The blast of the four o’clock train was piercing her ears as Sheila Morgan injected seductive death into her veins. It was warm and stung slightly as she slowly released the long piece of surgical tubing that was tied around her upper arm and the liquified heroin coursed through her. Soon all she felt was a wave of warm fingers caressing her through every vein and artery in her body.
      “Oh, sweet heaven,” she muttered. Her hands caressed her arms like overfriendly lovers and her back arched as she moaned in ecstasy. But then her lover turned cold and heartless. She lay on the bare floor of some building and shuddered as it took over her mind. There was something wrong. She was helpless as the deadly brew attacked her brain and made her shake violently.
      Yep, this was definitely a bad batch, she thought. If she had been able to move she would have laughed. Ms. Sheila Morgan, of the prominent Randal Morgans would be found dead in a crack house of a heroin overdose. As she lay there she could feel her body beginning its final dance. That “death dance” as her twin brother used to call it. They were twelve when they decided to walk to the nearby Seven-11 to get a junk food dinner of nachos (extra cheese and chili), hot dogs with everything, and two Pepsi’s (easy on the ice). The cat was lying on the side of the road convulsing and reddish-black ooze was streaming from a gash in its side. Sheila had turned away but her brother had stayed to watch, occasionally poking it with a stick.
      “Look Sheila, I can make it dance!” He jabbed it again in its side and the thing that had once resembled a cat twitched and writhed. Sheila had dropped to her knees.
      “Shane, you asshole! Its still alive.”
      “Not for long,” Shane said picking up a brick.
      “No, don’t!” Sheila begged. Shane looked at her dead in the eyes and said something that she would never forget.
      “It’s still alive because it doesn’t know that it’s dead. I’m just gonna help it along.” He raised the brick over his head and dropped it on the cat’s mangled skull. The body still writhed and it took a final blow to the base of its neck to still it.
      I wonder what he would say now, Sheila thought. I wonder if he would poke me with a stick to make me ooze. I wonder if I’m alive because I don’t know that I’m dead.
      She felt nauseous and her stomach began to add its peril to the dance. But she hadn’t eaten anything in over two days so there was nothing to come up. What it did bring was agonizing heaves that seemed to get worse. She eventually calmed toward the end and was still. She stared up at the ceiling listening to a distance pulse. It was a steady throb. At first she thought it was her heart, but after she realized her heart had stopped more than a few minutes ago, she struggled for a gasp of air to no avail. It wasn’t her heart at all.
      It was her baby’s.
      Sheila struggled against the coming darkness and then knew nothing.
      * * * *
      Sheila awoke to a small set of dark eyes watching her. She blinked and realized that it was a young girl standing over her.
      “You okay, lady?”
      Sheila struggled to get up and noticed the needle hanging in her arm. She quickly pulled it out and threw it in the corner of the room. It was dark outside but the room was illuminated by the pale, white glow of the street light nearby. She slowly stood up and finding her feet, she smiled at the little girl. The girl was dressed in a red shirt and a pair of small, blue, Winnie the Pooh overalls. Sheila staggered and the little girl grabbed her hand in a futile attempt to help. Sheila sat down hard on the littered room floor. The little girl watched her worriedly.
      “Are you gonna be sick lady?”
      Sheila shook her head slowly. “No, I’ll be all right.” The room was still spinning but she was regaining control. “What’s your name, little one?”
      The girl smiled. “My friends all call me Trisha.” “What are you doing out so late and in a part of town like this? Your mom’s gonna be worried.”
      Trisha shook her head. “I don’t have a mom. She died when I was real little.”
      Sheila winced. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
      “It’s okay. I never knew her.” Sheila tried to stand again, this time successfully. She could not seem to explain it. She felt strange. More alive than alive.
      As she stood, she noticed the old, black woman out of the corner of her eye. She was pushing her way through the broken door and coming her way.
      “Oh my God child! Look what you’ve done to yourself.” The old woman fell to her knees next to a body lying in the center of the room. Sheila wondered how she could have missed it. Then she realized as the old woman turned its head to check for a pulse that the body was hers.
      “What the hell is going on?” she asked frantically, looking at Trisha. The young girl was silent. Sheila walked over to the old woman, who was now breathing into her body’s mouth.
      “What’s going on?!” she screamed, reaching out to her. Her hand slipped through the old woman like air.
      “Oh my!” said the old woman, jumping up. “I have to get help, child. Don’t die yet.”
      “No, don’t go!” Sheila screamed. But the old woman was gone. Sheila turned back toward Trisha.
      “I--” she faced her body again. It lay there in the center of the room, like the dead cat of her youth. She kneeled down and tried to touch the body. All she felt was cold vapor.
      Sheila heard a soft crying behind her. She slowly turned around and saw Trisha huddled in the corner.
      “We’re dead, aren’t we?” Sheila asked. Trisha looked up briefly and then covered her face.
      “Yeah, we’re dead.”
      Sheila paused, a part of her still unbelieving. She had woke up this morning on her boyfriend Rick’s couch. Rick, the bastard wasteoid, as Shane so “lovingly” called him had introduced her to heroin after getting her hooked on crystal meth. It was Rick who was benefiting from this relationship. She flipped the bill and he used the drugs.
      He had scored some “rock” and they had wasted the night away doing hits. When she woke it was late in the day and she had been insanely hungry but ended up buying heroin instead of food. She met up with a pusher on a corner in a not so nice section of town only a few blocks from Rick’s apartment. Well, her apartment. Rick had no job or even a checking account. She paid for everything. He sat on his ass all day smoking crack and playing his guitar dreaming of the day his album would sell. When he got around to recording it, that is. She would probably have to flip the bill for that also. But she didn’t care. She loved him. But his time, she wanted this hit for herself.
      She parked her Grand Cherokee in an alley between two condemned buildings and pulled some boards off one of the doors. The WARNING! BUILDING CONDEMNED sign was worn and tattered and was staring up at her accusingly from its new home on the ground. She had been here before. She had done this before. She had been raped here before. Why the fuck was she here? In a few minutes it wouldn’t matter.
      She pulled up a board in the corner of the room under an old mattress that had blood, sweat, jizz, puke and every other human and animal fluid on it and retrieved the “cooking” kit she had hidden there. Hell, she wasn’t going to get caught with paraphernalia if she didn’t have any dope on her. She rolled up her sleeve and exposed a scarred and bruised arm. She hadn’t cared about it then. She slapped her arm and then tied a piece of surgical tubing around her bicep. Sheila cooked her medicine and let it cool slightly before she pulled the brownish-orange fluid into the syringe.
      That’s when everything got fuzzy. Except for the heartbeat waning in the distance.
She walked over to Trisha and touched her head. “DON’T TOUCH ME!” Trisha screamed. “You didn’t even want me!”
      “You’re her aren’t you? You’re my baby.” Trisha looked up at her. Her dark eyes burned a hole through Sheila with hatred.
      “You never loved me. You were always trying to poison me with your bad medicine.” Trisha held up the needle.
      Sheila swiped it from her small hands. The needle flew through the air and skitted across the bare floor, finally hitting the wall. “Don’t touch that!” The small girl looked up at her. “Why not? You never cared before. It’s not new to me.”
      She sat down by the child and held her. “Trisha, I...I’m sorry. I know that’s a shitty thing to say. I don’t know what else to say. How could I have loved you when I didn’t even love myself? I didn’t know you.”
      “And you still don’t.”
      “I didn’t want to know!” Sheila yelled at the girl. Trisha went over to the window. “I hated what you were!” Trisha stared at the darkness beyond the broken window.
      “You were conceived here you know!” Sheila looked back at the mattress. “Right there! Right, fucking there! On that piece of filth and shit, you were made. Sheila collapsed to her knees crying. Trisha turned. Sheila forced a laugh. “I..I had come here with him after Rick and I had a huge fight. I didn’t even know his name. All I knew was that he has some rock and I had left my money at home and I needed a hit so bad that I would have sold my soul for it. He teased me with it for a while, making me beg for it. And I did it. I BEGGED LIKE A FUCKING DOG!”
      Trisha sat down in the shadows.
      “He finally let me have some. That hit was so fucking good and I needed it so badly. That’s when he attacked me. He forced me down on the mattress and ripped my blouse open. I tried to fight back but the world was a spinning blur and I was helpless. I finally just lay there as he had his way with me. I can still feel him. His dirty, rotten breath in my face. His filthy hands rubbing on my body and between my legs. His tiny needle inside me, injecting his poison. I let him rape me for a fucking trip, Trisha. How the hell was I going to tell you when you were older? How the hell was I going to live with myself? I wanted to die.”
      Trisha began to cry again. Sheila silenced and lowered her head in shame.
      Sirens wailed in the distance. Trisha raised her head. “They’re coming for you.”
      “They’ll be able to save us.”
      “No, one of us has to stay behind. I can’t because I’m not ready. So it’s going to be you.”
      “Trisha, I’m so sorry,” she said, embracing her. She looked at the needle in the corner of the room. “I’ll make it right. I promise I’ll make it right. If you’ll give me a chance.”
      Trisha looked up at her curiously. “How? Why would you want to?”
      “I don’t know. Maybe because I feel if you survive now a good part of me will be out there somewhere and makeup for the hurt I caused. I’ll make it right. I’ll make it right.”
      The ambulance crew rushed into the room and converged upon her body. As they worked Sheila felt herself being pulled back and she held onto the small girl. ”She’s going into labor!” someone screamed. Sheila felt the pain of life returning to her body. The little girl looked up at her mother.
      “Am I gonna die? “
      Sheila held the little girl in her arms.
      So much pain, so much heart ache, so much misery. Maybe it would be better if she did die. She looked into the beautifully big eyes that stared back at her, innocently. They reminded her of her grandmother. “No,” Sheila spoke softly.
      “We’re losing her!” The medic reached into his pack and produced a large needle. A clear fluid filled its body and the other medic ripped open her shirt. Sheila saw the needle plunge into her chest and her body’s instant reaction to it. Sheila held the girl’s hand as she touched her body’s face.
      “We’ve got her! “ One of the medics screamed. The blaring of the siren rung deafeningly in her ears.
      “Come on, sweet heart. I need you to push.” The other cajoled smoothly.
      Sheila felt to weak to do much of anything. She was tired and longed to sleep.
      Mommy? The girls voice echoed in her ears. No, she thought. I have something I have to do. Sheila pushed with her last remaining strength and felt life rush out of her and into the small infant. She was out of her body again. The medics wrapped the infant in a medical blanket as they tried to bring her body back to life. She reached a hand out and touched the crying infant’s cheek. The baby stopped immediately, cooed softly and fell into sleep. The ambulance came to a stop and the crew rushed out of it with her body and the baby. Sheila stood in the hospital’s driveway, a feeling of calm washing over her. As a wave of light began to envelop her, she spoke one last word.
      “Trisha.”