by Tim Greaton
came back she, of course, reached out as though to jerk his arm again.
Zachary flinched. Daggers of pain shot straight to his brain.
“Maybe I was going to be gentle,” the nurse said, her transparent skin stretching over a skeletal grin.
Zachary glared at her.
Gray lips thinned and eyes narrowed, but the old nurse was more careful as she repositioned his arm the second time. She then ducked her behind her glass window and let the x-ray machine whir again. Coming back, she said, “That’s it.”
“I can go?”
She gave him a full smile―a sight better suited to a Halloween party than a clinic—and said, “Unless you’re having too much fun.” Her grin widened, and for a moment Zachary could have sworn he saw fangs.
He hurriedly pulled his arm away from the machine and slid to the floor. Though he ached with every move, he didn’t trust her to put his sling back on. Instead, he draped it over his shoulder and held his shattered limb like you might hold a sick cat.
“Sure you don’t want to stay?” she said.
Zachary hurried out the door.
Probably pulls the legs off bugs for fun, he thought as he slipped out into the hallway and made his way back to the waiting room. The whole way there he tried to tell himself he had imagined the fangs, but he knew what he had seen. He was relieved to see his father in the waiting room.
“This might be a good time to tell me what happened at school today,” his father suggested as he helped Zachary buckle his sling back on.
Happy to be thinking about anything other than the ghoulish nurse, Zachary leaned against the back of his oversized seat and said, “Billy and three of his friends caught me on the stairs.”
“And you couldn’t get around them?”
He shook his head. “They had me cornered.”
“Then I hope you got in a couple of good licks.”
Zachary couldn’t believe his ears. Was this the same man who had been warning him since birth to never fight? And, after today, Zachary had come to believe the truth of that advice. If he hadn’t stopped Billy and his friends from picking on that younger boy, they would probably never have noticed him, and he could have continued up the stairs to math class. He might even have dug up enough courage to ask Stephanie Travis to the dance when they got to fifth period social studies class. Even as he thought the last part, though, Zachary knew it wasn’t true. He had been standing right beside her in the hallway that very morning and hadn’t mustered the courage to say anything to her.
“None of this is your fault, Zach,” his father said. “It’s mine. I should have stuck up for you when that Billy kid first started picking on you, but I was….” He let his voice trail off.
“It’s okay, Dad,” Zachary said. He paused. He wanted to add that he knew his father wasn’t the type to argue or stand out―but unbelievably all of that seemed to have changed in the last few hours: his father had stood his ground with Vice-Principal Galloway and against two of the clinic nurses, not to mention their brush with the police during their hair-raising drive from the school to the cemetery. In the span of half a day, his father had gone from totally spineless to insanely courageous.
“What’s going on, Dad?” Zachary found his mouth asking before his brain could stop it.
His father ran a hand across his balding scalp and shook his head. Knowing he was already in dangerous territory, Zachary plunged onward.
“Pill isn’t our real name, is it, Dad?”
“No. Legally, Pill is our name…but it’s not the name your uncles and I were born with.”
“What’s our real name then? And how come it got changed?”
His father shook his head and stared at the floor.
“Not yet, Zach; it’s not safe for you to know.”
A sudden thought blew into Zachary’s mind. Goosebumps formed on the flesh behind his neck. “Did Mom leave because of any of this?”
His father rubbed his eyes. “No, your mother had her own reasons for leaving, and I doubt they had anything to do with the problems we inherited from your grandfather.”
Zachary didn’t know much about his grandfather except that he had died in a chocolate factory accident before Zachary was even born. What kind of a problem survived someone’s death? Before he could ask, Nurse Nightshade reappeared.
“I take it everyone’s favorite x-ray technician was her typical charming self.”
Zachary held his comments.
Nurse Nightshade’s eyes narrowed.
“She didn’t hurt you did she?”
Zachary said only, “I’m fine.”
“I hope so,” the imposing nurse said, “because otherwise she and I would be having a talk.”
Zachary smiled and wished he could see that conversation, but he held his tongue.
“Well, if you gentlemen are ready,” Nurse Nightshade said, “I’ll take you to meet the resident troll.”
Zachary’s father cleared his throat.
Nurse Nightshade gave him a dirty glance then smiled at Zachary.
“I meant Doctor Gefarg, of course.”
Zachary got the distinct impression that something unspoken had just passed between the nurse and his father. Was it possible that Doctor Gefarg was even worse than his father made him out to be? Was he the kind of doctor who cut up his patients, one limb at a time? Under normal circumstances, a thought like that might have been funny, but after his ordeal with the ancient nurse, it made Zachary shiver. He could still envision the old crone’s fangs.
“I had the lab put a rush on your x-rays,” Nurse Nightshade said. “The doctor should have them by the time you get to his office.” They walked along a lengthy hallway and passed several busy intersecting corridors.
“This elevator’s not working,” Nurse Nightshade explained as they passed a set of chrome doors off to the side. Three men were working on the ceiling in that area, and their bright spotlight threw an odd spiderlike shadow on the wall as they passed. Zachary tried to figure out what could have caused the weird image, but the only objects in the hall were the workmen and the three of them—his father, Nurse Nightshade, and him—walking past. Confused, Zachary followed the nurse and his father through a series of long corridors, each one as clean and bright as the next. They walked for what seemed like a very long time.
“How can this place be so big?” he finally asked. “It looked kind of small from outside.”
“Since your father has been so free with information,” Nurse Nightshade said, “I’ll let him answer that one for you.” Before his father could respond to her obvious sarcasm, Zachary correctly predicted what he was going to say.
“We’ll talk about it later,” the elder Pill told him.
“He’s on the twenty-seventh floor,” Nurse Nightshade said when they finally came upon another set of chrome elevator doors. “When you get off the elevator, go straight. Doctor Gefarg’s office is the last one on the right.”
Zachary knew he had taken a good knock to the head but nothing was making sense.
“How can we go up to the twenty-seventh floor when this building is only two stories tall?” he asked.
Nurse Nightshade grinned. “The Chicago Special Clinic has thirty-seven floors, but only two of them are aboveground.”
“So we’re going down twenty-seven floors,” Zachary said.
Nurse Nightshade nodded. “Technically, you’re going down twenty-five floors.” She gave his shoulder a friendly squeeze then turned to give his father a disapproving stare. “Don’t leave your little sapling alone with Doctor Gefarg for even one minute. Not for a single minute! Do you understand?”
“He’ll be safe,” Zachary’s father assured her. He patted his left thigh, and Zachary realized for the first time that a slender stick protruded from the top of his father’s pants pocket. Glowing blue letters or symbols flashed along the otherwise black surface when his father’s hand came close to the polished finish. What could it have been?
It’s not a gun, but what?
Nurse Nightshade gave Zachary one last smile and wink. Then she disappeared back into the long maze of clinic corridors from which they had come. Zachary tried to get a better look at the long black shaft in his father’s pocket, but the elder Pill seemed to intentionally block the view with his hand as they got into the elevator. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t noticed it before.
Almost as soon as the doors closed, Zachary started to think about the mysterious Doctor Gefarg. Why did his father insist they had to see him while at the same time warning how dangerous he could be? And Nurse Nightshade hadn’t made any secret of her own dislike and distrust of the doctor. How could Zachary trust his health and maybe his life to this man? By the time the elevator came to a gentle halt at the twenty-seventh floor—which was underground—Zachary found himself beginning to panic. When the doors swished open, he couldn’t bring himself to move.
“You okay?” his father asked, stepping out of the elevator.
Zachary hung back for a few seconds before reluctantly following him out. Being courageous once today had already gotten his arm broken, so being brave a second time wasn’t coming easy. He gulped and followed his father down the brightly lit corridor that didn’t at all seem like an underground tunnel. Soon they were standing before the last door on the right. A shiny black and white placard in its center read: “Dr. Gefarg.”
By this time, warning bills were ringing in Zachary’s head. It just didn’t seem right that his care should be trusted to a man whom both his father and Nurse Nightshade didn’t trust. Suddenly, living