Killers Read online

  “No, why?”

  Winslow bit her lip.

  “Why?” Lucy asked again.

  “I have to change your bandages anyway. I’ll show you.”

  The nurse turned off the vacuum pump and walked around to the instrument stand at the foot of the bed. Off the tray, she lifted a pair of scissors and began clipping through the bandage that completely covered Lucy’s right leg.

  Lucy watched as Winslow cut all the way up to her thigh, and then returned the scissors to the tray.

  “You might want to give your morphine a little squeeze,” Winslow said.

  Lucy hit the pump.

  Winslow started at the bottom, peeling back a patch of black foam, and then unwinding the bandage around Lucy’s leg.

  “You tell me if you start to feel sick,” Winslow said.

  “I have a strong stomach…are those scabs?” Lucy asked.

  “No,” Winslow said. “You have to have skin to make scabs.”

  For the most part, her foot was intact, though when she wiggled her toes she could see three of the five metatarsals twitching.

  It was above the ankle that the real damage began.

  Portions of her tibia were exposed, along with half of her patella.

  She’d seen raw muscle on many occasions, but always after dragging someone at eighty miles per hour for five miles, and by that time, the muscle had been reduced to bloody, dripping strings.

  Her tibialis anterior and gastrocnemius were largely intact, and she could even move them, finding the interplay between ligament, muscle, and bone simply gorgeous.

  “You doing okay there, hon?” Winslow asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I know it looks bad, but they can work wonders with skin grafts.”

  Lucy watched Winslow remove the bandage from her left leg.

  Even worse.

  Less skin coverage, and it looked as though portions of the muscle in her thigh had sustained damage—when she flexed her left quadriceps, the muscle quivered differently than her right. She could barely make it move.

  This was bad—and not because she was anything approaching vain—but because her beauty, her body, had always served as her most effective camouflage. In the summertime, standing on the side of the road in a skirt that stopped two inches above her knees was almost guaranteed to lure someone into pulling over.

  Even assuming she recovered from this, her legs would never look the same.

  They’d be horribly disfigured.

  And Donaldson had done this.

  He was responsible.

  Lucy had never hurt anyone out of anger or rage. Up until this moment, her only drive had been curiosity and lust and something else she’d never been able to name.

  That was all going to change.

  Tonight.

  She wondered what time it was. The blinds in her room had been drawn all day, but she could tell that the light coming through had weakened into the pale, orange glow of evening.

  “Do you have a watch?” Lucy asked.

  Winslow was swabbing her right leg with an icky-smelling antibiotic ointment, Lucy wondering how intense the pain would be right now if she wasn’t on morphine.

  Winslow checked her wrist. “It’s six-fifteen.”

  “It really burns,” Lucy said.

  “The ointment? It has a topical anesthetic in it.”

  “My peehole.”

  “You can feel the burn?”

  Lucy nodded.

  “I’ll talk with Dr. Lanz, see what he says.”

  Lucy screwed her face up and let out a moan. “I really need the catheter out…now.”

  Her heart rate monitor displayed a pulse rate at nearly 100 bpm, and if she could only get a moment alone, Lucy knew she could drive it higher.

  “Okay, settle down, sweetie. I’ll go get the doctor.”

  Winslow scurried out of the room, and Lucy shut her eyes and held her breath, summoning all the anxiety she could muster.

  By the time Winslow had returned with Lanz, Lucy’s heart was pounding away at 120 bpm and she was sure her face was flushed and beginning to break out with sweat.

  “You’re experiencing a lot of discomfort?” Lanz asked, grazing the back of his hand across Lucy’s forehead.

  She nodded. “My peehole is on fire.”

  “She could have a ureter infection,” Winslow offered.

  “Thank you for the diagnosis, Dr. Winslow,” Lanz said. “Oh, hold on. You’re just a nurse, and unqualified to make a diagnosis.”

  Lucy watched Winslow’s face go scarlet.

  “Lucy, is the pain also up in your bowels or only close to your vagina?”

  “It’s everywhere.”

  “Okay, the Foley’s coming out.”

  Lanz squeezed into a pair of sterile gloves, said, “Surgical scissors.” Lucy could feel him working down there. “Cutting the inflation valve…draining nicely.”

  “I have to shit,” Lucy said.

  “Winslow, grab a bedpan—”

  “No,” Lucy said. “I’m not using a bedpan. It’s fucking humiliating.”

  “We’re all professionals here,” Winslow said. “I’ve done it a thousand times.”

  “You shit in a bedpan a thousand times? Why?”

  Winslow frowned. “I’ve assisted patients. It could be very painful to move you into the bathroom.”

  “Nothing’s worse than pissing and shitting into a bedpan in front of strangers.”

  “I understand,” Lanz said.

  Lucy felt a wickedly uncomfortable twinge, and then Lanz said, “It’s out. Better?”

  “Yes. Thank you so much, Dr. Lanz. You’re the best.”

  “My pleasure. Deputy!” Lanz called without even looking at him.

  Lucy watched the lawman struggle onto his feet and lumber into her room. “What’s up, Doc?”

  “Unlock these handcuffs. We need to take her into the bathroom.”

  The deputy hesitated. “I got my orders, and she ain’t supposed to—”

  “I don’t give a fuck about your orders. This is my patient, and she needs to use the bathroom.”

  Lucy watched the deputy’s face.

  So young. Early twenties. Smooth-shaven. A big dough-boy.

  “I don’t know, Doc.”

  “What do you think, she’s a threat? She weighs all of ninety-four pounds and has such severe damage to her lower body I doubt she can even walk. Look at them.” Lanz pointed to Lucy’s legs, and it warmed her heart to see the deputy wince. “Besides, the level of morphine running through her system will pretty much render her as docile and harmless as you are. So…unlock her wrist before I throw you out of my hospital.”

  She was a very good girl on her first trip to the bathroom, mainly because she had no other choice than to be.

  Winslow pulled out Lucy’s IV lines and helped her to sit up in bed.

  The deputy stood guard with his tactical baton extended and ready in his right hand.

  A big orderly named Benjamin lifted her out of bed and set her on her feet.

  She could hardly stand. The nerve block made it feel like her legs were asleep.

  “Just give me a second,” she said, holding her arms out in an attempt to find her balance.

  It was there.

  Barely.

  She stared down at her legs, which Winslow had yet to re-bandage, and took a tentative step.

  Near her left ankle, it was like watching the workings of an internal combustion engine—ligaments and muscle stretching, bones moving together, protected by cartilage.

  She could have watched herself walk all day.

  But she couldn’t have walked all day.

  Lucy got three steps and said, “I’m going to fall.”

  There was no pain.

  Just a beautifully weak imbalance from the morphine, like standing on a ship in heavy seas.

  Benjamin grabbed her under the arms, said, “I got you.”

  Five steps, and then she stood in the open do
orway to the bathroom.

  Winslow hit the light switch for her.

  “I think I can make it to the seat,” Lucy said. She looked at Lanz. “Doc, can I still sit and shit considering—”

  “You rectum is bruised and suffered a major abrasion, but you should be able to have a bowel movement. Just sit down gently. Nurse Winslow will irrigate your rectum when you finish, to make sure no infection sets in.”

  “I can’t wait. Thanks, Doc.”

  Lucy limped inside by herself, shut the door behind her, and raised her hospital gown. Stumbling two steps to the toilet, she eased down onto the freezing seat.

  It felt strange—definitely more tissue on her right cheek than her left. She leaned to one side like a car with a flat tire.

  “You okay in there?”

  Nurse Winslow’s voice through the door.

  “I’m fine.”

  Lucy leaned back on the toilet. Several feet away, a plastic curtain had been pushed against the wall. She glanced through into a handicapped-accessible shower. Metal railings lined each wall, and there was even a seat bolted into the wall.

  Hmmm.

  She saw it all play out in her mind’s eye.

  Benjamin carried her back to the bed.

  Winslow re-bandaged her legs and set up the negative pressure wound therapy.

  When everyone had finally left, Lucy tugged out the morphine line and waited for the pain to come.

  Within the hour, it came.

  And with a vengeance.

  Pure and blinding pain from head to toe.

  Even with the nerve block supposedly good for a few more hours, the agony was far and above anything she’d ever experienced or imagined.

  She’d always had a theory that pain was only pain if you fought it.

  If you couldn’t stand to look it in the eye.

  Over the years, she’d tried to explain that to those poor souls she’d dragged down desert highways, as they lay screaming and flayed on the pavement.

  Tried to make them understand that it wasn’t pain, but intensity, that they should love it, because they would never in their lives feel more alive.

  And so she shut her eyes and ground her teeth and tried to love it, too.

  The song was right. Love hurts.

  Love hurts like fucking hell.

  One thought got Lucy through.

  When the tears were streaming down her face.

  When the concept of death looked as pretty as it ever had.

  Donaldson.

  Donaldson tied down. Unable to escape. Unable to defend himself. And her standing right there beside him, smiling down into that fat, double-chinned face. Maybe she had a knife. Maybe something hot. Maybe nothing but her teeth.

  The pain kept coming, straining to wreck her fantasy.

  But finally, after almost giving in to it, she experienced a moment of brilliant, startling clarity, and Lucy separated herself from the pain.

  The pain didn’t belong to her. It belonged to Donaldson. She was Donaldson, and Lucy imagined herself staring down into her own eyes, watching him contort in agony, watching him writhe like a bug on a pin, watching him scream for mercy.

  This was Donaldson’s pain, not hers.

  And the more pain, the better.

  By midnight, Lucy had learned to tolerate the pain.

  She’d come to accept it. Not embrace it. Certainly not love it. But at least they could co-exist.

  As she stretched her toes toward the instrument tray at the foot of the bed, she forced a smile at the screaming of her torn left quadriceps.

  Her right big toe just grazed the tray, but she was never able to fully reach it.

  At 2:19 a.m., Lucy plugged her morphine line back in and pressed the NURSE CALL button.

  A nurse she hadn’t seen before walked into the room. Middle-aged and slightly overweight, she sidled up to the bed.

  “I’m Denise,” she said. “You rang?”

  “I need to use the bathroom,” Lucy said.

  “I’ll get the bedpan.”

  “No, I want to use the real bathroom.”

  “I don’t know about that—”

  “Dr. Lanz said it was okay. Should I call him and tell him you won’t let me? He was nice enough to give me his number at home, but I’d probably wake him up.”

  The nurse went a shade paler than her English complexion.

  “No, I’m sure it’s fine then. Just let me get the deputy and an orderly.”

  Nurse Denise unplugged Lucy’s IV lines and removed the draining tubes from her legs while that same dough-boy deputy unlocked her left wrist.

  Benjamin the orderly scooped Lucy out of bed, the pain so exquisite she had to grin. He lowered her into a wheelchair, which he pushed ten feet to the bathroom door.

  “I think I got it,” Lucy said, struggling onto her feet. She fell back into the wheelchair, a bolt of mind-warping pain engulfing her ass. “Or maybe not.”

  The orderly grabbed her under her arms and lifted her onto her feet.

  Lucy staggered into the bathroom and shut the door.

  She collapsed onto the toilet and took a moment to let this new blast of agony embrace her, trying to really savor it.

  The pain was radiant, but at least she could think, and she could even stand and, she suspected, walk.

  Lucy turned her arm over and pulled the IV needle out of the vein.

  “Denise!” she called. “I could use a little help!”

  The bathroom door opened and the nurse peeked in.

  “What’s wrong, Lucy?”

  “Come here,” Lucy whispered.

  The nurse stepped in.

  “Close the door,” Lucy said. “It’s embarrassing. Kind of a girl problem. I don’t want the boys to see.”

  The nurse shut the door, stood staring down at Lucy.

  “What is it?”

  “Look,” Lucy said.

  She had tears in her eyes.

  Happy tears.

  She pointed at her crotch.

  The nurse knelt down, and when she leaned in for a closer look, Lucy thrust the heel of her hand up into Denise’s nose.

  Denise dropped onto her butt, and Lucy pitched forward and grabbed the woman’s hair. She slid the needle into the nurse’s throat, just far enough to draw a bead of blood.

  “Now listen carefully, Denise,” Lucy said. The burst of exhilaration had momentarily dulled her pain. “I will run this needle straight through your neck if you make so much as a whisper. Got it? Nod, bitch!”

  The nurse nodded.

  “You want to live through this?”

  More frantic nodding.

  “Okay, here’s what you’re going to do. What floor are we on?”

  “Four.”

  “Is there a basement in this hospital?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s down there?”

  “Um…”

  Lucy pushed the needle in a tad farther. This was the best she’d felt all day. What she lived for.

  “I’m thinking…the lab…radiology…the blood bank.”

  “There you go. Tell the orderly I’m bleeding and send him down to the basement for several units of blood.”

  “Okay.”

  “I swear to God if you fuck this up I’m going to use your neck for a pin cushion.”

  “Now?”

  “What?”

  “You want me to tell Benjamin now?”

  “No, let’s wait another twenty minutes. Yes, now!”

  The nurse cleared her throat as Lucy edged her toward the door.

  “Benjamin?” she said.

  “Everything okay, Denise?”

  “Lucy’s having some heavy blood loss. I want you to head down to the blood bank and bring up three units of AB.”

  “Should I page Dr. Lanz?”

  “I’ll take care of that. Go now.”

  Lucy heard the orderly padding away.

  “You did well, Denise. You did really well.”

  Lucy tightened her
grip and jammed the needle twenty times into the nurse’s throat, numerous lines of blood branching and intersecting and running over her fingers as the nurse gurgled and fought to throw her off.

  Outside the door, Lucy heard the deputy say, “Denise?”

  Lucy dragged her back into the shower and her thirty-third puncture hit home because Lucy felt something swelling in the side of the nurse’s neck.

  When the bulge reached the size of a golf ball Lucy gave it a prick and it exploded in a burst of bright red arterial spray that splattered across the shower tile.

  Lucy felt the woman’s legs give out and she eased her down onto the floor of the shower.

  The deputy knocked on the door.

  “Denise, what’s going on?”

  The physical exertion had brought on a wave of agony, and Lucy wanted to scream it was so fierce. Instead, she tugged Denise out of the shower and draped her across the toilet.

  Lucy returned to the shower stall, pulled the curtain and backed up against the tile, her heart rocketing along, a smile spreading across her face.

  So good to be alive.

  In the space between the curtain and the wall, she saw the doorknob begin to turn.

  The door swung open.

  The deputy said, “Oh, shit.”

  He took a step toward the nurse, who was still twitching.

  “Denise?”

  Lucy came through the shower curtain like a wildcat and swung the needle at the deputy’s face.

  It glanced off the bridge of his nose and slipped through the corner of his eye.

  He howled.

  Lucy kicked the door shut and unsheathed his baton and brought it down with a smashing blow to the back of his head.

  His knees hit the tile and she struck him again, felt a scrumptious crack.

  The deputy was moaning, trying to crawl into the corner between the toilet and the wall.

  When he reached the impasse, he stared up at Lucy and whimpered, “Don’t hurt me! Please!”

  Lucy wiped the tears from her eyes and beat him to death with his own baton.

  At 2:29 a.m., Lucy rolled out of her room in the wheelchair.

  The corridor was silent.

  A little ways down, three nurses occupied the station, catching up on their charts. Apparently, no one had heard the commotion in the bathroom.

  She turned left and rolled along, each turn of the wheel a new level of pain, but one thing kept her going.

  Donaldson.

  He had to be on this floor, in the ICU.