Nightshifted

player skittering across the floor. I picked it up as the dragon lurched toward the bathroom.

“Hey!” I jumped up and waved my arms to get the dragon’s attention. It ignored me completely. “Hey, damn you—hey!” I threw the CD player at the dragon. It sailed end over end, like an oversized pill. The dragon snapped it out of midair and gulped it down. “Stop this! You have got to stop!”

At long last, the fire sprinklers went on, pouring down rust-laden water. I sputtered and edged back toward the bathroom. “You have got to stop this now!” The dragon paused and sat back on its haunches. I waited, and it waited—maybe I was getting through! I took a step forward, repeating myself. “I’m Edie Spence. I’m an official noncombatant. You’re not allowed to hurt me. You need to stop this.” The dragon bowed its mighty head. My heart raced. Was this a victory?

The light that I could see so clearly in its belly was moving higher now, like rising mercury on a summer day. It pulled its head down to rest on its own chest and I saw the light inside its stomach rise up into its neck.

I should have recognized the expression. Lord knows I’d seen enough patients puke.

“Fuck.” I cast my glowing badge up in front of my face, fully expecting my illuminated employee number to be the last thing I’d ever see.

And then the German began. I didn’t know what Grandfather was saying, but he was pissed. The German rose in tone and intent, louder and louder in volume, until it became more frightening than the dragon’s roar, even though it too was coming from inside the dragon. It became louder than any concert or club I’d ever been at, each syllable reverberating in my chest—I could feel it change the course of my beating heart.

The dragon opened its mouth as I heard one last Germanic battle cry.

By the light of its own belly, the dragon ruptured. It split at the seams—legs, stomach, spine—and chunks of hot dragon flesh flew outward, sizzling as they touched the water raining down. A large piece caught me in my chest and knocked me on my ass. I could hear dragon pieces land with wet smacks across the room, and a stench worse than from any rectal tube rose up. I was covered in dragon meat, green scales, pink bone, charred flesh—the room was slimed with it, the crib, the teddy bears, Shawn’s bed, the bags of Doritos. I had to fight to keep myself from gagging.

In the middle of all the chaos and gore, the melted CD player’s power light glowed a baleful low-battery yellow before finally winking out. I crawled through the muck over to it.

“What—how?” I picked it up and shook it. From my vantage point on the floor I could see people walking toward the rooms, past the curtains, outside.

And then the cavalry arrived.

They weren’t dust bunnies after all.

Spots on the ground that were shaded by monitors, desks, and chunks of dragon meat started moving. Anywhere darkness pooled it gathered and grew, tendrils of black snaking along the ground. The Shadows—the protectors of the hospital, the ones I’d heard stories about but had never had occasion to see—were here at last.

A heat-popped soda can spun in small circles near my foot, like a firework going out—the Shadows covered this in passing, and it disappeared. A sheet of them formed where the curtains darkened the floor, and I saw them merging on the walls in between the light strobes. A group of them started pooling in my shadow, and I grabbed for my badge instinctively. They ignored me, washing around me and through-underneath- over the bathroom door, which opened without a turning of the handle or a loosing of the lock, and pulled out one shell-shocked charge nurse and my two respiratorily compromised patients. They appeared frozen in time and space, stiff like mannequins, hoisted into the middle of the room on a wave of black. The fire-alarm light stopped and the sprinklers ceased. I watched while all around me they washed over every surface, cleaning it, like demented fairies from a children’s tale, where the price of clean dishes and fresh linen was blood. I didn’t know what they did to the dragon’s remains—did they incinerate it? Eat it? But the hole in the wall sealed up after their passage, and a reunited mattress emerged from underneath a separate slick of black. They replaced Shawn and the baby in their respective beds, and surged the charge nurse out-through-between the closed glass doors back to the desk outside. I peeked at the clock, half expecting them to wind back time too. And then they were done, except for—

“Oh, no—” I backed away from the pool of them growing at my feet. But I was the last thing that needed to be cleaned. I gasped as they lapped up, colder than ice, crawling down inside my socks, rolling up against my skin beneath my scrubs, to pull themselves toward my scalp, submerging me completely in their dark.

In a second I was nowhere. I was no one. No—I was me, but I was suddenly aware of how inconsequential being me was. I didn’t matter, nothing I would do would ever matter, I would eat, breathe, and shit just like everything else on this planet, but nothing would ever have a consequence. I was worthless, my small life utterly bereft of meaning, and when I died, I would die alone. I gasped like I’d been punched in the stomach, and then they began to let me go.

I caught the baby’s crib to stay standing, and leaned against it, wishing I could undo … undo … everything, really. From the beginning. Just everything at all.

Then they receded like a tide of La Brea tar, holding just as many bones, leaving me with honest dark. I stood in the middle of my reconstituted room, with my two living patients, and a set of memories that were mine alone. I looked out through my now open curtains and the charge nurse down the hall waved cheerfully at me. I waved weakly back.

Then I slumped down into my chair, hidden by the computer desk, and put my head between my knees. The intercom clicked on above. “The fire drill is now over. Thank you for your participation.”

You’re welcome, I suppose, I thought. It was a long while before I sat upright again.

Chapter Sixteen

Everyone stuck around to hear my story in the locker room hallway that morning. I told it as quickly as I could, except for the part where the Shadows had submerged me, which I didn’t share at all. Charles nodded knowingly, Gina hung on my every word, and Meaty was, well, Meaty.

“You did all right, all things considered,” Meaty said.

I snorted. “I didn’t want to die roasted to death in a bathroom, all things considered.”

“They should have been faster,” Charles said, his thin lips forming a frown. “It shouldn’t have been that close.”

“Maybe the emergency room was busy tonight?” Gina suggested.

“It shouldn’t have even happened,” Meaty said. “They should have caught and contained him down here to begin with.”

“No, they should have—” Charles began, in a vehement tone. I waved my hand in among all of them to cut off further debate.

“So—what happens now? I’m not worried about the baby, but Shawn, and the charge nurse—what about them?” Had the Shadows touched them like I’d been touched? They didn’t seem changed when I’d left—but how could any change in reality manage to be so complete?

“The Shadows took care of it,” Meaty said, with a half shrug.

That wasn’t really an answer and I thought Meaty knew it. “Like they took care of me?” I looked down at my badge. What would I have done if Shawn’s grandfather’s crazy-ass ghost hadn’t been around? I’d have died, that’s what. And it wouldn’t have mattered, and no one would have cared. The adrenaline I’d been running on ebbed and I leaned back exhaustedly against the bathroom door. Meaty clapped my shoulder with one mighty hand.

“You’re tired. Get some rest. Charge nurse orders.”

Gina nodded. “We’ll see you when you come back on.”

“All right.” I gulped and nodded and opened the bathroom door. I closed it behind me and stood in front of the mirror as I heard them leave the hall, still chatting among themselves. Then I heard one polite knock.

“I’m in here!” I said and went for the lock. Stupid day shift—

“I’m not coming in.” I heard Charles’s voice from the outside. “I just wanted to tell you they were wrong.”