D. Schmidt - They Ate the Waitress?

“You can always trust me. But I have to know you’re going to take better care of yourself. You need to be more careful! I work so hard at getting close to someone. If you’re not going to be around for a while, what’s the point?”

He wanted to say something more, but his mouth wouldn’t open. “If you show someone your scars,” he thought, “there is always a risk that they might be disgusted and look away. Even worse, they might pretend that their skin is perfect.” Gently, slowly, he pulled away from her. “I wonder what’s on TV.”

The next morning, a strange noise jolted Nick from his dreams. It sounded as if someone were vacuuming, but there was no one in the room. “Must be in the hall,” he thought. “Probably have a cleaning robot set on a timer. I should go out there and tell them to shut the damn thing off… or at least send in a robot that makes coffee.” He felt strangely lightheaded. Groggily, he climbed out of his bed and slipped on his thin, blue hospital gown, closing it tightly against the cold. The door refused to open; the knob wouldn’t even turn. “Why the hell is this door locked?” He banged on the door and shouted. “Is this the psych ward? I’m not crazy! I just have intimacy issues!”

Nothing.

He crossed the room and pounded the nurse call button hanging by his bed. No response. The strange sound grew louder, the walls rumbling like distant thunder. He scoured the room, searching for the source of the noise. There was a strong draft coming from the vents near the bed. Oddly, both the return vent and supply vent were sucking in air.

He decided to try the window. Pulling back the curtains, he discovered that it had been sealed shut. A hard, white substance coated the edges of the frame, some sort of industrial adhesive. “The door’s probably glued shut with the same stuff. An air-tight seal. Whoever did this wants me to suffocate! Well, I’d better get out of here before the lack of oxygen damages my… skull meat.”

He hurled the chair at the window. It bounced off harmlessly, clattering to the floor. Shatterproof security glass. Probably installed to keep uninsured patients from climbing out the window to escape their bills, the old “recuperate and run.”

He threw open the closet doors and grabbed his coat. Hospital security had taken his laser stunner, as not even manhunters were allowed to bring weapons into a hospital. (Crossbows were okay, as long as you promised not to take them to the pediatrics ward.) He did, however, have his trusty pocket knife. He attacked the seal around the window, chipping at the industrial adhesive. It was like trying to dig through cement with a spoon.

His head throbbed. “Well, I’m screwed. I should hide in the closet, so when someone opens the door, my corpse will fall out dramatically.”

He noticed a yellow tube on the floor. “Looks like the killer left behind his sealant gun. There’s one last thing I can try…” He climbed onto the bed and sprayed the vent with adhesive. A few quick blasts sealed it shut. He stepped off the bed and sat on the floor. “I’m still trapped in here, but I won’t suffocate. Not yet, anyway. I must have a good ten minutes of air left.” Safe for the moment, he decided it would be a good time to lose consciousness.

He awoke to discover the hospital’s elderly custodian jabbing him in the ribs with a broom handle. Next to the man was a janitorial robot, a humming, buzzing thing resembling a chrome-plated fire hydrant. The robot nudged Nick in the shoulder, trying to get him to move so it could polish the floor. “What the hell do you think you’re doing with that sealant gun?” the custodian demanded. “I’m trying to clean the hospital, and you idiots are gluing your damn doors shut! I had to cut through the door with a saw! What the hell is wrong with you, boy?”

“Sorry,” Nick said slowly, his head pounding. “Don’t know what I was thinking. Won’t happen again.” Still feeling very ill, he decided that, if the attempts on his life were to continue, he would much rather be murdered in the comfort of his own home. He grabbed his suitcase and left the custodian to his duties. Stepping into the hall, he saw that an industrial vacuum had been attached to the ventilation system with duct tape. It seemed the janitor had switched it off just in time.

He made a transmission to Sophia and asked her to drive him home. “The doctor said I’m fine,” he lied. “He that said near-fatal drug overdoses aren’t that serious, what with modern medicine and all. Just need some vitamin C, a little Echinacea, a couple doses of methadone… ”

Waiting outside, he wondered just how big his hospital bill was going to be. “Why did The White Horse have to call an ambulance? Couldn’t they just have left me on the floor?” He sighed glumly. He could already feel his money pouch getting lighter. “Well, things could be worse. Death may be the cheapest of my healthcare options, but it does come with some unpleasant side-effects.”

He sat at his kitchen table with a cup of coffee, going over his notes. Sophia was asleep on his couch.

“I should investigate Donald Canard,” he thought, adding more sugar to his coffee. “I have to find out what Gordon told him. Also, it looks like Clayton is finally out of town. Hopefully, he took that damn dog with him. If I can get around his security system, I’ll finally have a chance to search his place undisturbed. But first, I have to get back on the horse.”

He waited until nightfall and then, reluctantly, he returned to The White Horse. “It’s hard to look confident walking into a place that almost killed you a few days ago. Maybe this is a bad idea after all. If someone is trying to kill me, perhaps it’s better to give him his space, just until he calms down. Maybe send him a nice fruit basket, those fancy soaps no one’s allowed to touch…” He grabbed a passing waitress by the shoulder. “Where’s Faith?”

“What’s that, honey?” she asked, wiping her hands on her sauce-stained apron.

“I need to find Faith.”

“Have you tried Mormonism?”

“Faith is one of your needle girls,” he explained impatiently. “She was here last night. Black dress, blond hair, voice like a porn star.”

“Oh, her. She’s not in t’night. I think it’s her and her boyfriend’s anniversary. They been goin’ out for three years now, but what she see in that boy I’ll never know.”

“Were you here last night? Did you see her talk to me?”

“Why?” she asked suspiciously.

“Something bad happened, and I need help remembering the details.”

The waitress laughed. “Hon, somethin’ bad happen ‘tween you and her, you better off forgettin’. Just go to the free clinic and get tested.”

“You said she had a boyfriend,” he said. “What’s his name?”

“Don. Don somethin’.”

“Canard?”

“No, thanks, I just ate.” She adjusted her apron, tightening the strings. “Anyways, I hope you find your gal. I gotta get back to work.”

“So,” he thought, “Donald Canard had his girlfriend try to kill me. He knows that I’m getting close to something, and he’s starting to panic. – Wait a minute! How the hell do they know what I look like? Do the people at Scunner Consulting know I’m investigating them? Both times I visited their offices I was in a disguise, so they should have no idea who I am. There is only one person connected to Scunner Consulting who knows the real me: Gabrielle Fairbanks. I’ll come back to The White Horse another day, when Faith is working.”

He felt too tired to drive, so he switched on the autopilot and had the navigation system take him to Gabrielle’s place. The computer decided to take the scenic route, which meant slightly nicer billboards.