The Donors (3 page)

Dietrich laughed and Jason felt grateful he could still turn the conversation and mood so easily. When in doubt, just bring up his girls and you could spin a whole egocentric side of Ol' Rich Dietrich. His legendary prowess with the women of University Hospital remained the only thing that could get him talking of something other than medicine. Rich was a good friend and a great doctor and, to be honest, if Jason didn't love him so much, he would have hated his guts. Seemed everything came easily to Rich.

“Hey, man, it's like two minutes ‘till. How the hell am I late getting here fifteen minutes before your best showing?” Rich clapped Jason on the back and laughed. “At least if I'm late, I'm doing something worthwhile.”

“Some
one
,” Jason corrected and pulled on his stained white coat.

“Yeah,” his friend agreed proudly. “More often than not.”

They walked together from the lounge and stood in front of the big dry erase board as Jason gave Dietrich the run-down on the patients he had been seeing that remained in the ER. He proudly told his workaholic friend that all but two had a disposition and would need nothing from Rich. The two still in the middle of a workup were stable and would probably need admission to the Medicine Service.

“Anything cool?” Dietrich asked when he had finished his sign out.

Jason felt weird that he wanted to talk about Nathan Doren. What would be the point? No one, not even his close friends (or as close as he allowed) knew anything about his past, of course. What the hell was there to say about Nathan Doren? One more unfortunate kid, fucked up by an uncaring asshole, who would likely never see the inside of a jail cell, much less get the total ass kicking he deserved.

“Just another day,” he said.

“Yeah, well bring it on,” his friend said and picked up the chart of one of the two patients leftover from the day shift. In moments he looked lost in the record, searching for missing clues, Jason supposed. Jason shrugged and walked away.

He dropped his coat unceremoniously into the bottom of his locker and left the ER. As he passed the elevators, he felt a powerful draw. He stood a moment, contemplating.

What the hell's the point? What am I gonna do? Tell him I've been there?

“Fuck.” He sighed and pushed the up button on the elevator.

He hated the burn ward all over again the moment he stepped out of the elevators. The smell brought back the horror he felt every day he'd worked on the Burn Service the year before. It wasn't a bad smell but it was distinctive and brought back a flood of emotional memory: people not only deformed, but in agony. He remembered the screams of dazed and slurred-speech patients when he had scrubbed away dead skin with a surgical brush, scrubbed until they were left with nothing but raw, bleeding tissue. Could he stand seeing little Nathan Doren like that?

“Can I help you?” a fat nurse he didn't know asked. Her tone did nothing to convey a desire to help him in any way.

“Yeah,” he said. “I'm Dr. Gelman from ER. I'm just here to check on a patient of mine. Nathan Doren?”

“Oh yeah,” the nurse said without much interest. “The kid. We couldn't keep him here. He's down in Pedi ICU.” Jason walked away without bothering to offer the customary thank you.

The nurse that greeted him in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit seemed the total opposite of her miserable colleague. In a different mood he might have been attracted to her. Young, pretty, enthusiastic and eager to help. Today, she just annoyed him, but he remained a good enough person to feel bad about that.

“Oh, the little boy with the hand, bless his heart,” she said, touching him on the arm. “It's so nice you came to see him. Not many of you ER guys come up here.” She looked at him expectantly and was clearly not giving him the room number until he responded.

“He seemed like a really nice kid,” he said awkwardly.

“He's in six-twenty-two,” she answered, apparently satisfied.

Jenny
her name tag said. Jason decided to remember that for future reference.

“Thanks, Jenny.” He headed down the little hall between the large nurse's station and the patient rooms.

Jason peered into the room through the oversized window with its half-drawn shades. The sign on the door read “SMH DOE,” the code for a patient with legal issues that should not have any information released. Nathan appeared to be asleep, his eyes closed and his left hand cupped around the bulky white bandage on his right. His mother stretched awkwardly in the chair beside the bed, her head lying across an outstretched arm and her hands across her son's waist. He watched them for a moment and remembered things best forgotten.

There was no point in waking them, and Jason felt glad that he wouldn't have to talk to the mother again. He would visit in the morning on his way in, he decided, just to see how his patient was doing. As he watched, Nathan opened his eyes. They stared at each other. Then the little boy gave a limp wave and smiled. Jason smiled and waved back, just as Nathan's eyes closed again.

Jason wiped a tear from his cheek and turned to leave.

See you in the morning, little buddy.

 

*  *  *

 

Steve laid back in his recliner in front of the TV, a half-finished cigarette in his right hand and the empty bottle from his fourth beer in his left. His eyes half-closed, his near-sleeping brain took in the soft-core porn from the late-night pay TV and turned it into a great dream. The still-conscious part of his brain took a last drag on his Marlboro and stubbed out the butt in the overflowing ashtray beside him. Then his eyes closed the rest of the way and his beer bottle slipped softly to the carpet beside him as his breathing grew heavy.

When Steve opened his eyes again, he saw only darkness. He peered through the black, searched for the light from the TV, but found nothing to break up the darkness, not even the usual hazy glow from the outside lights in the parking lot.

Power's out,
his sleepy mind told him.

He closed his eyes again and searched for the seductive dream he had been having, when a soft noise made his eyes snap back open.

The fog of sleep evaporated immediately. He sensed it more than heard it—not a creak or even a “house” sound, but more of a rustle, like someone moving in the dark, the clothes on their skin making the softest of noises. He felt his pulse quicken and suddenly his breathing seemed very loud. He pushed up and out of the chair to search for a flashlight in the small apartment. He still had a big torch in the junk drawer in the kitchen, as good for cracking heads as it was for seeing in the dark. Halfway out of the chair, he felt strong hands grab his arms at the elbows and force him back down again with a painful thump.

“What the fuck?” he hollered. Pain shot down his arms and caused his fingers to tingle. The vice-like grip crushed his flesh above the elbows and secured him to his chair. Steve kicked his feet and thrashed his head. Fear seized his throat more powerfully than the force on his arms. His hands went numb and heavy, and he hollered into the blackness of the dark apartment. “What the hell is going on?
WHO'S THERE?”
He heard the shrill panic in his own voice but little else.

Wait. What was that?

More rustling. Someone moved past him in the shadows and then he felt something cool and wet on his forearm. He kicked his feet, renewing his struggle, but his arms and upper body remained motionless in the iron clasp of his abductor. Terror rose in his chest and he thought he might scream. For a moment, he worried he would piss himself. Then a voice spoke, a familiar deep whisper.

“Mr. Prescott, are you sorry for what you have done?”

Steve strained his eyes but saw nothing.

“What are you talking about? What have I done? What am I supposed to be sorry for? Jesus, get these fuckin' guys off me, you assholes!
I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING WRONG!”

“
Wrong answer, Mr. Prescott. Okay,” the whisper commanded. “Go ahead.”

“Go ahead and what? What's going on?” Steve threw his head back and forth, completely at the mercy of his own terror now. He felt a sharp pain stab into his right forearm, followed by a burning that moved slowly up his skin to his chest. He felt his arm get weak and his head grow fuzzy. It felt like being pulled under swirling water by unseen hands. He felt warm all over, then hot and light-headed.

Then he felt nothing at all

.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jason slept like a rock, but awoke before his alarm rang. He lay in the dark of his bedroom, thinking about Nathan Doren. He realized that he must have thought of him in his sleep as well, because he woke with Nathan's cute little face imprinted on his mind. He'd set his alarm for five a.m., a little earlier than usual, and had intended to see the boy before his shift started. Hopefully, he could visit without having to talk much with the mother. Jason felt bad about the injustice of that, but knew it reflected his unresolved feelings about his own childhood, not any great sin of Sherry Doren.

As he lay in bed, his thoughts shifted, as they often did, to his mom. He wished she had lived long enough for him to let her know he loved her. She had died of breast cancer, and maybe a broken heart. When she'd died he still blamed her for what had happened to him. He was older now, not much wiser, but maybe a little more worldly from his experiences in the ER. He knew that his mother had loved him. He also knew he loved her and missed her terribly.

Not your fault, Mom.

The obnoxious squeal of his alarm clock brought Jason back to his bedroom. He pounded it into silence, sighed and got stiffly out of bed. Man, he felt it these days. No more double shifts for him, no matter what a fellow resident might promise him in return for an unscheduled day off. Outside of the Trauma Service, where it was mandatory, he promised himself no more twenty-four-hour shifts. Too painful. The face that looked back at him from the dirty mirror in his otherwise tidy bathroom agreed wholeheartedly.

A half hour later, Jason headed for the hospital at a brisk walk, hoping that the early morning cool might help him shake the nagging strings of drowsiness. By the time he strolled down the drive toward the ER entrance, he felt pretty good. He forced his mind to the mundane thoughts of his coming shift and the academic conference later that day—anywhere but to the thoughts of his past. Nathan opened a lot of old wounds.

As he crossed the last corner, he glanced down the alley between the ambulance entry-way and the office building and saw two figures engaged in a hushed conversation. What stopped him in his tracks was not just their strange appearance but a nagging sense familiarity that made his heart pound in his chest.

Their coats hung nearly to their ankles and both wore nineteen-forties-style top hats. They looked to Jason like extras in an old black-and-white private eye movie. Then the taller of the two men's attention shifted, turning slowly toward Jason.

From beneath the brim of the top hat, from the shadow that covered the man's face, Jason saw two orange eyes. They looked like dying embers from a charcoal grill and Jason felt them focus on him—through him, really. A sudden chill made him shudder. The man's slash of a mouth seemed to slide apart, and in the grin, he saw rows of impossibly long, narrow pointed teeth. Though the man didn't speak, Jason felt rather than heard a soft voice. It seemed to penetrate him and filled his head with static energy.

Hello, Jason. Remember me?

Jason pulled his light jacket tightly around his chest and darted the rest of the way across the alley entrance in a near-panic. His pulse pounded in his temples and bile filled the back of his throat. With an almost painful effort, he turned his eyes back to the alley as he reached the corner, terrified that he would see the demon-like man only inches from his face, the shark like mouth open and bloody.

But he saw nothing. The alley stood empty except for a grey cat that stopped its slow, arrogant stroll long enough to look at him with indifference, then turn its ass at him, tail upright, and saunter away.

What the holy hell was that?

Jason reached out a trembling hand for the corner of the hospital to steady himself. The chilly air now felt hot and his stomach turned enough that he thought for a moment he would add his vomit to the stench of the alley. He couldn't tear his eyes from the empty alley and fully expected the two figures to magically reappear at any moment. Jason squeezed his eyes tight and felt the swaying sensation dissipate. When he opened them again he saw only the dark blue Crocs on his feet. He never paid much attention to his shoes, but they seemed to realign his thoughts at the moment. He felt his world normalize, his breathing slow, and he stood up straight.

Hallucinations. Nice. Well aren't we the model of mental fucking health?

He had lived with night terrors for most of his life, but he had never felt anything like this. As his breathing continued to slow, his mind went about the familiar work of rationalization. It was okay to see bizarre men in top hats in alleys. Just a trick of light and a leftover nightmare of the boogeyman. Maybe a bad burger or something.

By the time he swiped himself through the doctor's entrance beside the ER triage desk, he had decided to move past the incident completely, though he doubted he could.

And why was it oddly familiar?

Jason took the employee elevators to the sixth floor. He had to walk right past the visitor elevators but he really didn't want to muster, a fake I'm-a-doctor-and-I'm-here-to-help-you smile.

The Pediatric Unit was quiet. The nursing staff had passed out the meds and was, for the most part, catching up on their charting.

“Good morning, Dr. Gelman,” a soft voice whispered. He looked over as Jenny waved with two fingers from her seat at the nurse's station. He waved back awkwardly and felt uncomfortable.

“It's Jason,” he whispered back, then stood there like an idiot, not sure what else to say. At least she smiled back at him. He wished he had shaved. He waved again and then headed over to Nathan's room.

Jason peered through the large half-window into room twenty-two. Nathan looked wide awake, but lay still and stared at the ceiling as if deep in thought. Jason thought he looked much older than a five-year-old should. In the corner of the room, his mother stretched out on an oversized chair that had converted to a less-than-oversized bed.

Jason managed a smile as he opened the door, but the flash of fear in Nathan's eyes made him sorry he had worn his white coat. The boy's face relaxed when he recognized Jason.

“Hi.” His soft voice was overwhelmed by the bed. He waved a shaky hand, an I.V. tube taped to the back. His eyes were sharp and not at all glazed from morphine as Jason had expected.

“Hey, buddy.” Jason walked over to the bed. “How ya' doin', lil' man?”

“'Kay,” Nathan answered, then raised his arm, wrapped in a bulky dressing over an L-shaped splint. “Hurts.”

“Yeah, I know.” Jason fought the tightness in his throat. He tried to sound half as brave as the young patient. “Not really fair is it?”

Nathan looked at the ceiling a minute, pondering the question, and Jason felt sorry he had asked it. The little boy turned toward him, his eyes clear and focused.

“No, I guess not,” he answered softly. “At least my mommy is all right.” Jason realized that he had taken Nathan's hand in his own and that the boy was squeezing tightly. Nathan's fingers felt tiny and frail. He realized the boy had said something else.

“What, buddy?” he asked.

“Do you think Steve is sorry for what he did?” the boy asked again.

“I… well… uh,” Jason had no idea what to say. “I don't know, Nathan,” he finally stammered out. The boy looked at the ceiling again. How did you tell a kid that the world sucked, that people like Steve felt nothing but anger and hate? How did you tell him that the man wouldn't pay at all for the pain he had brought this brave boy?

“He will be sorry, I think,” Nathan said softly, almost to himself.

“Why do you say that?” Jason said skeptically. The little boy turned to him again. He looked frightened.

“I had a dream,” he said and looked over at his sleeping mother as if afraid she might hear. “The Lizard Men hurt Steve—hurt him real bad.” The small hand squeezed harder now. “The men with the glowing eyes are going to hurt him in really bad ways.” The boy's voice quivered and Jason wondered what kind of horrible nightmare all of this had created. Maybe the morphine had made it worse.

“It's okay, Nathan,” he said, smoothing the boy's hair from his eyes. “It was just a bad dream.”

“No,” the boy said in a firm voice. “We should tell Steve to go away before the lizard men get him.”

Jason rubbed his fingers across Nathan's head. They were both quiet until Nathan's eyes flickered closed and his breathing deepened. Then Jason pulled the covers up around his shoulders and touched his cheek gently.

Fuck Steve. I hope the lizard men skin him alive.

He had been around long enough to know there would be no such justice.

 

*  *  *

 

Jenny couldn't seem to get Dr. Jason Gelman out of her mind. Maybe it was the way he seemed so troubled. She knew that she tended to be maternal, but she also felt touched that the doctor had come to visit Nathan—not once, but twice. She had never seen one of the ER docs come to the unit to visit anyone.

The way he looked at the little boy the night before, watching him sleep through the window, had been almost as sweet as the way he had held the boy's hand and smoothed his hair this morning. She had been unable to keep her eyes off of the quiet, attractive man. More than once, she had walked past the room just to get another glimpse of him. When he'd left, he seemed very troubled and she felt oddly worried about him as she rode the elevator to the first floor, another tiring twelve-hour shift over.

Don't forget the rule.

Jenny had not been a nurse long, but she already knew enough broken-hearted colleagues who had not followed the simple rule: no dating doctors, especially not residents, who are really just passing through. She had no interest in being a convenient pit-stop for a man who worked long hours and had little time to spend on anyone but himself. Still, something really intrigued her about Dr. Jason Gelman. She blushed as she thought about him touching her arm the night before.

Jenny passed through the sliding doors and into the glass walkway that connected the hospital to the parking garage. She tried to shake her school-girl thoughts from her mind. Better to think about other, more important things, though she couldn't remember any at the moment. She forced her thoughts to Nathan Doren and thanked God for the tenth time in twelve hours for her perfect and protected upbringing. She remained close to her parents and her younger brother. The idea of a grown-up hurting an innocent child seemed foreign and unbelievable to her. She fumbled in her backpack for her keys as she passed through the second sliding door with a familiar “whish.”

The garage always made her nervous, but today the feeling was so intense that she briefly thought about turning around. A time or two in the past, when feeling really badly about a particularly tragic patient, she had found someone to walk her to her car. The problem was that the girls she asked usually made her feel silly and the guys always assumed she was flirting then wound up hitting on her. She looked around the garage and saw no one suspicious. In fact, she saw no one at all.

“Stupid,” she said with some annoyance. Her voice echoed from the enclosed parking deck. Jenny walked briskly to the elevators, only a few yards from the doorway, and pushed the button for seven, the highest floor, where she seemed always to get stuck. The elevator dinged and she watched the numbers count down from five on the illuminated dial.

A chill swept through the stagnant air, and Jenny pulled her thin cotton nursing jacket around her shoulders more tightly. Her heart raced and she watched anxiously as the numbers counted down above the elevator, waiting for the next ding. Had the number been anything but three she would probably have sprinted back into the hospital.

She glanced around the empty garage, certain she was being watched, and felt for a moment like prey being stalked by an invisible predator. When the doors to the elevator began to open she squeezed herself through without waiting for them to finish, spun around and jabbed her finger repeatedly on seven. Even when her fingernail splintered, she continued to pound the button until the door slid painfully, slowly shut with an anticlimactic thump.

Jenny leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. Her breathing slowed to normal and again she felt ridiculous. She laughed aloud, her voice a hollow resonating emptiness in the elevator, and pounded the heel of a hand gently on her forehead.

“You dopey girl,” she said aloud to the dirty silver doors. “You silly, absurd girl.” She laughed again.

By the time the elevator groaned its way to the seventh floor of the parking deck, the feeling of being stalked had evaporated completely. Nathan's story must have settled more deeply in her psyche than she thought.

As usual, her car was one of only a few scattered about the seventh floor, despite the mass of vehicles that had been there when she had come to work last night. Trouble with the night shift was you got there before all the day employees had left, so parking was scarce. She spotted her grey Ford Escape, the closest thing she could afford to a real SUV on a new nurse's salary. It sat several rows over at the end, just beside the entrance to the stairwell. As she got closer, she jabbed the button on her FOB and heard the satisfying chirp of her doors unlocking.

Something felt very wrong though, and Jenny slowed as she approached her truck. She saw no one on the wide-open, well-lit floor. It took her a minute to figure out what her brain was trying to tell her. Then she saw the glow and stopped. She strained to see better into the stairwell, a few yards beyond where her car sat, its lights blinking as if to say, “Come on, hurry up. Get in already.”

The stairwell looked empty and dark except for two sets of glowing lights. They looked like slowly dying embers in a campfire and seemed to hang in midair, one pair nearly a foot higher than the other. Jenny stood there, her keys held out in front of her, and strained to see the source. She got the sense that the lights moved ever-so-slightly, as if swaying in the wind, and she felt her earlier foreboding return.