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Everyone's personal fears suddenly become real and deadly at Evergreen Assisted Living. |
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Chapter 1 Carl Moore parked his car, grabbed his lunch and stethoscope and started running. He was late and he was never late. He had been working at Evergreen Gardens Assisted Living for over a year and he was proud of the fact that he was never late…until today. As he neared the entrance he stopped walking and started walking as fast as he could. “Carl?”, he heard a voice to the side ask. He turned and saw it was Mr. Tom Bailey. He groaned at what he knew Mr. Bailey would want to talk about and Carl simply didn’t have time right now. “Carl,” Mr. Bailey started before Carl could stop him. “I really need you to take a look at my bowel movement when you have a chance. I had it this morning and it was very good. I saved it for you in the toilet. That Milk of Magnesia you gave me yesterday really worked.” “I’m glad I could help”, Carl said as he tried not to laugh. “I don’t need to see your bowel movement though, Mr. Bailey. I believe you”. Mr. Bailey was about to say something else but Carl quickly added, “Gotta go! I’m already late”. Without looking back, Carl quickly walked into the building. Carl always liked how Evergreen Gardens looked on the outside but especially on the inside. It was very large and inviting with lots of plants growing up twenty feet up in the cathedral like entrance. He quickly walked through that and through the cafeteria and into the employee break room. He tossed his lunch into a locker, clocked in and quickly walked over to the med room. Even though he had been a nurse for over a year, he still had butterflies over the thought of what could go wrong during his shift. But he was well trained and had proven himself during many emergencies. It wasn’t always like that though, he thought. Usually you just passed medications and then your shift was over. Hopefully this would be an easy night. Either way, he’d find a reason to sneak over to Memory Care to talk to Julie Swan. She was a new nurse also, but she had been working at Evergreen for a few months more. He walked into the Assisted Living Med Room and saw Samantha Rosenburg, giving medication to Oscar Thompson. Carl was always stunned by how fit Oscar was. He was eight years old and was very muscular, strong and agile. “Hello, Carl”, Oscar said, “Samantha said you’re late”. “Yeah”, Carl said tossing his stethoscope on the med cart. “Traffic was a little nuts on the way over here”. “I don’t mind”, Samantha said, “More overtime for me!”. “Yeah, and I’m sure Martha is happy to know I’m helping someone else get overtime”. “Well, this is probably your first time being late so I wouldn’t worry about what she said at the meeting”. If you’re late, you’re going to get written up, Martha had said. Carl didn’t worry about it at the time because he always left for work early but…there was always a first time. It just happened to be the day after they were all warned. Don't. Be. Late. He sighed. Oscar laughed and spoke with Samantha as Carl started counting the narcotics. Oscar soon left and Samantha and Carl went through the rest of the narcotics in both carts. It was the law that each narcotic pill had to be counted before the next nurse started the shift. Once Carl was done he signed the narcotic book indicating that the count in the book matched the pills in the bottles. “So what do I have today?”, Carl asked. “We had a new one come in today. Room 112. I’ve already created the MARS sheets and she’s missing three medications. I already faxed her doctor and requested orders for administration and scripts for the pharmacy. The doctor office should have the scripts by now and the family is going to pick up the scripts, go to the pharmacy and then bring the meds here.” “What time will they be here?”. “Not sure but it should be during your shift. We had one fall today, but the follow-ups are all done. It was Ms. Winter. She fell on the way to the bathroom in her bedroom. Zero compliant of pain. No apparent injuries. Family and On-Site were both notified and a nurse note was already done in her chart.” “Anything else?”. “There are a couple hospice nurses here but I think one of them went to Memory Care. The other one is here but I forgot who he went to see”. Ah, Carl thought, there’s my reason to go to Memory Care. “Also, I noticed a couple visitors here, but I was too busy to see who they are visiting. One was a young teacher, I’m told, and the other one is a student. As far as I know, they don’t know each other but…there you go. That’s everything”. “You have a good night, Sam”, Carl said. “You too”, she said grabbing her things and then she walked out of the med room. Carl started flipping through the MARS and flagging them according to the ones he’d need to do before dinner and the ones that he’d work on after dinner. Once that was done, he emptied the trash. Samantha could never remember to empty it on her shift. Carl didn’t mind. It gave him a chance to stretch his legs as he walked through the building and then out into the back. It was only two-thirty in the afternoon, but the sun had already crossed the center of the sky and now was working itself down. Carl tossed the trash into the dumpster and then looked back at Evergreen. Assisted Living was on the right of the huge building and Memory Care was on the left. He stood there a moment and looked at the windows of Memory Care. He could see into some of them but the sun was too bright and he couldn’t make anything out. He was hoping to see a glimpse of Julie Swan but he knew that she would still be going through the end of shift report with the other nurse. Memory Care was a lot busier than Assisted Living. Carl knew that from experience and he didn’t envy Julie and her shift. +++++++++++++++ Bxer Gner was aware that he would be unable to miss the planet. The navigation computer was down and the engines were too badly damaged. He punched a button on the computer, “Command, I’m going down. The other ship was destroyed. Please send help”. Bxer sat back and watched his forward screen as his ship continued to fall towards Earth. +++++++++++++++ “So you have three follow-ups”, Mary Stewart told Julie Swan. “One is the last follow up for Mr. Jefferson’s fall…”. “Again?”, Julie asked. “Yeah, again”, Mary said rolling her eyes. “He fell almost three hours ago in the commons area near the TV. We have two witnesses that saw him hit the floor head first. Resident has zero compliant of pain and no apparent injuries. He has a slight redness just over his right eye that may turn in to a bruise but no bruising just yet”. “Wow”, Julie said. “He’s always been a tough one”. “He was a Marine”, Mary said, “I’m sure he’s been through worse. Also, the next follow-up deals with Mr. Jefferson again. He took his coffee cup and slammed it into Mr. White’s head. So Mr. Jefferson is on behavioral watch until about this time tomorrow. Jefferson hasn’t had any more behavioral flare ups since this morning, but you’ll need to have your staff watch him more and you’ll have to follow up with him each hour to be sure he doesn’t need lorazepam for a PRN”. “Damn!”, Julie said. “What is with him?”. “Not sure”, Mary said, “We have no witness to the event although there were other people in the room. Everyone was just facing the other way. You’ll have to do the paperwork for the follow-up for Mr. White, but he’s in the hospital. He has a laceration on the top of his head that isn’t bad, but he has a complaint of pain due to the injury and it’s best for him to see a doctor, so I called 911 and they took him this morning”. There was a knocking on the med-room door. Both nurses turned around as a nurse-aid walked in, “There’s a large pile of…someone defecated in the hall”, she said. “Well”, Mary said handing over the nurse cell-phone and med-keys, “You’re off to a good start!”. “Thanks, Mary!”, Julie said laughing. “Nancy, just make sure no one steps in that and I’ll call maintenance to come clean that up”. Julie flipped open the cell phone and paged down to Maintenance. “Hello? Carlos? Yeah, I need you in Memory Care to clean up a mess in the hall. Someone defecated. Yeah. Thanks!”. Well, done with that, Julie thought as she set up her med-administration books. She checked the refrigerator for vanilla pudding. There was none. That’s fine, she thought. I needed to stretch my legs anyways and I can check on Jefferson. She walked out of the med-room and locked the door. Wow, she thought, that really stinks! Nancy was there watching the pile of shit making sure none of the residents walked into it before maintenance could get there. Nancy tried to smile at Julie as she walked by but she gagged instead. “Hold in there Nancy, maintenance is on the way”, she said. Memory Care was set up like a huge horse-shoe with right angles instead of curved lines. The other side of the building was another horse-shoe for the residents of assisted living. The med-room, for memory care, was on the top floor and memory care included the top and bottom floors. Each floor had it’s own kitchen, common room, TV room and individual rooms for the residents. The residents in memory care were there because they had dementia or some for of dementia. Dementia is difficult for families to deal with when their mother or father leaves in the middle of the night and then forgets how to get home. Most of the residents in memory care asked to see their parents even though most of the residents were over eighty years old. Many of them tried to leave the memory care unit but each entrance was locked for the residents safety. The only problem with the locks, Julie thought for the 1,000th time, is energy outages. Each lock was electrical and power outages would leave all the doors unlocked. Thankfully all the staff knew that and were trained to guard the doors to keep the memory care residents from escaping during an outage. Julie walked around the corner towards the common area when she saw Mr. Jefferson. He was just standing there. Thinking about something? “Watcha thinking about?”, Julie asked him when she got closer. “What?”, Mr. Jefferson said swinging his large head in her direction. He was a very large man. Julie guessed he was about six foot, six inches. He must have been huge as a young man, Julie often thought. A marine? He must of given the enemy hell back in the day. His eye glimmered with recognition. “Nurse?”, he asked, “Is it time for my pills?”. “No, sir, at least not yet”, she said. “How are you doing? Are you in any pain?”. While he stood there thinking of an answer, she scanned his forehead. It was reddish, but no injury that she could see. She quickly looked at his hands, elbows, and knees for signs of a fall. He looked fine as far as she could see. “Pain?”, he asked. “No, I’m not in pain. Why do you ask?”. “Ah, I’m always looking out for you, Mr. Jefferson. I just want to make sure that you are okay”. “I’m okay”, he said and started to shamble down the hall. Yeah, she thought, the enemy probably hated to see someone like Jefferson coming at them. She walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. She pulled out a four-pack of vanilla pudding and headed back to the med-room. Once in the med-room, she removed one of the pudding packs and put it on one of the med-carts. She put the rest of the pudding into the fridge. She happened to look out the window and saw the moon. A full moon up this early? Oh, boy. Let’s hope it’s not a crazy night! |
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