by Sky Winters
I walked outside to bath in the moonlight for a moment. It probably wasn’t a great idea, but I knew that I needed some fresh air. It was like my victory cigar. I looked around, none of the stores nearby looked like they would sell cigars. The convenience store seemed too small to offer the finer things in life.
The patient seemed stable and I had gotten the bleeding to stop. I knew that he would be up soon. I had a really good feeling about surgery. I went back and washed the blood off of my hands. I wasn’t sure what I was going to say as I walked back into the room and found the patient was still asleep. I had probably given him too much morphine.
It was a horrible thought. Morphine was a terrible pain killer for surgery anyways. It always made people so itchy. He is going to wake up and scratch the stitches off immediately, I thought to myself as I watched him sleep.
What do you say to the man who risked his life to save you, but was clearly a bear at the time? I had so many questions, but I wasn’t sure what kind of answers I was ready to hear. There were all sorts of weird mutations that were popping up all over the place. When the TV was still working there was a news story that all of the nurses from A2 had come together to watch about a circus of freaks that were not in any way put on. It was a real life freak show that the virus had made possible.
The TV stations had stopped broadcasting after the first month. That was when everything had become pointless. The second month was when the realizations started to set in. We were no longer going to be, “Getting back to the way things were.” The president’s phrase had become a popular source of mockery as the days and weeks wore on. How could we go back?
There was no way to un-see things and no way to undo them. I had watched too many people give up their humanity to ever have faith in the human race again. I saw a nurse that I had known for years stab a man over an armful of pudding cups. I did nothing to save the man as my friends threw him out into the streets to die. I watched as the people I had lived with for a month all left me and my dying father behind.
So why should genetic mutations frighten me when the regular people that I knew had already changed so much. The TV circus had had a wolf family. They were all were werewolves that could shift without the help of the moon. They had run around under the big top and they had an amazing act that they had put together. Even that hadn’t prepared her for what she had seen today. The strength and power of the bear, and the frailty of the human body. It was all just a bit too much.
The naked man was all just a bit too much all on his own. He had a sleeve of tattoos running down his left arm. The symbols looked mainly Celtic and clearly they were trying to tell a story. It all started with a tree of life on the top of his shoulder. The rest of the sleeve was tied together by the roots of the tree as they ran down his arm. It was an amazing design. There were bears and claws, an old raven and Celtic knot made of thorny roots.
It was hard to ignore the muscle tone. He only seemed to have body hair as a bear, it didn’t look like he shaved, but there was no hair on his body. It was hard not to stare at the rippling muscles that ran from one end of his body to the next. His muscles looked as if he was always flexing. Some of that might have been the morphine too, but he was in amazing shape. I ran my fingers along his stomach as I went to examine the wound. As soon as I touched his skin I could feel a rush of energy flow through me. It was impossible to resist trying it again. I ran my fingers down his thigh and up along his stomach and chest only to see his eyes were now open.
“Can I help you?” He said to me and I almost fell over. I had gotten lost in the moment and the angry snarl on his face brought me right back to reality.
I grabbed a chart that sat at the edge of the gurney. “Good neurological response to outside stimuli.” I said loudly as if I was charting it. I was hoping that he wouldn’t notice that I didn’t have a pen. There was also no paper on this chart. I just needed to have an explanation for what I was doing. I was finding it difficult to just admit that spending the last several weeks here essentially by myself had turned me into a bit of a perve.
It was a very sad truth that I had been having trouble even before I met the sexy bear man. I had been in a relationship all through university. Mark was great, but he was going through med school and I was in nursing. I got lost in his shadow. As soon as I found the courage to end it I promised myself I would never let that happen again. I was going to live for me. It meant that I always pulled myself back when I felt any feelings starting to stir. It also meant that I spent a lot of time on my own. As soon as the virus hit that became completely alone.
“I am leaving,” the bear man said as he stood up. His knees buckled under him. I rushed in and grabbed him. He had already pretty much stopped himself with his hands against the bed.
“You lost a lot of blood.” I almost whispered. I was pressed right up against him and looking him right in the eyes.
“I just need to…” He stopped and looked at me. He wasn’t sure if had seen him earlier.
“Turn into a bear?” I thought I knew the answer, but I wasn’t one hundred percent sure. I knew that he was a shifter, but I didn’t know if that was it, or if something even weirder was going to come out of his mouth.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” There was a fire in his eyes that made me jump. I backed away and pushed himself up to standing.
“I was just guessing,” I was talking way too fast, “You know because there were those guys, and you came as a bear and fought them and then the nutty guy stabbed you. Anyways, so the knife went in and you got smaller and naked, smaller for a bear, is what I mean, you are still very big…” my eyes went too low on the word big.
That was when I realized that I hadn’t even found the poor man a sheet. He should have been freezing, but his skin was warm to the touch. I was really hoping that he would start talking. After that long rant that I just did, I was absolutely sure that I shouldn’t try talking again for a while. He was studying my face. I could literally feel his eyes. It was like he was looking into my soul. I looked at the ground.
“Alright, yes, I am going to turn into a bear. I just need you to stand back.” He moved me back forcefully and started making horrible faces. His skin was almost swimming as it started to grow and change. I could feel myself backing up. I wanted to see the transformation, but it was horrifying to watch. Thick brown hair was covering his body. It moved up from his legs and as it moved across his sculpted abs the cut ripped open and blood shot out across the room.
“Awww!” He yelled as he broke the stretcher with a single low from his half-bear arm. I rushed to his side as he crumpled onto the ground. “Back off!” He threw me to the side as he pushed himself back to his feet. The fur had completely disappeared and his skin has stopped rippling. He was holding the flaps of skin in place as he started to pace the room. “What is going on?!”
“You have a very deep cut,” I looked down as his eyes cut. I could feel the seething hatred coming from his stare. “I have another suture kit. I can fix it,” I said to the floor.
“Alright, fine, let’s just do this,” He walked over and sat down on the next bed. I walked around the wreckage of the broken gurney. I could feel myself shaking again as I got closer to him.
“I just need you to lie down and I will hook up the IV again.” He didn’t say a thing, but I could tell he wasn’t going to let me fix the IV. “I just need to give you a painkiller.”
“I don’t need a painkiller,” He growled the words through closed teeth. I wasn’t going to argue with him, but it wasn’t helping with my nerves. I opened the kit and got ready to start stitching.
“Take a deep breath,” I said, mainly to myself. He held himself remarkably still. I heard only a few gasps as the needle passed through his skin. It seemed like I was having a harder time with it. I just kept apologizing to him and he got madder with every sorry.
The skin was already starting to heal as I closed it up. I could tell that his skin was far from that of a reg
ular human being. I wanted to ask him about it, but he didn’t seem very talkative. The feeling of the needle pressing through the skin was oddly very exciting. I was trying to keep myself under control. As a nurse I had always been fascinated by surgery and the human body. I could feel the color rushing to my cheeks.
When I finished I looked up at his face for the first time in I don’t know how long. “Jade Roberts,” I blurted out. It was met with the same level of enthusiasm I had been receiving all day. “It’s my name, I thought you could tell me yours too,” he just turned away. “Ok, then I guess I will just call you bear-man, or man-bear,” I could tell that I was upsetting him, but at this point I didn’t care. He was being rude to the woman who just saved his life twice.
“Dallas,” his tone was begrudging at best. “Dallas Blackwood, bear-man is fine though.” He was asleep in seconds on the tiny hospital bed. It looked small when I laid in one, but his legs were literally dangling off the edge. I found another stretcher and lifted his feet onto it. The beds were at slightly different heights, but I was sure it had to be better than just letting them dangle. There was not even a thank you.
My father had been nearly as ornery when he was my patient. Most of the fight in him had been taken away by the virus. It wasn’t until he was on death’s doorstep that he even thought to say thank you for all that I had done for him. It wasn’t until after he passed that I realized exactly what I had given up. Staying behind meant that I had nobody with me at all. There was no way to stay here for more than a couple days longer. I was not exactly a fighter. I was going to have to fall in with a group of looters, or the far more likely get killed by a group of looters. If the experience of the morning had been any indication it was even dangerous for me to step outside the doors of the hospital now that I was all alone.
I had one hope of not being all alone and he was clearly not interested in being my apocalyptic plus one. It was hard to understand his aggression. He had gotten hurt trying to save me, I was sure that wasn’t part of his plan, but I had been trying to make up for it ever since. I left him to sleep for a while as I got the rest of the supplies gathered together. The hospital had been rummaged through by several groups of looters and former employees, but there were still treasures to be found.
I walked all the way up to the eighth floor to start my search. I was checking every closet, cart, and cupboard as I made my way down through the hospital. I was filling backpacks that we had found during our first week living in the hospital. They had been stuffed away in a storage room on the seventh floor. “St. Bonneville’s Hospital loves Nurses!” The message was printed in bold white letters on pink, brown, orange, and white backpacks. It was a part of an employee appreciation initiative, but the dust on the boxes made it look like they had been ordered at least ten years ago.
There had to have been thousands of them. Each group had taken several backpacks with them when they decided to leave the hospital. I had the last seven with me as I loaded them down with supplies. Of course most of the leftover bags were brown. It had been the least popular choice. I had grabbed an orange one when we first found them and then there were two white. I was packing the white ones with bandages and medical kits. The brown ones were being packed with linens and clothing, which was mostly scrubs, but I had only been wearing scrubs for months now anyway.
My orange bag was for food. The bags were a good size and they could hold quite a bit. There was still a bit of food left in the cafeteria. I had started squirreling it away when I made the decision to wait until dad died to leave. I knew that the others were not going to wait for me. Even my best friend Becky. We went through nursing school together. We got hired onto the floor at the same time. We had been through so many things together, but I knew what I was asking her to do was impossible. There was safety in numbers, but those numbers had to be higher than two.
The food was mainly pudding. I had a feeling I was turning into pudding. I had been living on a mainly pudding diet or the past month. It was mainly tapioca now. I had eaten all of the chocolate. I had granola bars saved as well, and a ton of the fruit cups that I hated. I forced myself to eat two a day, because according to the label there was real fruit inside. I was sure they were lying. Fruit didn’t taste that bad for any reason.
I had to bring the bags down one at a time they were so heavy. I wasn’t sure how I was going to take them with me. It was not as if I had a car. Even a car wouldn’t do you any good as there were no gas stations. I tried to look out the windows to see what was available, but I wasn’t even sure what to look for. There weren’t many ox carts around these days. I put all the bags onto a stretcher and went to go check on the patient.
When I got back to the treatment room the bed was empty. He had left. I sank down to my knees without saying a word. I wanted to scream and shout, but I was too tired. It was like an anger coma. I was so mad, sad, and just upset and I just shut down.
I don’t know how long I was down for, what I do know is that there was drool on my chin when I stood up again. I didn’t know what had woken me, but I stood up and went to the bathroom. The lights were out again, but the backup generator, which worked occasionally was casting a very dim light over the building. The mirror was dirty and the light was awful, but I could tell that I needed to brush my hair and find some water.
I walked out to the stretcher filled with supplies. It was time to go. There was no reason to stay any longer. My plan as I walked up to the stretcher was just to push the whole bed through the streets. The streets were very clear, and it was the best I could do until I found a better way to carry all of this stuff. A bed is never a bad idea, I told myself.
“Thanks for packing it all up for us,” it was a voice I sort of recognized. It was the fat young man from earlier in the day. I had no idea how long he had been watching me, but as he spoke I saw others moving in the shadows. “I think you should come with us. What do you say boys?” His boys all seemed to love the idea. “The boys and I haven’t seen a women in…well, too long anyway.”
“I don’t think so,” I said trying to keep my voice steady. I was trying to seem confident. “I have the bear to keep me company.” I lied. I saw a flash of fear dance across the young man’s eyes.
“We watched him leave,” He smiled trying to hide his fear. “He’s long gone by now.”
“He’ll be back soon,” I was trying to look tough which must have seemed completely ridiculous. I am 5’3” and 100lbs on a good day. I don’t intimidate many people. I was trying to channel my inner gangster, but I was sure that I looked more like an angry smurf. “And he won’t take kindly to people stealing our stuff.”
“Is that so,” the deep voice seemed a little unsure of himself, but not scared enough to leave right away.
“Yeah, it is so,” the voice came from behind me. Dallas was towering over everyone in the room as he strode past me and got about an inch from the face of the much smaller man. I could see the other shadowy figures moving fast as they left the building. I think it was likely more intimidating that Dallas was still naked. His dick swayed as he walked, and because of the height difference it was fairly close to the fat man’s face as he stared him down.
“You should likely run,” I whispered to the fat man who had become paralyzed with fear. I tried to hold in the laughter as I watched him try to find his friends. I knew that we needed to get far away from this hospital. Those guys were definitely going to come back. “I thought you were gone.”
I didn’t wait to see if he approved as I buried my face in his stomach and wrapped my arms around him. I felt his arms coming across my shoulders. I was so relieved to see him. That was when I noticed that his scar had healed. “The moon,” he said before I could ask the question. I ran my fingers over the perfect skin that had been a stab wound.
“I thought you left me,” I said. It came off way more desperate than I wanted it to, but I was just so happy to see Dallas. “What do we do now?”
“I don’t think…”
“You don’t think what!” I heard myself shouting at him. He was going to try and leave without me for real and there was just no way I was letting that happen. “You see what happens every time you walk away, and now you want to leave me?” I didn’t even know what I was doing, but I just started pushing the stretcher toward the door.
“What are you doing?” He growled at me.
“I am going it alone,” I yelled without looking back. “I have no one to help me and I am leaving to take care of myself.” I was being overly dramatic, but I didn’t know what else to do. I had no idea whether it was working or not until he grabbed the door for me.
“Let me push it,” He snarled as he almost threw me out of the way. I walked along beside him trying to watch the sides of the street for signs of life. I could only see shadows. I had no idea if we were being followed, but I could tell we weren’t the only ones out here on the streets. We stuck to the middle of the roads. Dallas said it would give us more time to react if we got attacked. “There are people in every alley and building just waiting to slit your throat.”
“Or perform lifesaving surgery,” I reminded him. I was actually starting to enjoy the scowls that I was getting from Dallas, but this time I got a tiny little smile instead. I looked him right in his honey-brown eyes and gave him a wink.
“What was that?” He laughed.
“It was a wink,” I said, astonished that he would even ask. I considered myself a fairly slick winker. It was a skill that I knew a lot of people struggled with. They winked with both eyes, or they pulled a total Popeye face when they tried to wink, but I was adorable when I winked. Everybody had always told me so.
“I know it was a wink, but on the other side of your face it looked like you were having a stroke.” Dallas’s long brown hair fell over his eyes as he leaned down to give me the full effect of his mocking imitation. “Errrrr,” he mumbled as he winked at me holding his arms out like a mummy. I slapped his chest as hard as I could. He pretended to be hurt, but he couldn’t stop laughing.