Graveyard Shift

“Working late again tonight, Dr. Shaw?”

The amber haired lady glanced up from the papers that were scattered across her desk and met my look with a smile. Were it not for the gradually deepening dark circles beneath her eyes, (and of course, the white coat and stethoscope that she wore more frequently than the uncomfortable shoes on the floor beneath her desk,) one would be hard pressed to believe that she was a doctor, on account of being ‘too young’. One of those who are ‘blessed’ by a seemingly everlasting youthful appearance, Dr. Shaw still got asked for ID if she tried to purchase a pack of cigarettes. She was thirty-seven years old.

“Hello, Mack.” She said in a voice containing real warmth; quite uncommon amongst those who often felt that their medical degrees placed them on a level in which it was uncouth to associate with ‘regular’ people- those people who hadn’t amounted to more in their lives than sweeping up the dust and emptying the trash. “How are you doing tonight?”

“I’m fine, ma’am. And yourself?”

“Oh, I can’t complain.” She pursed her lips briefly and then smiled again. “Well, I can complain. But I won’t”

“Oh? You having a problem?”

“No more so than usual.” She let out her breath in a long tired sigh. “It’s the Anderson girl, actually. It’s just… I can’t figure out…” She worried her lower lip between her teeth, becoming lost in thought. I waited patiently, and after a moment she returned to the present, with a slight start at finding me still there. “I just can’t figure out what’s wrong with this kid. Her earlier blood work all came back negative for everything. Now it’s showing a minor unknown anomaly. That’s on top of the respiratory problem that we still haven’t resolved.” She shook her head. “I should probably pursue this anomaly, but I can’t help feeling that it’s inconsequential: a dead end. The respiratory failure is the real problem; I know it. But I can’t figure out what it is. Neither the mother nor the baby shows any evidence of drug usage during pregnancy… It’s not anemia, not asthma, not bronchitis or bronchiolitis, or any of the more common respiratory disorders, it’s not any virus that I can determine...” Another drawn-out sigh, this one tinged with exasperation. “It really is a puzzle.”

“Well doc,” I let my eyes glide over the walls of her office, which, excepting for her framed degrees, were decorated entirely in decoupage jigsaw puzzles. “I’ve never known you to fail at a puzzle.” I tipped her a wink. “I’m sure this one will be no different.”

“Thanks, Mack.” She said with sincerity. “I really appreciate that.”

“So, what about this anomaly?”

“Oh,” she waved her hand dismissively. “I’m sure that will turn out to be nothing. Just trace amounts of an unknown element.”

“An unknown element?” I asked, an eyebrow raised.

She laughed. “It’s not as ominous as it sounds. By ‘unknown’ they mean something which is there, but that wasn’t tested for. Not something which has never been discovered. It’s not all that uncommon really. Especially with the jokers we have in Hematology. God forbid they should run a test that wasn’t specifically requested of them in triplicate. Anyway, I can have them tell me what it is, but I doubt it’ll be worth the hassle and grief they’ll give me for it.

“I see.”

“Well, for example, this one time there was detected a trace element of gold. Turns out the mother had taken a few shots of that liquor that has gold flakes in it while she was pregnant. And one of those flakes somehow made it into the kid’s bloodstream. It took awhile to piece that together, and the test to identify the gold was kind of pricey, and it all had nothing whatever to do with the actual illness.”

“Like an unassembled box of puzzle pieces from more than one puzzle.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, doc, that doesn’t affect my faith in your ability to put it together at all. I’m still sure you can do it.”

“Not to pat myself on the back,” she allowed herself a small self-congratulatory smile, “but I think so too. Or rather, I hope so. The problem though, is time.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well,” her voice lowered to something like a conspirational whisper. “I don’t actually know how the kid is staying alive in the meantime.” She noted the furrow in my brow and continued. “Each day, the poor kid’s breathing is a chore. The machines we’ve got her hooked up to are doing more of her breathing than her actual lungs. She’s just dancing on the edges of total respiratory failure.” She closed her eyes and massaged her temples briefly. “But something, I don’t know if it’s the kid’s will to live, or the hand of God- if she’s got some guardian angel or just plain old-fashioned good luck. Something though, something beyond what we’re doing, which presently amounts to very little, is keeping that little girl alive.”

“Well,” I said carefully. “That still sounds like pretty good news…”

“Oh, it’s great news.” Dr. Shaw agreed. “The question though, is how long will that last? Each morning I come in and breathe a sigh of relief that she’s still alive and that I’ve still got some time to find out what’s wrong with her. What if whatever it is that she’s got going for her does eventually run out before I get my act together?”

“Now doc,” I said, trying to sound soothing. “Sounds to me like you’ve got your hands full worrying about this little girl’s present condition. I don’t see how it’s doing either of you any good to start worrying that her… luck is going to run out.”

“You’re right, I know you’re right.” She said with another sigh. “I’m just so tired.”

“You go home and get some rest, doc,” I said, maintaining my soothing tone. “You’re frazzled. You ain’t helping no-one in this condition.”

She nodded in agreement. “Sage advice, Mack.”

“You go home and rest. And tomorrow you focus on that little girl’s symptoms. Not on her luck, and not on whether the good lord’s got someone else beside you lookin’ out for her. You’ll figure out this puzzle, doc, you know you will. But for now, you need some rest. You’re more apt to start makin’ mistakes if you keep trying to work while you’re exhausted like this.”

She looked at me for a few seconds, and then blinked and pushed back her chair. “You’re right, Mack.” She grabbed her shoes from beneath the desk and slipped them on, then stood. “I need to rack up a few Z’s, and tackle this with a fresh head in the morning.”

I nodded. “You sleep well, doc.”

“Thanks, Mack. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“G’night.”

Dr. Shaw closed her office door softly so that the glass would not rattle, and paused there briefly, her eyes closed. “Can I tell you something, Mack?”

“What’s that, doc?”

“I know it sounds stupid, but I really do believe that this place has a guardian angel looking out for its kids.” She regarded me soberly, and her eyes begged me not to laugh at her. I didn’t. After a moment’s silence, she laughed at herself- a short, forced bark. “It’s dumb, I know it. Guardian Angels. What doctor believes that crap? Hell, I’m not even sure if I’m allowed to believe that according to the Almighty Review Board.” She shook her head, and fell into another short silence. “But still… time does seem to be on our side here. That little boy who came in with botulism last week; he should have been dead three days before we realized what was killing him.” She looked at me again. “A lot of the kids here outlast the expectancy of their conditions.”

“It’s not dumb to have faith, doc. Just so long as you don’t hurt anyone with it.”

She smiled again. “Thank you, Mack.”

“Goodnight, Dr. Shaw.”

She padded down the hall. I watched her as far as the elevators, where she turned and offered a final wave. I returned it, ending with more of a salute, and she grinned. The elevator arrived, heralded by its soft chime, the doors whispered open and she got in, disappearing from view.

I turned back to sweeping the now deserted hallway of the hospital’s east wing, stopping at each of the closed offices to empty the day’s trash, before making my way up to the next floor.


An hour or so later I arrived in the pediatric wing. I paused at the door to the Anderson girl’s room and glanced up at the security cameras, tipping a wink to Virgil, who might have been watching the screens, or might as easily have been perusing the sports page, occasionally harrumphing at the news that one of his teams had lost yet again. Virgil was not going to be a candidate for Security Guard of the Year any time soon, and everyone knew it. Yet he had been at the hospital for too long, and was too endeared by the staff to need ever worry about being fired for negligence. He was more of a traditional aspect of the hospital than an actual employee. He was gruff, and his hearing and vision were getting steadily worse, (much to his annoyance and everyone else’s sympathy-tinged amusement), but he was a good man, kind-hearted, and the hospital didn’t really require any security anyway. Virgil was the only one in the place nearly as old as I. He was seventy-two.

I pushed open the door to the Anderson baby’s room and slipped inside. The soft humming of the machines that were helping the kid to breathe sounded rather soothing in the otherwise absolute silence of the room. I stood for a few moments in the dark, as I always did, allowing the memories of the first night of my own condition to resurface. They had become a little fuzzy as the years went by: the horror of it a little less distinct… a little less painful. Perhaps that meant I was gradually being forgiven.

Not that I would ever forgive myself, which was why I engaged in this ritual of remembrance. I hadn’t earned the right to forget…



“I’m calling it.” The doctor said in a clipped tone. “Time of death… 3:16am”
“Doctor, are you sure…”
“Goddammit Fran, look at the guy! His veins have friggin’ collapsed, they’re so empty!. I can’t even tell what the hell kind of animal attacked him! Even if I believed there was a chance to save him, which I don’t , I’m not about to waste half our goddamned blood supply trying!”
“Yes, doctor.”

He had been wrong, of course, there actually had been a chance, a good chance.
In fact, a very, very great chance.

I awoke about an hour later, ravenous.

The layout of the hospital had been different then. The morgue still remained now where it was on the lower level, but the pediatric unit had been moved up to the third floor. On the day that I died, it had been on the first floor. It had been the first unit that I found after breaking out of the morgue, delirious and nearly blind with hunger. The smell of fresh blood had been overpowering, all-encompassing, and I had completely drained more than half of the newborn infants sleeping peacefully in their cribs before the hunger subsided and my senses returned to me: realization striking like the most viciously wielded knife to ever be twisted into a man’s guts...

I disappeared for a time after that, living in isolation in the woods that surrounded the town, surviving on rabbits and groundhogs mostly, and the occasional deer. Only once did I return, to steal a coat and a newspaper that told of the lamentable night of my death and rebirth. Twenty-three newborn children murdered by an unknown monster, it expressed in so deplorably lurid a manner that one wondered whether the editor was himself a monster, glad for the deaths, and for the resultant opportunity to profit by telling of them.
Unknown Monster: that was the term employed. Inaccurate, of course. We are very well known. Unbelieved-in Monster would have been more appropriate. Only, what sort of monster is it exactly, that still feels emotion within his no longer beating heart? That neither asked nor sought to become a monster, and that is beaten down by sorrow and remorse for his actions?

The years passed slowly, as one would expect from a creature that can fully comprehend the idea of forever. I was resigned to remaining alone- a hermit, for so long as man’s progress allowed the existence of a wilderness. Yet the urge, the need for… for what exactly? Penance? Salvation? Some type of forgiveness… eventually drove me back. And so, almost a hundred years later, I returned to the hospital, where a job opening for a night janitor awaited me like a soft embrace from Fate herself….


I opened my eyes to the present again, finding them now slightly blurred with the tears of bad memory.

I moved beside the crib containing the tiny person in whom my friend Dr. Shaw places so much of her time and her worth. She was awake, and offered a gurgling smile when I came into her field of vision. Just gas, the ‘experts’ insist; when they’re that young they don’t really know how to smile yet.

Pressing my fingernail against my wrist, I drew forth a few drops of blood, and allowed them to fall softly onto the child’s waiting lips. Just a few drops: Not enough to turn her into something else- just enough to keep her alive until a better solution becomes available. Enough to insure that she continues to breathe for another day, while her real angel is getting the rest that she needs. Just a temporary answer, until Dr. Shaw solves the puzzle of the disease that is killing her.

And when she does, well, there will always be another sick child, hovering on the edge between life and death.

And as the years get on, there will always be another Dr. Shaw, another angel, working diligently and pulling those kids off that edge and onto the side of life.

And in the duration, there will always be me, gently pushing those kids when need be, from the other side of that edge.

Satisfied, I exit the room silently, and resume my sweeping.
I’ve still a whole floor to finish before dawn, and the end of my shift.