Give It Back

By M.R. Storie

The Dressler twins share everything, including a lethal kidney disorder. Pediatrician Sal Kramer is devastated when only one boy survives transplant surgery, but he's soon considering the unthinkable. Will Kramer reverse his medial ethics before it's too late? Or will the world become a warehouse for the living dead?

Give It Back is a chiller--a supernatural horror feast of the machine gone wrong, far enough off the rails to satiate the worst Luddites lurking among us. (Length: 308 pages)

• Language: English
• Publisher: CreateSpace
• Release date: Jul 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781500593681

Book preview

Give

It

Back

M.R. Storie

Copyright © 2014 Marilyn Storie

All rights reserved.

Dedicated to those

caring souls who have

signed donor cards.

Table of Contents

one

two

three

four

five

six

seven

eight

nine

ten

eleven

twelve

thirteen

fourteen

fifteen

sixteen

seventeen

eighteen

nineteen

twenty

twenty-one

twenty-two

twenty-three

twenty-four

about the author

the last word

one

––––––––

19:08 hours November 2

Marvin Crowe glared at the barking radio and yanked the ambulance onto NE 45th Street. Intermittent showers, my ass. Someone should drag the weather dude outside and prop his mouth open with his mike until he drowns. The pavement dipped without warning and Crowe found himself plowing through an intermittent shower that sloshed halfway up the tires. Making a quick noose of his thumb and forefinger, he reached out and throttled KSEX SEATTLE dead.

Listening to the weather wasn’t much of an improvement. The blows of the wind-whipped rain were as loud as hail, moonwalking back and forth across the top of the roof to trouble his aching head. The ambulance itself was in a party mood—line-dancing from side-to-side in the turbulent dark and fighting to boogie across the lane. From time to time, it farted, and he could smell the poisonous stink up front a moment later.

He eased up on the gas with reluctance. Just great . . . driving cross-town to the garage to get the muffler fixed was okay—it beat a night with Horton Gunner shedding crumbs all over the station. Watching him stuff his fat face and listening to him bitch about his ex-wife . . . anything was better than that. But I wasn’t counting on inching my way through a flash flood.

––––––––

November 18

The spotted dog at the foot of Zack Dressler’s hospital bed bobbed up and down, back and forth, barking furiously. With soft brown eyes and a green mask tied over its nose, the puppet resembled a clownish harem harlot as well as the pediatrician wielding it.

Tiring of its frantic gyrations, the dog slouched. It revived a moment later to snatch up its tail in both paws and bite down. Yelping in pain, it shot to the end of the metal bed frame and began stroking its tail. It turned to face the giggling boy. Flapping its paws as though it were restrained from launching itself into space, the puppet began emitting a series of piercing meows.

Dogs don’t meow! Zack shouted. The four-year-old pointed an accusing finger at the puppet and collapsed chuckling against his pillows. His twin Zeke, watching from the next bed, followed suit.

Dr. Sal Kramer—thanks to Zeke’s love of comic book heroes, he’d become known as Doctor K to the kids in the ward—got up from the end of the bed. Almost before he was standing, he hunched his shoulders. He knew how his height looked to children. He diminished it whenever he could. He looked over at the twins’ parents. They’re doing just fine, I’d say. His eyebrows drew together and he pointed a stern finger at Zack, mimicking his gesture. But I’d better not catch you or your brother sneaking a puppy in here.

The boys giggled again. A tiny fly, let alone a puppy, couldn’t sneak into the isolation unit unobserved. They were smart enough to know it and to appreciate the joke.

Crystal and Rob Dressler dropped their eyes. They shifted about on their chairs. Sensitive to their parents’ moods, the boys began to shout.

A puppy!

We’re getting a puppy for Christmas, aren’t we?

Is it Diamond’s? Did Diamond have her puppies, Mom? Did she?

Can it sleep in our room Mom? Please? We’ve got lots of room.

The new head of pediatrics at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital had known the identical twins for all of their short lives—had delivered them, in fact—but he still got them mixed up (to their endless delight). Never once had he seen their petite mother mistake one for the other. She was equally infallible at separating their intertwined dialogue.

Yes boys—we’re getting a puppy. And yes, Zeke—it’s Diamond’s. No, Zack—it can’t sleep in your room. The puppy will sleep in the kitchen while it’s small. When it’s big, we’ll get it a doghouse. Notwithstanding her even British tone and smile, Crystal’s once perpetually strained eyes were dancing.

We’ll have to give some of the other pets away if we’re going to get a dog, the boys’ father said in warning. A dog is a big responsibility.

Taking advantage of his concealing mask, Kramer grinned to himself at Rob Dressler’s expense. His haste to lay down the law was heartening. The twins had spent much of the past year bed-ridden and the Dressler household had come to resemble a petting zoo. An ever-expanding collection of tropical fish, hamsters, ant farms, and budgies had been enlisted to relieve their boredom. That their father was setting limits for the first time was welcome proof that the twins’ lives were changing.

Before their kidney transplants, things had been less hopeful. The twins had been born with defective kidneys. Medication had slowed their loss of function, but the side effects were considerable. The boys had paid the price for continuing life with increasingly poor health and stunted growth.

While they discussed the new pet, Kramer studied them. It’s startling how different they are now, he thought. Even their personalities are changed. No longer Pinocchio puppets, but real boys: lively instead of wooden; bursting with mischief.

Their moon faces—swelling of the face, hands, feet and lower legs was a hallmark of nephritic syndrome—were fast shrinking to normalcy. In particular, their cheeks were no longer puffed to the exaggerated proportions of Renaissance cherubs. Their buffalo humps—an accumulation of fat at the base of their necks—were less prominent, too. The twins were still no taller than average two-year-olds, but that would change. The new kidneys were allowing them to grow freely for the first time and reach their true potential. All they had needed was time.

They were lucky to have it. Although kidneys came in pairs, only one was required for survival. But the Dressler twins’ identical flaw had meant that two were needed. Rob, but not Crystal, had turned out to be a suitable donor. No other suitable match had surfaced, though the couple had canvassed their relatives and the Internet for another suitable kidney donation. Nothing had matched. The Dresslers had spent the last year in an agony of indecision as their boys’ health deteriorated. Rob’s donation could save only one of their sons, but which one should they save? It was a hideous decision for any parent to have to face.

A miracle, Crystal had called it, when a cadaver donor match had been found. Kramer, who had seen the sad decline of children in desperate need of an organ donation before, agreed. There was never enough to go around. The wait for a cadaver kidney could be as long as two to three years—and not every kidney was necessarily a match.

With over 35,000 people on the national waiting list for a kidney, a successful recipient was beating odds considerably higher than the ones you got in Reno, he thought. The twins were fortunate.

Can we see the puppies now if they wear masks, Doctor K?

Zack’s wheedling tone demonstrated that he already knew the answer to his question. Four-year-olds would make great canvassers, Kramer decided. Or debt collectors—no matter how many times you told them they couldn’t have something, they felt no shame at asking for it again. And again. It was the preschool equivalent of what Amber would call jerking your chain.

Sorry Zack. He threw up his hands in defeat. Even my super powers wouldn’t be enough to get a puppy past Nurse Hodkins. I should warn you that she has X-ray vision and super hearing.

The puppies are too young to leave their mother, Crystal chimed in. They can’t leave until they’re eight weeks old. Her green eyes lit up again. You’ll be home long before then.

Zack’s lips rolled into a pout. His brother’s followed suit. Their out-thrust chins waggled back and forth, reminding Kramer of the butt ends of angry ducks. He suppressed a smile and glanced away at the wallpaper border, at a level of his height of six foot six inches. The exaggerated goldfish swimming around the walls were one of the few kid-friendly touches in what was really just a drab and utilitarian room. But it was a relief to everyone that it was no longer crammed with machines.

Wallpaper isn’t much entertainment now that they’re well enough to take notice of their surroundings. Jaylene Hodkins had brought the stick-on border from home, insisting on putting it up after she’d heard the boys would be staying put in the room. The twins should have been moved to a regular room within a few days of their surgery, but outside of the standard beds saved for emergency, none were available. Kramer would ordinarily have shuffled some teenagers out of the children’s ward and into the adult ward to make room for the twins, but there were no empty beds in those wards, either. St. Bart’s, he reflected, should hang out a No Vacancy sign.

I want to see the puppies, Zack repeated.

Kids are little ids, Hodkins would say whenever one of the twins was giving her a hard time. Kramer was less poetic about it but he knew when an elemental storm was brewing in one of his patients. From a little boy’s perspective, eight weeks was forever. Crystal might as well have said eight years. Hurricane Zack was about to touch down because he wanted the puppy NOW.

Just think, boys . . . you’ll be able to pick the puppy out yourselves.

I want a boy, Zeke said without hesitation.

No dummy—a girl. Then she can make more puppies. Zack’s pudgy face showed deep dimples as he grinned. And they can make more puppies. And they can—

The lifestyles of the small and prolific had made an impression on Zack, Kramer realized. Bet it was the hamsters.

Don’t even think about it, said their father. We’re not going to let it have puppies.

The twins exploded with questions as he launched into a halting explanation of how dogs could be kept from reproducing more dogs.

Kramer frowned at the chart he was carrying and edged to the door. Why would Rob tell them such nonsense?

––––––––

The boy in Room 325 was paying no attention to the activity around him. A nurse handing out juice was joking with the children romping about in the sun-bright room. But the boy remained curled up inside himself as tightly as a fiddlehead, oblivious to the laughter around him. The only activity in his area of the room was supplied by the slow movement of the colorful origami airplanes dangling overhead.

Kramer had just meant to pop his head in for a quick look—he was fuming over what Rob Dressler had told the twins and needed a distraction—but he hadn’t been able to resist checking the unresponsive seven-year-old over yet again. Leaving now, with his hand on the door, he looked back, still hesitating, wondering what the boy was thinking about.

(Or had all thinking effectively stopped, refusing to cross the thin line into consciousness, holding back from reliving those minutes when his lungs had worked as furiously as gills, trying to breathe, fighting to deny the conscious knowledge of the hands holding him?)

How’s he doing?

Kramer’s head turned towards the quiet voice. Stuart Moffatt was a slight man with thoughtful eyes that seemed to stare into a landscape unseen by others. Moffatt most often sent his patients to the university medical center if he couldn’t treat them at the free clinic. But the boy was unresponsive enough that he had thought it wiser to check him into St. Bart’s. It had a separate ward for children with psychological problems and an excellent track record. Unfortunately, the hospital was so crowded these days that a bed in the specialized ward had not been available.

Kramer opened the door wider. About the same, I’d say. Jerrit Santos was better physically—the brain damage due to oxygen deprivation was negligible which was remarkable in itself—but he knew Moffatt wasn’t referring to that.

I guess I was wrong, Moffatt said, sounding discouraged. I really felt he might snap out of it if he were around other children.

He ducked past Kramer to enter the room, taking time to smile at the other children before checking the boy’s vital signs. He peeled an eyelid back and looked in the blank eye. Kramer knew what he was seeing.

Something as fleeting as fear.

He went out to wait for him in the hall, knowing how much the boy’s unresponsiveness bothered Moffatt. He’d been the most altruistic of their graduating class and had all but run out of the door with his certificate, so eager was he to begin practicing.

Medicine meant service to Moffatt. He worked at the free clinic and did volunteer work for Doctors Without Borders during his vacations—he’d taken an abrupt one to fly to Indonesia after the tsunami—but he had a family to take care of now. He was in the process of taking over Kramer’s busy private practice, but no one really believed it would slow him down much. Moffatt was still managing an impressive amount of volunteer work at the free clinic downtown.

Moffatt always came back from his vacations (generally at refugee camps in West Africa these days) with his blond hair fried to egg-white and his Nordic skin pink and peeling. But his altruism never burns out, Kramer thought. I landed the right man for the job.

I hate to agree, but you’re right, Moffatt said when he joined Kramer in the hall.

It’s a shame.

It is that . . . I’d transfer him upstairs to the psych wing if I could, but I guess I’ve got no choice for now but to transfer him to the clinic. Say, you guys are sure low on beds.

The new wing can’t open soon enough.

Amen—the father’s out on bail, he added with uncharacteristic abruptness. Crackhead fucker should have been charged with attempted murder. God, Sal . . . what gets into people? He tried to drown him like an unwanted kitten.

They both winced.

Coming out tonight? Kramer asked after a moment.

Me? Hell, no. I’m babysitting the clinic. He gave him a knowing look. Couldn’t figure a way to get out of it, could you?

Well, no, Kramer admitted.

The price of authority—I told you, but your ears are too far away to hear me. You’re going to spend most of your time fielding bullshit, wait and see . . . say ‘thank you’ would you?

What for?

I’m giving you back a bed.

––––––––

He returned to the third floor to find the Dresslers waiting for him at the nurses’ station.

He glanced up from the chart he’d been studying as he walked. So which will it be?

God knows. They’re still arguing about it—should keep them amused for a while.

Kramer couldn’t help himself. He had to say it. Rob, is that really how you think a dog is neutered?

Dressler colored up. Of course not. I figured pills were something they could understand—anyway, he added with surprising belligerence, if you want to get picky about it, I said LIKE birth control pills. He sighed. Zack started yelling that no dog of theirs was going to take any pills.

Surgery was also something the boys could understand, Kramer wanted to snap back. Why lie to them at all? His lips pressed together and he moved away to the nursing station.

Kramer had genuine cause to dislike it when parents lied to their children. Just last week a twelve-year-old girl with leukemia had gone into hysterics, endangering her already fragile health. Fearing her disappointment at missing her weekly ballet lessons, her mother had told her a remission meant a hospital stay of a few days. She had been furious to discover she would be in hospital for a minimum of three months.

The worst offenders, Kramer thought, were the parents unable to cope with their child’s impending death. They pretended nothing was seriously wrong, putting the dying child in the cruel position of being unable to express his or her own grief. Barring sudden accident, every living creature can sense its approaching end. Children needed the truth from the ones they trusted most.

I’m just grateful I didn’t have to go through that with the boys. But it was close.

The twins’ health had taken a worrying turn for the worse—and dialysis was no longer working well for Zack. The Dresslers were in peril of having a choice made for them, but the core dilemma remained. Cold logic dictated that the strongest boy, the one with the best chance of survival, should be the one to receive his father’s kidney. But the circumstances were unique: it was also an option for Zack to receive his father’s donated kidney and for Zeke to go on dialysis in the hopes that a donor kidney would shortly become available for him. However you looked at it, it was an unpalatable choice, but someone had to make it.

Then the beeper had gone off. Crystal, who had been raised in a small Cornwall village, had told Kramer later that she’d experienced the same joy she’d felt at hearing the bells ring out on Christmas morning. It meant a possible donor match had been found.

The twins had been rushed into St. Bartholomew’s for cross-checking. The regimen of drugs necessary to ward off organ rejection was begun in case the match proved successful. It was—the boys had been prepped for surgery. There had been a short delay, but once things got going, the surgery had gone off without a hitch. Zeke had received the cadaver kidney. The same top-notch transplant team had next removed a kidney from Dressler and transplanted it into Zack.

The boys knew more about the ins and outs of surgery than most adults, Kramer thought now. Maybe he was being too tough on Dressler, though—Amber certainly thought he was relentless at times

He shot a furtive look at the couple, noting they’d seated themselves in a fixed row of chairs. Dressler, he realized, looked exhausted. The flesh was sagging off his cheekbones and his eyes had the glassy stare of a sleepwalker.

Kramer experienced a rare flash of guilt. Perhaps he was too exacting. Dressler himself was still recovering from the surgery. He initialed the chart and gave it to the nurse, dredging up a cryptic smile. Incidentally, I told the twins you have X-ray vision and super hearing so you might want to brush up on those.

Jaylene Hodkins had a competitive nature. She looked up with a sassy grin. Give me a pen flashlight and a stethoscope and I can already fake anything a super-hero doctor can, she said, preening.

Ever try faking being a nurse?

Typical doctor, she scoffed. Just proves you can’t handle the competition. It’s about time I got some decent super powers, anyway—the kids always draw you with a cape, but I get stuck with a lousy thermometer.

If you’re tired of being my trusty sidekick, Robin, you could go to medical school yourself.

Sure. But only if you pay for it, Daddy Warbucks.

A patient’s buzzer went off at the switchboard. She noted the room number and her face turned serious under its load of corkscrew curls. The kids loved the way she had begun doing her hair, Kramer knew. The childish curls made her look like a black Raggedy Ann. She varied the style with miniature braids that the twins couldn’t resist asking to touch.

S’cuse me, she said and hurried off down the hall.

The only thing Hodkins took more seriously than challenging authority, Kramer thought, was the well-being of her patients. She could show some of the doctors a thing or two about patient care—including yours truly.

He took a deep breath and exhaled. He walked back to the Dresslers. Sorry if what I said came out the wrong way, he said with deliberate mildness. I’m sure your boys are sick of being sick. But let’s be careful not to get them turned off pills.

The twins were doing well with the immune-suppressant drugs needed to keep their bodies from rejecting their new kidneys, but they would have to take those drugs for the rest of their lives.

Yeah, I know. They’ve got to take them.

Why don’t you let them give the new puppy a vitamin pill now and again? If they get to administer a pill themselves once in a while, that might help.

I guess—yeah, you’re right. It might make them feel better about having to take so many themselves. He looked down at his tiny wife and pushed himself up off the chair. His movement caused a stab of pain that he struggled to conceal.

You coming?

His wife squeezed his arm. You go ahead, duck, and get a coffee. I’ll catch up with you at the car.

Kramer sat down beside her and they watched Dressler shuffle away.

Sorry about Rob—he’s dead on his feet. Our health premiums may be capped soon, so he’s been worried. He’s even going back to work Monday.

A tough guy.

Yes, she said with quick pride. He told me he was always capable of sitting at a desk and writing up insurance policies when he was hung-over, so it should be a snap when he’s just recovering from surgery. She stretched her mouth in a smile that faded too soon.

Kramer chided himself again for jumping on Dressler. The pediatrician’s eyes rounded with concern for Crystal. She had never looked big enough to have produced one baby, let alone twins. And despite the stiff upper lip she assumed in deference to her English roots, it came to him that she was thinner. It’s been a rough go for you, hasn’t it?

We’re the lucky ones, she said with feeling. The twins will be HOME in another week . . . . Rob can pick up some freelance work to tide us over. And as soon as the boys are completely well, I’ll go back to teaching. She smiled with sincerity this time. Then we’ll just be an ordinary family.

Was that what you wanted to tell me?

Um, no. Actually, I wanted you to know that Zeke seems a little down. She fidgeted with the worn straps of her purse and then laughed. I guess I should be talking to Dr. Moffatt. I keep forgetting he’s our new physician.

Me, too, Kramer admitted. It’s hard for me to let go of the boys after all this time. Good thing your new doctor understands. What exactly do you mean by ‘down’? Do you mean depressed?

She hesitated. "Not exactly . . . I suppose what I really mean is that he seems withdrawn. Distant. When I came into the room this morning, Zack was as busy as could be, looking at books and zooming his

Reviews for Give It Back

[readinggrrl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Talk about edge of your seat! Esplin builds the suspense where you are feeling as desperate as the characters to find out what is really happening. Chapters are broken up by characters as we flip back and forth between modern day and the past to try to figure out what lead up to the big mystery. Who is responsible? What happened?The characters are developed really well and with all these characters mixing around each other and a edge of your seat mystery I couldn't put this book down. When I realized I was only halfway through I wanted to cry, I needed to know what was really happening, the suspense was killing me. The book ends on a bit of a cliff hanger, I'm not sure if there is going to be a sequel or if we are just going to be left with questions about what is going to happen.

[kayla.krantz · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

~I received a free copy of this book for my honest review~

As you all know, psychological thrillers are my favorite genre to read and books like this are why! I love the twists and turns, the secrets, and the flawed lives of the three main characters in this story: Lorraine, Lexy, and Ella. While they each seem to live their separately in the beginning, they are all bonded through their secrets in ways I never imagined.

I thought the beginning was a little slow, but once it got into the heart of the story, I was hooked, flipping through page after page until I reached the ending and wanted more! With the way Lexy held onto her secrets, I was left to guess what would happen until the very end, and not once did I guess correctly. That’s probably my favorite part of this whole book…it’s so mysterious. The author does a brilliant job of keeping you in suspense.

Congrats, Miss Esplin, on a job well done!