Halloween. I just arrived for the 'haunted' night shift at the ER knowing that this wouldn't be just another ordinary night. I was sure of that when I got Jerry's memo telling us about the mandatory use of Halloween costumes for those who would be working at 31th October night. So I assumed we all had to wear scary costumes and stuff like that, right? Wrong… Well, yeah, I should've known better that this was just another one of Jerry's bad-taste-pranks for couples, special edition of Halloween. Who the hell sent him our emails anyway?

As soon as I hit the front door covered with skeleton bones from head to toe, I got the message. I was the only one dressed like that in the reception area. But I still had hope that another person was joining me…

"Hey, look at that dude!" Malik yelled from the desk when he saw the skinniest and angriest skull walking over the corridor and trying not to be seen by people. But how does a figure like that would pass unnoticed there?

When I was almost reaching the doctor's lounge to finally get rid of the little chuckles and jokes about me, Frank, the desk clerk, seemed to notice me; I really didn't understand how. I was oddly covered with bones everywhere.

"What are you supposed to be, kiddo?" Frank asked, as it wasn't clear for him I was a damn skeleton being mocked by all his co-workers. Another stifled laugh and they would see the meaning of that expression heads will roll.

"Want some candy, little skull boy?" Malik threw a lollipop in my direction and I picked it up in time to avert it from hitting my head, taking my mask off and shaking my head in denial. To the stupid clowns in there and to myself, obviously.

They rolled in the ground from laughing as watching my face and I gave up fighting. Better not stress myself with them, I should save my energies to handle the mocking I'd get from the patients later on.

Soon enough I entered the doc's lounge, hoping that I wouldn't find more doctors or nurses to ridicule me. And luckily, who was there was the one to take all the mocking along with me, until the end. And, in fact, the one that had told me about that whole costume thing in the first place. I had to take my chance to blame her for everything, and I would.

"Abby! I thought we were all coming in costumes tonight!" I got closer and opened my locker with a violent move, just to pretend a fury I wasn't actually feeling, or at least had stopped feeling when I saw the white and tight nurse dress she was wearing, with matching pantyhose, high heels and even a little hat with a red cross drawn on it.

Yeah, she was definitely much more attractive and sexy with a costume than me, not only on skeleton costume, but on any costume she'd wear.

I disguised how I could that I hadn't seen a lot; after all, I needed to keep my little game

"They had to come! There was this memo and..." she started laughing and stumbling in words, trying to justify herself. Was I looking that funny or it was just to piss me off really?

"Yeah, but I didn't bring in anything to change!" I continued with my fake angry state, closing the locker after I threw my skull-head inside and took my stethoscope and lab coat. I walked out of the lounge and Abby came after me, grumbling something.

"Well...me neither!"

"You're still a nurse! You should've called me..." I took the chance while I still had arguments on my behalf. Her costume was the same as her occupation, but with a slight difference: that dress was really a lot tighter than any hospital uniforms we had on County, striking all of them on her body by far.

I went out of the doc's lounge and Abby was still following me, trying to find the perfect justification to her lack of consideration towards her boyfriend.

"... and I'd be the only one wearing a ridiculous costume here? I don't think so!" she tried one last excuse when we stopped in front of the reception area where Frank was.

I was putting on my lab coat quietly when I noticed my landscape of Abby's curves was getting better and better at each angle I'd peek on. Her body was even more incredible than I had once imagined, and believe me, I had imagined so many things on her but… nothing fitting best than my biggest fantasy coming true.

"Frank, where's your costume?" I wanted to escape from the redundant discussion with Abby and gazed at the desk clerk, who was holding little ghostly candies and tiny pumpkins from the reception ornaments, which would probably be eaten by him in a few minutes by then.

"I don't like pagan holidays that celebrate devil services!" surly as always, he answered.

I was about to reply some full of cursing sentences when Abby walked in front of me and took off the candy basket of Frank's hands forcefully, as she was ready to reply:

"Well, so this is for satanists only!" they traded a few daggers with their looks while I took my chances to enjoy my view of her back, discreetly.

She placed the candies back on the desk and bought me a few more precious moments with that sight, allowing me to take some conclusions out of it: I noticed that the sheer white of her dress highlighted her curves like none of the other colors did, mostly on her butt cheeks and on her slim waist, enhancing what should be increased and hiding what should be hidden, respectively. And I noticed that those white pantyhose had an amazing power when dressed on that nice pair of legs that always made me drool.
But all of that analysis led me to a bigger conclusion in just seconds of appreciation: County really needs to make those costumes their mandatory uniform for nurses.

I was getting so mesmerized that when she turned to me, I thought I was in heaven. Heaven came with more conclusions: that cleavage could make my knees buckle, it had the perfect fit, sufficiently opened not to appear slutty – and yet, hot – and modelling her breasts like any other kinds of bras would do. If I had doubts about my mental fantasies with Abby before, now I knew exactly what I wanted from her as a treat on my Halloween night.

"What?" she inquired, without having a slight perception of what was going on in my pervert mind after measuring her from head to toe. I really knew how to disguise my desire to take her to the closest exam room and undress her entirely. But no, not now, I had to behave, at least until the end of that long shift.

"This dress really works on you!" I said with lustful brazen eyes, hoping that only she had listened to that sentence. It was the purest truth, indeed.

"Shut up, naughty boy!" she chuckled charmingly, only making my fantasy work more and more in my mind.

I waited for her to walk away to keep going with my 'evaluation' of her figure and finally left to get some patient's files, full of piquant thoughts involving Abby and me in one of those innumerous exam rooms.

John, just go to work…

It was about 3:50 pm when I had finally gotten out of one of those traumas that always appeared on that special night and was about to get the first patient file from the row of 'regular complaints' for a change. But before I could get to the reception, Malik appeared in a hurry with a file on his hands. It looked urgent.

"Exam room 3, apparent ankle contusion. Can you take a look?" he asked with a weird look, as if he wanted especially ME to go check it out.

"Alright. Why me?" I wanted to understand why he was holding his laugh and walking away with that naughty look on his eyes.

"She asked me to call 'Doctor John' to assist her." He kept giggling and disappeared on the corridor, just as his malicious laugh.

Yeah, it was definitely an oddity and tricky day for Dr. Carter, never a treat day and…

"Hey doc!" I could've jumped back startled if it wasn't such a pleasure to see a bunch of witches, fairies, devils and the whole selection of Disney characters all at the same room, with clear signs of what kind of occupations they had on modelling business. They were all smiling and staring at me seductively, probably thinking that I'd solve all their problems by once like that.

Well, if it was other times, other airs, at this point my brain would be jumping around inside my head and believing I wouldn't leave that room without at least one phone number. But no! John Carter of today, committed and faithful to someone, to maintain certain integrity on that place where he had become the boss of the floor, wouldn't do such things.

And I guess I've never really been that kind of man before. Yeah, I was a freaking nerd, too busy studying 'how to make a Pancreaticojejunostomy' on Friday nights instead of thinking about women.
Even with all those hot costumed and exposed bodies around me, I had to do my job. I could only wish that Abby wouldn't come inside that room now.

"Hey..." I searched for her name on the charge and wondered if she really knew me from somewhere, cause I definitely didn't know her. "Miss Alyssa. As I presume, you have an ankle fracture here, right?" she nodded with a hurt expression when she saw me putting the gloves on to exam her.

"Oh, doc, I don't think you remember me… Me and my friends were at this party, dancing a lot when suddenly my foot twisted and I felt this huge pain in my ankle. Can you… fix it, you know, without a cast?" she smiled weakly and by her voice, she sounded younger than her charge was telling me.

She was supposedly 22, but I wasn't completely convinced that those stunning legs almost entirely showing belonged to a girl – or should I say woman? – with 22 years old. But I had to check her anyway, right?

"I'm not sure yet, probably. Let's take an X-ray to find out, ok? Someone will come pick you up for the x-ray room and I'll be right back." I got rid of my gloves and tried to get out of the temptation room as quickly as I could but just as I was about to walk out the door, I heard an even more girly voice calling me back.

"Doc, please…" I turned to face her and the voice belonged to a 'devil' sitting in the corner of the room, with an even more fake pain expression than her squeaky voice. "I think I ended up cutting myself when Alyssa fell on top of me." The girl with plump lips said it with a disappointed tone, incriminating her own friend.

I sighed, took a new pair of gloves and walked to where the girl was seating in a quite sensual position, making sure her beautiful and shapely legs could be rubbed in the vision of a doctor putting his relationship at risk if certain someone would find him there. I observed her cut and got to a conclusion that she needed some stitches, what would surely give me a little more time in that death-cage.

There was nothing I could do to escape so I called at the infirmary and asked for a nurse, lidocaine and Vicryl 0-3 to finish my work with that patient. And I made sure I'd get a male nurse so that Abby wasn't gonna be called to come. Soon enough, Malik brought the stuff I asked.

"So…" the little devil, quite sassy, got a little too much closer than she should while I stitched up her wound and held my work ID to her sight. "John Carter, M.D.? At what time do you leave, honey? Our little private party still goes on, if you wanna come with us..." she asked while getting even more close to my face as the others agreed with her invitation.

And I, as the most naïve guy for that kind of intimidating woman, just kept stitching and stitching, trying too hard not to let my eyes fall on her flashy cleavage almost rubbing in my face while she was bending over to look at my work on her foot. Answer me, how can a man, in his full manly conscious, just simply ignore those hints?

"I get off at 7, but thanks." I didn't move my eyes at any fraction of second away from her bruise. "Try not to move too much, please."

"Oh, that's such a shame, handsome! Next time, maybe..." she mumbled in my ear and chuckled, giving me shivers, and I could only hope that this was the last costumed woman I'd have to take care on this shift. Just a few more knots and I could get out of there jumping out of joy from still being alive.

But… as life of John Carter isn't as lucky as it was supposed to be and I knew any minute that I'd celebrate my victory before it could be too soon, a clumsy Abby went inside the room with lots of files on her hands and, as seeing me there, sitting as close as I could from all those women I knew she considered as 'younger-sisters-of-Britney-Spears', with their breasts and legs showing to my sight, she just arched her brows and smiled at me, to my surprise. But that was a killer smile.

The only thing that was on my head right now was my relationship going down the drain the next minute.

"I can see you don't need any help around here, right, Doctor?" she let out the most sweet and ironic voice she had and dropped all the files on the counter, causing the biggest noise.

I felt my cheeks burning and thought if I could stick my head into a hole in the ground, I'd do it.

"… cause yeah, simple sutures are made only by physicians, not by students who need to learn or even fully qualified nurses!"

I finished the suture and stood up, running down to where Abby was and, believe me, really far away from those girls.

"Abby, Malik set me up, I didn't even know that…" she interrupted me, taking her files back on her hands and heading out of the room.

"Carter, please, you don't owe me any explanations. Why don't you just go back there and make a 'full body check-up' on every one of them, huh?" I followed her, trying to get her attention and a little of our relationship back.

"Hey, Abby!" I called out as she was crossing the corridor towards the meds room and as I couldn't make her look me back, I held her by her arms and made her face me. "Listen to me. I was caught unprepared when I went inside that room and noticed all those women dressed like that, I can't deny. But…" she shrugged, like she didn't care about what I was doing or thinking behind her back. I knew she cared. "I didn't feel a thing! I attended two of them and... I could only figure out one thing: I never really liked witches and grim costumes like that. I prefer more realistic costumes, you know…" I appealed to my charm throwing an intense glare down on her and converting all my strength on her arms to a welcoming embrace around her waist.

Just by the way her gaze changed, I realized I had managed to tame that jealous tiger. I lowered down my voice and whispered on her ear. "I mean, none of those women were wearing the most sexy nurse dress I've ever seen. The only one who's wearing it now is you." She looked up at me in an incredible way, as she would never expect I'd say something like that.

What was I supposed to do? I had to win my little blondie back!

And when our lips were almost touching, Susan came out of nowhere and interrupted us, tapping my back slightly before she could set her gloves on, in a hurry.

"Hey, stallion-skeleton, before you two get a room, please, finish your shift. New trauma coming, GSW (gun shot wound) in 3 minutes." Abby disentangled from my arms in a rush and recomposed herself, walking out to the reception. "Abby, come back here, we gonna need all the help we have!"

And so, me, Abby and Susan ran to the trauma rooms to wait for the patients to come.