Chapter 4: The Night Shift

The shout woke me at two in the morning.

They had given me a room off the kitchen, with a narrow bed and a lamp, and I was in the library before I knew I had moved.

The colonel was sitting up in the hospital bed with the sheet twisted around his legs.

His chest was bare and wet, and his hands were gripping the rail.

"Colonel," I said. "Lorne. It's the library. You're at home."

"Headlights," he said. "Coming straight at me."

"They've stopped. Look at me."

His eyes found mine, gray and wild, and slowly cleared.

"Don't," he said. "Don't stand there and watch me."

"I'm not watching. I'm sitting."

I pulled the chair to the side of the bed and sat down.

His breath came hard and fast.

"Do you want to tell me," I said, "or do you want me to talk about something boring?"

"Tell you what?"

"What happened."

He was quiet so long that I thought he would not answer.

"I was driving home from base," he said. "Route 9, a little past one in the morning, dry road. I had the radio on low."

He looked at the dark window, not at me.

"There was a light on the curve. I thought it was a deer."

"Then it was a grille, and it was in my lane, and it wasn't braking."

"You couldn't avoid it," I said.

"There was a ditch on one side and a guardrail on the other. I picked the guardrail."

His mouth twisted.

"The truck folded. I couldn't feel my legs. The other car backed up, and I thought, thank God, somebody's coming to help."

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