by Scott Baron
Lights and sirens. The realization sank in.
She gasped, coughing out the metallic-tasting fluid pooling in her mouth. Her nose sensed the chemical odor of industrial disinfectant, but also a tinge of old blood and vomit that stubbornly clung to the air.
In that brief moment of clarity, she thought, So this is what real pain feels like. The thought quickly passed as her body was jostled by a bump, sending sharp pain surging through her, erasing her thoughts as she was overcome by agony once more.
The medic was laboring feverishly on the bloody woman as the ambulance bumped and raced down the road. With practiced skill, he quickly worked her up, attaching heart monitor leads and taping down the tubing directing the fluids now rushing into her veins.
Seeing the shot he’d given her had the desired effect, he quickly reached for another syringe, which he injected into her new IV line taped into place.
“Hold on, you’re going to be all right. Just hang in there,” he promised.
The drugs quickly found their way through the twists of plastic tubing and into her veins.
The last thing she remembered as the pain melted and consciousness began to fade, was the blurring lights flashing outside the windows as the ambulance whisked her down the street, the sound of the blaring sirens dimming as she slipped once more into the void.
The horrible, bumping ride, and the shrill blare of sirens both abruptly stopped. Though heavily sedated, the girl opened her eyes and managed to somehow force them to focus, at least a little. All she managed to see were the blurry lights of the waiting emergency room as her gurney was jolted to the ground, its wheels juddering on the pavement, softly vibrating her body as she was quickly rolled into the hospital.
The ambulance had called in the details of the patient as they drove, and the emergency room staff was prepped and standing by for her arrival. In fact, a full trauma team was on hand as the gurney came crashing through the double doors.
Hit by a bus? The ER had pulled out all the stops.
Her head would have rolled from side to side as she tried to take in her surroundings, but she noticed it seemed to be strapped firmly into place, and a stiff collar was locked around her neck. Unable to turn, she weakly resigned herself to looking straight forward, watching the light fixtures flash by overhead as they rolled her down the hallway.
One of the nurses rapidly checked her vitals, flashing a light in her eyes and jotting notes on a chart, ignoring the fact that her patient could quite possibly hear her as she talked to the orderly pushing the gurney.
“I don’t know how, but she seems to be stabilizing, but whether she’ll ever recover full brain function after a trauma like this I don’t know. You sure a bus ran her over? I would have expected it to be far worse.”
“Still a lot of blood, though,” the orderly replied.
The girl wanted to speak out, to tell her that she most certainly had brain function, thank you very much, but she felt herself growing dizzy and nauseous, either from the multitude of drugs and chemicals added to her bloodstream or from the fluorescent bulbs flitting past in a blur in front of her face. She coughed and gagged back a flush of acidic bile.
“Prep the ET kit. We’re going to need to intubate,” was the last thing she heard before slipping under yet again.
Time had passed. That much the girl knew, but the question was how much? For that matter, where exactly was she? Running through her senses was still difficult, but the process slowly became more manageable as the fog enveloping her cleared.
A faint beeping filtered in, rhythmically keeping pace with her heart. She took a deep breath, the distinct disinfectant tinge to the air filling her nose.
Wait, am I in a hospital again? It was a bus. Seriously, how could that have not worked?
Willing her eyes to open, she struggled to focus for a few moments, then finally having achieved at least some degree of clarity, looked around and surveyed her surroundings as best she could.
From what she could see, it appeared she was in a bed in the Intensive Care Unit. At least she was pretty sure that’s where she was. She struggled to move her head until she was finally able to shift position and glimpse down. She evaluated herself as best she could and was startled by what she saw.
An impressive mix of bandages, splints, tubes, and wires swarmed her body as they electronically monitored every breath she took.
Breathing. Now that is really uncomfortable. I’ve got to do something about that.
She raised her bandaged hand to her face to clear whatever was obstructing her airflow. The girl who thought she was Death recoiled in shock as her fingers brushed against the smooth plastic of the breathing tube that had been inserted into her airway. It was warm to the touch, heated by the humid air pumping into and out of her lungs.
Panic started to build, and ignoring her pain, she somehow mustered the strength to lift her arm farther and weakly try to pull it out.
The sensation was agonizing.
One of the nurses on duty saw the movement coming from the bed of the girl who’d been run over by a bus and hurried over, calling to the attending physician as she moved.
“Doctor, she’s coming to.”
The stubble-faced doctor stepped into the room with no real sense of urgency. He looked as tired as he obviously felt, namely like he’d spent a few years too many doing overnight shifts and covering back-to-backs, taking care of battered wives and car crash victims alike.
The job was taking its toll on him, that was for sure, but despite the exhaustion, he still managed to maintain that air of extreme competence that comes with the ease of expertise. Despite her panic, or perhaps because of it, the girl found his presence calming, to a degree, and stopped pulling at the endotracheal tube as he approached her bed.
“You need to lie still. Can you do that for me?” he asked in a soothing tone.
She nodded yes.
“Good. You’re in the hospital. You were in a very bad accident. Can you understand me?” the doctor asked, taking a penlight from his coat pocket, dancing the beam across her eyes as he spoke, noting her pupillary response to the light.
She managed to nod a very slight yes.
“Good,” he said, then turned to the nurse. “Pupils equal and reactive.” He pocketed the light and spoke to her as he examined her dressings. “Do you have any loved ones we can contact? You had no identification on you when you were brought in.”
She shook her head again. This time a no.
“I see.”
“What’s your name, honey?” asked the nurse.
She must be new here, thought the girl. She just asked a woman with a tube down her throat what her name is.
In fact, that wasn’t too far off. Before nursing school, the young nurse had worked as a waitress, and during her time in that career, had always excelled at asking diners if they wanted anything else just after they’d taken a bite. Nevertheless, the girl who thought she was Death stubbornly ignored the pain and answered her as best she could.
“Drrtthh,” she said, the plastic tube in her throat not doing her any favors.
“Dorth?” said the overly chipper nurse. “Oh, wait, Dorothy? I get it. Okay Dorothy, you hang in there. We’ll take good care of you.”
“Nnnnnuuu, Drrrrthh!”
Dorothy struggled to speak, to tell them that she was in fact Death, and that she really couldn’t be here, you see. Death can’t be hospitalized. The very thought is ludicrous, but her battered body lost that fight, and she slipped once more into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER 7
The days following the bus accident had been good to Dorothy. Much to the surprise of the hospital staff, she was healing at a rate far exceeding the expectations of the doctors and nurses. Bones thought broken soon appeared merely bruised, and the black and blue that had initially covered much of her body, was fading rapidly to far less disturbing shades.
She had improved so much, in fact, that she had been moved out of the busy ICU and into a r
egular hospital room.
Doctor Phelps was among the doctors on rotation who counted the odd girl as one of his patients, and, after she regained consciousness and could speak coherently, he had begun engaging in discussions with her during her physical evaluations.
At first he was amused by her declaration that she was, in fact, Death, but that quickly shifted to concern when he realized she was serious. A most troubling frame of mind, especially in light of her recent bus-jumping actions.
Standing at the nurses’ station outside Dorothy’s room, Doctor Phelps watched her through the open doorway, then reluctantly picked up the phone. Unfortunately, the girl was mentally troubled, so he really didn’t have much choice.
“All right, thanks, Doctor Vaughan. I appreciate it. See you shortly.”
He hung up the phone, picked up her chart, and walked in to see what new twists his troubling patient would throw at him today.
The first thing he noticed was her ongoing OCD obsession, as next to her picked-at tray of food were several meals’ worth of utensils, organized by size. Sometimes he really wondered what drove his patients to their strange compulsions.
Dorothy turned her gaze to him as he entered the room.
“Hello, Doctor, I would like to leave now,” she informed him. “Where are my clothes?”
“I see you’re still not taking this seriously,” he replied. “Maybe you don’t realize just how close to dying you really came, Dorothy.”
“I told you, I am not called Dorothy. I am Death, and dying was my intent.”
“Yes, so you said. But you told the nurse the other day that your name was Dorothy. Do you remember that? Now, Doctor Simms tells me you were in just one day earlier following an apparent overdose.” He sized her up with a piercing stare. “Is there something you want to tell me, Dorothy?”
“Just that I want to get out of here. You have no right to keep me here.”
“Well, actually, we do. You see, while your recovery these past few days has indeed been quite amazing, if you are a threat to yourself, we have a legal obligation to protect you from harm. Including harm from yourself.”
This guy still just doesn’t get it.
“Look, I am Death, and I need to die to get back where I belong, only I can’t seem to manage it. I took pills, I hung myself, I even threw myself in front of a bus, but I’m still stuck here. I’m being punished, for some reason, forced to live like this. I just don’t know why.”
“I see.” His brow furrowed ever so slightly. “So I should release you because you are Death and apparently you cannot die.”
“Now you’re getting it.” Come on, she thought. It’s obvious. I’m not some nutjob, I am Death!
“And you truly believe this? Can’t you see how outrageous this sounds?”
As if to make her point, two nurses walked by the open door, talking about Dorothy.
“—in front of a bus! I’ve never seen anything like it. She should be dead.”
“It’s one in a million. She got lucky.”
“A miracle, is more like it.”
Dorothy turned her gaze back to Doctor Phelps and raised an eyebrow.
Told ya so, her eyes mocked him.
He leveled his gaze at her. “I want you to talk to another doctor. A specialist. I’ve made a call, and he said he can come by later this afternoon. If you’ll do that for me, I’ll see if I can get you out of this room, all right?”
He sounded almost relieved at the thought of getting his troubled patient out of his hair. If he was lucky, his week might start to slide back into the realm of normal. Hopefully very soon.
She thought about it for a second. What can it hurt?
“All right, I’ll talk to him.”
“Fantastic. Until later, then,” the doctor said, then hastily exited the room.
Dorothy thought things were finally looking up. That she’d be out on the street in no time. That things were finally starting to go her way.
She couldn’t have been more wrong.
Doctor Francis Xavier Vaughan walked down the halls of the hospital with a steady staccato of highly polished shoes, radiating an air of somewhat arrogant and confident superiority, his cologne leaving a faint trail of spice in his wake.
He was in his mid-fifties, hair thinning slightly on top, with a dark, perfectly trimmed beard, styled much as one would expect to find on a showman or magician. He didn’t wear a white lab coat, but rather, preferred tailored suits, cut to fit his slightly stocky frame.
As he approached Dorothy’s room, counting door numbers as he closed in on his target, his face morphed from that of a powerful and stern man used to getting his way, into a sympathetic and gentle ‘friendly doctor’ visage. His eyes were still intense, but somehow he managed to appear kind and wise.
The gentle smile he had practiced for many years had the effect of putting people at ease, though truly observant patients could catch the briefest glimpse of something darker lurking behind it.
His chosen persona locked firmly in place, Doctor Vaughan reached his destination and gave a quick shave-and-a-haircut knock before letting himself in.
Dorothy had been expecting another stiff in a lab coat.
Huh, not what I thought he’d be.
The doctor paused for the slightest of instants as he entered the room.
My God, he marveled, she looks like Katie when we first met. The sensation was ever-so-slightly unnerving. He quickly forced the jolt of unexpected anguish in his heart aside as he refocused his energies on the patient who was most certainly not his wife.
“Hello, I’m Doctor Vaughan. Doctor Phelps asked me to come speak with you. Is this a good time?”
She nodded her head.
“Sure.”
“Excellent. So, Dorothy—”
“I told them, my name is not Dorothy.”
“Yes, so you said. Well, Dorothy, you certainly aren’t in Kansas anymore,” he said with a friendly chuckle.
She stared at him, puzzled by where this odd conversation was going.
What’s this guy’s deal? she wondered.
“Kansas? What are you on about?” she asked, the annoyance clear in her voice.
“I see that obviously bothers you,” replied Doctor Vaughan. “I’m sorry, please accept my apologies. If we may, let’s start over. You know what, let me show you a little something,” he said with a cheerful grin. “My patients really get a kick out of it.”
He reached into his coat pocket, revealing an old silver coin, which he started smoothly palming from hand to hand, twirling it across his fingers back and forth as he worked the conversation toward his amateur magician’s patter. For an amateur, he was actually quite skilled at sleight of hand, and the coin seemed to almost float across his knuckles. The fluidity of his motions would easily mesmerize most people.
But then, Dorothy was not most people.
He launched into his routine.
“There once was a young girl who wanted to buy a candy bar,” he began. “Her mother was poor, but she loved her daughter, so she saved her money until she was able to give her a single coin so she could walk to town and buy a treat,” he said, holding the coin with his thumb and index finger.
“‘Don’t lose it!’ her mother said. ‘And don’t talk to strangers.’ Well, wouldn’t you know, but as the girl walked down the road, a thin man appeared from out of nowhere and asked if she could spare something to eat.”
As he said this, Doctor Vaughan moved his palm, as if to protect his valuable coin from a stranger’s gaze. His misdirection was good enough that it would have fooled the majority of people in an audience.
He’s actually got decent hand-work, she thought, reluctantly admiring his skill, even as his patter annoyed her.
“The girl saw how thin the man was, and faced a dilemma. She wanted a treat, but also felt sorry for the him. ‘I was going to buy a candy bar with this,’ said the girl.” He moved his hands in sync, briefly flashing the coin. “‘But you need it more
than I do.’ And with that, she placed the coin in the man’s hand. He looked at her and smiled. No one else had offered to help him. When he opened his hand—”
“It’s in your shirt pocket,” Dorothy interrupted.
Doctor Vaughan was taken aback. “Wh-what?” he stammered.
“You put the coin in your shirt pocket.”
His carefully composed façade faltered for just a split second, the faintest hint of his displeasure leaking out through his gaze before he regained his composure.
This one is going to be difficult, he thought. She really is like Katie.
“Ah, yes, right you are,” he said with a smile as he took the coin out of his shirt pocket, right where she said it would be. A frustrated little sigh escaped his lips, and the corners of his eyes hardened just a touch.
“Well then, enough chit-chat. Based on my evaluation, I am prepared to, um, release you from this ward, but you’ll have to sign these documents first.” He removed several neatly folded pages from his coat pocket.
“What are they?”
“Standard release forms. It’s all boilerplate,” he said.
“The Devil is in the details,” Dorothy quipped, fixing him with a hard stare.
He was taken aback by the girl, surprised at finding himself a little uncomfortable with her for some reason, shocked by her lack of any intimidation at all. Doctor Vaughan was also most irritated that a patient would dare speak to him in that manner, but once again, he managed to hide his displeasure, firmly affixing his false smile to his face.
“Yes, well, I assure you, these forms are standard in cases such as yours. Just sign here.” He indicated several highlighted areas.
She paused for a moment, unsure if she should sign, or what she should sign, for that matter.
They’re all calling me Dorothy anyway. I guess, what could it hurt? Whatever it takes to get the hell out of here, I suppose.
Doctor Vaughan could see she was on the fence.
“You do want out of this ward, don’t you? Just a few signatures and we’ll have you out of here in no time,” he said, flashing a used-car-salesman smile.