Free Dead Letter Day by Eileen Rendahl Page A

felt nothing. Maybe I was being paranoid. Maybe the cow thing was a one-off. I couldn’t imagine who or why, but maybe the danger had passed. I certainly hoped so.
    The different classes filed in and out over the afternoon and early evening. Everything seemed totally normal. After the last students left, I locked up the studio, changed into my work clothes for the hospital, slipped out the back door and headed out. No one seemed to be following me. I finally started to relax.
    Maybe the cows had been a fluke. They’d attacked on their own. That could happen, couldn’t it? I mean, it wasn’t something you read about in the papers on a regular basis, but certainly stranger things had happened. Spontaneous human combustion, for example. That was totally stranger than demonic attack cows.
    I parked the Buick on the top floor of the hospital parking garage and took a few seconds to appreciate the night. It was desperately dark, but the air was crisp and clean in that way that only happens in the fall. I allowed myself a few moments of peace before I waded into the barely controlled chaos that was our inner-city emergency room.
    I hit the doors and did an immediate detour. Suddenly I wanted grapefruit juice. No. I didn’t want it. I needed it. I’d make a quick run through the cafeteria, pick myself up aglass and then I’d get to work. Even with the detour, I still ended up at my desk on time. I got a nod from my boss for that. I favored her with a smile.
    Then the humanity began to drag itself past me in all its glory. I had two pretty obvious drug seekers first, not that it was any of my business. They were most definitely the doctors’ problem and not mine. Still, I’d been working here long enough to recognize all the signs. Non-specific pains and lots of drug allergies to anything non-narcotic.
    Then I had one niece admitting her elderly aunt who she’d come to visit for the first time in months and found the poor dear a little more confused than the last visit.
    After that came a woman in her late twenties who was clearly in agony. Every few minutes she would literally double over in pain, groaning. The pain had started that morning and had gotten progressively worse throughout the day. It wasn’t easy to get her information, since with each wave of pain, she’d be unable to talk or even really hear my questions.
    Then after one particularly intense-looking spasm, she gasped, “Oh, no. I’m so sorry. I think I peed all over your floor.”
    I stood up and looked over the counter that separated us. Yep. Body fluid all over my floor. Fantastic. Still, it was hard to get angry with her. She looked like hell. I hit the buzzer to ask for an orderly to come help her back into the emergency room in a wheelchair and to bring a mop. I couldn’t believe the triage nurse had sent her over here rather than straight back into a bed.
    By this time, most of the other file clerks were starting to watch what was happening. What can I say? We don’t get out much.
    Everyone was quiet until she was wheeled out, doubled over again in the grips of some terrible cramp.
    “That chick is having a baby,” Letitia said.
    Okay. The woman was a little plump, but she did not look like she was nine months pregnant. Besides, it’s kind of a salient point when one is seeking medical care. “She didn’t say she was pregnant. In fact, I’m pretty sure she said she wasn’t.” I sat down to look at the part of the form we’d actually managed to fill out.
    Letitia crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t care what she said. She’s pregnant and she’s having that baby now.”
    A loud scream came from behind the doors as if to punctuate her point.
    “How is that possible?” I asked. “How can you not notice that you’re pregnant?”
    “Haven’t you seen that TV show? The one about all the women having babies who didn’t know they were pregnant and then having them in toilet stalls?” Veronica, another clerk, asked, sitting down