Residence Evil (Dr. Beckett Campbell Medical Examiner Book 6) Read online

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  Residence Evil

  A Dr. Beckett Campbell, ME

  ‘Just the Tip’ Short

  Book 6-ish

  Patrick Logan

  Residence Evil

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  END

  Author’s Note

  Residence Evil

  Chapter 1

  September 2010

  “Doc! Doc! You gotta help my friend… he’s dying! He’s fucking dying over here!”

  Second year resident Dr. Beckett Campbell leaned back and observed the two young men who stumbled into the hallway. The first, the very definition of frat boy, had his arms wrapped around a man who was bent at the waist and clutching his midsection. A chorus of pained grunts were coming from one, or both, of them.

  “Right,” Beckett said, raising an eyebrow. “I can see that. Well—”

  “Excuse me! Excuse me! You can’t just come in here!”

  Beckett looked past the two men and focused his attention on a surly woman in scrubs.

  “Dr. Campbell, these men… they need to be triaged. They just barged in here and—”

  “Lady, do you know who I am?” the ambulatory frat boy demanded, as he craned his neck around to stare at the nurse.

  Beckett cringed.

  Now that’s a mistake.

  He may have only been a resident in the ER for three months now, but he’d learned on day one on that you don’t fuck with Nurse Ruby Troy.

  The woman was only five foot three with heels on, but she had the temper and constitution of a honey badger.

  Normally, he would have been inclined to intervene, but today had been an unusually slow day, so Beckett decided to sit back and watch the fireworks.

  His only wish was that he had some popcorn to enjoy along with the show.

  “Excuse me? What did you just say to me?” Ruby placed her clipboard down on the nearest counter.

  Oh, this is going to get good, Beckett thought with grin.

  “I said, don’t you know—”

  Ruby’s right hand shot out and she stole the words with a slap. The frat boy was so surprised that he simply stared at the woman, eyes wide, mouth rearranged into a near-perfect ‘o’.

  “Talk back to me again,” Ruby threatened.

  “What the fuck?” The frat boy looked at Beckett for support, but he just shrugged. This was too good to put an end to just yet. “This is a—”

  Ruby slapped the man again, this time on the back of the head.

  “Don’t you dare swear in my emergency room.”

  The frat boy shrunk into himself like a Ralph Lauren-inspired turtle. When he opened his mouth to speak, Ruby cocked her head and raised her hand like an organic machete.

  This impasse lasted for a good five seconds before the man who was bent over broke the silence with a particularly haunting groan.

  As much as Beckett wanted to see what happened next, it was clear that the kid required medical intervention.

  “Alright, alright, enough flirting,” Beckett said, unfolding his arms and stepping forward. “Ruby, thanks for keeping order, but I’ll take it from here.”

  Ruby’s scornful gaze remained locked on the two men for a moment longer, then her expression softened, and she lowered her hand.

  “You’re welcome, sweetie,” she said with a smile. “Are you sure that you don’t want me to triage them, first?”

  Beckett observed the frat boys, then beyond them and into the waiting room, which, aside from two sniffling teens and a man who was already quite possibly dead, was empty.

  “Naw, that’s okay, I’ll take them into examination room three. If they give me any trouble, though, I’ll be sure to call you right away.”

  Ruby nodded, her smile growing. She picked up her clipboard again and went back to doing what she was doing before as if nothing had happened.

  When she was out of earshot, the first frat boy found his tongue.

  “Did you see that? She just—”

  “I saw,” Beckett admitted. “If you want, you can go fill out a complaint form in the waiting room. But… then you’ll lose your place, and I might not be able to get to you for, oh, an hour or a week. Or you can suck it up, buttercup, and take your buddy into room three. Your choice.”

  When the man’s friend made a sound as if he were giving birth to a cactus through his urethra, their decision was made.

  Beckett led them down the hall to room three. After the mouthy one helped his friend onto examination table, he said, “What’s your friend’s name?”

  “Brock.”

  Yeah, no surprise there. Frat Boy Brock.

  Beckett turned his attention to the man curled on the table.

  “Okay, Brock, where exactly does it hurt?”

  “Uhhhnng.”

  “Okay, okay, can you look up? Can you just—”

  Brock did as he was instructed, revealing a red face slick with sweat. But this wasn’t what cut Beckett short.

  It was the man’s breath.

  Beckett recoiled, but not fast enough to avoid the brunt of the ungodly stench. He covered his nose and mouth with his hand, but his dinner, consumed mere minutes before Brock and Brick had barged into the ER, still tried its darnedest to extricate itself from his stomach.

  “What? What’s wrong?” the other man asked, his face now nearly as red as Brock’s now. “What is it?”

  Beckett dry swallowed several times before answering.

  “What’s wrong? What’s wrong is that if your friend breathes on me again, I’ll be the one who’s gonna die.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  Beckett gagged again and shook his head.

  “Jesus, you don't smell that? It smells like he ate a soiled diaper for breakfast—” Beckett looked at his watch. It was coming up on eleven-thirty at night. “—and lunch and dinner.”

  “Yeah… I know. I guess I just got used to it. But you said he’s going to die? What's wrong with Brock?”

  Beckett did his best to look at Brock, but it was difficult what with his eyes watering so profusely.

  “When's the last time you took a shit, Brock?”

  The man's eyes bulged, he swallowed hard, and then managed to whisper, “I dunno. More than a week, at least.”

  And there it was: Beckett knew exactly what this man's problem was. And it wasn’t anything as sexy as an ulcer, a burst appendix, or gastrointestinal cancer.

  The man was compacted and just needed to defecate.

  Beckett peeked out the door, trying to locate a more junior resident, anybody who could perform perhaps the worst job in the history of medicine. But there was only Ruby in the waiting room, surveying the scene like a homicidal sniper seeking their next victim.

  Just as Beckett was about to turn back to his whimpering patient, he spied a young man with thinning black hair and stubble on his face.

  He wiped the tears from his eyes and attempted a smile.

  “Dr. Swansea! Dr. Swansea, come on over here,” Beckett shouted, waving his hand in the air. The man looked up, saw Beckett’s grin, and his eyes immediately narrowed. “No, no, it's not like last time, I swear,” Beckett continued. “You have to check this out—it's a fascinating case.”

  Dr. Ian Swansea remained suspicious, but he couldn’t resist the prospect of witnessing a rare condition.

  “What is it this time, Beckett?” the man asked as he peeked his head into examination room three. He took one breath, then pulled back. “Jesus, what is that smell?”

  “You’re not going to believe this,” Beckett said, laying it on thick, “this man, he has an extremely rare—”

  “Brock hasn’t shit in a week and a half!” Frat boy number two interjected.

  Shit!

  Beckett was about to contradict the mouthy asshole, but it was too late. Dr. Swansea was already backing into the hallway.

  “No—no way, Beckett.” he shook his head. “You brought him in here, and you're going to be the one who decompacts him.”

  Beckett cringed. Removing the bolus of impacted fecal matter that was causing Brock severe discomfort threatened to not only curdle his stomach but to render him impotent for a week.

  Perhaps even longer.

  And that just didn’t vibe with his social life.

  Beckett shot Brock’s friend a look.

  “Thanks a lot,” he grumbled.

  “I have—uh, something else to do,” Dr. Swansea said as he continued to put space between him and the odor. “Have a good one, Beckett. Enjoy your afternoon.”

  Instead of a wave, the man gave Beckett a two-finger salute.

  “Asshole.”

  Beckett grabbed a pair of latex gloves from the box to his right.

  “Doc, is he… is Brock gonna be
okay? Is it a tumor?”

  Beckett shook his head and then put second pair of gloves over the first. If the hospital had been equipped with gloves that came up to your elbows, the ones for inseminating livestock, he would have worn those, too.

  Hell, if a hazmat suit had been handy, Beckett wouldn’t have hesitated to put it on.

  “Doc?”

  Beckett swallowed hard.

  I should have been an electrician or a tow truck driver. He cocked his head to one side. Or a sex education teacher.

  “Just tell it to me straight, Doc—is Brock going to die?”

  Beckett snapped the wrist of one of the gloves dramatically.

  “No, he’s not going to die. He’s just full of shit. Literally. Now, Brock, I need you to pull down your pants.”

  To his credit, Brock tried. But the pain and/or humiliation was too great, and he gave up after a few seconds. He was in so much pain that just undoing the button on his jeans was tantamount to solving a Rubik’s cube with your toes.

  Beckett sighed and looked over at Brock’s friend.

  “Hey, Bluto, give your boy a hand with his drawers.”

  “Bluto? No, my name’s Thad.”

  For fuck’s sake. Thad?

  “Okay Thad, help Brock remove his pants.”

  The man's eyes went wide, and he showed his palms.

  “No, no I can't—”

  Beckett shrugged.

  “I can do it. But first I’m going to have to take these gloves off, wash my hands again, pull down his pants, put them back on…”

  Brock moaned.

  “Fine,” Thad relented.

  Leaning back as far as possible, Thad undid his friend’s zipper and then teased the man’s pants to his ankles. Then he jumped back triumphantly.

  But that wasn’t good enough and Beckett gestured toward the man’s plaid boxers.

  “No, come on,” Thad pleaded. “This is—aw, fuck.”

  With a delicate touch, Thad pulled Brock’s underwear down. Then the man actually covered his face with his hands, as if just glimpsing Brock’s flaccid penis would instantly turn him gay.

  Fucking frat boys.

  Beckett grabbed a cardboard bedpan from his right, thought about it for a split-second then grabbed two more.

  “Okay, Brock, I’m going to need you bring your knees to your chest.”

  Another moan.

  “Yeah, I know, it hurts, but the faster we get this ball of shit out of your ass, the better, alright? You’re backed up so high, your molars are caked with fudge. Capiche?”

  Once again, Brock gave it a valiant effort only to fall short. He could barely raise his feet, let alone cradle his knees.

  Knowing what was coming next, Thad muttered preemptively, “I can’t, I just can’t do it.”

  Beckett stared at him until the man’s fingers, which were still holding his face, parted a little.

  “Thad, if you don’t—”

  A shout from the hallway drew Beckett’s eyes away from the half-naked frat boy.

  “Just a sec,” he said, stepping into the hall.

  “Code Orange! Code Orange!” An EMT yelled as he shoved a gurney into the ER. Beckett could see at least two more patients being wheeled in behind the first. “Multiple traumas! I need a fucking doctor—I need a fucking doctor, or this family is going to die!”

  Chapter 2

  “We’ve got three—no, four victims, all gunshot wounds,” the EMT continued, speaking quickly but not so fast that Beckett couldn’t understand. “One’s just a kid.”

  “Gimme the ABC’s,” Beckett demanded, as he examined the first patient. It was an unconscious middle-aged man with an apparent gunshot wound to the midsection. He was breathing and a preliminary examination revealed a weak, but present pulse.

  “All airways clear, breathing normal, circulation poor in John here—BP 95/50,” the EMT said. “The kid, Kathy, was shot in the leg, had to sedate.”

  Beckett nodded and turned to Ruby who had appeared at his side. Next to her was Dr. Swansea.

  “Call Dr. Walcott, get him—”

  “Already did, he’s on his way.”

  “Alright, take—what did you say his name is?”

  “John,” the EMT confirmed.

  “Take John to OR two. Take the girl—” Beckett stopped when he saw a police officer hooking a pair of handcuffs on the unconscious man lying on the fourth gurney. “Who’s that?”

  “This piece of shit is responsible—” the cop began, but he was cut-off by Dr. Walcott, the attending ER physician.

  “Why are these patients still in the hallway?” he demanded.

  “This—”

  Dr. Walcott cut the officer off again.

  “Get them into the OR, now!”

  The EMT rolled John into OR two, while Ruby took the girl who had a gunshot wound to her leg into another operating room. The cop and Dr. Swansea took the last two patients to adjacent rooms.

  Beckett was about to follow Ruby, when the officer said, “Hey, I don’t think this guy is breathing over here.”

  Despite his words, the cop didn’t sound all that concerned. But Beckett could barely detect a pulse.

  “Ruby?”

  But Ruby was already out of earshot.

  “Fuck.” Beckett looked at the cop. “Let’s go, over here.” They rolled the man who was handcuffed to the gurney into the final empty OR. “Help me get his clothes off so I can see the wounds. I’m going to have to intubate.”

  The cop frowned and Beckett saw for the first time that he was young, perhaps even younger than himself.

  “I can’t do this on my own. I need—”

  “Uhh, doc?”

  Beckett spun around, hoping that it was one of the nurses coming to lend a hand.

  It wasn’t.

  It was Thad.

  “My friend, he—”

  “He what?” Beckett barked. “I’ve got a person dying here and you’re bothering me about your friend who has to shit? He’s impacted—you need to get the ball of fecal matter out of his ass, and he’ll be fine.”

  Thad's eyes went so wide that it looked as if his lids had retracted all the way to the optic nerves.

  “What?”

  Beckett didn't have time for this discussion.

  “No, don’t give me that look—and don’t act like this is the first time you’ve rooted around in your friend’s asshole. Get the shit out, and he’ll be fine.” Beckett turned back to the cop. “This guy needs to be intubated. I’ll do that, but you need to take off his clothes so I can see the wound.”

  “Wounds,” the cop corrected, but still didn’t move to help. As Beckett began preparing the patient for intubation, the cop added, “I’m not touching him.”

  Beckett tilted the man’s head back and lubed up the tube before inserting it into his mouth.

  “Listen, officer—”

  “Drake, just Drake.”

  Beckett shoved the tube past the man’s teeth and into his trachea.

  “Okay, Drake, I don’t know if you’re scared of blood or whatever, but if you don’t help me now, this guy’s gonna bite the big one.”

  When there was no answer, Beckett looked at the cop.

  “What the fuck’s going on?”

  “This piece of shit…” Drake scowled, “This piece of shit is the one who shot the family in the other rooms.”

  Beckett froze.

  “What?”

  “Yeah, he broke into their home while they were asleep. Walked right up to the parents and shot them in their bed.”

  As the cop spoke, Beckett finished intubating the patient and hooked him up to several monitors.

  “He coulda just left then—taken what he wanted and been on his way. But instead, he walked into the girl’s room and shot her, too.”

  Beckett cringed.

  Shot the sleeping girl in her bed?

  He took a step back from the patient and paused for a moment. He’d taken an oath, of course—an oath to try his best to save every one of his patients. Man, woman, child, convict, priest, and pervert alike.

  But this piece of shit? If only he had a reason—

  “Dr. Campbell?”

  Beckett spun around. Ruby was standing in the doorway, a severe expression on her face.

  “Is your patient stable, because Dr. Walcott needs you—the girl, she’s coding.”

  “Fuck.” Beckett glanced down at the man on the table. He was borderline stable, at best. “He’ll make it…”