Part 1 (2/2)

I didn't need to ask who them was. Them was the vampires that'd tried to kill me. And also the zombie boyfriend who'd needed to leave town. I'd felt pretty disposable then. The new scars didn't help me to not feel like that either.

”So no heroics. Be safe. I want to keep you around.”

I was genuinely glad someone unrelated to me did. ”Thanks.”

”You're welcome.” He finished his soda and stood. ”Let's get back. Only five hours of films to go.”

We bundled up and pressed outside again. ”What do you think the next film will be?” I should have gotten a Diet c.o.ke for the road. Maybe then the need to pee would keep me awake through cla.s.s.

”Ignoring Ebola: One Thousand Ways to Die,” Charles suggested. ”Or Mr. Radiation, Uncle X-Ray's Spooky Friend.” He did a little cartoon dance, and I laughed.

”I liked the one where they explained how to evacuate the hospital by taking people down the stairs one at a time.” I wasn't even sure Y4 had stairs. I'd only ever taken the elevator in and out.

”G.o.d. If we did that, it'd end up being some sort of horrible Hurricane-Katrina thing. Some people would get left behind, others'd make bad choices. If it ever gets that bad, I'm staying home.” Charles. .h.i.t the b.u.t.ton to change the intersection's light, and I decided to press my luck.

”So tell me about the were attack?”

Charles kept his eyes on the light across the street, but I could see him squinting into the past. ”Ask me when we have advanced life support recertification. We can trade war stories then.”

”Fair enough.”

There was a man with tufts of white hair sticking out from under his snow cap six lanes across from us, pacing back and forth. At first I thought he was just trying to stay warm, but as he moved I could tell by his bearing that he was angry. The traffic between us slowed as the light changed. Charles and I stepped off the curb at the same time as the other man did. We were across half a lane when a truck that'd seemed to be slowing down for the red light sped up instead. I heard the engine s.h.i.+ft gears, looked up, and saw the man coming toward us do the same.

It hit him.

He crumpled forward against the hood, arms out, like he was hugging it in a moment of game-show triumph. Then it launched him into the air. I stopped in the middle of the road, stunned, unable to believe that I was actually watching someone fly. He made an arc, landed, bounced, and skidded to a stop, smearing red behind himself.

Half a second for the impact to occur, another half a second for the landing, and then the sound of screeching brakes as all other rightful traffic through the intersection came to a halt-except for the truck, which kept going. It missed the man's landing body by inches, and drove away with his blood in its tire treads.

”Jesus Christ,” Charles said, and started to run for the injured man. I ran after him.

CHAPTER TWO.

”I've already called nine-one-one!” yelled a bystander. I could hear someone retching behind me as we reached the man's still form.

”Everybody back! We're nurses!” Charles yelled.

f.u.c.k me f.u.c.k me f.u.c.k me. I was no paramedic. I was used to people whom the emergency department had already cleaned up and put tubes and lines in. He was so injured-where to even begin? Charles knelt down, putting his fingers on the man's neck. ”He's got a pulse. He's breathing.” I knelt down beside him. Dark bruises were blossoming around both the man's eyes.

”Racc.o.o.n eyes,” I whispered, having only seen it once before, on a trauma test in nursing school.

”Brain shear, go figure.” Charles spared me a dark glance.

We had no supplies. We couldn't move him and risk his spine. One of the man's legs was twisted the wrong way, denim torn open, exposing meat and bone below. A moment earlier, and we'd have seen the stuffing of him, ragged edges of skin, yellow-white subcutaneous fat, red stripes of muscle tissue. But that moment had let his blood catch up with his injuries, and now it welled out from arteries and leaked from veins. It filled up his wounds, overflowing their edges and spilling out like oil onto the ground. When it began to ebb, I gritted my teeth and reached in, pus.h.i.+ng against his broken leg's femoral artery. Blood wicked through the fabric of my glove and was hot against my hand.

”Here's an old-timer trick.” Charles knelt straight into the stranger's thigh, his knee almost into the groin, only pausing for me to pull my hands out of the way. The blood leaching out of the man's leg subsided-although that might've been because there wasn't much left. ”It'll clamp down the artery completely.”

I inhaled to complain now was not a good time for cla.s.s-but I stopped when I realized teaching was what Charles did to cope. Our patient groaned and tried to move his head. I crawled through the gravel and broken gla.s.s up to the man's head. ”Sir, you can't move right now. There's been a bad accident.” I put my hands on either side of his head. His snow cap had been peeled off, along with part of his scalp, and his wispy white hair was sticky with blood. ”I'm so sorry, just please stay still.”

”Aren't you going to breathe for him?” someone behind me asked. I glanced back and saw a man with a cell phone jutting forward.

”What is wrong with you?” I swatted the phone out of his hand, sent it skittering into a slick of blood stained snow by the curb. ”Show some respect!”

”Hey! That's my new phone!” The bystander started pawing gloved hands through the grimy snow to get what was his. There was a shadow there, cast by the man himself, and I saw it shudder, swallowing the phone inside its blackness like a throat. I wondered if it'd been a trick of the light.

The injured man moved again, reaching up a hand to fight me. ”No no no no no,” I said, but he continued to clutch my wrist with the strength of someone who had nothing left to lose. ”Stay still, okay? It's all going to be fine,” I said, knowing I was lying. ”Just stay still.”

He groaned and the shape of his jaw s.h.i.+fted, becoming narrow and more angular. His teeth pressed forward, stretching against the limits of his lips, lengthening, showing yellow enamel. His beard began to grow-just like fur. ”Charles?” I asked, my voice rising in pitch. It was daytime, on a cloudy December day-but I looked over my shoulder and saw Charles's face turn dusky, like the surrounding gray sky.

”Code Fur, Edie. We need Domitor, now.” He fished in his coat pocket for a phone. ”I'm calling the floor.” The sound of a distant ambulance began in the background. ”Get back here before they do.”

I stood, found my footing in the ice and blood, then I was gone.

I froggered through the rubberneckers on either side of the highway, then hit the edge of the hospital grounds, my feet pounding against cement. Fortunately we de-iced the sidewalks as a courtesy to our patient population, who frequently had to crutch, walker, or wheelchair themselves in. The frozen dead lawn was too slick and treacherous to run on.

I ran past the office complexes that kept our bureaucracy running, between twenty rows of cars in an employee parking lot, around the edge of our loading docks, and made a beeline for the main hospital doors.

Running through the hospital as a nurse in scrubs is easy-people get the h.e.l.l out of your way, a.s.suming you've got someplace important to be. Running into the lobby in civilian gear covered in blood, however- ”What's going on?” Our officer-guard held his hand up and looked behind me for pursuit.

”Emer-gen-cy-” I gasped. I yanked my badge out of my back pocket, dangling it for inspection as I brushed past him. ”Gotta go-”

”Not so fast-”

”Gotta go!” I yelled and ducked down the next hallway, running for the stairs.

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