The Donors (15 page)

Nothing scary about the dark once you've seen what's in it.

He stole a quick glance behind them as the dropped to all fours. No creatures came up over the ledge and he prodded Nathan gently to scurry into the hole ahead of him. Then he ducked his own head and scrambled like an animal behind his cub.

They stopped just past the little bend where he had first found Nathan, out of sight of the entrance to their tight burrow, and they collapsed together back against the wall. Jason realized that their breathing sounded wicked loud in the little cave, but tried not to think about it. Not like they could hold their breath for ten or fifteen minutes, right?

“Do you hear that voice? It's telling me I can wake up,” Nathan said from his shoulder.

It took a moment to force that to make sense and then Jason realized what it meant. Nathan must be in the recovery room, or else waking up in the Operating Room. The voice he heard would be the anesthesiologist waking him up. They would only need another couple of minutes.

“Do you feel the breathing machine blowing air into you?” he asked. He realized that those were kid words from his past, not the grown-up Doctor Jason talking.

“I don't think so,” Nathan answered.

So the breathing tube had been removed already. They were really, really close.

“Okay,” Jason said. “Just try to go to the sounds and voices in your mind.”

Nathan gave little kid head shake that meant No Duh. “I know how to do it,” he said and Jason smiled as he felt, more than saw, Nathan close his eyes beside him. Then grunting close and loud made his heart explode out of his chest.

Jason suspected that the creatures were right at the entrance to their burrow. He could almost smell their hot breath and felt Nathan grip him tightly.

“Hurry, Nathan,” he hissed. “They're coming.”

Nathan's voice stayed remarkably calm. “I'm trying,” he said.

The grunts echoed off the walls and he knew that the creatures were trying to burrow their way into the tight passageway. They had found them. Almost unconsciously he pulled his own legs closer and scooted the two of them another foot or two into the hide.

“It's working,” Nathan said excitedly. “It's all getting louder.”

Jason understood that Nathan meant the sounds from the other side, not the grunting that seemed to build to a roar and ripped through his head. The boy felt lighter in his arms and light sparkles seemed to fill the air around him in the dark. It worked. Nathan started to leave.

“I'll be there in a minute,” he said as Nathan faded away in his arms. “I'll come to your bed in recovery as soon as I get back.” But Nathan was gone and he found himself hugging only dark, empty air.

Jason pushed farther into the little cave, which quickly got even smaller and tighter. He realized he could go no farther unless he could tear his own arms off at the shoulders. Eyes closed tightly, he concentrated with all his might on—what? There were no sounds in the quiet call room that he could focus his mind on.

Oh fuck! I'm trapped here. I'm not going to be able to get back.

Jason felt movement behind him and realized that one of the creatures had somehow pushed into the small space. They were coming for him and he had nowhere to go. He let out a scream as he felt a cold, hard claw tickle across his right foot.

“No! No!' he hollered and pulled his foot the few inches he had left, his body now contorted and twisted, wedged into the tiny space. He felt the flesh tear from his shoulder where it pushed against the rock and blood ran from the wound down over his bare and sweaty chest. Pain shot through him as the cave wall ground dirt into the fresh cut and his fingers clawed at the ground, trying to pull himself just another few inches away from the Lizard Man. He could hear the creature stretching out its claw for him, thudding into the dirt floor only an inch or two behind his foot. Puffs of dirt sprinkled his legs each time the claw fell just short. Jason pushed hard against the unyielding wall, felt his foot push off a cold claw behind him. He could barely fill his lungs with air in the tight space, but screamed again.

Then he felt something cool. It was on his left cheek and he concentrated on it with all his might. The soft edge of the cheap foam pillow in the Call Room bunk gelled in his mind. Jason tried to go to the feel of it, to make it real in his mind, and he heard the thump of the reaching claw behind him begin to fade. The air became cooler, almost cold with the air-conditioning vent blowing across his sweat-covered body. The crushing tightness of the cave walls around him relaxed and then faded away completely. Suddenly, his body exploded out in all directions as he stretched out of his contorted position and filled the small bunk. Opening his eyes, he gasped deeply of the cool air for a moment and then sat up with some difficulty.

His left shoulder shot a lightning bolt at him as he shifted his weight to swing his legs out of the bed. He saw a large, dark stain grow rapidly on his shirt from his shoulder and spread downward over his chest. He pulled the neck of his T-shirt aside and saw a deep ragged gash in his shoulder, which bled freely. He awkwardly pulled his shirt over his head one-handed, balled it up, and held tight pressure against the wound. Jason lay back against the wall on the bunk, held his T-shirt tightly against his torn shoulder, and closed his eyes for a moment. He had a lot of shit he needed to sort out.

 

*  *  *

 

When Jenny awoke alone in bed her first thoughts were about Jason. It seemed weird that he would leave without waking her, especially since he had seemed so protective last night. She remembered the feel of his arms around her and smiled at the memory of how he had shifted his hips away. She had come very close to rolling over and attacking him, putting his arousal to good work, but in the end her need for comfort had overwhelmed the other aching need. She had finally let herself drift to sleep in his arms.

Then memories of her dream returned to her and her appetite for sex evaporated.

In the dream she drove to the hospital, the sun just peeking up over the horizon. She remembered the walk in and taking the elevators down to the basement, way past the morgue and down a long hallway to a kind of exam room, only much larger. After that the images became very jumbled and disorganized.

Dreams are just like that.

She thought she remembered dreaming of the cave again, where demons taunted her and around her hung the smell of death. Like before, she remembered Nathan peering down at her, but it felt more like he had looked after her instead of just watched her. The memories of the cave sporadically jumbled amongst memories of the exam room, which as she thought about it seemed more like an operating room. She remembered assisting surgeons and they had taken organs from a dead guy for transplant surgery. Her mind also held torn fragments of memory of her family. She decided to let the whole damn dream just float away like smoke.

Dreams are dreams—can't control them, so why dwell on them? Just stress sneaking into my sleep.

They're not dreams.

The second voice sent a chill up her back that made her shake and she pulled the warm blanket around her. Jenny closed her eyes and tried to think only about Jason and what she could do with him when he got back. The dream faded farther away, but left with one last scream.

The man's scream. The man on the table and in the cave.

Jenny's eyes popped open wide. The man had screamed—the man in the operating room. They had done an organ harvest, she felt sure of that. So why would the man be screaming? First, he should be brain dead to take his organs and second, he had been intubated and on a ventilator. A sudden, vivid picture of the man's eyes looking up at her, tears running down his cheeks, filled her mind and she felt sick to her stomach. The eyes looked very much alive and awake. But he still couldn't scream, right?

The screams came from the cave. There you can scream, or writhe in the dirt and piss yourself.

It's just a nightmare.

So why did it give her such a chill? Why did her stomach tighten and bile fill her throat? Jenny's eyes welled up and she closed them, letting the tears run down her cheek onto her pillow and tickle across her nose. The screams, the impossible screams from the dead organ donor, echoed in her head.

Dreams are just like that.

No—you know better than that, girl. You know what you did.

Jenny squeezed her eyes tighter and pushed the dream the rest of the way out of her head with a final shove.
Please come home, Jason.

Jenny let her mind carry her to a new dream; she fell back into a fitful sleep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The scrub top Jason found in the call room floor locker smelled musty, but not B.O. smelly, so he pulled it on with some difficulty. Funny, after where he had just come from, that he could possibly give a shit about wearing someone else's shirt. The bleeding had pretty much stopped, but he knew it would start up again and he would probably need a couple of stitches. For now he decided to just make a quick stop in a supply closet and tape a couple of gauze 4x4's over the wound so that it wouldn't bleed through his stale scrub top. He wanted very much to get to Nathan, though he knew that the boy was fine for now.

Apparently, he can call out to you from pretty much anywhere, so you've got that going for you. Which is nice.

A few minutes later, Jason hurried down the hall toward the recovery room, his bloody shoulder bandaged, anxious to see Nathan in one piece with his own two eyes. He walked up to the imposing double doors to the recovery room, the big red Staff Only sign in the middle, and pushed the silver plate beside the door. Nothing happened. For a moment he felt confused, but then remembered—the door was swipe-card protected to keep people out. Naturally his ID and swipe card were hanging on his lab coat—down in the ER residents room.

For a moment he thought about running down and grabbing them, but the thought of waiting another five minutes to see Nathan felt unbearable. Jason pushed a gray button in the middle of a black speaker-looking square and heard a buzz and an electronic tone. Then a Hardee's Drive Thru voice squawked at him.

“Recovery Room. How can I help you?”

“Hi,” Jason said, leaning awkwardly toward the black box. “This is Dr. Gelman from Emergency Medicine. I have a patient in there and I don't have my ID with me. Can you let me in?”

There was a long pause and he wondered for a moment if they had heard him. Maybe he wasn't supposed to push the damn button when he talked. He leaned over to speak again, but then the static-filled speaker barked at him.

“Patient's name?”

“Nathan Doren.”

After a moment the voice answered.

“He's not here.”

Jason felt the now-familiar band around his chest and throat. What the hell are they talking about? What had happened? He had to be in recovery by now.

“Whadya mean he's not there?” he demanded as he pushed the button hard enough this time to bend back his thumbnail. He noticed with detached interest that the nail had filthy dirt from the cave under it. “He just got out of surgery a few minutes ago, for God's sake.” The next pause felt eternal and he nearly left to jog over to the OR and make sure Nathan wasn't still in the room having a problem.

“Mr. Doren is an ICU patient, sir,” the clown voice said. “ICU patients are recovered back in the ICU, sir.” Jason spun around without bothering with an answer and headed for the elevators. “Have a nice day, sir,” the box taunted after him. Jason flipped the wall box a middle finger, then blushed at the eighty-year-old volunteer in her red smock, who raised a hand to her mouth at the gesture.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

He skipped the elevators and jogged up the three flights of stairs to the sixth floor. At the door to the ICU, he pressed his fingers to his temples in frustration. He still had the same frigging swipe card problem. Another gray button on another goddamn fast-food speaker laughed at him from beside the door and he pushed it gently trying in vain to slow the rise of a miserable headache.

“Yes?” a nicer voice said.

“It's Dr. Gelman,” he said as patiently as he could and started to launch into his explanation when the doors swung open.

Thank God.

“Good morning, Dr. Gelman,” a nurse he had never met said as he entered.

“Thank you,” he said. “Good morning.”

“How's Jenny?” the young nurse asked with a sly smile and a knowing insider's wink. “Is she enjoying her days off?”

“She's great,” Jason said with a forced smile and hoped it was true.

Nathan's eyes looked heavy with sleep, but they were open and he looked happily at Jason when he entered. Sherry Doren held her boy's good hand and smoothed his hair with her other. She smiled when she saw him.

“Hi, Dr. Gleman—I'm sorry—Jason,” she corrected.

“Hi, Sherry,” he said. “And how are you doing, big guy?” He winked at Nathan, the world suddenly becoming not such a terrible place, at least for a moment.

“Good,” Nathan said, his voice still thick with anesthesia and narcotics. “Thank you for coming.”

Jason suspected that they both knew what he meant, and it had nothing to do with his surgery.

“Were you with him in there?” Sherry asked.

“For most of it,” Jason answered. His shoulder burned to remind him of where they had been. “Everything went great.”

You have no idea, lady.

“So when do you think he can go home?”

Jason felt a heat spread over him. That issue had danced around in his head for the last day, but now that he had been to the cave and knew that Jenny was in real danger; the importance of the issue exploded in size.

“The Burn Service doctors are gonna want to watch the graft closely for at least a few days,” he said. “He can probably leave the ICU soon, but I would count on another couple of days in the hospital.”

Sherry nodded. She seemed quite content to keep Nathan in the safe and secure environment. He wondered if she would feel as content if she knew where he went when his eyes closed. Jason sat on the edge of the bed across from Nathan's mom and looked affectionately at the groggy boy.

“You sure you're okay?”

“Yeah,” Nathan answered. He looked over at his mom. “Mommy, can you get me some juice, please?”

“Sure, baby,” Sherry said. She seemed relieved to have something to do to take care of her boy. She kissed him on the forehead and then stood up and smoothed her shirt with both hands. Jason noticed that her eyes were puffy and guessed she had been crying. “You want apple or orange?” she asked.

“Apple, please,” Nathan answered.

“Okay—apple it is.” She gave Jason another sad smile and headed out the door. As soon as she was gone, Nathan took Jason's hand.

“You got out okay,” he said and immediately sounded much older than the child who had just asked his mommy for some juice. “I was worried you could get stuck and I knew the Lizard Men were tryin' to get you.” He squeezed Jason's hand.

“I'm fine,” Jason said. A wet trickle under his jury-rigged bandage reminded him he wasn't exactly unscathed, but he would get to that in a little while. “I'm really proud of you, Nathan. I can't believe how brave you are.”

Nathan smiled, but his eyes still looked heavy and Jason no longer believed it was just the anesthesia.

“What are we gonna do, Jason?” he asked. “They won't stop now, ‘cause I think they got a taste for it.” He stared off for a moment and Jason felt helpless that he couldn't keep the boy away from the horrible images that must have been replaying in his mind. He had no idea what to say, but he knew Nathan was right—they had to stop these creatures somehow. They had done enough harm.

“I don't know what we're gonna do, buddy,” he said and put a hand on Nathan's shoulder. “But we'll do something. I promise. And I will definitely keep you safe.”

Nathan looked at him quizzically. “I'm not worried about that,” he said simply. “We gotta save Jenny and then stop them from hurting other people. What if they start to hurt people who aren't bad? What if they try to hurt Jenny?” Jason saw a rim of tears pool in the boy's eyes. He bent over and gave him a hug.

Nathan let himself be held for a moment, but then pushed back out of the embrace. “You gotta go and check on Jenny, okay?”

“Okay,” Jason agreed and then panic grew inside him. “Do you think something bad is happening right now?” he asked. “Is she in trouble?”

Nathan shook his head. “I don't know.” Jason thought he looked at a miniature old man. “I don't think so, but I'm not sure. I think if she's gone from the cave she's safe for now,” he concluded.

Jason nodded. He realized, though, that he needed desperately to get to the apartment.

“Okay,” he said. “I'll go find her.”

“Can you bring her by here?” Nathan asked. His voice sounded scared and more like a little boy's now. Jason was relieved that for a moment he could be the grown-up.

“Sure, buddy, and if you need me, do you think you can call me again in our heads?” Jason had a sudden sense of how insane this conversation sounded.

“I can try,” Nathan said. “I don't know if it works if I'm not in the cave.” Their eyes met and Jason's heart broke for the umpteenth time. “I don't wanna go there without you anymore.”

“I know,” Jason said. He couldn't think of anything else.

“Apple juice,” Sherry announced from the door, ending any additional conversation. “I brought one for you, too.” She handed a plastic cup to Jason.

“Thanks, Mommy.” Nathan reached out for it. He sounded like a five-year-old again and for some reason that made Jason feel better. “Jason is gonna try and bring Jenny by later,” he said enthusiastically.

“Oh, that's nice, She's you're favorite, huh, sweetie?”

“They both are,” Nathan answered with a child's honesty and sipped his juice through the bent straw.

Jason rose off the corner of the bed. “Well, I better get going so I can come back by later, okay?”

“Okay,” Nathan said happily.

“You have my numbers if you need anything, right? If anything happens?” he said to Sherry.

“Yeah,” Sherry answered nervously. “What's gonna happen?”

“Oh, nothing,” Jason answered. “I don't mean to worry you. He's doing great.” He bent over and kissed Nathan on top of the head. “I just want you to know you can call if you need anything at all.”

“Thanks so much, Dr. Gleman.” Sherry shook his hand warmly.

“I'll see you both later,” he said, waving from the door. “Get some sleep, buddy.” He immediately regretted it.

“Bye,” Nathan waved back.

Jason hustled out of the ICU with a quick I-know-what-it-is-you-know smile at the nurse who had greeted him, then jogged down the hall for the stairwell door. His shoulder burned and definitely needed attention, but right now he wanted to get home to Jenny. Then he slapped his own forehead.

It's not the eighteenth century, dumbass. Call her on the phone.

He didn't have her cell number, but he thought he could still remember her home number from the call he had received last night. Jason snuck in the back entrance to the ER through the Resident's Lounge, grateful that this door had a push-button lock instead of a swipe. He felt even more grateful that he found the lounge empty. He grabbed the phone off its hook on the wall and pushed the number in from memory. A lump filled his throat when there was no answer after the third ring, but then he heard the click of the receiver and closed his eyes in relief.

“Hello?” a sleepy, beautiful, sexy voice said. “Jason, is that you?”

“Hey,” he said. For a moment he couldn't think what else to say. “Are you okay?”

He listened to silence for a minute and felt uncomfortable. “Yes,” she finally said. “Where are you? Did you go to get coffee? Are you coming back?” Her voice held more than a hint of need, but she sounded fine otherwise.

“I had to do something real quick,” he said. “I'll explain when I get home.” He screwed up his face at the mistake. “Sorry, I mean when I get to your apartment, if you still want me to come back.”

“Yes, please,” she said with glee he could hear. “I'll wait right under these warm covers for you.”

“I'll hurry,” he said with his own big smile.

Jason hung up the phone and decided to quickly repair his shoulder in the locker room so he wouldn't have to do it in the bathroom at Jenny's. For a moment he thought about asking one of his fellow residents to sew his wound for him; suturing it himself in a mirror would be a huge pain in the ass. Jason decided that would still be less painful than coming up for an explanation for the filthy gash.

The ER looked crazy busy and no one even acknowledged him as he snuck into the supply room and grabbed some sterile water, betadine scrub, lidocaine to numb his skin, and some sutures. He took the supplies back to the men's locker room and shower area and ten minutes later his wound was clean and closed. The stitches were a little crooked—it turned out to be harder than he thought to suture backward in a mirror and he had to kind of do it one handed—but it was good enough. He put a fresh bandage on and hurried out of the hospital to get to Jenny's.

As Jason entered the walkway to the parking garage, he noticed the figure in scrubs slumped against the glass wall. The man looked either exhausted or racked with grief, neither of which was at all uncommon for doctors at the training hospital—especially residents who still worked the impossible hours of doctors-in-training. As he got closer, he realized he knew the guy.

“Doug?” he said, a little unsure, as he approached. The man looked over with hollow eyes. The unshaven face stared back at Jason without recognition. Jason realized it was definitely Doug Driscoll—one of the Surgery Chief Residents—and he looked like absolute shit. “Doug, it's me—Jason Gelman. We did the Trauma Service together last year, remember?”

The hollow eyes stared back at him in silence.

“Dude, are you alright?”

“Jason?” The face looked confused, then the man's mouth finally closed and he swallowed hard. His eyes seemed to clear only slightly and he smiled. The smile sent a chill through Jason. He saw no joy in it. Instead it seemed the manic smile of a man with some serious-ass problems. “Hey, Jason. Whassup?” An even more disturbing rattling laugh escaped from the guy's mouth.