Page 89 of Dead & Breakfast
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 toinjured 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 glancedown 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.
Arthur heaved a sigh. That would be a point in his favor, if he could get McMartin to listen. A true vampire bite would have seen Brody through a torturous transformation as the curse took hold. Arthur had lived it himself, and then died from it. While he wouldn’t trade his undeath with Salvatore for the world, Arthur had no pleasant memories of his own death. It had been drawn out and painful and not at all how he’d imagined it. If Brody died now, he wouldn’t awaken. It would be a tragedy still, but one the FPI couldn’t possibly blame him for. He hoped.
“I don’t suppose you could conveniently wake up now?” Arthur asked, the sound of his own voice against the metronome of Brody’s heart monitor an almost haunting echo in the uniquely sterile quiet of the hospital. “I’d really like to ask you some questions.”
Brody gave no response. He was an unconscious boy, not a hungry mouse, after all. Arthur picked up Brody’s chart, hoping to decipher something, then the door to the hall opened.
“Oh, excuse me, Doctor, I didn’t expect you here.” Trip Youngstood in the doorway, hands in the pockets of his khakis, a weary facade molded to his face. “Is there any change?”
Arthur’s mind went blank. This man standing in front of him was a murderer. He’d tried to kill his own son and would try again. Young might not recognize Arthur because of the mask and scrubs, but he’d know his voice. Arthur needed to sound like a stranger. He needed to sound like a doctor.
“Visiting hours are over, I’m afraid.” The words escaped his lips in a British accent.
Wrong type of doctor, Arthur chided himself. His panic had supplied him with one idea: Doctor Who, who wasn’t even a medical doctor. But at least the accent worked to disguise his voice.
“I’m his father,” Young said, annoyed. “Who are you?”
Don’t say Doctor Who, Arthur thought, before opening his mouth and blurting, “Dr.Why—” Arthur cleared his throat. “Dr.Weissman.”
“You weren’t the one I spoke to before,” Young said.
“I suppose you’re familiar with the concept of shifts?” Arthur said before he could stop himself. Ah, well. Perhaps Dr.Weissman, in addition to recently moving here from the UK, was also rude. Yes, yes, he was in a bad mood because he was getting a divorce and the paperwork was taking forever, plus the cafeteria had his least favorite flavor of Jell-O. Sal would probably suggest Dr.Weissman was caught in a love triangle with an orderly and a janitor, but Arthur rather thought his alter ego was too busy to juggle extra paramours—besides, none of that really mattered unless Dr.Young asked, and really, why would he?
“I want to know how my son is doing,” Young replied, crossing his arms.
“He’s the same.” Arthur glanced over the chart, all the words utterly meaningless to him, but he hoped it looked convincing.
“Why are you here?” Dr.Young asked.
“I could ask the same of you, as visiting hours are over. The patient needs his rest—”
“He’s in a coma; he’s already resting!” Young’s voice rose in volume with each word. “I’m not leaving. But you should.”
Arthur would do nothing of the sort. “You’re being very belligerent, sir, and ignoring hospital policy.”
“Are you serious? I’m his father. Visiting hours don’t apply to me!”
Arthur supposed if Brody were only sleeping, he’d have woken up by now from the racket. Besides, Dr.Young was bound to attract attention like this and Arthur very much preferred to avoid discovery at this stage. He needed more proof of Dr.Young’s ill intentions than just his hunch.
“And I’m to take your word for it?” Arthur asked, trying to sound as flippant as Salvatore might have, but only managing to transform his British accent into a vaguely Scottish one. “You could be anyone.”
