Nightshifted es-1

by Cassie Alexander

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I had the whole drive into work to think about ways I could have handled things better. Maybe if I’d just stopped things after that first night. Dammit. I knew better than to ride the same ride twice.

  I tromped into the hospital and took the elevator down to Y4. At least being angry at Asher had stopped me from thinking about my upcoming vampire trial. Or about small childlike footprints in the snow that may, or may not, have been created by a small childlike vampire.

  Only one way to know. I had to get some blood.

  * * *

  Most drugs are clear, their amounts so small as to have been completely diluted in the saline we give them in. Putting them into a person—you know it helps, but there’s no visual. It’s not satisfying.

  But blood transfusions look dramatic. It’s the stuff of life running in, and there’s this ritual with another nurse before you hang it—unless you’re running it into a vampire during a ceremony, whereupon transfusion reactions mean lunch buffet—when you recite batch numbers and blood types like a short scientific mass. Someone can die if you get it wrong. Always a thrill. Even before my time on Y4, I’d loved the process.

  That night, it was my turn to hang blood. Gina did the paperwork with me, her normal enthusiasm somewhat restrained.

  “You sure you’re okay?” she asked, for the fourth time.

  “Okay for now.” I took the identifying paper off the packed red blood cells and handed it to her. “What would I be doing at home?” I knew what I’d be doing at home. Walking around my parking lot shouting, “Anna? Annnnnna!” like I was calling a lost cat. “I’m being far more useful here.”

  “If you say so,” she said, signing out my transfusion sheet. I stuck it into the chart, with both our signatures.

  I watched the blood go in as my patient watched TV and ate Jell-O. When there were just a few cc’s left, I stopped the transfusion and took down the bag. Normally you ran blood in till it went almost dry, and you flushed the end in with saline, so the patient got down to the last drop. But right now I needed it slightly more than this guy did. I taped the bag shut, and when I went on break, I hid it in my bag.

  * * *

  I drove home that morning with the blood bag in my coat pocket. It’d been chilled since whenever it’d left its original donor—but right now, knowing I had it made it feel hot against my thigh. I’d been busy ever since I’d saved Anna, practically—I’d either been at work, as a patient or working, or been distracted with some guy. Maybe if I hadn’t been so keen on getting laid, I’d have already solved my own mystery. Then again, who knew I would be called to vampire court? You couldn’t not get laid, especially by a man like Asher, worrying about every bizarre possibility.

  I’d wait up for Anna tomorrow. I put the blood bag in my refrigerator, beside my expired milk and prepackaged turkey slices.

  Who was I to ever criticize Mr. November now?

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  That night, the hard part was sitting in the dark. Well—the hardest part had been getting to sleep that morning. After I’d woken up and the sun had fallen, I’d thrown the bag of blood outside. Its clotted contents looked like a buried autumn leaf against the tire-treaded snow.

  And now I waited. I was used to staying up all night, but I usually had things to do, and bright lights to do them under. Minnie was asleep, and the sound of her soft breathing taunted me.

  I didn’t know if Anna would want fresh blood, if the plastic would somehow ruin the taste, if she wasn’t into biohazards. I just knew that I’d stay up all night and hope for the best.

  Snow drifted down like endless static on an old TV screen. I’d been lost in the chaos of it all, my body in a hibernatory trance, staring out the window. Any sign of the blood bag was long gone, as were the outlines of the cars across the lot. And then near dawn, just as I’d begun doubting my sanity, thinking that I was in some sort of perpetual waking dream, I saw her.

  She moved through the snow quickly, still wearing the grimy shift I’d last seen her in. Her hydration was better now—she was still thin, but no longer hollow. Her frizzy blond hair was so light it was hard to see against the snow. She made her way across the quiet lot, dug the bag out, and smelled it. Then she fastened her fingers at its edges and pulled it apart to lap at the frozen blood inside. She looked like a raccoon munching on a wrapper stolen from a Taco Bell Dumpster. Then she turned toward me, as I was watching her from the darkness of my room. She shoved the bag into her mouth and bolted away.

  Overhead, I knew the moon I couldn’t see through the clouds anymore was barely half full.

  * * *

  The next night, I was finally assigned the gentleman in room five. I got the report and then looked at the chart myself.

  He was a zombie … firefighter? That was a bit odd. We’d only had two zombies on the floor while I’d been here—Mr. Smith was the second of them, and I’d never been assigned the first.

  But I had a mission tonight, above and beyond mere nursing. I needed to get more blood. I walked into the darkened room, tubes in hand. If I got his blood now, I could toss it in my purse on break. The monitor was still in standby, casting a faint glow over him where he lay on the bed. I knew what smelled different about this room now; it was the scent of warm earth.

  “Hello, Mr. Smith.”

  He smiled in the dim light. “Hello again, ghost nurse.”

  I snorted. “Well, neurologically, you’re intact. Mind if I turn on the light?”

  “Feel free.”

  My hand found the switch and I got my first look at a real live—dead?—zombie.

  Mr. Smith was tall, stretching almost the entire length of the bed, with wide shoulders. The parts I could see of him outside of the sheets and his hospital gown—his arms, his neck, and his face—were all covered by almost-healed smooth rippling scars. Between the dark color of his skin as it was and the slightly lighter color of his skin as it healed, he looked like a dark pond on a windy day.

  “I remember you,” he said. His eyes were a light golden brown, and the skin around them crinkled when he smiled.

  “I remember you too.” I smiled back. “Thanks again—and sorry for waking you up.”

  “I don’t really sleep.” He sat up straighter in his bed.

  As I walked into the room I formed my plan. I would do the blood draw last, so I could hurry away and hide. I hadn’t heard about any IV sites, but I had a butterfly needle for the draw. I didn’t really like poking someone unnecessarily, but it wasn’t like he could get an infection and die from a needle stick now, was it? I reached for the blood pressure cuff, to start my set of vitals, and held it aloft. “Which arm?” I asked. A lot of patients with heavy scarring had a side they preferred, one which the cuff’s squeezing hurt less.

  Faint eyebrows rose. “I believe the previous nurse was having you on.”

  “How so?” I un-Velcroed the cuff.

  “I don’t have blood pressure.” The corners of his lips quirked into a smile. “I have blood, but to the best of my knowledge, it doesn’t really go anywhere.”

  “Oh.” The lab tubes in my pocket felt heavy, and I felt my face flush. “Damn.”

  “You were … looking for some?” he asked, tilting his head forward.

  “Actually, yes. Sorry.” I frowned at myself. How was I going to get Anna to come closer tomorrow night when I was off shift again?

  “I could … give you a finger?” He held up his right pinkie. “I don’t need all of them. One won’t hurt much.” I blanched, and he laughed out loud. “I’m teasing. It would grow back—but I’m teasing.”

  I forced a grin. “Heh. Sorry.”

  “You apologize too much.”

  “Sorry—” I began instinctively.

  “See?”

  I rolled my eyes. He was right, but what did he know about me, and the things I had to apologize for? He wasn’t Igor-ing around, stealing blood.

  I looked around the room. He’d been here for long eno
ugh to have photos on the walls—rows of uniformed men stood in front of large red trucks. A cafeteria tray sat on the shelf on the far side of the room. I walked over and picked it up. A rime of brown-gray sauce and a gnawed portion of a bone remained. “What was dinner?”

  “Long pig?” he guessed. I looked askance at him and he waved his arms in a negating fashion. “I’m not sure. I eat what they send me.”

  For a moment, I imagined him lumbering after me, slow-shuffling horror-movie style. He was far wittier than a movie zombie, but he was still technically undead. I lifted the tray—it had a good weight. I could hit someone over the head with it if I needed to. I turned around and kept the tray between us.

  “How is it that you’re a firefighter, if you want to eat people?”

  “I don’t want to eat everyone. I really only need flesh to regenerate. Which is why I’m here, so I can eat under qualified medical supervision.”

  “So this?” I asked, dipping the tray.

  “I have a don’t ask, don’t tell, policy.”

  I supposed that, given the number of surgeries being performed in the hospital at any one time, and the number of people dying here—some of whose identities were unknown and some few of those who likely had no next of kin—it was possible that we did have enough extra flesh to go around, as disgusting as the thought might be.

  “But why be a firefighter?”

  “I’m almost indestructible. What else should I do?” He shrugged. “I get to have a well-paying job and save a few lives. I get burned a few times, heal up a few times, and then move on to a new town.”

  “You’re the Bruce Banner of zombie firefighters?”

  His lips broke into an easy grin. “A comic book fan?”

  “My brother used to read them a lot.” I shrugged with the tray. I didn’t mention how fast he’d sold them when he’d found other pursuits.

  “I only saw the movies.” He jerked his chin at me. “What’s the last movie you saw?

  “It’s, uh, been a while.” Was he flirting with me? I’d only ever had patients who were detoxing flirt with me before, and they’d never been very subtle. More of a “Hey, nurse, can we fuck?” between periods of trying to run naked down the hall.

  “That’s too bad,” he said. He was grinning even wider.

  “Well!” I said, walking again toward the door. “I guess there’s not much that I can do for you tonight, Mr. Smith.”

  “Call me Ti.”

  “Ti,” I said, then managed to balance the tray on one hand and open the door behind me with the other. “So—just hit the call light if you need anything,” I said, all in one breath. “I’ll be right outside.”

  “All right…” He squinted, his eyes searching my chest for my badge. “Miss Spence.”

  “Call me Edie,” I blurted out, and made my escape.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “So, Gina—what’s Mr. Smith’s story?” I tried to sidle around to the were-corrals without anyone noticing. It wouldn’t do for Charles or Meaty to hear the tone of my voice.

  “Just read the chart. Wait—why are you not reading the chart?” She stopped her own charting and clicked her pen. “Ohhhhhhhhhhhh,” she said, her inflection a wave. I sighed. It would be nice to someday live in a world where what I was thinking wasn’t always written on my face.

  Gina grinned and rocked back in her chair, suddenly all business. Girl business.

  “Frequent flyer. This is the third time he’s been here. He’s a nice guy, I’ve helped out with him sometimes. He just needs a place where human is on the menu to hide out while he heals,” she said and shrugged.

  My stomach wanted to turn. But in comparison to everything else I’d seen or done in my nursing career so far—like, say, that I’d had stolen blood sitting in my fridge the previous night—I didn’t think I could throw any culinary stones. “Anything else?” I pressed.

  “Nope. Keeps to himself. I don’t even know his first name.” She shrugged. “Mr. Smith is one of those made-up protective names—” she said.

  “At least it’s not a month.” A fake name meant he had a name, at least. Was Ti his real name? I hoped so.

  “Anyhow,” she continued, “not much else I can do for you. Half his chart’s made-up data, anyhow. Meaty’s going easy on you. You’re going to have a slow night.”

  A slow night of sitting outside his room with far too long to think. My choices were obsess over a mostly unknown patient, obsess over my upcoming tribunal, or obsess over how I was going to get Anna to finally come talk to me at my house. None of those choices felt very appealing.

  “Do you need any help?” I asked.

  “I’ve got a blood draw I could use an extra hand on.”

  The corners of my lips drew up into almost a vampiric grin. “Then I’m your girl.”

  * * *

  I used one wrong tube on purpose, in addition to the right tubes, and pocketed it instead of putting it into the room’s biohazard bin. Gina’s patient had been a nice elderly gentleman. I had a strange feeling that, once transformed, he’d make a very charming wolf.

  I waited up that morning after getting home. The vial was in the parking lot between my car and my apartment. It’d still be dark for an hour, it was worth a shot. What else could I do to gain Anna’s trust? Maybe I should have asked Gina for some tips on taming feral things …

  Dawn neared. As I thought about getting my blood samples to reuse at dusk, a white figure emerged. Anna again. I sat very, very still.

  She was beautiful in a wild way, like a caged cat at the zoo. Now that she was nearer, I knew she was something I only wanted to appreciate with a moat and a safety fence between us.

  She found the plastic vial in the snow, cracked its lid off with her teeth, and poured its contents out onto her tongue like a rare elixir. Then she spat in the snow with her lips curled high.

  “Were-blood!”

  “So you can talk—” I said quietly, knowing that at this distance her vampire ears would hear me just fine.

  She turned and threw the vial at my window. I flinched as it came through the metal burglar bars and bounced off the window screen into the snow.

  “I’m sorry. I was trying to help.”

  “By poisoning me?” she asked. She had an accent—Russian for sure. She licked her tongue across the back of one arm, as if to clean it. Then she swiveled her head to stare at me, more animal than child. I blinked, and one second later, she was at my bars, her hands curling around them, peering in.

  My heart pounded. The vampires and daytimers at Y4 had a thin veneer of humanity—the worst of it, yes, but some. Anna was entirely other and frightening.

  “You can’t come in unless I invite you,” I said.

  “Blood is like an invitation,” she said with her accent. She pressed her forehead against the bars, and reached forward to scratch a fingernail against the flimsy screen. The sound resonated through my room.

  “I need your help,” I said.

  “Really?” Her eyes lit up, and she laughed aloud. “Why should I help you?”

  “You came here even before the blood,” I said, playing my biggest—perhaps only—card. “I saw your footprints in the snow. I know you want something from me—we can trade.”

  Her eyes narrowed in cunning I knew no true nine-year-old possessed.

  “Invite me in, then we will talk.”

  I tried to remember exactly what Paul’d told me about vampires and their promises. “Swear not to hurt me or my cat in any way, shape, or form. And don’t compel me either.”

  Half of her upper lip curled in amused disgust. “I swear not to hurt you or your cat.”

  I nodded. “Meet you at the door,” I said, and she practically disappeared.

  I got up to close my bedroom window first and noticed that my wrought-iron burglar bars now had ripples in them where her hands had held them. I shivered, tried to tell myself it was just because of the cold, and turned my thermostat up as I went down the hall.

  Cha
pter Twenty-Five

  She was so short I couldn’t see her through the peephole. Steeling myself, I opened the door.

  “Invite me,” she said. With her dingy shift still on, she looked like something the wind had blown into my alcove, a sun-bleached trash bag, or a flurry of dirty snow. She had a faintly sour scent, like barely off milk.

  “Please come in.”

  She tilted her head graciously. “Thank you.” She stepped over my threshold with physical effort, like there was a trip wire she had to be careful not to set off. And then she was in my front hall, looking at my family pictures on the wall—which now I wished I’d had the foresight to remove—and she moved past me into my dining/living area as I followed. I had a couch, a wireless modem for my ancient laptop, a TV that only got three stations, and an end table with Grandfather’s CD player on it. It hadn’t talked again since I had brought it home but I couldn’t bear to throw it away.

  “You don’t have many things.”

  I shrugged, even though she was looking elsewhere.

  “Most humans have many things,” she continued.

  “Most humans don’t talk to vampires.”

  “And live,” she added, with a tone that sent a jolt down my spine.

  “Remember your promise, Anna,” I said.

  And she turned around and looked at me curiously again. “Why do you call me that?”

  I opened my mouth to respond—and then I realized that might be the only reason she was here now. “Is that what you want to know?”

  “Perhaps.” She licked her lips. “Tell me what you want, first.”

  “The vampires think I killed another vampire for no good reason—I need you to testify for me at a tribunal, to tell them your side.”

  She stared at me for a moment, and then laughed out loud.