Chapter 3 Suspension

Chapter 3 
Suspension

Nancy and Mr. Steve Daniels walked through the heavy wooden fire doors, entering the section of the hospital which was given over to administration. Nancy hated this area. Most of the people that worked in it didn’t know a thing about medicine. It didn’t help that every time she had been in trouble, administration had brought her here.  

The administration offices were on the top floor of the hospital which had a lovely view of the Great Lakes. The view was the only reason that she wanted to be here. Even now, as the sun was beginning to rise, she could just make out Canada on the far side of Lake St. Clair.  She paused to take in the view, knowing the sun rising meant her shift was almost over. 

“Come on Nancy, keep up,” Steve called back to her. He kept moving forward towards the large corner office which had his name proudly emblazoned on the door. Below his name was the name of the hospital, the Detroit River Medical Center. He pulled his keys out of his pockets and then began to flip through them, looking for the one which would unlock his door. 

She didn’t want to follow him them in there, she knew that he was always a nice guy when there were people around. It was when he was behind closed doors that he lost his temper. She felt sorry for the people who worked near the office, they probably had to listen to him berate and belittle employees all day.  

Instead she watched the sun creep above the horizon for the first time in what seemed like forever. It almost made it worth getting yelled at. She could see the reflection of the sun in the water. A few container ships were making their way towards the mouth of the Detroit River, probably to some port along the edge of Lake Eerie. That was one of the reasons why she didn’t feel like she would ever leave Detroit, something about being surrounded by water made her happy. The thought of retiring to Florida had occurred to her, but dodging hurricanes made her want to avoid it like the plague. 

“Nurse Summers!” he shouted. She knew it was only the beginning and turned to see him waiting inside of his office. 

“I’m coming,” she said. She turned and walked to the office, stepped around him, and then collapsed into one of the leather chairs. She felt herself sinking into the leather, these were much nicer than anything that she had at home. Every time she sat in one of these chairs she considered taking it home.   

“Do you want to explain what happened on your ward today?” Steve asked. He walked around to sit in the chair behind his desk. 

“What do you mean?” she replied. Usually when she was brought here it was due to a patient, not a vampire. 

“Really?” he asked. He stood up again despite having only sat for a moment. 

“Do I need to explain to you the problem with what happened today?” 

“It would appear so,” she said. This had been a night much like any other attack night. “I hope it explains how Security let a vampire, one who was far beyond the detection point, onto my ward. Is Security really so busy that they can’t do a preliminary scan, the guy's liver could probably be melted down for steel.” 

He emitted an audible sigh and turned away from her. She recognized this as his disappointed look. You could only work with a guy for so long before learning his body language.  

“Then why didn’t you call for Security Nurse Summers?” he asked. 

“Because that isn’t the way we do things on the ward,” she said as calmly as possible. “We follow our protocol and rule 47 covers that. The head nurse makes a call on whether this would be better handled by Security or by the staff. I made the decision that he’d killed one of our staff and made it personal.”

“Nurse Summers,” he interrupted. “That man was part of a pilot program. Didn’t you read your e-mails?” 

“The shift was busy,” she said. “I usually don’t get to e-mails until lunch at the earliest.” 

He shook his head, one hand had begun rubbing his temple, “Nurse Summers, e-mail is a vital part of the communication of this hospital. You need to take it seriously. Had you read it you would have understood the program I was talking about.” 

She didn’t like the sound of this. No one had told her about this on shift change, that was when vital information was passed on. She’d heard about problem patients, drug trials the patients were undergoing, and any reports from the emergency room of potential new patients.  Nothing had been said of a trial program. 

“No one said…” she began. Mr. Daniels kept talking, as though she hadn’t said a word. 

“Right now we are the focus point of the state board of health and their press releases. Tomorrow there is going to be a full page article on the program. The state was going to provide additional funding for watching patients who were…” he waved his hand as he looked for the word. “Ferrically challenged.” 

Nurse Summers didn’t want to start laughing, but she found herself doing it regardless. “Ferrically challenged? They’re not suffering from male pattern baldness, they stopped living and started again. Their bodies just don’t know they’re supposed to stay dead.” 

“That’s exactly the attitude which got us into this mess,” he said. He turned as he said it and there was a look that she hadn’t seen before. This time he angry and staring daggers. “Society is changing and with it bringing changes to the whole medical field. There are those who are behind the curve and those who are ahead. I’m striving to keep this hospital ahead of the curve.”  

“By doing what exactly? Yelling at your nurses?” she asked. “You need to understand we lost a nurse, an amazing nurse, tonight. But you are more concerned with how that might reflect on you instead of how her family and the staff that worked with her might feel.” 

She stood up when she finished and began to walk towards the door. 

“If you leave this office before you’re dismissed I’ll fire you out right,” he said. 

She froze in her tracks, glancing over her shoulder to see if he was serious.  

“You need to sit down and gain an understanding of what is going on around here.” He said motioning to the chair, though for a moment she thought he was going to clear the desk onto the floor. He stood rigid, his face grim, his eyes cold. The last thing she wanted to do was to have to look for a new job. Besides, she wasn’t going to give up her post yet. The second floor psych ward was her duty, it was her ward, and no one was going to take that from her. 

She walked back to the chair, collapsed back into the seat, clasped her hand together, and listened. 

“You’ve heard of VRN by now right?” he asked. 

She rolled her eyes as she answered. “Yeah, the Vampire Rights Now Coalition. Really a bunch of idiots if you asked me.” 

“Ah, but I didn’t ask you your opinion, just if you’ve heard of them,” he said. He began to pace back and forth behind his desk, each time his hands passed he would drag his fingers across the back of the leather chair. “You see the Governor’s cousin was stricken with the disease about five years ago. They had kept him at home and out of sight for some time. Then he became violent.” 

“They always do Steve. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when,” she stated. 

“Yes, well…” he paused recollecting his train of thought. “The facts are the Governor has started listening to the VRN, started donating money to them, now they want to begin finding places which will care for their ferrically challenged family members.” 

“Oh please, don’t say you did this for more funding,” she said. She found herself clutching the arms of her chair, wanting to pull herself up and storm out. “I know it’s your job to keep things afloat, but taking in vampires is stupid.” 

“I didn’t ask your opinion Nurse Summers, I’m only explaining the way that the world is changing,” he stopped at one of the bookshelves which stood behind his desk. He picked up a baseball and began to throw it back and forth between his hands and then continued.

“If we want to continue to provide the best care we need the best equipment. If we want the best equipment we need the best funding. If we want the best funding, we need to take an interest in the pet projects of the people who provide the funds.”

“That doesn’t explain why Security let a vampire onto my ward,” she said. “That doesn’t explain why I will have to work overtime this next week while we hire someone new. That doesn’t explain why…” 

She found herself unable to continue on. Her mind began to go through all of the things which could have gone wrong in the fight. Then it went through all the things which did go wrong during the fight. She found herself on the verge of tears again. 

“He wasn’t supposed to be placed on your ward Nancy,” Steve said. His voice had softened, perhaps realizing that she was on the verge of tears. Perhaps she was wrong and he wasn’t an entirely heartless jerk. “We’re setting up a wing, on a trial basis, for the care and treatment of vampires.” 

Her head shot up, the momentary thoughts of how she might have died forgotten. “Please tell me that they tricked you. Please tell me that they threatened to take away your job, or maybe kidnapped your wife.” 

“No Nurse Summers,” he stated. “This is what I’m talking about. You’re living in the past, unwilling to take a solid look at what the future has in store for us. This could be the next big boom in the health care industry.” 

“I want no part of it and I’ll go to the board of directors if I have to,” she said. She was out of the chair now and stood next to the desk. She glared across at the man on the other side. 

“I told you it was a trial basis, but you’ve killed our first patient,” Steve said. “Not only was he a patient, but he was also the Governor’s cousin. She’s not going to be happy when she gets news of this; the two of them were close as kids.” 

For the first time in years she wanted to feel bad about what she had done. She had felt remorse the first twenty or so times she had killed a vampire. The time for remorse had come and gone, and after a while it was another part of the job. This vampire wasn’t like the normal vampires she dealt with, this one had people who still cared about it. 

“Now you’ve put me in a bad place,” he continued. “You see I’m already down one nurse. But if I tell the Governor that no repercussions will happen to the person who killed her cousin there will be repercussions for the hospital. So here is the question that I have to ask you; what should I do?”  

Her head began to throb, a multitude of emotions swirled while she tried to sort through them. Her anger was justified, that vampire had killed her friend, they had put a vampire on her unit. Fear was creeping in, the worry concerning her future at the hospital, perhaps even the future of the hospital itself was being laid in her hands. There was the sadness for the way the Governor would feel, she remembered losing someone close long ago. The worst of it though was a separate fear, different from the concern for her job; what would happen if she wasn’t there to protect her crew and patients?

“I asked you a question Nurse Summers,” Steve said after the silence had gone on for a bit too long. 

“Well what do you want me to say?” she asked. “What I would say if I was in your shoes is that he killed one of our staff. The hospital has strict rules and we followed procedure.” 

“Oh Nurse Summers,” Steve said. “You’re a slave to those procedures when you choose to follow them. Do you only follow them when they suit you? You were the one who began to keep weapons on the unit after all.” 

“That was a matter of self-defense. You never worked down there. You never watched two of your friends die because Security was on lunch,” she inhaled deeply and continued. “The day before I got my weapon two of us were barricaded behind a door as three vampires tried to force their way through. Security was too busy watching March Madness highlights that day to come right away.” 

“You’re missing the point Nurse Summers,” he said. His eyes were going from annoyed to angry again. “The point is that I have to do something and after hearing what Star said in the locker room you need to take some time off.”

“Excuse me? You can’t tell me to take time off when we’re a nurse down!” she shouted. 

“I can, and I have to Nurse Summers,” he said. “The trial is set to begin tomorrow on the third floor. We’ve made the necessary modifications to keep the vamp… I mean patients secure.” 

“You said vampires there. You know what they are,” she interjected. 

“I almost said it, but that doesn’t change the fact that we’re going to be watched by the press,” he said. He turned to put the baseball back in it’s case before speaking again. “Even with the Governor’s cousin dead there is a chance that we can salvage something, but you need to out of the hospital while this happens.”

“How long?” Nancy asked. “Just the week of the trial then?” 

“You’ll need to follow the procedure for exposure,” he paused. “That means two weeks off, you’re only to come on hospital property for the necessary blood tests and you leave right after.” 

“Two weeks!” she cried out. “What am I supposed to do for two weeks? I need to be interviewing candidates for the position. I need to be there to take care of my patients.” 

“For the next two weeks they aren’t your patients,” Steve said. “Now please finish your shift and go home. I don’t want to have to call Security to have them escort you out to start your vacation.”  

She turned and stormed out of the office, slamming the door behind her. This time he didn’t tell her to stop. She wouldn’t have if he’d chased after her, she had nothing to do for two weeks. For all she knew the place would fall apart without her. 

Gritting her teeth, she pressed the elevator call button. There had to be something in the rule book, some way that she could fight this. If not she was in for two weeks of boredom, two weeks with an idle mind that wanted to focus on all the worst memories.