Out Of The Dark

out of the dark

by

Phaedra Weldon

SMASHWORDS EDITION

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

Phaedra Weldon on Smashwords

Out of the Dark

Copyright © 2008 by Phaedra Weldon

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the
author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author
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CHAPTER ONE

Nurses are amazing creatures. Especially
night shift nurses. Why, you ask? Because they see things no
ordinary human should ever see--and they rarely ever question why.
They just shake their heads and go on about their jobs of saving
lives as well as doctors' asses.

But by far my favorite nurse?

The head nurse. The grand muckity-muck of the
graveyard shift. 'Cause let me tell you--this is a force to be
reckoned with. These women don't take shit off of anyone, not
doctors, not patients, and certainly not half naked orderlies
standing in the middle of the women's bathroom. And I have seen one
of these nurses fell an otherwise healthy young man just by
yelling.

Now, I'd been hanging about Daniel's room so
much I knew the nurse rotation. As did Mom. Hell, Mom brought cakes
and brownies and homemade thigh-swelling sweet tea. She was a
popular visitor on the floor--except to those who were trying
desperately to keep their girlie figures.

Yeah, like they're all so flattering in those
really loose, upholstery-patterned scrubs. Though there was one
lady who had teddy bears on hers. Hrm--now those might make for
comfy ice-cream eating evenings.

Tonight's nurse was Tiarra (yep, you say it
just like the crown, Tee-ar-ah) Boudreaux. Now--this lady stood a
good foot taller than me. And that's saying a lot. I'm not exactly
short. Her hair--sprayed upward into something resembling an
ice-sculpture--made up a good half-foot of the height.

Her nails were long and painted white with
black spots, and her lips were always colored like McIntosh apples.
Never a smudge. And evidently she'd already had it with Mr.
Bartender and his shenanigans when she walked in on he and I in the
bathroom--

Wait, lemme back up a minute.

Where was I the last time I saw you...Oh!
Yeah. Mr. Dags the Bartender had his pants at his ankles. Naked men
and all that.

See, after getting over his shock of me
walking in on him with Nancy the Nurse, he just stood there. Not
moving. I wasn't doing anything but politely gawking.

Now--this guy had been cute when I'd first
seen him behind the bar at Fadó's. And he was still cute as a
button with no shirt on--or pants on. I'd never seen a lower body
blush, either.

Mental note:
Awwwww
.

But he kept his hands cupped in a ball over
his crotch as we stood there, eyeballing each other. Not that I
could actually see the goodies as his orderly's scrub top reached
below his hips. He cleared his throat. His voice cracked and he had
to swallow nervousness.

"You--you were with Detective Frasier."

I nodded.

He was still blushing. Still cute. "You were
a ghost--did you know that?"

Nod again.

He started shifting on his feet.
Huh--did
he have to go pee-pee?

"He ever see you sitting there?"

I nodded again, remembering that Dags had
been called away to be manly before I went corporeal before Daniel.
But this pretty much proved my hunch that day, that the bartender
had
noticed me. But why could
he
see me? Was he like
Mom and Rhonda? Or just plain weird?

There was a very long, awkward, strangled
pause. Not for me, really. I still had my clothes on. I could stand
here all night. I had no idea why he wasn't getting dressed.

Dags, on the other hand, looked like he was
gonna faint.

Oookay. This was fun. Now, can we chew
cardboard for our next trick?

"Can I get dressed?"

I nodded.
Hey, I'm not stopping you
. I
stepped back and motioned for him to come out. He wasn't going to
be able to pull his pants up in that tight of an area.

The first thing I noticed this time and
hadn't noticed in the bar was how not-tall he was. I guessed the
top of his head would smack my nose. Short wasn't a bad thing--I
liked short. And Dags made up for his lack of height in several
different ways--like his hair. Loved his hair.

He gulped and shuffled forward, maneuvering
around the toilet and paper holder, still keeping those hands at
half-mast. Sheesh. Come on dude--have a little pride in the
goodies.

He was looking at everything but me, and I
noticed his ponytail reached a good bit down the middle of his
back.

"You don't talk much, do you?" he finally
said as he cleared his throat and fixed me with a pleading look. I
shook my head and touched my neck with my right hand and made
sawing motions across my throat hoping to get the idea across I was
mute.

His face bleached white. "You--you had your
throat--
sliced
?" the last word of his question cracked like
a pubescent request. "Is that how you died?"

Christ.
Just pull your pants up already
you moron.

That's when Tiarra stepped in. He turned as
the door opened. She smiled when she saw me.

And then she noticed someone standing behind
and to her right. Her eyes widened as she took in Dags' obviously
embarrassing situation, pants at his ankles. His eyes widened. She
put her hands on her more than feminine hips and knitted her
eyebrows together until they became one.

Which was a feat since they were like plucked
into oblivion.

"Darren McConnell!" Tiarrah boomed and I
swear the tile rattled. I jumped.

He did too and I winced as the motion yanked
his shoulders up, which yanked his elbows up, which in turn pulled
those cupped hands really tight.

"What the hell are you doing? Exhibitioning
in the ladies' room? You done gone all crazy? Jus' stand'n here all
nekkid? You know you're nekkid, right? That's it, boy. That is it.
You done made Tiarra mad, that you have." And with that she took
two very deliberate steps toward him and got right up in his face.
There was a pause. "Boo."

And he keeled right on over. Bam! Didn't move
or bend his body as he went down. Never tried to brace his fall.
And he kept his hands in place the whole time. Though I did get a
great shot of his bare ass.

That's when Tiarra gave me the WTF look?

I shrugged, grabbed my iBook and got the
fucking hell out of the bathroom. From now on, I pee at home.

<><><>

"Delete, delete, spam, shit, Viagra, delete,
delete, cyalis, trash," Rhonda continued her mantra as I buttered a
biscuit. I'd grabbed a Sierra Mist out of a machine on the way from
the bathroom back to Daniel's room and decided it was better for
me--and everyone else--that in my present state of confusion I
should remain sequestered.

Rhonda asked me if I'd gone over my email
while I'd been out of the room and I'd nodded. Of course. But then
she'd opened the thing and she and Mom had read THE email.

The one from my new pal, Maharba.

That lead to a discussion of going to Captain
Cooper and showing him the veiled threat from Maharba, which of
course lead me into a very long and finger-cramping (as I scribbled
away) explanation of why that was a bad idea on like so many
levels. They finally agreed that showing Cooper would invite in all
sorts of questions I wasn't prepared to answer.

And I knew Cooper wasn't prepared to believe
me on any level. Period.

So it'd been dropped for the moment, and
Rhonda turned her attention to the tedious job of going through my
email for me her way.

I just really didn't feel like it. There was
something wrong with me--I'd just tortured a helpless guy in the
ladies' room. What up with that?

"So you just made him stand there?"

I looked at Mom over the buttered biscuit and
pretended my eyes were short-range missiles. Lock and load. I made
little firing noises in my head at her. I nodded and put the butter
knife back into her little picnic basket on the roll-around table,
the one patients usually ate from while in bed.

Made him stand there my ass.

Hey, look at me, I'm Mom's Boo-Boo.

"--delete, delete, delete--huh--what the
hell?"

"Zoë--you probably cost that boy his
job."

I bit into a chunk of fluffy, buttery heaven
at that moment, and the comment made it turn to mashed peas in my
mouth. I chewed and set the biscuit down before grabbing up my
board again and erasing what I'd already written there.

I NOT SCREW NANCY. I HAD TO PEE.

"Did you pee?"

Uh. No.

Erase. NOT MY FAULT. I WAS...

"You shouldn't be eating that biscuit," Mom
said as she finished off her own. She swiped her hands together.
"You bring your tester?"

I shook my head and put the board down. Mom
was already off on another tangent. No meter. I'd forgotten it that
day, but I'd survived all freak'n day without it.
Tadah!

"Well, I'll go find Miss Tiarra--maybe
they've got a spare kit and I can make sure she doesn't fire that
nice boy."

Nice boy? Mom, he was pok'n it to some
cheese-ball in the ladies' bathroom.

In a hospital.

And
I'm
the bad guy here?

What the hell
is
Mom logic? Chaos
theory revisited?

I eyeballed this woman as she wiped her mouth
with a napkin, and then stood. She gave Daniel a glance where he
lay still and quiet on the bed before leaving the room.

I looked at Rhonda. She was reading something
on my computer.

Screw it.

I stood, wiping my hands on my sweats and
moved to the chair beside Daniel. He lay very still, oblivious to
everything around him. I'd started worrying, really. If the smell
of mom's biscuits wasn't rousing him, then I was afraid nothing
would.

I took his hand. It was cold. This was the
left hand, the one that didn't have the broken pinky. And I held it
between my two hands and I closed my eyes. I wasn't going to go
OOB.

No, not now. I was too afraid I'd suck up his
soul or something.

And I hadn't really gone OOB in several days.
Maybe I forgot how to do it. I watched his chest move up and down.
Watched his beautiful face. It'd been badly bruised when he was
first brought in, with swollen eyes and jaw. But now he looked much
better, with only a little stubble on his chin. Mom shaved him
every other day.

I trusted her to do that.

"Hey Zoë--"

I put my hand on his shoulder. I wanted him
to open his eyes. I wanted him to look at me and tell me he loved
me. I wanted him to tell his damned captain that I wasn't a bad
person--

Hell, I wanted to find Dags the bartender and
tell him I was sorry for making him stand there naked.

"Hey--"

I pulled my hand away and put both of them to
my face.

"Kill the drama and get your ass over
here."

I raised my head and looked at Rhonda. Leave
it to her to push me into reality again. With a look at my
boyfriend I stood, snatched up my board, and moved to where Rhonda
sat on the other side of the bed near the window of the small room.
She motioned for me to kneel beside her.

I grabbed one of mom's donut shaped pillows
and knelt on that. I held out my hands, palms up.

"You look at any of these jobs that came
in?"

I shook my head and erased my board. NOT
WORKING. VACATION.

"Well, yeah, but this one sounds kinda
intriguing."

I narrowed my eyes at her and shook my
head.

"Will you listen to it?"

Did I have a choice?