Lawyers: As you know, and as we have stated many times before, our client does not own Scrubs or Dead Like Me.
Chapter 8
I spent the next couple of hours doing grunt work, which basically consisted of my checking on the plethora of patients I was assigned to and also a ridiculous amount of paper work. However, when 4AM rolled around, I had reached my limit and no amount of coffee would be able to keep me up. So, after paging a few unfortunate interns who were also stuck because of the quarantine, I divided the charts up among them and went in search of a place to crash.
I slowly wandered down the hallway, dragging my feet, yet not quite sure where I was heading. I sort of felt like I was on auto-pilot. My feet seemed to know where they were going, but my mind was too fuzzy to care. After a long day of dealing with a funeral, being pretty much thrown back into full-time reaping business, and then helping patients on the side so that they won't end up as another obituary to add to my collection, everything just piled up until it smothered me. Except I can't die, so it's like an eternal smothering.
I just need to get some sleep, and I'll be in a better mood tomorrow.
My feet led me straight to the on-call room, which left me a little confused because of course every bed would have been taken by now. Still, I opened the door, slowly this time, so as not to disturb the room's sleeping occupants. However, I wasn't as quiet as I would have hoped because Elliot cracked one eye open at me and murmured drowsily, "JD, you still up?"
I nodded in response. She closed her eye then slid over to one side of the bed and patted the empty space next to her. I smiled at her gratefully before closing the door behind me and shrouding the room in darkness. I shuffled toward the bed with one hand held out in front of me, slowly waving back and forth, to make sure I didn't run into anything. Almost to the bed, Elliot grasped my waving hand and pulled me down onto the mattress. I lay down in the empty space and we both fidgeted for a moment before we got comfortable.
"Thanks," I said quietly.
"Night, JD," she whispered, relaxing against the pillow.
"Night."
Whether you're dead or alive, it always helps to have good friends.
The colorful banner that hung above the entranceway read 'Happy New Year 1969!' There was a rather strong-looking man in a tux standing before the closed double doors, and standing behind a podium positioned to the right of the doors was a middle aged black women wearing a fancy red dress and her hair up in a bun.
"Names and division, please," she asked cheerfully.
"Joseph D. and Dan N. of the plague," Dan said with a flirty smile.
She skimmed through a long list of names on a clipboard before nodding to the man guarding the door and saying, "They're clear."
The man stepped aside and opened one of the doors to let us through, and as soon as we entered the room, he closed the door behind us. It was a large and rather fancy-looking banquet hall with many balloons scattered about as well as more banners that read '1969.' There were a few tables and chairs positioned randomly around the room and to one side of the banquet hall, a buffet table was set up. In one corner of the room, there were a few couches and there was also a TV with the channel set to Time Square so we would be able to watch the ball drop. Last, but certainly not least, on the side of the room opposite to the buffet, was a free bar.
However, while the banquet hall looked nice and inviting, the most interesting fact about this whole private New Year's party is that everyone attending is dead. The guests, the people at the door, the waiters, the cooks, and the bartender were all dead. Not only that, but they were all grim reapers too. Well, most of them, some of the reapers had brought the soul they had recently reaped along to the party.
This mass gathering of reapers to celebrate the new year was something that had been going on every year for longer than I've even been dead. It was nice, really, being able to kick back, relax, and not have to hide your side-job secret. Plus, every year, they served drinks that are strong enough to actually get a reaper drunk.
This is about the ninth time I've been to one of these parties and each time I still always meet new people. I had been sitting slouched down on one of the couches, sipping from some sort of fruity drink that the bartender promised would get me drunk tonight, when I met Steve McDouglas. He had sat down next to me with his own strong drink, and shook my hand.
"Steve McDouglas, plague division," he said, still shaking my hand.
"Uh, Joseph Donovan," I said, being courteous. "But call me JD. I'm also plague division."
"So, how many reaps have you had? I've had two-hundred and twelve so far," he stated.
"I don't count," I said, taking a sip of my drink.
Damn, that has a kick to it! I'm already feeling a little buzzed. What do they put in this, liquid crack?
"Yes, well, I like to think that I'm getting close to reaching my quota," he explained. "So, when did you die? I died during the Third Pandemic in 1856."
"It was during the San Francisco outbreak in 1902," I said.
"So you're the newbie!" he laughed.
"Yup, that's me," I said dryly. "Of course, I am older than a lot of the reapers here."
"Still, you're the youngest member in the entire world plague division," he said, actually ruffling my hair.
I was starting to not like this guy.
While I fixed my hair as best as I could, he said, "So, what have you been up to, JD?"
"Reaping," I said simply before downing the rest of my drink.
"No, I mean job-wise. Earning an income and all that. Me, I'm a lab assistant. Specializing in Yersinia pestis."
"Yeah, okay," I said, not really knowing what that meant. "I've been thinking of maybe becoming a doctor someday."
Steve laughed again, "That's a little hypocritical, don't you think?"
I frowned, "It's not like I'd be reaping all my patients, you know, since the plague isn't all that common anymore."
"Yeah, I know, it sucks, doesn't it?" he said.
I raised an eyebrow at him, "What do you mean?"
"Oh, come on!" he snapped, "Every other division out there gets to reap daily, or at least weekly, but we're lucky if we get just one for the year, and it's all because the living had to come up with a cure. I tell ya, JD, not a day goes by where I don't wish for another outbreak."
The alcohol made everything a little fuzzy after that, but I must have done or said something to piss Steve off because the next time I saw him, he made it quite clear that he did not like me. No skin off my back though because I didn't like him either.
I was awoken from my sleep by the announcement that blasted over the intercom, "All hospital staff please report to conference room 7B for an important meeting."
"It's like, five in the morning," Elliot groaned from beside me.
An hour of sleep? Well that figures. The universe must be determined to keep me awake.
I rolled out of bed with Elliot right behind me and we, along with everyone else in the on-call room, grudgingly shuffled out the door and down the hall to the conference room. As we filed into the rather large room and took a seat, I vaguely noted that it was the same room where the hospital discussed several morbidity and mortality conferences, such as the one my friends and I had faced with the patient, Mr. Foster.
Kelso stood at the front of the room with a microphone in hand and as soon as we were all seated, he said cheerfully, "Morning everyone."
There were several annoyed grunts in response. I bet he enjoyed waking us up this early.
"Right, straight to business," he said, dropping the happy attitude in an instant, "I've just received the test results back from all the deceased patients we had yesterday and it appears that we have a plague on our hands."
I could hear a muttered, "Damn it!" echo around the room and I had a feeling it was Dr. Cox.
"That's right, pneumonic plague," Kelso said nodding. "However, the virus looks as if it could possibly be a new biovar of Y. pestis, so I want all doctors and nurses monitoring the patients for any abnormalities. As of today, there will be some new rules set in place to prevent this thing from spreading. Everyone is required to wear face masks. Just consider it a new part of your wardrobe."
A groan of protest rang throughout the conference room and Kelso simply smiled and said, "You think that's bad? Well, suck it up because there's more. Since, by now, you've all been exposed to the disease, as a precaution, everyone will be taking the necessary antibiotics. You'll be able to get it from the nurse's station each morning, and don't think any of you will be getting away with taking more than your share or skipping your dosage altogether because I will be keeping a record on each of you."
Great, that meant they'd be wasting medicine on me. Hmm, maybe I could just pretend to take it, but really save it for the people who need it. People like Mrs. Baker and Mr. Bengal.
"I want all plague patients to be moved up to the top floor. The third floor will eventually be used for recovering plague patients, and the bottom two floors will be reserved for non-plague patients. Aside from plague patients and staff, I don't want anyone else going up to the top floors. We need to keep this thing contained and we can't do that if families keep coming and going and spreading the disease wherever they go. Is everyone clear?" he snapped.
"Yeah," we all sighed, "Okay."
"Great! Quarantine's over, now get back to work," he said with a glare.
My early morning rantings about the on-coming disease didn't seem so crazy now that everyone was sporting a face mask. As promised, the antibiotic, tetracyclines (one of the preferred antibiotics for preventive therapy with the plague), was available at the nurse's station. After I pretended to pop the pills into my mouth, Lavern signed me off for the day on the computer. As soon as I was out of sight from the nurse's station, I slipped the pills into my scrubs pocket and went off to help the rest of the nurses and doctors with the task of once again moving the patients to different rooms.
Before I knew it, all the patients were relatively comfortable in their new rooms and the fourth floor had been isolated off as a 'staff only' zone. It was now ten-thirty in the morning and, having already called Dan with the news of the quarantine being over, I needed to find someone to cover me while I was at the meeting.
Dr. Cox was a definite 'no' and I didn't even try to go ask him. He had been in a bit of a mood all morning, more-so than usual. I had a small feeling it had something to do with the bet he lost to me. Of course, each time I had run into him, he didn't say anything about there ever having been a bet and just gave me his usual 'crossed arms, swiping his nose, all followed by an extremely long rant' spiel. Then again, he could just be unhappy about having to take even more orders from Kelso; what with the whole face mask and medication thing...
"Elliot!" I shouted, calling her over to me from down the hall, "Could you cover for me, please!"
"JD, I have enough patients as it is," she said, then sighed, "Why? Where are you going?"
"Dan stopped over last night," I explained. "Nana Hobbs died, and the lawyer's going over her Will today. I have to be there."
Wow, I just completely pulled that out of my ass and it's actually a fairly decent excuse. However, this meant that I was all out of grandparents to use their death as an excuse... Oh well, there was always Uncle Bernie.
"Oh, JD, I'm so sorry," she said sympathetically, covering her mouth with her hand. "Are you going to be okay?"
"I'll be fine," I said, adopting a sad tone. "Believe it or not, but Dan being around actually helps... A little."
"Do you need the whole day?" she asked.
"No, I'll be back after the Will reading," I said, "I just don't know how long it will take."
She nodded, "Sure, I can cover your patients. Just page me when you get back, okay?"
"Alright," I said with a slight smile, "Thanks Elliot."
Dan was waiting outside the hospital in the rental car by the time I managed to escape. When I opened the car door, my ears were assaulted by the song 'Carry On My Wayward Son' playing at full blast on the radio.
"Why do you have it so loud?" I shouted over the music as I climbed in and buckled up.
"I love this song!" he shouted back with a grin. "Don't you have a favorite song that just, you know, gets you up and going in the morning?"
"If I could escape!" I sang off-key to the radio, dancing around the bathroom, "And re-create a place that's my own world! And I could be your favorite girl! Forever, perfectly together. Now tell me boy, now wouldn't that be sweet?"
"Uhh, no," I said slowly, shaking my head. "Not really."
"That's too bad," Dan said as he pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road.
"Mind if I catch a little shut-eye?" I asked. "I didn't get much sleep last night."
"Go ahead," he said, shrugging.
"Wake me when we get there," I said before reclining my seat, and closing my eyes. As I drifted off to sleep, I couldn't help but smile slightly when Dan turned the radio down just a tad. After the song had ended, of course..
Someone was nudging my shoulder and calling my name, disturbing my much needed rest.
"Whaaaat?" I groaned.
"We're here," Dan said. "Come on, get up."
I cracked open my eyes to find that we were already parked in front of a building that was built to look like some sort of mountain lodge. In fact, if it wasn't for the very commercial-looking sign nailed to the front entrance that read 'Moose Lodge,' I would have actually believed we were in the mountains.
"They rented the whole place for today, so we don't have to worry about anyone eavesdropping," Dan explained as we got out of the car and headed to the front entrance.
Just like at all the New Year's parties, they had one person guarding the door and another checking people in. Except instead of a clipboard full of names, the guy had a laptop with him.
"Names?" he asked in a bored tone.
"Dan Neutra and Joseph Donovan," Dan stated.
The man took a moment to type something into the computer before saying to us, "Yup, here you are." he then turned to the guy standing by the door and said, "Let them through."
The inside of the lodge was packed with reapers from all over the California area, and I wouldn't be too surprised if several of them were from the surrounding states. Some were milling about and exchanging small-talk, but most of the people had their eyes glued to the big screen TV in a corner of the room. On the TV, the news was playing, and apparently the reporter was talking about the breaking news she had just received about how the virus currently infecting many Americans was in fact the plague.
While Dan went off to go flirt with some of the girls and try to get a few phone numbers, I grabbed a muffin from the small buffet table that had been set up in another corner of the lodge.
"Mmm, blueberry," I said, happily munching on my treat.
There were no more seats available on any of the couches or chairs, so I was forced to stand and wait for the meeting to start. As I stood among the crowd, shifting my weight from foot to foot, who did I bump into, but Steve, of all people!
"Aw, crud," I muttered.
"Well, if it isn't little Joey," he said with a smirk.
"Steve, we both died in our late twenties, I'm no more little than you are," I said dryly. "Actually, I think I'm an inch taller than you."
"That still doesn't rule out the fact that I'm fifty years older than you," he stated, "So what has your division been up to? Carl's been given a high promotion. He's no longer just a judge, he's working in the White House now."
"How very nice for Carl," I said insincerely.
Carl was Steve's head reaper. Ever since that New Year's party, whenever Steve and I meet up, we always tried to out-brag each other and prove who had the better division.
"Speaking of promotions, Sam reached his quota a couple years ago and moved on to the next step of his afterlife," I said, smiling arrogantly.
"Oh? Then who's the head reaper of your division now?" Steve asked and my smile dropped a little.
Steve never thought too highly of Barbara.
"Barbara," I said.
"Barbara?" he laughed, "You mean that gold-digging tramp? She's the one leading you lemmings?"
"You shut up about mom!" I hissed as I took a step closer to him with murder in my eyes.
"Mom?" he said, roaring with laughter, "You call her mom? Oh, that's rich!"
"Oh yeah? I'm a doctor now, did you know? And what are you? Still a lab assistant?" I asked smugly.
"Well.. I.." he stuttered, then glared at me, "There's a lot of work in moving up from assistant."
"I'm sure there is," I said condescendingly.
Steve's hands curled into fists, and just when I was starting to think this might get ugly, Dan stepped in between us and held out his hands.
"Whoa, whoa! Lower your guns, guys," he said calmly, and I was a little surprised that Dan, of all people, was trying to stop a fight. "There's no reason for there to be fighting among reapers. Do I need to put you two in time-out?"
Steve and I exchanged glares, but said nothing. Instead, we turned our backs to each other and walked to different sides of the room. Dan raised an eyebrow in my direction before shaking his head with a laugh and walking back over to the girl he had been talking to prior to stopping the fight.
The meeting didn't start until the old grandfather clock in the corner ticked twelve-thirty, and by that time, people had stopped filing into the room, so everyone that was planning on going to the meeting had already arrived. All the head reapers in the lodge took their place at the front of the room. The first to speak was a middle-aged man with sandy-blond hair and a slight beard.
"We're glad you could all make it today. Pleasantries aside though, let's get straight to business," he said. "A plague epidemic had spread throughout America, and as you saw from the news report, the living has finally identified it."
"The reason we've called you all here today is so we can explain what our course of action will be throughout this epidemic," an elderly woman said. "The way of the grim reaper has always been to sit back and let the death happen."
A girl in her early twenties said sympathetically, "We are aware that many of you have other jobs where your decisions link you directly to the plague, however, your job as a reaper comes first."
"Wait!" a woman who looked to be in her thirties shouted from my left. "Are you actually telling me that you want me to do nothing?"
"Yeah," I agreed, "I'm a doctor, I can't just not treat my patients!"
"Treat you patients as you normally would," the man with the sandy blond hair said, "but when it's their time to die, don't try and save them."
Steve's head reaper, Carl, who was a tall man with dark brown hair and brown eyes was the next one to speak, "Because it is pneumonic plague we're dealing with here, it's quite clear that this outbreak is not natural. What we're looking at is a bioterrorist attack."
"The living have brought this disease upon themselves," the elderly woman said, "and It is not for us to meddle in the affairs of the living."
"Bullshit!" I shouted and all eyes turned to me, "None of those people asked to get sick. It's not like they searched the terrorists down and begged them to infect America."
"We understand your concern," the woman in her early twenties said, "but this is something we must let the government take care of. It's not our fight to get involved in."
"It's been decided not just by us, but by dozens of other head reapers in plague divisions across America that we will not interfere," the blond man said. "You're all to go about your afterlives as usual."
"I don't believe this," a man to my right growled quietly.
I could believe it either. They didn't want us to help. Is it just me, or do most reapers start to lose their humanity around the second century or so?
"You can't possibly expect me to not do anything," a dark haired girl in her mid- twenties cried, "I have so many friends that are still alive!"
"I don't understand why so many of you are having a problem with this," Carl said. "It's not like they don't have cures for the plague."
"You're just saying that because you want to finish your quota and this is the perfect opportunity!" I snapped, and several reapers shouted in agreement.
Steve scoffed, "You haven't nearly been around as long as the rest of us Joey! You couldn't possibly understand."
"I understand perfectly!" I shouted as I approached him. "I understand that so many of you have been dead for so long that you've forgotten how important it is to be alive!"
Once again, there were several shouts of agreement.
"You're one to talk," Steve said as he too took steps toward me, "I do too understand how important life is! I understand how important it is to spend time with your family, how important it is to fall in love, get married, and live your life to its fullest so that when you die, you'll always carry those memories with you forever. Or did you forget that?"
He stepped so far over the line with that last sentence that there was no longer a line. The line was a dot.
I snapped.
Then I tackled him.
And then, well... all hell broke loose in the Moose Lodge, and not just between Steve and I, no, everyone began beating the crap out of each other. Even the reapers who looked to be in their eighties.
Just look at it this way: you can't die, you've been alive for over one hundred years, you have a horrible job that you hate, and then you're put into a room with over thirty other people in the same situation as you who also can't die and are therefore just as invincible as you. All that pent-up aggression and frustration is just bound to explode in the form of a massive fight.
Yelling, growling, and screamed obscenities rang throughout the lodge. I had Steve pinned to the ground and was punching him repeatedly across the face while he had his hands wrapped around my throat, squeezing as hard as he could. Two people, an eighty-year-old woman and a man in his thirties who were fighting each other, tripped over my back and went falling into the buffet table. The table buckled beneath the two and food as well as forks, knives and spoons spilled onto the floor.
Everyone in the lodge froze as their gazes snapped over to the scattered silverware. Then, just as suddenly as we stopped, we all erupted with movement as we dove for the kitchen utensils. Steve and I rose to our feet; he had a knife, and I had... a spoon.
"Damn it!" I hissed.
"Ha-ha!" he crowed before lunging at me with the knife.
I took a quick step backwards, but unfortunately slipped on the food and went tumbling down to the ground. Steve used that to his advantage and came down at me with the knife, stabbing me in the chest. I gasped and then howled in agony when he ripped the knife out of me. However, before he could stab me again, I leapt forward and tackled him back to the ground, my teeth latching onto his neck.
He cried out as I bit down and asked incredulously, "What are you, a vampire?"
I pulled away and said with a bloody grin, "I play dirty, bi-otch."
"How's this for dirty!" he cried as he slashed his knife across my eyes.
I screamed before clawing him across the face. He slashed me down the arm, so I pinned down his arm that held the knife and blindly tried to pull it from his grip. I was distracted from my task when yet another person tripped over my back, and Steve took that chance to knee me in the stomach. When I instinctively wrapped my hands around my stomach, he pushed me off of him.
My vision healed in just enough time to see Steve coming after me again with his knife. However, before he could reach me, a shot rang out and a hole was blown straight through his head.
"Ahhhh!" Steve cried as he dropped the knife and held his hands over the wound, "Sonovabitch!"
"Found the rifles," Dan said cheerfully from behind me. "This is a hunting lodge after all."
Noticing that, despite the sudden use of firearms, the fighting still had not ceased, Dan pulled me to my feet, and dragged me toward the doors.
"This isn't over," Steve called after me as he dizzily sank to his knees.
Dan paused at the door and shouted back in an amused tone, "Great meeting, guys! See you at the New Year's party!" As he pulled me out the doors and led my stumbling form to the rental car, he scolded mockingly, "What did I say about fighting? I swear, I can't take you anywhere!"
"You shot him," I accused childishly.
"Only because you were getting your ass kicked," he stated simply.
"I could've beat him eventually," I muttered stubbornly.
Dan ignored my mumbling as he pushed me towards the passenger's door of the car. I stumbled the last few steps to the car, and then leaned heavily against it's door with my eyes closed while I waited for my blood to replenish itself. Dan walked around the car to the driver's side and opened the door before getting in and sitting down.
"You getting in, or not?" he asked when he noticed I hadn't moved.
"I'm all bloody," I explained, "I'll mess up the seats."
"Don't worry, I paid the five dollar insurance fee. Now get in before you pass out," Dan said as he patted the passenger's seat next to him.
I sighed before opening the door and slumping down onto the seat. As I slowly buckled myself in, I said, "You know what? I feel much better now. Very relaxed."
Dan glanced over at me and smiled, "Nothing like a good fight to get rid of stress. Of course, you could just be suffering from severe blood loss."
Putting the key in the ignition, Dan turned the car on and said in amusement, "I hope you have a good story in mind to explain all the blood on you."
"I work in a hospital where I deal with blood all the time," I said tiredly. "It'll be easy."
"Bambi," Carla gasped. "Oh my God, are you okay?"
By the time Dan had dropped me off, all of my wounds had healed up and I had as much blood in my body as I had when I first left the place in the morning, so I was feeling energized and ready to go. When I first entered the hospital, I had been hoping to stop by the lockers and clean up before anyone saw me, however, I just wasn't that lucky.
Carla immediately set to work at looking me over to make sure I was okay. Waving away her kind gesture, I joked, "You should've seen the other guy."
I heard a choked gasp come from my right and I glanced over to see the pale and horrified form of Jack Castello staring me down. Rolling my eyes at him, I turned my attention back to Carla who had her hands on her hips and a stern look on her face.
"Why? Did you kill him?" she asked, clearly not amused with my joking.
Jack let out a frightened yelp at that question before he turned tale and bolted down the hall. Carla and a few other doctors and nurses gave him a weird and confused look before shrugging and turning their attention back to their work.
"Okay, joking aside, I accidentally broke a bag of blood," I explained.
"What about the rips in your clothes?" Carla asked suspiciously.
"Fine," I sighed, "I crashed into a whole cart of medicine and several bags of blood.. and ripped my clothes."
"Really? All those rips?" she said, still not quite convinced.
"Hi, you've met me before. JD, right? I think we all know just how clumsy I can be," I said irritably.
Carla raised her hands defensively as she said, "Okay, I'll let it go, but you better watch that tone around me, JD. I'm a pregnant woman whose hormones are really starting to act up."
"Right, right, sorry," I said, taking a step back and flashing a nervous smile. "You know what? I'm just going to go now and clean up before I get back to work."
"I think that'd be best," Carla said cheerfully.
I slipped away as quickly as I could before that cheerful attitude could turn on me and transform into anger or annoyance or sadness. Nope, definitely didn't want to be dealing with a sad, pregnant women.
As I walked down the hall heading toward the lockers, I was so busy with the task of paging Elliot to tell her I had returned that I didn't see Dr. Cox in front of me until I ran straight into him. We both stumbled back a few paces and he swiped irritable at the blood I had accidentally smudged on his t-shirt. I watched his every movement a little fearfully, hoping that he was in a bit of a better mood by now.
His angry gaze snapped up to me and he looked about ready to tare me a new one before he stopped and actually got a good look at my bloody form.
"Jesus, Newbie," he breathed, pausing to clear his throat, "What the hell happened to you?"
"I'm fine," I said immediately, "I just tripped and fell into a cart and broke a blood bag. That's all."
"That's all?" he said with an incredulous laugh before clearing his throat again.
I frowned.
"You keep doing that," I said suspiciously.
"Doing what?" he asked, annoyed.
"Clearing your throat," I stated, narrowing my eyes. "Are you feeling okay?"
"I'm fine," he said defensively as he crossed his arms and glared at me, "So I have a little frog in my throat, that's not exactly a matter for national security."
"If that's true, than you won't mind me checking your temperature," I said simply as I slowly approached him with my hand raised.
However, he swatted my hand away and said, "No touching, ever, not under any circumstance. I know that I'm irresistible, Susan, but you'll just have to have some self control. I am sort of seeing someone after all."
"Have you been coughing at all?" I asked, ignoring his rant.
"I'm not your patient, Newbie," Dr. Cox said with a glare.
"Why are you avoiding the question?" I asked, glaring right back at him.
"I'm not avoiding the question," he snapped.
"What's that over there?" I asked with a curious look on my face as I gazed over his shoulder.
"What?" he asked, confused, glancing over his shoulder as well.
I took that chance to press my hand against his forehead and gasped when I did. "You are burning up! Plus, you would never fall for that trick had you been feeling well," I added, then asked, "How long have you been feeling like this?"
"I feel fine!" he raged, his face flushed.
The yelling must have triggered something in him because at this point he started coughing, except he didn't stop after the first few coughs. I quickly looked around the hallway until I spotted one of the interns who had been walking by, but then decided to stop and watch the battle between Dr. Cox and I.
"You! Yeah, intern, go grab a gurney and send someone else to get a room ready on floor three!" I snapped and the intern scurried away.
I heard a thud from behind me and jerked back around to find that Dr. Cox had collapsed and was convulsing on the floor. It was the one of scariest things I had ever seen in my entire afterlife, and I've seen some pretty messed up stuff before. Cursing, I sprung into action. I pinned his arms to his side by straddling his chest and supported his head with one hand, so he wouldn't concuss himself, while I paged an SOS emergency to my location. Part of me was really glad that he wasn't lucid for any of this because if he saw the position we were in, I knew he'd never let me hear the end of it.
Wooh! Finally done with chapter eight! All right! This is like, the longest chapter I've ever written. Now all that's left is to (cries) edit. Oh god, the horror!
On a side note: I got a tattoo yesterday! It took 2 and 1/2 hours, and what makes it really special is that I designed and drew it myself. I'll try and get a picture of it up onto my deviantart account sometime to show you all.
Well, you know the drill: review please!