The Halloween Collection (5 page)

Chuckling to herself, Sara returned to the
business at hand—picking out her surgical greens and then getting
back up to civilization. She didn’t like being alone in the
basement.

Rounding the corner, Sara located the line
of shelves. On the opposite wall, directly across from the
uppermost stack of clothes, some jokester had taped a large
cardboard skull. Real amusing. Grow up people.

She walked over to the uniforms and began to
search. As the nurses had hinted earlier, the selection was not
great. After several minutes she located what she was looking for,
a medium top and a small pair of bottoms.

Stuffing the set of scrubs in her knapsack,
Sara turned to leave. Around the corner she heard another load of
dirty surgical scrubs hit the floor. This time, though, she reacted
calmly, until the sudden wave of foul stench caused her to gag.

“Damn,” she grimaced looking about.
Instinctively she began to breathe through her mouth. “What in the
hell is that?”

Twisting around, she looked further down the
hall leading past the scrub shelves. She wasn’t sure, but she
thought it led to the freshman anatomy lab stairwell. However, this
smell wasn’t of formaldehyde and cadavers. It resembled more the
fetidness of decaying flesh.

Sara held her breath to avoid further
gagging and started back toward the basement exit. Suddenly she
stopped—dead in her tracks. The sight before her forced a breath as
she gasped in surprise.

A tall emaciated figure dressed in poorly
fitting faded green surgical scrubs stood silently about twenty
feet in front of her. The man remained motionless in the passageway
beside the stacks of dirty linen. In addition to the green scrubs,
the silent figure wore an old frayed surgical mask covering his
entire face except the eyes. Under one arm, he lugged an orange
plastic pumpkin. It looked plastic anyway, though parts of it
appeared to have been melted. And his eyes—something about the
eyes.

Sara stepped back several paces. Her initial
irritation turned to fear. The stranger’s eyes never blinked. She
watched, trying to control her breathing. The dull, staring eyes
didn’t waver; instead they remained fixed on her now perspiring
face. She quivered slightly as a dribble of sweat slid down her
neck. What the hell did this creep want? A fucking candle for his
ugly melted pumpkin.

“Excuse me…Miss.” The emotionless voice
caused Sara to jump. “I…just… needed…some…extra… surgical…gowns.
Got…a…special…case… on…Halloween.”

Sara remained silent. Who the fuck was this
clown? At the sound of his voice, though, her fear lessened
somewhat. Stepping closer, she saw he also had on a thin blue hair
net, the kind worn by personnel working around the operating rooms.
Sara stood quietly while she watched him bend over, set the pumpkin
down, and seize several scrubs from the basement floor. After a few
seconds, she decided this stranger meant her no harm. Probably just
a prankster.

Hesitating at first, Sara spoke. “Ah…I’m one
of the surgery students. I’m supposed to start tomorrow—just down
here getting my scrubs.”

Sara waited for a response. There was
none.

She cleared her throat. God, she had to get
out of here. “What’s that terrible smell?” she asked in
exasperation.

“What…smell…Miss?” Although the voice
sounded almost mechanical, Sara detected an underlying sinister
tone this time.
What smell!
She wanted to shout, but instead chose
to keep quiet. This bozo had either lost his sense of smell or his
marbles, or both. Whichever it was, Sara didn’t plan to wait around
and find out. He and his deformed pumpkin could go and frighten
someone upstairs if he thought this was so entertaining.

She could feel the stranger’s eyes on her as
she stepped toward him. As she neared the spot where he stood, the
vulgar stench increased in magnitude, leaving no doubt as to its
origin. She felt her knees begin to tremble. Yet the strange figure
remained quiet, never taking his cold stare from her. Sara did her
best to avoid his eyes. Looking toward the damaged pumpkin instead,
she took several rapid steps and rushed by.

Hyperventilating, she made a dash down the
hall. Pushing through the metal door, she ran up the inclined
passage out of McDermitt Building. She ignored the odd stares from
onlookers as she rushed down the hall past the cafeteria. Nearing
the closest exit, she began to slow her pace. Breathing deeply, a
feeling of relief flooded her senses as she stepped out into the
sunny California air.

Sara walked to a nearby concrete bench and
sat down. Glancing at her hands, she was not surprised to see them
still trembling. A group of nursing students, a few in witches’
garb, nodded to her as they strolled by. Wiping the residual
perspiration from her forehead, Sara returned the gesture and
forced a smile. Maybe she should loosen up some. After all,
Halloween was supposed to be fun. Next year, she decided, she would
wear a costume, maybe come to the clinics pretending to be a
ruptured appendix or gallbladder. Perfect since she was going to be
a surgeon.

The breeze tugged at her bangs clinging
against her moist skin. She suppressed the desire to massage her
throbbing temples. What a day, she thought in frustration as her
fear gradually subsided. Reaching for her pack, Sara now wondered
if she’d possibly misread her morning surgery schedule. She pulled
the folded memo out from amongst her books. Eyeing a list of about
twenty students’ names, it didn’t take her long to find what she
was looking for. Sure enough, there, printed near the bottom of the
page, was Sara McCaffe. And beside her name was a surgery case
scheduled at 6:30 a.m. in OR 13.

On October 31st.

* * *

Having gulped down a ham and cheese
sandwich, Sara retraced her steps down the hall to McDermitt
Building, this time ascending the flight of stairs leading into the
surgical suites.

Stepping into the second floor hallway, Sara
approached two drab gray doors festooned with Happy Halloween.
Under the pagan greeting, the words Operating Room stood out in
bold black lettering. Walking briskly she stepped through them into
McDermitt Surgical Suite.

Pausing to get her bearings, Sara’s
attention focused on one of the nearby surgical rooms, OR 5 she
thought it read. Two orderlies were busy transferring a patient to
the operating room table. Several others, the surgeons Sara
guessed, stood by the sink waiting to scrub in. Another doctor was
busy with the oxygen cart at the patient’s head. The hectic pace of
the entire scene acted on Sara’s adrenaline. She realized she’d be
in their places one day—if all went as planned.

After a moment of reflection, Sara turned
away from the ongoing scene and located the administrative nurses’
station. “Excuse me.”

The wrinkled gray-haired woman across the
counter remained attentive to a chart in front of her.

“Excuse me,” Sara persisted. “My name is
Sara McCaffe. I’m a new third year student.”

“And I’m Nurse Jenkins. What can I do for
you?” She set the chart aside.

Sara reached into her knapsack and pulled
out her copy of the AM surgery schedule. “Nurse Jenkins, according
to my schedule here, I’m supposed to be in Operating Room 13
tomorrow morning. Is this—”

“That can’t be right. Let me see that
sheet,” the craggy nurse cut in, reaching for the paper. “Miss
McCaffe, I don’t understand. It says right here OR 12, not OR 13.
Who told you OR 13?”

Sara opened her mouth to answer. However her
reply caught in her throat.

“God that odor,” she whispered.

“What?” The nurse sounded perturbed.

Sara didn’t care. Looking around, she failed
to see anything unusual, though. The door to OR 5 was closed and
besides the old administrator and herself, the only other person in
the area was a tall masked orderly in surgical greens standing
motionless next to an oxygen tank a ways down the hall. Was he
watching her? She glanced away. To her dismay, though, she could
find nothing to explain the faint but unmistakable scent of
dead tissue.
Sara’s gaze darted back to Nurse Jenkins. The elderly lady’s eyes
were fixed on her.

“Ms. Jenkins?” Sara started before clearing
her throat. “Do you smell anything odd?”‘

“No, why do you ask?”

“I don’t know. It’s just that…well, I just
got the whiff of something like…ah…decaying tissue.”

The old nurse grinned wryly. “You can do
better than that for Halloween.”

“I wasn’t joking.”

Sara glanced back down the hall of the
surgical suite but saw no one. The orderly had vanished, along with
the oxygen tank. She sniffed again. The vile smell had faded, too.
She stood in silence, a puzzled look on her face.

“Now, Miss McCaffe. Let’s get back to your
schedule.”

“Sure,” Sara responded, her mind still
clouded with the uncanny odor.

The wrinkled nurse continued. “As I was
saying, your schedule is correct. Just show up on time tomorrow at
OR 12 and your case will go as planned.

“What?” Sara questioned, reaching across the
counter for the schedule.

“I said you will be in OR 12.”

With a confused look, Sara examined the
Xeroxed copy carefully. She paused. Sure enough, next to her name
was OR 12. She scratched at her neck. This was really getting
weird. Folding the schedule, she returned it to her pack.

“I could’ve sworn it said 13,” Sara yielded,
stepping away from the counter.

Without smiling, Jenkins spoke. “You’re just
nervous about tomorrow. Others in the past have been the same way.
Every year we lose one.”

“What do you mean?”

“Lose one—a student drops out, fails, quits,
goes loony. The stress of medical school breaks some of them.”

Sara forced a smile. “Well, that’s not me.
Oh, one more question. Why don’t they use OR 13?”

Already clutching another chart in her
hands, Nurse Jenkins replied, “They rarely use OR 13 anymore,
especially on Halloween.”

“Why?”

“The medical center has other operating
rooms that don’t carry that…stigma.”

“I’m not following you. Are you alluding to
the fire that happened a long time ago?”

The nurse wouldn’t look at her as she
perused a patient’s admit note. “The accident, yes, but more
because of superstition, I suspect, than anything else. Surgeons
prefer not to operate where some of the medical staff burned to
death.”

* * *

An unexplainable blanket of apprehension
hung over Sara as she wound her way out of the medical school
complex and over to the library. Several things were on her mind.
How could she have misread her surgery schedule? Something was not
right. She didn’t make mental errors like that. And then that damn
dead
odor.
Why was it only her that seemed to notice it?

The ten minute walk in the early evening air
helped clear Sara’s head. Gazing at some of the brighter stars in
the dusky sky, she wished Halloween were already here and gone.
Then she’d be through with her first case and she’d know what to
expect.

“To hell with it,” she finally sighed as she
stepped up to the library entrance. Positioned on a wood planter
sat two big orange pumpkins, their crudely cut-out eyes staring at
her. She stuck her tongue out at the largest one and went
inside.

“Hello, Erma,” Sara smiled. The
buffalo-humped librarian was busy shelving some books when Sara
entered. Erma had been with the medical school for ages, it
seemed.

“Evening, Sara. You doing okay?” the bent
librarian inquired, standing as straight as her arthritic spine
would allow.

“Start my surgery rotation tomorrow. Got my
first case in the morning.”

“Uh-oh. Long hours.” Erma sounded concerned
as she went back to shelving.

“Well, it shouldn’t be too bad. You know
that’s what I plan to do—surgery.”

“That’s great. A real-life surgeon,” Erma
smiled.

“Yep.” Suddenly a thought entered Sara’s
mind. “Erma, how long have you been working here at the
hospital?”

“Years, Sara.” She paused. “This library
used to be over in old McDermitt Building, you know. Right where
the anatomy and biochem labs are now.”

“Really?”

“Yes ma’am.”

Sara remained silent a moment, her mind
working. “Erma, you don’t happen to know anything about an accident
in one of the old surgery rooms some years back?”

Erma leaned back against one of the
bookshelves, taking some of her weight off her feet. “You don’t
mean that terrible Halloween fire, do you?”

“What happened?”

“Sara, dear, it was God-awful.” Erma looked
solemn. “If I remember correctly, back then one of the operating
rooms was used to treat psychiatric patients.”

“Psych patients?” Sara wavered.

“Used to take the really crazy ones up there
for, what do you call it…shock treatment? Anyway, it was on a
Halloween. They don’t really know what happened, but they think
someone had turned the oxygen on and a short in one of the
electrodes ignited the tank. Kaboom! The entire room became a
raging furnace.”

Sara purposely tried to slow her breathing.
“Any survivors?” she asked, trying her best to hide her angst.

“Are you kidding? The devil himself would
have burned in that inferno. It was so unfortunate. We lost two
doctors, both nurses, and oh that poor patient. Supposedly, he’d
once been an orderly here, but was dismissed when a med student
reported him for starting a fire in one of the hospital rooms. He
was being treated for pyromania and severe schizophrenia.”

“How terrible.”

“What’s past is past.” The librarian patted
Sara’s arm. “Study hard, dear.”

“I will.” But the throbbing in Sara’s head
had returned.

* * *