Story code: ST-001220
Part 4: The Anchor
The red indicator light on the cracked phone screen pulsed like a digital heartbeat. Eighty thousand anonymous pairs of eyes stared through that shattered lens, waiting for Elias to do what he was famous for. They were waiting for him to turn his back on a dying person and disappear into the periphery. The freezing November wind howled down the street, rattling the hardware store’s awning, but Elias could only hear the rushing blood in his own ears and the sickening, rhythmic thud of the girl’s skull striking the frozen concrete.
She convulsed violently, her jaw clamping shut with bone-jarring force. The studio lights flashed in Elias’s mind, blinding and hot, but as he stared at the girl’s pale, sweat-slicked face, the memory shifted. The glaring white lights faded into the dim, jaundiced yellow of a cheap bathroom fixture. The man in the studio vanished, replaced by the memory of his younger brother, Marcus.
Marcus had looked exactly like this. The same blue tint spreading across the lips. The same agonizing, full-body rigidity, a total system failure brought on by the very same pharmaceutical plague that was currently short-circuiting this stranger’s brain. Elias had been too late for Marcus. He had found him cold on the linoleum, another quiet casualty of an epidemic that hollowed out towns and broke families. The grief had driven Elias to that disastrous television interview in the first place, a desperate, misguided attempt to speak out that had ended in panic and tragedy.
He had run from the studio because he was terrified. If he ran now, he would be exactly the monster the internet believed him to be.
Elias blinked, the freezing air biting at his eyes. The paralysis shattered. He didn’t scramble backward into the shadows. Instead, he reached up and seized the brass zipper of his heavy denim shop apron, yanking it over his head in one fluid motion.
He stepped squarely into the center of the cracked phone’s camera view.
Dropping to his knees on the icy pavement, Elias ignored the frantic, blurring waterfall of text on the glowing screen. He folded the thick canvas apron in half and gently but firmly wedged it beneath the girl’s thrashing head. The heavy material instantly cushioned her skull, absorbing the violent impacts against the concrete.
“I’ve got you,” Elias said, his voice loud and steady, cutting through the biting wind.
He placed one hand on her trembling shoulder and the other on her hip, using his weight to roll her firmly onto her side. The bloody foam that had been pooling in her throat spilled out onto the edge of the canvas apron, instantly clearing her airway. Her harsh, ragged gasping immediately sounded wetter, deeper, and less restricted. He kept his hands securely on her, maintaining the recovery position, anchoring her to the earth while her nervous system raged.
With his left hand holding her shoulder, Elias reached into his pocket and pulled out his cheap, prepaid flip phone. He pressed the numbers with a cold, calloused thumb, holding the speaker to his ear. He looked directly down at the shattered smartphone on the ground. The camera was still recording. He was perfectly framed, a disgraced ghost willingly stepping back into the harsh light.
“911, what is your emergency?” the dispatcher’s voice crackled through the earpiece.
“I need an ambulance at Higgins Hardware on Main Street,” Elias said, his voice carrying clearly into the streamer’s microphone. “I have a young woman in severe opioid withdrawal. She is actively seizing. Her airway is clear, but she needs paramedics right now.”
“Can I get your name, sir?” the dispatcher asked.
Elias stared at the chat. The insults and pitchforks had suddenly paused, replaced by a confused, rapid-fire stream of question marks and stunned silence. They were watching the monster build a protective wall around his victim.
“My name is Elias,” he said. He gave his full last name. The name he hadn’t spoken aloud in three years.
The store’s front door creaked open behind him. The cacophony of ringing landlines and screeching fax machines spilled out onto the sidewalk. Higgins stood in the doorway, his white cane sweeping anxiously over the threshold, his blind eyes wide with confusion.
“Elias?” the old man called out, shivering in his thin cardigan. “What’s going on out there? The phones… they’re saying terrible things.”
“I’m right here, Mr. Higgins,” Elias called back, not breaking his grip on the girl. “Someone got sick outside. I called an ambulance. Go back inside where it’s warm. I’ll handle the phones when I come back in.”
Higgins hesitated, then gave a slow, trusting nod. “Alright, son. You stay with her.”
Elias knelt on the freezing pavement, his knees soaking through with the winter damp. The girl’s convulsions finally began to slow, her tight, clawed hands relaxing into loose, exhausted fingers. The wail of approaching sirens drifted over the tops of the brick buildings, growing steadily louder. Elias looked at the cracked phone one last time. The red light was still blinking, but the cage was gone. He reached out and placed his hand flat over the screen, pressing the world into total darkness.