The dark silence of the exam room was punctured only by a thin line of blue light from underneath the door and the sound of Jason's slow and measured breathing. He sat on the exam table with his hands in his lap, his head bent with the wear of a thirty-four-hour shift at Greyson Memorial. The clock hanging high on the wall pointed at six o'clock, but Jason couldn't for the life of him tell whether the time were coming or going.
The long hand swung round to twelve, cuing the buzz in his pocket like a captain signaling a cavalry charge. Without the strength left to sigh, Jason pulled the pager free of his scrubs and eyed the message scrolling across the display. I.A. victim, severe bleeding, ETA 2 min. Another industrial accident. Third one today. Or was it yesterday? Hardly mattered now. With effort, he slid from the cold table to the tile floor and exited the room, letting the light and sound of the bustling emergency ward rush in upon him like a tidal wave.
The haze of his sequestered state left him immune to the urgency dashing by in the chaos of the open hallway. Walking with cool precision to the double-doors to the ambulance lot, he stopped just long enough to grab a gurney and a few extra pieces of equipment to help replenish what the EMTs were likely to have exhausted in transit. No sooner did he reach the doors but he saw the flashing lights round the turn and come rushing up to the doors.
He felt his legs spring into action beneath him, his arms signaling to another orderly without even looking at the man as he pushed open the doors and drove the gurney outside to meet the ambulance crew. The back doors to the vehicle swung open at once and he could see the body lying on the stretcher, writhing about in pain. The face and throat were marred beyond recognition. It looked more like a slab of overcooked meat than a person. Wide leather straps held the victim's wrists in place so as to minimize the damage he could do to himself. Given the violence of the man's thrashing, Jason found himself disinclined to remove them before it became absolutely necessary.
The EMTs, covered in the evidence of arterial spray, hauled out the gurney and helped with the hand-off as Jason and his fellow orderlies rushed the body inside. As the double-doors swung shut behind him, Jason could swear he heard the two EMTs discussing the man's injuries. There was a surprise in their voices that seemed amiss. Few EMTs were surprised by anything anymore. Those that were were still new enough that they'd likely be found puking on the sidewalk, not sharing a calm discourse about the chewed up body still thrashing in its bindings.
They rushed the body into the trauma ward and began the business of hooking up the fluids and monitors they hoped might bring the man back from the brink of nothingness. Jason, the largest of the orderlies, held the patient at the shoulders to pin him firmly to the gurney while the others worked to get a needle in his bloodied arm. His skin felt especially soft in Jason's grip, sliding about all too easily with any shift in pressure. He dulled his senses against the implications, listening intently for the signal from his colleagues for him to let go.
"B.P. eighty-five and falling," one orderly called. "Get me another IV!"
The measured tone reminded Jason that he wasn't the only orderly working a triple shift tonight. They had all let go the effort of being affected in order to better serve the hospital in crisis. To care meant to stop caring. There was no energy left in them for it. As the second IV began to drip, Jason felt the man in his grip slow his efforts to get free. The sedative, he knew, would not work that fast. The man had lost too much blood to keep fighting. From the way his neck was torn, it was no surprise.
As he settled, Jason could at last get a look at the man in the light of his new surroundings. Despite the stains across the patient's shirt and pants, the only injury seemed to be at his neck and upper chest. Whatever machine had malfunctioned, its errant flailing had been surprisingly precise. As his eyes returned to the man's face still contorted in pain, Jason found himself preferring the previous incident, wherein so little had been recovered there had hardly been a person there at all.
The monitor's steady beep continued to wane, stretching its cadence out into a worrisome dirge. The orderlies all watched it closely, still jointly looming over the body and holding the IV bags aloft, fixed like figures in a diorama as the beat continued to fall. Each prayed in his own way that the descent would slow, perhaps even cease, in validation of their efforts. They prayed too that, if it did not, it would instead hurry onward to hopelessness with all speed and not leave them in this fearful in-between.
The pace of the monitor began to level, diminishing at a much reduced rate. Too familiar with the dangers of hope to chance becoming optimistic too early, the orderlies remained in their frozen state, unwilling to breath for fear of tipping the proverbial scales. They hung in time with the monitor as it hesitated, but their relief was short-lived.
The body on the table began to convulse violently. All attention left the monitor at once and became focused in the duty of helping Jason hold the man still so he didn't further injure himself. When the body stopped its thrashing, the ensuing adrenaline drowned out at first the pervasive noise filling the room. The monitor's rhythm had become a single, long note, stretched on into endlessness. The orderlies exchanged glances and then returned their eyes to the body. Lacking the strength to sigh, one of the orderlies reached up and switched off the monitor. They left Jason to the duty of ferrying the body to the morgue.
There was little need to hurry now. Jason took his time removing the needles and sensors from the unmoving corpse. He undid the leather straps on the man's wrists, seeing little need for them now. With one last glance at the twisted face staring in horror at the lights buzzing quietly overhead, Jason pulled the gurney down the hall to the elevator and pressed the button for the bottom floor. As the doors shut, the light and sound of the busy emergency ward vanished once more, leaving him in the peaceful solace of the elevator, accompanied only by the silent corpse at his side.
The floor seemed to sink away as the elevator started its slow journey down to the morgue. Its first lurching motion left Jason resting gently against the mirrored pane halfway up the wall. He didn't resist the welcome shift in momentum, instead reaching into his pocket to pull out a small paper carton, wrinkled from overuse. With two fingers, he reached inside and pulled out the same cigarette he had held the day before. Resting it in his lips, he closed his eyes and rolled his head back, breathing in through the filter and imagining the taste of the rich tobacco smoke filling his senses.
The elevator dinged the next floor on their way down. Jason leaned a hand on the gurney to take the weight off his legs, breathing deep the quiet stillness of his new sanctuary. Another six hours and he could go home. Another three years and he would graduate, and then it was on to residency. His whole life had begun to feel like a 40-hour shift, where time stretches on the closer you get to the end. There was little point in stopping now: it was too late to regain the hours lost waiting for the pager to sound. All the remained was to keep moving forward until, at last, his efforts would be rewarded.
A strange sensation at his wrist pulled Jason out of his dream-like state. He opened his eyes and looked down, expecting to see his hand slipped from its grip and leaning against the side of the gurney. What greeted his eyes instead was the hand of the dead man lying beside him, gripped firmly around his wrist and pulling itself up from the stretcher. Jason stared without words, unable to tell if what he was seeing could be real. He could only watch, dumbstruck, as the corpse pulled its mangled head from its resting place and opened its twisted mouth. The sound the followed came not from the dead man's lips, but from the hollow space where his throat used to be. It came as a fragile whisper, but Jason heard the words as clearly as if they'd been written on the walls.
"They are coming..."
The bell of the elevator rang again, and the doors opened on the empty morgue.
Author's note: I apologize to anyone in the medical profession, I ran short on time for proper research tonight. Suggestions and corrections welcome :) Also, I really hope I don't give any of you nightmares on long shifts...
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