AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Kris decided not to move. She shoved him out of her way and was surprised when he hit the door hard.
“Goddamn, you’re stronger than you look.”
Eden didn’t linger. She rushed out the door and into her car. She had thirty minutes to get to her job as a ward clerk at University Hospital across town for the evening shift. Two thirty afternoon traffic in Jacksonville. Florida, she’d make it.
???
“Call a code! Johnson in room eight is crashing.” The nurse ran for the crash cart at the end of the hallway. Two other RNs raced for the room. Ninety seconds later, two doctors and emergency personnel exited the elevator.
“Six.” Eden pointed toward the room and watched them race away. “Well, that’s my cue to leave. My shift is over.” Eleven at night. Quitting time. She changed out of her sneakers and tossed them into her backpack, then slipped on her comfy flip-flops. She had a date with day-old pepperoni pizza and Netflix. She patted her replacement’s shoulder. “Night.”
“Get home safe.” The burly father of two girls never failed to say.
Eden walked past room eight and spared a moment to peer inside. The amount of effort being used to save Johnson wouldn’t make a difference. He won’t make it.
How did a simple ward clerk know this when the medical professionals toiling to save his life did not? Call it a knack or plain weird. Either way, she knew when they wheeled him past the nursing station three days ago, he wouldn’t make it. Appendicitis. Not usually a killer when caught in time, as his was. His wife and teen son had followed the stretcher. Happy family after the surgery. Now, their husband and father was dead.
Eden rode the elevator down and exited the hospital through the emergency room. It shortened her journey to her car by a block. Not much, but the August heat in northern Florida was no joke, even after the sun had set hours ago.
A group of workers exited the ED. The neighborhood wasn’t great. There’d been more than a few car break-ins and vandalism. Last year, a nurse had been assaulted.
Eden jogged to catch up to the group. Safety in numbers, especially when the parking lot was a block away and unattended. Jesus! It was hot. Eighty-five degrees and muggy. She was drenched by the time she made it to her twelve-year-old Wrangler. She got in and locked the doors, started the engine, and buckled up.
Yeah, her car was old, dented, and growing rust like mold on bread, but it had never let her down. Not once in the four years of ownership.
The streak ended three lights away from the hospital. The engine died. Didn’t even sputter, just turned off and left her coasting down the street.
“What the fuck!” She stared at the dark dashboard, expecting an answer. Eden got none. She had enough momentum to make a right into a library parking lot.
Once stopped, she used her extensive car knowledge to put the car in park, say a fervent prayer to the car gods, and turn the key. At this point, the engine usually started. You know, gave a nice, throaty, aggressive rumble.
Yeah... “Silent as a tomb” should be replaced with silent as a dead car on a deserted street.
Eden got her phone out. “How the hell do I not have a signal!” Never mind calling AAA. She couldn’t call anyone, not even Harry, to come and get her.
She could see the red and white emergency sign in her rearview mirror. Looks like she was headed back to work.
She climbed out of the car, grabbed her backpack, and started walking. For a Saturday night, the streets were quiet, but it was Jacksonville, Florida, the biggest little city in America. On the coast, all the action was at the beach, not downtown, which, after five, was a dead zone.
I should put on my sneakers.But the ED was right there. Three blocks.
Eden adjusted her backpack and started walking. Somewhere nearby, dogs barked, then growled low, threatening. Suddenly, they whimpered and let out a sharp yelp.
Eden had a second to register the scrape of nails scratching the concrete, then two dogs shot past her and kept on running. A pit bull and something else. A Rottweiler, she thought. What the heck had them running, and should she do the same?
She whipped around. If something was coming for her, she wanted to see it, even as she kept walking backward because she wasn’t stupid. Stopping was a bad idea.
There was nothing behind her. Nothing except a street with shoddy lighting.
She turned around and picked up her pace.Should’ve changed into my sneakers.Hindsight was a motherfucker.
She hadn’t taken more than a few steps when the lights on both sides of the street winked out. Plunged into darkness, the hair on the back of her neck rose and the pit of her stomach dropped to her toes.
Just like she knew Johnson in bed eight was dead even though the doctors and nurses would do the utmost to save him, she knew her life was about to expire. Without looking back, without even the slightest turn of her head, Eden Brooks knew Death had come for her.
It was her time. And she wasn’t ready.
Ever try running in flip-flops? It’s fucking impossible and a great way to break an ankle and your neck. Even a Floridian couldn’t do it without breaking a bone. Which didn’t stop Eden from giving it her all to escape, knees and arms pumping only to cartwheel in a tangle of limbs onto the unforgiving, smoldering sidewalk. She bounced, smacked her jaw, and skidded, taking a layer of skin off her chin.
