Page 9 of Lights Out

We were in the middle of a mini lull, not uncommon so late at night, and I was curled up in a breakroom chair, trying to get comfortable as I downed another cup of coffee. My shift was only halfway over, and if the second leg of my night progressed like the first, I’d need all the caffeine I could get to keep me going.

Tanya swept into the room and strode right to the window, so focused as she stared into the night sky that I didn’t think she’dnoticed me. “And it isn’t even a goddamn full moon,” she said under her breath.

I straightened in my chair. “So, it’s not just my patients?”

She turned my way and shook her head, her long braids falling over her shoulder. “No. Something’s gotten into this city tonight.”

We shared a troubled glance and then looked away from each other. Things like this happened sometimes, odd patterns emerging that made me think humans were more connected than we realized. One week, we might see a spike in car crash victims without anything like bad weather or traffic to explain the uptick. The next, we could get more domestic assault victims than usual, and the one after that, more gunshot wounds.

Tanya and I had talked about it a couple of times, wondering if humans shared some kind of hive mind, or if it had something to do with magnetic currents or our subconsciousness’s all picking up the same subtle signals from the world around us.

I’d even mentioned it to one of the cops who regularly got stationed here, and instead of thinking I was a weirdo, he’d agreed with me, telling me he and his coworkers saw something similar. They’d get a slew of people who had almost no traceable connection to each other committing virtually the same crime one week. The next, it would be a new group doing something else.

I’d told Tanya about it afterward, and we’d both been so freaked out that now we avoided the subject altogether, as if bringing it up might trigger a new wave of weirdness.

“How was Brinley?” I asked. Tanya had worked with her the night before, keeping an eye on her like I had the night before that.

Tanya pushed away from the window and went to the coffee maker. “Good. Thank god. I think you’re right, and she’ll be able to stick it out. That first bad night just threw her.”

“Nothing like a baptism by fire to test someone’s mettle,” I said.

Tanya finished pouring her coffee and turned toward me, leaning her hip against the counter as she took her first sip. “It wouldn’t have been so bad if we had more people to split patients between.”

I perked up at that. “Speaking of, are you going to that job fair next month?” The hospital regularly put up booths at high school job fairs and local recruitment events in an effort to lure more people into nursing fields. Few would end up working here, but we saw any increase in numbers as a win.

Tanya nodded. “Wanna come with? It counts as a shift, and you might see some daylight for once.” She eyed me over the rim of her mug, one brow rising. “You’re looking pretty pasty lately.”

I rolled my eyes. “I hope your sales pitch at the fair is better than that.”

She snorted. “You in or not? Don’t make me take someone like Donna.”

We both grimaced. Donna was one of the nurses who’d been in here with Brinley last week. She had a terrible bedside manner and no natural instincts for caretaker work. Bringing her to a recruitment fair was more likely to drive people away from our career field than toward it.

“Yeah, I’ll go,” I said.

Tanya let out a relieved breath and took another sip of coffee.

Silence fell between us, but it was a comfortable one we both settled into. Some nights, we’d sit and chat between patients, sharing gossip. Others were like this, both of us stuck in our heads, just trying to catch our breath in the middle of a rough shift.

Tanya’s pager beeped on her hip, and she swore under her breath as she checked it. “Lab results,” she said, downing the dregs of her coffee before striding out of the room.

I checked my pager as she left. I was waiting on bloodwork for two patients myself, and it was surprising mine hadn’t beeped at me yet. Maybe I could bribe my lab tech friend, Vern, to bump me up in her queue.

The date at the top of my pager caught my eye, and I straightened in my seat. Today was Thursday. That meant a new video from the Faceless Man. He posted every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday like clockwork. How the fuck had I forgotten?

I dove out of my chair toward my locker. To have the breakroom to myself was a minor miracle, and I wouldn’t miss my chance to watch the new video in peace.

“Come on,” I muttered as I turned the dial on my lock with impatient fingers. The door could open at any second, and then this opportunity would be over, and I’d have to wait until the next lull or the end of my shift to watch it.

I opened the lock and grabbed my phone out of my purse. My fingers flew as I pulled it close, tapping my favorite social media icon and going straight to the search bar. His creator page filled my screen a heartbeat later, and warmth flooded my body as I saw the familiar video covers of him in various poses and stages of undress.

Damn, the man was fine.

My breathing picked up as I stared down at my phone, nipples peaking beneath my scrubs. I was like a Pavlovian dog for him, but instead of drooling over the anticipation of food, I got wet somewhere else over the expectation of pleasure. This couldn’t be normal – my knee-jerk reaction to him, like I was primed and ready to go after the merest glimpse at his page. I needed to stop masturbating to his videos because being this turned on this quickly was starting to be a problem. Especially right now, when there was no time to relieve my sudden need, and I’d be left aching with thoughts of him for the rest of the night.

I probably should have put the phone down and watched the thirst trap later, preferably in the solitude of my bedroom where I had easy access to a vibrator, but there went my finger, opening the latest video as if it had a mind of its own. It must be a good one because it had only been posted a few hours ago and already had over a hundred thousand views.

I pulled the phone closer and watched as a haunting song started to play. All I saw was darkness until the camera panned upward, revealing the Faceless Man’s mask lying flat on something. The camera panned more, and – holy shit! It was lying on a bed, and I had that same comforter!

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