Beep. Beep. Beep.
My eyes creaked open and I glared at the alarm clock on the nightstand. It showed the time as six-o-freakin-clock in the morning. Time to get up and hate the world.
I sat up and rubbed my eyes. "Why can't I have a normal schedule?" I muttered.
The health clinic ran seven days a week because insanity didn't take a break, or that's how we joked in the office. I worked the Tuesday through Saturday shift, so that morning was my Friday morning. The end of my work week. The long waking hours. The big day.
I got dressed and trampled down my wooden staircase to the ground floor. There was no sign of any more boiling eggs, no newly connected cable TV, and definitely no phantom menace. There was the annoyance of not having my favorite breakfast, scrambled eggs, for the start of my day, but another trip to the grocery store after work would solve that problem. Well, provided another one of those things didn't follow me.
I grabbed some toast and walked the two blocks to the bus stop. It stood on the corner near Bellamy's Grocery. The crowd at the stop wasn't as big on the weekends as the weekdays, and I got a nice seat in the middle of the bus. I put my purse in my lap and looked out the window at the passing city.
The ancient townhouses gave way to new residential apartments that towered over the streets. There was a Starbucks on every corner, an internet cafe close by, and a bagel shop in-between. I happened to glance at one of the corners as we sailed through a green light and something caught my attention. Or rather, someone.
It was a man of thirty-five with skin as pale as a sheet. He wore a simple black polo shirt with dark blue jeans. He stood against the corner building with his arms at his sides and watched my bus drive by with a glare on his face. I swear his crystal-blue eyes were even on me, but it was hard to tell because the whole moment was over in a flash. The bus moved on, but I had a harder time.
I turned away from the window and shuddered. Something about him gave me the creeps, and I was reminded of Osman's accusation against me. That any one of those things could look like a human. That guy looked only mildly human, and the way he looked at me was definitely not normal.
I was still unsettled when the bus came to my stop a half hour later. The bus had traversed the commercial district with its high-risers and mega-corporation office buildings, and entered a part of the city with some greenery. My workplace was built on a newer section of the city where there were still parks every few blocks, trees on the sidewalks, and the houses were a picture of suburbia. The mental health center sat between the new and the old, and catered to both.
I stepped off the bus and looked over my workplace. It was a three-floor white-colored office building with a long-term residential wing to the left. The parking lot was filled with a mix of cars that were owned by the patients, families of the patients, and the employees. You could tell which ones were the doctors by the year of the vehicles. The newer the year the more likely it belonged to a doctor, especially one who'd just finished paying off their medical school student loans after twenty years.
Two pairs of sliding doors that opened to a sort of chamber made up the entrance, but they didn't wouldn't work until the place opened in a few minutes. I used my key to open one of the doors and locked it on my way into the front room area. The front desk lay on my right with a sitting area to my left. The wall in front of me had a single door that led into the rest of the building, including the residential wing. The doctors liked to have control over who could come and, more especially, who could leave.
It was ten minutes till eight when I slid behind my desk at the front counter. My coworker already sat at her desk to my right. We were the first line of defense for angry phone calls, angry visitors, and angry patients. The second line was the orderlies and the doctor with the sedative.
"Rough night?" my coworker asked me.
Vera Stevens was a woman of forty-five with the patience of a saint and the anger of a woman scorned. Her fuse was slow to light, but when it did you prayed you weren't on the receiving end. She'd worked as a nurse and office manager for twenty years and knew her business. She also made it her business to learn everyone else's business, at least as far as it concerned the clinic. A tired or agitated employee had a high likelihood of transferring those vibes to patients, and once the snowball got rolling there was no way to stop it except with a cabinet full of sedatives and a lot of apologies to family members.
That was definitely not something Vera wanted to deal with. Ever.
I smiled at her and shook my head. "I just had a bit of a scare, that's all."
She raised an eyebrow. "What kind of scare?"
If I told her the truth I'd exchange my comfortable seat at the front desk for a padded room behind that door. "With a-um, a barking dog. It just wouldn't shut up."
"And that scared you?" she wondered.
I shrugged. "I'm not really a fan of dogs." That part was true. We had a mutual hate-hate relationship where a dog would growl at me and I would snarl in return.
"A bad experience?" she guessed.
"Lots of bad experiences, but it's no big deal, really," I insisted. "Besides, it's just one more day until my weekend and then I promise I'll get a long, peaceful, rejuvenating rest."
Vera opened her mouth to reply, bu a swoosh in front of us caught our attention. We looked to the sliding doors and watched the one on the right closest to us slide shut behind a man of about thirty. He wore a white suit with a blood-red tie and black dress shoes. His hair was a dazzling red color, his skin was ghastly pale, and his eyes were a dark blue.
He turned to the front desk and flashed a bright smile. "Good morning, ladies," he greeted us as he walked over to the desk.
Vera stood and smiled at him. "I'm afraid we're not quite open, sir, but if you'd like to wait a few minutes we would be glad to help you."
"Actually, I'm just a little lost," he admitted as he leaned on the raised counter. "I had planned to meet a friend last night, but he never showed up."
Vera pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow. "Where did you plan to meet?" she asked him.
"Over on two-hundred and seventh street a few blocks from the small grocery store on the corner," he replied.
I jerked back and my eyes widened. That was my street, and the grocery store he talked about could only have been the one owned by Bellamy. The man turned his dark eyes on me and suddenly his bright smile wasn't so bright.
"What's wrong?" he asked me as he leaned over the counter. There was only a very short foot and a half between us. His dark eyes studied me like Osman had studied me during his fit of paranoia, and his words made my blood run cold. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
My shaking hands gripped the edge of the desk and I leaned away from him. "I-I wouldn't know," I answered.
His smile widened into a grin. "No, I suppose you wouldn't."
"Really, sir, this is most unusual," Vera spoke up.
The man pushed off from the desk and stepped back towards the doors. "Sorry about that. I really thought one of you could help me. Thanks for your time, and have a good day."
He swept his arm over his chest and bowed his head towards us. I noticed his eyes fell on me for a long second before he turned away and left.
"You should be more careful with the door," Vera scolded me as she walked around the desk to the door.
"But I didn't unlock it," I swore.
Vera grabbed the handle and pulled. The locked door didn't open. She blinked before she furrowed her brow.
"How strange. It is locked," she concurred. She shrugged and unlocked the door. "Well, I suppose it was open just a bit. Anyway, it's time for us to open."
Vera brushed off the incident like it was an accident, but I'd had too many strange accidents lately to take it as a glitch in my life. I sat down to a long, tense day of waiting for the next trouble. The day didn't disappoint.
CHAPTER 6