Frankenstein

hospital and pulled it on over his pajamas.
    In the main second-floor corridor, Doris Makepeace, the shift supervisor, sat alone at the nurses’ station. Bryce remembered her well and fondly from Rennie’s last hospitalization.
    Nurse Makepeace seemed to be lost in thought, staring at the wall clock across the hallway from her post.
    Bryce could not remember an occasion when a shift supervisor or any other nurse had not been busy at the central station, from which they tended to all of the patients on this floor. Nurses always had more work than they could easily complete.
    Doris in particular had always been industrious—bustling and lively and engaged and diligent. Now she appeared detached and evenbored. Either she hoped to make the hands of the clock move faster by watching them or her thoughts had traveled so far beyond the hospital that she didn’t even see the clock.
    As before, he might be making something out of nothing. Everyone needed to zone out for a few minutes now and then, during a busy day.
    When Bryce passed in front of her, Doris Makepeace stirred from her trance to say, “Going somewhere?”
    “Just getting a little exercise, maybe visit a couple of the other patients.”
    “Stay close. Stay where we can find you. We might be taking you downstairs for tests.”
    “Don’t worry. I’ll be right around here,” he promised, and he found himself shuffling instead of walking, not because he needed to shuffle, which he did not, but because he thought it might be wise to appear somewhat feeble.
    “Don’t tax yourself. The sooner you’re back in bed and resting, the better.”
    Nurse Makepeace’s voice had neither its characteristic lilt nor its customary warmth. In fact, Bryce heard a cold, authoritarian note close to contempt.
    He paused at a couple of rooms to glance at the patients. He saw no one he knew.
    Step by step, he felt the weight of the nurse’s stare against his back. He probably should not go directly to a stairway with her watching.
    In Room 218, no one occupied the bed nearer the door, and in the farther bed sat a boy of about nine. He paged through a comic book as if nothing in it could hold his attention.
    Entering the room, Bryce said, “A lot of years ago, I wrote somecomic books. Of course, they were all about cowboys and horses, not aliens and spaceships and superheroes, so they’d probably only put you to sleep. What’s your name, son?”
    The boy seemed wary but was most likely merely shy. “Travis.”
    “Now that’s a fine old name, always a hero’s name, and perfect for a Western novel.” Indicating the day beyond the nearby window, he added, “Think we might have an early snow, Travis?”
    Dropping the comic book on the bed, the boy said, “Did they take away your BlackBerry?”
    “I don’t have a BlackBerry, and I never will. I prefer to talk to people instead of type at them, but then I’m older than the Great Wall of China and just as solidly set in my ways.”
    “They took mine this morning.” Travis glanced toward the hallway door, as if he didn’t want to be overheard. “They said text messaging interferes with some hospital machines.”
    “I suppose it might. I’m pretty much ignorant about machines,” Bryce admitted. “The only thing I could fix on a car is a flat tire. But I can do a bunch of rope tricks and sharpshoot, for what that’s worth.”
    “I had it the first two days here, and nobody cared. Then this morning they just suddenly make a big deal about it.”
    Picking up the comic book to have a closer look at the superhero on the cover, Bryce said, “You seemed bored with this. That made my heart feel good. But then it’s probably just because you’ve read it twenty times before.”
    Travis glanced at the door, at the window, at the door again, and then met Bryce’s eyes. “What’s wrong with them?”
    “In my opinion, a lot of things. No damn superhero is ever really in jeopardy, not even when someone locks him in a lead box with a chunk of kryptonite as big as a cabbage and drops him in the ocean.”
    “I mean them,” Travis said, lowering his voice and gesturing toward the hallway door. “The nurses, doctors, all of them.”
    They were both silent for a moment, eye to eye, and then Bryce said, “What do you mean, son?”
    The boy chewed his lower lip and seemed to search for words. Then he said, “You’re real.”
    “I’ve always thought I am.”
    “They’re not,” said Travis.
    Sitting on the edge of