SKA: Serial Killers Anonymous

by William Schlichter

  And then there are the Nurse Ratched jokes. She has heard them all, especially from the male orderlies on the night shift. Fuck them.

  She charts her patient’s vitals. Better to do it now. She got this weird shift and a half today, covering for part of a dayshift girl, a shift she covets. Nursing is the only job where all the pretty girls work nights. The older—age worn—women have seniority and have earned the best hours. She’s somewhere in the middle, and since she pulls the extra days it boosts her up the ladder when one of them finally retires—or croaks.

  The day ones are all so bitter.

  She hasn’t reached bitter yet—cynical. Tired of the truth. In some far-off reality, like those fantasy books she reads on long nights, there is a place where patients get the help they require…more than require...and insurance claims. It’s a world where only healthy people exist.

  Placing her paperwork in a drawer, she makes her rounds. Everyone sleeps. She’ll need vitals again soon, but she hates to wake people. Sick people require rest and yet they all get woken up once they finally fall asleep in a strange bed after being poked and connected to tubes.

  Rounding the corner in the maze of corridors, only a long-term employee understands, she peeks in at Tawny. The sleeping girl will never get off a machine, doomed forever to have a tube pump air into her lungs. The poor thing was on the road to becoming homecoming queen. She got into a car with her drunk boyfriend and he rolled the…Camaro. He got a cut—scratch on his left pec muscle—and she will forever be in a coma. Sadly, she had no alcohol in her blood work.

  With her charting complete, the morning shift brings a full staff, including arrogant doctors and rude visiting family. Despite her being the charge nurse on the ward from eleven at night until eight in the morning, she sinks to the bottom of seniority by nine. Worst, the day shift doctors treat her as if she was just handed her certificate.

  Jane opts for the easiest of tasks. None of the experienced real Nurse Ratcheds wanted the task with those kids and the mom.

  The little girl was considered a middle schooler. Every underdeveloped limb, even her head strapped into a padded wheelchair. She has never even once fed herself. Science is to blame. Maybe mom was on meth. She appears to be a pill popper now. But this poor girl arrived mangled. Tests show she has a mind, or at least brain activity, but she’s never spoken or been out of her chair.

  Jane preps a syringe full of an oatmeal paste.

  “They said not to feed her this morning until they drew blood,” mom hisses. Her self-righteous demeanor is one of, ‘give me everything free because my life is shitty. Just look at this helpless kid I’m burdened with. God hates me.’

  Jane sometimes wishes she was afforded an opportunity to end others not worthy of life instead of those she chooses.

  “They drew blood and now I’m checking how she takes the food tube.” It progressed into her stomach. Poor child, doesn’t even get the pleasure of enjoying an ice cream.

  “Can you give her something to deal with the smell of her shit? That stuff we feed her. She stinks. Sometimes I can’t stand to be in the room long enough to change her.”

  Jane slips the tip of the syringe into the food tube connected to a valve on the girl’s side attached directly to the stomach. “They don’t offer flavors.” She has no taste buds down here anyway. “It gives her the substance she needs.” Jane brings her eyes to the little girl’s—lifeless orbs. “So, your little blessing remains with us.”

  “Nothing blessed about her except the government check and this summer school taking her for more classes and giving me a break.”

  “She is darling.” Jane depresses the plunger slowly, easing the food through the tube.

  “Change her after she shits, you’ll smell darling. At least the welfare bought me a new van. The old one was difficult to get the chair in. They won’t give me a motorized one, since she can’t move her arm or even her fingers.” Mom joneses for a cigarette. Jane recognizes the twitchy shake of the hand.

  Jane completes the feeding. “I might have some samples of food flavors you could try to see if they help with the bowel movements.”

  “Perfect. Maybe I can stand to change her more often.”

  Jane opens a cabinet and removes several baby food jar-sized cans of the powdery mix. Her latex gloves still on from the feeding, she slips a needle under the seal of a can and injects a clear substance. Recapping the needle, she dumps all the food tubes in the proper disposal and the needle in the sharp’s bucket. “I don’t have a bag.”

  “One thing this little girl is good for is the storage on the chair.” The mother kindly opens a pouch.

  Jane places the doctored can in first and four more cans on top. “Try one a day. You should notice a difference in a day or two.”

  “Figures about the time she goes back to school and they get to change her.”

  II

  JANE NEVER BUYS a newspaper. Usually one or two remain in a patient’s room and the hospital gets several subscriptions, but by night shift they are scattered around the ward and waiting areas. Three days. No four. The third day the mom should have used the tainted food, and since the poor child couldn’t speak, she had no way of expressing the discomfort she felt after being fed. By the time the mother realized something was wrong and called EMS, it was doubtful anything would save her. If Jane believed—the girl was an angel now. Truth was, she has no spiritual belief. In her heart the little girl is better off.

  The news article would explain how police suspected the mother who, tired of caring for her invalid daughter, slipped something into her feeding tube to end her suffering. Toxicology pending and further charges forthcoming.

  Jane smiles. The child was her mother’s meal ticket, and due to her disability mom would get a check and services for the rest of the child’s natural life. Her death is the last thing she would have wished.

  No rush, nor orgasmic thrill, just satisfaction she had corrected a misstep in the grand scheme of the universe. In some other reality, the poor child grows up normal and is the first woman to reach the rings of Jupiter. But not here. Not now. Despite her lack of religion, Jane knows even the ancient Hebrews would leave deformed children to the elements or what they considered to be God’s hands.

  Now for her next project.

  Tawny’s recent brain scans revealed she will never wake. Mom refuses to consider pulling the plug even if dad likes the idea of his little girl living on in the bodies of six other people.

  Angels of Death or Mercy, as killer nurses are referred to after they are caught, report getting a sexual thrill out of killing, or nearly killing, a patient and at the last second bringing them back—being hailed a hero. Jane’s no angel. She gets no thrill. She finds practicality in what she does.

  The family hasn’t the means to support the medical expenses to keep a dead girl alive by tube. She is fifteen and might live a full long life. Now she considers how to end it without damaging the organs.

  Dad has the right idea to save the lives of others. Seven, sometimes nine people, but her organ tissue must match six people in need on the list. This is society’s problems. They don’t focus on keeping people healthy or fixing those who are capable of being fixed, instead, hundreds of thousands are wasted on a dead girl because of mom’s guilt.

  If she had only loved her a little bit more her baby wouldn’t have made a dumb teenage choice. Choices in life are like playing the lottery. Only a lucky few win big. Most lose and a select few break even.

  The door to Tawny’s room sticks as she pushes on the handle. It should not be closed at all. She’ll call maintenance in the morning.

  The fuck she will.

  Charles, night orderly and god’s gift to women hops off the bed. He towers over Jane by two feet and his rock-hard cock would cause a mare to cry. Why a man with such a proud member would need to result to rape she’ll never understand.

  “What the fuck?” Jane demands.

  He reaches for her throat with fingers ma
tching the thickness of his still stiff cock. Jane never flinches. Only her eyes shift up as if peering over the top of invisible glasses in annoyance. She uncaps the needle in her hand. Before he reaches her, “Touch me and I’ll inject you.”

  He halts.

  She only half bluffs. The syringe is empty of a fluid. It contains air, and she could kill him with air, but worst she would do is give a stick. He doesn’t know that.

  “Back over there and put that thing away.” She points the needle at his member.

  He does as ordered. No verbal protests.

  Jane keeps the syringe gripped, ready to stab as she inspects Tawny. “You’re fucking stupid. Have you touched her before? And don’t lie.”

  He falls into a chair, struggling to tuck his stiff penis into his pants. “I’ve played with her tits a few nights.”

  “And when no one noticed you thought you’d rape her? She’s fifteen and a virgin. you’d have torn her open. They’d know it was you.” She pulls up the girl’s gown, inspecting. “How far did you get?”

  “I couldn’t get the tip in. She’s closed for business.”

  “No blood.” Jane must relinquish the syringe to pull up the girl’s panties. “You were going to rape her with her catheter in. You’re seven kinds of fucking stupid.”

  “You going to report me?” He undoes his belt and pants button to get his saluting cock back inside his uniform.

  “No. From now on, you are going to do exactly as I say, when I say it. You belong to me, starting with you never touching another patient unless I tell you too. In fact, I want your key card.”

  Charles struggles to refasten his pants. “If I’m caught without it they’ll fire me.”

  “And what will happen to you if I report this? She’s got her flower.” The bitch mom actually had them check. Her daughter will never wake, but at least she was a good girl, not a slut. “Your horse cock would have opened her enough they would have proof.” She doubts he got far enough to damage. “How about your precum? They check DNA now.”

  “All right.” Charles unclips his ID from the belt clip. The hospital has yet to install cameras, but in a few select areas the identification cards substitute for keys—when they work.

  The pressure within him subsides as he limps toward flaccidness. Charles adjusts his white pants and tee-shirt uniform top, finding some courage to ask, “Why aren’t you having me arrested?”

  The ten-thousand-dollar question at the top of the pyramid—What is a scapegoat? Wait wrong game show answer. What answer do I give not ending with his fingers around my throat? Charles would have no money, so not financial blackmail. I could make him think I want him for sex, but one time in bed, and he’ll discover how not true that is. “I need an ally. I want off nights for a day shift.”

  “A few of the other nurses are ahead of you.”

  “Then you understand how seniority works, but it also goes by performance. What if those nurses had one or two little non-life-threatening mistakes on their shifts and I did not?” Jane almost winks at him.

  “You would bump to the head of the list,” Charles adjusts himself. “Where would that leave me?”

  “Debt paid, you go on with your job and never touch another patient again, or you’ll find out what I was going to inject you with.”

  III

  BAM. BAM. BAM…BAM…BAM. BAM.

  Jane lowers the Smith and Wesson .357. A bit too much gun for her thin arms, but nowhere near the kick the forty-four would have had. She has a vision of flames from the barrel and a gun flying back to impact her face. No, this will do. She’ll do some of those therapeutic arm curls she instructs stroke patients to doto add strength.

  The bell alarm alerts all shooters on the line to unload and place their weapons on the table. Charles joins her in the cubicle. He slips the gun by the warm barrel from her hand and places it on the table. “Want a clean target?”

  She pulls the ear protection down to her neck. “I must know how I did.”

  On the range the paper silhouette of a man has six clear orifices. Three in the midsection group tight under the heart, one in the bladder and two in the throat.

  “You’re the quick learner, Annie. But I would stick to center mass if this is for protection. Avoid fancy trick shooting. You’d kill him with a throat shot, but you may miss if he is moving toward you.”

  “Show me how to reload it.” She beams. It’s been a long time since anything like a sexual stirring moved her, but the power surging through her with each trigger pull stimulates her loins. Orgasmic—if she knew what one felt like.

  No wonder men must go out and kill things with such tools.

  In the cubicle he flips the release and the cylinder pops out the side. “You do this as soon as you fire, and not only will the gun be hot. so will the brass. He dumps the six spent casings into a cleanup bucket.

  “You just slide each new round into the empty holes. Some of these guns have a speed loader so you do all six at once.”

  “Just like you and little girls,” Jane whispers.

  Charles jerks his head around and no one is within ear shot.

  “You ever notice,” she holds up the shiny gold metal bullet between her thumb and index finger, thinner than the round itself, and twists it in the air as if peering into a soul, “How this is like a tiny penis?”

  “No.”

  She slides the next round in herself. “Fits perfectly snug, unlike sex with a breathing man. Guns were invented by men. Was this a way to make sure you’re always fucking with people?”

  The bell rings.

  “You got this?” Charles asks.

  She nods, He steps from the cubicle. She pops her wrist so the cylinder slams into place. Now live, she places her feet shoulder-width apart. The bell chirps. She raises her arms level with her shoulder, adjusts her grip, left hand over right, and peers down the sight.

  Thunder.

  A hole magically appears three inches above her first group of three. She put the next five close enough to the first shot and the individual holes merge as one. Dumping the brass in the trash bucket, she reloads. This time five of her shots splatter what would be his brains. One round penetrates the white next to the left ear.

  The bell rings.

  She places the gun on the table.

  Charles steps in. “That miss was the guy that kills you.”

  IV

  JANE SLIDES CHARLES’ identification card into the vertical door reader. A low buzzut, as if the buzzer is dying, whines to signify entry. Charles has been an angel at work. And he will be an Angel. She treads lightly, as she wants to utilize him for as long as possible. The burn ward houses three patients tonight—all long term but terminal. Sometimes the paramedics do their job too well and people should just be allowed to die on scene.

  She hangs back just inside the door—studying. No one notices her.

  V

  “CHARLES, WILL YOU bring me those syringes from the top of the drawer?”

  He complies. Rarely do they spend time near each other while on shift unless work requires the interaction. Big, strong men are utilized in the wards where patients must be moved often. He reaches in and doesn’t think twice about the open sterile packages the syringes should be sealed in.

  Jane takes them from him in her latex gloved hands. “Thanks.” She places them on a tray with several vials of medicine to be distributed to patients. She hands him his identification card. “You’ll need this. Go down to the burn ward. Tell them it’s a slow night and you want to offer your assistance. See if they need anything.”

  His first response is confusion. “You going to do something to make another nurse appear incompetent like when I stole those drugs?”

  “The less you know the better. And if they find out we see each other outside of work they won’t allow us on the same shift. The deal was you do what you are told.”

  “I need to stretch my legs anyway,” Charles grumbles.

  As soon as he leaves, Jane pockets the drug
vials and the syringes. She keeps to her rounds. Charles has been in the drug closet more than an orderly should, although no one checks the records.

  They might one day and she will have a stockpile of meds. After Charles collects his unemployment none of those drugs will be traced back to her. They will deduce he sold them for street value. The prize is not the deadly medication it is his fingerprints on five unused syringes.

  At the end of her rounds she checks on Tawny. She wanted to do this a week ago but thought better in case the family requested an autopsy. She didn’t know if any form of sexual penetration would be detected. People believe during a rape a woman is scared and torn open—leaving a ton of evidence.

  Untrue.

  Women are sexual creatures. To the horror of the victim, sometimes her body betrays her and she enjoys the forced intercourse. Defense attorneys love to utilize that tidbit. Isn’t it trust, little miss slut, the whole time he was inside you, you never scream no, instead you moaned like a whore, a whore who was asking for it? You wanted him, so this wasn’t a rape.

  Jane loathes the legal system and its maladjustment towards victims.

  True, the body enjoyed it, but the mind didn’t. The poor girl never asked for it. Tawny never asked for it—helpless in a hospital bed. Comatose—forever—never getting a chance to know love or be disappointed by a boy she believes she’ll love forever.

  Jane prepares the concoction of medications including Tawny’s prescription pain killer. She’s not the primary nurse for Tawny. The toxicologist might deduce Tawney was given a second dose of her meds by accident, which the hospital will cover up.

  The other meds are counterintuitive to her recovery—if she were able to recover. The best part is nothing will damage a donatable organ and part of her considers they won’t have time to run a complete toxicology if they want to save six other lives.