Read Online The Night Season by Chelsea Cain - Free Book Online

scrambled up the bank and knelt behind the stone. “It’s Henry,” she said. “He’s not breathing.”
    Susan could hear Claire on the phone, calling for an ambulance, but she couldn’t move. She didn’t want to go up there. She didn’t want to see Henry like that. He was a strong man.
    Not breathing.
    What had Robbins called it?
    Respiratory paralysis.
    “Help me,” Claire said. “Susan, now.”
    Susan snapped to, and hurried up the rock embankment. Henry was slumped against the back of the stone, head bent forward. Clothing drenched. Rainwater beading his face. From a distance it probably looked like he was sleeping. Up close, it looked more permanent.
    “I need to get him flat,” Claire said. She was crying, wiping snot from her nose with her sleeve.
    “What do I do?” Susan asked.
    “Get his feet.”
    Claire got her arms behind Henry, under his armpits, and Susan pulled his legs out and they managed to work him into a prone position.
    “Do you know CPR?” Claire asked.
    Susan had taken CPR for her babysitter certification in high school, but right now she was drawing a complete blank. “Not really,” she said.
    Claire unzipped Henry’s jacket and grabbed Susan’s hands, putting the heel of one on Henry’s chest between his nipples and over his sternum, and then placing Susan’s other hand on top of the first.
    “Push,” Claire said quickly. “Like this.” She pushed Susan’s hands down. “Two inches. “You should be pumping at a rate of a hundred times a minute, so do it fast. Faster than once per second. Count. And when you get to thirty, stop, so I can breathe for him.” She bent over Henry’s face, plugged his nose, put her lips to his, and exhaled. Then she turned her head and listened at his mouth for a moment. Then she put her lips to his again and repeated it. “Now go,” she said to Susan.
    Susan started to pump. Two inches. “One,” she counted. “Two, three, four…”
    She was on the ground, the cold mud seeping into the knees of her jeans. She kept pumping. She didn’t look up. She didn’t want to see Henry’s face.

CHAPTER
    12

    Archie was covered with rubber heating blankets that looked like extra big bathtub mats. The feeling in his hands and feet had returned. His body was stiff, but his head had cleared.
    He was in his own room in the Emanuel ER. The boy had been worse off than he was. They’d taken him somewhere to pump warm blood into him or something. There was no clock in his room, a clever way to keep patients in the dark about how long they’d been kept waiting. But Archie was the last person on earth with a watch. Assuming that, after a prolonged dip in the Willamette, the watch still worked, it was nine o’clock. He’d been in the ER for over an hour.
    They had already announced their intention to keep him overnight. Every so often someone came in and checked his vitals and the temperature of his blankets. Once they got a look at his medical records they started giving him concerned looks. Gretchen had carved out his spleen. His liver was bad from pills. He’d seen the nurse’s eyes widen when she’d opened up the blanket and seen his scars. And that was just the tip of the iceberg.
    He was alone. More alone than usual. He still had Debbie listed as his emergency contact, but he’d told the hospital not to call. She’d want to come, and it was dangerous on the roads. He would have called Henry if he could have. Henry would have come and berated him for jumping into the river without a plan. Then he would have put his cowboy boots up on Archie’s bed and turned on a cooking show.
    The door to Archie’s room was open, so he passed the time listening to the sounds of the hospital. A woman sobbed softly in the room next to him. A frail white-haired man who’d arrived holding a bloody shirt to his head was getting stitches. Orderlies and nurses cracked wise at the desk.
    There’s a rhythm to a hospital. Archie was amazed at how it came back to him.