This Rotten World (Book 1) by The Vocabulariast Read Free Book Online Page A

nurse
and Clara helped the helpless Courtney into the chair, while Clara apologized
and said, "He didn't even drink that much." Clara followed with a
growing sense of dread as they wheeled him back into the E.R. proper.
    They sat in
a room with a sheet around it and machinery seemingly stationed haphazardly. The
nurse began asking questions with all of the interest of a robot, "So you
say your husband was bit?"
    "Uhh,
yes, but he's not my husb..."
    "And
how did he get bit?" the nurse asked as she futzed with a wireless
keyboard and stared at a computer screen.
    "We
were at a punk concert, and this guy, he umm, well, he bit him on the
face."
    The nurse
started typing information into the keyboard, so Clara continued speaking,
"He was fine when we left."
    "Has
he been drinking?" the nurse asked rudely.
    Clara,
somewhat taken aback, answered truthfully, and the nurse just nodded her head,
as if that explained everything.
    "Listen.
When we left the club he was fine, just bleeding from his face. He wasn't like
this when we left."
    The nurse
listened punctiliously, but it was clear that she had already decided that
Courtney was just another person who had overdone it. From her days of pink
hair, pierced eyebrows, and fishnet stockings, she knew the look of instant
judgment when she saw it. She also knew it was pointless to explain ignorance
from a perceived position of inferiority. She just hoped that whoever the
doctor was didn't have the same problem, or else she would have to fix the
problem the way she did in the old days... with a fresh set of bony girl
knuckles upside the bridge of a nose.
    "I'll
just take his blood pressure, and then the doctor will be in to see you."
The nurse leaned in close to put the blood pressure cuff on Courtney's arm, and
that's when he came awake. For the first time, his eyes seemed to focus, and as
the nurse went to tighten the blood pressure cuff, he grabbed her hand, pulled
it to his mouth, and took a meaty chunk from between her thumb and index
finger.
    The nurse's
screams were immediate. She pushed Courtney away, and he and the wheelchair he
was sitting in rolled into the curtain that separated the rooms. His arms began
to flail, and he became entangled in the curtain.
    Clara rose
to her feet, concerned for the nurse, for Courtney, and slightly for herself.
"Are you ok?" she asked the nurse.
    The nurse
held her hand away from her body as blood splashed on the white linoleum floor.
"Does it look like I'm ok?" she spat at Clara. "Fuck."
    Just then a
male nurse came around the corner. "What the hell is going on in
here?"
    Courtney
had finally gotten to his feet and freed himself from the hanging curtain.
Clara went towards him to try and calm him down, but she took a step back when
she saw the complete lack of recognition in his eyes. She didn't know who that
was, but it wasn't Courtney. It wasn't the same guy who used to steal car
stereos from unlocked cars at 2:30 in the morning. It wasn't the same guy who
had held her for days when her mom had died. The man in front of her was a
savage creature.
    The male
nurse blocked Courtney just as he was about to attack Clara. The veins in the
nurse's forearms stood out as he wrestled with Curtney. Eventually, the nurse
flipped Courtney around and tripped him to the ground. "Molly, get some
Haldol in this guy."
    Courtney
continued to wrestle with the nurse, his teeth gnashing and clicking together
in bites that would be sure to take off a finger if the nurse wasn't too
careful. Molly opened up drawers feverishly until she found what she was
looking for. She pulled a syringe out of another drawer, stuck it in a vial of
clear liquid and filled it.
    "What
are you doing?" Clara asked.
    After
squirting out the air bubbles, she plunged the syringe into Courtney's arm.
"Don't worry, doll. We're just sedating him."
    There was
nothing she could do. She just hoped it would take effect quickly so that
Courtney didn't wind up hurting himself. They waited, but Courtney