Percy
Present
Jude's eyes were like a key that unlocked a flood of memories. I attributed trauma to the memory block. The clinic was the most traumatic experience of my life. That day united Jude and me, as if the universe conspired to make it happen.
But it wasn't the universe that did it.
Jude and I both have AB negative blood. Coincidentally, we donated blood on the same day and at the same time. Weird. Initially, I had no recollection of the restraints until Jude reminded me. I remembered Jude bringing the juice box and straw to my lips.
Together, Jude and I pieced together the events of the day, propped ourselves up on our elbows as we faced each other. "You introduced yourself as Alonzo. I thought you told me your real name in 2018. I guess I was wrong."
"Why didn't you tell me your name?" I asked.
"Because I'm stupid?"
"Do you remember the clinic?"
"It was in a medical office building next to urgent care. It looked legit, didn't it?"
"Yeah... it seemed normal," I said. "I haven't donated blood since. I don't think I'll ever donate again."
"Definitely not."
"I think I fell in love with you there," I said, combing my fingers through his hair. "I sound crazy, huh?"
"We're all a little crazy," he said, scooting closer to me.
"I don't remember getting home. Do you?"
"No."
"What did they do to us?"
"I wish I knew," he said.
"I'm worried we won't get all the answers we want," I said, growing more skeptical by the minute.
"Don't be so pessimistic. It's not your style." Jude abruptly pounced on top of me. Clutching my hands, he brought my arms over my head. His kisses traced a path along my neck, leaving a trail of warmth and tingling sensations along my collarbone. "I'm gonna wear you out."
"Yes, please. I'm counting on it."
Jude picked up where he left off before I had my sudden realization.
With each passing hour, exhaustion crept up on me, making it harder and harder to keep going. All I wanted was to sink into a deep sleep, undisturbed by unexplained travels. Jude and I drifted off to sleep, comfortable and safe in each other's arms.
Seconds ago, Jude was asleep in my arms. Now I found myself naked and on a bitterly cold beach in the dark, curled up in the fetal position. The waves added to the chill, making it feel like sub degree weather. If I stayed out here, I'd freeze to death. My body shook uncontrollably and my bones ached as I crawled on the cold sand, searching for my clothes. The beach was eerily dark, with the crashing waves providing the only sound.
Overwhelmed by a deluge of thoughts and memories, my brain struggled to process them all. I couldn't decipher what was real and what wasn't. As I crawled, I hadn't realized I was going the wrong way and straight towards the ocean. In a second, waves splashed over me. I was so cold; I could barely move, not even when I heard Jude's voice.
"Percy !" he shouted. As I looked up, shivering ferociously, Jude sprinted through the sand, tripping a few times on his way to me. In front of me, he fell to his knees, draping a coat over me. With my body trembling and my teeth chattering, he embraced me tightly, providing a sense of safety and warmth. Before proceeding further, there was an important matter I had to address.
"Crossroads," I said, my voice quivering.
"What are you talking about?" Jude asked, pushing me away slightly.
"The... the ambulance... the hospital..."
"You got the name of the ambulance and hospital? You saw the accident?"
The accident replayed vividly in my mind, just like the bold letters on the gate. Carmen Rodriguez, MD. I knew that name from somewhere.
"Yes," I said as Jude helped me into my underwear and joggers. "Crossroads. Shit... I'm fucking freezing."
"We'll talk about it in the car," Jude said. With his arm around my waist, he led me through the sand and up to my idling car in the empty parking lot. I plopped down in the passenger's side, the warmth a welcome relief.
"The ambulance and hospital are called Crossroads," I said. Without warning, a surge of emotion overtook me, causing me to break down and cry, exhausted and overwhelmed by a flood of memories. It was a jumbled mess of information, leaving me feeling utterly confused and lost. "The hospital's in Ipswich. I'm so cold... so cold and tired." I held my hands against the heater, sniffing back my tears. "I saw the accident... a car... an SUV ran a red light. I think they did it on purpose.
A light flickered in the distance. "I swear someone's following us," Jude said, pulling out of the vacant lot.
"My thoughts are all scrambled," I said. "I can't categorize my thoughts. My head hurts."
"Wait a minute. You saw the accident?"
Slouching in my seat, I turned towards him. I felt like I hadn't slept in days or weeks. "An SUV hit you on the driver's side. You drove a red Honda. I did what you asked me to do, and then I followed the ambulance. I didn't want to get caught, so I drove off. The name of the medical director is familiar. Her name was on the gate."
"What's her name?
"Dr. Carmen Rodriguez," I said. The name was clear in my mind. My hand shook as I held my phone in front of Jude's face, holding up the photo. Jude swerved, barely hitting a car.
"She's the doctor at the clinic," he said. "Remember her?"
I had a hard time picturing her. From what Jude had told me, they shot me up with Thorazine. "I have too many things in my head right now. What about the Burkes? Do you remember meeting them?"
"No... only nurses or whatever they were. What would happen if we found her?"
"We'll have to find out."
"I remember the clinic and the doctor," Jude said. "I always remembered. I mean, how could I forget? Now I know where we met. It's the stupid masks... You thought we were going to die."
"Well, yeah, they took four pints of blood. If they took one more, we would have died. We only have ten pints of blood in our body."
"Why do you think they did with our blood?" he asked. "I guess we could look up the doctor... Dr. Rodriguez... "
"Yeah. Let's look her up when we get back to your place."
In the early morning silence, we felt an unsettling sensation of being stalked as we parked and walked back to Jude's apartment. Once inside, Jude locked and bolted the door.
"Who do you think is following us?" Jude asked, double bolting the door.
"I don't know, but we can't live like this forever." While Jude made coffee, I sat on the couch with my laptop, investigating Dr. Carmen Rodriguez and the Burkes.
"What kinds of dreams were they talking about?" Jude said, popping a coffee pod in the keurig machine. "Where dreams come true... Bull shit. It should say where nightmares come true."
With our cups of coffee, we sat on the couch with our laptops open on our laps. I searched the databases for Dr. Rodriguez and both Burkes and found nothing. Jude had more luck with a google search.
"I found her," he said. "Look..." On his screen was a profile pic of Dr. Rodriguez. I recognized her hair. "She's a doctor at MGH. It says she specializes in blood disorders and infectious disease. And look what I found about the Burkes." He opened another tab, paraphrasing their biographies as if I couldn't read them myself. "It looks like they've been around for a while. Dr. John Burke is a hematologist—another blood doctor—and also has PhDs in astrophysics and quantum physics. Wow... he's smart, huh? Dr. Sheila Burke is a neurologist. I assume they're married. I couldn't find any photos. They've written tons of articles, though, but it looks like they've been removed."
"That's weird," I said as Jude clicked on link after link, only discovering that the article had been deleted. "Does it say where they went to school?"
"Dr. Rodriguez graduated from Columbia and the Burkes graduated from Harvard. No surprise there. John got his physics degrees at MIT. I bet John and Sheila met each other at Harvard."
"Have you found anything about Crossroads? I've come up with nothing."
"Nope. Nothing. Are you sure that's the right name?"
"Yes. Positive."
"Do you know the address?"
"No, but I bet I could get us there," I said, closing my laptop.
"Let's go."
Just as we stood up, Jude and I froze as the sound of the footsteps down the hall grew closer. I gripped Jude's arm, holding my breath as someone knocked on the door. Suspicion filled our minds as we stared at the closed door, unsure of who lurked behind it. I wondered if there was some kind of tracking device on us, or maybe a recording device. Grabbing my wrist, Jude led me to his bedroom and to the fire escape outside his window. Carefully, Jude opened the window and encouraged me to go first. He left me for a second, fetching something from his nightstand.
"Go," he mouthed to me.
My heart had never beat so fast. I literally thought I was about to have a heart attack. Behind the building, Jude and I looked both ways before scurrying to the nearby alley. Having grown up in the city, Jude was more familiar with the area than I was. We ran down the street, running like our lives depended on it. We took detours through alleys until we reached one of the old mill buildings that was now converted apartments. Behind the building was the Riverwalk between Boott Mills and the Lowell Memorial Auditorium. The brick building protected us from view. Below us was the Merrimack River.
"There's gotta be tracking devices on us somewhere," I said, out of breath, standing on the wooden walkway. It was only a matter of time before 'they' caught us. "Take off your coat." We both frantically removed our coats. With a sense of urgency, my hands ventured beneath his shirt, tracing every crevice and curve of his back, leaving no area untouched.
I was right. "Here," I found it," I said, pressing my fingers under Jude's shoulder blade. The object was hard and square, about a half an inch wide and an inch tall. "Give me the knife. Hurry."
Jude didn't hesitate, handing me his Swiss Army knife.
"I'm sorry," I said, slicing his skin just enough to squeeze out the microchip.
I quickly turned around, letting Jude do the same to me. It was bloody and gross, but we didn't have time to complain or cry about it. "Son of a bitch," Jude muttered. "How did you know?"
"Just a hunch," I said. We both tossed the chips in the river and headed down the river walk. Our walk quickly turned into a run. If they were also listening to us, then they'd realize we ditched the spy devices. It was only a matter of time before 'they' found us in this area.
The Riverwalk abruptly ended, leaving us face to face with a barricade that halted our progress. The space between the river and the brick building was tight, leaving little room to maneuver. With one wrong step, we risked plunging into the rushing river below. As I cautiously made my way over the barricade, my feet nearly lost their grip.
In silence, Jude led me through parts of the city I'd never seen before. We didn't speak until we reached the Projects where Jude spent much of his childhood. We hid behind one of the tenement buildings.
"What are we gonna do?" I asked. "Running's not the answer."
"Do you have any other suggestions?"
"Maybe we should go to the police," I said.
"Oh yeah? And tell them what? They'll lock us up. We could find a hotel room and stay there until we figure something out. You have a credit card, right?"
"You still owe me from the last hotel room. That's not a—"
"Yeah, I know it's not a fucking solution," he snapped at me. "But we have to go somewhere. The closest hotel is about three miles away, and there's a CVS along the way. We need bandages or something. We can't go around bleeding all over the place. How are you doing, by the way?"
Coated in blood, the back of my shirt stuck to my skin. "It hurts, but I'll survive. We better go."
Jude knew the route to the nearest hotel that didn't involve using main roads. Paranoia consumed me as we entered the CVS, making me hyper-aware of every sound and movement around me. We couldn't shake the feeling that they might still be following us. Jude's eyes constantly scanned the area as I gathered various first aid supplies—gauze, first aid tape, a box of bandages, and alcohol wipes.
We arrived at the hotel around seven thirty in the morning. Starving, we risked getting caught by stopping in the restaurant for breakfast. We got two breakfast sandwiches and coffee to-go. We were so hungry, we decided to eat before cleaning our cuts.
While scarfing down my bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwich, I checked all the messages on my phone. My parents and sisters blew it up with hundreds of messages. I sent a group text to my family assuring them that I was okay but struggling with COVID. COVID was a convenient excuse.
In the bathroom, Jude delicately pried my shirt away from my skin. He lathered a washcloth with soap and warm water and brought it to the back of my shoulder. His fingers trembled as he dabbed the back of my shoulder with the washcloth.
"Are you scared?" I asked him, wincing as he wiped an alcohol pad over the area.
"I'd be lying if I said no. You?"
"Same."
At 9:30, I made the call. Jude sat beside me on the bed, letting me take the lead. On speakerphone, I called Dr. Rodriguez. After countless listens and button-pressing attempts, I finally got through to a receptionist. I planned on scheduling an appointment to see the well-renowned hematologist.
"Hi. I need to make an appointment with Dr. Rodriguez," I started out.
"Do you have a referral?"
"No." I immediately realized I should have said yes.
"You need a referral from your primary care physician. And Dr. Rodriguez needs to review the clinical information first before an appointment can be scheduled."
"But I really need to see her and I can't wait to get a referral."
"She will not see you without a referral."
"Just one appointment," I pleaded.
"She fucked up our lives," Jude interjected. I instantly took my phone off speakerphone. Cussing anyone out wouldn't do us any good.
"Sorry about that," I said, but realized I needed to change my tactic. "But three years ago, a friend and I donated blood and we haven't been right since. Dr. Rodriguez was the physician at the clinic. I—we—need to talk to her. Can't we just talk to her?"
"I can leave her a message. What's your name?"
"Alonzo Richler and Judah Prak." I left my phone number, not sure if the receptionist would give her the message. We sounded crazy. "I did the best I could."
"We're gonna have to go down there ourselves. I'll try to behave myself."
"You want to go to Mass General in Boston?"
"Yes. We have no choice. We won't leave until she sees us. Going to Crossroads Hospital seems too risky. Besides, we don't have a car. We'll take the train to Boston."
"That means walking back through downtown Lowell."
"We can take an Uber, right?"
He had a point.
But I wasn't ready to leave at this minute. I needed time to recover and relax before venturing out again. I kicked off my sneakers and turned on the TV. "Don't let me fall asleep," I said, bringing my arm around Jude.
We shouldn't have taken that moment to relax. There was no time to relax. How could I have been so stupid?
Words: 2653
Total words: 31,364
A/N I'm worried my story will be over 40,000 words. Don't know if I'll make it in time to submit. by April 30th.