Monster: Chapter Three

Birth is the beginning of death. —Thomas Fuller

Nick stepped out of the elevator, the palm of his hand sliding against the wall to help ground him. His head still spun every time he stood up.

He found the nursery at the end of a long corridor in the south wing. On the left, a section of glass gave family and friends a view of the newborns. On the right, a bank of windows gave a view of the city. The dark sky outside and the fluorescent lights' white glow turned the windows into ghostly mirrors.

He stared at his reflection.

His face looked like he’d been beaten. Thinner than he remembered and pale. The doctor said he’d lost nine pounds since he was admitted to the hospital, which was fifteen more than he could afford. His sunken eyes rested on bony cheeks. Stubble covered his skull, and a jagged line of black thread crisscrossed the left side of his head, sticking out of his flesh like wire bristles.

He looked at the space above his head.

Nothing. No rift above Nick Carson’s head. Somehow, he was exempt from whatever the hell this was.

He turned away from his reflection and stepped toward the nursery’s windows.

Small fingerprints covered the lower part of the glass—little hands trying to point to a new little brother or sister.

Looking through the glass, Nick saw babies curled up in their transparent plastic bassinets. Pink and blue blankets covered their tiny bodies. Caps and socks stuck out from under soft fabric. Names written on white index cards proclaimed each baby’s name. One of the boys kicked a foot out from under a blanket, whimpered, then stilled back into sleep.

Over each head was a rift, and inside each rift were the symbols. Nick examined each timer with care.

If he’d guessed correctly, each Д symbol represented zero—a nil value, and the Ф symbol represented a different number depending on its place in the columns. Just like Uncle John’s fingers. There were thirty-three places. A Ф in the middle of the first row meant two and a half seconds. A Ф at the start of the fourth row represented ten minutes. You had to go all the way to the middle of the ninth row, three rows from the bottom, before the Ф represented a year. A Ф symbol in the bottom right row represented just over 170 years.

The second-to-last place—the middle of the bottom row—was the one that Nick was most interested in. Everybody who came into his room—nurses, specialists, volunteers—none of them had the Ф symbol in that place. A symbol there meant eighty-five years.

Two of the seven bundles—snuggled deep into their blankets—had a Ф in the second-to-last place.

Nick had written a few numbers on the palm of his hand. He roughly figured each timer.

Ninety-four years.

Eighty-eight years.

Seventy-six years.

Most of the babies had timers over sixty-five years. The lowest timer read just under twenty-nine.

That hurt Nick’s heart.

Behind the babies was a space set aside for the NICU. Four large infant intensive care units sat against the far wall. Two of them held infants, with yellow lights bathing naked flesh. The babies wore nothing but diapers, their skin glistening and ruddy. White circles with wires running to machines attached to the bassinets were taped to their chests and legs.

A beeping—dulled through the nursery glass—pierced the hall's silence. Against the far wall, red numbers flashed on one of the bassinets. The infant lying in the unit with the alarm looked tiny. Too tiny to be real.

Nick’s heart beat faster. The baby in the incubator with the chirping alarm lay still, then shuddered awake. It opened its mouth in a cry that Nick couldn’t hear.

A nurse walked over—not quick enough for Nick’s taste—and pressed a button. The alarm fell silent. She put her hand through a port on the incubator and onto the infant’s chest, massaging the little body gently. The baby settled as if the crying had drained all its energy. A moment later, the nurse left, leaving the sleeping baby behind.

Nick leaned closer. He squinted at the symbols and counted the places. He looked at the palm of his hand and then did the math in his head.

A smile crept across Nick’s face. One hundred and one years. If he’d guessed the secret of the symbols, then that struggling little infant would . . .

Then he saw it. He leaned forward so fast his head rapped against the glass.

The second baby the other bassinet—a blue blanket wadded up at his feet—lay curled on his back. His legs were bent and his mouth opened in an O, as if wanting to suck his thumb. Nick could see tiny wrinkles creasing his forehead.

ФФД

ДДД

ДДФ

ДДД

ФДД

ФДД

ДДД

ДДД

ДДД

ДДД

ДДД

So many Д’s. So many zeroes. That meant . . .

He grasped the edge of the window, steadying himself against it. His legs began to shake like he’d been dumped in ice water and left to stand in a freezing wind. His head felt heavy.

Eleven, twelve . . . Nick did the math. Fourteen hours, thirty-nine minutes. The timer floating over the baby’s head would reach zero shortly after 2:00 tomorrow afternoon.

“It never gets old, does it?”

Nick gasped, bringing up his arm as if to ward off a blow. A woman stood at his side. His knees would have buckled if he hadn’t been leaning against the window for support.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” The woman tsk-tsked her tongue. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

The woman had gray hair and wore scrubs. The volunteer badge pinned to her shirt read Meg. Symbols floated above her head, but Nick forced himself to ignore them. It was the first time he’d done so, but it wouldn’t be the last.

“I’m Meg,” the woman said. “I’m here to give the little ones a midnight snack.”

Nick's hands still shook on the window ledge. “I’m Nick.” His voice sounded raspy in his ears. He cleared his throat. “Do you, uh . . . come here every night?”

The woman looked through the glass at the row of babies. “Most nights, yes. I retired two years ago, but I don’t sleep so well. They’re nice enough to humor an old woman and let me come back to help.”

Nick turned back to the babies. Looked again at the symbols.

And risked the question.

“That baby in the back.” he pointed toward the baby with the short timer. There was a blue heart on his bassinet, which broke his heart again. “Is he . . . is he doing all right?”

When she didn’t answer, Nick turned to find Meg looking at him, not to where he pointed. She held Nick’s gaze, searching his face. He decided if he were ever sick in the hospital, he would want her there to care for him. 

“They don’t tell me how the babies are doing,” she said carefully. “They only discuss that with family.”

Meg continued to search his face, and it took a great deal of effort not to look away.

“He’s not doing so good,” Nick said. “Is he?”

One last searching look, deep into his eyes, and then she turned her face to the window. Her eyes rested on the infant.

“Little Nicholas.” She followed the name with a sigh. The words and the sigh carried a sadness that surprised him.

Stillness for a moment, and then, “I’ve been feeding babies in this hospital for almost two years,” she said. “Before that, I was a NICU nurse for twenty-six. It’s amazing what doctors and nurses can do. I’ve seen babies smaller than a can of soda pull through just fine.”

She let out a shiver of breath. “But it gets to where you can sense some things. That little baby in there has a lot of challenges. Oh, I’ve seen infants face more and overcome more, but I don’t think little Nicholas wants to put up the fight. Maybe all he needed was a taste of this life, and he’s decided it’s not quite to his liking.”

A flash of sorrow crossed her face—deep and dark. And then it was gone.

“Well, now,” Meg became all business. “I shouldn’t be standing out here jawing when those little ones have empty bellies.”

She left him, went down the hall, waved her badge in front of a gray pad, and passed through a door.

Nick stood there until his legs began to shake again from the strain of standing. His throat felt dry. He made his way back to his room and crawled into bed. Lying under his thin blanket, he shook and shook.

The following day—after Lee had taken away his lunch—Nick returned to the nursery window. He watched the timer above little Nicholas continue its march to zero. With four minutes left on the timer, the incubator beeped in alarm. A nurse came and silenced the noise.

After reading the screen, the nurse moved fast. A calm shout—an order—to a second nurse. The first nurse pulled a curtain, shielding the incubator from the rest of the nursery. The second nurse came and slid behind the curtain. Then, a third. A doctor followed, moving quick.

The curtain swayed gently, belying the frantic activity occurring behind it. Then the swaying slowed, and the fabric fell still.

The nurse drew the curtain back, and the doctor left the room, his head bent. One of the nurses went to a phone on the wall and pressed a button.

None of the staff showed the urgency from just a moment before.

Nick spied the body under the plastic dome.

No rift above the small figure’s head. No symbols.

Only empty space.