I'M A DOCTOR, CHAPTER SIX
Dawn came.
"Bedtime" said Connie.
"I'm stiff" complained Rita as they slowly got to their feet.
"I'll give your shoulders a nice massage before we go up" Iain volunteered.
"We can manage, thank you" Connie rebuffed him. Iain gave Rita a cheeky wink, which made her glad she was wearing her purple lace underwear – anything could happen in the next evening. And there was nothing to stop him sneaking on to the landing and giving Rita that massage.
Dylan looked out of the window and saw the deep snow.
"I think we'll be here longer than one more night", he commented, adding:
"Come on, Chiltern, bedtime."
"I'm fine where I am, thank you" was Lofty's cold reply.
Dylan flounced off to bed.
Ethan thought Lofty had his own priorities, and grinned.
"Ah, wise man. You're waiting for the staff to arrive and cook us a hot breakfast."
"I'm not feeling like breakfast" Lofty said tersely, then, not wanting to take his mood out on Ethan:
"It'll be warm down here when they light the fire and I should get a good sleep."
"Can't you sleep upstairs?" Ethan asked.
Fortunately, at that moment, the phone rang.
Cal strode to answer it, and Robyn marvelled at those long legs in action. Cal turned back to everybody, looking worried, after taking the call.
"The staff can't make it today. We're on our own."
Ethan threw a master wobbly:
"I want a fire and I want a Full English!"
"Ethan, we can make the fire and cook. Don't be such a Prima Donna" his brother reprimanded him.
"I'm not bad at cooking. Let's go and look in the fridge, Ethan, I might be able to do a hot breakfast" Lofty offered.
He hurried to the fridge and opened it.
His heart all but stopped.
"H-has that assassin gone away?" said Big MacIntosh's head.
Lofty walked back into the lounge on unsteady legs.
"Sorry people, it seems the spooks are there day and night. There's one in the fridge."
Then he gasped:
"Excuse me!" and ran upstairs where he was violently ill in the bathroom.
"NOW who'll cook?" whimpered Ethan.
"We'll do anybody who wants it a Full English, but we need to try to get Lofty to eat a slice of dry toast to settle his guts, and give him a black coffee and two of my co-codamol. For everybody else, we'll do a continental – I've seen Brioches and jam – but here's the rule. Anybody who doesn't cook does the washing up. Sounds fair?" Dixie asked.
Ethan thought washing up was a small price to pay for a full gut.
"I need rubber gloves though."
A pair of rubber gloves flew across the room and smacked him in the mouth. He ran over to Dixie, trembling, and she gave him a cuddle.
Lofty was snoozing by the fire, which he, Jack and Dixie had made up, and his face was more its normal colour.
"I think his headache's gone" Dixie said, happily.
"It's not his head that hurts; it's his heart. He more or less came out last night and said he had feelings for Dylan and the rotten bugger rejected him." Jack was most indignant.
"Maybe he's not ready to come out himself", was Dixie's theory.
Ethan, at the other side, said:
"I've noticed something about these ghosts. They like to whine, they like their pranks, but they're not dangerous. I think I feel safe to go to bed now."
"Thanks for the washing up" Dixie grinned.
Ethan made his way out of the room. Then there was a terrified scream… and Ethan staggered back in with a bloody stain over his heart.
To everybody's shock, he came through the door, unhurt but his hair standing on end, pointing to the man who was now lying on the ground.
"It's that doppelganger" he wailed.
Suddenly the corpse rose to its feet, picked up the poker and lunged at Cal who had just come into the room. Cal backed away nervously. Then another Cal came in, this one with a sword.
"Prepare to die, Giorgio Raynesford, vile seducer!"
"I'll take you with me, Ricardo Redmyres!" Giorgio snarled.
"Stop it!" cried the real Cal and Ethan, dodging the mayhem.
"Stop it! I love him" cried Taylorette, rushing in, her arms waving.
"To bed at once, Sister. You are great with child!" Ricardo snapped at her.
Meanwhile, over at the ED, Lily tried yet again for contact with Redmyres.
"We ought to tell the police" she said.
"You tell the cops and all the money for that kiddies' unit goes right down the drain" Jacob told her, "Somebody needs to go in there undercover."
"At the moment we have to do our job; there are patients to heal", Lily ordered him, adding: "You'll have a long walk there in this snow". Jacob reluctantly went to help one of his patients, all the time plotting in his head.
Dylan came downstairs grumpily.
"I can't sleep with all that noise going on!"
He pointed angrily at Lofty.
"Look at him, sleeping like a baby after all this. He should be ashamed."
"He's sleeping like a baby because he's had dry toast, coffee and co-codamol. Poor little sod was sick as a dog – no offence, Dylan! – earlier. He'd had a scare. Apart from you crushing him as well."
"What scared him?"
"A talking head in the fridge. Ghosts have been coming and going all night and morning, so Connie's meeting was a bit pointless."
"This place!" sniffed Dylan in disgust.
He walked to the door.
"Tell Sleeping Beauty to stop sulking when he wakes up, and send him up to me."
"How are your shoulders, Freeman?"
"Much better thanks, Cersei."
"WHAT?" Connie all but spluttered.
"That's what the staff call you. Cersei Lannister."
"If I was as bad as that, would I have given you all the time off to come here? Would I even have been interested in a fundraising event like this?"
"Take no notice. They like you in their own way."
"I must say you look nicer without all that slap on, Freeman."
"I don't wear that much!"
"It chokes me to say it, Freeman, but you don't need to."
Connie lay on her shoulder and gave her a long, appraising look.
"Give me your money or I'll slit your gullets!"
Mercedes, violent robber and assassin, stood by the bed, wielding a sharp dagger.
"You two lesbians?" she asked cheekily.
"No!"}
"Yes!"}
Connie and Rita answered at once.
Mercedes snorted and vanished.
"Really, Freeman? What about Iain?"
Rita blushed and giggled.
"You naughty little minx, Freeman, that's just greedy!"
With an expert hand, she reached down and pulled off Rita's panties.
"Purple lace with bows! Mr Iain's favourite colour, so I hear!"
"Give them back!" Rita giggled. Connie held them out of reach.
Mercedes reappeared, skewered them on her dagger and vanished in glee.
"Dixie says you've something to say to me."
Lofty, pain still registering in his eyes, looked at Dylan.
"I have, Ben. I'm sorry if you felt I'd betrayed you. I-I'm just not ready to come out yet."
"You broke my heart, Dylan."
"Now you sound like that Max."
"I don't know if I can forgive you yet." Lofty climbed into bed and turned to the wall.
Dylan sighed.
"Ben…."
Just then the skeletons came back. They sat on the end of the bed at Dylan's side, chanting:
"Four, four, four, four.
May the fours be with you."
"Leave him alone" Lofty threatened.
Max appeared, but this time, sneering, not wailing:
"Dylan had a doggie, his buddy and his pal.
We tied a big stone round her neck and went to the canal…"
Lofty, pushing off Dylan's clutching hands, ran across the room and out of the door. Dylan sighed; it looked as if Ben had abandoned him and who could blame him? He knew the verse about Dervla wasn't true, but he still felt sick with worry.
Lofty, not seeming to care that he was naked, came running back in with a book in his hand. He held it above Dylan's head and said coldly:
"Leave him ALONE!"
The three spectres screamed and vanished. Lofty put the book on a bedside table and got back in, shivering a little.
"I knew I'd seen a Bible around" he said through chattering teeth.
Dylan's arms went round him.
"I don't deserve you, Ben."
"You don't, but to heck with that, come here."
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