Chapter 8 Medical Malpractice

Chapter 8

Medical Malpractice

Nancy pressed herself into the small depression of the door and motioned for Star to do the same across the hall. The footsteps were getting closer, but she couldn’t be certain of which way it was coming from. She hoped that the shadows would conceal them, perhaps he would run past, not able to make out their forms in the dark. The door slamming could have come from anywhere, she crossed her fingers and hoped. Across from her she could see Star punching in a code on the door, she wasn’t flattening herself to the wall.

“Star,” she whispered. “Hide in the shadows.”

As though in response to this she heard a buzz coming from above and around her. The lights flickered on, fans began to whir, and an alarm sounded in one of the many rooms on the floor. Someone would need to be silence it. Would it distract him though?

“I know the code,” Star said back. “We can hide in here.”

“Hurry,” Nancy said. She stepped into the middle of the hallway so she could follow Star quickly into the room.

Star fumbled and the keypad lit up red. Nancy knew that she would have three attempts before the lock would need to be reset by an administrator or shift lead. She hoped that they wouldn’t need to wait though, Star would surely get it this second time.

“I see you,” Warbling Laugh yelled. She turned to see a man standing at the end of the hall. His arm was outstretched with a single finger pointing at them. His face showed smile lines and his teeth looked brown in the distance. Once she had looked to him he began to skip towards the two of them.

“Hurry dammit,” Nancy yelled at Star.

“I’m trying but,” her words stopped as the keypad lit up red a second time. “I can’t remember if the code ends in four two or two four. I swear I did it right!”

He was closing on the two of them fast. Nancy stepped back to shield Star from the attack if it came. Then she remembered something from the meeting they’d had last week. They’d changed the codes on the imaging to all end in the department code, department seventy-seven was imaging.

“Try the code but with two sevens at the end. They were supposed to change them this week.”

Warbling Laugh slowed his approach and looked the two of them over.

“Two lovely lady-poos, I think we need to be having you,” his voice sounded almost sing song, his delivery staggered to rhyme the words. He placed his hands on his hips and laughed. Nancy listened to Star punching in the code and hoped that it was working. In the room they might have something to defend themselves with, she had to hope that he wouldn’t lunge before she opened the door.

“You won’t be having us,” Nancy said. “The last thing you’ll do is die writhing on the floor like the weak little mosquito that you are.”

“It’s open,” Star said pulling the door open wide. Nancy turned and rushed through the door, grasping the handle and trying to pull the door closed. Warbling Laugh didn’t miss a beat and followed them. He grabbed the exterior handle with his right hand and tried to grab her with the left. The first swipe missed but the second one gouged into her arm, his nails raking the flesh. She wanted to pull back, to retreat farther into the room but she couldn’t. She knew that if she let go of the door it would fly wide and the two of them would be at Warbling Laugh’s mercy, if he had any mercy.

Star had disappeared into the room behind her, Nancy could hear her typing at the keyboard somewhere behind her.

“Star, I need your help up here,” she yelled.

“No, you need to come out and gives me a kiss,” Warbling Laugh replied.

The thought made her sick to her stomach. She could see now that the teeth hadn’t been brown but missing. It looked like someone had broken off several of his teeth at the gum lime. On the top row of his mouth he had gums and blackness from one canine to the other.

“Hold on a minute Nancy,” Star yelled from behind her. “Just hold on and I think I can fix this.”

“You had better be talking about the door,” she cried back. Warbling laugh had one hand on the door, the other still on the handle. She lifted one foot and felt herself slide a little, but as the kick landed, a crunch coming from the fingers of the door, she felt satisfied.

He released the door and began cursing, his laughter silent as a string of obscenities flowed forth in its place. It was almost enough, the gap in the door was down to a sliver, a little more and, the door halted in its progress.

“Not so fast little lady-poo.” Warbling Laugh said as he clamped back down on the door. “The boss said to look for little lady-poos who had fight in them. He’ll want you.”

From behind her she heard Star yelling. “Nancy, are you wearing an underwire bra?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” she called back. She didn’t know what the woman was getting at but she felt that this was neither the time nor the place for that kind of question. The small sliver of light was getting bigger as Warbling Laugh redoubled his effort on the door.

“Answer the question,” Star yelled. Nancy felt furious at the woman, there were times that she didn’t understand how the woman thought. She knew that this was a trying time, but to worry about her underwear.

“No,” Nancy called back. The crack had grown almost to two inches. She could feel his new strength kicking in, the adrenaline had him now and she had nothing to fight back with. She could see Warbling Laugh maneuvering his head over to the crack.

“I can see you lady-poo,” he said with a grin. The distance between the door and the jamb grew.

“No you won’t answer, or no you aren’t wearing an underwire bra?” Star asked.

Nancy felt her eyes roll of their own accord before she yelled back. “No metal in my bra save for the clasps.”

“What about any rings or earrings?” Star asked.

“I was on a date,” Nancy yelled. “Of course I wore earrings.” She could see that Warbling laugh now almost had his mouth on the door, for a moment she was certain that he was going to try to take a bite from the door.

Warbling Laugh’s breathing was heavy, the exertion was showing on his face. Nancy moved one foot to the door jamb hoping that it would give her the leverage she needed. She knew that all that she needed to do was to get the door to latch and she would be get some relief. Perhaps she could even figure out why Star was acting weird.

“I’m going to tell you what to do,” Star called. “I need you to follow the instructions exactly.”

“The hell are you talking about Star,” Nancy yelled.

“I’m going to count to three, on three I need you to turn around, pull your earrings and then dive through the rabbit hole.” Star said.

“Rabbit hole,” Nancy yelled. “Have you gone mad?”

As her focus lapsed Warbling Laugh renewed his pull and she almost fell face forward. “Why don’t you get over here and help me lock him out Star,” Nancy said.

“One,” Star began her count.

Nancy found herself at a loss, she was usually the one that was calling the orders, not the one on the receiving end. What the hell was Star talking about? A few minutes ago she had seemed like she was at a loss for what to do, now she was barking orders like a Drill Sergeant. Was she all right? Did she know what she was doing?

“Two,” Star called.

Nancy felt her palms, dripping sweat, she wanted to let go now. She wanted to rest, her adrenaline was fading and he was still pulling the door open. If she let go of the door it was likely that he’d fly backwards. He would get in though, and that would leave the two of them cornered. The whole thing felt stupid.

“Three,” Star shouted.

Nancy didn’t realize that she’d let go of the handle until she started to fall over backwards. Warbling Laugh fell as she tried to keep herself from tumbling to the ground. It felt like she was looking into some strange mirror, her feminine form replaced with one that could be best described as redneck. Had there been a mullet it would have left no question in her mind that she was in the backwoods of West Virginia somewhere.

Turning, she caught herself on one knee, her eyes surveying the room. Before her brain could register what she was seeing, she was ripping the earrings from her earlobes. As the second earring pulled free of her earlobe she understood what the looming shape in the back of the room was. That she hadn’t recognized it immediately surprised her. She understood Star’s urgency and kicked backwards to make certain that the door didn’t lock.

“Star you better know what you’re doing,” she said. Star was in the corner in a small room, standing next to a plastic chair, behind a magnetically shielded wall.

Nancy stood then and began to fuss with the clasps of her bra as she ran forward. She needed to make sure she was metal free or she’d be in a world of pain.

“Through the rabbit hole,” Star shouted.

From the doorway Nancy heard Warbling Laugh moving into the room, his laugh moving into the highest octave she’d heard yet.

“I have you lady-poos now,” Warbling Laugh said. “Come here and let me taste your sweat.”

Nancy could see him staggering into the room as she climbed onto the table extending from the machine, the fit would be tight, but that would be okay, she just needed to get through and remove the bra. Diving through the hole in the middle she found the fit tighter than she thought it would be. Army crawling as fast as she could she pressed forward, her body perhaps a third of the way through tunnel. Kicking her feet against the table she tried to propel herself.

“Got yous,” Warbling Laugh said. She felt his grip on her leg, his hand clamping down on her ankle like a set of vice grips.

“Go Star,” Nancy yelled. She hoped that Star could hear her through the machine. She knew that there were often speakers to communicate into the tunnel, but did it go both ways?

The machine around her began to whir, the coils of the electromagnet beginning to power up. She kicked at Warbling Laugh’s hand, trying to get him to release his grip, instead she found herself being pulled backwards.

She clawed at the track that normally fed patients into the MRI tube, but there was little to gain purchase on. Warbling Laugh’s other hand grasped her knee and she was wrenched from the machine, like a fish being yanked from a pond.

The MRI began to click, the coils pulsing as she was tossed onto the floor. She could feel the clasps of her bra as she landed, they felt warm after having passed through the aperture of the machine, almost as though they’d come directly from the dryer.

“Now, I needs to taste you,” Warbling laugh said as he crawled on to the patient table. She watched, holding her breath, hoping that Star’s plan would yield results. The table began to creep, moving him closer to the aperture.

He stood to leap but instead found himself stumbling into the MRI. His chest pressing into the shell, his arms flailing as he tried to pull himself free.

“If you’ve got any metal on you get over here quick,” Star yelled. Her shout broke the spell and Nancy found herself half crawling, half running into the shielded area. As she fell, her back resting against the wall, she saw Star make an adjustment on the controls.

A scream came from the other side of the wall, first of anger, then shock, and then it lapsed into a high pitched howl. Nancy stood to look through the window, only then could she see the smoke erupting from the man’s torso.

“Star, what did you do?” she asked.

“I turned the magnet up all the way,” Star said. She didn’t look away, her eyes looked at what was happening, unblinking as Warbling Laugh continued to flail. “I asked one of the techs what would happen if someone had metal inside them. You know, something like a surgical pin. She said it wouldn’t rip the metal out, instead it would heat the metal until it burned itself out of the person.

They both watched in silence as flames erupted from his chest. Within a few moments he ceased to move. The flames singed his hair, melted the fibers or his clothing, and charred his skin with no discrimination.

“Star, we should probably…” Nancy began. The fire alarm began to sound interrupting her. Nancy looked around unable to find the sprinklers in this room. They had to be in here, didn’t they?

Star turned down the electromagnet to it’s lowest setting and the vampire slumped to the ground, flames still burning in his chest. “We need to put out the body, there are no sprinklers and we can’t bring a fire extinguisher in here.”

Star stripped off her lab coat as she ran and then threw it over the body to smother the flames. Nancy found herself in awe of the control Star was showing, she didn’t know if she would have thought of using an MRI as a weapon. Even the controls looked foreign to her, but Star had flipped through the screens with ease. She wasn’t telling something, but now wasn’t the time to ask, now was the time to put out the fire and get to her wing.

“Is the fire out?” Nancy asked after a few moments. She watched as Star lifted the lab coat, glanced beneath it, and then laid it back down shaking her head. She looked green underneath the florescent lights, her eyes seemed to stare into nothing.

“It’s out,” Star said. “But that could be said about a majority of his internal organs.”

“Okay, let me make sure the heart is destroyed,” Nancy said. “If the heart is whole they can get back up.”

She strode to the body and lifted the lab coat to survey the damages. It was about as Star had described, there was a large blackened void where the abdominal wall had once been. Inside she could make out the twists of the intestines, the glowing metal of the liver, and the blackened remains of the heart as it belched out small gouts of half clotted blood. There was something else though, she reached down and pulled the ashes of the shirt off from around his neck. Then taking the lab coat she scrubbed at the chest to remove whatever smoke residue she could.

“Star, come look at this.” Nancy said.

“I’d rather not,” Star replied. “This already is going in my nightmare book for years to come. I really don’t need another viewing.”

“No really,” Nancy said. “This looks like it was blistered along the ribcage instead of burning.”

“I’m not looking,” Star said. “Shouldn’t we get a move on? There were multiple Vampires in the ER. I don’t want to be sitting here when the next one comes looking for his friend.”

Nancy wasn’t satisfied, she wanted to see what was happening inside. The lines of blistering seemed to follow along the each of the ribs. Perhaps the flames had caught the peaks of his ribs and hadn’t touched the depressions. Star was right though, they needed to move on with or without her curiosity satisfied.

“Okay, let’s get to the Psych Ward,” she said as she dropped the lab coat over the body. “Do you want to lead or should I?”

“No,” Star said. She didn’t look up, here eyes flickered back and forth between the scorch marks on the machine and the body on the floor. “I think I’ve had my fill of coming up with leader ideas.”

Nancy could only nod as she walked to the door. She opened it a crack first, looking to see if anyone else was in the hallway. The area was as quiet as could be expected, she took it as a good sign. She left the room, making certain that Star was right behind her.

“You know, Administrator Daniels isn’t going to be too thrilled about the damage in there,” Nancy said.

“You asked earlier, do you want to die tonight,” Star said as they headed down the hallway towards the Psych Ward. “I guess tonight I want to live. Tomorrow I’ll worry about little things like my career.”