Free The Vicarage Bench Anthology by Mimi Barbour Page B

girl. “You’re extremely pale, my dear, and you’re trembling.” He clutched her shaking hand and patted it consolingly. “I think you’re unwell, but don’t upset yourself, there’s an ambulance coming. Mr. Parks has passed out, and we need to get him help.”
    A young man from the crowd bent over the fallen man and used his fingers to check the pulse in Rhett’s neck. He nodded to the vicar, whose expression lightened.
    “I have not passed out. I’m right here. I’m… What the hell is going on? How can I be here and my body be lying over there? Where am I?” He looked down and saw a blue dress draped over the skinny knees in front of him. The hands he held up were slender, with long fingers and beautifully manicured nails. A small pinkie ring adorned one hand and flickered with the smallest diamond he’d ever seen.
    “What in blazes is going on?” He could have sworn he’d bellowed out the words but the sound he made was weak and feminine and whined more than it roared. “Is this some kind of joke?”
    “Not at all a joke, Miss Temple. Not for poor Mr. Parks, it isn’t. The man’s out cold and hasn’t moved a muscle since we found him.” The vicar was elderly and clearly disturbed. “Mr. Parks buried his father this morning, and I’m wondering if he isn’t suffering a form of grieving trauma. I thought him a cold, uncaring man at the graveside, but this teaches me a lesson. People suffer in many different ways.”
    The approaching ambulance’s siren made talking difficult as it screeched to a stop in front of the bench. Two conscientious attendants bundled the fallen man onto a stretcher and carried him to the back of the ambulance. The vicar pranced alongside, providing the driver with the facts of the peculiar incident, embellishing them somewhat.
    “Vicar, would it be possible for you to come with us to the hospital so you can describe to the doctors exactly what happened? Miss Carrie might appreciate your support, also.” The paramedic appealed to the vicar’s sense of responsibility toward one of his flock.
    “Of course, my boy. I don’t know as how my slight knowledge of the incident will be of much use. It was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen. The man just keeled over.” The prattle continued as he disappeared into the front of the waiting vehicle. Being the center of attention, a favored role for the vicar, made his day.
    By the time the paramedics turned to a befuddled and nauseous Carrie, her fear of hospitals had kicked in. She tried refusing to go along but was compelled to stop arguing. A strong force from within had taken control of her senses, and in no time she found herself next to the talkative vicar in the front of the ambulance. His loud tone trying to override the screeching vehicle wasn’t helping her looming migraine.
    “Doesn’t the old geezer ever shut up?” a cynical voice inside her head stated clearly. She shut her eyes and willed herself not to think in such a manner. It wasn’t very Christian-like.
    Soon she was sitting in the nondescript Emergency Area, waiting to see the doctor. She was aware of a strange, unwanted presence raging inside her. She tried restraining the force, but her power was like a leaf in a tornado. Speech resonated, echoing in her head. To cover it up, she started carrying on a conversation with herself—babbling. “I’ve lost it. I’ve finally cracked. I knew it would happen sooner or later, what with all the pressure I’ve been under recently. Now it’s happened. I’m bonkers, a raving lunatic. I suppose I’ll be dribbling next, smashing my head into the wall and playing with my hair, drooling…”
    “Oh for heaven’s sake, stop it. Your chatter is driving me crazy.”
    “Hold it! I’m thinking. I’m not talking out loud. You have no right to shush me in my own bloody head. Oh, God. I am mad.” Both hands slapped over her mouth as if to stop it from moving, except it hadn’t…
    “If you are, then I am, too.