The Donors

by Jeffrey Wilson

  Apparently, he can call out to you from pretty much anywhere, so you’ve got that going for you. Which is nice.

  A few minutes later, Jason hurried down the hall toward the recovery room, his bloody shoulder bandaged, anxious to see Nathan in one piece with his own two eyes. He walked up to the imposing double doors to the recovery room, the big red Staff Only sign in the middle, and pushed the silver plate beside the door. Nothing happened. For a moment he felt confused, but then remembered—the door was swipe-card protected to keep people out. Naturally his ID and swipe card were hanging on his lab coat—down in the ER residents room.

  For a moment he thought about running down and grabbing them, but the thought of waiting another five minutes to see Nathan felt unbearable. Jason pushed a gray button in the middle of a black speaker-looking square and heard a buzz and an electronic tone. Then a Hardee’s Drive Thru voice squawked at him.

  “Recovery Room. How can I help you?”

  “Hi,” Jason said, leaning awkwardly toward the black box. “This is Dr. Gelman from Emergency Medicine. I have a patient in there and I don’t have my ID with me. Can you let me in?”

  There was a long pause and he wondered for a moment if they had heard him. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to push the damn button when he talked. He leaned over to speak again, but then the static-filled speaker barked at him.

  “Patient’s name?”

  “Nathan Doren.”

  After a moment the voice answered.

  “He’s not here.”

  Jason felt the now-familiar band around his chest and throat. What the hell are they talking about? What had happened? He had to be in recovery by now.

  “Whadya mean he’s not there?” he demanded as he pushed the button hard enough this time to bend back his thumbnail. He noticed with detached interest that the nail had filthy dirt from the cave under it. “He just got out of surgery a few minutes ago, for God’s sake.” The next pause felt eternal and he nearly left to jog over to the OR and make sure Nathan wasn’t still in the room having a problem.

  “Mr. Doren is an ICU patient, sir,” the clown voice said. “ICU patients are recovered back in the ICU, sir.” Jason spun around without bothering with an answer and headed for the elevators. “Have a nice day, sir,” the box taunted after him. Jason flipped the wall box a middle finger, then blushed at the eighty-year-old volunteer in her red smock, who raised a hand to her mouth at the gesture.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled.

  He skipped the elevators and jogged up the three flights of stairs to the sixth floor. At the door to the ICU, he pressed his fingers to his temples in frustration. He still had the same frigging swipe card problem. Another gray button on another goddamn fast-food speaker laughed at him from beside the door and he pushed it gently trying in vain to slow the rise of a miserable headache.

  “Yes?” a nicer voice said.

  “It’s Dr. Gelman,” he said as patiently as he could and started to launch into his explanation when the doors swung open.

  Thank God.

  “Good morning, Dr. Gelman,” a nurse he had never met said as he entered.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Good morning.”

  “How’s Jenny?” the young nurse asked with a sly smile and a knowing insider’s wink. “Is she enjoying her days off?”

  “She’s great,” Jason said with a forced smile and hoped it was true.

  Nathan’s eyes looked heavy with sleep, but they were open and he looked happily at Jason when he entered. Sherry Doren held her boy’s good hand and smoothed his hair with her other. She smiled when she saw him.

  “Hi, Dr. Gleman—I’m sorry—Jason,” she corrected.

  “Hi, Sherry,” he said. “And how are you doing, big guy?” He winked at Nathan, the world suddenly becoming not such a terrible place, at least for a moment.

  “Good,” Nathan said, his voice still thick with anesthesia and narcotics. “Thank you for coming.”

  Jason suspected that they both knew what he meant, and it had nothing to do with his surgery.

  “Were you with him in there?” Sherry asked.

  “For most of it,” Jason answered. His shoulder burned to remind him of where they had been. “Everything went great.”

  You have no idea, lady.

  “So when do you think he can go home?”

  Jason felt a heat spread over him. That issue had danced around in his head for the last day, but now that he had been to the cave and knew that Jenny was in real danger; the importance of the issue exploded in size.

  “The Burn Service doctors are gonna want to watch the graft closely for at least a few days,” he said. “He can probably leave the ICU soon, but I would count on another couple of days in the hospital.”

  Sherry nodded. She seemed quite content to keep Nathan in the safe and secure environment. He wondered if she would feel as content if she knew where he went when his eyes closed. Jason sat on the edge of the bed across from Nathan’s mom and looked affectionately at the groggy boy.

  “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah,” Nathan answered. He looked over at his mom. “Mommy, can you get me some juice, please?”

  “Sure, baby,” Sherry said. She seemed relieved to have something to do to take care of her boy. She kissed him on the forehead and then stood up and smoothed her shirt with both hands. Jason noticed that her eyes were puffy and guessed she had been crying. “You want apple or orange?” she asked.

  “Apple, please,” Nathan answered.

  “Okay—apple it is.” She gave Jason another sad smile and headed out the door. As soon as she was gone, Nathan took Jason’s hand.

  “You got out okay,” he said and immediately sounded much older than the child who had just asked his mommy for some juice. “I was worried you could get stuck and I knew the Lizard Men were tryin’ to get you.” He squeezed Jason’s hand.

  “I’m fine,” Jason said. A wet trickle under his jury-rigged bandage reminded him he wasn’t exactly unscathed, but he would get to that in a little while. “I’m really proud of you, Nathan. I can’t believe how brave you are.”

  Nathan smiled, but his eyes still looked heavy and Jason no longer believed it was just the anesthesia.

  “What are we gonna do, Jason?” he asked. “They won’t stop now, ‘cause I think they got a taste for it.” He stared off for a moment and Jason felt helpless that he couldn’t keep the boy away from the horrible images that must have been replaying in his mind. He had no idea what to say, but he knew Nathan was right—they had to stop these creatures somehow. They had done enough harm.

  “I don’t know what we’re gonna do, buddy,” he said and put a hand on Nathan’s shoulder. “But we’ll do something. I promise. And I will definitely keep you safe.”

  Nathan looked at him quizzically. “I’m not worried about that,” he said simply. “We gotta save Jenny and then stop them from hurting other people. What if they start to hurt people who aren’t bad? What if they try to hurt Jenny?” Jason saw a rim of tears pool in the boy’s eyes. He bent over and gave him a hug.

  Nathan let himself be held for a moment, but then pushed back out of the embrace. “You gotta go and check on Jenny, okay?”

  “Okay,” Jason agreed and then panic grew inside him. “Do you think something bad is happening right now?” he asked. “Is she in trouble?”

  Nathan shook his head. “I don’t know.” Jason thought he looked at a miniature old man. “I don’t think so, but I’m not sure. I think if she’s gone from the cave she’s safe for now,” he concluded.

  Jason nodded. He realized, though, that he needed desperately to get to the apartment.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll go find her.”

  “Can you bring her by here?” Nathan asked. His voice sounded scared and more like a little boy’s now. Jason was relieved that for a moment he could be the grown-up.

  “Sure, buddy, and if you need me, do you think you can call me again in our heads?” Jason had a sudden sense of how
insane this conversation sounded.

  “I can try,” Nathan said. “I don’t know if it works if I’m not in the cave.” Their eyes met and Jason’s heart broke for the umpteenth time. “I don’t wanna go there without you anymore.”

  “I know,” Jason said. He couldn’t think of anything else.

  “Apple juice,” Sherry announced from the door, ending any additional conversation. “I brought one for you, too.” She handed a plastic cup to Jason.

  “Thanks, Mommy.” Nathan reached out for it. He sounded like a five-year-old again and for some reason that made Jason feel better. “Jason is gonna try and bring Jenny by later,” he said enthusiastically.

  “Oh, that’s nice, She’s you’re favorite, huh, sweetie?”

  “They both are,” Nathan answered with a child’s honesty and sipped his juice through the bent straw.

  Jason rose off the corner of the bed. “Well, I better get going so I can come back by later, okay?”

  “Okay,” Nathan said happily.

  “You have my numbers if you need anything, right? If anything happens?” he said to Sherry.

  “Yeah,” Sherry answered nervously. “What’s gonna happen?”

  “Oh, nothing,” Jason answered. “I don’t mean to worry you. He’s doing great.” He bent over and kissed Nathan on top of the head. “I just want you to know you can call if you need anything at all.”

  “Thanks so much, Dr. Gleman.” Sherry shook his hand warmly.

  “I’ll see you both later,” he said, waving from the door. “Get some sleep, buddy.” He immediately regretted it.

  “Bye,” Nathan waved back.

  Jason hustled out of the ICU with a quick I-know-what-it-is-you-know smile at the nurse who had greeted him, then jogged down the hall for the stairwell door. His shoulder burned and definitely needed attention, but right now he wanted to get home to Jenny. Then he slapped his own forehead.

  It’s not the eighteenth century, dumbass. Call her on the phone.

  He didn’t have her cell number, but he thought he could still remember her home number from the call he had received last night. Jason snuck in the back entrance to the ER through the Resident’s Lounge, grateful that this door had a push-button lock instead of a swipe. He felt even more grateful that he found the lounge empty. He grabbed the phone off its hook on the wall and pushed the number in from memory. A lump filled his throat when there was no answer after the third ring, but then he heard the click of the receiver and closed his eyes in relief.

  “Hello?” a sleepy, beautiful, sexy voice said. “Jason, is that you?”

  “Hey,” he said. For a moment he couldn’t think what else to say. “Are you okay?”

  He listened to silence for a minute and felt uncomfortable. “Yes,” she finally said. “Where are you? Did you go to get coffee? Are you coming back?” Her voice held more than a hint of need, but she sounded fine otherwise.

  “I had to do something real quick,” he said. “I’ll explain when I get home.” He screwed up his face at the mistake. “Sorry, I mean when I get to your apartment, if you still want me to come back.”

  “Yes, please,” she said with glee he could hear. “I’ll wait right under these warm covers for you.”

  “I’ll hurry,” he said with his own big smile.

  Jason hung up the phone and decided to quickly repair his shoulder in the locker room so he wouldn’t have to do it in the bathroom at Jenny’s. For a moment he thought about asking one of his fellow residents to sew his wound for him; suturing it himself in a mirror would be a huge pain in the ass. Jason decided that would still be less painful than coming up for an explanation for the filthy gash.

  The ER looked crazy busy and no one even acknowledged him as he snuck into the supply room and grabbed some sterile water, betadine scrub, lidocaine to numb his skin, and some sutures. He took the supplies back to the men’s locker room and shower area and ten minutes later his wound was clean and closed. The stitches were a little crooked—it turned out to be harder than he thought to suture backward in a mirror and he had to kind of do it one handed—but it was good enough. He put a fresh bandage on and hurried out of the hospital to get to Jenny’s.

  As Jason entered the walkway to the parking garage, he noticed the figure in scrubs slumped against the glass wall. The man looked either exhausted or racked with grief, neither of which was at all uncommon for doctors at the training hospital—especially residents who still worked the impossible hours of doctors-in-training. As he got closer, he realized he knew the guy.

  “Doug?” he said, a little unsure, as he approached. The man looked over with hollow eyes. The unshaven face stared back at Jason without recognition. Jason realized it was definitely Doug Driscoll—one of the Surgery Chief Residents—and he looked like absolute shit. “Doug, it’s me—Jason Gelman. We did the Trauma Service together last year, remember?”

  The hollow eyes stared back at him in silence.

  “Dude, are you alright?”

  “Jason?” The face looked confused, then the man’s mouth finally closed and he swallowed hard. His eyes seemed to clear only slightly and he smiled. The smile sent a chill through Jason. He saw no joy in it. Instead it seemed the manic smile of a man with some serious-ass problems. “Hey, Jason. Whassup?” An even more disturbing rattling laugh escaped from the guy’s mouth.

  “Let me help you, bud.” Jason put an arm around Doug’s chest, pulling him to his feet. At first his friend felt like dead weight, but Doug finally tossed an arm around Jason’s neck and got his feet under him. “Maybe we should get you to a call room for a couple of hours of sleep before you try and head home. Whatdya’ say, man?”

  The surgeon pushed hard against him and scrambled back against the wall as if Jason had suddenly turned into some terrifying animal.

  “No!” he said, backpedaling away from Jason and toward the door. “No, you don’t get it. They can get you in your sleep. That’s when they come for you. I don’t want to do it anymore.”

  Jason realized his fellow resident had cracked up. “Well, maybe we can just turn your pager off for a while. How’s that sound? We can get one of the other chiefs to hold it, okay? They can’t wake you if the beeper’s off, right?”

  The man’s eyes cleared a little more and he seemed to really recognize Jason for the first time. He looked around as if he just then realized where he was. Then he seemed to calm down.

  “Wow.” He sounded embarrassed. “Sorry about that.”

  “Long night?” Jason asked, watching the surgeon closely. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” Doug answered. “Long night. I’ll be okay now.” He gave another grin that Jason found disturbing. “I’m fine in fact. It’s really gonna be over now.” He straightened himself up and started toward the door that exited the walkway to the street.

  “You sure you don’t want me to help you home?” Jason called after him. “You look exhausted.”

  “Nah,” Doug answered with a little wave over his shoulder. “I need to do this alone.”

  Jason watched as his friend pushed through the door and started down the block between the hospital and the parking deck, out toward the main road.

  “Okay,” he mumbled. He watched after the Chief Resident for only a moment and then hustled down the hall toward the garage.

  Jason stopped dead in his tracks at the jarring blare of the horn, the squeal of locked-up car wheels skidding across asphalt, and a horrible, crunching thud. He turned slowly, and then sprinted toward the exit door and down the block.

  The silver Lexus Sedan’s driver screamed as she saw the same thing Jason did, but to Jason the scream sounded far away. He stared in horror at his friend’s crumpled body, pinned beneath the left front tire of the car. The entire torso had twisted around backward—the upper body faced up into the cars smashed grill and the hips and legs faced down.

  Above the neck there remained nothing but mangled flesh and part of the lower jaw—the rest of the head a dark, wet smear behind the c
ar. Dark blood soaked the green scrub suit and formed a rapidly growing puddle around the neck and shoulders of the corpse. Little jets of red blood still pulsed out of the neck, the heart having not yet realized the futility of beating. An older man in a suit cried uncontrollably.

  “He looked right at me! What the hell? He looked right at me and smiled and then he dove right under my car,” the woman driver sobbed. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”

  Jason closed his eyes, covered his ears with his hands and then turned away and sprinted for the parking garage. He had no idea why the sight of his fellow resident smeared all over the road suddenly filled him with dread for Jenny’s safety. He needed desperately to be with her, to hold her, and to know she was okay.

  There was nothing more he could do for Doug.

  Chapter

  15

  Nathan drifted, but felt no real worry that he would head back to the cave. Something made him feel he would be safe for now, so he let himself go toward the comfort of sleep. He thought about Jenny, mostly, and whether Jason would find her like they both hoped. He didn’t worry because he thought that if she was in trouble she would have still been in the cave when they had checked, either suffering or dead. He knew that they had to do something to keep her out of the cave, though.

  Yep. You gotta Power Up, Ranger. She’s gonna need you more than you think, and really soon.

  He guessed that was right, but hoped that Jason knew what they had to do, ‘cause he sure didn’t.

  I really am just a kid, even if I am almost six.

  His hand didn’t really hurt, not yet at least, but it had started to tingle and he figured it would start to hurt pretty soon. He thought about pushing the little button that the nurse had put beside him in the bed, the one that gave the stronger pain medicine. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t go to the cave unless he chose to now, but he didn’t want the funny feeling he got with the medicine. He would wait a little longer, until he really needed it.