Patient Zero

Chapter 1

I could feel myself slipping away again. This hunger that was not mine tightened it's grip on my body. A crippling surge of pain ripped through my head. I tried to lift my hands to my head to squeeze it in frustration, but my arms didn't even twitch. Oliver gripped my shoulders as I started to fall right over, as if all the muscles in my body just shut off. My eyes rolled up into the back of my burning skull as I lost consciousness.

When I finally woke up, however, my muscles were working just fine, in fact, much better than usual, but they were not under my control. As I helplessly watched, my body sank it's teeth in my beloved Oliver. But it started long before then.

I started to get the feeling again that it was time to settle down. Sitting down in the driver's seat of my clunker made my butt turn to jello. Speaking of my clunker, it started making loud grinding noises, complaining to no end. The poor thing had been put through so many miles with maintenance check-ups far in between. And my money from the last job I held was just about to run out, again. Yes, it was time to pitch my tent.

I found the nearest pit stop station, pulled over, and whipped out my map all old-fashioned like. The nearest town was a monster of a city. I prefered smaller towns but I just took whatever I could get. 80 miles later, I took my exit and promtly hit crippling traffic. This did not bode well. But as the few hours passed, scooting forward inch by inch, the bright blue sky, speckled with white poofy clouds, happy, like playing children, turned into and calm starless ocean. The clouds grew into dancers, their slow, gentle ballet performance on top of the surface of the starless ocean water. The lack of stars in the sky was compensated by the live lights of the city. The stars were usually gentle reminders of worlds beyond, inspiring dreams and ideas and peace with their twinkley light. These city lights evoke excitement, adventure, constantly pulling my attention to and fro. Maybe this city wouldn't be too bad.

After a few months, I became accustom to living there. I found a cheap storage garage on the outskirts of town to fit my one prized possession, my clunker, a cheap apartment next to a trolley station that could take me all over town in a decent amount of time, and finally, a job. After sending my resume to every job opening I could find, I took a minimum wage janitorial job at the mansion of a hospital. Apparantly the hospital is so large, it needs 3 janitors and a fleet orderlies and that still was not enough.

My job was hard work; each janitor had to clean and maintain two of the six floors of the hospital per shift. Each floor took a half a shift to clean each floor at a swift pace. If I worked at a grueling pace, I would get an extra long lunch break. That was always nice. I even started making friends.

"Hey, Mavis," someone called, "someone left a present in the hallway near Room 348."

I turned from the room I was mopping to find Dr. Harrison, leaning his toned arm on the door frame and giving me an apologetic half-smile. He always looked so handsome and casual, even with his pretty black hair all disheveled and his gloved hands attending to some horribly injured patient.

"Sweet, is it all wrapped up with a pretty red bow?"

"Oh yes, and red glitter too."

I let a small smile play on my lips, pushed a small lock of hair from my face with the back of my hand, and started packing up my cleaning supplies.

This would be the third vomit mess I had to clean up in a week. Harrison was right in that there were little flecks of red in the vomit, almost like glitter. As I began removing the bulk of slightly warm, sloppy mess from the linoleum floor, a flurry of scrubs and stretchers nearly trampled over me and the pile of vomit.

"Outta the way! Outta the way!" one exclaimed as the group rushed past.

"I hate getting assigned to E.R. clean-up," I thought to myself.

Later in the lunchroom, one of the nurses, Nina, came over to apologize for nearly running me over.

"Hey newbie," the girl said in a sweet, high-pitched voice, "sorry, we brushed past you so rudely today."

"It's okay, it was an emergency," I said with a shrug, and took another bite of my peanut butter sandwich.

Nina loved to talk my ear off about anything and everything, and she did so as usual that day, when a doctor I hadn't seen before walked into the breakroom. She had a large coffee stain on her white blouse and proceeded to clean it off at the sink. She seemed to have an aura of coldness about her. Her offstandish attitude radiated from her in chilly waves. The doctor's entire outfit was clean and crisp, from her neat, precise dark red hair, to her pressed dress pants and polished, shiny black shoes. Her shiny golden nametag said "F. S. Wolfman PhD. M.D."

"Excuse me, is there anything that could get out a coffee stain?" Wolfman asked.

I glanced at Nina then got up, walked to the breakroom fridge, and grabbed the little box of baking soda near the back. "You could try some of this," I suggested as I held out the box. She accepted the box and began scrubbing at the stain with a paper towel, baking soda, and water.

After the doctor left I asked Nina who that was, and she said, "Oh she's this fancy brain doctor up in floor 6. She has some neuroscience degree and a lab across town. She only gets called here when there is a case that the regular doctors can't handle. I heard she works for the goverment too." After Nina was done giving me all the gossip about the doctor, she skipped along to the next random topic of discussion.