Graveyard Shift

by Melissa Yi

  Bill’s eyes darted toward me, and I tried to mask my emotion. Author Elizabeth Gilbert’s friend once said that instead of a poker face, Liz had a "miniature golf face." Bill didn’t dig my miniature golf face.

  "Hi. This is Dr. Dave Dupuis at St. Joseph's Hospital. I need to talk to the psychiatrist on call, stat. I repeat, psychiatry. Stat."

  "Lori Goody," said Bill's mechanical voice.

  "I need you to transfer a patient named Lori Goody. Stat. No, I can't explain it to you. We need Lori Goody at St. Joseph's Hospital on Cote-des-Neiges. We have a Code Black—"

  Bill knocked the phone receiver out of Dr. Dupuis's hand. Then he whacked him on the head with it.

  Dr. Dupuis tried to cover his head, or at least his glasses, but made no other move to defend himself.

  The plastic phone case splintered, exposing cables and what looked like a circuit board.

  Someone sucked her breath in. No one dared scream.

  This could be it. The final seconds of our lives, watching God get smashed in front of us.

  God made no sound, although I could see the marks on his hands. His glasses bounced on the floor.

  I tensed, forcing myself to stand still.

  Once the phone case split into thirds, Bill ripped the phone cable out of the wall and held it up to Dr. Dupuis’s throat.

  "You fucker. I'm going to kill you."

  25

  "Wait a minute! I have something to tell you about Lori," said Dr. Dupuis, his hands in the air to ward off throttling. He squinted, face naked, without his glasses.

  "You think I don't know what a Code Black is, motherfucker. It means a bomb. If that dumb fuck figures it out—"

  "You're right. I'm sorry. It's about your sister, Lori—"

  "Shut up. You weren't even on duty when she came in. I want Chia."

  The ER fell silent, apart from the IV beeping and the hiss of a solitary blood pressure cuff.

  "Valerie Chia," said the electronic voice, as Bill twisted the cord around each of his hands to get a better grip on it. All the better to strangle you with, my dear.

  I felt light-headed staring at his black form. Physically, Bill could squish me. Hell, he’d already taken on God—not that God had fought back, for fear of the bomb, but Bill had demonstrated that he was as strong as a gorilla and willing to take down our leader.

  Except Dr. Dupuis would never give up Dr. Chia.

  He’d kept her inside the building until daylight to protect her. Instead, she was trapped in the epicentre.

  Dr. Dupuis lowered his hands and spoke evenly. "You can't have Dr. Chia."

  "I have a bomb."

  Dr. Dupuis's expression never wavered. He didn't answer.

  Bomb Guy tossed the phone cord to the floor, causing the secretary to squeal, before he raised his hands toward his chest.

  We all tensed. One woman sobbed.

  I don’t want to die like this.

  I love you, Tucker.

  I love you, Ryan.

  I love you, Kevin. Take care of Mom and Dad.

  "Bill, please!" Roxanne cried.

  Bill reached inside his coat, toward his left armpit.

  Bombers often placed detonators in their pockets. The armpit seemed like a bad choice, since he could accidentally press the trigger by adducting his arm to his chest. What the—?

  He withdrew a black pistol from a shoulder holster, aiming it at Dr. Dupuis’s forehead. "Bring Dr. Chia here. Now."

  This close, Bill wouldn't miss. He placed both hands on the grip, left hand reinforcing his right. He knew what he was doing, unlike actors posing one-handed on TV.

  I’d take a gun over a bomb, but not by much.

  You can’t shoot Dr. Dupuis. You can't shoot God.

  But I'd witnessed other people cut down in front of me before. Denial wasn't protection. It only made you die surprised instead of resigned.

  I sent silent thanks that I'd sent Tucker away. Thank you, Ryan, for getting him out of the city. You have both escaped the death vortex that is Hope Sze.

  Although I’d outlived other killers, this one was the most armed. My best chance of survival was the bomb squad.

  Dr. Dupuis had managed to alert the Glen’s secretary or security guard that we had a Code Black. But that person had to recognize a Code Black and notify the police, who might hem and haw before dispatching someone to another hospital.

  Too many moving parts. I itched to call 911 myself. Cut out the middleman.

  But as soon as the Glen said "St. Joe’s," officers should go on high alert. The police had barely left. Patrick had been shot and I’d nearly been nabbed. It should only take a few minutes for the bomb squad to liberate us.

  Which meant that Bomb Guy had to act immediately, or not at all. He needed Dr. Chia now. The longer we dithered, the higher the chance that she could escape, or that the cavalry would bust our doors.

  Which drove up the risk that we'd all get blasted to pieces.

  I heard footsteps on the tile behind me. Light, hesitant footsteps. I didn’t dare turn around. What if a patient had decided to run interference while Bomb Guy threatened to punch a bullet through Dr. Dupuis’s famous brain?

  The footsteps stopped.

  Bomb Guy kept his gun fixed on Dr. Dupuis, but he snarled out of the corner of his mouth, "What are you doing."

  A woman's voice whispered behind me, "Doctor’s in the call room."

  26

  Someone had ratted out Dr. Chia.

  A woman.

  Shocked silence, followed by somebody moaning in disbelief.

  Not me. I held on to my breathing and followed the gun, remembering what Officer Visser told me: police officers watch hands, not faces. The hands are what’s going to kill you.

  "Say it again," instructed Bomb Guy, still holding his gun at Dr. Dupuis. God’s nostrils flared, but otherwise, he stayed statue-still.

  "Dr. Chia is in the call room," said the woman more distinctly.

  I knew this voice.

  I revolved my head a few degrees to the left so I could identify the traitor.

  Julie, the little preposée, held her arms in the air.

  I’d agonized about her and her son. Andrea had tried to root her out. Now Julie had reappeared in time to help Bill.

  Roxanne—deep down, I didn’t believe that Roxanne would hurt us.

  But I hardly knew Julie. Bill might have worked with her for years, might even have tried taking over Jesse’s empty role.

  What if Julie had gone AWOL while she helped Bill navigate past the metal detectors and security guards?

  Hell, suicide bombers often have handlers who shepherd them into place, encouraging them to press that little button because it's a far, far better thing they do.

  Sometimes the handler triggers the explosion through a cell phone or another wireless device. Makes sense when you think about it. Enough suicide bombers probably back out at the last second, but the handler has fewer hang ups about making the bomber and everyone else go boom.

  What if Julie had masterminded this?

  What had she said at the beginning of the night, about Dr. Chia’s lottery win? Better than getting walked out. I'd assumed she meant an unruly patient like Lori Goody, but maybe she'd referred to the security guards escorting Bill out of the building.

  No, Julie wasn't going to get walked out. She’d toss us in the fire first.

  "Julie!" Dr. Dupuis snapped.

  She ignored him. "You know where the call rooms are? Down there." She pointed to her right, down the shadowed hall. "There's the break room on the right first, with no door. Then you have a door on each side. The staff one is on the right. The one with the shower. So check the first closed door on your right, the one with a combination lock."

  "A lock," Bomb Guy repeated.

  That combination lock was the final, flimsy barrier between him and Dr. Chia.

  Even I didn't know the code to the staff room.

  We all watched Dr. Dupuis.

  Bomb Guy�
��s hands didn’t shake. He had better arm stamina than me as he held the gun between Dr. Dupuis’s eyes.

  "The code to the door," Bomb Guy repeated in his electronic voice, "or I'll shoot you."

  "I don't care if you shoot me. I'd rather be dead than give her up," said Dr. Dupuis evenly.

  Bomb Guy gave a robotic heh heh. "Oh, I wouldn't kill you first. I'd shoot you in the knees. That's what the IRA did, right."

  I shuddered. The electronic laugh. The flat tone. It made it even more obvious that he didn't care about us and would, in fact, enjoy torturing us along the way.

  Dr. Dupuis's shoulders and legs braced, ready to jump him. If I could see it from twenty paces, Bomb Guy must, too.

  "I wouldn’t do that," said Bomb Guy, right hand tucking inside his right coat pocket.

  The detonator!

  We watched Bomb Guy keep the gun up with his left hand while his right stayed on the detonator.

  Dr. Dupuis’s hands fisted.

  Bomb Guy’s non-dominant hand held the gun. We could fight him for it. But the bomb kept us all motionless.

  "I won't give you the code," said Dr. Dupuis.

  "Yeah, maybe you wouldn't, but someone else will. How 'bout that gook?" He waved the gun at me.

  I hit the cold tile floor on my stomach. I have a healthy respect for handguns and all things lethal.

  Bomb Guy laughed. "Yeah, she’s a real hero. All those newspaper articles, all those blogs talking up ‘the detective doctor,’ and this is where she ends up: kissing the floor."

  I’d rather kiss this MRSA-laden floor than your racist ass, I thought, but as long as he was laughing and not shooting or detonating, I could put up with a few more insults.

  My abdominal wall pushed against the floor as I breathed in and out, racking my brain for options. I still wanted to call 911, but I didn’t dare now that he was focused on me.

  "All right, bitch, give me the code."

  "I don't know it. The residents use the other call room. We unlock it with the key on the yellow stick."

  "Yeah? You never played doctor in the staff room with this guy?"

  My eyebrows hitched up to my hairline. I've never thought of Dr. Dupuis that way. God is asexual. To me, anyway.

  "Forget it. I'll shoot the lock off." His hand tightened on the trigger, which he aimed back at Dr. Dupuis. "Kill you, shoot the lock off, grab Chia and the meds. Done."

  He was thinking out loud. It meant he didn't have much of a plan.

  If Julie had been in on it from the beginning, she could have led him to the back door of the staff room, which I believed opened into the hallway, like mine. Or she could have figured out some way to unlock the conference room. Bomb Guy could have busted in through either door, and Dr. Chia might not even have had a chance to scream.

  Unless Julie hadn’t figured out Dr. Chia’s whereabouts until now. Maybe Julie had been roaming the hospital, searching for Dr. Chia while Bomb Guy figured out how to strap dynamite to his chest.

  One thing I knew for sure: Julie hadn’t grabbed me in the parking lot. Too small, too female.

  If Bomb Guy had been one of the two parking lot kidnappers—and using Occam's Razor, he would be—then his buddy waited somewhere. They’d tried to seize me, then shot Patrick.

  I pushed myself up like I was doing cobra pose in yoga and glanced over my shoulder. No second man in black, but that didn't mean squat.

  I did catch Julie out of the corner of my eye. Mouth open. Her hands quivered in the air.

  She wanted no part of this.

  Maybe she hadn't let Bomb Guy in. Maybe Roxanne had. Or, more likely, nobody did. You can always find an unlocked back door into a hospital, and he might have an old ID card that still worked.

  Still, Julie couldn’t give him more precise directions to Dr. Chia unless she’d taken him by the hand and offered him an aperitif along the way. She didn’t give a gob about her, or us.

  She’d sacrifice anyone, as long as she got out alive.

  I might think that way, too, if I had a kid. I don't know. But I felt searing contempt for her. So much for the St. Joe's "family."

  "I have to go to the bathroom!" called an elderly voice from eight o’clock.

  Bomb Guy issued an electronic laugh, probably because he was relieved (har har) that he no longer had to attend to patients' bodily functions.

  While he was distracted by hilarity, I reached for the phone in my front pocket and tucked it under my stomach so I could surreptitiously press and hold the power and a volume button with my right hand.

  Like I’d told Alyssa, that would eventually alert EMS.

  First it activates an SOS on the screen for you to swipe right, but I didn’t dare bob my head again to check the screen. Risky enough that I’d hidden a hand under myself like I was reaching for my goods.

  One Mississippi.

  Two Mississippi.

  Bomb Guy had stopped laughing.

  "The heartbeat of Côte-des-Neiges" would arrest at any moment. As soon as he pressed the detonator.

  "Okay, time to take out a kneecap," said Bomb Guy, sounding almost cheerful as he pulled his hand out of his pocket in order to steady the pistol.

  "You don’t want to do this." Roxanne sounded like she was going to cry.

  That made Bomb Guy’s head shift toward her, and then he noticed my missing hand.

  "What the fuck are you doing?"

  Five Mississippi.

  Bomb Guy strode toward me, cutting through the nursing station.

  Nurses and the secretary half-screamed and ducked under countertops.

  Meanwhile, I scrambled to my feet. I would not lie on the ground for him to execute me.

  "What the fuck am I doing?" he asked himself, and then he pulled the trigger on me.

  27

  I hit the deck a second time. I hadn’t made it two feet.

  Am I dead?

  Tucker had told me that he didn't feel the pain right away when he was shot. First the impact, then the pain.

  I didn't feel anything except the cold floor under my stomach. My teeth chattered, partly from the cold and partly from the shock. I was still within the Plexiglass walls of the nursing station, ten feet away from Bomb Guy’s shoes.

  Where did he get me? How long would it take for me to bleed out?

  "Don't shoot her! Don't shoot her!" Faintly, I heard Dr. Dupuis's frenzied command and everyone else’s screams before Bomb Guy’s electronic shouts overtook them.

  "All of you, on the floor with your hands over your heads! Now!"

  I obeyed, even though my ears rang and my head spun.

  Yes, it made sense to keep all of us helpless and on the ground while he killed me, kneecapped Dr. Dupuis, shot off the lock and grabbed Dr. Chia. I wanted to keep an eye on him, but my own surrendered hands blocked my peripheral vision.

  "Get down." Bomb Guy's electronic bellow penetrated my injured tympanic membranes.

  Again: "Get down!"

  He was ordering God. I knew it. Dr. Dupuis wouldn't drop to the floor, because then Bomb Guy would feel free to abduct Dr. Chia.

  Slight pause before electronica kicked in again: "I don't want to kill you."

  Hey, no fair. Bomb Guy had felt perfectly fine about shooting me. Bang bang, Hope's dead!

  Only I wasn't. As far as I could tell, he'd missed.

  And, since no one else had cried out, maybe he'd missed deliberately. It was more of a warning shot.

  God spoke. "You don't want to do this. You don't want Val. She's your friend."

  "You have no idea what I want," Bomb Guy replied mechanically.

  "Yes, I do. We've worked together since I was a resident. That's what, sixteen years?"

  Bomb Guy didn't answer.

  "Bill," said Dr. Dupuis, "you know I was here Friday—"

  "You didn't do jack shit. No one did. They walked me out. They even handcuffed me!"

  Wow. That was extreme. How’d they get that one past the union? The nurses’ union is almost bulletproof.
During the probation period, admin can let you go, but otherwise, the nurses will fight and fight to be reinstated or, at the very least, terminated without penalty.

  Why did Bill get fired?

  "I hear you," said Dr. Dupuis.

  "You'll fuckin' hear me now. I'm taking Dr. Chia. I'm taking your stock. Lori and me are getting out safe. That's what I told her."

  Safe. Ah. My brain finally clicked. He’d stolen everything from the OR for his sister so that she wouldn't overdose on some unlabelled street Fentanyl analogue. She’d run through the stash, and he’d gotten fired. Now he had nothing to lose. He’d clean us out or die trying.

  "Bill," said Dr. Dupuis.

  "You heard me. Amber gets the drugs, I get Dr. Chia. I’m taking her out. Give me the code if you like your knee caps."

  I winced, my head still against the tile. Taking her out could also mean killing her.

  "Amber, hurry the fuck up. I want Fentanyl, Morphine, Dilaudid, Percocet, Oxycodone, Tramadol. If it's a narcotic, I want it. Oh, and give me all your Ketamine. I'll take your Versed too. All the benzos. I want the vials. I want the pills. I want syringes and clean needles too."

  Ripping off the OR. Bringing a bomb to the ER. Shooting at me. Wiping out our entire drug supply. Even the nurses' union couldn't fight those charges. Not right away, anyway.

  "Don't you have any left over?" said Dr. Dupuis, confirming Bill as the OR thief.

  "No! She needed them all! And after you numb nuts turned me in, I had to sell whatever I could."

  "Bill. Your sister is a sick woman."

  "Then why didn't you help her? Why did you let the police drag her away?"

  "She attacked one of our staff."

  Oh, shit. I tried to make myself as inconspicuous as possible while lying flat on the floor, in scrubs.

  "Yeah? Why shouldn't she? Hell, I'll finish the job off myself. I won't miss the second time."

  "Bill. You can't kill our people here." Dr. Dupuis sounded like he was explaining an algebra problem.

  "Yeah? Watch me. As soon as I've got my stuff—hurry UP, Amber!" he called.

  "I have to enter all different patients' names to unlock the machine! They won't let me take it out!" she shouted back, but her voice barely carried to my muffled ears.