Twisted (Burbank and Parker 1)

No one noticed as I walked in through the emergency room entrance of the hospital. Nurses from the morning shift are finishing up their paperwork and preparing to brief the afternoon shifts when they arrive in a half hour. Everyone is either busily working or champing at the bit to get out. The admitting desk is crowded and the staff looks frantic as they try to process the new patients and direct people to the right areas.

Blend. Be invisible. Act natural. Avoid the security cameras. Push beyond the physical agony and the deafening voices of the demons. Stay focused. Between the maintenance cart and uniform I “borrowed,” I can easily get lost in the crowd.

I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the window. I look like hell. It’s the pain. It’s making me crazy. Sweat is matting my hair and beading up on my forehead. I look like a junkie or a lunatic. I’m anything but. I’m one of the few sane people left—sane and decent. A man who knows right from wrong.

That’s why I’ve been chosen.

I need that morphine.

Deep breaths. Slow, deep breaths. I can do this.

I pluck out my sweatshirt and make sure nothing’s fallen out of the pockets. Reassured, I abandon the cart at the base of the stairwell, and start climbing. I’ve done my homework. So I know where I’m going.

I have to pause at the landing of each floor to gather my strength. Plus, the noise of the demons is so loud, my skull is about to cave in.

Somehow I make it to the fourth floor. The nurses’ station at this low-key wing would have only a few RNs at the desk. Less people, less chance of being discovered.

I had to pick a hospital near the TCNJ campus. I want them to think that what’s about to happen was committed by the same person who attacked Tyche. That I’m nearby, crippled with pain and hiding out as I self-administer my morphine.

By the time the cops get the call, I’ll be miles away, preparing to satisfy the demons, planning the capture of my alternate goddess.

I have enough ketamine. If necessary, I can always get more on the street. But the other drugs…I need more.

Seizing a new cleaning cart from the closet, I shuffle my way down the corridor until I have a view of the nurses’ station. Good. Just as I thought. Two nurses. Both on their computers. Both on the far side of the desk. I can head in the opposite direction without being noticed.

Halfway down the corridor, I spot my victim. An elderly man, either heavily sedated or in a coma, with a respirator by the head of his bed, and no visitors in his room. I leave my cart, walk noiselessly into the room, and calmly disconnect the respirator tube. My action triggers the alarm, and I’m out of the room in a heartbeat.

By the time my cart and I are headed back in the direction from which I started, nurses are yelling “Code Blue” over the sound of the wailing alarm, and every available staff member is racing into the old man’s room. All except one, who’s hurrying toward the nurses’ station.

A medication nurse. She’s wearing an ID tag, and around her neck is the necessary key to the medical cabinet. From the bold-lettered words on the ID tag, I can read that she’s a supervisory RN. I can’t make out her name, nor do I care. She looks like a wrinkled old bulldog, from her stout build and crabby scowl to her arrogant, short-legged waddle. Her patients will be better off without her. So will the staff. Once she’s gone, the chief of staff can promote a worthy, compassionate type to take her place. Someone maternal to protect and care for those in need. As it should be.

I pull on my latex gloves, and watch Nurse Bulldog disappear around back. There’s no doubt where she’s going, or what she’s going

for.

I have only one goal, and nothing is going to interfere with it. I feel no remorse for what I’m about to do. It’s for survival, not for the gods, and not for the demons.

Five minutes, and I’ll be finished and gone.

So will Nurse Bulldog.

I move quickly and silently. An instant later I’m standing a few feet away from the medicine cabinet. Nurse Bulldog is concentrating on unlocking and opening it. I let her. The handle turns, and she pulls open the door. She reaches inside. I glance around. No one’s in sight.

I reach inside my multipocketed sweatshirt and retrieve my trusted knife. In one long stride I cross over to her.

She never hears me. I’m on her before she knows what’s happening. I grab her from behind, slitting her throat and slashing through the carotid artery. She drops to the floor like a thick sack of grain, blood spurting from her neck and pouring around her. The thud of her body is barely audible over the din of the Code Blue alarm.

Upon fleeting inspection, I’m pleased to see that my sweatshirt and custodial uniform look to be spared. Only my gloves and knife are bloody. And no one will be finding those.

I put away my knife and step over her body. It’s quite a challenge to avoid the growing pool of blood now spreading across the floor. But I’m careful to leave no footprints. I retrieve the black plastic bag from my pocket and load it with what I need. Morphine, Demerol, Nembutal, fentanyl, and OxyContin, plus a handful of syringes. Then I step over her body once again. I peel off my gloves as I peek around the corner.

I toss the bag onto my cart, and walk calmly toward the stairwell. The halls are now silent. Obviously, the staff did whatever they could without the medication Nurse Bulldog went to get. That disturbs me. Did the old man die? He didn’t deserve to. As I pass by, I hear snatches of conversation from the staff members exiting his room. They’re upset, but it’s because the respirator was tampered with. The old man is alive. I’m greatly relieved.

Reaching the stairwell, I abandon the cart, grab my bag, and force myself to hustle down the steps, cursing Tyche for the agony in my groin. Finally, I reach the ground floor and reclaim my original cart. I push it to the back of the hospital and out the quieter rear entrance. I unbutton my uniform, stuff it in the cart, and take off with my black plastic bag.

As I drive away, I wonder what the reaction will be when Nurse Bulldog is discovered. If her personality matches her demeanor, the cheers will outnumber the sobs.

For some reason, that strikes me as amusing.