Raven: A Delirium Short Story Read Free Page A

and fish for our food, grow what we can, pop out a whole brood of kids and pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist. Let it blow itself to pieces if it wants to.
    Dreams.
    It has been two and a half minutes. I open the van door and hop down to the curb. The rain is nothing more than a mist now, but the gutters are still overflowing, swirling eddies of crushed coffee cups and cigarette butts and flyers.
    When I push open the door to the clinic, it’s like a different world: thick green carpet, and furniture polished so it shines. Big, showy clock in the corner, ticking away the minutes. Not a bad place to die, if you had to choose.
    Tack is standing at reception, drumming his fingers against the desk. He barely glances at me when I come in.
    “I’m so sorry, doctor.” The lab tech behind the desk is punching buttons frantically. Her fingers are fat and weighted down with rings cut deep into her flesh. “An inspection—today—there must be a mistake.”
    “It’s on the books,” Tack says, in a voice that belongs to someone older and fatter and cured. “Every clinic is subjected to an annual regulatory—”
    “Excuse me,” I say loudly, interrupting him, as I come toward the desk. I make sure to walk a little funny, just for show. Tack and I can laugh about it later. “Excuse me,” I repeat, a little louder. Too loud for the space.
    “You’ll have to hold on,” the receptionist says to me, picking up the phone and angling her chin awayes er chin from the receiver. She turns immediately back to Tack. “I’m so sorry. You have no idea how embarrassed—”
    “Don’t be sorry,” he says. “Just get somebody down here who can help me.”
    “Hey.” I lean forward over the counter. “Look, I’m talking to you.”
    “Ma’am.” She’s losing it. She’s probably shitting bricks, thinking she’s going to get the whole clinic shut down because she screwed up the review dates. “I’m in the middle of something. If you have an appointment, you’re going to have to sign in and take a seat in the—”
    “I don’t have an appointment.” I’m really putting it on, now, practically yelling. Tack does a good job of looking disgusted. “And I won’t wait. I got this rash, okay? It’s driving me crazy. I can’t hardly even sit.”
    I undo my belt and start to hitch my pants down over my waist, like I’m about to moon her. Tack draws back with a noise of disgust, and the nurse slams down the phone and practically hurls herself around the desk.
    “This way, ma’am, please .” She clamps a hand on my arm. I can smell the sweat underneath her perfume. She pilots me quickly out of the reception area—away from Dr. Howard Rivers, medical inspector, where I can’t do any harm, where I won’t embarrass the clinic any further—and through a set of double doors into a long white hallway. I feel a hitch of excitement in my chest, a slight break, like I always do when a plan is going off like we expected. With my free hand I fumble in my right jeans pocket for the small glass bottle, uncork it with a thumb, let the contents spill out into the rag stuffed in my pocket. Acetone, bleach, and heat.
    Not as good as manufactured chloroform, but good enough.
    “The doctor will be in to see you shortly,” she says, huffing from the exertion of piloting me forward. She practically shoves me into a small examination room and stands, breasts heaving against her uniform, with one hand on the doorknob. The hall behind her is empty. “If you’ll just wait here . . .”
    “I hate waiting,” I say, and step forward, bringing the rag to her face.
    She is very heavy as she goes down.
     
    Untie me, and I’ll help you.
    The words were stuck in my mind, a taunt and a promise. I didn’t think I could trust him. And it would be a betrayal—of Grandma, and of the other homesteaders who had taken in Blue and me. If I got caught, if the Thief screwed us over, I’d have to pay for it. Maybe I’d get tied up in the