So were the only zombies left in this area ones who worked for Pietro? Or were there still zombies who worked at the various local funeral homes though not in any capacity where I’d come into contact with them?
“Angel?”
I jerked, startled out of my reverie by the voice behind me. “Shit!” I dropped the scalpel in my hand and turned to see Dr. Leblanc. “Jesus, you scared the crap out of me,” I said with a shaking laugh.
But instead of giving an answering laugh, his eyes dropped to my left hand, and a look of alarm spread across his face. “Good lord, Angel!”
I looked down to see a deep slice along the lower part of my thumb. Crap, I thought as I stared stupidly at the gaping flesh of the inch-long gash and the thick drip of blood onto the floor. I just mopped that.
Luckily Dr. Leblanc had no desire to gaze at the pretty patterns my blood made on the tile. With a quick motion he seized one of the towels I’d set out and pressed it to my hand. “I’m sorry I startled you,” he said, concern in his eyes as he maintained pressure on the gash. “You were standing so still I thought something might be wrong.”
“Sorry,” I replied with a weak smile. “I was lost in thought.”
He lifted my hand, pulled the towel away enough to allow him to peer at the wound. Crap, I thought again. I wasn’t tanked enough for it to have healed on its own at all. Then again, that was probably good since it would’ve been really tough to explain why I’d been bleeding only seconds earlier.
“Ah, damn,” he said, wincing. “You’re going to need a few stitches in that.”
I groaned. “Oh no, is this a workman’s comp thing? Will I have to fill out an incident report?” I knew the answer to that. I’d damn well memorized the employee manual to be extra sure I wouldn’t accidentally give Allen a reason to write me up or fire me. Any injury requiring medical attention required a metric fuckton of paperwork.
“Sadly, yes,” he said, pressing the towel back down over my hand. “But since it was completely my fault I’ll write it up for you.” He gave me a smile. “Least I can do.”
“Can you stitch it up as well?” I asked hopefully. “There’s no way I’m gonna go sit in an ER for something this tiny.” Especially when a few slugs of brain smoothie would take care of the whole problem. Craaaaap. This meant I couldn’t eat until this whole thing was dealt with.
To my dismay, Dr. Leblanc shook his head. “Best that I don’t. However, I know someone who can do a fine job on it and save you an ER trip.”
With that he led me back to the main building, though he allowed me to hold the towel on my hand myself. I expected him to lead me out and over to Dr. Duplessis’s practice which was right across the street, but instead he shocked me by bringing me to Allen Prejean’s office.
“Allen. We’ve had a bit of an accident,” Dr. Leblanc said, contrition tingeing his voice. “Completely my fault.”
Allen frowned, eyes going to the bloody towel around my hand. “What happened?”
“Angel was setting out equipment, and I jostled her when she had a scalpel in her hand,” he said, surprising me with the mild lie. Maybe he figured Allen would still find a way to make it my fault if it came out I’d cut myself because Dr. Leblanc had startled me. Damn, but I loved the pathologist.
Allen opened his bottom desk drawer, pulled gloves out of a box and tugged them on, then stood and moved to me. I let him examine the gash, and even I had to admit it was an ugly wound for a non-zombie to have. The cut extended from the outer edge of my thumb and into the meat of my palm. It gaped open about a quarter of an inch, and I could see the white sheen of a tendon within. Didn’t hurt though. That was nice.
“Needs stitches,” Allen muttered. “Probably about five, I’d say.”
Dr. Leblanc nodded. “I agree. But any chance we can take care of that here and avoid her wasting hours in the ER?”
Allen looked up at Dr. Leblanc. “I could do it since it missed the tendon. I mean, I have a suture kit, but I don’t have any lidocaine.”
“I don’t need it numbed up for just a few stitches,” I said quickly. Allen gave me a doubtful look, but I hurried on. “Seriously, if you can stitch it up, that’ll be fine.”
“I’ll get started on the incident report while you take care of Angel,” Dr. Leblanc said as if the matter had been decided. After another couple of seconds of hesitation Allen shrugged.
“Okay, but no screaming or crying,” he grumbled. “Come on.”
I followed him down the hall and into a small, rarely used room that had become more of a catch-all storage space than the consulting room it once was.
“Have a seat there by the desk,” he told me as he looked through the cabinet.
I did so, mentally bracing myself against him being a jerk to me, or rougher than necessary, or any crap like that. Hunger poked at me, reminding me how unnecessary all this was, and I bit back a sigh.
Allen turned back to me with suture kit, wound wash, and towels in his hands, set them all on the desk and flicked on the swing-arm lamp. He folded one of the towels into a pad and set it on the desk by me. “Okay, Angel, rest your forearm there and get comfortable.”
“Thanks for doing this,” I remembered to say as I set my arm on the folded towel. “I really didn’t want to have to go to the emergency room.”
He unrolled another towel and draped it over my forearm. “Emergency room sucks,” he said. “This way you’ll be done in fifteen minutes instead of three hours.”
“You’ve done a lot of stitching?” Not that it really mattered since I wasn’t exactly worried about him botching it up. Even if he did, a slug of brains would take care of it.
Allen didn’t shift his careful focus from the wound. “I’ve gone with Dr. Duplessis four times on Doctors Without Borders rotations,” he said. “Did quite a few sutures.”
I blinked at him in surprise. “Really? Like other countries?” The instant the words left my mouth I realized how stupid they sounded.
But Allen didn’t deliver the condescending sneer I expected. “Yes,” he replied as he opened the suture kit and began removing items. “Africa, Guatemala, and Haiti twice.”
“I never knew that,” I said, frowning slightly. “Why don’t you ever talk about it?”
“It hasn’t come up,” he replied with a small shrug. He picked my hand up carefully and sprayed wound wash on it. I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to sting, but I figured I’d give a slight wince anyway.
“Wow. Did you like it?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t have gone four times if I didn’t,” Allen replied. He finished cleaning the slice, then replaced the towel beneath my arm with a fresh and dry one. “I’m going again in October, but without Dr. Duplessis this time.” He pulled off the latex gloves he had on, then put on fresh sterile gloves from the suture kit.
“That’s really cool,” I said, meaning it. “Where are you going?”
“Guatemala again to work in a children’s services clinic in the highlands,” he said. He picked up the needle, then adjusted my hand on the folded towel. “Okay, Angel,” he said, speaking calmly and, to my continued surprise, gently. “Take a deep breath and let it out.”