A chill passed through Riley as she stepped off the elevator onto the hospital’s General Care floor. Her stomach clenched, goosebumps traced up her arms. Her Grandmother used to tell her that feeling was someone walking over her grave. Riley had never given much credence to the old saying but it felt somehow appropriate at the moment.
It had been a long day, Riley was exhausted when she’d been given one more task by the Pediatric Head Nurse. Just pick up a file on the 5th floor, that’s it. Quick and simple, yet precariously close to being the straw that broke the camel’s back. With the busy days in the large building, far from sunlight, time seemed to pass differently. A ten hour day felt like sixteen, a sixteen hour day felt like, well, more than the young nurse could handle.
The eerie feeling grew the further Riley walked, her footfalls echoing through the deserted halls. It was surreal. Poised just outside the tiny town of Sutton, St. Ann’s was the only comprehensive medical facility in a hundred miles, they rarely had a slow day. This evening the seemingly empty 5th floor was giving her a carnival Haunted House vibe, as though a scary creature might pop out from an unexpected place at any moment.
Just get it done.
Riley rounded the corner to the 5th floor Nurse’s Station and almost walked into RN Nelson coming the other direction. Both women jumped back, eyes wide, gasping.
“Jesus, Riley, you scared the shit out of me!” The pudgy, middle-aged nurse was bent almost in half, hand to her chest, glaring at the younger nurse. “You do that again and I’ll start making you wear a bell around your neck.”
The surprise on Nelson’s face turned suspicious. “What are you even doing up here?”
Riley took a moment to let her heartbeat return to normal before explaining that she was just playing gopher, her Head Nurse had requested the Hatley file.
“It’s somewhere over there but I’m not even sure it’s been updated.” Nelson gestured to a large stack of files on the corner of the station. There were at least fifty folders in a haphazard pile that risked toppling at any moment. “How quick do you need it? Even finding it’s going to take a while.”
Riley shrugged. “I’ll find out.”
She grabbed the hospital phone off the wall and dialed Pediatrics. The Head Nurse had been getting ready for rounds when she sent Riley up but there was a chance she hadn’t left the station yet.
Nelson sat down at the desk, shifted half the pile of records onto her ample lap and started flipping through them.
The phone was ringing.
Riley was only five feet away from another human but for some reason she was still feeling a chill. Maybe it was the exhaustion, or the strangely quiet floor, but it felt like a ghost was tracing a cool finger up her spine. Someone, or something, continued to walk over her grave.
Over the sound of ringing in her right ear, Riley could hear footsteps approaching the station.
Riley turned her back to the counter, hunched over the phone. She willed someone in Pediatrics to pick up the phone. She glanced over at Nelson who was ignoring the approaching person as thoroughly as Riley was. It was to be a battle of wills, was it? Who can ignore or pass off the patient wins, loser has to actually be helpful. Toward the end of the day this was a common game for tired nurses.
The footsteps stopped. Riley could picture the person’s gaze flickering between her back and Nelson, waiting for acknowledgement. Yeah, good luck with that, bub.
After a few moments a male voice spoke out.
“Excuse me, do either of you know if Dr. Huxley is around?”
Riley half turned, still not looking at the man, and saw Nelson glance up at him. The older nurse gestured at the pile on her lap, giving him her best ‘I’m in the middle of something’ look, before going back to flipping folders. The game wasn’t over yet.
Still no answer in Pediatrics.
Riley clung to the telephone receiver like it was her lifeline. It was her protection, it was her good luck charm, it was her holy cross in a building full of vampires trying to suck out her energy, it was a force field generator that kept the irritating patients and family members at arm’s length. This wasn’t even her department. Talk to a patient? Hell no, she was on the phone. She turned a little to her left, putting the phone between her and the man.
A few moments later he spoke again, getting impatient. “Is Dr. Huxley still in the building? Has he gone home for the night? Is he with a patient? What? Something? Anything? He was supposed to call with my mom’s test results today and never did.”
Nelson sighed and looked up at him over her reading glasses, a teacher interrupted by a rude student. Her voice was flat. “Which room is your mom in?”
“512.”
“Oh.” Nelson’s face darkened. She didn’t have to check, she knew exactly who his mother was. Everyone on the floor knew her and gossip carried the stories around the rest of the hospital. Even Riley recognized her name when Nelson said it. “Mrs. Meyers.”
Judging from Nelson’s reaction, the stories weren’t as exaggerated as Riley had assumed. Other nurses repeated tales of how Mrs. Shannon threw food at nurses, cussed at them and other patients, and generally made everyone around her miserable. Maybe that was one of the reasons the floor was so vacant, no one wanted to be near her.
“Uh, yeah.” The man looked down at his feet. “I’m sorry about… uh… her. Everything. I know she’s a handful.”
Nelson made a sound, something between a chuckle and a snort. “Sorry for us? I feel sorry for you. Hopefully she’ll be leaving us soon.”
The man made a startled squawk. Riley had to smother a chuckle before Nurse Nelson realized her faux pas.
“Oh, dear. Literally, not figuratively, Mr. Meyers. What I meant was I’m sure she’ll recover quickly and be headed home soon. Speaking of which, I think the doctor is still here. Nurse Riley, can you page Dr. Huxley?”
Riley’s good luck charm had backfired. She glared daggers at Nelson and her smug smile.
This isn’t even my floor! But of course she couldn’t say that to a senior nurse, let alone in front of a patient’s family.
Reluctantly, Riley glanced at the other side of the counter.
Between her graveyard feeling and the stories about the man’s mother, Riley was expecting a serial killer or a James Bond villain. He looked like neither. The cold chill in her gut dissolved into something closer to contempt.
She cringed and motioned with a finger for him to wait a minute. He nodded.
The man was in his mid thirties and disgusting. He obviously hadn’t shaved or changed in days. Or showered. His unwashed hair was slick and stuck out from his head in awkward angles. There were layers of dirt and grease all over him and his clothes. The sweat stains on his shirt had sweat stains, like tree rings. He was filthy even by farming town standards, which was saying something. He looked vaguely familiar, but then patients and their families tended to spend a lot of time around the hospital.
One more reason to leave Sutton, small town = small town guys. Ugh.
The phone was still ringing. Pediatrics was either busy or no one was at the station.
Riley glared at Nelson one more time before she hung up and paged Dr. Huxley on the hospital’s intercom. If he were still in the hospital he’d either come up to the Nurse’s Station or call.
Riley cast a cool look at Nelson and the man. “There you go.”
“And here you go.” Nelson held a red patient folder out to Riley. Perfect timing. “And it looks like Dr. Simpson got it up to date before leaving for the night.”
“Thanks.” Riley snatched the folder out of the nurse’s hand, turned on her heel, and started back toward the elevator without another word.
A moment later Riley heard rapid foot steps behind her. She didn’t bother to look back, she knew the man was following her. Of course. Just what she needed.
He reached her and walked just behind her right elbow, trying to keep up with her quick pace. “Hey, I haven’t seen you up here before.”
This close she could smell him, like half spoiled meat and three day old beer. There was even a faint whiff of what might have been marijuana. Classy.
As an attractive, blond woman with a cute ass (if she did say so herself), Riley was quite familiar with attention from the male gender. Most of the time she could handle it with casual indifference, but some days it just pissed her off.
Riley was curt. “I don’t work this floor.”
“So, what floor do you work?”
Riley remained silent. She came to a halt in front of the elevator and jabbed the down button. Hard.
“Your name is Riley?”
She groaned, which he seemed to take as assent. Fucking ID badge. Hospital employees were required to wear them on a lanyard around their neck while on duty. It had a thumbnail photo of her face and her last name in big letters above the bar-code. He must have noticed it back at the station.
The elevator doors opened. Riley stepped inside, turned and hit the button for the third floor. She hoped that he cared about his mother enough to wait for Dr. Huxley instead of continuing to follow her.
He stopped just outside the elevator doors and gave her a weak grin, the dirt on his face accenting the thin wrinkles at the corners of his mouth. “Well?”
The persistence was infuriating, she just wanted him to leave her the hell alone. Riley was at the tail end of a 16 hour day. She just wanted to go home, watch half an hour of bad TV, have a glass of wine and fall asleep on the couch. Hopefully she’d dream of better times in a bigger town than Sutton or a nicer hospital than St. Ann’s.
“It doesn’t matter what my name is or what floor I usually work.”
The man squinted, confused. “Why not?”
Riley gave him a plastic, fake smile and half wave as the doors started closing. “Because I don’t work this floor and, if I have anything to say about it, you’re never going to see me again. Good night.”
She saw the man’s face fall before the doors cut him off from view. Harsh but clean, no ambiguity. Riley dropped her hand to her side and let out a long breath.
God, I need to get out of this fucking town.
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