The Walking Read Online Free PDF

against the button again, as if trying to hurry the elevator, but when there was no immediate response, he sprinted toward the stairwell door. "I'll call!" he yelled back to Naomi.
    And then he was in the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time, leaping the last few to each landing. On the ground floor, he dashed through the building's lobby and out to his car in the 'adjacent lot.
    St. Luke's. That was over on Winnetka, close to home. His dad had probably been shopping at Ralph's.
    Somehow, knowing where it had happened, knowing the physical layout of the location, brought it home to him, made it more immediate, less abstract, and the panic flared within him. Thankfully, though, it did not seem to impair his judgment or coordination. He did not have to fumble through his key ring to fred the car key, did not have to work with shaking hands to get the car started. If anything, he seemed to be thinking clearer than usual. Everything seemed to be in sharp focus, he had total control over his movements and thought processes, and he sped out of the parking lot, past
    a Salvation Army Santa, and onto Wilshire, zooming effortlessly into a convenient hole in the traffic.
    His luck did not hold.
    All of the streets leading to the Ventura freeway seemed to be under construction, and it was like one of those horrific stress dreams. He'd sit in congestion for two blocks, then finally turn down a side street until he hit another major thoroughfare, only to have the same thing happen all over again. It took him twenty minutes to drive six miles, and by the time he reached the freeway, he was a nervous wreck. His jaw hurt from clenching his muscles, and through his mind ran the dozens of death scenarios he'd imagined while waiting for stoplights to change.
    It was clear sailing from then on out, however, and ten minutes later, he was in the hospital elevator, heading up to the Critical Care Unit.
    His chest felt tight, and though he knew it was only from stress, he could, not help thinking that if he was having a heart attack, this was the best place for it to happen.
    There was a nurses station backed by a wall of monitors just past the elevator, and Miles quickly walked over to the one person who looked up at his entrance, a young Asian man wearing blue scrubs. "I'm lookhg for my father, Bob Huerdeen. He had a stroke and he's supposed to be in the
    CCU."
    It came out as a single frightened sentence, and he was half expecting to be told the worst, but the man was nodding before he'd even finished speaking, walking quickly around the counter to join Miles. "He's in room twelve. Follow me."
    Room twelve was halfway down the hallway and, like seemingly all of the other rooms on this floor, had a big window opening onto the corridor so that the medical personnel passing by could do instant visual checks on the patients inside. Miles saw his father before he even walked
    into the room. The old man was hooked up to machines, IV tubes had been inserted into one extended arm, and he lay there, still and unmoving, eyes closed, as though he was dead.
    Miles followed the--intern? doctor? nurse? attendant?--through the open doorway into the room. He'd steeled himself for an onslaught of emotion, but none came. There was no sadness, no tears, no anger, only the same fear, dread, and panic that he'd been experiencing since Naomi first told him his father was in the hospital.
    Inside, the room was silent, the only sound the persistent beep of heart-monitoring equipment. Miles cleared his throat before speaking, and the noise was deafening in the stillness. When he spoke, his voice was a reverent whisper. "Are you the doctor?"
    The other man shook his head, whispering also. "I'm an intern. The doctor is on his rounds. He should be back in fifteen minutes or so, but I could get him if you want."
    "So there's nothing.." life-threatening? I mean, my dad doesn't have to have emergency surgery or something?"
    "Your father almost died. Could have died. As it