Chapter 19

[seymoure]

Chapter 19
“The Waking”

When she woke Ethel Muntz felt a clutching around her heart. She was newly aware that women have more heart attacks than is ever talked about, but she did not want to attribute this one occurrence to such an episode.

She had never felt anything like it before, and worried that the coldness in her hands was part of the same thing. It was interesting that she would rather attribute the condition to a failing heart than thinking it had something to do with the dream from which she was awakening.

She lifted her robe from the chair by the bed and prepared to move to the bathroom, when she was stopped by a knock at the door.

“Just a moment,” she said as she wiggled into the terry cloth garment.

When she answered the door she found Jeanne Gary standing on the other side. The young woman looked embarrassed to have awakened her.

“We have to get going,” She said in a low voice, “There have been some significant changes in our plans.”

“Changes?” Muntz reflexed.

“I don’t know. I can’t say,” the young woman stuttered, “Claus will explain.”

Gary exited quickly and Muntz closed the door. She noted that the girl had not acted this way anytime before. Certainly they had not had an extended relationship, but Muntz thought she had a better read on the female than that.

The author got dressed rapidly and found her way to the communal room. Everyone was there, except Sanchez, and Muntz assumed he was doing something that needed physical overseeing by a member of the team.

Vaskania stood and offered his seat on a couch, which Ethel took with a nod.

Muntz noted that, like herself, everyone seemed anemic, Gary even seemed to sleep on the couch.

“There was news this morning that demands our attention,” Claus said haltingly.

“I mentioned that Damien Kane was involved in our escape from the disaster on the plane,” Vaskania told them, “He has been found dead this morning.”

There was a moment of silence.

“The investigators say he had been dead for three days,” He confessed.

There was a longer silence.

The realization that they had been aided by a dead man didn’t set well with any of them.

Then Ethel wondered if he really was dead, or if what she had seen in her dream had been more than just a dream.

© 2005 by C. Wayne Owens