Chapter 23
As Arthur ran toward the hospital, he almost expected flashing red and blue lights and a SWAT team to descend upon him or something comparably dramatic, but this was Trident Falls.
No doubt the deputy would call McMartin, but Arthur had a head start.
It would take a miracle for the sheriff to mobilize quickly enough to stop him.
Plus, as Arthur’s legs carried him toward the hospital, he found his steps lighter and faster.
It was as if his feet barely brushed the earth and…
perhaps that was the case. After all, it was night, and his other powers had already started to prove active and useful.
Getting to the hospital was easy, but getting in and finding Brody Young’s room, well after visiting hours were over, wasn’t so simple.
The hospital in Trident Falls was at the edge of town, its bright lights flooding the area no matter the hour.
Arthur paused by the main entrance, searching the signage for a clue.
On the glass covering the blessedly empty, and sadly locked, lobby was a sticker sporting black-and-white shapes inside a square—a QR code, Salvatore had once called it.
In this moment and this moment only, Arthur wished he’d given in and let Salvatore buy him a smartphone.
If he had one, he could at least call someone for help, though he wasn’t sure whom he’d call.
Salvatore was long gone, and while Nora was acting mayor, she might not have enough sway with McMartin to get him to believe her.
Arthur turned away from the main entrance. It was late enough that he’d be noticed skulking around all the normal entry points. There had to be a better way inside. He was a vampire, after all, and a very resourceful one at that.
Lapping the outside of the building, Arthur spied the automatic doors of the emergency room entrance, and through them a bored-looking attendant behind a desk.
That wouldn’t do—for once, Arthur didn’t want to make small talk.
Instead, he looked for a back entrance. Voices floated to him along with the cloying scent of an artificial fruit flavor.
Keeping to the shadows, he paused and spotted three hospital employees in mismatched scrubs talking near the back door.
One of them held a vape pen, exhaling a sickly sweet vapor into the air.
Arthur wrinkled his nose. He’d never been much for smoking or smoking-adjacent activities, but if one was to indulge, he was a firm believer in pipes.
They had a sort of classic charm to them.
Besides, Sherlock Holmes used one, and Arthur was reluctant to criticize anything the great Sherlock Holmes endorsed, fictional though he might be.
“Really gruesome head wound on the second floor,” said one of them.
“No way. I saw him come in. Barely had a concussion,” said the one with the vape pen. “You’ll have to do better than that, Carl.”
Arthur crouched behind a Volkswagen Bug in the parking lot to observe.
He couldn’t enter without being noticed by the employees enjoying their break.
Then again, maybe being seen wasn’t so bad—he could ask for directions.
One of them was bound to know what room Brody Young was in, and it was dark enough that they might not recognize him as a vampire.
Perhaps he could even warn them directly of the danger to Brody’s life. Someone had to protect that boy.
“The guy in twelve sneezed earlier and blew his stitches. That was kinda gross,” said another wearing a surgical mask.
The first one, Carl, groaned. “I hate it when that happens.”
“Neither of those beats mine. Face it, kid bitten by vampire is the weirdest case we’ve had all week.” Vape pen held out his other hand, flashing a grin Arthur could see all the way from his hiding spot. “Pay up!”
The other two slapped money into his hand.
“One of these days I’ll get assigned to a cool paranormal case,” said surgical mask.
“You’re scared of your own shadow, man. They’re never letting you on the third floor.”
As Arthur debated his next move, the hospital employees made for the entrance, their break over.
It was now or never. A life was on the line.
The employees entered the building, leaving the door to slowly close behind them.
Arthur darted forward, using all his vampiric speed, and thrust his hand into the gap just before the door shut.
He heaved a sigh and pried it open a sliver so he could peek inside.
The hallway was a symphony of depressing off-white with blue accents.
Carts of supplies lined one side of it, and plain wooden doors were scattered along the walls.
The employees on their break retreated down the hall, engrossed in conversation about some doctor who was getting a divorce.
Arthur didn’t bother to listen to their gossip any further, though he could practically sense Salvatore’s disappointment as he slipped inside and let the door close softly behind him.
If he was going to sneak through the hospital without being caught, he’d need a good disguise.
A smile snuck unbidden onto his face at the prospect of Salvatore’s reaction.
Sal would be devastated to learn Arthur had gone undercover without him.
Well, if Sal wanted in on the action, he could’ve stayed.
Arthur grabbed a mask and a pair of gloves from the cart, then crept forward. Hospitals went through a lot of sheets and scrubs, so it would have its own laundry facility, likely tucked far away from the main part of the building to minimize the noise.
There was no time to waste. Arthur searched quickly for a stairwell, then descended to the basement level, terribly pleased to find his conjecture had paid off.
There were plenty of scrubs in various stages of laundering.
He briefly considered taking a set fresh from the dryer—oh how he loved the scent of fresh clothes and the heat usually so absent from his cool, undead skin—but he found the large washers and dryers too confusing to operate himself.
In the end, he took a set of folded blue scrubs from a pile and stashed his own clothes in a hamper beneath a mysteriously stained sheet.
There was no mirror to check his disguise, not that he’d show up in the reflection anyway, so he had to hope with his mask and gloves he looked like he belonged here.
Arthur raced back to the ground level. He ducked behind a door when he heard two nurses talking.
Their conversation—something about Jell-O flavors—echoed down to him, punctuated by the loud opening and closing of a door one story above.
When at last there was only silence, Arthur extracted himself from the stairwell and back to the stairs.
“Third floor,” he muttered to himself as he climbed, remembering what the employees had said about the vampire-bitten patient there.
Perhaps there was a dedicated section of the hospital for paranormal-related injuries…
or perhaps it was dedicated to injured or sick paranormals themselves.
The idea of separating them from the rest of the patients like they were dangerous or contagious left a bad taste in Arthur’s mouth, but then again that might have been the lackluster dinner the sheriff’s office had provided him.
He ascended the stairs but found himself at a dead end only two floors up.
That was odd, certainly. He exited the stairwell at the second floor and made his way down the hall.
He encountered a few other hospital staff as he went, but no one challenged him.
They all avoided his gaze, in fact, as if hoping if they didn’t look at him, he wouldn’t look at them.
A time-honored tradition among the overworked; Arthur knew this tactic well.
He’d used it copiously during his previous life as a peon at a marketing firm, preferring to keep his head down as he accomplished precisely the amount of work he was required to do and no more.
Eventually, Arthur found the elevator, which did indeed have a button labeled with the number 3.
It let out in an almost identical hallway to the second floor, only this was much less populated.
There were no doctors, nurses, or other hospital staff lurking in the hallway, and there were only half a dozen rooms. It seemed this floor had been added on top as an afterthought.
The stairs were on the far side of the building and wouldn’t reach this section of the hospital even if they did go up high enough.
Arthur peered into a few empty rooms before finding Brody’s.
It was dark but for lit-up monitors showing incomprehensible numbers, machines ticking along silently.
Brody lay in a bed at the center of the room, quietly slumbering.
His chest moved up and down in a regular rhythm, but his eyes were shut.
Arthur’s shoulders relaxed immediately. Relief shuddered through him in waves, and he had to reach out a hand to stabilize himself on the doorframe to stay upright.
With a quick glance down the empty hall, he slipped into the room.
If Arthur was right about Trip Young, Brody’s father would be along shortly, and he wouldn’t need a disguise to get in.
Doctors and nurses wouldn’t hesitate to leave the man alone with his son, and then he’d have the chance to kill Brody and make it look like something had gone wrong.
Natural causes. Maybe even supernatural ones.
Arthur crept closer to the bed and glanced at the closest monitor, which displayed heart rate and blood pressure.
The teenager lay motionless, eyes closed, bandages affixed to his neck to cover the wound there.
His cheeks were pale but still pink, his complexion distinctly lacking the sickly hue of the vampiric curse draining life before replacing it with undeath.
He looked, if not particularly healthy, at least still alive.