Not Today, Part One

I poured some Cheerios into a bowl. Then I remembered I was out of milk. I hadn’t been to the store in a week. Or outside my apartment, for that matter.

So I sprinkled some tap water over the cereal and ate breakfast over the kitchen sink.

I managed to make coffee, although I wasn’t sure why I should.

I staggered to the dining room table without spilling the coffee very much, then sagged into my chair and opened my laptop.

User name, two tries. Password, two tries. Email password, one, two, three tries . . .

Eleven emails. Seven spam, two bills, two potential clients.

I deleted them all.

So that was done. I sipped my coffee. Now what? The day stretched out ahead.

A shower? I was in my bathrobe and shorts, but a shower felt like too much effort to invest in another day spent on my couch watching TV.

I set my cup down next to a half-filled prescription bottle and found the remote. What to watch? Rachel would be mad if I got ahead of Game of Thrones without her. I checked all the Twilight Zone episodes I’d been watching. But the opening sequence was starting to make me dizzy.

So I just clicked through the channels until I found The Beverly Hillbillies. That was quality TV.

I muted the sound and picked up the prescription bottle. It had my name: Tom Jurgen. And the name of the drug, which might as well have been in ancient Etruscan. I knew it was a strong painkiller. A doctor had given it to me after I’d been fighting a vampire.            

I’d been looking at the pills for the last three or four days. Today I opened the bottle. Poured the little white pills into a pyramid on the table. And stared at them for a long time.

Then I swept my hand across the table. Most of the pills went onto the floor. I sipped my coffee.

Not today.

Despite the coffee, my eyelids were drooping. So I laid back and pulled an afghan around me, adjusted a pillow around my head. The room grew dark.

Not today.

I woke up in a hospital bed, an IV in my wrist and guardrails on either edge that looked like prison bars. Not the first time I’ve woken up in a hospital. At least I wasn’t trapped in a hotel room with no exit.

I sat up, confused. “Hello?”

“You jerk.” Rachel lifted a fist to slug my arm. Her hazelnut eyes blazed as red as her hair. “I come downstairs after you don’t answer five calls, and you’re passed out on the couch with pills scattered all over the place and Green Acres on the TV. Green Acres? What the hell is that, anyway?”

Rachel’s my girlfriend. She lives upstairs from me, and she helps me out on my cases. I’m not entirely sure why she likes me, but we’ve been together for a long time.

She must see something in me, but right at the moment I couldn’t imagine what.

“The nurses said I can’t actually hit you.” She lowered her fist. “But I should.”

“Yeah.” I sat back.

Vampires . . . monsters . . . last week we’d watched a murder . . . and before that . . . Dudovich . . . I’d killed a dragon . . . a demon possessed Rachel, but I’d managed to set it free . . . the Rain Killer . . .

I might have fallen asleep again. When I blinked my eyes, Rachel was still standing over me, holding my hand.

Why was she still here? She’s young, gorgeous and smart. She deserved better than a washed-up ex-reporter turned private eye who could barely cover the bills, and who constantly dragged her into situations where she was like to get killed.

 “I’ll be fine.” I dropped her hand. “You can go home.”

“Oh no.” Rachel laughed. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Tom Jurgen.”

I was too tired to argue.

A doctor strode into the room. Tall, African-American, with the usual stethoscope around his shoulders. “Hello, Mr.—” He glanced at a tablet computer. “Is it Yurgen or Jurgen?”

I get that a lot. “Just call me Tom. This is Rachel. She’s my, uh . . .”

“I’m his girlfriend.” Rachel crossed her arms. “Anything you say to him you can say to me. Right, Tom?”

            I nodded. “Listen to her.”

“Well, I’m Dr. McGee.” He started, of course, by taking my blood pressure and listening to my heart. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired. Just . . . tired. What happened?”

He nodded. “You weren’t responsive when Rachel called 911. There were significant amounts of a prescription painkiller found in your apartment.”

“I didn’t . . . I didn’t take any.” My throat was dry. “Could I have a drink of water?”

Rachel shoved a plastic glass into my hand. “Here.” 

Dr. McGee went back to my chart on his tablet. “There doesn’t seem to be anything physically wrong with you. High blood pressure, exhaustion, a little dehydration, some of these enzymes are a little high . . .” He looked up. “Do you have a high-stress job, Tom?”

I laughed. Maybe too long. After ten seconds Rachel grabbed my shoulder. “Shut up, you idiot!”

“Sorry.” I caught my breath. “Yeah, you could say that. I’m the guy they call when monsters are around. Vampires and zombies and creatures that walk in the night.”

I lurched up in the bed. “I’m not crazy. Ask Rachel. Call Detective Anita Sharpe at the CPD, she’ll tell you—except she won’t. Nobody believes me. Nobody believed me around the Rain Killer! Nobody believes me now! Nobody cares!”

“Tom . . .” Rachel slugged my shoulder. Gently, for once. “You’re right. I believe you. Lots of people believe you.”

The room was spinning. “I know. I know. Sorry.” I rubbed her hand.

“He’s not really crazy.” She patted my head. “A jerk sometimes, but . . . I saw it all too.”

Dr. McGee nodded. “I’m going to prescribe some medications. And I’d like you stay here at least tonight.”

I sank back. “Fine. Whatever.” I was going into the psych ward. The loony bin. Maybe I should have been there all along.

He nodded again, and  glanced at Rachel. “For what it’s worth, I’ve seen strange things too. Vampire bites, claw marks I can’t explain So I don’t think you’re crazy. But you need to rest and relax.”

“I’m sleeping a lot lately.” I shrugged. “But it doesn’t help.”

“Do you dream?”

I tried to think. “No. It’s all black.”

Maybe that meant something. I didn’t know what. I didn’t know what was going on anymore. I wasn’t sure I cared. Sleep was the only way I could stop thinking about things.

“The nurse will be back with some medications. They’re for blood pressure and stress. Try to get some rest.” Dr. McGee glanced at Rachel. “See you soon.”

What the hell? Was he hitting on her? A young handsome doctor hitting on . . . a young hot woman? I couldn’t blame him. But I was probably overreacting. I slumped down in the bed.

“You idiot!” Rachel leaned down over the bed. I felt her breath on my eyes. “Tell me you didn’t just try to kill yourself.”

Not today.

“No.” I shook my head. “I’m just. . . . tired.”

She didn’t believe me. I didn’t blame her.

She lurched up. “Well, that’s too bad. Because I’ve got bad news. I probably shouldn’t tell you, but—”

“You’re breaking up with me.” I closed my eyes and waited for her to leave.

“No, you dummy.” She stroked my arm, and then kissed my forehead. “But . . . remember my friend Carrie?”

That was a few years ago. “She hates me, doesn’t she?”

“No. Well, she did, but . . .” Rachel sighed. “Carrie needs your help.”

I woke up the next morning, hungry. For the first time in four days. My brain felt fuzzy, and at first I thought it was just from sleeping through the night. Then a nurse came in with a cup of pills.

            I took them. Maybe they’d work. Anything was better than sitting on my couch watching The Beverly Hillbillies and trying to get up the nerve to take the pills.

            I realized that was an improvement on my mental state from yesterday.

            So I ordered breakfast. It was like room service. I ate eggs, bacon, hash browns, sausage, and watery coffee while watching the news. The drugs they’d given me seemed to be working already. I didn’t even shout at the footage from the latest White House press conference.

            Then Carrie Burke walked into the room.

            Carrie was Rachel’s friend. She hated me.

            “Hi.” I perched the bed up and turned the TV down. “Nice to see you.”

            “Yeah.” She sat down in the chair next to my bed. Carrie had long dreadlocks and dark skin. “I need your help.”

            “Did Rachel mention I’m possibly having a nervous breakdown?” I could feel my blood pressure rising again. “Why are you here? You hate me.”

            “I don’t hate you.” She sighed. “Okay, there was a time when I just thought Rachel could do better. I didn’t know—”

            “Yeah.” I wanted to throw my lukewarm coffee at the window. “She deserves someone better. I get that. Go home.”

            Carrie stood up. “I don’t know what Rachel sees in you, but that’s not my problem. The voarkla’s back.”

            Oh god.

            The voarkla was a monster from another dimension. The first time I’d met it, years ago, it had come through a portal created by a computer engineer trying to use quantum computing to speed online connections.

            The voarkla had killed at least three people before being banished to its own world again. If it was back—

            I threw the sheets off. “What about Ponto? Pontoval?” Oops. I flung the sheets back. “Sorry. Can you help me find my pants?”

            “Nothing I haven’t seen before.” Carrie smirked.  “But don’t worry, Pontoavallian’s not here.”

            I lay back on the bed and pulled the sheet back. “So what do you want?”

“I don’t know how much you remember.”

I remembered it all. The voarkla, like a wolverine with more teeth and a worse temper. And Ponto, a little wheesling. Pontoavallian . . .

I forced my muggy mind to think. “The goddess who came through . . . her name was Lionna. She said she was going to close our world off.”

            “Well, it didn’t work.” Carrie stood up. “I’ll see what I can do. Thanks for your help.”

            My heart pounded. “I didn’t help you at all.”

            “Yeah, you did.” She reached down to shake my hand. “You just need to take care of yourself now. For Rachel.”

            “Okay.” I was suddenly tired again. “I guess.”