Lawyers: Our client does not own Scrubs or Dead Like Me nor is she gaining any profit by writing this story. Don't sue her.
Chapter 10
It was early in the morning and we were all scurrying about the apartment getting ready for our shifts at the hospital while Dan prepared breakfast. Carla and I had just barely gotten through doing our hair when Dan finished the pancakes and called everyone to the table. Carla turned on the news just before we all took a seat and Dan came over to the table carrying two plates with him.
"Chocolate chip for the guys," he said cheerfully as he set down the plate in his left hand and then, setting down the plate in his right, he said, "and some bacon and apple pancakes for Carla and her quirky pregnancy cravings."
"Dan," Carla said with a fake smile, "As much as I love you making breakfast for us, how long do you plan on staying here?"
"Well, Carla, seeing as how I'm here for business reasons," Dan said as he too took a seat at the table, "how long I stay here all depends on how quickly things are resolved... in the business."
"What business would that be?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.
"That's confidential information, if I told you, I'd have to kill you," Dan said in mock -seriousness as he gazed around the table at all of us. However, when his eyes landed on me, he cracked a grin and snorted humorously before shoveling a pancake into his mouth.
"You're a riot, Dan," I said dryly as I turned my attention back to my meal.
"If you're not out of here in two days, Dan, you're staying at a hotel," Carla said with a no-nonsense tone
"Yes, ma'am," Dan said submissively.
"Hey, they're talking about the plague," Turk said as he grabbed the remote off of the table and turned up the volume.
"America has plague on the brain and the fear of infection has risen," the reporter said, "Last night, the President had this to say..."
"We have indeed confirmed that this is a bioterrorist attack. As we speak, I have my best men working to find those responsible for the attack so we can bring them to justice!" President Caedo raged.
You could tell that he was thoroughly pissed that someone got the drop on him. A part of me almost pities whoever it is they find responsible.. Almost.
"Mr. President, just how was the virus spread?" one reporter asked.
Not missing a beat, the President said, "While we have yet to figure out how the virus was spread, I have all my researchers finding out how it had been done so that we can avoid another attack."
"Mr. President, what do you plan to do about the antibiotic shortage we are bound to face?" another reporter asked.
"When the time comes, I will supply the funds needed to make sure that no hospital will ever run out of the necessary antibiotics," President Caedo said, staring straight into the camera.
That's a pretty big stretch right there, making sure we never run out of antibiotics. I'm having a little trouble believing that, and apparently I wasn't the only one. Dan sighed, Carla rolled her eyes, and Turk turned off the TV. Oh, and what was up with all that crap he was spouting before? He basically just told us that he doesn't know squat, except he said it in a 'I'm gonna kick some booty as soon as I can find some booty to kick' sort-of-way.
There was a moment of silence surrounding the table as everyone mentally fumed while eating their breakfast. So I decided to lighten the mood by loudly setting down my fork and saying, "Hey, don't look at me, I voted for Furax."
"Yeah, me too," Turk said. "He was really the lesser of two evils."
I nodded before Carla said, "I voted for Spero."
"Who?" Turk and I asked at the same time.
"And that's why he didn't win," Carla sighed in exasperation.
"What about you, Dan?" Turk asked, looking to my brother.
"Oh, I don't vote," Dan said as if the act of voting was something completely ridiculous.
"Why doesn't that surprise me," Carla murmured before glancing at the clock on the wall. "Hurry up, guys. We got to get going."
We finished the rest of breakfast as quickly as we could before grabbing our jackets to leave. I told Carla and Turk that I planned to take Sasha and to go on ahead of me. I stood by the doorway, waving to them as they left, and as soon as they were out of sight, I closed the door and turned back to Dan. He smiled at me from the table, still eating his breakfast at a leisurely pace.
I paused for a moment, not really wanting to ask the question I knew needed to be asked, before I sighed and decided to face the music, "Are there any side-jobs you need me to handle today?"
"Three of them," Dan said, pulling the post-its out of his pocket.
Damn.
I took the post-its from him and quickly flipped through them. While I did know one of the patients, none of them were Dr. Cox. For a moment, I felt a wave of relief wash over me, but that was soon followed by disappointment. Three people. It wasn't nineteen, but still, these people hadn't been helped soon enough. They were taken out by the last few ripples of the epidemic. If only I had figured it all out sooner.
"Hey," Dan said, pulling me from my thoughts, "I know that look. You stop right now with that look!"
"I have a look?" I asked dubiously.
"Yeah, it's that guilty, 'it's all my fault' look," Dan explained. "So stop it."
"But if I had just put two and two together, I would have figured out that it was the plague and-"
"God!" Dan exclaimed in exasperation, burying his face in his hands. "Would you just stop! It's not your fault, Joey. It wasn't back in 1902, and it isn't now. You help tons of people everyday, and that's more than most reapers can say."
"You don't get it, Dan," I snapped as I grabbed one of the post-its and held it up to his face, "You see this guy right here? S. V. Gorvick? His name is Shawn, he's nineteen, and he's my patient! He came to the hospital because of a car accident, not because of the plague. He got exposed to the virus on my watch. So excuse me for feeling partially responsible!"
"Do I need to kick your ass to make you see sense?" Dan said, annoyed. "You know what we do is important, or would you rather leave Shawn to rot inside his own body?"
"No," I relented, crossing my arms stubbornly as I leaned against the wall. "It's just hard, you know?"
"Yeah, I know," he said before looking at his watch. "If you're all done being a girl, you better leave now, or you'll be late." he looked up from his watch. "Think you can handle it?"
Folding up the post-its and sticking them into my pocket, I mumbled, "Three people?" I waved him off dismissively. "Piece of cake."
Piece of cake? Yeah, right. Maybe if the cake was secretly a bomb coated in chocolate frosting that's oh-so misleading with the timer ticking away, ready to blow me to bits. It was supposed to be easy, just three people, and yet it's gone so horribly wrong.
The first problem with this whole situation is that all three of the people were kids. Shawn, being nineteen, was the oldest of the group. The second oldest was a sixteen-year-old girl named Phoebe, and the youngest was a five-year-old girl named Kristy. Like I said before, it always sucks when a child is involved, especially when the child is the one that's dieing. What's even worse is that little Kristy doesn't even know what death is.
Can you say 'awkward conversation'? I mean, it's one thing to have to explain to a child how grandma has gone into a deep sleep and how you won't be seeing her for a very long time, but it's a completely different situation when you have to explain death to someone who is already dead. How would you even word that?
'Honey, you've gone into a deep sleep.' No, that's not right because clearly you're awake.
'Kristy, death is when your spirit leaves your body and moves on to another plane of existence via a shiny, bright light.' All that explanation earned me was a funny look from the five-year-old.
'Kristy, when you die, you leave behind your friends and family for a while until they also die.' Way to go, JD, you made her cry.
'Death, Kristy, is when you walk through a bright, sparkly light that transports you to a happy, magical place with puppies and kittens and all the candy you want. Heaven, do you know what heaven is, Kristy?' Well, now I'm just plain lying seeing as how I've never seen what's beyond that bright light.
Explanations of death to a five-year-old aside, that's not my biggest problem at the moment. My biggest problem right now is that I sorta, kinda, lost two of my reaps. Phoebe was having some denial issues about the whole thing and Kristy, well, Kristy doesn't even know what death is, so she probably thinks this whole thing is one big game. Needless to say, I was being a big, dumb boy with cooties who was ruining their fun of being invisible (Kristy's words, not mine), so the two girls kicked me in the shin and made a run for it. I had been searching for them without any luck for the past half hour.
At least I still had Shawn on my side.
"So do you kill all of your patients, or am I just lucky?"
Then again, Shawn could only be so much help while he was in such a distressed state-of-mind.
"Do spirits eat?" he asked curiously. "Not that I'm hungry or anything, but I could really go for some fast food."
"Could you stop thinking about your stomach for one minute and help me here?" I asked irritably.
"Dude, I'm not the one who couldn't keep track of two hyperactive girls," Shawn said, raising his hands defensively.
"I know, I know!" I griped, then sighed. "If I were a girl and I just found out that I was dead, where would I go?"
"Wow, that is the most normal question I've ever heard asked before," Shawn said sarcastically.
Ignoring his comment, I stuck to my train-of-thought and muttered to myself, "I would probably be feeling extra emotional and want to see my family. However, neither of their parents are here, I saw one of the interns calling them up. So it would make more sense for them to wait at the hospital for their family to arrive."
"Yeah, but do you really think Phoebe would be thinking rationally at this moment?" Shawn pointed out. "Besides, you're looking at this all wrong. Phoebe's in the denial stage right now. Seeing her parents and having a cry-fest is probably the furthest thing from her mind. Plus, her and Kristy had been talking about having some fun before they kicked you in the shin, so they're probably goofing off somewhere, or something."
I blinked, surprised at his deduction, and said, "You're right. You know, you would've made a great detective."
"You and my dad, I swear!" he said, exasperated.
"Where would two girls be goofing off?" I wondered.
"Well, girls love to shop," Shawn said.
"The gift shop!" I exclaimed before grabbing Shawn by the collar of his hospital gown, "Come on, let's go!"
We raced to the elevators and took one down to the lobby where the gift shop was. As soon as the doors opened, I raced off toward the gift shop with Shawn by my side, matching my pace. We reached the gift shop in no time, and as expected, there were my two wayward reaps. Kristy was standing before a bin of stuffed animals, attempting to grab hold of one, only to fail miserably as her little hands fazed straight through the plush toy. She had apparently been doing this for awhile because she looked close to having a tantrum.
Meanwhile, Phoebe was racing around the lobby giggling like a maniac. She would pause in front of each person she came across and faze her hand into their head as if it had some sort of profound effect on the person. The whole act had both Shawn and me raising an eyebrow.
"Riiiiiight," Shawn said, sounding disturbed.
I shook my head before clapping my hands twice and shouting over the crowd so that the two girls could hear me, "Alright, you've had your fun! But now it's very important that I find your bright lights, so if you both will just come with me.."
"Aww, fun time's done," little Kristy sighed. "Mr. Boring is here."
"That's Dr. Boring," I corrected.
"We're not going anywhere with Mr. Boring until he catches us first!" Phoebe said with a cackle as she ran over to Kristy and grabbed hold of her hand. "Come on!"
As they once again ran off, I took chase and shouted after them, "Hey, wait! Come back!"
However, they weren't interested in anything I had to say and fazed through the nearest wall before I could catch them, and unfortunately for me, reapers don't possess the power to walk through walls. I screamed in frustration while pounding my fist against the wall a few times before sinking to my knees.
"Tough luck, dude," Shawn said from behind me.
As much fun as Shawn was, finding those two girls would be a lot easier if I had one less soul on my hands. So before I went looking for the little brats again, I needed to get Shawn to move on.
"Up for a trip to the cafeteria? I'll buy you whatever you want," I said, glancing over my shoulder at the boy.
He pumped his fist in the air and shouted, "Yes! I'm gonna stuff myself silly."
I saw no reason to tell him that souls don't eat.
My plan worked like a charm. As soon as we set foot in the cafeteria, Shawn's light appeared in the form of a restaurant. Big surprise there. He stared at the double doors of the glowing building looking happier than I've ever seen him.
"Bugaboo Creek?" he exclaimed, his eyes wide. "I haven't eaten there in years! Oh man, I'm gonna have one of every dessert they have. Especially the Big Foot Chocolate Cookie! Oh, oh! And then the Bunyan Onion, and the Snowbird Chicken."
He looked close to hyperventilating. If he weren't already dead, I'd actually be a little worried. After doing a near-perfect impression of Homer Simpson, he went racing off to the restaurant and disappeared through it's doors. Bugaboo Creek vanished in a flash of light, and everyone in the cafeteria ate on, completely unaware of what just happened.
"Was that your last one?" came Dan's voice from behind me.
I yelped, surprised, and spun around on one foot to face him. He simply smiled at me, amused by my reaction. Nobody batted an eye at the fact that he wasn't wearing a face mask, but I guess that's probably due to the fact that most of the people in the cafeteria weren't wearing their own face masks since you can't exactly eat with them on.
"Yes," I lied. "That was the last one for today."
There is no way I'm telling him that I lost two of my reaps. He'd never let me live it down. Er... die it down? No, that's not right. Afterlive it down? Is afterlive even a word?
"Great!" he said, pulling me from my musings, "Then you'll have plenty of time to join Turk and me for lunch."
Was it really lunch time already?
As Dan dragged me over to a table where Turk sat with his lunch, I looked down at my watch and said in complete confusion, "Dan, it's only 10:45. Why would you come here to have lunch anyways?"
"I was really bored and had finished all of my work today, so I decided to make it my personal mission to find something that will cheer you up," Dan said.
"O-kay," I said slowly, "and you thought you'd find it here in this hospital?"
"No, of course not!" Dan said, waving the question away. "I came here to get some ideas, so tell me, little brother, what makes you happy?"
"Hmm, let's see... Sex, Sanford & Son, more sex, and, oh yeah, you not being here!" I snapped.
"How about we do something wild and crazy tonight," Dan said, completely ignoring what I had just said before.
Sure, because that's always worked out so well in the past.
1923
I sat on the saddled horse, absentmindedly stroking her long neck while I waited for Dan to finish with.. whatever it was that he was doing. The horse shifted uneasily and I really couldn't blame her. The whole place had this creepy vibe to it. Silently wishing that Dan would just hurry up so we could get out of here, I murmured words of comfort to the horse. I didn't know what her name was or if she was even Dan's horse. In fact, I didn't know much of anything about what was going on and why Dan needed me here tonight.
Suddenly several gun shots went off in the building Dan had previously entered, and the horse screeched her protests at the sudden loud noise, rising up on her hind legs. I had to squeeze my own legs around her and hold onto the reins to keep from falling off. Just as I had managed to calm her down to the point where she was standing on all fours, Dan came bursting out of the building with a rather large bag of what I suspected was money in his hand. He raced over to the horse and I, and pulled himself up onto the saddle, squeezing in behind me.
"Ride, ride!" he shouted, smacking me on the shoulder a few times.
Without question, I kicked my legs against the horse's side, and we were out of there lickidy-split. It was a good thing too because just as we were riding away, two angry looking guys burst out of the same doors Dan did, both of them waving guns.
That was just the beginning of a long list of insane and ridiculous stunts Dan talked me into. To name a few, there was that suicide jump off of a bridge, that time we jumped into the snake pit at a zoo, and that time he pushed me into the lion's den at a different zoo (this was before they put up three fences separating you from the big cats. In fact, I think my 'unfortunate death' was a big deciding factor for that rule). You know, looking back at it all, I'm starting to think that Dan has a weird thing with getting me killed and then either breaking me out of the morgue or digging me up after the funeral.
I shook my head at his proposal to do something wild and crazy and instead turned my attention to Turk, "Why are you eating lunch so early?"
"I got a surgery later on that's going to take up my lunch hour," he explained.
"Oh, okay."
"Speaking of wild and crazy plans for tonight, do you think Rowdy needs a bath?" Turk asked. "I don't think he's had one since that time Carla took him to get cleaned."
"I think you're right," I said, then sighed, "Poor Rowdy. With the hospital being so busy, he's been neglected."
"Wait, that's it!" Dan exclaimed.
"What's it?" I asked, confused.
"The perfect plan to cheer you up," Dan said.
"Seriously, Dan, I'm fine!" I snapped.
"No time for that now, Johnny. I've got things to do!" he announced dramatically as he rose from his chair and bounded away.
I twisted around in my own chair and called after him, "Dan, what are you planning? Dan!" I turned back around to Turk and whispered, "Turk, I'm scared."
"Relax, JD. He's probably just going to go give Rowdy a bath," Turk said reassuringly.
"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, because that would make the most sense. We were talking about getting Rowdy cleaned, and so he's going to give Rowdy a bath."
Oh, but when has anything Dan's ever done made sense?
Running my fingers through my hair stressfully, I said, "I got to get back to work anyways. There are a couple of patients I need to attend to."
Turk nodded, and as I got up from my chair to leave, I said over my shoulder, "Enjoy your lunch."
However, before I could leave, Turk called after me, "Hey, JD!" I looked back over at him. "What Dan was talking about before, the whole cheering you up thing, in his own weird way, he sounded kind of concerned... Are you doing okay?"
"Yeah," I said with a smile, "I'm fine."
Sure, I'm fine, but I'll be even better when I find those two girls. Where the hell could they be? I've looked everywhere! I've check pediatrics, the maternity ward, the roof, the gift shop for the second time, the elevator, both locker rooms (again, I'm loving the whole notice-me-not thing that comes with the job), and each time I came up with absolutely nothing!
I walked up and down each hallway searching for them, and just as I was beginning to think that perhaps they had already moved on, I heard crying coming from one of the patient's room. The very same room that Phoebe had stayed in while she was alive. I suddenly felt very stupid.
I walked into the room to see Phoebe sitting on her now empty bed hugging her knees to her chest with her chin resting on one knee, crying. The two other patients in the room slept on, completely oblivious to the distraught teenager. I walked over and sat down at the foot of her bed. She looked over at me and sniffled once, wiping at the tears running down her face.
I stayed silent, waiting for her to compose herself, and after several minutes of her wiping at her eyes, she said in a shaking voice, "Kristy's gone."
"Lights?" I murmured.
She nodded, "Yeah. This big, glowing, pumpkin carriage appeared out of nowhere and Kristy climbed in without a second thought. I tried to stop her, but..."
"The lights aren't bad, you know," I told her calmly. "They take you to where you need to go."
"Where would that be?" she asked, her crying beginning to wane.
"I'm not sure," I said truthfully. "But I do know that Kristy will be there, and so will anyone else you've lost."
"I'm a little scared," she admitted.
"That's perfectly normal, the unknown can be scary, but you can only move forward at this point," I said.
A pair of large double doors appeared where the windows used to be. The massive doors opened up to reveal a great hall, but not just any great hall, it was The Great Hall.
"Harry Potter fan?" I asked.
She blushed, "Yeah."
We both got up from the bed and stood before the opened doors. Phoebe looked hesitant to enter.
Placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder, I said, "Trust me, you'll love whatever's in there."
As she took a few more steps toward the Great Hall entrance, her hands curled into fists. Then, taking a deep breath as if the place might just be filled with water, she raced on inside. The doors snapped close behind her and disappeared in a flash. I heaved a sigh of relief as soon as the doors were gone and sunk back onto the bed.
Now that that's all taken care of for the day, I just have, let's see, only several long hours left before my shift was over. Joy!
I think I'll end chapter 10 right here. I was going to do one more scene, but I decided that I'll start the next chapter with it instead. This one was getting a little long anyways and I still have to edit the damn thing. Okay, so let's go over a couple of things..
Bugaboo Creek is an actual restaurant, and a fabulous one at that. The fact that, due to its location, I can only go once every year or so, probably makes the food even more special.
As for Shawn Gorvick, well, part-way through the chapter, I found myself channeling Psych's Shawn Spencer... except nineteen.
And what could Dan possibly be up to? You'll just have to wait and see.
Review please!