The Cured
The Cured
Deirdre Gould
The Cured
Copyright 2014 Deirdre Gould
All rights are reserved to the author. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, character, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover Photo Credit: Pamela Little
Cover Photo Copyright: Little Pictures of Maine
For Siobhan, my favorite sister, cheerleader and bad influence.
Just because she’s so awesome
One
Someone sneezed behind the cubicle wall. Henry didn’t even notice until Dave started shrieking.
“Don’t you know there’s a terrible flu going around? How dare you show up here and infect everybody. Go home.”
The temp on the other side of the cubicle wall burst into tears and began scrabbling for her purse. Henry leaned back in his computer chair and rubbed his temple with his thumb. “Relax David. If you were going to get it you would already have it by now. It’s December. People get colds.”
The temp gave him a worried glance as she shuffled by. He tried to give her an encouraging smile. “Besides,” he said in a quieter tone, “we don’t exactly have the staff to keep this place running right now. We need every temp we can get.”
Dave squished hand sanitizer around in his puffy hands. “Screw that. I’m not taking that flu home to my family just to make sure Joe Smith makes his credit card payment on time.”
Henry sighed and sat up again. He stood up and looked out over the almost– empty office. “What are you doing here then? Don’t you have some vacation time saved up until this blows over?”
“Yeah, but good luck getting it approved–” David stopped as he heard Randall, the receptionist begin to raise his voice.
“Sorry ma’am, but he’s not available, you’ll have to come–”
A shrill, wheedling voice cut through the cubicle walls. “I will NOT come back. I shouldn’t have been charged for–”
“Jesus, that’s the third wacko today,” said Dave.
“Must be a full moon or something,” said Henry. There was a surprised shout from Randall and then a bang as his rolling chair hit the wall. Henry leapt up and ran toward the front with Dave. They were close enough to hear the sickening thunk of the woman’s teeth as they closed around the receptionist’s arm. Randall yelled again, this time it was shrill and panicked. Henry reached the woman and tried to pull her off, but she wouldn’t let go. She tried to tear away the chunk of skin between her teeth and Henry saw Randall’s eyes roll backward as if he were about to faint.
“Dave help me!” shouted Henry.
Dave grabbed the company’s shiny, new glass award from the desk. “What are you doing?” asked Henry, “She’s gonna take a hunk right out of him, you have to help me get her off.”
Dave raised the glinting square of glass over his head, his paunchy stomach heaving as if he’d run a mile. He brought the glass down on the woman’s head, flinching and turning his face as he did so. Henry felt the blow vibrate through the woman as he tried to pull her back.
“Jesus! What are you doing?” shouted Henry. The award fell onto the floor and the woman’s jaw relaxed. Henry fell backward as the woman’s bite released. Dave was already yelling into the phone for security. Henry checked Randall first, who was groaning and holding his arm. Seeing that he was still conscious, Henry turned back to the woman. Her head was lying in a growing pool of blood. The award’s clear lettering was staining in the dark liquid. “Best Customer Service” stood out like a vicious joke against the frosted background. Henry shook himself and looked around.
“You better call an ambulance Dave,” he said as he raced past the desk toward the first aid kit. He tripped on his way back, just as the elevator opened. The security guard caught him before he could hit the floor.
“You okay?” the guard asked. Henry straightened up.
“Yeah, I just…” He trailed off as he looked around for what he’d tripped on. There was nothing there.
“Someone from this floor called in an emergency?”
“Yeah,” said Henry holding up the kit, “follow me.”
Henry did his best to revive the woman while the security guard bandaged the receptionist and questioned Dave who was looking pasty and winded. Henry hoped he wouldn’t have a heart attack before the ambulance arrived.
Henry tried to remember what he was supposed to do in an emergency, but all he could think of was to keep her warm. So he took off his suit jacket and covered her with it. Randall looked down at her with a scowl. “Crazy bitch,” he muttered, holding a gauze pad tightly over his arm.
“What did you say to make her go off?” Henry asked.
“Nothing! She wanted to see Gary, but he’s been out sick. I told her he wasn’t here and she flew at me.”
Henry stared at the unconscious woman. Her clothes were perfectly tailored and her hair freshly styled, except where Dave had hit her. Even her hands were manicured, not a nail was chipped. Definitely not the bar room brawl type. What had made her snap?
“Where the hell are the paramedics?” the security guard growled into his radio.
“On their way,” crackled the reply. But it was almost an hour before they arrived.
The woman’s breathing was no longer even by the time the elevator dinged again. Only one paramedic got off, rolling a stretcher.
“Where’ve you been?” asked the guard.
“We’ve been running all morning. Just call after call,” sighed the paramedic, “I got here as fast as I could.” She started to work on the woman. Henry helped move the woman onto the stretcher.
“Is she– is she going to be okay?” asked Dave, pushing his glasses farther up his sweaty nose.
The paramedic shook her head. “I’m not sure, she’s had a pretty nasty blow.”
Dave glanced around at them. “If I didn’t do it, she would have killed Randall. You saw Henry– I had to stop her. Right Randall? I had no choice.”
The paramedic turned toward the receptionist with a shrug, stripping off her bloody gloves and snapping on new ones. “I’m not the cops. I just patch ‘em up.” She told Randall it would be faster if someone drove him to the emergency room and Henry agreed to take him. She was still bandaging Randall’s arm when her partner stepped off the elevator.
“C’mon Christine, we’ve got a line of calls backing up here,” he pushed the stretcher toward the elevator with a frown. The paramedic stood up.
“Sorry, got to go, that will probably hold you until you get to the hospital.” She reached the elevator and turned around, “I don’t know what happened here, but if you’re waiting for the police, I don’t think they’re coming today.” She stepped into the elevator and the doors slid shut. Henry exchanged a worried glance with the security guard.
Two
Traffic was so heavy that Henry had to park on the street almost half a mile from the hospital. “Jesus,” swore the receptionist, looking at the line spilling out of the emergency room. “Did a bomb go off somewhere?” he asked as they drew closer.
Henry shook his head. “Something awful must have happened. But where are all the ambulances and firetrucks? Why aren’t the police at least directing traffic?”
Some of the people in the waiting line had small lacerations and scratch marks, but many were cradling broken limbs or bleeding from bite marks like the receptionist. Some were sitting or lying on the concrete seemingly unconscious. Many were moaning or crying. A nurse knelt next to one of the people in line, taking his pulse. Her scrubs were creased and wrinkled and her eyes were dark circles in her pinched face. She didn’t look at her patient but wrote down a number and moved to the next one. People called out to her, but she didn’t acknowledge them. If this was the waiting line, what was the actual ER going to be like? A fist fight broke out in front of the glass doors over someone’s place in line. It quickly escalated as people began shouting and a security guard stepped outside to help.
“Uh Henry, maybe I should just call my regular doctor,” said Randall.
Henry nodded and they walked back to the car. Henry gradually pulled out of his parking space and into the slow-moving traffic. They came to an intersection and Henry winced as the car in front of him was T-boned by another car.
“At least we’re near the hospital,” Randall joked. Henry watched as both drivers got out of their cars. There was no room to pull around them. The man who had been hit walked around to the side of his car, bending to look at the damage. The woman who had struck him limped as if she’d been injured.
“Oh, she’s been hurt, we should–” Henry began.
“Holy shit!” yelled Randall, “Did you see that?”
The woman had leapt at the other driver, swinging her purse at him as they both fell over. The woman straddled the bewildered man and began scratching at him with long, perfectly painted nails. The man tried to grab her arms to stop her and the woman leaned in and bit the man’s nose. Randall opened the car door and got out, yelling for the woman to stop. He began running toward the woman. Henry sat still behind the wheel, dumbfounded. The man on the ground was screaming with the woman’s red lips still wrapped around his nose. Henry began to open his door, but the woman sat up and looked straight at Randall. Strings of skin and blood and cartilage jiggled in her mouth. She spat out the nose and began to get up, tottering on her high heels and slipping into a limp with each step. The man on the ground was still screaming, the center of his face a red crater. “Oh shit!” Randall screamed, and scrambled back to the car, slamming the door behind him. Henry hit the lock button just as the woman smacked into the side of the windshield. She climbed slowly onto the hood, trying to use the wipers as handles and breaking them off in the process. Her mouth was still dripping with the man’s blood and she left greasy, dark smears on the bottom of the glass. She scrambled up, her heels sliding on the metal with a screeching scrape that made Henry’s teeth ache. He honked the horn to both to block out the noise of heel on metal and in hopes that a police car was nearby. It seemed only to make the woman more angry. She hovered over the glass, snarling.
“What do I do?” asked Henry.
“Back up,” yelled Randall.
Henry looked behind him. “I can’t, there’s a huge line of cars.”
The woman started hitting the windshield. Her teeth snapped together. Henry noticed they were straight and bright white except for the dark blood in the crack between each one. He honked again. The man from the accident had stopped screaming now and Henry could see him shaking on the cement. No one was coming to help him. Henry realized no one was going to come help them either.