Beth and the Creature

Just where every girl wanted to be on a Saturday night - the ER. The parking garage was dank and smelled of leaf rot and something else Beth couldn't put her finger on, but it was putrid. "Don't be silly, Beth...it's just that overactive imagination." People had told her that all her life and she wondered how any imagination could be "over-active". Imagination was a wonderful thing that helped her through life's ups and downs.

A noise came from the far corner of the concrete, a wallow of leaves, newspapers and the detritus man managed to throw away. Beth chided herself for imagining that the sound was anything more than wind blowing trash. But then a fetid slither whispered along the concrete floor and she hurried to find her Toyota.

Beth was woozy from her IV medication. She had high blood pressure that sometimes zoomed so high that she had to lay down at the doctor's office until Lisinopril could amp her pressure down to a safe level. Where was her car? She was sure she had left it on level five, near a post. None of the cars on five were hers.

Close to tears Beth walked down one level. The stink was even stronger here, but her car was nowhere to be seen. This had been the third IV for the month. Frustrated and confused, Beth began to cry. Her eyes were blurry and everything looked distorted...oddly shaped. Had she smelled it first, that pungent, greasy odor, or had she homed in on the the twisted, slow rasp on the concrete.

Then a malformed shadow flickered on the wet concrete wall next to her. Stepping back to one of the sodium arc lamps, Beth stood in its glow until her heart calmed down. She didn't want to have get another IV. As she rubbed the remainder of tears from her eyes, Beth realized she had spooked herself. A sodium halo hung over her head. Things were quieter. Her head had cleared some and put her back on track. Limp and drained, Beth realized she should have up one floor instead of down. She remembered the Blue, dented Toyota as being higher in the parking structure.

Then it came again...the sound of velvet moving over sandpaper. A sound of stealth. She shook herself and began the climb to the sixth level and when she reached the floor she was barely able to drag herself to the post where she thought she had left her car. And then, there it was, her ancient Toyota waiting for her. Beth's nose caught a whiff of something foul. This wasn't unusual in the city. Street people and bums used the structures as beds and latrines, often leaving behind a repulsive mess that lay almost as a defiant finger to the world.

Beth held her breath, nausea ramping up her throat and bursting out in a spew of vomit that splattered the blue, rust tinged door of the Toyota. As she wretched deeply enough to cause a pain clamped onto her heart...she dimmed for a minute. Beth might have fainted, except for the glimpse of something arching toward her thigh and the unbearable pain that jolted her.

She couldn't see what it was as it writhed itself around her, bringing her to the concrete. She was almost grateful for the chance to lie down. A brutish mouth tore at her thigh, teeth exploring and puncturing. Oh God, she was going to die! She let herself sink into the nothingness. There was one more explosion of pain and Beth waited to exit the world.

Suddenly the pressure was gone from her leg and something hissed in fury as it spat onto the concrete. Beth heard a vehicle coming. Something clubbed her in the side of the head, hate in every blow.

When she woke again Beth found herself in an ER room. She tried to ask a question and found she could not form words. Antiseptic smells warred with the stench she had known earlier. The haze of pain in her head was a persistent throbbing and Beth knew she was going to vomit again. The world whirled away and left Beth sleeping.

When next she opened her eyes, Beth knew she was in the ER. She could hear the clatter of gurneys and the quick orders barked when an emergency went sour. She fell into and out of reality as she dozed and roused to watch the curtain for a human. When that human came, he came in the form of Dr. Estes, who knew her quite well. Estes, who knew her quite well. He had seen her through many health crises before. The doctor stepped through the curtains and grinned at Beth, who grinned back, relieved to see a familiar face.



"Beth, must be a record a whole hour since you have been in," Dr. Estes said. Suddenly Beth realized she had no idea why she was there. She tried to squeeze words through her numb lips without much success. Dr. Estes ran a hand over Beth's forehead and felt fever warming her skin. "Beth, you had an accident in the parking structure. Do you remember what happened?"

She tried to remember, but ended up shaking her head. Dr. Estes told her that she had torn her thigh somehow, maybe on the concrete blocks in the structure. Beth watched his eyes, they told her that he wasn't exactly being forthright.

Dr. Estes gasped when he pulled back the sheet to see the wound, which he knew about only from the chart that had accompanied Beth. He tried to cover up blowing out a sigh, as if weary. Beth knew Dr. Estes was surprised by what he found. She had never seen him lose his composure before. When his gloved fingers pressed against the wound, Beth saw him shudder in revulsion. What had happened to her on the sixth level? She tried to speak again, but only

croaked out an unintelligible word. Dr. Estes went to the house phone, dialed and spoke softly to someone, as he kept his back to Beth.

When the curtain was drawn back again, Beth saw another familiar face. Dr. Freeman was a specialist of some kind. She had met him once before when a bad asthma attack had sent her to the ER. She managed a small smile. Dr. Estes said, "I want him to take a look at this wound. Nothing to fret about, Beth, he likes to see unusual cases. Not that this is, unusual, no, I just want him to see you."

It frightened Beth to see Dr. Estes acting so unsettled. One of things she liked about him was his unflappable calm in the face of the horrific sights he saw in the ER every day. It made her feel safe and protected; and now she wondered at the flutter of unease in her stomach.

Beth drifted in and out of consciousness, hearing Dr. Estes and Dr. Freeman discussing her leg and was confused when she picked out the word, "bite". Noticing that the young woman was awake once more, Dr. Freeman said, "Beth, hi, You remember me?" The doctor feigned cheerfulness. Beth licked her lips and managed a reply "Yes, Dr. Freeman. You've treated me a few times before."



The doctors examined the wound carefully, poking and squeezing. When they finally stopped, Dr.Estes asked, "Do you remember how you got this?" She couldn't, she told them, bewildered herself. The clawing pain was getting so hard to bear. "I guess I fell in the parking structure." Dr. Freeman spoke up, "Beth, there wasn't anything jagged enough in that structure to have caused the type of wound you have. It almost looks . . . chewed."

When those words entered her brain, Beth fell back in shock. What was it she remembered? That smell? The pain of whatever dug at her thigh? It was all a blur and impossible to sort out. Dr. Estes took Beth's hand and smiled into her eyes. "Beth, we're going to cover this with a saline bandage for now, and let you get some rest."

Beth felt herself whirling in a vortex. She didn't think there was such a thing as a saline bandage. Why didn't Dr. Freeman sew up the wound? Why was there a stench of decay in the room? She knew it was too early to be anything like gangrene. She faded away when the prick of

the needle sent her to sleep.