Ninety-Nine Years

An unusually slow night. The ambulance is parked at an anonymous suburban strip mall. Wes naps. Alastair prowls.

***

The bright lights of a mini mart, the only store open for blocks, attracts the sleepless and desperate. A poor little rich boy leaves, loaded down with a two cases of imported beer. His clothes say he’s in his twenties, but the circles around his eyes suggest he’s seen a decade more than he’d care to admit.

Poor little rich boy’s car is in the same shape he is. Once a luxury vehicle worthy of envy, the vehicle now shows all the bumps and scratches of hard living. The rich boy gets in, dumping his beer casually on the passenger seat.

He tries to get the car started, it grinds and sputters but won’t turn over. He pauses, in case he flooded the engine. Click, click, click… still no ignition on the second attempt. The rich boy pounds the steering wheel in frustration. Time to take the edge off, he breaks open a case and pulls out a beer.

Suddenly Alastair, who was hiding in the back, pounces. The poor rich boy fights ineptly.

***

A random hotel room. The poor rich boy drinks and watches porn on TV.

Someplace overseas, drinking and watching the nightly “striptease news,” where world events meet T. & A.

In a sports bar, he drinks and watches a scantily clad waitress. A friend taunts him.

Hangover recovery, Bloody Mary in hand, watching the workout channel as a female fitness guru does pelvic thrusts.

Another hotel room. An unsatisfied woman puts on her dress and politely waves goodbye.

The brightly colored images from a dull life fade.

***

Alastair disengages, slashing his sharp teeth across the rich boy’s throat. It looks more like an animal bite than something a human-based being could create.

Physically but not mentally satisfied, Alastair throws his “empty container” onto the seats with contempt. Alastair flinches in pain as the poor little rich boy’s alcohol-laden blood hits his brain. A moment of intoxication followed by the gnawing of withdrawal as the booze speeds unnaturally through Alastair’s system.

***

Alastair slams the passenger door, waking Wes up, he’s still queasy from his “meal.”

Wes notices the change in his partner, “Lay off the junk food.”

Alastair responds, “I wish I could. Sometimes I don’t have a choice.”

Wes starts the engine, “There’s always a choice, it’s just that most people are scared shitless, so they keep doing the same thing over and over again. Life’s too short.”

Alastair thinks, “Even if you could live forever, life’s still too short.”

Wes looks at Alastair, rolls his eyes.

***

Although lacking the razzle dazzle of Freemont Street, this downtown road could also be labelled an “experience.” Local homeless scatter, trying to find shelter from careless drunk tourists.

The ambulance pulls up behind a single police cruiser, Nathan observes a homeless man slumped against a building. He nods a greeting to Wes and Alastair as they approach, “He’s all yours.”

As if on cue, the homeless man clutches is chest, “My heart.”

***

The homeless man lies in a hospital bed, he’s hooked up to a monitor showing a strong, steady heart rate. Dianna leaves his bedside, closing the partition curtain as she leaves.

Alastair smiles awkwardly, “Sorry.”

Dianna’s nonplussed, “He knows the system, claiming chest pain means he stays for observation.”

Alastair’s frustrated, “I hate being a taxi.”

She softens, “It’s better than leaving someone sick by the side of the road.”

He appreciates her kindness. “Any new research projects?”

Dianna’s eyes sparkle, “Mozart. There are dozens of possible causes of death, and of course it would be difficult to exhume the body for an autopsy, because there are probably four or five other people in the same plot, they’d have to figure out who’s who before they got to cause of death.”

Alastair remembers, “Only the rich and royalty got the honor of being buried separately.”

She studies him, “How do you know things like that?”

“I just do.” Alastair watches, enjoying her curiosity. In a fit of boldness a question crosses his lips, “Would you like to go out sometime?”

She runs through her customary excuses, “I swore I’d never date anyone I work with.”

He offers a helpful excuse, “The ambulance company and hospital are two different employers, so technically we don’t work together.”

Dianna comes up with a better reason, “Then again I never thought I’d meet someone who cared about my hobby.”

He presses for a decision “So, will you?”

“I don’t know.”

He tries another approach, “We can always meet in a casino. The eye in the sky sees all.”

She frowns, “I hate those places.”

“Me too.” His excuses are gone, all that’s left is a sincere plea, “I haven’t dated in a while. It’s a lot of complication and stress and half the time it isn’t worth it… but I just have a feeling that you and I could share something special.”

Dianna smiles. “I’m off Sunday and Monday.”

Copyright 2009, Wendy Pierce

The injured groom sits in a corner of the honeymoon suite’s bathroom, at least a dozen wounds mangle his flesh. He shows no signs of distress despite the streams of blood trickling down his body. Alastair and Wes get no reaction as they prepare to tend his injuries.

Alastair dutifully keeps his mind on his work, rushing to apply gauze to a deep bite on the groom’s upper arm. As Alastair applies pressure to stop the bleeding, Wes takes care of the scratch marks on his chest, irrigating them with sterile fluid before bandaging.

The groom’s voice trembles, “Where is she?”

Wes replies, “You’re okay, the police took her into custody.”

The groom bolts into action, crawling on the floor. “They’re dangerous, I have to save her.”

The gauze Alastair applied falls from the groom’s biceps exposing the wicked punctures that his beloved’s dainty teeth inflicted. The medics have no choice but to let the groom squirm, Alastair blocks the doorway, preventing any escape. Pain and weakness mount quickly until the groom has no choice except to relent to medical attention.

Alastair tries to reassure the groom, “You have to save yourself before you can help anyone else. Okay?”

Suddenly, the groom returns to his catatonic state, allowing the medics to work.

***

Alastair and Wes roll the bandaged groom past the curtained emergency room beds to a set of doors separating the operating rooms from the rest of the hospital. Nathan follows closely, keeping track of anything and everything the groom says. At the doors, the medics pass their patient off to a waiting surgical team.

Wes vents, “That was beyond messed up. He doesn’t even want to press charges.”

Nathan replies “The district attorney’s office might have a thing or to say about that.”

As they walk through the primary ER area they pass Dianna. She works on a medical records computer adding patient data to several files. Finished, she stretches and walks away from the terminal.

Alastair responds knowingly, “If there’s one constant to the human condition, it’s that love makes people do stupid things.”

Dianna passes the three guys as they walk down the hallway. Alastair’s eyes follow her hungrily.

Alastair turns on the spot. “Excuse me.”

Nathan and Wes keep heading to the exit.

Nathan’s confused. “What’s he doing.”

Wes laughs to himself. “Proving his own point.”

***

Alastair follows Dianna to a break room. A tiny space with lockers, a pair of cots and a desk.

Dianna pulls an illustrated urology text and a book on the Roman Empire from her locker. She spreads out her work, sees Alastair, smiles.

“The medical mystery returns.” She teases. “I still don’t get how your skin is so cold even when your heart is racing.”

“Me neither.” His curiosity turns to her work. “What are you researching?”

She responds with off-kilter enthusiasm. “Fournier’s gangrene. It’s an infection that necrotizes urinary tract tissue. They say it killed King Herod.”

Ninety-Nine years free of disease allows him to return her curiosity. “Also the Roman Emperor Galerius. It makes flesh eating bacteria look like the chicken pox.”

She’s stunned.

He asks, “Are you studying forensic pathology?”

“I wish. Can you loan me the money to survive med school and five years of residency?” She squirms, “It’s just a hobby, learning how historical figures died.”

She watches, waiting for his reaction. This is usually the part of the conversation where others call her “odd.”

He responds gently, “You have a rare and wonderful sense of curiosity.”

Copyright 2009, Wendy Pierce