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Description
Introduction
Mother
or The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die
The room was dark and smelly; that was the first thing that Jamie Redford noticed when she opened her eyes.  The second was that her vision was hindered by a white sheet.  The third, that she was lying on her back, on a hard surface.
Jamie lifted her chin to allow the sheet to slide down below her face.  That smell was strange and chemical; it was a smell she had never been exposed to before.  It burned her nose.  There was also a strange, metallic smell.  She knew that smell was blood, and panic rose dully in her throat.
Be calm.  Count prime numbers, like the guy in that story.
Jamie sat up, swallowing spit.  The room around her was fairly dark.  There were those little medical tables where they held surgical equipment (Jamie had no idea what they were called), and walls with many doors on them.
One, Three, five, seven, eleven…
There were large sinks against a wall, above which were tall, flat mirrors that reflected the opposing wall.  Connected to the sinks were counters that connected to shelves with glass doors.  The walls themselves were white tiles.  This place looked vaguely familiar to Jamie, but she couldn’t quite place the name.
Thirteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-three, twenty-nine…
There was an eyewash station and a large steel trashcan with a red biohazard sticker plastered across the front.  If anywhere, Jamie knew she was in a medical facility.
Thirty… one?  Thirty-seven, forty-one, forty-three…
She turned to look behind her.  There were three or five or six stretchers behind her, each with a long, lumpy white mountain placed on top of it.  Her brain called them mountains.  That’s all it could say.  She knew in the back corner of her mind that to say what they really were could turn her into a gibbering lunatic.
Jamie also knew now where she was.
There must have been some mistake.  That was the only thing she could think of.  She was obviously not dead, so there was no reason for her to be in the morgue.  Jamie tried to remember why she might be here… her memory was hazy.  How did she get hurt?
A car crash.
As if a switch had been flipped in her mind, she could suddenly recall what had happened.  She was walking on the sidewalk, when two cars collided in the street.  Then a couple more hit, and another few, until there was a massive pile-up.  Then she saw a shiny, pale blue Toyota.  She could clearly see the little symbol on the hood, because as it swerved to avoid the mound of automobiles, it drove up onto the sidewalk, right into her body.
But… wait.  That wasn’t right.  Jamie didn’t feel any pain.  Jamie couldn’t feel anything at all, for the record, other than that she was a little cold, and that she was sitting on something hard.  She must be in the hospital, obviously.  But… were they busy with the other people in the pile-up?  That had to be it.  The Toyota swerved, and she passed out, or something like that.  They didn’t want to wake her up, because she might be in shock.  So they must have put her in the one empty place they could find while they worked on the other people.
That had to be it.  Jamie didn’t know much about hospitals or their protocol, but that had to be it.  She couldn’t, in her current panicked state, fathom what else it could be.
Forty-seven, forty-nine, One-two-three-four-five-six…
She slid her legs sideways off the stretcher and let them hang above the floor.  She was awake now; she needed to get out of here.  And God, she was hungry.  She looked down at her legs as she pressed her hands against her resting place, and froze.
Skin was gone.  There were what looked like burns, and large scrapes that looked like ground beef.  Part of her right shin was exposed.  She looked down at where her left hand had once been.  A crushed mass of tissues and bones was all that remained.  Her entire body seemed broken and marred.
Twelve-Seventeen-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-Twinkle-Twinkle-Little-Star…
Jamie tried to scream, but the only thing that came out was a hissing gurgle.  She felt for her throat with the hand that was still whole, and felt wetness, lumps and jagged edges.
My name is Jamie Redford.  I am twenty-three years old.  I go to Northeast River Technical College.  I work part-time at Denny’s.  I have a cat named Jethro.
Jamie slipped off the stretcher and stumbled, catching the edge of another stretcher with the remnants of her left hand.  It didn’t hurt.  She stood shakily, looking down at her right leg.  The bone was sticking out.  She didn’t feel it at all.
Jamie walked gingerly towards the mirrors.
My parents’ names are Alice and Chad.  They live in Boston.  I have two brothers, and their names are Jeffrey and Andrew.  My uncle Johnny gave me an old pickup truck.  It’s a red Ford.  I have two roommates.  I like to play the guitar.
Jamie’s thoughts stopped when she saw her reflection in the mirror.  Her usually straight, chest-length dirty-blonde hair was tangled and matted with dark red.  Her slightly long nose was pressed back into her skull, and it gave her the appearance of being related to Lon Cheney.  Her eyes, once a bright green-and-brown, were now pale and lightless.  The whites of her eyes were now a dark, swollen red.  Her slightly-tanned skin was now lifelessly pallid and disfigured with gashes and scrapes.  Her usually dry, chapped lips were simply gone, as was a large strip of her cheek.
Jamie still couldn’t scream, the reason being that the skin of her throat was shredded.  It looked as if a piece of glass was driven deep into the side of her neck.  Was it from someone’s windshield?  The Toyota’s?
Why didn’t it hurt?
       And why, God, was she so very hungry?
       Jamie turned towards the door.  It was slightly open, left ajar by a careless orderly.  She moved towards it, reaching out with her right hand.  Jamie attempted to lick her lips before realizing that there were no lips left.  She also became painfully aware that she may be missing some of her tongue.
       There’s a mistake.  They only think I’m dead – yeah, that’s it.  I need to go find a doctor.
       The door swung open, hitting her in the arm.  She hardly felt it.  She saw the back of what must have been a man, in pale blue scrubs.  He was pushing the door open with his back, his hands occupied with another body on a gurney.  He smelled like antibacterial soap, latex and washing detergent.
       Wait, he smelled?  Jamie realized in passing that it was odd that she could smell him, and so well.
       But he also smelled good.  Really good.  The orderly smelled like the most tantalizing steak dinner she had ever had, or the most mouth-watering burger ever created.
       And Jamie was really, really hungry.
       Before the orderly could turn to see what had blocked the door it was wrenched open, and Jamie’s jaws were clamped onto his neck.  He let out a horrified sound, but Jamie hardly noticed.  She bit harder, harder still.  The skin gave, and then the muscle.  Jamie hardly chewed, swallowing the man’s flesh.  Her hands were squeezed tight around his neck and shoulder, and she took another bite.  Her mind was blank.  She didn’t hear the man’s agonized screams, she hardly felt as he struck out at her in the awkward angle.  She took another bite, and then another.  She hit his artery and blood sprayed up and out, splashing the walls and ceiling, showering her face in warmth.  His screams started to die down, and his thrashing became weaker and weaker.  After a few minutes he was still.
       As the orderly’s body fell from the girl’s arms to the floor, she only vaguely realized what she had done.  She felt no remorse, terror or disgust.  She did not feel anything at all.
       But she was still hungry.
       She looked down at the man.  He wasn’t moving.  He was dead, and soon he would get cold.  She had never liked her food cold.  She stepped over his now-cooling body, and into the hall, pushing the stretcher out of her way.  It rolled off, clanging harmlessly against a wall.
       The mangled creature walked towards the stairs.  She could faintly smell more food.
       And she was still hungry.

Description
Introduction
Mother
or The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die
The room was dark and smelly; that was the first thing that Jamie Redford noticed when she opened her eyes.  The second was that her vision was hindered by a white sheet.  The third, that she was lying on her back, on a hard surface.
Jamie lifted her chin to allow the sheet to slide down below her face.  That smell was strange and chemical; it was a smell she had never been exposed to before.  It burned her nose.  There was also a strange, metallic smell.  She knew that smell was blood, and panic rose dully in her throat.
Be calm.  Count prime numbers, like the guy in that story.
Jamie sat up, swallowing spit.  The room around her was fairly dark.  There were those little medical tables where they held surgical equipment (Jamie had no idea what they were called), and walls with many doors on them.
One, Three, five, seven, eleven…
There were large sinks against a wall, above which were tall, flat mirrors that reflected the opposing wall.  Connected to the sinks were counters that connected to shelves with glass doors.  The walls themselves were white tiles.  This place looked vaguely familiar to Jamie, but she couldn’t quite place the name.
Thirteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-three, twenty-nine…
There was an eyewash station and a large steel trashcan with a red biohazard sticker plastered across the front.  If anywhere, Jamie knew she was in a medical facility.
Thirty… one?  Thirty-seven, forty-one, forty-three…
She turned to look behind her.  There were three or five or six stretchers behind her, each with a long, lumpy white mountain placed on top of it.  Her brain called them mountains.  That’s all it could say.  She knew in the back corner of her mind that to say what they really were could turn her into a gibbering lunatic.
Jamie also knew now where she was.
There must have been some mistake.  That was the only thing she could think of.  She was obviously not dead, so there was no reason for her to be in the morgue.  Jamie tried to remember why she might be here… her memory was hazy.  How did she get hurt?
A car crash.
As if a switch had been flipped in her mind, she could suddenly recall what had happened.  She was walking on the sidewalk, when two cars collided in the street.  Then a couple more hit, and another few, until there was a massive pile-up.  Then she saw a shiny, pale blue Toyota.  She could clearly see the little symbol on the hood, because as it swerved to avoid the mound of automobiles, it drove up onto the sidewalk, right into her body.
But… wait.  That wasn’t right.  Jamie didn’t feel any pain.  Jamie couldn’t feel anything at all, for the record, other than that she was a little cold, and that she was sitting on something hard.  She must be in the hospital, obviously.  But… were they busy with the other people in the pile-up?  That had to be it.  The Toyota swerved, and she passed out, or something like that.  They didn’t want to wake her up, because she might be in shock.  So they must have put her in the one empty place they could find while they worked on the other people.
That had to be it.  Jamie didn’t know much about hospitals or their protocol, but that had to be it.  She couldn’t, in her current panicked state, fathom what else it could be.
Forty-seven, forty-nine, One-two-three-four-five-six…
She slid her legs sideways off the stretcher and let them hang above the floor.  She was awake now; she needed to get out of here.  And God, she was hungry.  She looked down at her legs as she pressed her hands against her resting place, and froze.
Skin was gone.  There were what looked like burns, and large scrapes that looked like ground beef.  Part of her right shin was exposed.  She looked down at where her left hand had once been.  A crushed mass of tissues and bones was all that remained.  Her entire body seemed broken and marred.
Twelve-Seventeen-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-Twinkle-Twinkle-Little-Star…
Jamie tried to scream, but the only thing that came out was a hissing gurgle.  She felt for her throat with the hand that was still whole, and felt wetness, lumps and jagged edges.
My name is Jamie Redford.  I am twenty-three years old.  I go to Northeast River Technical College.  I work part-time at Denny’s.  I have a cat named Jethro.
Jamie slipped off the stretcher and stumbled, catching the edge of another stretcher with the remnants of her left hand.  It didn’t hurt.  She stood shakily, looking down at her right leg.  The bone was sticking out.  She didn’t feel it at all.
Jamie walked gingerly towards the mirrors.
My parents’ names are Alice and Chad.  They live in Boston.  I have two brothers, and their names are Jeffrey and Andrew.  My uncle Johnny gave me an old pickup truck.  It’s a red Ford.  I have two roommates.  I like to play the guitar.
Jamie’s thoughts stopped when she saw her reflection in the mirror.  Her usually straight, chest-length dirty-blonde hair was tangled and matted with dark red.  Her slightly long nose was pressed back into her skull, and it gave her the appearance of being related to Lon Cheney.  Her eyes, once a bright green-and-brown, were now pale and lightless.  The whites of her eyes were now a dark, swollen red.  Her slightly-tanned skin was now lifelessly pallid and disfigured with gashes and scrapes.  Her usually dry, chapped lips were simply gone, as was a large strip of her cheek.
Jamie still couldn’t scream, the reason being that the skin of her throat was shredded.  It looked as if a piece of glass was driven deep into the side of her neck.  Was it from someone’s windshield?  The Toyota’s?
Why didn’t it hurt?
       And why, God, was she so very hungry?
       Jamie turned towards the door.  It was slightly open, left ajar by a careless orderly.  She moved towards it, reaching out with her right hand.  Jamie attempted to lick her lips before realizing that there were no lips left.  She also became painfully aware that she may be missing some of her tongue.
       There’s a mistake.  They only think I’m dead – yeah, that’s it.  I need to go find a doctor.
       The door swung open, hitting her in the arm.  She hardly felt it.  She saw the back of what must have been a man, in pale blue scrubs.  He was pushing the door open with his back, his hands occupied with another body on a gurney.  He smelled like antibacterial soap, latex and washing detergent.
       Wait, he smelled?  Jamie realized in passing that it was odd that she could smell him, and so well.
       But he also smelled good.  Really good.  The orderly smelled like the most tantalizing steak dinner she had ever had, or the most mouth-watering burger ever created.
       And Jamie was really, really hungry.
       Before the orderly could turn to see what had blocked the door it was wrenched open, and Jamie’s jaws were clamped onto his neck.  He let out a horrified sound, but Jamie hardly noticed.  She bit harder, harder still.  The skin gave, and then the muscle.  Jamie hardly chewed, swallowing the man’s flesh.  Her hands were squeezed tight around his neck and shoulder, and she took another bite.  Her mind was blank.  She didn’t hear the man’s agonized screams, she hardly felt as he struck out at her in the awkward angle.  She took another bite, and then another.  She hit his artery and blood sprayed up and out, splashing the walls and ceiling, showering her face in warmth.  His screams started to die down, and his thrashing became weaker and weaker.  After a few minutes he was still.
       As the orderly’s body fell from the girl’s arms to the floor, she only vaguely realized what she had done.  She felt no remorse, terror or disgust.  She did not feel anything at all.
       But she was still hungry.
       She looked down at the man.  He wasn’t moving.  He was dead, and soon he would get cold.  She had never liked her food cold.  She stepped over his now-cooling body, and into the hall, pushing the stretcher out of her way.  It rolled off, clanging harmlessly against a wall.
       The mangled creature walked towards the stairs.  She could faintly smell more food.
       And she was still hungry.