In his investigation of the "cursed numbers," Hurley travels to the middle of the Outback in search of Sam Toomey. Instead, he meets Sam's widow, Martha, who is missing her left leg. Martha explains how she lost it.

 

MARTHA TOOMEY: Sam and Leonard were stationed at a listening post monitoring long wave transmissions over the pacific. Boring job. Sam hated it. Nothing to do but listen to static night after night -- till one night, back sixteen years ago, there's something in the static. A voice cuts through -- a voice repeating those number over and over again.

(Mesmerized, Hurley nearly drops his tea cup. He catches himself and the tea cup clinks against the saucer.)

MARTHA TOOMEY: Couple of days later, we're at the fair in Kalgoorlie, and some Wally there's got this jar. Must have been big as a pony, and it's filled to the rim with beans. Filly's offering fifty grand to anyone able to guess how many beans are in that jar within ten.

HURLEY: Sam used the numbers.

MARTHA TOOMEY: Yep. The answer was exact to the bean. Man had been running the same scam for forty years. Nobody'd ever come close. (She shrugs.) So we won the money. On the way home, a pickup truck blows a tire on the highway, hits us head-on. Lost my leg that night.

(She lifts the hem of her skirt to show Hurley her artificial leg.)

HURLEY: What about Sam?

MARTHA TOOMEY: Barely a scratch. Most people would consider themselves lucky, but not him.

(She stands up and walks over to Hurley.)

MARTHA TOOMEY: He was never the same after that. He started keeping a record.

(She sits down and opens the book to show Hurley.)

MARTHA TOOMEY: Anything terrible that happened to anyone around us --he believed it was all because he used those numbers. He moved us out herein the middle of nowhere, hoping it would stop.

HURLEY: Did it?

(She looks at him.)

HURLEY: Did he ever find a way to make it stop?

MARTHA TOOMEY: Yep. (She closes the book and sets it aside.) He put a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

(Hurley looks away.)

MARTHA TOOMEY: What is it you're looking for, Mr. Reyes?

HURLEY: I used them -- the numbers -- to win the lottery. And now I think I'm under the same curse.

MARTHA TOOMEY: Curse? There's no curse.

HURLEY: But you just told me --

MARTHA TOOMEY: (scoffs) You think I'd still have my leg if Sam hadn't have picked the right number of beans? You think that floods wouldn't have happened, that -- that homes wouldn't have burned down, that people wouldn't have died?

HURLEY: Well, yeah.

MARTHA TOOMEY: You make your own luck, Mr. Reyes. Don't blame it on the damn numbers. You're looking for an excuse that doesn't exist.