Teaser Thursday

Meh, for anyone who reads this blog, sorry I haven't been posting much the last week or so, but I've felt sort of... well, meh. Hopefully the posts will pick up in a day or so when the weather evens out. (Texas or not, going from 70 to snow to rain and back a few times in a week is NOT normal!)

/rant

This is from another WIP, not YA this time. It's a reality anchored fantasy about what happens after this scene - which may or may not be in the final book because it's only the inciting incident.
Enjoy.


James Crowne walked through the Emergency Room doors of Methodist Hospital at 1:07 am on a Tuesday. The neon blue of the cross and flame caught his attention and made his decision an easy one. There weren't any lights on County.

No one looked up when the automatic slide engaged on the glass panels. He didn't say anything to anyone. James just made his way through the waiting area until he stood in front of the nurse's booth. His ID hit the counter with a snap of plastic against metal.

Angie Gersh reached for the card with one hand and her clipboard with the other, but he didn't take it when she held it out.

"Mr. Crowne," she said, checking the name beside his photo. "You have to fill out the forms. If you need help just ask."

But he didn't.

James didn't do anything else ever again.

His eyes closed, and those close enough to him would swear later that they felt something or saw something or heard something. None of them could really describe it, but they all said it came from the odd man in the baseball cap and denim jacket.

A smile was on his lips when the lights flickered overhead and a black out rolled the power grid for more than twenty blocks. Angie's computer blew up in her face, and when the generators kicked in, that smile was still there. But James was on the floor.

There was a blankness about him, like something great had fled the room.

Angie shouted, and covered her face with her hands. An alarm sounded. Lights flashed. People screamed from the power surge and the instinctual human fear of the dark. The whole room was chaos. And the last thing anybody was thinking about was a little girl in pink pajamas.

She crouched beside James' body, patting his cheek like her mother would do to wake her up in the morning, and she was the only one to hear the words everyone swore he never spoke.

"Come and find me, Mandy."

(copyright -- Josin L. McQuein; 2010)