The Waiting Room

Part 1: Richard

Richard Brown lived in a small town in a two story home with his doting wife. Every morning, he walked six blocks to the office where he answered calls and wrote important notes on freshly printed sheets. He organized paperwork. He complimented the secretary’s skirt and presented a smile as they passed each other in the halls. But Richard Brown was devoted completely to Mrs. Brown, who swept floors and cooked and held garden parties in the backyard. Besides, all the men at the office were friendly to Sharon in such ways. On Saturdays, he took his wife to the French restaurant. On Sundays, he played golf. 

The first of September 1950, he kissed Mrs. Brown good morning, wishing her a happy anniversary. She happily chopped away at onions in the spacious kitchen as she inquired if he was feeling quite alright, 

“In perfect health. Nothing to worry about. It’s just a simple doctor’s checkup before work,”

“Be cautious of the people around there, Richard. Marla telephoned me this morning. Everyone’s complaining of coughs and cold; strange people; not of a decent sort,” She replied.

He promised to keep it in mind and stepped out onto the proud, paved street of his neighborhood. He thought himself to be a fine sort of fellow: the kind to truly belong in a respectable place. Everyone believed him.

Two blocks out of the main square, and already, the thick foliage obscured the sun, and the humidness of the late summer day sucked the sweet air sour. Richard was used to not paying attention to things that made him uncomfortable. Sure, he knew his suit would wrinkle during the hour’s walk in the woods to the doctor’s; his forehead would glisten with a nervous sweat, but everyone also knew their small town was as safe as a place could possibly be, even in the deepest and strangest of woods. 

The front door of the doctor’s office squeaked as he pushed it open, and he finally took his seat in the waiting room, rather devoid of life. 

Of the two others, the man to his right read the newspaper, smoking a cigarette. As every soft tick of the clock on the wall struck, his agitation became apparent. His hands shook even under the weight of a flimsy newspaper. When the man coughed, Richard couldn’t help but flinch and inched away.

Then there was the girl who sat cross-legged in the farthest corner. Everything about her screamed chaos. From her platform boots to heavy, dark makeup and leather jacket that matched her dark hair, done up in a foreign fashion.

Richard Brown found her impossible to ignore. She flicked a lighter on and off, watching the fire spark to life before extinguishing. He had heard the stories of Chinese spies sneaking into America, in their strange clothes, and all the dangers they possessed: weapons, opium, prostitutes. 

She looked up to catch his pursed lips and wrinkled her nose. Richard was not used to being disliked by people, especially not Chinese spies. He made a mental note to leave a complaint. The girl returned to playing with the lighter, and the door opened once more. A nurse poked her head in,

“I’m sorry for the wait. Our secretary wasn’t feeling well, and Miss Barbara with another patient. It’ll be just another moment,” Her eyes fell on Richard, “Mr. Brown, you have a checkup, right? I can get that done for you quickly while we wait for the doctor,”

“Hang on,” The girl spoke up, “How is that fair?! I’ve been waiting almost an hour, and he just got here,” To his surprise, she did not have a thick accent and did not curse them out in another language. She spoke clearly and swore at them under her breath in perfect English. 

“Please, be patient,” The nurse implored. Her voice went high and squeaky under the girl’s penetrating glare. 

“Right this way, Mr. Brown,” The nurse led him through the hallway with a knowing smile to an examination room. All grew quiet in the waiting room, the leaves rustling outside and softly falling. The clock ticked on and on. The girl sitting in the farther corner clicked her lighter a few more times for good measure. Tick, tick, tick. The man flipped his newspaper, pausing at the hiring jobs column. The smoke from his cigarette slowly drifted up to the ceiling. Tick, tick, tick. 10:42am. An earsplitting scream pierced through the air. 

Part 2: Cal

Cal awoke that morning of September 1st with a terrific pain in his leg. He stumbled to his kitchen and swallowed his medication along with whiskey. Without changing his clothes, he downed a second glass and limped down the street, to the payphone. He slid coins into the slot,

“Good morning. This is Dr. Jansen’s office.”

“Marla, it’s Cal...Calvin. I’m going to stop by and see the doctor. My leg’s...keeping me out of sorts. Maybe I’ll need some more of those pills,”

“Of course. I’ll write you in. Have you been using your cane?

He cradled the phone on his shoulder, “Yes,”

“Good day,”

Cal coughed, “Bye Marla,” The line was already dead. What took a regular person an hour’s walk at a steady pace was doubled for him and his bad leg, so when the clock struck ten, he finally collapsed into a chair in the waiting room. He closed his eyes in the hopes of dulling the pain in his pulsating leg. It took him several minutes to even notice there was only one other person in the room. She was definitely odd looking.

“Excuse me, miss?”

She lifted her gaze in acknowledgment. 

“Where’s the secretary? Have you seen her?”

She shrugged. 

He stared back at her blankly, “Is that a yes? A no?”

“I don’t know where she is,”

“But you’ve seen her?”

“No,”

“Not at all?”

“No,”

“Are you sure? She’s rather on the bigger side and she’s-”

“Will you quit asking me questions?! I said I didn’t know,”

“That’s quite the attitude you’ve got there,”

She broke into a laugh that was not returned. “And that’s quite a roadblock you’ve got in your head. Why are you asking me all this? Go find out for yourself,”

“What’s your name?” He asked sternly.

“My...name?”

“I’d like to know who I’m speaking to who thinks so highly of herself that she disrespects an officer with so little care,”

“Hey Mr. Police Officer, where’s your uniform?”

“Your name.”

She rolled her eyes but retained that sly smile of a fox hunting its prey, “Linh. I’m not telling you anything else,”

“I have a duty to protect my community,”

She snorted, “From me?”

“From threats,”

“No offense, Mr. Officer, but you’re full of shit. You don’t even have a uniform,”

He swallowed the rage that got him in trouble in the first place, “Just this time, seeing as I’m off duty, I’ll let you go with a warning. I hope you’ve learned your lesson about respect in this country,”

She made sure he was watching her and mouthed full of shit. Cal made a point of not looking anywhere near her if he could help it, even when the pain in his leg was eating away at him, and when she pulled out a lighter without a care in the world. He simply stared down at the newspaper pretending to read up until he heard the scream. 

“What happened?!” He called out and ran to the noise. The doctor’s office was thrown ajar, and on the floor was the nurse, Barbara, wailing over the body of Dr. Jansen. 

“Good God, is he dead?” He asked in a hushed voice. She didn’t answer through her hysterics. “Someone get help! Linh, go call for help!”

Linh only gaped, first at him, then at the figure on the floor before nodding slowly.

“Miss, please, listen to me,” He turned to the nurse, “We have to get help. Where is the other nurse?” Her cries only grew louder.

With as much weight as he could put on his wounded leg, he pulled her up from the ground.

“Find the other nurse. Tell her what has happened. Can you do that?!”

Though she looked on the verge of fainting, she managed to clamber out of the room into the dark hallway.

With only him and the body left in the room, Cal knelt down, wincing with pain. The doctor’s lifeless eyes stared back at him. Through his haggard breathing, he repeated everything he saw to himself to not forget a single detail. Unbuckled belt, cold body yet flushed cheeks, wide, bloodshot eyes. He wiped the cold sweat off his forehead. Mouth full of bile, matted hair, dried blood...Blood?

“Hey Mr. Police Officer!” Linh stood in the doorway, her eyes fearful. “The police won’t pick up,”

“What?!”

“No one’s on the other side,”

Part 3: Barbara

Barbara was on her first month of work on the first of September. She loved the people, even the strange ones who came into her waiting room. She loved helping others. She didn’t even mind that the doctor called her by her nickname, Baby, though only her closest friends referred to her that way.

She showed up to work before everyone else, letting the late summer sunshine pour into the windows that opened to the whimsical forest. When she was little, Baby danced around those very woods thinking she was a fairy. Those mornings, in her peaceful kingdom, she let herself become a woodland fairy once more, dancing in the sunrise’s gleam. 

She saw the doctor alive for the last time that morning.

But she did not tell Cal this part as the patients surrounded her in the grim waiting room. Instead, she told them of her day after the doctor arrived. She cleaned up the examination rooms. She took care of her first patient. With this, they averted their gaze to Hatter.

He was the elephant in the room. Barely 18 no older than 11 in his mannerism. No alibi, no restraint, and overall undeniably odd. Odder than Linh even, who hadn’t spoken a word after delivering the news. Soon after, the nurse, Alice, had run for help, leaving five anxious suspects and a dead body in the other room.

Hatter seemed oblivious to their stares. No one said it, but everyone thought it. They were sitting with a murderer. 

Cal cleared his sore throat, “Then what did you do after?” . 

“I went to fetch Dr. Jansen, but-” She swallowed hard, “He didn’t answer the door at first, so I left him alone. When I came back he was-” Baby choked back a sob.

“Go on,”

“He was dead,” 

Everyone stiffened. 

“It’s been 15 minutes since Miss Alice left,” Hatter said suddenly, his eyes trained on the clock. 

Richard swallowed his true thoughts, “You going to do something about...that? You’re a police officer, aren't you?”

“I’m off duty. And either way, I’m in need of just as much questioning as the rest of you,”

“Some more than others,” Richard muttered.

“He’s lying,”

“Lying?”

Linh looked from one suspicious face to another, “He’s not off duty. He just isn’t a police officer...anymore,”

Cal felt all eyes fall on him. 

“Because I’m not in uniform? I- ”

“Because of your leg. You’re clearly injured and while on duty. No precinct would keep you after that kind of mistake: the kind that leaves you injured and the other person even worse off,”

Richard laughed, “What are you trying to insinuate?”

“Oh, you don’t understand me? Want me to say it for you in Chinese?! That might get the gears working,”

Hatter let a smile tug at the corners of his mouth. 

“How dare you?!” Richard’s small mouth flared, “You’ll regret that you little...when I get my lawyer. I don’t know what it’s like where you come from but murderers get what they deserve around here,”

“Shove it, why don’t you,” 

“Is it true?” Baby managed to say, “You’re not an officer?”

“Linh’s right. I was a police officer, and this damn leg has been bothering me so much and-”

“Just answer the question,”

“...No. Not since the accident,”

“Great, so where the hell were you when that poor fellow was murdered?!” 

“Here, in the waiting room, with Linh,”

Richard uttered a pfft. 

“Mr. Police officer and I were here the whole time. What’s your excuse, asshole?”

“I was only getting my annual checkup,”

“With Babyface over here?”

“With Nurse Alice,”

“Who’s conveniently gone. So quick to point fingers,”

“My alibi will be confirmed once actual police arrive. Yet, I don’t hear you complaining about that vegetable, seeing as he hasn’t said a word about the murder,”

“Hatter was with me,” Baby didn’t hesitate, “He couldn’t have possibly seen or done anything,” She smiled at him discreetly, and he nodded, putting a finger to his lips. 

“Anyone else who can confirm your story, Richard?” Linh pressed on, “Seems like you’re a guilty man,”

“How could I have possibly done it? I mean, look at me,”

“I’m looking. I see a pig,”

In fact, Baby had seen Richard and Nurse Alice in the examination room. She knew Richard expected her to confirm his alibi, but she wasn’t sure if she was also expected to include the part where his pants were down to his ankles leaving him and Alice in a rather compromising position, scrambling to put their clothes back on, as she told them of the murder. 

Cal interrupted, “Let’s not get carried away,”

“Who asked you?! You’re not a police officer. You have no power here,”

“Linh, calm down.”

“Calm down?!” She yelled, “There’s a man dead!”

“And someone here killed him, so until the police arrive, I suggest we remain wary,”

“30 minutes since Nurse Alice left,” Hatter said quietly. 

Baby tried not to think of all the lies she had told that morning. Because the last time she saw Dr. Jansen alive was not in passing as she had sworn she did but when she knocked on his office door, was prompted to come in, found the good doctor in a disheveled array, balance completely off, his hands reaching to unbuckle his belt, then reaching for her, as she crept farther and farther away from the haggard breathing and lunatic eyes and saw the timid, sweet Hatter, raise a chair over his head and strike him. 

But the blow did not kill the doctor, only left him unconscious. Whatever was killing him had already spread into his blood. 

Part 4: Linh

Linh was having a pretty great day until the murder. At sunrise, she awoke at the top of a mountain and packed up her tent. She downed a can of soup heated over a campfire. With all of her earthly belongings in a backpack, she stopped at the bottom of the climb to wash up in the river’s clear waters and redo her makeup.

She stopped at a payphone to ring her parents who lived in a penthouse in upper Manhattan and confirmed she hadn’t been eaten by bears. Her parents asked if she was done exploring, to which she replied she’d be done exploring when there was nothing new left to see. 

Upon her parent’s wishes for an annual checkup, Linh spent the morning in a railway car on the way to the nearest town with a doctor, until of course, the clock struck 11, and she officially was caught up in a murder, being interrogated by a hypocrite and a fake police officer.

Her mother told her often, “This country judges you on how you look, not who you are, so if you look as we do, they will tell you that you don’t have any place here,”

But Linh found places for her: off the paved road far from eyes that would stare and laugh at her for everything she felt proud of in herself. People always underestimated her. By 12, when Nurse Alice had been gone for longer than any of them had predicted, she was already six steps ahead of everyone else. She understood what Cal was capable of as she had seen his recorded injury and criminal record in the paperwork near the phone she used to dial the police with, she did not see Richard’s name in the log of patients and realized in his mannerism that he and the nurse who had so quickly run off were involved in something quite scandalous, and when others assumed and relied on Baby’s innocence, Linh saw the secrets she hid so carefully flashing past her eyes, her quick glances to Hatter, her nervous fidgeting. She longed to tell them So the kid killed him, and the nurse is covering it up. I need to get out. 

She stood up, halting all conversations, the faces before her blurring in a dizzy haze. 

“Where do you think you’re going?!” Richard asked.

“I have a train to catch. Get out of my way,”

“You really think we’ll let a murderer run back to-”

“I didn’t kill anyone!”

“Her eyes are all red and bloodshot…” Hatter whispered.

Baby’s eyes widened. She turned from one pale, sickly face to another. 

“There’s a back door at the end of the hall,” She told him quietly, “Run,”

Linh stumbled out of the doctor’s office though many hands tried to pull her back. The woods blurred before her eyes calling her into them, to let go, to come closer into its sweet, dewey air. 

“Come back!” Cal called. He leaned down and coughed violently, blood and bile coming up his throat. 

Linh saw mountains through bloodied eyes. She was always six steps ahead, in everything, but this. By 12:30, she lay on the forest floor, dead. Soon, the disease would spread through the veins of the town. By sundown, only one soul was left. Hatter stood on the town’s limits and stepped out for the first time in his life.