Another One Bites the Dust

by Lani Lynn Vale

  His hearty laugh filled the night, and I beamed at him. “Alright, let’s get this shit over with.”

  “Remember to call me. Don’t you dare start without me!” He said as he led me to the nurse’s station.

  The lights flickered but stayed on. We all groaned. If the lights went out, this would be one hell of a shift. Babies continued to be born whether there were lights or not. It was a scary thing to be in the middle of a delivery and lose power.

  “Call me if you need anything, Payton. Love you.” Max said as he kissed me and then took off for the stairs.

  “Why did we not just ride in the same vehicle?” Cheyenne asked from behind me.

  I turned and smiled at her. She was wearing her hair down tonight, and I envied the long curly mass. “Probably because I’m twenty minutes late again, and you’re always on time.”

  “That’s right. Sam drove me; he wanted to spend a little more time with me.” Cheyenne said and then amended, “Well, if you wanted to be technical, he said, ‘you’d probably end up in a ditch, and then I’d have to come get you anyway. Get over it.’ I chose to think he did it with love, though.”

  “Sure you did. What do we have today?” I asked while scanning the charts.

  “It must me a full moon, the whole floor is filled; we’re actually having to double up patients to rooms.” Cheyenne informed me.

  It was six hours into my shift before we got our first break. I’d called Max about twenty minutes before, and just took my eighteenth bathroom break of the day when the power went out. It had been flickering on and off for the entire shift, and we’d prepared for it to go out almost as soon as I got on shift.

  We checked every single battery in every single machine that resided on this floor. We also informed the patients that if the power did go out, not to panic. We had hospital policies that prepared us for any possibility when the lights went out, except one. They didn’t tell me how to prepare for a killer set on taking you out, and didn’t care about babies getting hurt in the process.

  Alpha scratched at the door frantically, and I assumed that it was Max on the other side, but when I opened the door, nobody was there. Alpha slunk out the door and into the hallway, leaving me behind. Good thing the battery on my phone was fully charged as I was now down a guide dog who left me high and dry in the dark.

  The high pitch cry of a baby screaming in pain had me dashing through the corridor and straight up to the nurse’s station. Just as I rounded the corner, I tripped over something and fell to my hands and knees. Pain radiated up my arm, but all I could think about was how thankful I was that I’d caught myself before falling on my belly.

  I may not be showing much at this point, but it was definitely there if my pants have anything to say about it. It was just the tiniest of bumps. It fit perfectly in the palm of Max’s hand, which seems to have a permanent home there whenever we are within reaching distance of each other.

  I ignore the pain in my arm, as well as the stinging in my knees that signals that most likely, I’ve broken the skin, and turn to see what tripped me. It doesn’t register with me at first, but then I see the long curly blonde hair and it takes everything I have to hold the throw up that wants to exit my stomach inside me. I crawl over to her quickly using the hair as a guide since my phone is now somewhere I can’t see it. Once I reach her head, I feel something slick, but continue to run my hand over her face until I reach the crook of her neck.

  Her pulse is steady and strong, and I release a breath that I didn’t realize I was holding. Just as I was standing to find someone to help me, I heard a noise that chilled me to the bone. Alpha’s growl warned me that something wasn’t right, and I needed to find a place to hide. I couldn’t hide though, if something was wrong, there were eighteen babies on this floor that didn’t have the same warning that I’d just gotten.

  Moving the desk chair out from under the counter, I dragged Cheyenne’s limp body over to the little nook and folded her inside. I felt her front pockets and was elated to find her phone there, yet quickly deflated when I couldn’t figure out how to work it. It was a brand new one that I had absolutely no idea how to even open, so I shoved it back into her pocket. I shoved the chair in front of her. Most likely she wouldn’t be seen anyway, but more is better and all that.

  A quick survey of the floor and surroundings yielded nothing, and I cursed beneath my breath. Crawling on my hands and knees, I peek around the nurse’s station and see my phone lying face up illuminating the hallway. I crawled quickly to it and called Max.

  “I’m about five minutes away, there was a wreck at the intersection in front of the hospital, or maybe it’s just an abandoned car, hell I don’t know. I went around the side street and am just pull…” Max was saying before I interrupted him.

  “Something’s wrong. The powers out, I found Cheyenne unconscious with a head wound, and Alpha is somewhere on this floor growling at something.” I whispered as quietly as I could.

  “Fuck me. Can you go hide somewhere?” He asked. I could hear a commotion in the background, almost as if he was running, but I couldn’t be sure.

  I crawled along the hallway wall, keeping one shoulder on the wall so I wouldn’t get lost. “No can do, I have babies to take care of, and parents to warn.”

  The first opening I came to signaled to me that I reached the first patient room. Pushing it open silently, I listened for a heartbeat before going in all the way. Since I could still hear Alpha growling, I made an educated guess that whatever was wrong wasn’t on this side of the floor. There were no sounds of TV, or moms talking to their babies, no sound whatsoever, and just as I made it to the bed, I heard a whimper.

  “It’s okay, its Payton, I’m a nurse on this floor.” I whispered.

  “Payton!” A voice hissed.

  It took me a few moments to recognize who it was since she was whispering. I finally realized that it was another nurse that was normally on day shift. “What do you know?”

  “Nothing. I came out just as the lights went out. This was the first room I came to so I could check on them. When I came out, I saw some woman standing behind Cheyenne with a flashlight. She swung it at the back of her head, and Cheyenne went down. I closed the door and haven’t moved since. I put the family into the bathroom.”

  “Okay, I’m going to the next room. Jodie, Tina, Jacklyn, and Aida are probably in patient rooms as well. I know where Cheyenne is. You need to call 911 on the patient phone.” I ordered and then crawled out the door.

  I don’t know where all my bravery came from. I just know Max was boosting me just with being on the phone with me. Except now that I think about it, I forgot about him as soon as I entered the room. Putting the phone on speaker, I dropped it into the front of my pants and crawled to the next room.

  “Max. Can you hear me?” I whispered.

  “Yeah, I’m on the second floor, but all the doors are fucking locked. How do I get in?” He whispered back gruffly.

  “There’s an emergency code that will get you inside, but it also sets off a silent alarm, which wouldn’t be a bad thing right now. There is a keypad beside the door, punch in three-five-six-five-pound.” I explained.

  I went to three more rooms, told them to get into their showers. The next door I came to I could hear an infant urgently crying, so hard that it was making my insides hurt.

  As soon as I pushed the door open, the whimpering of the young mother could be heard. “Stacy?”

  Stacy was all of fourteen, and had a C-section just four hours ago. She was also on psych watch because she tried to kill herself, which in turn led to the C-section two weeks before her due date. I’d walked out on an argument between her and my boss about when she would get to see her child. “I can’t move to get her. She fell off the bed, and I can’t get her.”

  I felt sick to my stomach just thinking about why the baby was on the floor. Suddenly, a thought occurred to me. Where was the sitter that was supposed to be in this room? The woman was a silent watcher every ti
me I had come in to check on Stacy today. She rather gave me the creeps, and I’d tried all night to stay out of the woman’s sight, but alas, duty called and I sucked it up.

  “Stacy, honey, where is your sitter?” I asked quietly as I checked the baby.

  The baby calmed as I placed my hands on her little chest. The infant was tiny, a little over six pounds. I was concerned that the baby might have something wrong with her. Sadly, there was nothing I could do with the power out. Not to mention there was a psycho bitch on the loose.

  Scooping the baby up in my arms, I grabbed a sheet from the closet and tied the baby to my chest in a makeshift sling. There was no way I was leaving this baby with a suicidal mother. The baby was sleeping now with little sniffles and catches in her breathing every so often from the fall she took.

  I reached the door when it was silently pushed open. I quickly stepped to the side and crammed myself into the corner so the door would open and conceal my body. The footsteps were nearly silent except for a slight clicking sound that may have been from a rock or a pebble stuck in the grooves of their shoe. I put the phone from my pocket to my ear and listened, but couldn’t tell where Max was since no sound was coming from the earpiece even though I could see I was still connected.

  I called myself ten times a fool when I realized that the light from the phone would be like a homing beacon to the person who was in the room with me. The baby’s sniffles continued, and my head dropped in despair. Surely whoever it was would figure out we were hiding behind the door, but I was wrong.

  The slight clicking every other step exited the room and walked away from the door. Letting out a breath I’d been unaware that I was holding, I eased out from behind the door and peeked outside when I was grabbed from behind. A hand covered my mouth, and I bit down instinctively before the smell and body made me aware of who it was that was holding me.

  “Motherfucker.” A very deep voice said from behind me.

  I went limp in Max’s arms. My legs threatened to give, and Max cursed again as he readjusted his grip. He snaked his arm around the front of my abdomen, just above my belly, and right below the infant I had strapped to my chest.

  The baby felt the motion and gave an experimental wiggle, but quickly found comfort and dropped back off to sleep. “You scared the piss out of me.”

  “You should have stayed behind the door.” Max countered.

  “How did you get in here?” I asked.

  I was confused. If he was still in here, then who had come into the room, and why did I only hear one person’s set of feet enter? “Who just left?”

  “I don’t know.” He said nearly silent. “I want you to stay in here. I haven’t found Alpha, and I’ve already made one round. He’s stalking something and staying on the move.”

  For once, I didn’t argue with him. My bravado fled the instant I felt his body against mine. Moreover, there wasn’t much I could do with an infant strapped to my chest. I didn’t want to get us killed just because I wanted to stay with him. He didn’t need to know that I was so terrified that I could barely keep the shakes under control. That my heart was pounding a mile a minute. That I was on the verge of puking. If he didn’t leave, I was sure I would cling to him and never let go. Somehow, I found the will, and forced myself to tell him that I would stay and not move.

  “Okay.” I said nearly as silent as he did.

  He gave me a soft kiss on the lips, and then left the room so silently that I wouldn’t have known that he left if I hadn’t felt a shift in the air as he passed. I said a silent prayer to myself that he would be all right, and then went to my original position in the corner of the door.

  I slid my back along the wall until my butt met the cool tiles. My knees were pulled up as far as I could get them, cradling the baby between my knees and chest. The baby wiggled around at the scrunched up position, and I couldn’t help but smile, so happy that I would have one of my own very soon.

  What started this whole ordeal was that I’d forgotten to go to my yearly exam with my gynecologist. I’d been stressed with my nursing boards and finding a job. Since this was the year that I was supposed to have the implant in my arm replaced, I wasn’t protected as I’d thought I had been when I slept with Max in August. When I finally took the time to notice that my period was late, I was nearly ten weeks pregnant.

  Seeing as I was a nurse who worked with babies, I should have known better. I felt like a complete moron. Not that I was upset about it. I knew Max would be an excellent father as soon as I met him. He interacted so well with all of the kids he came into contact with. Hell, one time I walked into the room and he was singing a lullaby to Cora and I swear my ovaries started shooting out eggs for his torpedo to fertilize.

  Not really, but the man was a serious turn on when he sang, and for him to sing while holding a baby was a completely different ball game. I’ve yet to hear him sing to me, but it was definitely something I begged for him to do often. His response to my bugging was that he wasn’t a singer. No matter how deep his voice was, it didn’t mean that he could sing. He’s said he sounded like a “badger having his asshole ripped out” to be specific. With that vivid image, I’d left him alone for the time being.

  The whisper of air clued me in that someone entered the room again. I closed my eyes and hoped that it was Max instead of the psycho bitch that took out Cheyenne. When the man took his first step inside I knew that it wasn’t Max because I could hear footsteps.

  Max was silent as a wraith when he left the room. This person had heavy footsteps. He also ran into the baby’s bed and then cursed up a storm.

  “Nurse!” Stacy whimpered from the bed.

  I squeezed my eyes shut tightly and prayed that whoever it was, wasn’t bad. Maybe it was just the maintenance person here to fix the lights. On the other hand, maybe he was a cop. Yes, definitely a cop. This would be one of the first floors to have police on, right?

  Then he went and killed my hopes by muttering a “Shut up, bitch.”

  Of course, I wasn’t that lucky. I was just thankful that he hadn’t closed the door, and that I was small enough to fit behind it while the door was open. The baby chose that moment to make the hungry baby grunts that signaled that she was perilously close to waking up and working herself into a full-blown panic if she wasn’t fed right that instant. I jiggled her slightly, quieting her down quickly, but it didn’t help. He knew there was a baby in the room.

  “Where’s your baby?” The man asked Stacy.

  “T-the n-nurse h-has her.” Stacy cried.

  “Where is she?” He asked.

  “Behind the door.” Stacy snickered.

  I found myself blinded by the flashlight the man held, and then I was pulled out by my ponytail. I threw myself onto my side and curled protectively around the baby. Crying out from the pain in my scalp, I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to breathe through the pain. My heart was pounding so hard in my chest that I could feel it all over my entire body.

  “So, Payton, did you miss me?” The man said, and it was then that it finally registered as to why the voice sounded familiar.

  “Rory. What the heck are you doing here?” I said calmly, even though I was feeling anything but calm.

  I had to keep him talking. Maybe if I kept him talking, then Max would be able to handle him. A sharp wrench on my hair made the tears that were threatening to spill before finally took the plunge down my cheeks. The baby that was strapped to my body started wailing again, and it was all I could do not to match her scream for scream.

  “Rory, please calm down. I have a baby in my arms. You could really hurt her. Please.” I choked out.

  “Calm? I’m anything but calm. That boyfriend of yours has ruined my calm.” He seethed.

  My brows pulled together in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, don’t play innocent with me. You sent him after me. He threatened me. Got me fired from my job. I lost my house, my girlfriend, and now I’m beyond calm.” He accentuated each point
my giving my hair a vicious yank after each item.

  I breathed heavily through my mouth, trying desperately not to throw up from the pain. Alpha’s malicious growl from the hallway beyond startled Rory enough that he let my hair go so quickly that my head pounded onto the tiled floor. He stood quickly, and I took the opportunity to back away from him.

  Rory’s flashlight swung to the open door, but the only thing that could be seen was the door closing quietly. Almost as if someone had pushed it open, and then immediately let it close. I squeezed my body as tight underneath the hospital bed as I could get. There was barely any room, but somehow I made it work. Alpha was still snarling somewhere in the hallway beyond the room we were in, and I had the sick feeling that maybe Max wasn’t all right if he wasn’t in here yet.

  I patted the baby’s bottom without thought. She was in a full-blown roar, and I didn’t think I’d calm her down unless she got something to eat. At least I hoped that was the problem and not something that had to do with her fall. As soon as we got through with this shit-fest, I would definitely be saying something to my boss about her decision to let this girl see her child. I didn’t care who was in the room with her; there would be consequences here.

  “Whose damn dog is that?” Rory asked. “Where’d you go, Pay?”

  His flashlight swung back and forth across the floor of the room. Just as his flashlight beam met the edge of my feet, a sickening thud, followed by a moan, and then a heavy body falling to the floor. The flashlight rolled across the floor until it came to rest against my foot, and I snatched it up quickly before killing the light.

  “It’s okay, Pet. It’s just me.” Max said quietly before hunkering down beside me. His arms came out and framed my face, and I instantly felt better. My stomach stopped rolling and even the baby quieted down to a weep instead of wailing.

  “What’s going on?” I asked him.

  “The lights for the generator are working on every floor except for this one. The only person that would have the knowledge to cut off only one floors power would be an experienced electrician. It all makes sense that Rory is here now seeing as he’s worked on the hospital’s power grid before.”