Read Online Last Call by Sean Costello - Free Book Online Page A

bed.
    He opened his mouth to scream, but the breathing tube rendered him mute. He cranked and twisted his arms until his wrists popped free of their padded restraints, and now his hands came up and yanked the tube from his throat, giving voice to his horror. Screaming, he sat bolt upright in bed, sending a pole laden with med pumps crashing to the floor.
    The staff that rushed in to restrain him had egg-plant heads and smoldering red eyes and Jim fought them with everything he had, opening his suture line even more.
    He howled like a lunatic. “Get them off me! Get them off! ”
    Then something warm crept up his arm like gentle surf, finding his brain, and Jim Gamble drifted away on it, to a place where nothing mattered.
    * * *
    Trish was pulling on her uniform when her cell phone rang. It was Dean.
    “Hey, Trish.”
    “Hey, Dean, how—oh, my God, was that a scream?” It had sounded like someone being burned alive.
    Dean snickered. “Yeah, I’m in the delivery room. I just brought a teenage girl up here from the ER. Poor thing had no idea she was even pregnant. Her grandmother brought her in—these two, they look like something out of Deliverance , six teeth between them and no shoes, three hundred pounds each and neither of them over four feet. Granny brought her in with abdominal pain, thinking it was something she ‘et’. Turns out she’s fully dilated. On the elevator she asked me when the belly button opens up so the baby can come out.”
    “Oh, my God .”
    “Yeah, never a dull moment. Speaking of which—and I don’t want you getting too excited; things are still pretty grim—but your dad’s awake.”
    Trish smiled. Awake was better than comatose. She said, “That’s fantastic.” And then, “What do you mean ‘grim’?”
    “He’s in the DTs—delirium tremens, acute alcohol withdrawal—and it’s not very pretty. Hallucinations, convulsions, irritability. He could still even die.”
    “That means he’s going to need me.”
    “They had to sedate him pretty heavily, Trish. Maybe you should put off coming down for a while. He doesn’t even know where he is yet.”
    “I’m coming tomorrow after work. It’s all arranged. I’ll be staying with my aunt in Mississauga.”
    “I just figured you might not want to see him like this.”
    “I can handle it, Dean. I’m a lot tougher than you think. I want to be with him when he wakes up again.”
    “Okay. Maybe I’ll see you?”
    “Sure. Maybe. Thanks for keeping me posted.”
    Trish signed off and finished getting dressed, then Googled delirium tremens on her phone. It was just like Dean had said. The next several days would be dicey in the extreme, and in a case like her dad’s, where chances were good he’d been ingesting substances much more toxic than booze, death was a real possibility.
    She wished she could take off right now, but she had a double shift at the hotel and her mother was right, she needed the money.
    She grabbed her knapsack and headed for the car.
    * * *
    Bobcat parked the camper in front of the Cold River Trading Post and pocketed the keys. The parking lot was packed today, but that was how he liked it. The bigger the crowd, the harder he was to see.
    With a glance in the rearview, he snugged the ballcap over his eyes and combed his fingers through his tangled beard. Sammy, his Jack Russell terrier, eyed him expectantly from the carrier in the passenger footwell, but Bobcat said, “Not this time, Sambo. You go on back to sleep now, boy. Bobby’ll be right back.” He retrieved a small rectangular item wrapped in cloth from the seat beside him and exited the vehicle.
    The bell above the shop door startled him, and not for the first time Bobcat wanted to rip the damned thing off its mount and ram it down the throat of the fat fuck proprietor—Hank—the man eyeballing him now from his throne in front of the register. Patrons were scattered all through the sprawling shop, but at the moment Hank was alone at the