Dead as a Doornail

at someone’s big old oil stain. People should take better care of their cars. . . .
    Out.
    “Wake up,” a voice was saying. I wasn’t in the parking lot, but in a bed. I thought my house was on fire again, and Claudine was trying to get me out. People were always trying to get me out of bed. Though this didn’t sound like Claudine; this sounded more like . . .
    “Jason?” I tried to open my eyes. I managed to peer through my barely parted lids to identify my brother. I was in a dimly lit blue room, and I hurt so bad I wanted to cry.
    “You got shot,” he said. “You got shot, and I was at Merlotte’s, waiting for you to get there.”
    “You sound . . . happy,” I said through lips that felt oddly thick and stiff. Hospital.
    “I couldn’t have done it! I was with people the whole time! I had Hoyt in the truck with me from work to Merlotte’s, because his truck’s in the shop. I am covered .”
    “Oh, good. I’m glad I got shot, then. As long as you’re okay.” It was such an effort to say it, I was glad when Jason picked up on the sarcasm.
    “Yeah, hey, I’m sorry about that. At least it wasn’t serious.”
    “It isn’t?”
    “I forgot to tell you. Your shoulder got creased, and it’s going to hurt for a while. Press this button if it hurts. You can give yourself pain medication. Cool, huh? Listen, Andy’s outside.”
    I pondered that, finally deduced Andy Bellefleur was there in his official capacity. “Okay,” I said. “He can come in.” I stretched out a finger and carefully pushed the button.
    I blinked then, and it must have been a long blink, because when I pried my eyes open again, Jason was gone and Andy was in his place, a little notebook and a pen in his hands. There was something I had to tell him, and after a moment’s reflection, I knew what it was.
    “Tell Portia I said thank you,” I told him.
    “I will,” he said seriously. “She’s pretty shook up. She’s never been that close to violence before. She thought you were gonna die.”
    I could think of nothing to say to that. I waited for him to ask me what he wanted to know. His mouth moved, and I guess I answered him.
    “. . . said you ducked at the last second?”
    “I heard something, I guess,” I whispered. That was the truth, too. I just hadn’t heard something with my ears. . . . But Andy knew what I meant, and he was a believer. His eyes met mine and widened.
    And out again. The ER doctor had certainly given me some excellent painkiller. I wondered which hospital I was in. The one in Clarice was a little closer to the library; the one in Grainger had a higher-rated ER. If I was in Grainger, I might as well have saved myself the time driving back to Bon Temps and going to the library. I could have been shot right in the hospital parking lot when I left from visiting Calvin, and that would have saved me the trip.
    “Sookie,” said a quiet, familiar voice. It was cool and dark, like water running in a stream on a moonless night.
    “Bill,” I said, feeling happy and safe. “Don’t go.”
    “I’ll be right here.”
    And he was there, reading, in a chair by my bed when I woke up at three in the morning. I could feel the minds in the rooms around me all shut down in sleep. But the brain in the head of the man next to me was a blank. At that moment, I realized that the person who’d shot me had not been a vampire, though all the shootings had taken place at dusk or full dark. I’d heard the shooter’s brain in the second before the shot, and that had saved my life.
    Bill looked up the instant I moved. “How are you feeling?” he asked.
    I pushed the button to raise the head of the bed. “Like hell warmed over,” I said frankly after evaluating my shoulder. “My pain stuff has lapsed, and my shoulder aches like it’s going to fall off. My mouth feels like an army has marched through it, and I need to go to the bathroom in the worst way.”
    “I can help you take care of that,” he said, and before I could get embarrassed, he’d moved the IV pole around the bed and helped me up. I stood cautiously, gauging how steady my legs were. He said, “I won’t let you fall.”
    “I know,” I said, and we started across the floor to the bathroom. When he got me settled on the toilet, he tactfullystepped out, but left the door cracked while he waited just outside. I managed everything awkwardly, but I became profoundly aware I was lucky I’d been shot in my left shoulder instead of my