by Jennifer Carey

Created on: October 01, 2010

The foggy night made Greta scoff as she pulled out of the ramp garage.  It was 9:30 p.m., and she was exhausted.  Not only had she promised Karen she'd stay late so that Karen could trick or treat with her little ones, she also ended up being about 40 minutes behind on her charting due to working with what could only be called a skeletal staff this Halloween.  So, of course it would be foggy as well.

The 490 was eerily quiet on her commute home, everyone already at parties or tucking their little devils into bed.  She replayed her shift mentally, trying to remember if she had addressed all the issues with Karen.  As she mulled over whether she had actually recorded the foley output in room 28, she decided she better just call Karen anyway; that patient had hemmorhaged at delivery and received a lot of fluids - so her output would be important.  She reached towards her purse, but could not feel it right away.  As she glanced downward, she also noticed something out of the corner of her eye race into her right fender with an enormous sound.  Having had only one hand on the wheel, she spun around and around as she tried to get control with flashes of light and the deep noises of steel crunching disorienting her further.

Finally, the spinning stopped. There were no noises, not even a passing car.  Greta looked at her hands, trembling in fright, and remarkably, stepped out of the car.  Her knees were not wobbly but shaking with adrenaline as she looked around the highway.  Through the fog, she could barely make out something in the road behind her.  It seemed too small to be a deer, but too large to be another animal.  Given that it was Halloween, and a time when pranks often proved foolish, she hurried towards it, in nursing mode.

Wishing that she had any type of nursing equipment, or that she had actually grabbed her phone, she knelt down at what she now clearly recognizeable as a body. She touched the woman's shoulder, horrified at the thought she had hurt someone. But it was when she saw her own bloodied face, lying on the pavement, that she released her silent scream.

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