For Nicole

A fictional horror short story.

For a friend … who maybe didn’t wish it was fictional.

–

Nicole walked angrily down the sidewalk. Taking a wider step every few paces to pull up the fabric of her pants, trying to stop the fire her thighs were starting.

It was a miserably hot day, and she hadn’t planned on walking.

The sweat that mixed into her foundation stained the cardigan she had taken off to try and cool down, wiping her face around her sunglasses.

She didn’t care what she looked like anymore. It was hot and she had had a shitty day at work.

A patient had gotten to her. Not physically, but mentally. She’d kept nicole on edge the entire day, stalking the nurses and infecting the other patients like a dog barking in a back lane, setting off every other dog in the neighbourhood.

It was almost worse when they played mind games. More exhausting to have her nerves raked all day like some servant, constantly at their beck and call. Constantly ready to defend herself.

It was unethical to say she hated them. Frowned upon to jokingly suggest anything other that regulation patient care, but she knew that this job had burned the empathy out of her. And she might admit it to a therapist some day.

But that would have to wait. Wait until she got home and the bra stopped digging into her sides. Wait until she didn’t have to actively stop herself from waddling because of the pain in her knee, or the ache in her hips.

She turned the volume on her music a little higher.

Then she remembered, that before she could pay for a therapist, she had to think about the roof, it had been leaking since last spring and they needed to start saving. But then she remembered the wedding – fuck.

She turned the music up again.

She started thinking about the guest list, and who she couldn’t invite, and the diet she needed to start again to fit the dress she hadn’t picked yet, but not before she called that one place back and paid something else off. Fuck.

She tried to turn the music up again but it cut out. She stared at her phone and read that it was now playing in an air conditioned Honda somewhere almost an hour away, where her fiance sat stuck in traffic.

She considered taking her music back but decided against it. She had been playing nurse at home too lately. And it sucked because worse than a thankless job, it was an unenviable job and she felt like she’d missed her turn at being spoiled and babied.

She tucked her phone away and began to cross the street, when a car almost hit her before driving off but not before twisting her knee. FUCK.

Nicole was done. She was worse than done, she was done pretending she wasn’t done. At the breaking point of every mental limit, every unhealthy coping mechanism.

Then she saw it.

A small pack of bandages outlined in white just at her feet.

She picked them up.

Then she noticed the ammo a few inches to her left.

She picked them up too.

Then she heard a voice she recognized in her ear.

“There’s a ABR if you want it.”

Nicole stared around, confused and wrapped in a familiar warmth. Without thinking she asked, “where?”.

“On the guy. At the tree”

She turned at saw a corpse at the base of the tree she’d passed a million times on her way to work. And on that corpse a tan duffle bag. Still in a daze, and without thinking, she laid down next to the corpse – the pain in her knee gone, and started rifling through the bag.

She felt her hands move with purpose though the items, taking an entire Trauma Kit when she was done, then crouching and turning as she heard footsteps come up behind her.

Rachel jump and slid into her, crouching to riffle through the bag on the corpse too.

“Oh shit we gotta go.”

Rachel took off jumping and sliding.

Nicole turned back to look at the street she’d been walking on, the cars and people a distant memory now, and she saw a blue wall begin to creep towards her. It was a searing wall of transparent blue, engulfing the people that sat sweating in the cars they couldn’t afford, listening to shitty music on the radio with opinions and expectations and responsibilities, and … she considered staying. Considered letting the blue wall consume her and drag her into a world of mediocracy, where she made a budget, and faced her mental traumas, and pretended to like the people she hated, and quit smoking, and showered when she didn’t have to.

Fuck that, she thought before running after Rachel.

–

“Bitches at 76” Nicole heard rachel say.

Suddenly there were numbers in front of her. And she crouched behind a lamp post near the hospital. They’d run back in the direction of her work.

Nicole aimed down sight and saw … the car that had almost hit her. It was stopped at the corner of William and Sherbrook. The bitches had gotten out to loot Subway.

Without thinking Nicole fired.

One of them retaliated with a grenade and Rachel squeaked a warning before charging.

Nicole threw a molotov and knocked the first bitch as Rachel chased the second bitch- who had run off toward Furby.

And as Nicole approached the enemy crawling away, she realized she recognized them ….. one of her old patients. A female that had decided to attack her once.

With a smile on her face, Nicole switched her gun for the shittier, but in this case more satisfying, shotgun.

A deep, blissful, shot to the head later, Rachel ran back as Nicole began to loot and heard “atta girl booboo”.

–

As time progressed, the world began to warp.

In a chaotic, savage display of release and ecstasy, they stormed the hospital and shot down enemies that looked suspiciously like people she knew. Shooting and yelling, healing and running, laughing moments before tensing in a fight or jumping and weaving around bushes and trees. Then the boys were on, and she practiced with them, feeling safer and bolder to curse when she thought she failed, because she wanted them to know how serious she was about this.

It was therapeutic. It was cathartic. It was everything the world had failed to offer her for the impotent rage she felt at life. The enemies she killed started to look less like her stressful life and horrible past, and more like faceless, victimless, outlets that she could abuse and let abuse her. And always she was surrounded by familiar voices that warned her, praised her, laughed with her, and raged with her.

Then … the front door opened, and she had to go because her fiance was home.

 

-XOXO boo boo.