"Just send me some deputies, goddamn it!"

"Well, that's just it. Dave Howard's off on vacation to Navajo Lake and Clay Theel's got the weekend off and he's on his way to a gun show in Denver. You got security there at BC. I know those boys. They're good. Turn 'em loose and they'll keep the lid on till we can get somebody over. Gotta go."

"But--"

The line clicked dead.

You got security there...was he kidding? Blessed Crucifixion security was some good old boys who got off on wearing uniforms and carrying guns. They might, just might, have the cojones to eject Jenny Bolton, but they weren't going to handle the Moorecook thing.

Okay...stabilize these people, get them admitted, then get the hell out of here. First, the softballers.

He turned to Winslow. "What orthopedist and general surgeon are on tap?"

She checked the call list. "Manetti and Schwartz."

"Get them. Tell Manetti we've got a traumatic amputation for him and a major avulsion laceration for Schwartz."

He walked over to the softballers. Jenny had stabilized the amputee. Bleeding had stopped but the guy was as white as his uniform used to be and looking shocky.

"Want me to start an IV?" she said, nodding to the amputee as she cleaned the butt wound on the other softballer, prone on a gurney.

He wanted her out of here but needed the help.

"D-five in NS. Open it up. Type and cross-match him." He was going to need a transfusion. "I'll be sewing up the kid." He jabbed a finger at her. "Don't do one goddamn thing without checking with me first. Understood?"

"Loud and clear," she said with a defiant look. Then it crumbled. "What if Mortimer comes back?"

His worst fear, but he hid it. "We'll handle it."

"Oh, like before? Hiding behind the nurse's station?"

He was about to tear her a new one when three rapid gunshots sounded from somewhere in the hospital. A pause, then two more.

"Oh, God," Jenny whispered.

And then the doors burst open and two burly security guards backed in, each dragging two bloody bodies.

"What the fuck is going on?" one of the guards screamed, wide eyes showing white all around. "There's some kind of creature going crazy in the lobby. We walked in and it was behind the snack bar. It ripped Ernie's head off!"

Sure enough, one of the corpses had been decapitated.

The other guard said, "I shot that fucker five times--I know I had at least three killshots--but they hardly even slowed him!"

Lanz felt his knees go rubbery. He tried to speak but words wouldn't come.

"We've got to evacuate." Jenny said.

He glared at her as he found his tongue. "Evacuate where? We're in the American equivalent of Outer Mon-fucking-golia. Plus the highway's blocked. What do I do? March or carry a hundred and fifty patients out into the woods?"

That shut her up--almost.

"Okay, then. If the patients can't leave, neither am I. When my ex comes back, we're going up to pediatrics and make sure nothing happens to those kids."

"Like hell you--"

And then he saw one of the guards start back into the hospital.

"Where are you going?"

"To get Ernie's head. I ain't leaving his head out there!"

Lanz wanted to scream not to leave him and that Ernie didn't care about the location of his goddamn head at this point, but bit it back. He was the captain of this ship and he had to hold it together, despite the fact that this corner of the world had gone insane.

Shanna

SHANNA turned away as she saw the prissy doctor poised over Mortimer's exposed chest, smearing a clear gel on the defibrillator paddles. She'd spent the last two months studying some of history's worst atrocities. In fact she'd often perused accounts of mass impalings while eating lunch--no problem.

But this? Uh-uh.

She headed into the hospital proper. She'd been here once before, when they'd thought Mortimer had OD'd, and remembered a snack bar in the lobby. A cup of coffee would hit the spot, especially after that Scotch. She wasn't used to hard liquor.

The short middle-age man with "Ernie" embroidered into his shirt hung by the coffee kiosk at the end of the snack bar.

"Latte?" he said as she approached.

"Just a regular coffee, please. Black."

She glanced around the nearly deserted lobby. By this time the day's surgeries were done, the second shift was ensconced, the doctors had left for their offices, the kitchen was readying to serve dinner, the day visitors were gone and the night visitors weren't home from work yet.

Quiet. Like a morgue.

She grimaced. Probably not the best analogy for a hospital.

She paid Ernie for the coffee and pulled out her cell. She had to call Clay to make sure he'd received the message that she and Jenny needed a ride back to Mortimer's for their cars.

And then what?

Clay was expecting her to spend the weekend with him in Denver. She didn't see how she could do that without losing her mind. Another gun show. When not at the show, however...her pelvis tingled with warmth that coursed up through her abdomen and settled in her nipples. The non-show activities would almost be worth it.

Almost.

The sex...she'd miss the sex. They were so good in bed. But the parade of gun shows and all the machismo...she'd had her fill. She had to call a halt.

She checked her phone's display: no bars. Then she saw the sign: No Cell Phones!

Did they really need that exclamation point?

She glanced back along the lengthy hallway to the ER, then toward the lobby entrance. That looked closer. She pushed through the heavy glass doors to the outside, found a bench, and sat. She tried a sip of her coffee and winced as bitterness stabbed her tongue. Yuck. When had this been made? This morning?

She'd have to have a word with Ernie. But right now...

She stared at the cell display. Still no bars. But tucked in the corner of the room was a pay phone.

So call.

And say what? How could she tell that big cuddly guy that it wasn't working? That she needed more than the best sex she'd ever had in her life. She needed a life of the mind as well. He was extremely bright, but his focus was so narrow. Guns and action films and his job--he loved being a deputy sheriff, so much that a lot of other stuff in his life was pushed to the side.

She knew what would happen when she told him. He'd promise to change. Spend less time at work. Take her ballroom dancing.

At least she assumed that would happen. This was all new to her. What if he just said, "Okay. See you around."

She almost wished he would. It would shake her to know she'd been that wrong about him, but at least she wouldn't be hurting his feelings.

God, I'm such a coward.

Do it, Shanna.

She found some change in the bottom of her purse and plunked it into the payphone. Four rings and then his voicemail came on. Oh, no. She gritted her teeth and listened once again as Clint Eastwood said, "Go ahead...make my day. BEEEEP!"

She definitely had to break this off.

"Clay, it's Shanna. Don't know if you got my last message but Jenny Bolton and I had to rush Mortimer to the hospital. Our cars are still at his place. Could you swing by the hospital and give us a lift back?" She bit her lip. "And Clay...about this weekend..." No. She couldn't. She owed him a face-to-face explanation. "Talk to you later."

She hung up the receiver and thought about that. Face-to-face. How could she look into Clay's warm brown eyes and tell him it was over?