Jenny

JENNY Bolton entered the ER through the automatic doors four steps behind the paramedics pushing Mortimer's gurney. Though Jenny knew she was tough, she hadn't yet steeled herself to Mortimer's eventual demise. Being a hospice nurse meant losing patients--it was how the story ended every time. Much as she tried not to get attached--and then have to deal with the inevitable depression when they passed--Jenny wound up admiring, and even liking, most of the terminal people she cared for.

Seeing Mort so near death, weeks before his diagnosed time, brought a lump to her throat. This lump was made even bigger by her uncomfortable surroundings.

Once upon a time, Jenny had worked in this facility, in this emergency room. She'd loved the job, and since Blessed Crucifixion was the only hospital within sixty miles, it had been her sole option for being a fulltime caregiver.

But last year she'd gotten into a disagreement with one of the holier-than-thou physicians on staff, and his lies and bullshit had led to her dismissal.

God, she hoped that prick Dr. Lanz wasn't working tonight.

"Dr. Lanz! Code blue!" the intercom blared.

Shit.

Jenny kept her head down as the six-foot, broad-shouldered Kurt Lanz, M.D. paraded past, looking every bit as self-important as the day he'd gotten her fired. She knew he would have her escorted out of the hospital if he spotted her.

While Lanz barked orders at his cringing staff, Jenny slunk over to a nearby house phone.

She reached for the handset, then paused.

Should I call him?

Her ex-husband, Randall, had left no fewer than thirty-eight messages on her cell phone since being admitted two days ago for a job-related injury. Her brain-deficient, former significant other--a lumberjack--had somehow managed to cut the back of his own leg with a chainsaw. She wondered if he'd been drinking on the job. He'd fallen into drinking far too much off the job. Drunk on the job seemed the natural next step. He'd sworn time and again that he was off the sauce, but he'd made many such promises during their marriage, only to relapse.

Aside from the occasional glimpse of his bright red Dodge Ram Hemi driving through town, she hadn't seen Randall since their divorce was made final two years ago. Jenny hadn't been responding to his messages, even though they were increasing in frequency and urgency. But now, stuck in the hospital with Randall only two floors above, she might as well bite the bullet.

Her thoughts were interrupted when the automatic doors opened and a clown entered the ER. At first, Jenny assumed it was a candy striper come to entertain the ill. But then she saw he had a child attached--by the mouth--to his left hand. The girl was screaming through clenched teeth, blood dribbling down her chin.

A distressed woman followed the clown and the child, patting the girl's back, and when she locked eyes on Jenny she said, "There's a nurse!"

Jenny glanced down at her white uniform. She was about to correct the woman's assumption with an, "I don't work here," but noticed the entire ER staff had surrounded Mortimer, who was coding.

"You have to help my daughter," the mother demanded.

Jenny looked at the little girl, whose teeth were embedded in the skin of the clown's left hand.

"Oasis's braces are stuck," the woman said.

"Oasis?"

"Oasis. My precious little girl. This horrible clown ruined her eighth birthday party, and now he's going to ruin five thousand dollars' worth of orthodontia."

Jenny appraised the clown. A very sad clown, despite his painted-on red smile and matching rubber nose. He stood six feet tall, six-six with the green fright wig. His green and red polka dot clown suit bulged at the middle--a pot belly, not a pillow--and his size twenty-eight shoes squeaked like a chew toy when he walked. A large, metal button, opposite the fake flower on his lapel, read "Benny the Clown Says 'Let's Have Fun!' "

In a low, shaky voice barely above a whisper, Benny the Clown said, "Please help me."

Jenny fought to conceal her smirk. "What happened?"

"This terrible clown squirted my little girl and she defended herself. Now she's stuck on his filthy clown hand."

The little girl said something that came out like, "Mmmmhhhggggggggg."

"I was making the birthday princess a balloon poodle," Benny the Clown said, "and she reached up and squeezed my nose. That activated the flower." Benny the Clown pressed his rubber proboscis and turned his head. A stream of water shot out of the center of the flower, sprinkling onto the tiled floor. "When the birthday princess got squirted, she locked her precious little birthday chompers onto my hand." Benny the Clown leaned closer to Jenny. "You can't tell because I have a smile on my face, but I can feel the wire digging into my bone."

Jenny nodded, trying to appear sympathetic. "I wish I could help, but I don't work at this hospital. I'm just here with one of my hospice patients." She pointed toward the gurney where doctors and nurses swarmed around Mortimer. "You'll have to check in at the front desk."

Even with the painted-on grin, Benny the Clown looked suicidal.

Jenny hated to turn away any patient in need, but she could be sued for administering care in a facility she'd been fired from. She watched them trudge off, then turned her attention back to the phone.

Just do it. Get it over with.

Jenny picked up the receiver and dialed Room 318. She knew it was 318, because every one of the thirty-eight messages she'd received from Randall had begun with, "Hi, Jen, it's Randall, I'm in Room Three-One-Eight."

Before the first ring ended, Randall was on the line. "Jen, is that you?"

The last thing she expected--or wanted--to feel was comfort at the sound of his voice, especially with all the chaos going on around her. But it was so familiar, like they'd just spoken yesterday. The comfort died in a surge of anger at the memory of all the heartache his drinking had put her through.

"Hello, Randall. How are--?"

"You coming to visit?" Randall interrupted. "I'm in room Three-One-Eight."

Jenny sighed. She watched Dr. Lanz charge the defib paddles. "Yeah, I know. You said it on every message you left for me."

"You listened to them? All of them?"

"All thirty-eight, Randall."

"Thirty-eight? It couldn't have been anywhere near that many. But I wasn't sure you were getting them. You been having a problem with your phone?"

Yeah, you keep calling me. "I've just been busy. So how are you doing?"

"Dry ninety-seven days now. I don't even want to drink anymore, I swear. I'm a changed man, Jenny."

So he'd said in all thirty-eight messages. She was impressed if it was true, but he'd done a lot of lying in his drinking days. And even if it were true--too little, too late.

"I meant your injury, Randall."

"Oh." His voice suddenly lost the excited, almost child-like tone. "I got seventy-seven stitches. Everyone thinks it's real ironical that I cut the back of my leg."

"You mean ironic, Randall," Jenny corrected. She'd been the one to teach him the meaning of the word, but he had yet to get the pronunciation right.

Winslow--a wisp of a woman who became head nurse when Jenny was fired--squirted conductive gel onto Mortimer's bare, hairless chest. Jenny's patient was convulsing--v-fib or v-tach. Even from across the room, she could see that Mort's eyes had rolled up into his skull, the whites protruding like two eggs. Flecks of foam and blood still sprayed from her patient's mouth, dotting Dr. Lanz's face and his pristine, white lab coat. Lanz's expression twisted in disgust as he wiped his sleeve across his lips, and the fastidious, meticulous doctor actually spat over his shoulder.

Should have put on your face mask, Dr. Jack Ass.

Jenny spotted Shanna, looking a little green, scurrying through the doors into the main hospital. Everyone in the ER looked on as Lanz applied the paddles, even Benny the Clown, Oasis, and her mother.

"Jenny? You there? Hello?"

Jenny only turned her eyes away for a second, trying to gather herself, not ready to see Mortimer die. Rude and self-important as he was, she'd found things about the old man to admire, and even like. She also wondered when she would work again. This was a small town, and hospice nurses weren't in constant demand.

Full of shame at the selfish thought, she forced herself to look back, to say a final, silent goodbye.

She was shocked to see Mortimer--standing--on top of the gurney, restraints broken off and dangling from his ankles and wrists, his mouth wide and--

Is he hissing?

The sound came from deep in Mortimer's throat, less like a threatened cat, more like a tea kettle coming to boil. It kept rising in pitch until it became a shrill whistle, the noise unlike anything Jenny had ever heard.

It was inhuman.

"Jenny? What's wrong?" Randall said.

"Oh my God."

"What? What, Jen?"

Mortimer's teeth. Something was happening to them. They were falling out--no--he was spitting them out, spitting them at Lanz and the nurses who were frantically trying to coax him off the gurney.

"Randall, I have to go. There's something happening in the ER."

"You're here in the--?"

She hung up the phone and started toward Mortimer. No doubt Randall would be trying to call her back on her cell, but she had the ringer turned off--the hospital took its no cell phone rule seriously.

Mortimer abruptly stopped hissing, and Jenny could hear Dr. Lanz ordering him down off the gurney.

Stiff as a plank, Mortimer fell face-first onto the floor.

Jenny rushed to him. She didn't care anymore about hospital protocol, or Lanz having her thrown out. Mortimer needs me. Jenny had never seen anything like this in twenty-five years of health care.

She pushed her way through the nurses surrounding Mortimer and knelt at his prone body.

"Jenny Bolton? What the hell are you doing in my hospital?" Dr. Lanz demanded.

"This is my hospice patient," she said, touching Mortimer's neck and seeking out the pulse of his carotid. To her surprise, she didn't have to press hard. His entire neck was vibrating, his artery jolting beneath her fingers like a heavy metal drum solo. The only thing she could compare this to was a crystal meth OD, the heartbeat raging out of control.

Jenny patted the old man's back, checking to see if he was conscious.

"Mortimer, can you hear me? It's Jenny. I'm right here. We're gonna help--"

"I'm going to help him. Somebody get security."

She felt Dr. Lanz's hands grip her shoulders, dragging her away from Mortimer just as her patient grabbed her hip.

Jenny felt instant pain, and not only from the pressure of Mortimer's grip. Something sharp was digging into her skin through her uniform.

That can't be Mortimer's hand.

It was more like a claw. A bloody, ragged claw. Jenny stared, mouth agape. Mortimer's finger bones--the phalanges--were extending out through his fingertips, splitting the skin and coming to five sharp points.

The old man hissed again, a high-pitched keen, and when he turned his head to look at Jenny, calm, stoic Nurse Winslow shouted, "Sweet Jesus Christ!"

Mortimer's cheeks exploded like a grenade had gone off inside his mouth, white points bursting through his lips, shearing flesh, digging rents into his face.

Oh my God. Fangs.

He's growing fangs.

His new teeth began to elongate--an inch, two inches, bursting through his bleeding gums in rows that ended in wicked, dagger-like tips. They shredded Mortimer's face into jagged strips, and he began to snap his jaws, chewing through the inside of his mouth, grinding off his cheeks all the way back to his earlobes, making room for his monstrous new dentata.

Then Mortimer's lower jaw unhinged, thrusting forward and hanging open like some perversion of an angler fish. He stared at Jenny, his eyes wide, pupils dilating beyond anything human, spreading until they eclipsed the whites.

For the first time in her life, Jenny screamed a scream of abject, primordial terror.

She jerked back, trying to pull away from Mortimer's grip, but his sharp, bony fingers had embedded themselves into the meat of her hip. She watched her skin stretch through the holes in her clothing--stretch, but not tear--and realized that the bones protruding from Mortimer's finger tips were barbed like fish hooks.

Then he jerked his hand back, taking Jenny with it, knocking her onto her butt, her face inches from his snapping jaws.

Mortimer rolled on top of her, like a lover, blood and saliva dripping onto Jenny's face and neck. She reached up to push him away, but as terror-stricken as she was, Jenny couldn't bring herself to touch him. It was like willingly sticking your hand into a box of angry rattlesnakes. Even as his jaws drew near, Jenny's revulsion wouldn't allow her to fight back. She stretched out her hand--her face imploring--to Dr. Lanz, who stood within reach. But he shrank away from her beckoning fingers, retreating into the safety of the nurse's station.

This is it, Jenny thought. I'm going to die.

"Get the fuck away from my wife!"

Jenny turned, watching her bear of an ex-husband limping toward her, his hospital gown flapping from the speed of his approach.

He raised something large and red over his head.

"Smile, motherfucker!"

Mortimer's misshapen head jerked up as Randall swung the fire extinguisher, connecting with the jagged nest of teeth. A clang resonated over the screams of the onlookers, and Mortimer flew back, his terrible claw disengaging from Jenny's hip, several of his fangs breaking free and tinkling like icicles on the tile.

Jenny found herself being dragged across the floor, Randall's hard, calloused hands under her armpits, pulling her to the water cooler.

"You okay, babe?"

She started to respond, but then saw Mortimer, or whatever he had become, rising to his feet. His head swiveled on his shoulders one hundred eighty degrees, taking a quick, predatory scan of the emergency room.

His eyes locked onto Oasis and Benny the Clown as they retreated through the opening automatic doors.

Mortimer crouched, then leapt after them, soaring three meters into the breezeway.

As the doors slid closed, Jenny heard the most God-awful screaming and Benny the Clown shouting, "No! I'm getting bitten! Again!"

His shoes were frantically squeaking and blood sprayed the automatic glass doors, which opened and closed over and over.

As Mortimer feasted on Benny the Clown's neck, little Oasis desperately pulled on Benny the Clown's arm, trying to disengage her braces, shaking her head like a rabid dog while her mother tugged on her waist. Suddenly the child broke free, falling backward onto her screaming parent.

Mortimer's eyes zeroed in on the movement, and his head jerked up, blood draining out of his mouth and down the front of his shirt like a sieve.

He dropped Benny the Clown and hissed.

Oasis's mother was trembling. "Please," she begged. "It's her birthday."

Mortimer attacked Oasis, savagely biting her arm, and tossing her back into the ER.

Then he burrowed his ravenous jaws into her mother's stomach, tearing into intestines, pulling out her glistening liver and snacking on it like a slice of watermelon.

Randall stood in front of Jenny. "What is that goddamn thing? A fucking dracula?"

Mortimer abandoned Oasis's mother and moved back into the ER, lured by two large men in softball uniforms, one with a black eye--probably a casualty of playing the game while drinking beer. They'd been screaming at Mortimer to leave the woman alone, and now the monster had obliged them. Apparently realizing their mistake, they turned and ran through the ER, pushing through a pair of double doors and disappearing into the bowels of the hospital.

Mortimer pursued, bounding after them on all fours, his body stretching out like a cheetah.

Then the ER stood silent except for the groans of the dying and the injured.

Jenny turned to ask Randall something, but he was already moving away from her, limping toward the automatic doors.

She grabbed his arm. "No, Randall," she pleaded. "Please. Stay with me."

"I'm just going out to my truck," he said.

"Why?"

"I need my chainsaw."

He pulled his arm free, starting toward the doors again.

"For what?" Jenny called after him.

"I'm gonna cut that son of a bitch in half."