Kane
“Hello?” I sat up when I heard my cell go off. “Shit.” It was five in the morning, the Sunday after my night out, and even though I’d gone home relatively early, I was a bit out of it. Picking up the phone, I saw that it was another doctor from the hospital I worked at. “Hey, Jack. What’s up?”
“Me. With my sick daughter. She’s puking everywhere, and her mother’s out of town. I’ve got the day shift at the ER today, but I’m going to need to stay here to take care of her. Do you think you can go in for me today?”
“Yeah.” I was always one to help out others. “I’ll do it. You just take care of your little girl, Jack.”
“Thanks. You’re the best.” He hung up, and I rolled out of bed.
One hot shower, a cold blueberry muffin, and a hot cup of coffee later and I was on my way to the hospital. There weren’t any cars in the ER parking lot. Most Sundays were easy. I wasn’t worried about being swamped.
Heading in through the sliding glass door, I walked past the nurse’s station, calling out to the blonde who sat at the desk. “Buzz me in, please.”
“Good morning, Dr. Price. I thought Dr. Friday was scheduled for today,” she said just before I got to the door.
Grabbing the handle and pulling it open, I nodded. “Yeah, he was. His kid got sick, and he asked me to take this shift. How’s it been so far?”
“Quiet. A typical Sunday.” She went back to reading a book, and I went into the back.
An office had been set up for the doctors on duty. I went to it, using my key to open it. The smell of cleaning products stung my nose. I should’ve been used to it by now, but I didn’t think it’d ever be easier to smell. The scents were just so pungent.
Going straight to the coffee machine, I started up a pot before opening the computer to see what had happened the night before. “Gunshot. Stab wound. Rabies?” I had to look at that entry again. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”
Pulling up the results, I found that a man had come in with a bite from his pet bat.
Who the hell owns a pet bat?
I found there were a few patients who’d been admitted to the hospital for their conditions, and the man with possible rabies was one of them. I had to go meet this guy.
Heading out of the ER to go up to the rooms, I crossed paths with one of the men who worked in laundry as he was pushing his heavy cart along the hallway. “Hey, Gerald. How’s it going today?”
“It’s going, doc. How’re things with you?” He stopped as he got to the staff elevator. I decided to ride up with him.
“Well, I’m on my way up to see a man who was bitten by his own pet bat,” I answered after stepping on the elevator with him. “He’s worried about rabies.”
“No shit?” he laughed as he shook his head. “The things people do, huh?”
“Yep.” The patient was set up on the third floor. “Here’s my stop.”
“I think I’ll get off here too and go on ahead and pick up the dirty linen on this floor,” Gerald said with a grin. “I’ve got to take a gander at this gentleman.”
Heading to room 352, I tried to gain control over my expression. I didn’t want to bust out laughing or anything like that. A light tap on his door and Mr. Jim Jones croaked, “I’m up. Come in.”
Pushing the door open all the way, I was ready to see some kind of character. Imagine my surprise when a normal-looking older man sat up in the bed to welcome me in. Gerald was right behind me with his laundry cart. “Well, I’ll be. You ain’t what I was expecting.”
The old guy laughed. “Yeah, I know. Who owns a bat as a pet? And a vampire bat, at that.”
“A vampire bat?” I asked as I wondered how one even acquired such a thing. “Is that even legal?”
The old guy shrugged. “Not sure about that. You don’t suppose your hospital will tell on me, do ya?”
I truly had no idea. “Let’s hope not. Imagine the fine for owning a vampire bat. Well, let’s move past that. Was the bat—um.” I had no idea how to put it. The thing was the man’s pet, after all.
“Murdered?” he asked me with a straight face.
“For lack of a better word, yes,” I said.
“Yes. I had to kill Herman.” He raised his hand up high, then it came down swiftly. “I took my shoe and WAP! Right on the head. It was quick.”
I didn’t see a bandage anywhere that was visible. “And the bite is where?”
When his cheeks went red, I began to wonder. When he threw back the blanket, I really had to wonder. When I saw the lump underneath his hospital gown, I knew this wasn’t going to be easy to take. “On my junk, doc.” He pulled up the gown and there he was, stark naked except for the bandage wrapped around the end of his penis. “I know how this looks.”
“Yep,” Gerald said. “You were letting that bat lick your cock, weren’t ya? And he bit it, didn’t he?”
The old man shook his head. “It ain’t like that. And it wasn’t a he-bat. It was a she-bat. But it’s not what you’re thinking. You see, I’d fallen asleep in my lounger.” He might’ve look like an unassuming old guy, but it turned out he was a bit of a character after all. Seemed he wasn’t shy about sharing all this with a stranger—I could understand him telling me, a doctor, all this, but he seemed more than happy to tell Gerald all about it too.
“And what’s a lounger?” Gerald asked. “Is that some kind of a bat/man sex chair or something like that?”
A laugh came right out of my mouth before I could stop it. “Gerald! Please refrain from asking my patient any more questions.” I clapped him on the back. “Let me do that, ’k?”
With a nod, he said, “Sure, doc. Go on. Ask him about the lounger and what it’s for.”
Mr. Jones ran his old wrinkled hand over his face. “A lounger is what I call my old recliner rocking chair that I sit in when I watch television in the living room. You see, I was doing laundry. Now, when I do laundry, I like to do it all of it at one time. That means I strip down to nothing while it washes.”
“I get it now,” Gerald said. “So, there you was, just sittin’ there mindin’ your own business when this lady bat came at ya and started biting your junk. So you’re not some kind of freak after all!” He looked at me. “Thank goodness. I was startin’ to get real worried there for a minute or two.”
Mr. Jones looked right at me. “I feel asleep in the chair, and the door on Herman’s cage must not have been shut right. She got out and bit the tip of my junk for some reason. I woke up, found her there, licking up the blood, and jumped up, grabbed my shoe and murdered her right then and there.” He pulled his gown down and the blanket back up to cover himself. “It wasn’t easy taking old Herman’s life. But she’d never done anything like bite me before, so I thought she might’ve gotten rabies or something.”
Nodding in agreement, I had no idea what to say. But Gerald did. “If she was a girl, why’d you name her Herman?” He put his hands on his hips, still looking a bit skeptical about the whole story. Despite what he’d said, it was becoming clear to me that Gerald still thought the old guy was some kind of a weirdo.
Mr. Jones clarified things for the laundry man. “When I first found the bat, I thought it was a male. I named it Herman after that guy on that old television show, The Munsters. You know, the vampire?”
“Ah hah!” came Gerald’s quick reply as his finger shot up into the air. “Herman Munster was no vampire. He was a Frankenstein. It was Grandpa who was the vampire, and so was Herman’s lovely wife, Lily. Their son, Eddie was a werewolf, and their niece Marilyn was the only one who was left out of the monstrous pack.”
Things were getting out of hand. “Okay, Gerald. Get the dirty laundry and get going while I check Mr. Jones’ bandages and his wound.”
I’d been curious about the story but had had no idea just how crazy this rabies case would be.
The wound was small and clean, without a hint of infection. “So you’ve received the vaccine and now we’re waiting on the results of the test. The vaccine should do its job, and you should be able to go home once we get them, Mr. Jones. It’s a good thing you came in right away. Tell me, do you have any more bats at home?”
“Nope,” he said with a toothy grin. “But I did find myself a little snake out back. I call it Thelma and keep her in the house too. She stays in the bathtub. I don’t ever use it. I shower outside, the way God intended.”
“A word of advice, sir,” I offered, “maybe don’t take anymore wild animals into your home. And that snake isn’t going to stay put in that tub either, I bet.”
“Shit!” he sat up and shouted.
“What?” I asked, not having any clue what he was going to say next.
“You’re right, doc!” He wore a worried expression. “I bet it was Thelma who let Herman out of her cage.”
And with that, I started making my way out of his room. “Yeah, probably. See ya, Mr. Jones.”
As I walked down the hallway, back to the ER, my cell rang. I saw that it was Aunt Nancy and answered it. “Hello.”
“Hi, Kane. We’re almost there. Just wanted to let you know,” she told me.
“Ah. I took the dayshift at the ER. I forgot to text you guys.” I felt bad about forgetting that Fox would be coming home.
“Dad, can I come up there and hang out with you today?” I heard him ask in the background.
“Seems he heard me.” I loved when he came to work with me. “Sure can, buddy. Can you drop him off here, Aunt Nancy?”
“Yeah,” she said. “We’re a few minutes away. I’ll call you when we send him in, so you can meet him in the lobby.”
“’K.” I heard my name called over the speaker system and ended the call.
Hurrying to the ER, I found a nurse waiting in my office. “Hey, Dr. Price. We’ve got a twenty-six-year-old female in room one. She’s got a laceration on her left palm. It’s approximately one inch in length and fairly deep. She said she got it at work last night.”
“Last night?” I asked.
“Yes, sir,” she replied with a nod. “She wants stitches, but I told her that we probably couldn’t do them now. It’s just too late.”
“So, what’s the problem?” I took a seat in my chair, thinking there wasn’t any reason for me to see this patient at all.
Her hands went to her hips, clearly annoyed. “The problem is that she wanted me to ask a real doctor.”
“And you looked at the laceration, right? If you think it’s too late, then go back there and tell her that a real doctor has told you that stitches can only be done within a few hours. After that, all we can do is use butterfly bandages on the wound.” I opened the computer to get back to seeing what had happened the night before.
“Will do, Dr. Price.” She left the office, and I went back to checking things out.
Not five minutes had passed when my aunt called me back, telling me to go to the lobby to meet Fox. Hopping up, I went to get my son, happy that he was back and would be spending the day with me.
When he spotted me, he ran my way. “Dad!”
“Hey, you!” I went to him, grabbing him up and hugging him before putting him back on the ground. “Boy, you got some sun.” More small freckles peppered the top of his nose, and there were some on his cheeks now too.
“Yeah, I did. We played at the beach all day yesterday. It was fun.” He followed me as we headed to the office. “And I saw a shark too.”
“You did?” I asked with enthusiasm. “Up close?”
“Nah,” he said as he waved his hand in the air. “It was really far away. And it was just the fin. Uncle James said it was probably a dolphin, but I was pretty sure it was a shark. I got out of the water to be on the safe side.”
“Good thinking. Better safe than sorry, I always say.” We turned the corner to the ER wing, and I pushed the double doors open.
“I know that.” He laughed. “That’s what I told everyone when they laughed at me. I said, better safe than sorry. What if it had been a shark? Bet no one would’ve been laughing then!”
“Smart thinking.” I noticed a young woman up ahead at the nurses’ desk. Bent over, she looked like she was signing papers. “So, what else happened in Florida, Fox?” I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off the woman.
“Well, I walked on the beach and found lots of seashells.” He tugged at my white jacket to make me look at him. “Don’t worry. I brought them all home to put in our shell collection outside.”
“Great.” I looked away from him to look at the woman again. “We can add them to the garden outside when we get back home this evening. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”
“Yeah, it does.” He tugged my jacket again, and I looked down at him. “Can we maybe cook some hotdogs outside too? I really wanted a hotdog this whole weekend, and Aunt Nancy wouldn’t let me. She says they’re nasty and she won’t feed me nasty food.”
“Well, some of them are. But the ones I buy aren’t. We can make some hotdogs on the outdoor grill.” I looked back at the woman, who had by now straightened up and shook out her hair.
Long dark hair cascaded down her back. Dark blue streaks ran through it.
It’s her.
It had to be the waitress from the bar.
She was talking to the nurse and raised her hands as she said something. There was a bandage wrapped around her left one.
The patient with the cut. The hand she’d cut at work the night before.
It has to be her.
“Dad, the door’s right here!” Fox shouted, as I walked right past it in my distracted state.
The woman turned around at the sound of Fox’s shouting. The world around me seemed to stop as our eyes met.
Zandra Larkin!