Dancing with the Dead ✔

Chapter Five - The Devil Wears (Fake) Prada

I press the small white button next to the satin glass door. A cold breeze from the air conditioner inside blows as the door slides open. It feels strange to see the ER so empty. Usually, it's always full of patients that I pity the doctors and nurses assigned there.

Stepping inside, the first thing that I notice is the photos of current physicians and nurses on duty hanged on the wall behind the huge wooden desk. In one photo, a plump lady in her early forties flashes her biggest smile, flaunting her perfect set of teeth. Her white teeth almost contrast her dark skin. The woman is none other than Nurse Mackenzie Jackson, one of the nicest nurses in the hospital. She's been really helpful ever since I first got here. I've checked the ER's schedule for the night of John Doe's accident. Thankfully, Nurse Jackson is one of the nurses on duty that night.

Then, my gaze is drawn to the last photo on the right. Rebecca Lawson. Second-year ER resident. The redhead's fake and somewhat ostentatious smile in the photo says it all. She's a bitch who has been spending her time hating me from day one. Who knows why. Maybe she's jealous of my beauty. Or my brain. Or both. Or maybe she's just plain bitchy. I personally vote for the latter. Sadly, her signature is also on his admittance form. Yes, she was the physician who first treated our very own Freddy Krueger.

I step forward with the hope that Nurse Jackson is there to answer my questions instead of the she-devil. Tapping on the desk, I lean forward against the counter and the sight of the woman sitting behind the desk drains the life out of me. I inadvertently bite my lower lips as I start to curse inside. The look on her face tells me I'm not the only one cursing this very moment. The she-devil looks up at me with clear annoyance in her eyes.

"Rebecca."

"Alexis," she says with clear exasperation in her voice.

If my life was a comic book, there'd be sparks and bolts of lightning coming out of our eyes, trying to kill each other with our mere gazes.

"I still don't get why we're—" The ghost stop right next to me. On the corner of my eyes, I can see him jolting back the second he sees the intense glare between me and Rebecca. Not knowing what to do, his expression turns awkward.

"Have you seen Nurse Jackson?" I say, trying my best to be polite.

"She went home early. Her kid is sick or something," she replies with a sullen tone. She leans back on her chair, pretending to toy with her fake scarlet-polished fingernails, showing no interest whatsoever.

I sigh. "You were on duty two nights before, right?"

"Uh-huh," she replies, all the while not taking her eyes off her nails.

"Do you remember Freddy— I mean, John Doe? Third-degree burnt victim?"

"Uh-huh," she says, once again not having the decency of looking at me even for a second.

"Do you remember what he wore that night?"

All of a sudden she stops fake-cleaning her fingernails. She turns her head towards me as she raises one of her actually-thin-but-drawn-to-be-thicker brows and glares at me with an are-you-freaking-stupid look on her face. I narrow my eyes. I can no longer hide the pout on my face that's been eager to find its way to fill my face ever since I saw her snobby face.

"The man was almost burnt to death, Alexis. So automatically, the clothes were burnt too. Duh," she says, all the while her head wobbles slightly from left to right like a freaking bobblehead.

I bite my lower lip, trying to contain my anger. "At least you should remember something. Anything?"

Instead of answering me, she takes what I assume as the ER logbook from the pile of books in front of her. But, I'm not one to give up without a fight. She may be a pain in the neck, but she's not one to ignore such details. In fact, she's known to be quite meticulous.