Electric Elizabeth: A Novel Read online

ELECTRIC ELIZABETH: A Novel

  by Vincent C. Martinez

  Copyright ©2014 Vincent C. Martinez. All Rights Reserved.

  This novel was corrected and revised June, 2015.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and settings are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, names, locales, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for the personal enjoyment of the reader. It is the copyrighted property of the author and may not be reproduced, copied, or distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase a copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or if it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Discover other titles by Vincent C. Martinez at his official author webpage.

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Prologue

  I want to believe that you're sleeping in the bedroom just down the hall, that there aren't hundreds of nail holes in the walls, and that there aren't hammer marks in the trim along the floor.

  But the holes in the walls are there, the nail holes and hammer marks are there, and the bedroom is empty. You are not under the covers snoring, reading, or waiting for me to slip under the heavy blankets with you.

  There is thunder outside, though it is snowing. I see its source stretching over the gap between the northern hills: brilliant blue and violet, a snaking, twisting crack in a black sky, a spark kilometers long extending cloud to ground.

  I sit by this window and wonder.

  I wonder if it is you.

  Chapter One

  Breezes tickled the treetops, and the roads and sidewalks were dotted with dampness from melted snow and ice. Our breaths formed clouds in the air, and I walked beside her, closest to the street, her hand in mine.

  Elizabeth wanted to walk somewhere that morning. "Where?" I'd asked. "Anywhere," she'd said, "I want to walk with you." So we put on our coats and scarves, we locked the front door behind us, we walked out to the quiet street, then started west. It was a little past seven-o'clock, and the town was, save for an occasional car lumbering down a street somewhere or an occasional dog chorus at the edge of town, quiet, the loudest sounds the breeze in our ears, our feet against the ground, our breathing in the air.

  I pulled her close, leaned down, and kissed the top of her head as I often did. She said nothing, and we moved apart, hands still joined. Our shadows wavered over asphalt and concrete, merging, separating, then merging again.

  Her shadow crept beneath mine. Her black hair and black coat billowed in the breeze. Her yellow sweater burned like flame in the gray air. Her gray scarf drooped around her neck, almost onto her shoulders. She was all I saw. She was all I wanted to see.

  When she took a deep breath, I'd squeeze her hand tightly, and she'd smile at me sadly, her gentle, round face luminous in the morning gray. If she wanted to say something, she would say it, even if it took days of mulling it over before she finally decided to share it. She was analytical that way: process, collate, process, reveal. I knew she'd let me know what was on her mind. Eventually.

  We walked past the warehouse district and railyard entrance and through canyons of aluminum-sided houses. No one stirred in their homes, though sometimes I heard muted televisions or radios, static floating on the breeze. We walked past Cardinal and Warbler Streets, past Central and Shrike Streets, past the street where I worked at the Blackbridge Banner, and past the bakery where Liz once wondered why the walls and tables were covered with maps of human palms.

  We turned onto the street that held the town's remaining stores, and she slowed. Our bond stretched, but didn't break. "Oops," I said, still gripping her hand. I smiled at her. She smiled back, but, again, sadly. Her dark eyes didn't meet mine but focused on my chest before she looked up.

  "Oops," she whispered.

  Across the street were Blackbridge Radio and Electronics, American Furniture, Worthington's Shoe Store, and Big Star Hardware. Just up ahead on our side was Leed's Clothing Store. Every building was a leftover from early twentieth century boom years: red brick and concrete, thick plate glass windows and doors, neon OPEN signs—all dark this morning. That morning, I didn't look at stereos or shortwave radios, and Liz only glanced at the storefronts, eyes searching the empty street for something.

  The street continued for a mile to the hills bordering the town's eastern edge. Liz looked at the hilltop antennas, the warning light beacons glowing, throbbing like heartbeats, and she slowed to a stop. She let go of my hand, stared at the beacons' glow, then turned to the windows of Leed's. She walked to the windows where the spring coats were on display and stopped.

  She turned to me, her eyes wide and watery. Her nose was reddening, and her face quivered. She stepped back. Two steps. Three steps. Four. Five. She reached out with her right hand.

  I tilted my head and smiled. I began to walk to her, and I reached up to touch her hand.

  Suddenly, there was a blue flash. A white fire. A burning over my body. A tearing of skin on my back, a crash in my ears, a concussion in my chest, and a rock-like hardness against my head.

  And then there was only black.

  ***

  I awoke days later to electronic beeping in my right ear and a deep hum in my left ear. The room was dark, dry, cold, and smelled of adhesive tape. Shapes were blurred at their edges. My head felt compressed, my chest and arms leaden, my upper back singed, my lower back crushed and twisted. I reached up and touched bandages wrapped around my skull. Tubes pierced my skin. Adhesive strips stitched gashes on my forehead and cheeks. I ached as if I'd been stretched and pulled from neck to foot. I lay flat and winced, listening to the beeping and the humming. My eyes searched the darkness until I closed them again.

  ***

  Outside, a floor waxer whirred.

  A woman with silver hair pulled into a bun sat beside the bed, drawing a vial of blood from an IV port in my arm. I turned my head and located the room's window. Through the blinds I saw only black.

  I mumbled: "Who are you?"

  Her head jerked up, and she pulled the vial from the IV port. Her blue eyes widened, as did her mouth. "Are you awake?" she whispered. She slipped the vial into a small rack sitting on a wheeled food tray beside the bed and reached behind me, pressing a button on the wall. She smelled like the alcohol hand cleanser I kept on my desk at work.

  Two other women entered the room, one wheeling in a computer cart laden with air pressure arm cuffs, thermometers, and finger oxygen clamps, the other pulling a penlight from her pocket. They both jogged to my bedside, one on each side.

  "He just woke up and asked me who I was," Blood Taker said, pointing at me.

  "Mister Conroy?" Penlight asked. "Mister Conroy? Are you awake, Mister Conroy?"

  "What's wrong with me?" I mumbled. Light flashed into my eyes.

  "Mister Conroy, can you tell me y
our first name?"

  "What?" I asked. A blood pressure cuff was wrapped around my arm. It tightened with a wheeze as a cold thermometer was rolled over my forehead. Cart Nurse tapped away at the keys on the cart-mounted computer. "My name?"

  "What is your first name, Mister Conroy?"

  "Milton," I said. "What's wrong with me?"

  "Do you know where you are, Milton?"

  "No, I"—the blood pressure cuff tightened again—"I'm in a hospital."

  "Do you know which one?"

  "No," I said. "What's wrong with me?"

  "You were injured in an accident, Mister Conroy. Do you know your birthday?"

  I told her my birthday, I told her my birthplace, I told her my name again, I told her where I hurt the worst and if I could give each pain a number on a scale of one to ten, how would they rank? They asked me my wife's name.

  "Liz," I said. "Elizabeth. My wife's name is Elizabeth. Is she here?"

  "Milton, can you tell us what you remember?" Another nurse appeared with a thin bag of clear fluid in her hands. Penlight turned to her and whispered, "You can just load that one up right now. He's got heavy pain in the lower back." Penlight stood up, walked to the end of my bed, and lifted the covers. My lower legs were wrapped in blue pressure cuffs that inflated and deflated on my shins and calves. She took out a small metal poker, tapped my toes and feet. "Can you feel this?" she asked. "How about this? Can you feel this here? Can you wiggle your toes? Can you raise your feet? Just a bit? Okay, that's good, that's fine."

  The nurses moved around the bed like wind-spun leaves, touching, prodding, pressing, verifying.

  "Does my wife know where I am?" I asked. "Is she okay?"

  "The doctor's on her way," Penlight said. "She'll answer your questions. You're at West Scranton Hospital." Her voice deepened, and she placed her hand onto my non-needled arm. "You've been in an accident, and you've had some emergency surgery. The doctor'll give you all the specifics. We're just getting all your vitals right now, making sure you're seeing okay, that your legs and limbs are working, and if you need any immediate attention."

  "I need to see my wife," I said. "I want her to know I'm okay. Can you call her?"

  She smiled and squeezed my arm.

  ***

  I couldn't tell Doctor McKullen's age. Her face was young, but her long, straight hair was silver-gray. As she sat on the bed, she looked at me with deep-green eyes and a worn smile as she cradled a thick folder in her arms and flipped through the pages. "Mister Conroy," she said, "do you remember anything that happened before you got here?"

  I shook my head. "I was walking with my wife. We were standing in front of a store. There was something like a flash, and I felt like I was on fire. That's it. Then I woke up here."

  She placed the folder on her lap and slid closer to me, her body so thin that it barely pushed the mattress down. "Mister Conroy, from what I've been told, there was a lightning strike right where you and your wife stood. It's possible you got a direct hit, I'm not sure. You don't have any serious electrical burns, and that's good, but you were thrown through a window. You have multiple lacerations on your head, face, and back, a couple of herniated cervical discs, and two lumbar discs so severely herniated that we needed to perform an emergency discectomy and laminectomy or risk having paralysis set in. That's the pain in your lower back. Usually we try to get patients up and walking right after surgery, but you've been out for a few days, so—"

  "How many days?" I asked.

  "Three days. You seem to be doing well right now, but we'll watch you for a bit longer, and we'll need to get you up and walking."

  "What about Liz?"

  "Who?"

  "My wife."

  "Yes, I'm sorry," she said, taking in a deep breath and biting her lower lip.

  "Where's Liz?" I asked again.

  She shook her head. "I don't know, Mister Conroy."

  "You don't know? You don't know if she's at another hospital, or you don't know if she's still alive or not?"

  "I just don't know."

  "What kind of—"

  "Mister Conroy," she lowered her hand onto my chest, "please slow your breathing. The reason why I say I don't know is because I don't. The last I heard, no one does."

  "What kind of answer is that?" I said. I tried to raise myself, but my weakened back and arms held me in place.

  "Milton, no one knows where your wife is. No one."

  ***

  That night, I pulled the room's telephone onto my lap and dialed my home telephone number until the answering machine picked up. I listened to Liz's voice message. I left messages letting her know where I was, asking her where she was, telling her to call me, asking if she was okay, asking what happened to her. I sat in the dark room, dialing my telephone number until the answering machine was filled, but I continued dialing, hoping she'd pick up.

  I dialed her cellular phone. I imagined the old-fashioned bell ringer sound that it made, and I imagined her holding it to her ear, her smile as she spoke, her flat bangs brushing over her face, her eyes squinting as she listened. Her voicemail picked up again and again. Again and again, I asked where she was, begging her to call me.

  As the sun rose and filled the room with pink light, I held the phone in my lap and waited for a call that never came.

  As the room filled with white mid-morning light, I held the phone to my chest and waited for a call that never came.

  And as the room became black with nightfall, I cradled the phone close to my face and waited for a call that never came, the night filled only with the soft tones of heart monitors, the echoes of code blues and code yellows, the paging of doctors, the whirring of floor waxers, and the tap of wind and ice pellets against the window like gravel on glass.

  ***

  At four the following morning, the telephone rang. I fumbled through the bedsheets, grabbed the handset, and put it to my right ear.

  "Hello?" I said.

  The line hissed like distant waterfalls.

  "Hello?" I said, this time louder.

  Something crackled and hummed. Something purred and thumped. Something buzzed and growled. And then I finally heard it rising above the white noise: low whispers . . . and a woman's laughter.

  Then silence as the line went dead.

  ***

  The next day, the nurses had me walking the hallways. When I was alone in my room, I limped to the bathroom and looked at my body in the mirror. From face to legs my skin was speckled with purple-black bruises, and my back and shoulders were crisscrossed with deep scrapes, some sealed with clear adhesive strips, some crusted over with blackened scabs. On the small of my back, a five-inch scar was sealed with scabs and plastic strips, a deep violet bruise blooming around the incision.

  I'd no visitors for most days, though a large flower arrangement from the Blackbridge Banner was placed on the food tray beside my bed. During the day, I'd stare at the green and yellow flowers, the card that said "Get Well Soon," the lime cellophane plastic wrapped around the flowerpot. Next to it the telephone remained silent except when I picked it up and dialed my home telephone number or Elizabeth's cell phone again. I'd listen to her voice, wait for the answering machine or the voicemail system to tell me that they were full before hanging up, and then I'd dial again. Whenever the door opened, I hoped she'd walk in, tell me she was sorry for not being there sooner, then hold me in the darkening light.

  ***

  On the fifth day, there was a soft knock, and the door cracked open. A woman with olive skin and brown eyes peeked in. "Milton?" she whispered. She pushed the door open and walked in wearing a black cold-weather police uniform. When she approached my bed, her face became clearer. "Milton?" Maria Lorenzo repeated, taking off her hat and letting her black hair spill over her shoulders. In a few months, her hair would reach down to her waist again.

  She pulled up a chair. "How are you, Milton?" she asked. Her voice was sof
t, as if afraid that loud sounds would undo my stitches and re-open my wounds.

  I shook my head. "They said they can't find Liz," I said.

  Maria attempted a smile that looked more like a grimace. She leaned over and placed a hand on my shoulder. "No," she said. "We can't find a trace of her. I need to ask you, Milton. Can we search your house? Just to see if, I don't know, somehow she made it back home?"

  I nodded.

  "Thank you," she said. She held her breath before continuing. "Did the doctors say—"

  "No one saw anything?" I asked. "Heard anything? No one?"

  "No witnesses, Milt, just security camera footage. We're still looking it over. We've been going over it again and again."

  "And?" I asked.

  Maria said that the camera caught everything in color, that it watched us walk to the front of Leed's, watched Liz let go and step away, watched her turn and lift her hand to me, watched me reach out to her, watched as a white ball of electricity exploded where we stood, as my body was hurled through a front plate-glass window, as glass fell on me like rain, as the camera shook from the shockwave, as the dazzling stroke of lightning stretched and returned to the sky. Less than two seconds, and all that was left was my body lying in a glass-carpeted storefront and an empty sidewalk under gray morning light.

  "We don't know what happened," Maria said. "We looked to see if there was an electrical conduit that blew, if there was some sort of malfunction under the sidewalk, maybe a steam or gas explosion, but nothing. We see the same thing over and over. Another camera down the street didn't see anyone running or walking from the scene. Just the two of you, then lightning, and then . . . just you."

  I had the hospital bring up my belongings, and Maria pulled out the keys. Two of them had their tips welded together, but the house keys were intact. "We'll look through the whole house," she said. "We won't make a mess."

  "I don't care if you make a mess," I said. "I don't care if you burn the house down. Please just find her."

  "We'll try, Milton."

  "Thank you."

  "When're you discharged?"

  "Tomorrow."

  "Do you have a ride?"

  I shook my head.

  "I'll take you home tomorrow. She pocketed the keys and placed her cap back on her head. I'll call you as soon as we check the house."

  "Thank you," I said.