first instead of yelling for everyone to run. I could have saved Lexi.

"How can you be proud of me when I let them die?" I screamed. "They should have left me dead." Jennifer ran out of the room. She knew. I'd even let Courtney be hurt.

"Brian Robert Frost!" my father barked. Mom stumbled away as he hovered over me. "Don't you ever say such a stupid fucking thing again! I will take you to the barn and tan your hide. You did everything humanly possible. More than humanly possible. You've been through a terrible experience, but you did nothing wrong. You did not fail. Your family is here for you."

"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to cause you pain," I whispered. "I couldn't save them. He was killing us!"

That was the last of my coherent conversation. If that had been coherent. I wept. No one could console me. I hurt. My head. My throat. My back. My legs. My gut. He was still shooting me. I wailed until a doctor came in and knocked me out again.

I woke up again, shaking. I didn't scream. I didn't want to let him know I was there. If I could get there before he started shooting, I could kill him. I'd break his fucking neck.

"Brian. It's okay, buddy."

I twisted to strike out. Too far away! I couldn't reach him. Pain lanced through my body again. I screamed. Josh hit the call button. Josh. I'd tried to kill Josh.

"Josh. I almost ... I could have..." A nurse interrupted. Josh explained.

"He woke up startled and twisted. He might have torn something. It sounded like he was in pain," Josh said.

"Let's just take a look at your wounds and make sure everything is still okay. I don't think you'll do any damage to them at this stage. The stitches are pretty well healed. We need to get you up today and get you into physical therapy," she said. She probed around under my gown. Almost healed? I couldn't have been hurt that badly, then.

"What day is it?" I croaked.

"Tuesday," Josh said.

"Two days. I need to get out of here. Samantha will need me. I need to see Courtney and Danielle."

"Shh. Brian," Cassie said as she soothed my hand. Where had she been? I didn't even know she was there. She must have been hiding. She had to avoid the shooter.

"You aren't going anyplace soon. You were seriously wounded. You've been fighting a high fever as a result of peritonitis," the nurse said. "It's been touch and go. You were in a coma for three weeks and in and out for the past two days."

Three weeks? They would have had the funeral already. I missed saying goodbye. I missed graduation. Well, fuck that. Who cares? I missed Whitney's birthday.

If they don't give that fucker the electric chair, I'll find him and kill him myself.

I slept most of the time. My cónyuge came in to see me. I thanked them. I sent them away. It wasn't safe. I wasn't safe. I'd nearly killed Josh.

Samantha came with her parents. I couldn't look at her. She cried. Her arm was in a sling worn inside her baggy shirt.

"They have to rebuild my shoulder. They'll start installing a titanium joint to replace the one that was destroyed," she said. "It doesn't hurt too much right now because they've got me on lots of drugs. But I'm a little spacey. More than usual. Mom and Dad are taking care of me. And all our casa. I just wish ... I wish my sister was..."

There was no way I could bear this. I was going to die again from sorrow. All we could do was cry together. They'd had time. They had distance. To me it was yesterday. How could Lexi die?

It was an easy solution. I could stop the nightmares. I just wouldn't sleep.

Courtney delivered the textbooks I asked for. She limped slightly.

"You'll still play with my bottom, won't you, Brian?" she whispered. "They said it was just a little dimple. It's tender now. But it will be better. You'll still ... You'll still love me, won't you, Brian?"

"How can you love me? Don't pretend. Run. Run far away, Courtney. I'm death."

She cried and ran from the room.

Run!

I opened the text book and read. I'd already read this book, but it wouldn't hurt to review. And while I was studying, I wouldn't sleep. The night nurse came in and turned off my light. As soon as she was gone, I struggled to finally reach the switch and turn it on. I read. If I read chemistry texts, I wouldn't sleep. If I didn't sleep, there would be no nightmares. If there were no nightmares then I could sleep.

Read.

I'd almost made it through the night. It was a struggle to keep my eyes open. When they drifted shut I heard voices. Not screams and shouts. Whispers. I could almost hear them. Almost. Tickling around the edges of my senses. Peace. It was almost dawn. I drifted off to sleep.

"You need to get out of bed today, young man," Nurse Ratched said. That wasn't her real name. Her little badge said, 'Lois Durham.' But she'd just taken my book out of my hands and told me sternly that if I didn't move today, she was going to take out my catheter and let me pee in the bed.

"Why am I even still here? They said I'd been in the hospital for four weeks now. Others were wounded as badly as me. I should be up and out of here," I moaned.

"Exactly," Nurse Durham said. "In order to do that, we need to get your feet under you and at least get you to the bathroom. I'm going to bring you up a little bit at a time. You'll feel a lot of uncomfortable stretching in your back and stomach."

Yeah. Stretching. This must be what it was like to be drawn and quartered. I suffered through it. She helped swing my legs over the edge of the bed. Shit! That hurt! My left arm was hooked to the IV stand. She put my right arm over her shoulder and lifted as I stood. Pain shot through my hip and side and my leg crumpled under me. She hung on and didn't let me fall. Damn, she's strong.

"I don't get it! Why am I so damned weak? It's like my leg wasn't even there."

"You haven't been listening to the doctors. Which I understand given the level of pain killers they have you on. But you've also had your nose buried in a book and aren't paying attention. Let's catalog them." She started walking me away from the bed a couple steps and then turning to walk back as she recited my injuries. "Multiple perforations in your intestines and colon. Six. Damage to the psoas, rectus abdominus, abdominus oblique, and tendon of the latissimus dorsi. Add a cracked pelvis with a bullet-sized chunk broken out of it. You have a tube inserted in your bladder by way of your penis. You are wearing a diaper so we can clean up any discharge from your anus, which is minimal since you were fed intravenously for three weeks and have yet to eat solid food. And before you start dreaming of steak and potatoes, let me remind you that whatever you put in your mouth is going to pass through your intestines and colon, which have been largely unused for the past four weeks. You need to make it to the bathroom on your own."

"Cracked pelvis?" My mind stuck there. 'Help! I've fallen and I can't get up.'

"The first time you were hit, the bullet took a piece off the front edge of your pelvis. The impact cracked that side all the way to your hip joint," my nurse said. "You stepped between the shooter and his target. If you hadn't been there, the shot would likely have severed that young woman's spine instead of lodging in her gluteus maximus. You might hate me for all I'm going to force you to do in the next few days, but I am not going to let that kind of heroism be punished. Now walk."

I was filled with rage. Not at Nurse Ratched or her stupid insistence that I was a hero. But rage that some anonymous fucker could just gun people down and ruin the lives he didn't succeed in ending.

"How can someone do that to people? I'll kill him!" I cried. "How can he just step out of a car and start shooting innocent women? What did they ever do to him?" I threw my right leg forward, locked it in place and put my weight on it. I screamed. Nurse Ratched screamed back at me.

"Nothing! They didn't deserve it. He was a murderer. Evil. He was not human!" The nurse held me upright as the pain subsided. "Again." I put my weight on the injured leg and swore vengeance. That was the secret. He wasn't human. That's why he needs to be put down, like a rabid dog. Never let a dog bite twice. Put it down. He wasn't really a human being. Even the term animal was too good for him.

"It's called 'survivor's guilt.' That won't do you a bit of good except to give you a name for it and let you know that you aren't the only one who suffers from it," the psychologist said. I'd been up all night again until just before dawn when something whispered in my mind to sleep. At least I wasn't screaming when my eyes came open. Not out loud. When Mom and Anna visited Friday morning, the doctor said I needed to see a shrink. I was surprised when he showed up Friday afternoon. Dr. McCall had referred him.

"The problem is that you will always have it. You'll always believe that it should have been you who was killed and not those innocent girls. It will always seem like death would have been so much easier than living with this guilt," he said.

"Fuck. Thanks a lot."

"You aren't the only one who suffers from it. Every single person who was at the sorority that day is seeing a therapist."

"Why? It wasn't their fault," I said.

"Exactly." He just let that hang there. I was waiting for him to continue. It wasn't their fault. Exactly.

"But I could have done something. I should never have left my date's side. I could have protected her."

"Let's imagine that's true for a moment. So you stay beside your date and don't shout the warning to your ... is Addison your cousin?"

"Sister-in-law."

"So, instead of trying to save your sister-in-law, you stay by your date. Your sister-in-law dies but Miss Cortales does not. Maybe. You wouldn't know. You would be dead from the first shot, leaving a clear shot at your date. No one would be there to protect Miss James. With no threat to his person, the shooter would have had leisure to pick more targets. Maybe even reload. How many do you think would have died then?"

"But it's so unfair!"

"That's right. It is. It's fucking unfair!" he leveled at me. I'd never had a therapist talk to me like that. Certainly not Dr. McCall. "So I'm going to ask you point blank. I want you to think carefully about your answer, because it is going to tell me a lot about what kind of person you really are. Would you have traded all those other lives to be free of your guilt for surviving?"

Jesus Fucking Christ! How could he even ask a question like that? Get a grip, Frost.

"No!"

"Then let's work on putting some tools in your kit to cope with it," he answered. Some tools? I need a whole new kit. There's nothing left in mine.

We talked all afternoon. I don't know how much he was charging, but I figured I'd end up just signing my bank accounts over to him, eventually. He didn't let up on me, even when I thought the issue of survivor's guilt was covered.