Kenny (Shifter Football League Book 2)

by Becca Fanning

  “Oh, God, Mundo, what’s that smell?” she cried. “It’s so, so... Oh, God, I can’t stand it.” She pinched her nostrils then covered her nose with her hand, but she could still smell everything.

  She turned to him and saw his look of confusion, as well as the fact he was butt naked and covered in grass stains and dirt. Before she could even appreciate the fineness of him nude and in the back yard, she smelled the dirt on him.

  “Why can I smell everything?” she whimpered as more nausea assailed her.

  He took a whiff of the air around him, looking puzzled, befuddled, and confused, as well as adorable. “There’s nothing really there to smell, babe,” he told her, taking another sniff. “I mean, there’s grass and bears, I guess. Sorry about them herding you like that. I told them not to when I let them know you were coming out, but you smell good.” He wrinkled his nose. “Like honey.”

  She closed her eyes and shut him out a second. “Was this the best way you could think of to introduce me to your bear?”

  He grinned, sheepishly though. “Yeah. I thought it was like pulling off a Band-Aid, ya know? Better to do it quickly.”

  Christie grunted then regretted it. She tasted the smell this time, that smorgasbord of revoltingly strong scents that were bombarding her senses like a spray of bullets from an AK47.

  “What the hell’s going on, Mundo?” she whimpered, her poor stomach starting to do a dance again. “The smell out here is so strong. It’s disgusting.”

  “There’s no strong smell out here, Christie,” Mundo countered, frowning as he peered around trying to figure out what stank so badly. “I mean, did it smell like this yesterday? Nothing has really changed since then. I mean, sure, the bears are out, but we keep it clean in here. No crapping or scenting the area or anything like that.”

  “Bull, I can smell shit.”

  “You can?” he asked, confused, taking another whiff of air before shaking his head. “My nose is more powerful than a human’s, babe, and I can’t smell anything weir...” His mouth dropped open. “No shit!”

  Pissed, she snapped, “No shit, what?”

  “That’s your talent!”

  “What is?” she snarled, feeling her stomach starting to churn again.

  “The ability to smell.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “Are you kidding me?” she shrieked. “Annette gets to talk to her mate telepathically, and I can smell the most disgusting crap in the world? That’s not fair!” she finished on a wail. Then, the tears started. Because how was she supposed to keep on working as a dentist when smells affected her?

  Not everyone visited their dentist every six months, and when a tooth had rotted badly, she could smell it through the mask she wore.

  Just the notion had her wailing again. “This sucks, Mundo!”

  He grabbed her, wrapped an arm around her shoulder, and tucked her close. “I know, and I’m sorry. I didn’t even think that was something you could pick up as a talent. I mean, it’s pretty freaking out there.”

  “What am I supposed to do? Everything smells so bad.”

  “Even me?”

  She took a whiff of him, but for once didn’t feel nauseated. “No, you smell good. In need of a shower, but your essence is pure underneath the gross dirt.” Only Christ knew how she knew what his essence was supposed to smell like.

  She covered her face with her hands and mumbled. “It’s a good thing I love you.”

  He chuckled and bussed her temple with his lips. “Does it make it better that I think the sun rises and sets on you?”

  Her lower lip popped out. “A bit.”

  He let his mouth drop lower until he popped another kiss on the tip of her nose. “I love you, Christie.”

  “And I love you, but this still fucking blows.”

  “I know, but you’ll get used to it.”

  “Yeah, that doesn’t make it any better.”

  “It doesn’t?”

  “No.”

  “How about I tell you something that might mean the talent will lessen after, say, nine months or so?”

  She frowned, studied the ground a second, and mumbled, “Nine months? That’s a pretty specific number.”

  “Yeah. Nine.”

  “What’s happening in nine months?”

  He cleared his throat. “Christie, I think your hormones are exacerbating your talent because, well, I scented it last night, but this is the first chance I’ve had to tell you...”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Tell me what, Mundo?”

  Another chance to clear his throat. “Well, Christie, you’re pregnant.”

  She’d coped with the suckiest super talent in the world, the ten bears in the yard, and the fact that her mate could turn into a grizzly bear... but that, well, it was just one shock too many.

  Before Christie could hit the ground, her mate caught her. And even though, in her dazed state, she felt like castrating him, there was one thing about this situation she knew to be true.

  Mundo would always catch her.

  That was how it would be for the rest of their lives together. He’d throw curveballs her way, and when they collided with her, knocking her down, he’d be there to save her from the fall.

  And that was all she was capable of thinking before blackness overtook her for the second time in as many days.

  Goddess help her.

  Wait, they already had.

  The End

  Bear Fallout

  by

  Becca Fanning

  It shouldn’t be possible for a hospital to be this deserted, but here she was, dreadfully alone in the bowels of Grady Memorial. Even in the best of times, the hospital had always been severely understaffed, but this was pushing it too far: one doctor, one nurse, and one secretary up in the phone room ignoring calls. The rest of the hospital staff was gone.

  Gina Flynnt stood over the body, scalpel held steady in her right hand. Alone. It had bothered her when she’d first come in to work today to find out that everyone else had the day off to celebrate, and she would be stuck here in the morgue, but now it didn’t bother her. She had work to do.

  Work was work, and money was money. Besides, it wasn’t like she had anyone to celebrate the 4th of July with, anyway. She didn’t have friends; no one she would actually hang out with outside of the hospital, so it was fine that she was here and they were out there.

  The morgue was buried deep below the hospital, only reachable by going through an old door, down a rusting staircase, and finally into a hallway lined with leaky water pipes. The light down in the hallway was bad, but the morgue room was lit up like a spotlight.

  The body lying in front of her was Edgar Nash. 47, from a little town a couple of hours north of Atlanta. She’d glanced at his file after she’d wheeled him into the examination room: an architect with a loving wife, two kids, a dog, and a big fenced-in backyard with a big house to match. He’d been getting ready for the celebrations tonight: cleaning the house, mowing the yard, sweeping out the gutters.

  That’s what had killed him.

  Well, the ladder was what had done him in really, but it was while he was cleaning out his gutters that it had happened. He’d climbed to the top, a leaf blower on his back, determined to make quick work of the leaves clogging the drains. After he’d finished, he’d tried climbing down – and the leaf blower had thrown him off balance, so down he went. Right onto his neck.

  It had been instantaneous. He’d barely had time to scream before he’d landed. It was a tragic event, but now that he was gone his tissues could be harvested for a good cause, if Gina was quick. The body had been held up somewhere along the line by the local police, so instead of going to the far better-equipped, but farther away hospital in Haysberry, Edgar Nash had been brought to Grady Memorial.

  It had bothered her once, long ago. When she’d first started medical school she’d been squeamish around the bodies. Now, though, it was just like any other day: work. And her work could save lives. She took pride in that, de
spite her working conditions.

  She took a deep breath, the smell of stale air barely filtered out by her mask. She’d hardly noticed it before, but now with all of her senses at their peak efficiency before the autopsy, everything came to her. The smell of old machinery, leaking vital fluids one sludgy drip at a time. The sound of the machinery churning through the walls, a constant, dull rumble. The occasional echoing drop of water. The sound of far-off fireworks.

  The feel of the warm metal underneath her gloved fingertips. The vibrations of each distant machine shaking the table ever so slightly. The chafing of her apron and doctor’s uniform, a size too small and well-worn, but all she had. She’d put in a requisition for new uniforms months ago, but she’d heard nothing back. She knew they were closing Grady Memorial down, though they would never admit it until she was out of a job.

  Over the past year, staff had been transferred slowly out of the aging hospital. The most desirable were transferred to Martin Memorial in Haysberry, the rest were let go. She’d had a sinking feeling that when the hospital finally closed down, she’d be out a job. Still, she held out hope. She lived in Haysberry, and transferring to the hospital only five minutes away from her house was one of her dreams.

  She couldn’t blame whoever was in charge, though. Grady Memorial was an ancient building, a relic of the past; a bygone remnant of a time long gone. Grady had been built back during the early years of the Cold War, when tensions were still high. At its inception, it had been a shining example of American pride.

  Now, it was just a dilapidated hospital that had no patients and was little more than a prescription dispensary. Still, it was serviceable as a morgue.

  She took another breath, this time through her mouth to try to avoid the stale taste, but it was pointless: she could taste the faint hint of oils, rotten machinery, and the body in front of her. She almost coughed, but kept the urge at bay.

  Her eyes travelled over the man: every single hair on his head, a day’s worth of stubble, the bruising where his neck was broken. What a way to go, she thought. Dead on the 4th and brought to Grady. She had an inkling the man would have wanted to go anywhere else, but it didn’t matter now.

  Thump thump thump. She couldn’t see the fireworks from down below where she was, but she could hear them, very faintly. The morgue was an old fallout shelter, designed to keep everyone safe when the nukes started to fall. When they hadn’t, the room was converted to what it was today. Luckily, the aesthetics of the fallout shelter perfectly matched what a morgue should look like, so it was an easy transition.

  Her breath frosted as she pushed the scalpel down, cutting through Edgar Nash’s flesh with ease. She used to be squeamish, back in med school, but that was long past her now. She examined the body as she cut it open.

  Gina was more than just a doctor, and it always amazed her how she’d wound up at Grady Memorial. She’d graduated med school as a forensic pathologist, one of the most promising in her class. She’d had a bright future in front of her, so many job opportunities that she couldn’t even count them all – and look where it had gotten her.

  She pushed the thought away; it wasn’t something she liked to dwell on.

  She focused instead on doing her job, however pointless it might be. Determining the official cause of death in this instance was definitely pointless, considering that it had already been determined. An autopsy had already been done. But regulations were regulations, and Gina was the final stop for Edgar Nash, at least until he went to the funeral home.

  Thump thump thump.

  She figured she would go upstairs after this was over and sit at the front of the hospital with Bobby. He was supposed to be answering the phone, but she knew exactly what he’d be doing: watching sports with his legs up on the desk, beer in hand. When she’d shown up earlier and given him a look, he’d just shrugged, as if to say, It’s the 4th. What else do you want me to do?

  Maybe she would go up there and steal a beer from him. Sit down and watch the fireworks. Find Charlaine, the nurse, and chit-chat with her. If she had any friends in the hospital, Charlaine would be the closest. Still, they kept things work related and never hung out except when in the break room.

  The autopsy went quick. The cause of death had already been determined, and Gina saw no reason to argue with their findings. Gina let her mind wander as she finished up: what was everyone else doing today? Were they having as much fun as she was? How was Petey dealing with the fireworks?

  Boom! Boom! BOOM!

  The whole room shook. What the hell?

  She couldn’t be sure what kind of firework that had been, but it was big enough to swing the hanging fluorescent lights over her head. When the light swung away from her, it cast the other side of the room in a sickly half-glow and threw her temporarily into darkness. Edgar Nash looked like a zombie, lit up like that. But zombies weren’t her problem; she was done here. She bent down, unlocking the wheel blocks, and pushed the body into another room for storage. She locked him in, completing her final task with the body.

  Boom! BOOM! BOOM!

  She scribbled her final notes onto the clipboard. That was it - she was done with her work for the day. Still, something was definitely not right. As she left the morgue, she made sure to flip off the still-swaying lights and close the door behind her. Without that light, she realized, she was bathed in complete darkness. The lights in the hallway were off.

  “What is going on?” she whispered. She opened the door back up and turned the light back on. The light didn’t even reach a quarter of the way into the hallway, but it was something. She headed forward, slowly, unsure. She’d walked down this hallway over a thousand times and could do it in her sleep, but something here just felt… wrong. She couldn’t explain it any other way.

  It took only a few steps to completely leave the cold safety of the morgue light again, and she had to feel blindly to stop from stumbling. The building around her was almost silent – she couldn’t hear any of the usual sounds she had come to expect from Grady - but for one thing. Some other sound, coming from one of the rooms off of the side of the hallway. She’d never been in it before, but she stopped in front of it, wondering what it could be.

  She reached out, willing herself to keep walking instead, but her curiosity was too great. She grabbed the handle, expecting it to be locked, but it turned underneath her grip. She opened the door. The sound was louder now that the door was opened. She ran her palm across the wall, feeling for a light switch.

  She felt it underneath her fingers and flicked it on – nothing. With a sigh she pulled out her cell phone, and turned on the screen for a dim light. The room wasn’t large, and most of its available floor space had been taken up by stacks upon stacks of crates. She couldn’t even imagine what was wasting away inside them, but she didn’t care. She was here to find out what that sound was.

  It was coming from behind a stack of crates in the far corner. A sort of buzzing, shuffling noise. She approached carefully, walking around stacks, and then came to stand at the base of the tower. Was it coming from inside a crate? She didn’t think so. She set her phone to the side on a chest high stack, screen pointing up. It cast just enough light for her to see what she was doing.

  She started by removing the top crate. It was surprisingly light. She set it carefully to the side and grabbed the next one. Oof! It was much heavier than the first one, and she stumbled with it, barely setting it down onto another. But the sound was just a little bit louder, and now Gina could see where the sound was coming from.

  There was some kind of metal box on the wall. She grabbed her phone, shining it at the box. It wasn’t large, six inches by six inches, but it seemed to be vibrating quickly. That was the noise she had heard: the box moving against the wall extremely fast. From her position below, she couldn’t see much of the box, so she grabbed one of the cardboard crates and pulled it close.