Phantoms

Mira.
    Although he wept every day when he came here, these were different tears from those he had cried before. These scalded, washed away the misery, and healed. Bit by bit, slowly, they healed him.
     
    “Discharged?” Jenny said, scowling. “Says who?”
    Tal grinned. “Says me.”
    “Since when have you become your own doctor?”
    “I just thought a second opinion seemed called for, so I asked myself in for consultation, and I recommended to me that I go home.”
    “Tal—”
    “Really, Doc, I feel great. The swelling’s gone. Haven’t run a temperature in two days. I’m a prime candidate for release. If you try to make me stay here any longer, my death will be on your hands.”
    “Death?”
    “The hospital food is sure to kill me.”
    “He looks ready to go dancing,” Lisa said.
    “And when’d you get your medical degree?” Jenny asked. To Tal she said, “Well… let me have a look. Take off your shirt.”
    He slipped out of it quickly and easily, not nearly as stiff as he’d been yesterday. Jenny carefully untaped the bandages and found that he was right: no swelling, no breaks in the scabs.
    “We’ve beaten it,” he assured her.
    “Usually, we don’t discharge a patient in the evening. Orders are written in the morning; release comes between ten o’clock and noon.”
    “Rules are made to be broken.”
    “What an awful thing for a policeman to say,” she teased. “Look, Tal. I’d prefer you stayed here one more night, just in case—”
    “And I’d prefer I didn’t , just in case I go stir crazy.”
    “You’re really determined?”
    “He’s really determined,” Lisa said.
    Tal said, “Doc, they had my gun in a safe, along with their drug supply. I had to wheedle, beg, plead, and tease a sweet nurse named Paula, so she’d get it for me this afternoon. I told her you’d let me out tonight for sure. Now, see, Paula’s a soul sister, a very attractive lady, single, eligible, delicious—”
    “Don’t get too steamy,” Lisa said. “There’s a minor present.”
    “I’d like to have a date with Paula,” Tal said. “I’d like to spend eternity with Paula. But now, Doc, if you say I can’t go home, then I’ll have to put my revolver back in the safe, and maybe Paula’s supervisor’ll find out she let me have it before my discharge was final, and then Paula might lose her job, and if she loses it because of me, I’ll never get a date with her. If I don’t get a date with her, I’m not going to be able to marry her, and if I don’t marry her, there won’t be any little Tal Whitmans running around, not ever, because I’ll go away to a monastery and become celibate, seeing as how I’ve made up my mind that Paula’s the only woman for me. So if you won’t discharge me, then you’ll not only be ruining my life but depriving the world of a little black Einstein or maybe a little black Beethoven.”
    Jenny laughed and shook her head. “Okay, okay. I’ll write a discharge order, and you can leave tonight.”
    He hugged her and quickly began putting on his shirt.
    “Paula better watch out,” Lisa said. “You’re too smooth to be left loose among women without a bell around your neck.”
    “Me? Smooth?” He buckled his holster around his waist. “I’m just good old Tal Whitman, sort of bashful. Been shy all my life.”
    “Oh, sure,” Lisa said.
    Jenny said, “If you—”
    And suddenly Tal went berserk. He shoved Jenny aside, knocked her down. She struck the footboard of the bed with her shoulder and hit the floor hard. She heard gunfire and saw Lisa falling and didn’t know if the girl had been hit or was just diving for cover; and for an instant she thought Tal was shooting at them. Then she saw he was still pulling his revolver out of his holster.
    Even as the sound of the shot slammed through the room, glass shattered. It was the window behind Tal.
    “ Drop it!” Tal shouted.
    Jenny turned her head, saw Gene Terr standing in the doorway, silhouetted by the brighter light in the hospital corridor behind him.
     
    Standing in the deep shadows by the window, Bryce finished drying his tears and wadded up the damp Kleenex. He heard a soft noise in the room behind him, thought it was a nurse, turned—and saw Fletcher Kale. For a moment Bryce was frozen by disbelief.
    Kale was standing at the foot of Timmy’s bed, barely identifiable in the weak light. He hadn’t seen Bryce. He was watching the boy—and grinning. Madness knotted his face. He was