Something is coming

When the day had dawned and after a terrible hangover cured with a lot of bitter coffee, Richard Walker would never have imagined what awaited him when he was on duty at the hospital. He was arguing with two more residents when the nurse's voice came urgently from the reception desk.

-Doctor! Doctor. You better come here! Quick, Richard! JOCK!

The receptionist who was Jock's girlfriend shouted loudly at the scene.

And Rick sensed the higher-than-usual high-pitched tone of voice that made Jock look at him for a moment before they rushed to the hospital reception.

Rick and Jock arrived there and were only aware of the confusion of the man who supported the woman with his glassy eyes almost out of their sockets. He was a childhood friend of the doctors and terrified he held his wife. Rose contracted her pale features like a statue and her hands held her bulky stomach. And Harry looked even paler than his wife as if it were possible.

The eyes of the two doctors met with absolute disbelief and wondered how things like this could happen on the dawn shift that hadn't even started after the doctor and the surgeon director had gone home. A stronger groan echoed in the sudden silence and Rick smelled the characteristic bleach-like odor. What drew his attention the most was the bloodstain.

It could have happened if there was a bacterial infection or a mechanical shock in addition to the use of drugs.

No one there commented on the small detail that Rose had discovered the pregnancy the day before and that the bulky belly was not there before.

Rick frantically reasoned everything he knew about silent pregnancies. Some women could get pregnant and not even notice symptoms such as dizziness, nausea, or tiredness. During the whole pregnancy, they could even bleed and the belly was still there exactly as before, totally smooth.

Worse than that, he too, with the eyes of a doctor, was beginning to pick up more worrying signals. You didn't have to be an expert to notice that Rose was experiencing abdominal pain in the upper right corner where her hand was pressing on the area. She was confused and short of breath. It was the worst time for an emergency like that with the lights flashing and without the other doctor on duty.

Rose lost her balance a little and vomited disoriented.

-Let's go! move! - Rick grunted when the nurse twisted her mouth with a distaste for the scene.

-Hell! curse, Harry! Why didn't you bring Rose to the hospital first? "Jock grunted in alarm.

"Do you want the wheelchair or the stretcher?" The third resident asked awkwardly.

Rick was going to say no. It was almost a sixth sense that warned him that the child was really going to be born. There in the middle of the reception if it weren't quick. And didn't intend to delay. And the hospital was again in the dark with the failure of the generators.

Curse!

-Take Rose now to the infirmary. - he ordered worriedly - Harry, you will stay here! Somebody bring a flashlight, any shit that gives us light around here.

-It's my wife, my son. I'm not even going to ...- Harry complained furiously when Jock and another man took Rose out of his arms.

-Harry, I need to work! Was she having contractions? Any other signs?

Besides the fact of the bulky belly like that? God! I do not believe this!

On the exam table, Rick tried to take a deep breath in front of his first pregnant patient with a feeling of disaster weighing on his shoulders. He could almost see Rose's huge smile again showing the rapid test exam while ordering routine exams to start prenatal care.

Rose was lying with her legs apart and her knees bent while he carefully and urgently asepsis his hands. He palpated the abdomen trying to see if the baby had fitted the head and groaned softly. More than four-fifths of the head could be felt above the pubic bone.

Jock sighed miserably. He could imagine the rhythmic and frequent contractions when making the diagnosis not very encouraging in such a short time. Rose already had ten centimeters of dilation. She was at the peak of the strongest and most concentrated pain.

He and Rick shared the Cowardly Hour. It was the most difficult moment. It was time for the release of adrenaline in the final stage of delivery.

- Shit, Rick. There won't be time for a C-section, man. It will be a normal birth. I can see the child's head.

And Rick nodded vaguely. The world felt unreal when she felt Rose hold her hand very tightly.

"The baby ..." she moaned, biting her lips hard.

Rick smiled mechanically and airily, looking deep into Jock's eyes. It wasn't going to be okay. He could smell the rust of blood and noticed the puddle that was beginning to soak the sheet of the stretcher with its insides turning in the dim light. For some reason, the light generators were failing at the worst possible time. No emergency equipment was operating without a light in the hospital building.

-It's going to be okay, my dear. A little more and you will be holding your baby in your arms.- he lied absurdly.

"Any chance of calling an ambulance?" He asked tensely.

- There won't be time for that. Are you kidding me?

Rick was trying to think as fast as he could in that crisis. He was a doctor. It was expected that the equipment would work in a hospital.

Before the baby gave the first cry of protest, he remembered. He remembered the last weekend when Jock and his cheerful wife were in their backyard while Jack prepared lunch with a smiling Rose. He and his friend roasted the hamburgers on the barbecue, drinking and making jokes about married life.

Rose was now a faint memory of that image when the hand that dropped her fell limp and lifeless with her body seized by convulsions.

Shit! Come on, Rose, hold on just a little longer!

The lights flickered again, and the place stayed on the peninsula with the lamps running at low voltage. Her gurgling moan made him shiver with nervousness.

-God! The child ...- Jock started to take care of the newborn's first needs with the umbilical cord.

For the love of God! Say the child is fine!

-The reflexes ....- he started to ask and he felt like a fool.- Cut the unfortunate umbilical cord. Rose will need care! Now, Jock!

The little boy's shrill scream filled the ward irritatingly. And the baby was just doing it because his lungs were getting a lot of oxygen. Only the mother ... She had always been hypertensive. Too high blood pressure compromised the child's mother's health and life.

All Rick wanted most was magnesium sulfate medication as a vasodilator to try to lower blood pressure.

-Fast, Jock. Go ahead and prepare the operating room. Let's sulfate Rose now! We need to stop the bleeding.

He was only aware of how much blood was now. Rose was passed out on the stretcher with a deathly, frightening pallor. Unfortunately, the uterine musculature did not start to contract after delivery and the uterus remained loose and distended.

-I want intravenous oxytocin. Now! Ask her husband what Rose's blood type is, for God's sake! - Rick shouted starting to massage the abdomen. It's nothing. - I think we will need suture points here in the lower part of the uterus.

The diagnosis was hypovolemia. She was going to have eclampsia too. He had an urge to remove retained placental tissue and repair genital lacerations.

-I want 15-methyl prostaglandin. Come on, guys. Move! It also serves, if you find methylergonovine, 0.2 mg.

Everyone hoped to guarantee uterine contraction and reduce blood loss. And when the placenta was finally expelled, Jock cursed a string of expletives. It was incomplete, it would be necessary to explore the uterus manually and remove the retained fragments. In the worst case, perhaps curettage.

The stretcher was pushed in a hurry through the corridors while Rick was aware of the unreality of the situation, thinking of Jack with a terrible shiver. It could be Jack over there in that bed. He didn't even know why the horrible thought came to mind.

Without realizing it, he was now alone, administering the drugs for the serum and Jock prepared the anaesthetic. He could hear Jock clearly in the nervous dropping of the drawers on the floor and the sound of glass shattering on the impeccably clean tile. The stomach was beginning to reject lunch from before.

-It'll be fine, Rose!

And even stronger the image of Jack materialized there before him lying on that stretcher, bleeding and dying. It was Jack's lovely blue eyes without seeing anything and streaked with blood.

- It's coming ....- the ghostly voice echoed in his ears.

And it wasn't Rose's sweet voice at all. It was cavernous and unreal. He had freaked out with hallucinations after the shift.

-As?! he whispered, pale.

The hallucination had a real appeal to his taste as well as the previously lifeless hand that gripped his wrist with surprising force as if to crush the bones. And it was much worse than your deepest fears. It was Jack's smile. The mouth gurgling with dark, pungent blood. It was a grotesque and hideous smile that could paralyze him.

-JJJack ??? - managed to speak with the certainty of being punched in the stomach that turned the lunch more violently.

What held his hand was something that looked like Jack, who smiled like Jack, making sounds that he couldn't make out in the inarticulate grunts between moans.

And it was impossible. Jack was ... Fear enveloped him like an insistent, anaesthetic ice claw on the back of his neck. Jack was somewhere in the town cemetery beyond the hill. There was probably a sadistic killer on the loose. God, she was over the hill ... Everything was just a reflection of his concern for his girlfriend after the fight and a sense of guilt for the unforgivable offences launched.

If something happened to her, he ... he ...

And the voice came back clear and crystalline and with an almost inhuman sound.

- Something's coming, Richard. You need to see what is coming ... The limits cannot be crossed. He does not belong to that world.

Fear finally overwhelmed Rick absurdly when he started to shudder back with the certainty of having gone completely mad. Jack ?! God loved!

God, oh, God, please ... make her well and safe. please, my God!

Richard took a deep breath, fighting to get the air to his burning lungs. This was not Jack. All he wanted most was the keys to the unfortunate car and getting to the cemetery, and it didn't matter the darkness or the ridiculous local superstition of the inhabitants, they didn't like walking the streets of the city after the darkness was absolute.

-This is not happening. I'm tired and sleepless! I need to rest. - Rick spoke to himself numbly.

-Something is coming ... The end of everything you know around here is close...

Richard was sure that although he was not a religious who attended church on Sundays, people died and that there were death rites. It was more or less the old story of white light at the end of the tunnel.

Rose's hand was there again before his eyes and lifeless. The body shook violently in a stronger spasm and the bad smell returned renewed and much stronger. The floor under the stretcher was a pool of fresh blood and vivid red.

He shivered in his sweaty lab coat from skin contact, knowing somehow that Rose Barner was dead. And I didn't even want to know-how. He only knew that she was hopelessly dead regardless of what they did. His insides were going wild.

It was the same freezing sensation as before when he was just a child and had come home alone and it had appeared in the hall of the family house and had haunted him for years. And it was by no means real. Premonitions did not exist. The little child had seen the house watchman dead with his head disfigured with the huge hole in his skull smiling at him. Two days later an accident in the garage had ended in a horrible accident with the death of one of the family's employees.

My God, oh, my God! baby where are you?

-Hey, are you okay? - Jock spoke loudly in the room and the voice managed to bring the reality around to Rick.- It's over, man. we tried. Rose is dead. He died at 9: 48 minutes. Time of death.

Rick was still out of orbit and walking through clouds. That was just a poor woman who had died. It was tragic, but deaths inevitably happened. Ultimately, they happened to everyone. It was the kind of visit that the door couldn't be slammed in the face with.

He slowly backed away, step by step until his shoulders were pressed against the wall, breathing deeply sickly. The taste of bíles came to the mouth. He dug his nails into the anaesthetized arm without feeling anything. The muscles were numb.

Outside there were already screams and cries in loud, hysterical shouts when the generator returned to normal functioning as an old, rusted engine.

-Dead?

Jack? Jack is not dead!

-Someone is going to have to break the news to Harry. At least in this desperation, we managed to save the child. It's a boy.

"A boy?" He asked in clouds.

You look incredibly good for the doctor.

The doctor said I'm fine. I said. You know my period is very irregular.

It never hurts to be sure. I've never actually seen you like that with an appetite. And nausea ... It's just a pregnancy test, baby. Better than these quick tests. Just to be sure, sweetie.

And be the result ...

If the result is positive, I think Rew Mountain will win a new married resident doctor to the despair of the young women who dream of getting married, love.

You are a bossy man who just likes to give orders.

A bossy man who is worried about you. Are you sure you are feeling well? would say if It weren't, wouldn't say Jack?

There would be paperwork and medical reports to be filled out.

Richard kept his stomach churning until he ran to the trash and threw up all lunch, sweating cold and shivering.

Something is coming...

Mercy Lord. I hate it when these things happen. What's coming?

In a cold sweat, he tried to hold on to the wall, breathing in great gulps of air. The body needed to react. Even if he was forced to use force, he was going to leave the damn hospital and go after Jack. That was all he could think of.

-Jock, I need your car keys. Jack is having trouble with my car beyond the hills ...

The warning echoed amazingly in the eerie silence.

-Are you okay to drive? - there was doubt in Jock when noticing the colleague's pale countenance.

-I'll be much better after finding that irresponsible fool. - guaranteed with a lump in the dry throat.

That she was fine. It was now a prayer that his lips made silently as he left the operating room and headed for the cupboards.

Rick cursed knowing better than anyone that the damned premonitions had returned.