"Damn I hate this job."
Chuck Bundy sighed and shook his head as he stared down at the ashtray.
The ashtray itself was standard industrial, a knee-high black cylinder
with a chrome bowl resting on top. Inside of the bowl, and running over
the edges in slimy strings, the mucus and tobacco remains of someone's
spit covered the bottom in a small puddle.
Chuck put on his plastic gloves and lifted the bowl from the cylinder. He
could feel the bits of chewing tobacco under his thumb as he upended the
bowl into the open trash bag on the end of his push cart. It ran out
quickly at first, and then tapered off to a thin line of brown drool.
Chuck sighed again and rolled his eyes. The image of some hillbilly, of
some big dumb red-neck in overalls came to him, standing by the ashtray
and spitting in it like there was no tomorrow. Not a care in a world that
someone would have to come behind him and clean it up.
"Asshole," Chuck grumbled under his breathe. He took a spray bottle of
all-purpose cleaner and gave the bowl a heavy spraying. He then tore a
sheet from a roll of brown paper towels and wiped it down before placing
it back onto the cylinder.
"Yeah, just spit on over here. The nigga'll get it," he complained under
his breathe. He threw the used paper towel in the trash and got behind
the cart.
"Bastard."
He leaned into the cart and pushed it towards the ER, his irritation
already subsiding. At ten and a quarter an hour, the job didn't pay much,
but it was easy work. The chances were that he'd not have to do too much
for the rest of the night. Wipe down a window or two, empty a trash can
here and there. The day shift handled most of the cleaning, coming in
early and cleaning the lobby and restrooms. Chuck, being the only night
janitor, just got whatever needed immediate attention. The biohazards, as
Chuck would call them. Those body fluids that people would lose, blood or
urine or worse, that could carry disease. But that didn't happen too
often, not in this area, so usually Chuck would just push his cart around
for an hour or so, and then sit out the rest of his shift in the break
room watching television, or grabbing a nap in one of the unused beds.
He heard them coming before he saw them and instantly aimed his cart
towards a wall and out of the way. A second later and they appeared; two
paramedics and a nurse with a woman lying on a mobile stretcher. They
came around the corner which lead from the ER's ambulance entrance and
turned a hard left, running down the corridor and into one of the
operating rooms.
There were three things that Chuck noticed about the woman as the
paramedics wheeled her past. The first was that she looked Hispanic and
around the age of thirty. The second was that she had been viciously
attacked, probably with a knife. The paramedics had bandaged both of her
arms and her chest and neck, and all of the bandages were soaked through
with blood. The third thing that he noticed was that she was going to
die. This was more of a personal judgment from the years that he had
spent with the hospital, cleaning blood and witnessing the dying. That
far off, glazed look that she had, that all of the ones who died had, as
though already staring into the holy light.
"Won't be long," he thought as he looked to the ground and sighed. They
had left a trail of blood that ran all of the way down the hallway and
disappeared around the corner. He sighed again as he turned his cart
around and pushed it towards the janitor's closet. He didn't blame the
woman for this one, but it was still a pain.
Dr. Bruce Connor, M.D. looked at himself in a full length mirror, wiping
his hands over the front of the white lab coat that he wore. He checked
his hair, his teeth, and tilted his head back to check the insides of his
nostrils. Though not muscular and shoulders that, to him, seemed too
broad, he was a far cry from the awkward nerd with no friends that he had
been in high school, lasik eye surgery and meticulous care of his skin
had seen to that.
He adjusted the stethoscope that hung around his neck before stepping out
of his office and walking down the hall and to the elevator. He pushed
the call button and waited, thinking about the options that life offered.
Hs love life, that is.
He had never felt comfortable in the club or bar scenes and had always
ended up just standing by himself in a dark corner, watching as other
guys "made it" with the good looking women. Leaning against the wall and
holding a beer bottle or mixed drink with only a few sips missing and
watching others dance in ways that his body would never move, or shoot
pool or play darts with skills that he would never possess. All the
while, the kind of women that he had always wanted to be with, the ones
that wore tube tops that showed off their bellies and mini skirts so
tight you didn't have to use imagination to know the shapes of their
backsides, giggled and flirted with them. The beautiful women. They women
that walked into a room and every head turned towards them with lust. The
kind of women that would complement his success at becoming a doctor
could be found in clubs and bars, but he still was not able to lure them
to him.
There was a ding as the elevator door opened and Bruce stepped inside and
pressed the button for the main floor. He clasps his hands in front of
him and figured that in a few months, six tops, it would all change. He
had just become a doctor, but in around six months he would have saved up
the money and gotten the credit that would allow him to buy a sports car,
jewelry and clothes that the women at bars and clubs seemed attracted to.
His mother's voice broke into his thoughts. A nagging, preaching voice
that scolded him, and reminded him that the best woman for him to marry
would not be one who would want him for his money, or the things that he
had. He pushed the voice away. The point was, plain and simple, he wanted
the trophy. He wanted the girl from the Girls Gone Wild videos. He wanted
the envy of those who had been able to get the hot girls in high school,
and had ignored their school work and were therefore destined to fail at
the rest of life. It's what had carried him through the long hours of
study to become a doctor, and he was not about to give up on the dream
now that he was so close.
The doors opened and he stepped into the emergency room and to the
receptionist desk. There were only a few people waiting, just like usual,
and he figured that it would be another slow night. He took the duty
roster from his in box. He had just flipped it open to check who was at
the hospital and who he would need to keep an eye on, when he noticed Ana
Curtis walking towards the exit.
Since coming to the hospital, he had been disappointed with the nurses
that they had on staff. They were all capable and performed their jobs
well, but they did not fit well into his fantasies. The thought of
sweating tumblings with "hot" nurses on operating tables had also been
one of the desires that had kept him in medical school, but upon being
hired with the hospital, he soon learned that most where either too old
for his taste, or too overweight.
Ana was on the mark though. With blonde, shoulder length hair, a cute
face, and a small frame, the top of her head only coming to his chin, she
was definitely someone that Bruce would have liked to have known on a
more personal level.
He was about to call out to her, to run over and speak a few words when
the receptionist broke in.
"Dr. Connor," she spoke urgently. "You're needed in the O.R. right away!"
He looked back to Ana just in time to see her step through the door and
disappear into the parking lot.
He flipped the roster close and briskly moved around the desk. He saw the
night janitor, Chuck, mopping a line up the corridor in front of him, his
mop bucket by his side. When he got closer, he noticed that Chuck was
mopping up a trail of blood.
He gave Chuck a quick nod and quickened his pace. His heart rate speed up
and his mind wheeled as he wondered what he would find when he entered
the O.R. What had happened to someone to make them loose blood like this?
An image of an ambulance came to mind, its floor covered red as the
paramedics fought to keep the person alive.
"Probably needs blood," he thought as he followed the trail around a
corner. The wisdom of ages filled his thoughts as he mapped out the major
internal organs and the arteries that supplied them with blood. He would
be able to mend them if necessary. If the heart had failed, he would be
able to restart it. If the brain had ceased, he could get oxygen flowing
to it again.
When he entered the operating room, Dr. Timothy Taylor was already
working on the patient, a woman from what Bruce could tell, as three
nurses assisted. Dr. Taylor looked up briefly when Bruce entered.
"Connor! Hurry, I need your help!" He returned his attention back to the
woman.
Bruce went to the sink and turned on the faucet.
"Forget that," Dr. Taylor called. "Get over here!"
A nurse was already to Bruce, a pair of latex gloves in her hands. She
helped him with the gloves, and then helped him slid his arms into a
green surgeon's coat, tying it in back as he went to the operating table.
Another nurse stepped up to him with a white tray which held needles and
surgical thread.
"We need to get these wounds closed," Dr. Taylor didn't look up as he
stitched. "The blood's not clotting."
Her clothes had been cut away and Bruce looked down at the woman's nude
body. She was covered with deep gashes that seeped blood. Sickening holes
that revealed the muscle tissue and smooth, white bones of her arms and
legs beneath. The tan brown of her stomach and smoky grey of her lung as
it inflated and deflated with each of her breathes.
He lifted a curved needle from the tray and was about to work on the
wound exposing her lung when another caught his attention. It didn't go
as deep as the others, and therefore left the impression on what had
caused her injuries. It was on her left breast. A crescent shaped wound
that dotted the skin over her nipple while another ran beneath in the
unmistakable patterned of a bite mark.
Bruce stared at the injury. He wanted to believe that she had been
attacked by an animal. A large dog like a pit bull or a Rottweiler, but
only one thing could have made the wound, and it was the same that had
bitten chucks out of the rest of her body.
"My God," he finally said in disbelief. "It's human."
Chuck Bundy sighed and shook his head as he stared down at the ashtray.
The ashtray itself was standard industrial, a knee-high black cylinder
with a chrome bowl resting on top. Inside of the bowl, and running over
the edges in slimy strings, the mucus and tobacco remains of someone's
spit covered the bottom in a small puddle.
Chuck put on his plastic gloves and lifted the bowl from the cylinder. He
could feel the bits of chewing tobacco under his thumb as he upended the
bowl into the open trash bag on the end of his push cart. It ran out
quickly at first, and then tapered off to a thin line of brown drool.
Chuck sighed again and rolled his eyes. The image of some hillbilly, of
some big dumb red-neck in overalls came to him, standing by the ashtray
and spitting in it like there was no tomorrow. Not a care in a world that
someone would have to come behind him and clean it up.
"Asshole," Chuck grumbled under his breathe. He took a spray bottle of
all-purpose cleaner and gave the bowl a heavy spraying. He then tore a
sheet from a roll of brown paper towels and wiped it down before placing
it back onto the cylinder.
"Yeah, just spit on over here. The nigga'll get it," he complained under
his breathe. He threw the used paper towel in the trash and got behind
the cart.
"Bastard."
He leaned into the cart and pushed it towards the ER, his irritation
already subsiding. At ten and a quarter an hour, the job didn't pay much,
but it was easy work. The chances were that he'd not have to do too much
for the rest of the night. Wipe down a window or two, empty a trash can
here and there. The day shift handled most of the cleaning, coming in
early and cleaning the lobby and restrooms. Chuck, being the only night
janitor, just got whatever needed immediate attention. The biohazards, as
Chuck would call them. Those body fluids that people would lose, blood or
urine or worse, that could carry disease. But that didn't happen too
often, not in this area, so usually Chuck would just push his cart around
for an hour or so, and then sit out the rest of his shift in the break
room watching television, or grabbing a nap in one of the unused beds.
He heard them coming before he saw them and instantly aimed his cart
towards a wall and out of the way. A second later and they appeared; two
paramedics and a nurse with a woman lying on a mobile stretcher. They
came around the corner which lead from the ER's ambulance entrance and
turned a hard left, running down the corridor and into one of the
operating rooms.
There were three things that Chuck noticed about the woman as the
paramedics wheeled her past. The first was that she looked Hispanic and
around the age of thirty. The second was that she had been viciously
attacked, probably with a knife. The paramedics had bandaged both of her
arms and her chest and neck, and all of the bandages were soaked through
with blood. The third thing that he noticed was that she was going to
die. This was more of a personal judgment from the years that he had
spent with the hospital, cleaning blood and witnessing the dying. That
far off, glazed look that she had, that all of the ones who died had, as
though already staring into the holy light.
"Won't be long," he thought as he looked to the ground and sighed. They
had left a trail of blood that ran all of the way down the hallway and
disappeared around the corner. He sighed again as he turned his cart
around and pushed it towards the janitor's closet. He didn't blame the
woman for this one, but it was still a pain.
Dr. Bruce Connor, M.D. looked at himself in a full length mirror, wiping
his hands over the front of the white lab coat that he wore. He checked
his hair, his teeth, and tilted his head back to check the insides of his
nostrils. Though not muscular and shoulders that, to him, seemed too
broad, he was a far cry from the awkward nerd with no friends that he had
been in high school, lasik eye surgery and meticulous care of his skin
had seen to that.
He adjusted the stethoscope that hung around his neck before stepping out
of his office and walking down the hall and to the elevator. He pushed
the call button and waited, thinking about the options that life offered.
Hs love life, that is.
He had never felt comfortable in the club or bar scenes and had always
ended up just standing by himself in a dark corner, watching as other
guys "made it" with the good looking women. Leaning against the wall and
holding a beer bottle or mixed drink with only a few sips missing and
watching others dance in ways that his body would never move, or shoot
pool or play darts with skills that he would never possess. All the
while, the kind of women that he had always wanted to be with, the ones
that wore tube tops that showed off their bellies and mini skirts so
tight you didn't have to use imagination to know the shapes of their
backsides, giggled and flirted with them. The beautiful women. They women
that walked into a room and every head turned towards them with lust. The
kind of women that would complement his success at becoming a doctor
could be found in clubs and bars, but he still was not able to lure them
to him.
There was a ding as the elevator door opened and Bruce stepped inside and
pressed the button for the main floor. He clasps his hands in front of
him and figured that in a few months, six tops, it would all change. He
had just become a doctor, but in around six months he would have saved up
the money and gotten the credit that would allow him to buy a sports car,
jewelry and clothes that the women at bars and clubs seemed attracted to.
His mother's voice broke into his thoughts. A nagging, preaching voice
that scolded him, and reminded him that the best woman for him to marry
would not be one who would want him for his money, or the things that he
had. He pushed the voice away. The point was, plain and simple, he wanted
the trophy. He wanted the girl from the Girls Gone Wild videos. He wanted
the envy of those who had been able to get the hot girls in high school,
and had ignored their school work and were therefore destined to fail at
the rest of life. It's what had carried him through the long hours of
study to become a doctor, and he was not about to give up on the dream
now that he was so close.
The doors opened and he stepped into the emergency room and to the
receptionist desk. There were only a few people waiting, just like usual,
and he figured that it would be another slow night. He took the duty
roster from his in box. He had just flipped it open to check who was at
the hospital and who he would need to keep an eye on, when he noticed Ana
Curtis walking towards the exit.
Since coming to the hospital, he had been disappointed with the nurses
that they had on staff. They were all capable and performed their jobs
well, but they did not fit well into his fantasies. The thought of
sweating tumblings with "hot" nurses on operating tables had also been
one of the desires that had kept him in medical school, but upon being
hired with the hospital, he soon learned that most where either too old
for his taste, or too overweight.
Ana was on the mark though. With blonde, shoulder length hair, a cute
face, and a small frame, the top of her head only coming to his chin, she
was definitely someone that Bruce would have liked to have known on a
more personal level.
He was about to call out to her, to run over and speak a few words when
the receptionist broke in.
"Dr. Connor," she spoke urgently. "You're needed in the O.R. right away!"
He looked back to Ana just in time to see her step through the door and
disappear into the parking lot.
He flipped the roster close and briskly moved around the desk. He saw the
night janitor, Chuck, mopping a line up the corridor in front of him, his
mop bucket by his side. When he got closer, he noticed that Chuck was
mopping up a trail of blood.
He gave Chuck a quick nod and quickened his pace. His heart rate speed up
and his mind wheeled as he wondered what he would find when he entered
the O.R. What had happened to someone to make them loose blood like this?
An image of an ambulance came to mind, its floor covered red as the
paramedics fought to keep the person alive.
"Probably needs blood," he thought as he followed the trail around a
corner. The wisdom of ages filled his thoughts as he mapped out the major
internal organs and the arteries that supplied them with blood. He would
be able to mend them if necessary. If the heart had failed, he would be
able to restart it. If the brain had ceased, he could get oxygen flowing
to it again.
When he entered the operating room, Dr. Timothy Taylor was already
working on the patient, a woman from what Bruce could tell, as three
nurses assisted. Dr. Taylor looked up briefly when Bruce entered.
"Connor! Hurry, I need your help!" He returned his attention back to the
woman.
Bruce went to the sink and turned on the faucet.
"Forget that," Dr. Taylor called. "Get over here!"
A nurse was already to Bruce, a pair of latex gloves in her hands. She
helped him with the gloves, and then helped him slid his arms into a
green surgeon's coat, tying it in back as he went to the operating table.
Another nurse stepped up to him with a white tray which held needles and
surgical thread.
"We need to get these wounds closed," Dr. Taylor didn't look up as he
stitched. "The blood's not clotting."
Her clothes had been cut away and Bruce looked down at the woman's nude
body. She was covered with deep gashes that seeped blood. Sickening holes
that revealed the muscle tissue and smooth, white bones of her arms and
legs beneath. The tan brown of her stomach and smoky grey of her lung as
it inflated and deflated with each of her breathes.
He lifted a curved needle from the tray and was about to work on the
wound exposing her lung when another caught his attention. It didn't go
as deep as the others, and therefore left the impression on what had
caused her injuries. It was on her left breast. A crescent shaped wound
that dotted the skin over her nipple while another ran beneath in the
unmistakable patterned of a bite mark.
Bruce stared at the injury. He wanted to believe that she had been
attacked by an animal. A large dog like a pit bull or a Rottweiler, but
only one thing could have made the wound, and it was the same that had
bitten chucks out of the rest of her body.
"My God," he finally said in disbelief. "It's human."