Draculas (4 page)

Okay. This was his ship and he was captain. He pointed to the orderlies, then to the mom and the clown.

"Get gurneys ready to move those two to the morgue."

"But they ain't been pronounced," one said. Ralph? Benjamin? He never could tell them apart.

"They will be in a minute." To the LPN: "Get the little girl's wound cleaned up and ready for suturing." To the EMT: "Help her."

"Hey, I don't work here."

"Then get lost."

The EMT held up a finger, showing a puncture that had already stopped bleeding. "But the old guy bit me. I need a tetanus. And penicillin. And hepatitis. And rabies. Did you see that goddamn guy? Fucking give me every shot you got!"

"You've got a forty-eight-hour window to get boosters. Make yourself useful or get lost." He turned to Winslow. "Call security and get everyone down here, then call the sheriff. I need to speak to him."

He wanted armed guards here in case Moorecook returned. He'd have them kick Jenny Bolton out too.

He stalked over to the clown. Glazing eyes stared out of his white-face makeup. His throat was a gaping, red ruin. His costume was soaked but Lanz could still read
Benny the Clown Says "Let's Have Fun!"
on the big button.

Not a lot of fun going on here.

He closed Benny's eyes and motioned to the orderly. "To the cooler."

He heard the little girl start to scream and saw the EMT and the LPN dragging her to the treatment room. Her kicks and screams grew more frantic the farther she was moved away from her mother.

Sorry, kid, but that wound needs closing.

He looked down at the mother: as dead as Benny.

He still wore the latex gloves he'd donned at the start of Moorecook's code blue. Ignoring the fecal smell from the torn intestines, he parted the loops. The abdominal cavity was filled with blood.

"Good lord," said a woman's voice. "Did he get the aorta? How could he bite that deep?"

He looked up at Jenny Bolton. "What the hell are you still doing here?"

"My patient is still here."

"Your patient is a goddamn monster."

"What happened to him?"

"You tell me."

"I have no idea."

"Then you're of no use to me. You're a GOOMER."

Even though the acronym referred to annoying, unwanted patients--Get Out Of My Emergency Room--he figured she'd catch his meaning.

"I'm waiting for my husband--
ex
-husband."

"Then wait outside. I--"

The doors flew back and Lanz almost screamed, fearing Moorecook's return. But he managed to bite it back when he saw the two fat softball players stagger into the ER. Both were blood soaked. The bearded one was limping as he half-carried the younger blond guy.

"Oh, God!" Jenny said.

Then Lanz saw why: The blond guy's left arm was missing at the elbow. He was squeezing the stump, trying to stanch the hemorrhage.

"He bit his arm off, doc!" the bearded one said. "That animal bit his fucking arm off! And he bit
me
in the ass!"

As the pair struggled past, Lanz saw that the man's ample right buttock was missing a sizable chunk--mostly fat, but a little of the gluteus was exposed.

Lanz looked around to find Bolton staring at him. "Still want me to wait outside?"

He was about to tell her exactly what she could do when Winslow called from the nurse's station.

"Doctor Lanz! Sheriff's on the phone!"

Shit!

If he turned down an offer of skilled help, fired employee or not, and anyone died, some lawyer would have his ass.

Lanz pointed to the ball players. "Take care of that arm."

He stripped off his bloody gloves and took the phone from Winslow.

"Sheriff, we've got one hell of a problem here."

"Well, doc, I've got one hell of a problem myself. Let's compare. You first."

Bet you mine is bigger than yours? Was that how they were going to play this? Fine. He'd lay it on with a trowel. Christ, he hated these hicks.

"We've suffered what can only be described as a terrorist attack. I've got two dead and three wounded, one of whom has lost an arm. The terrorist is still loose in the hospital wreaking God knows what kind of havoc. I need a SWAT team here."

The sheriff put on an aw-shucks tone. "Now, doc, I'm sure it ain't that bad, and you know we ain't got no SWAT team--"

"Then call in the fucking National Guard! This is no joke!"

"Well, even if I did call in the Guard, no way they could get to you. One of Joe Loveland's cows wandered onto the tracks and got hit by the four-seventeen freight."

"Who cares
whose
cow it was! It's a fucking
cow!
I've got dead and wounded
people
here, and maybe more on the way!"

"Now hold on. You're not letting me finish. The collision occurred in such a matter of fashion that the train jumped the tracks and came to a stop flat on its side across the highway."

The collision occurred in such a matter of fashion
...who talked like that?

"Sheriff--"

"Thank the Lord, nobody got hurt, it being a freight train and all, but let me tell you, we've got one hell of a mess out here."

"Just send me some deputies, goddamn it!"

"Well, that's just it. Dave Howard's off on vacation to Navajo Lake and Clay Theel's got the weekend off and he's on his way to a gun show in Denver. You got security there at BC. I know those boys. They're good. Turn 'em loose and they'll keep the lid on till we can get somebody over. Gotta go."

"But--"

The line clicked dead.

You got security there
...was he kidding? Blessed Crucifixion security was some good old boys who got off on wearing uniforms and carrying guns. They might, just might, have the cojones to eject Jenny Bolton, but they weren't going to handle the Moorecook thing.

Okay...stabilize these people, get them admitted, then get the hell out of here. First, the softballers.

He turned to Winslow. "What orthopedist and general surgeon are on tap?"

She checked the call list. "Manetti and Schwartz."

"Get them. Tell Manetti we've got a traumatic amputation for him and a major avulsion laceration for Schwartz."

He walked over to the softballers. Jenny had stabilized the amputee. Bleeding had stopped but the guy was as white as his uniform used to be and looking shocky.

"Want me to start an IV?" she said, nodding to the amputee as she cleaned the butt wound on the other softballer, prone on a gurney.

He wanted her out of here but needed the help.

"D-five in NS. Open it up. Type and cross-match him." He was going to need a transfusion. "I'll be sewing up the kid." He jabbed a finger at her. "Don't do one goddamn thing without checking with me first. Understood?"

"Loud and clear," she said with a defiant look. Then it crumbled. "What if Mortimer comes back?"

His worst fear, but he hid it. "We'll handle it."

"Oh, like before? Hiding behind the nurse's station?"

He was about to tear her a new one when three rapid gunshots sounded from somewhere in the hospital. A pause, then two more.

"Oh, God," Jenny whispered.

And then the doors burst open and two burly security guards backed in, each dragging two bloody bodies.

"What the fuck is going on?" one of the guards screamed, wide eyes showing white all around. "There's some kind of creature going crazy in the lobby. We walked in and it was behind the snack bar. It ripped Ernie's head off!"

Sure enough, one of the corpses had been decapitated.

The other guard said, "I shot that fucker five times--I know I had at least three killshots--but they hardly even slowed him!"

Lanz felt his knees go rubbery. He tried to speak but words wouldn't come.

"We've got to evacuate." Jenny said.

He glared at her as he found his tongue. "Evacuate where? We're in the American equivalent of Outer Mon-fucking-golia. Plus the highway's blocked. What do I do? March or carry a hundred and fifty patients out into the woods?"

That shut her up--almost.

"Okay, then. If the patients can't leave, neither am I. When my ex comes back, we're going up to pediatrics and make sure nothing happens to those kids."

"Like hell you--"

And then he saw one of the guards start back into the hospital.

"Where are you going?"

"To get Ernie's head. I ain't leaving his head out there!"

Lanz wanted to scream not to leave him and that Ernie didn't care about the location of his goddamn head at this point, but bit it back. He was the captain of this ship and he had to hold it together, despite the fact that this corner of the world had gone insane.

SHANNA turned away as she saw the prissy doctor poised over Mortimer's exposed chest, smearing a clear gel on the defibrillator paddles. She'd spent the last two months studying some of history's worst atrocities. In fact she'd often perused accounts of mass impalings while eating lunch--no problem.

But this? Uh-uh.

She headed into the hospital proper. She'd been here once before, when they'd thought Mortimer had OD'd, and remembered a snack bar in the lobby. A cup of coffee would hit the spot, especially after that Scotch. She wasn't used to hard liquor.

The short middle-age man with "Ernie" embroidered into his shirt hung by the coffee kiosk at the end of the snack bar.

"Latte?" he said as she approached.

"Just a regular coffee, please. Black."

She glanced around the nearly deserted lobby. By this time the day's surgeries were done, the second shift was ensconced, the doctors had left for their offices, the kitchen was readying to serve dinner, the day visitors were gone and the night visitors weren't home from work yet.

Quiet. Like a morgue.

She grimaced. Probably not the best analogy for a hospital.

She paid Ernie for the coffee and pulled out her cell. She had to call Clay to make sure he'd received the message that she and Jenny needed a ride back to Mortimer's for their cars.

And then what?

Clay was expecting her to spend the weekend with him in Denver. She didn't see how she could do that without losing her mind. Another gun show. When
not
at the show, however...her pelvis tingled with warmth that coursed up through her abdomen and settled in her nipples. The non-show activities would almost be worth it.

Almost.

The sex...she'd miss the sex. They were so good in bed. But the parade of gun shows and all the machismo...she'd had her fill. She had to call a halt.

She checked her phone's display: no bars. Then she saw the sign:
No Cell Phones!

Did they really need that exclamation point?

She glanced back along the lengthy hallway to the ER, then toward the lobby entrance. That looked closer. She pushed through the heavy glass doors to the outside, found a bench, and sat. She tried a sip of her coffee and winced as bitterness stabbed her tongue. Yuck. When had this been made? This morning?

She'd have to have a word with Ernie. But right now...

She stared at the cell display. Still no bars. But tucked in the corner of the room was a pay phone.

So call.

And say what? How could she tell that big cuddly guy that it wasn't working? That she needed more than the best sex she'd ever had in her life. She needed a life of the
mind
as well. He was extremely bright, but his focus was so
narrow.
Guns and action films and his job--he loved being a deputy sheriff, so much that a lot of other stuff in his life was pushed to the side.

She knew what would happen when she told him. He'd promise to change. Spend less time at work. Take her ballroom dancing.

At least she assumed that would happen. This was all new to her. What if he just said, "Okay. See you around."

She almost wished he would. It would shake her to know she'd been that wrong about him, but at least she wouldn't be hurting his feelings.

God, I'm such a coward.

Do it, Shanna.

She found some change in the bottom of her purse and plunked it into the payphone. Four rings and then his voicemail came on. Oh, no. She gritted her teeth and listened once again as Clint Eastwood said,
"Go ahead...make my day. BEEEEP!"

She definitely had to break this off.

"Clay, it's Shanna. Don't know if you got my last message but Jenny Bolton and I had to rush Mortimer to the hospital. Our cars are still at his place. Could you swing by the hospital and give us a lift back?" She bit her lip. "And Clay...about this weekend..." No. She couldn't. She owed him a face-to-face explanation. "Talk to you later."

She hung up the receiver and thought about that. Face-to-face. How could she look into Clay's warm brown eyes and tell him it was over?

A woman came out of the lobby and lit up a cigarette. The smoke drifted Shanna's way. She thought about asking her to move downwind but decided to move herself instead. Shanna dumped her coffee and returned to the lobby. Ernie smiled at her as she passed. She wanted to tell him to brew some fresh coffee but decided against it. She wasn't looking for conversation. She needed a quiet place to think, to rehearse what she was going to say to Clay.

She checked the time. She'd give the ER staff another ten minutes to deal with Mortimer, then she'd return. Poor guy. Such a kind man. He'd been so good to her. Why on Earth had he jabbed himself with those fangs?

As she passed the elevator she saw a plaque:
CHAPEL 2
ND
FLOOR
.

Not a bad idea. She wasn't religious, but it would be quiet and no one would be smoking.

She hit the UP button and a pair of doors slid open immediately. She rode one stop and was stepping out onto the second floor when three sharp reports echoed faintly through the elevator shaft from somewhere in the hospital. She froze. They seemed to come from below. They almost sounded like...

No...couldn't be.

The elevator doors pincered against her and retreated. Puzzled and curious, she stepped back into the cab and punched the LOBBY button. On the way down she heard two more reports, much closer now, and immediately wished she'd stayed on the second floor. Because she knew that sound--knew it all too well from all the shows she'd been to where dealers and collectors demonstrated their wares.