Frost Bite

by S A Magnusson

  “What was that?”

  “Well, where are my belongings?” His eyes seemed to say, someone’s stolen my belongings. They held no trust in them.

  “We usually lock them up once you’re admitted into the hospital, Mr. Rorsch. It’s normal. I’m sure everything that was on you when the EMS crew found you is still held safe for you.”

  “I need you to check it for me.”

  I was off the clock, so didn’t feel as annoyed by his demand as I might have been and made my way over to the cabinet. It served as a locker, and had a push code. “I don’t know the combination. I can go and asked one of the nurses—”

  “No.”

  Mr. Rorsch started to sit up, pulling the sheets down, and his gaze met my eyes. “Perhaps they didn’t lock it.”

  “The nurses are pretty good about that sort of thing. They wouldn’t leave the cabinets unlocked.”

  “Would you try it anyway?”

  The man was a touch irritating, just by asking for that bit more. But I shrugged, turning to the cabinet. As far as I could tell, it appeared locked. I twisted the knob anyway and—well, I was stunned when the door popped open. Inside the cabinet, there rested a neat stack of clothing.

  I sorted through the clothes and carried them over to him. He slipped his hand into the pockets of his pants before pulling it out and offering something to me.

  “What is that?” I said.

  “A token of thanks,” he said.

  “I don’t need any thanks. I was doing my job.”

  “I would like to thank you. Take it.” Again, he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  I reached for his hand, accepting whatever it was he had cupped within it, and realized it appeared to be a coin. It wasn’t any coin I’d ever seen before and reminded me of the kind of thing you’d find at an amusement park, though it was heavy, and made of metal rather than plastic.

  “Thanks,” I said, slipping the coin into the pocket of my white coat. “You’re very kind! It’s an interesting… coin.” I didn’t know what to say. An interesting what? I had no idea.

  “How long will I be here?” the man asked.

  “I don’t know. With the kind of injury you sustained, it’s possible you’ll need to be here a few days.”

  He rolled his head off to the side, looking at the door. “How many people know I’m here?”

  “No one, yet. We can only call the people you’ve told us to call. Hospitals can’t notify anyone if you don’t give them permission.”

  He closed his eyes, breathing out heavily. It was as if a huge weight had been lifted from his ribcage, allowing him to breathe properly. “Very good. Thank you, Dr. Stone.”

  His breathing began to slow, and I could tell he’d drifted back off into sleep. I grabbed his clothing, clutching it up against my chest, and carried it back to the cabinet. After setting the clothes inside, I made sure the door was closed and locked.

  It was time for me to get home. Inside my pocket, I fingered the slip of paper with the little drawing of the tattoo on it and was tempted to take a picture of the others. But I didn’t want to awaken him. Would I remember the images well enough to draw them later? I hoped so but wanted to take pictures anyway.

  Then I hesitated. As I started toward the bed and reached for my phone, the patient rolled over. Rather than risk disturbing him, I turned and hurried out of the door, waving to Tom as I headed out of the ICU and back down to the emergency room.

  3

  Packing up my belongings in my locker—the same locker I’d used throughout the entirety of my residency—I couldn’t help but feel exhausted. I shouldn’t have felt so tired; after all, an eight-hour shift was supposedly a whole lot more palatable than the twelve-hour ones I used to do. Somehow, though, I’d discovered that seeing more patients would always leave me feeling mentally exhausted, and this just didn’t happen if I saw fewer, even if it was over a longer shift period.

  “Heading home already, Dr. Stone?”

  I shut the locker and glanced over to see Matt Gillespie watching me. He was holding an apple and bit into it, a cocky smile on his face as he chewed. “Some of us have plans for the night,” I said. “We have lives, you know.”

  He leaned against the bank of lockers, observing my every move. “What sort of plans?”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “Consider me curious about what attending physicians do in their evenings.”

  “I’m not quite an attending.”

  “Pretty much. Aren’t fellows basically the same thing as attendings?”

  I headed past him, reaching the door. I wasn’t about to engage in flirtatious behavior with an intern, regardless of how attractive he might be. It could endanger my fellowship, and until I knew—really knew—what I wanted to do once I was done, I had no interest in jeopardizing my place.

  “So, no comment about your plans?” he remarked, seemingly a little irked. So, now I was on the spot and had to answer.

  “Oh, you know; probably a glass of wine and some reruns. Have a good night, Gillespie.”

  I headed out of the hospital, zipping up my coat as I left through the main entrance of the emergency room. A cold wind gusted around me, and the cloudy sky did nothing to warm up the day. My breath plumed in front of me, and I set off, my feet squeaking as I stepped through frozen snow.

  The freezing night air brought my mind right back to the strange man with the tattoos. He intrigued me. I’d only been outside a moment, yet I shivered under my thick coat, collar pulled up high around my neck. So, how long could it have taken for him to get into that condition outside? He hadn’t frozen solid, so couldn’t have been outside long—on the other hand, it was long enough that he’d ended up in the emergency room. I couldn’t shake the thought that something more was taking place than it had seemed at first blush.

  Maybe all my time with my friend Kate had put me on edge, or maybe there really was something odd about it. Either way, rather than sitting around and watching reruns like I’d told Gillespie, I figured I could reach out to my magical connections in the city.

  If only Kate were still around. Sadly, she’d been gone for the last few months, deferring her fellowship with the approval of the residency program. She had asked for research time… well, at least as far as the fellowship program was aware. In reality, she’d gone off to try to better understand her magical powers. With her gone, I didn’t have the same ties to the magical world, so a part of me wondered if I should worry about this more than just sending word.

  Pausing at an intersection, I waited for the stoplight to change colors. At times like this I was even more appreciative that I wasn’t pulling those twelve-hour shifts anymore. One of the things I most hated about them was leaving in the dark and returning in the dark, and all in the dead of winter. While it wasn’t the dead of winter yet, it was still cold, and the days were getting shorter, leaving little daylight by the time my shift was done. I was grateful I had a little more light remaining before I got home. This city was safe enough—at least in the short walk I had to make before reaching the condo I shared with Kate—and I generally allowed myself to space out while walking.

  When I crossed the street, something out on the brown grass of the park caught my attention. In the summer months, the park would be incredibly busy, with couples out for a stroll, bikers and runners keeping active, even people just sitting around having a picnic. There wasn’t nearly the same activity in the winter, and on a day like today with the wind so chilly, I didn’t expect anyone to be outside, let alone languishing on the grass.

  So, why was somebody lying over there?

  Had I not just seen a hypothermia case, I might’ve walked on, leaving the person alone, but all I could think of was the old man and how cold he’d been, and how near to death.

  “Not a good idea, Jen,” I said under my breath, even as I made my way across the frozen ground toward the prostrate figure. A dusting of snow from earlier in the day had turned to ice, now crunching beneath my
shoes.

  I carefully approached the person lying there; it was a man. He appeared to be in his forties, with dark hair, a square jaw, a hint of stubble, and a strangely tanned complexion, out of place for this time of year. As I neared, the discomfort I’d been feeling intensified. Someone was lying there alone, motionless, distinctly under-dressed for the weather. Where was his winter coat? Where was his scarf? The man simply wore dark jeans and a stylish floral print shirt, and the flash of real gold at his wrist spoke of money.

  “Hey. Are you okay?”

  I looked for any sign of movement. One of the drawbacks of working in an emergency room was that everything ran the risk of being a potentially deadly situation, including finding a stranger on a frozen lawn right near the hospital.

  The man didn’t move. I didn’t even see his chest rising, the one sign of movement I was hoping for.

  Well, bumblefuck.

  I was no longer mindful of getting in the personal space of a stranger. If he was fine, then there’d be no harm done, and I could explain I was a physician wandering past who’d merely become concerned when he didn’t seem to be moving. But if something was going on, then maybe I could help in time. I just hoped for less of a questioning than Mr. Rorsch had given me if this man were to come to his senses while I was tending to him.

  I turned his head to the side, pressing along his carotid artery, but felt nothing.

  His skin was cool, but not yet ice-cold, not in a way I would have expected if he’d been there a long time. I looked around for a sign of anyone else nearby, someone to call for help. But it was just me.

  Grabbing for my phone, I hurriedly dialed the number to the emergency room. When a voice picked up on the other side—Helen, thankfully—I said, “Hey, Helen. It’s Jen Stone. I need you to send an ambulance crew to the park across from the hospital.”

  “Did something happen to you, Dr. Stone?”

  “No. I found someone. In the park. Man down. Probably in his forties. Frozen.” Like the guy we saw earlier, I didn’t add. “Send them as quickly as you can.”

  I hung up and began chest compressions, starting CPR. Without knowing how long he’d been down, I couldn’t tell if CPR would make a difference, but as with Mr Rorsch, he seemed to be only cold, so it was possible we could get his pulse back.

  I gave a couple rescue breaths, noting a hint of mint on his lips, before resuming compressions. As I did, the Bee Gees song played in my head, and I hummed it under my breath. Had anyone passed by, I might have looked like a crazy person assaulting some poor man in the frozen park, but at least this way I knew I was doing everything I could for him. After a few minutes, I paused to check for a pulse again, but as before, there was none.

  “Come on,” I said to him, not expecting a response. “You can come back around.”

  “Dr. Stone?” The voice came from the street, nearly getting lost in the wind.

  I glanced over my shoulder, still doing CPR. “Down here!”

  I continued chest compressions as they came closer, and I glanced up to see Brian and Tyrese, two EMS that I knew.

  “What happened?” Brian asked as he grabbed his supplies, taking over compressions for me. Tyrese pulled an ambu bag out and began to give the man rescue breathing, but there was little humidity in the mask. That wasn’t a good sign.

  “I really don’t know; I was walking home and just saw this guy over here. I don’t know how long he’s been down, or anything about him. We need to get him inside where we can do a proper assessment.”

  Brian glanced up to the hillside and I realized they had brought a cart with them. The two men nodded to each other, and they scooped the fallen man off the ground, hurrying him up to the cart.

  “Where’s your rig?”

  “When you called, you said you were just across the street, and we didn’t think…”

  I shook my head. It didn’t matter. Even though we were doing compressions, he hadn’t given any response. I stayed with the cart and the two men as we ran across the street, hurrying back toward the emergency room bay, wheeling the guy straight in and toward one of the open trauma bays.

  Dr. Gillespie was there again, this time frowning at me. “Decided you didn’t want to sit around and watch reruns, then? Or did you miss me already?”

  It wasn’t a time for jokes and flirtation; he was getting on my nerves right now. “I found this guy in the park. We need to get him warm, and see—”

  “Dr. Stone?”

  I turned to see what Brian wanted. He waved me over, and I started to unzip my jacket, when I realized it didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to be there long.

  As they peeled back the man’s shirt, blood began to stain it, a thin, bright trickle spreading out from what appeared to be a stab wound over his left pectoral muscle.

  “Ah, bumblefuck,” I whispered.

  “What happened?” Gillespie asked, coming up to my shoulder and looking down. His gaze took in the stab wound over the chest, and he drew a deep breath. “Doubt we’re going to be able to do anything to help him.”

  “No. Probably not. I think warming him up only allowed the blood to flow…” But why hadn’t I noticed him bleeding before? He had been cold, not frozen, so I would’ve expected some sign of blood flow, and the fact it only started once we’d got him there was strange.

  The EMS pulled more of the man’s shirt away, now revealing the full extent of his injury. It was a strange stab wound, a crisscross pattern piercing the skin right over his nipple. The skin around it looked discolored, and something about it reminded me of the tattoo on the old man from earlier.

  Leaning in, I studied the wound on his chest, searching for anything that might help me understand whether what I saw was real or not. Maybe it was nothing more than my imagination, and there wasn’t anything like the tattoo.

  As I leaned in, there seemed to be a strange odor to the injury.

  “Dr. Stone?” Brian asked.

  I leaned back, looking at the others in the room. “We can call it,” I said. Glancing over to Gillespie, I thought of what Dr. Allen had said to me. “Run through the code process with him and take as long as you need.”

  Gillespie glanced down at the body. “There’s no need. I’ve seen wounds like this before.”

  “Like this?”

  “Maybe not quite like this, but bleeding like this.”

  I sighed. There was no point in me staying there anymore, and regardless of whatever else I might want to do for this guy, the simple fact of the matter was that he was gone, and nothing could be done for him.

  “Sorry to leave you with this,” I said, feeling defeated.

  “That’s what I’m here for. Have a good night. Dr. Stone.”

  Glancing at the man a moment longer, I turned and headed away. I had no reason to stay. Even if the man was alive, there were others on duty who could take care of him. For my own sanity, I needed to step away.

  Making my way back through the emergency room, I paused in the ambulance bay, looking at the two rigs pulled in there. One of them had the lights spinning, though the siren was off, at least giving me a break from the noise.

  Everything felt off, and I couldn’t shake the strangeness of encountering people who had been outside, essentially frozen, without knowing why. Furthermore, I couldn’t shake the idea there could be some magical connection between the two.

  Once back outside, my breath blooming in the air, I strode back across the street, letting my gaze drift over toward the park where I’d found the fallen man. Then I hurried on. It was now late enough in the evening that it was dark and getting darker. Despite that, I paused, staring back at the park once more. The longer I stayed there, the more likely it would be fully dark before I managed to get back home. But the place seemed to pull me in.

  “Do you intend to stand here all night or not?” The sudden voice came from the shadows.

  I froze before realizing I recognized it. “You really shouldn’t sneak up on women like that, Barden.”

&
nbsp; The older man standing across from me was well dressed—as he often was—wearing a suit with a long wool overcoat. His hands were in his pockets, and I imagined expensive and supple leather gloves covering his fingers. His silver hair was combed neatly, parted off to the side, and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes gave him a distinguished appearance.

  “You did call me, did you not?”

  I nodded. “I did. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “Not a social call, then,” Barden said.

  Looking around the park, I motioned for us to start walking. “As much as I enjoy your company, it’s not a social call.”

  “I take it something happened you don’t have an answer for?”

  He had a quick mind, but then I already knew that. “I saw a marking I believed was magical in origin. Or—could be.”

  “A marking?”

  “I think you people would call it a rune.”

  “And what would your people call it?” He smiled slightly at my words; the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deepened a little, giving him an even more distinguished appearance. He was a rather attractive older man, though I admitted he was too old for me.

  “I’m not sure what to call it. On the man I took care of today, it looked like a tattoo.”

  The smile faded from his face and he studied my face for a moment. “What sort of tattoo?”

  I took a deep breath, looking around. The streets were empty for the most part, but it was cold enough that I didn’t want to be outside longer than need be. “Do we have to do this here?”

  “Where would you rather do it?”

  “I would like to get out of these clothes,” I said, sweeping my hand down to motion to my scrubs. “And I’d like to get out of the cold.” After having spent as much time as I had trying to resuscitate the frozen man, I was a bit frozen myself. I wanted to do exactly what I had told Gillespie, which was to sit down and relax, have a glass of wine, and enjoy some mindless TV while preparing for another day in the ER.