by Mia Archer
“What are you doing?” Cara asked.
“Getting the hell out of here,” I growled, sitting up and throwing my legs over the edge. “We’re in danger.”
“Danger?” Cara asked, and then her eyes went wide. She seemed to come to the same realization I had just moments ago. Only it’d taken her all night.
Not that I could blame her for taking longer to come to that conclusion than I did. After all, she hadn’t grown up with the paranoia my father had put on me.
“They were in on it,” she said.
“I don’t know how or why,” I said. “But it’s looking like that’s the case.”
“But why would they do something like that?” Cara asked. “Doctors and nurses are supposed to help people!”
“Maybe they’re getting paid off,” I said, frowning through the medication haze that was starting to clear just a little. “Maybe the werewolves threatened them or their families. Maybe they’re werewolves in disguise. Waste of a fucking medical degree, but what can you do?”
“Damn,” Cara said.
“It’s a shitty world out there,” I said. “Filled with a bunch of shitty humans, and a bunch of even shittier supernatural creatures that’d like nothing more than to give humanity the business.”
I was angry at the thought that the people who were supposed to be helping me had actually been pumping me full of stuff that kept me from getting better.
“What the hell are you doing out of your bed?”
23
Kirsten
I looked the nurse up and down. The problem was I wasn’t sure if she was part of the conspiracy, or if she was merely a useful idiot working on behalf of the vast werewolf conspiracy developing on campus.
That was always the problem with supernatural bullshit. It was impossible to tell whether a particular person was in on the conspiracy, or if it was supernatural creatures using existing human systems to get what they wanted.
It was amazing how quickly the supernatural things that went bump in the night had gotten used to taking advantage of things as mundane as bureaucracy and people’s willingness to do anything as long as they were following orders.
“I think I’m feeling much better,” I said. “I’ll be taking a walk now.”
“Now you wait just one damn minute,” the nurse said, holding up a hand like she thought that was going to stop me.
She turned to Cara. If anything her eyes narrowed even more. They were almost slits by the time she’d turned the full force of that glare on Cara.
“Now that she’s awake we can be done with this whole farce. You’re not her sister, and I know it,” she said.
“Is that any way for you to talk to my family?” I said.
Cara looked between the two of us wide-eyed, but she was also looking more and more pissed off. I also noticed that her hand was going towards my purse, and there was only one thing in my purse that she could use to get out of this situation.
I hit her with a subtle shake of my head. The last thing I wanted was for her to pull that thing out and start using it on people here in the hospital.
Shooting people was the kind of thing that would bring a response from the local police in addition to whatever werewolf conspiracy was working at this hospital. I really didn’t want to give the police an excuse to come out here with guns blazing.
Cara seemed to get the hint, because she slowly moved her hand away from the purse.
“Now you listen here,” the nurse said, using a tone of voice that I’m sure worked really well when she was dealing with rowdy college students who’d had too much to drink and were getting their stomachs pumped or something, but it wasn’t going to do jack or shit for me. “You need to get back in that bed, and you need to…”
“I’m afraid I’m not going to do that,” I said, glancing at Cara and motioning for her to move.
She started towards the nurse, and again the nurse held a hand up. She seemed dead set on keeping us from getting out of here. Which was having me lean more towards the idea that she was part of the vast werewolf conspiracy.
I glanced out the massive windows along one side of my room. The sun was lower in the sky.
“You have to do discharge paperwork, and we have to get your insurance information,” the nurse said, sounding weaker with every moment.
“You’re not getting any of that from me,” I said.
“We also need to know if you have family to notify of your stay,” she said, cocking her head to the side.
I couldn’t be sure, but I got the feeling she was trying to pump more information out of me. Which immediately had the paranoid parts of my brain on overdrive. Because if she was trying to pump me for information then that meant she probably was a werewolf.
That was the problem with the motherfuckers. It was impossible to tell they were a hairy motherfucker until they transformed into a hairy motherfucker in front of you.
“You don’t need to get in touch with any family,” I said. “I don’t have any.”
“I knew it!” the nurse said, glancing at Cara.
“We’re getting the hell out of here.”
I moved towards the nurse. And as I got closer her eyes flashed yellow. Well then. That was one question answered at least.
“You really shouldn’t have done that,” I said.
“And you really shouldn’t have gotten up,” she said. “You’ll sit here and wait for the pack mother to get here like a good little girl.”
She said it in a human voice, at least. If there was one cliché that drove me wild, it was creatures of the night suddenly doing their best Christian Bale speaking in a raspy gravelly voice when they were trying to intimidate people.
“I’m going to give you one more chance to move out of my way,” I said, staring the woman down and trying to communicate to her exactly how little I was intimidated by this song and dance.
“Take one more step and the girl gets it,” the nurse said.
I looked at Cara. Hit her with a smile. Then turned back to the nurse.
“Oh dear,” I said, trying to sound appropriately cowed. “Don’t hurt her. She’s so important to me!”
Cara rolled her eyes, but she was also digging in my purse.
This had to be done just right. She had to be just the right level of distracted that she didn’t realize what was going on until it was too late. I didn’t want to make a move too soon, because she might be able to get to Cara, and there was plenty of damage she could do even in her human form.
Not to mention I could feel the sun inching down towards the horizon behind me. It was only a matter of time before this bitch could transform into the werewolf she wanted to be. I had no intention of being around when that happened.
“Last chance,” she said. “Or the girl gets it.”
“Excuse me?” Cara asked.
She was holding my sword in one hand, and the gun in the other. She had that gun pointed at the woman’s head. The nurse’s eyes went wide and her hands went up as she turned to face Cara and realized the world of hurt she’d brought on herself.
“You’ll find I’m no easy meat, werewolf,” Cara said, her voice dripping with disdain.
“Listen,” the nurse said, licking her lips and talking fast. “It doesn’t have to be like this. Maybe we could talk it over?”
“Oh yeah,” I said, catching the sword as Cara tossed it. The blade materialized like the transporter effect from Star Trek. “Let’s talk this over. Let’s waste time until the sun sets and you can become a werewolf, and all your friends can attack. Do you think I’m a fucking idiot or something?”
“I…”
I bolted across the room. I had to vault over the bed, but that wasn’t all that difficult. A moment later I had the sword up against the woman’s neck, and she was pressed against the wall.
“I tried to warn you. You shouldn’t have tried the whole intimidation routine,” I said.
“Please,” she said. “The pack mother…”
�
��Keeps trying to kill me, and she keeps missing the mark,” I said, slicing with my sword.
It was nice and quiet. Her eyes flashed yellow, and then they went dead. I shoved her to the side so the blood from a body that hadn’t quite realized how catastrophically injured it was went pumping onto the wall and the bed and not on me.
“Damn,” Cara whispered, staring at the carnage. “Are you sure she was one of the bad ones?”
“When they do that thing where they flash the yellow eyes at you that’s a pretty good sign they’re a werewolf,” I said. “Now come on. That was quiet, but it’s not going to be long before someone finds her and raises the alarm.”
“We’re getting the hell out of here?” Cara asked, sounding relieved.
“Not quite,” I said.
“Not quite?” Cara asked, sounding annoyed. “Why the fuck would we stay in a building the werewolves know you’re hiding in? That seems like a really bad idea to me.”
“That’s simple,” I said. “We need to pay a visit to the morgue and deal with some of the after effects of what happened at the party last night.”
“Oh,” Cara said, her eyes still on the nurse as she twitched and bled out on the floor. Then her eyes went wide as she realized what I was saying. “The fucking morgue? We’re seriously going to a fucking morgue in the middle of a werewolf invasion?”
“You’re free to leave if you want,” I said with a grin.
Cara shook her head and flipped me the bird. “You know I’m not leaving you.”
“I figured you couldn’t resist me,” I said with a wink.
“I don’t know that it’s that I can’t resist you so much as I figure if I’m going to be stuck in a horror movie then I want to be stuck next to the person who’s turning it into a horror action movie rather than a straight up horror film.”
I cocked my head to the side as I thought about that.
“I’m a little insulted by your logic, but also impressed.”
She stepped around the nurse’s body, careful to keep out of the way of any hands that might suddenly grab her in a jump scare, a favorite of horror movies, and pulled me in for a kiss.
“I also find you irresistible, but I figure that’s an added bonus to having you around to protect my ass.”
I grinned. Then I went around the room and unplugged all the machinery to make it stop beeping. I wasn’t sure that would keep the machinery from pinging whatever console at the nurse’s station notified them that shit was going down, but at least it stopped the obvious noise.
I kicked at the nurse to try and get her under the bed, then quickly decided it wasn’t worth the trouble. The pool of blood would tell anyone stepping in here exactly what had happened.
I just had to hope nobody came around to check on her, or me, before we had a chance to get down to the morgue, see what there was to see, and get out there and find this pack mother bitch to give her some payback for all the hell she’d put me through over the past couple of days.
24
Kirsten
“I’m just saying,” Cara said as she watched the elevator numbers ticking down. “If this was a horror movie then going to the morgue would be a really bad fucking idea. Like that’s the kind of thing that happens right before the characters get themselves killed.”
I reached out and patted her on the cheek. Though that pat quickly turned to a caress, and then I pulled her in for a kiss.
I wasn’t sure if it was because of how irresistible she was, or if it was because I was feeling alive in a way I hadn’t in so very long.
Which wasn’t necessarily a good feeling. I could remember my dad describing feeling alive like this. It was a feeling I’d promised myself I’d never get hooked on.
“You don’t need to worry about that,” I said.
“What makes you think I don’t need to worry about that?” Cara asked.
“Simple,” I said. “You said it yourself. This is more of an action horror type thing, which means as long as I keep doing my action girl thing then I’m going to be fine.”
“Which makes me the girlfriend who dies just before the big finale so you can have a good reason to take revenge on the big bad,” Cara said. “Fucking great.”
“Come on,” I said. “It doesn’t have to be like that.”
“Really?” she asked, looking hopeful.
“Totally,” I said. “You could be the plucky comic relief. Or you could be the romantic interest who makes it through to the end. Like you said, this is more like an action thing than an actual horror movie. Hicks made it to the end of Aliens in one piece.”
“And got killed off before the third movie,” Cara said. “You’re not instilling me with confidence here.”
“You should stop talking about yourself like you’re a character in a horror movie rather than this being a real life,” I said. “You’re starting to sound like that kid from Last Action Hero.”
“Thanks,” she muttered.
“I try,” I said.
“We really are in a horror movie though,” she said. “A bunch of werewolves running around killing people? That’s definitely horror movie territory.”
“Not at all,” I said as the elevator dinged and the doors opened.
“How is that not like a horror movie?” she asked.
I stuck my head out to make sure the coast was clear. I was pretty sure the sun hadn’t gone down yet, but I wanted to be sure. The last thing I wanted was to have Cara become that girlfriend who died so I could swear revenge on the werewolf menace.
I liked having her around, and I figured having her around was better than having yet another reason for wanting to kill these werewolf fuckers.
“Coast is clear,” I said.
“I’m so glad you’re taking risks sticking your head out into an uncertain scenario,” she said with a roll of her eyes, stepping out of the elevator and doing a glance of her own up and down the hallway. “So you were saying?”
It looked like there was a cafeteria in one direction, and the morgue in the opposite direction. It struck me as slightly odd that they had food in one direction and dead people in the other, but whatever.
“It’s simple,” I said. “If this was a horror movie then we’d be stalked by one werewolf. It’d be picking off people left and right, and we wouldn’t even realize what was going on at the very beginning. Then it’d slowly reveal itself, people wouldn’t believe what was going on, and eventually we’d be the only two left to take it out.”
“You know you’re describing the plot to Alien, right?” Cara asked.
“I’m describing the plot to almost every horror movie ever,” I said. “It just turns out that Alien did it surprisingly well.”
“And you’re about to tell me this is completely different because there are a bunch of werewolves hunting us, and we’re killing them left and right rather than getting killed by them, so it’s totally an Aliens scenario?”
I grinned. “You’re catching on!”
Cara rolled her eyes.
“Given my druthers, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near any of this, Aliens or Alien.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “But I figure if you’re going to be stuck in a movie then you might as well be in the one where you have weapons you can use to fight off the monster rather than the one where the only thing you have is Sigourney Weaver with a flamethrower and a cat.”
“Good point,” Cara muttered, but she still didn’t sound happy about this.
We eventually reached a door with a small sign on the front that said “morgue.”
“They’re not much for ostentation down here, are they?” Cara asked.
“Would you want to advertise a bunch of dead bodies in a place that’s supposed to keep people from being dead?” I asked.
“Point taken,” Cara said. “So are we really doing this?”
“We’re really doing this,” I said. “I’m sorry, but we have to check the bodies from last night.”
“What are we checking
them for, exactly?” Cara asked.
“Late onset lycanthropy,” I said.
“Great. What I’m hearing is we’re voluntarily moving into an enclosed space where there are a bunch of bodies with the potential to rise from the dead and turn into werewolves like the world’s hairiest zombie apocalypse.”
“We’re walking into an enclosed room where a bunch of people who got attacked by werewolves were put on ice, meaning they were only mostly dead when they were brought in. Ice means a slow moving curse, which gives the werewolf mojo more time to do its work.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better about this,” Cara said, rolling her eyes.
“I wasn’t trying to make you feel better,” I said. “Merely giving you an idea of what you’re getting into.”
I stepped into the morgue. A pasty guy with a goatee that looked like it hadn’t been maintained in a long time sat eating pizza and staring at an ancient black-and-white television with rabbit ears on top. Clearly they hadn’t updated the entertainment technology down here in quite some time.
Surprising considering the kind of money a hospital was bringing in. Especially in a college town where they could fleece that sweet health insurance from all the kids still being paid for by mom and dad.
The guy looked up and blinked a couple of times. His eyes darted between me and Cara, and a big goofy grin spread across his face. From the way he looked us up and down we weren’t like the usual suspects he got down here.
“Well hello there ladies,” he said. “Can I help you?”
“I need to have a look at the bodies in there,” I said.
“The bodies?”
“The stiffs brought in from that party last night?”
“Well yeah,” he said. “I know what you mean when you say the bodies, but you’re not authorized or…”
I walked over to the desk and leaned over it. Which had the added effect of causing my top to fall open revealing a couple of my best assets to this dude. His eyes went wide as he didn’t even bother to hide that he was looking down my shirt.
Which should’ve irritated me, but it was exactly what I was hoping for. If he was distracted by my tits then he wasn’t going to think about whether I was authorized to look at the double secret dead bodies on ice.