Sleeper Seven Read Online Free Page A

who stood behind him like children hiding from an overly-affectionate aunt. The elder doctor approached and flicked a light back and forth between her eyes.
    "Good evening, young lady. You're back from your trip, eh?"
    She tried to muster a "Guess so", but her throat and mouth felt terribly dry, so it came out more like "Guckth...".
    "Do you know where you are? Do you know what happened to you? And
who
you are, for that matter?"
    "Uh, ahem, yeah...train wreck," she managed, trying to force a swallow.
    "Well now, you're not
that
bad off, considering," the doctor replied, misunderstanding her answer. In the meantime, the male intern, overcoming his fear, walked around him to stand at the other side of her bed.
    "You
expired,
you know," he informed her, a touch of amazement in his voice.
    What a strange, rude, word,
Jess thought to herself,
Talking about me like sour milk
. She frowned at him, as did the older doctor before quickly changing the subject.
    "Ah, how are you feeling...any pain?"
    "Huh uh."
    "Well you rest up now, we'll check back on you in a bit." He rose, noted something on her chart, and after instructing the nurse to provide only ice chips, left with the female intern in tow.
    The young man lingered, however, staring at her awkwardly as he backed away towards the door. It seemed he wanted to say something, but after a long moment, he turned and left as well.
    She dozed on and off for a few minutes, or a few hours — she couldn't tell which — until awakening to a visitor entering the room.
    "Hey, Messy! They said you were in and out, you in?"
    "Gavin," she squeaked, turning her head to see him. He giggled, and grabbing a styrofoam coffee cup from the table next to her bed, offered her some partially-melted ice chips. Taking them, she smiled an icy smile at him.
    "Lady, don't you worry, I made it clear to them that there is no dying in here for you today, so you got zero worries, I got you covered."
    "What happened?" she whispered, wondering how much he knew of what she remembered.
    "You crawled out on a train, you damn fool! Trying to be all
Wonder Woman
or something. Don't ya remember? Then they shut down the power and you went all
Air Jess
." He whistled while drawing an arc in the air with his finger, and punctuated it with a
Pop,
eliciting a wince from her.
    "You got a dislocated shoulder, three bruised ribs, and of course this," he said, sprinkling his fingers back and forth over her bandaged body, "...this is all branchy and scratchy and just plain ol'
crazy,
but other than that, you're all good."
    She realized from his description that they didn't know
she
had stopped the train, or that she had in fact...
died
...for a few minutes, at least.

~ 6 ~
    A fter the short visit, she slept fitfully through the evening and into the night, as vivid dreams of the entire eight-minute drama replayed in her mind. In some variations the train derailed, in others it barreled into the platform at the end of the line, but in none of them did things turn out as well as they had in reality. What did remain constant in each dream version was the moment of impact, when she was torn from her body, and into that place of peace and detached observation.
    Shooting pains in her side dragged her consciousness to the surface, and groaning, she opened her eyes to find it was 3:30 AM. She lay there half-asleep, the jolts of pain intensifying as the meds slowly wore off. Finally, unable to take any more, her hand began to reach for the call button, when with a
thunk,
the discomfort instantly receded.
    The pain was replaced with a gentle tickling sensation, which started at the base of her spine and worked its way up, spreading across her back. It then morphed into a soft, fuzzy feeling, whereupon it changed again into something more metallic and sharp, but not painful. The relief from the pain was so great that instead of analyzing these strange new sensations, she simply enjoyed them as they rose through her body and floated