Arsenic for the Soul (2 page)

To accept this position in
the 1999 program, please complete and return this form within two
weeks of receipt of this letter.

Tingles of excitement washed through
Vivian. Of course, she immediately mailed in her acceptance and
secured a spot in the program that eluded her for years.

The nursing program rejected her first
application due to an inadequate number of classes. Though their
response seemed like a pat on the back and best wishes in her
future, it hardly softened the blow to her pride. She questioned if
she would ever find a career, provide for herself, or assert any
measure of independence.

Doubt wreathed her future every day
since then. Vivian couldn’t live with her parents forever and she
certainly didn’t desire the life of a paltry beggar.

She wanted nothing more than to dive
into the medical field, settle into a cozy apartment, and maybe
meet a nice guy in the process.

Was that asking too much?

Those efforts finally paid off with
the arrival of her acceptance letter in July. With every passing
day, her prison of fears tumbled down. She had come such a long way
to finally realizing her dream of helping others.

Vivian pulled on her burgundy scrubs,
feeling renewed as she transformed before the mirror.

The woman in the looking glass was a
distant vision of the streetwalker infamously known as Red Widow.
No longer did her eyes glow with scarlet contacts that aroused fear
and excitement in tainted hearts.

Her hair shed its luscious red color
in favor of her natural raven roots. However, not all traces of her
past could be so easily expunged. Inked flora and script still
traced her flesh in tribute to the more eccentric, forbidden
influences in her life.

Furthermore, she refused to part with
her ear gages.

She pulled her scrubs down over the
hourglass-shaped birthmark on her belly, as if to deny who she was
a year ago. Nothing in the world could drag her back to the brink
of ruin. No amount of desperation could force her on that
downtrodden path again.

She adjusted the name badge over her
breast and took one final look in the mirror.

Vivian pecked her mother on the check
on her way out of the house. Her heart pounded as she sidled into
the leather seat of her father’s car and prepared for the journey
to the University Hospital. By this time, she was running on the
fuel of jittery nerves and caffeine.

She probably laid in bed for the
entire night without once shutting her eyes. How could she sleep
with so many adventures teasing her?

Ten minutes later, she pulled into the
parking lot for the University Hospital. She scanned the ambulances
parked outside and she couldn’t believe she was finally
here.

Sipping coffee from her Styrofoam cup,
she tried to dismiss the warnings passed on by former
graduates.

Supposedly, she would be expected to
know every iota of information sandwiched between the covers of her
textbooks. If she so much as glossed over a single page, it would
spell doom for her on the exams.

If that didn’t set her back on her
heels, she could look forward to panic-induced blackouts on the
nights before exams.

Pain danced in her temples.

Why should these doubts surface now?
Maybe it was the same anxiety that accompanies any life-altering
commitment. Was it no different than the same twinge a bride feels
in her stomach before she walks down the aisle?

Fortunately, Vivian wasn’t getting
herself into a relationship any time soon. She couldn’t afford the
distractions posed by men when her mind was overflowing with real
priorities.

Taking a deep breath and chugging down
her coffee, she entered the hospital.

She was greeted by the sight of
nursing staff and technicians hurrying from one task to another
while the lobbies overflowed with patients. A nurse’s voice droned
over the intercom, paging one Dr. Sumbal to the oncology
department.

Vivian felt like a speck of nothing in
the maze of activity. Despite that monumental smallness, she felt a
smattering of exhilaration and hope.

Was it ridiculous that she wanted to
help the first patient she saw?

She wanted to dive right into the fray
and do anything to feel like a part of the team. Of course, she
couldn’t participate just yet.

Last week, the nursing program
director pulled her aside after class and voiced his concerns about
her vaccinations. Apparently, Vivian never received a BCG vaccine
for tuberculosis.

She wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near
the patients until that matter was resolved. Unfortunately,
clinicals were scheduled to start today.

She knew she was cutting it damn
close, but her schedule had been far too chaotic lately.

That is, she spent too many late
nights at the cybergoth club, planning a trip overseas come
December, jotting down random lyrics for songs she would never
perform—just the typical antidote for six hours of class every day.
She always did extra things on her own time. Plus, she wasn’t
particularly looking forward to this appointment.

Vivian checked in with the clerk and
settled into one of the predictably uncomfortable
chairs.

She followed the ticking hand on her
wristwatch until a door creaked open and someone called her name.
She looked up to see a man standing in the doorway.

“
Vivian?”

She popped up from her seat. She was
in a hurry to get this over with. Before she could catch a glimpse
of him, the figure disappeared down the hall.

Vivian followed him through a white
corridor, feeling like a lost soul being heralded into this pale
afterlife.

Why did hospitals insist on such an
alienating and cheerless atmosphere? Perhaps she would establish a
job market for beautifying hospitals.

“
So what brings you here
today?” the man asked, turning around. Vivian paused for a moment
to gawk at his face. She roamed over his handsome, well-shaven jaw
and light brown hair.

As silly as the comparison seemed, his
face looked angelic. Most captivating of all was the innocent spark
in his eyes, as though he had never witnessed any cruelty in the
world.

“
I need a BCG vaccine for
the nursing program.”

“
First Faculty of
Medicine?”

“
Yes.”

Vivian found herself hypnotized by his
doe eyes. She glanced from the contours of his face to the name on
his photo ID.

Milo Dušan.

“
It’s a good profession to
go into. You’ll find a lot of students from the nursing program
working here. Not to mention the pay and benefits keep you coming
back.”

He ushered her into the examination
room.

“
Did you study here?” she
asked.

“
No, I studied abroad. I’ve
been wandering in a daze across Eastern Europe for the past six
years. Call it a quarter-life crisis if you want, but there’s
nothing quite like immersing yourself in the nightlife of Budapest
or breathing the air in a wine cellar in Estonia.”

“
Don’t make me
jealous.”

Milo broke into laughter.

“
It sounds extravagant,
doesn’t it? Of course it does, but don’t get me started on the
beer. You can’t convince me that anything outside of Prague is true
beer. There’s nothing quite like a glass of honey
lager.”

“
Ha, keep telling yourself
that. Absinthe is making its way up there.”

Milo cocked an eyebrow.

“
You drink the Green
Fairy?”

“
Once or twice,” she
sheepishly grinned, although the occasions surely numbered in the
dozens. She often partook in mind-altering drinks in the cybergoth
clubs, where every vice was welcomed and sins unheard of were
invented on a nightly basis.

Vivian shrugged unapologetically under
his gaze.

“
You need to learn to cut
loose and relax,” she said.

“
Maybe you can show me how
you do that sometime.”

“
Perhaps, if you ask
nicely.”

Milo’s eyes dimmed and he leveled an
accusing stare at her.

“
I see what you’re
doing.”

Vivian’s heart stalled and she
wondered if her coy attempts were not quite as coy as she believed.
She berated herself for giving in to her first impulse.

“
I just—”

“
You’re trying to delay
your vaccine, aren’t you?”

Vivian laughed in relief. So he hadn’t
noticed the eye she was giving him—or he simply chose to overlook
it.

“
Haha, of course, just
trying to delay the inevitable… So what else do you do here besides
intimidating people with needles?”

“
Trust me, I don’t usually
do this. I work in the blood lab downstairs where the end product
comes to me. Goodness, I sort through so many blood samples a day
that the smell of iron clings to me when I leave. Would you believe
I still get a little nauseous at the sight of blood? How do you
make sense of that?” He chuckled. “Like I said, this isn’t my
forte. We’re a little short on nursing staff today so I volunteered
to step up.”

“
That’s thoughtful of
you.”

Milo shrugged.

“
Plenty of staff helped me
out when I was a young kid fresh out of the university. I’m just
trying to return the favor. Besides, it gets a bit too
claustrophobic for my liking in the blood lab. Once in a while I
just need to come up for air and chat with someone.”

He motioned for her to sit.

“
Do you or your family have
a history of vaccine reactions?”

“
No.”

“
Are you pregnant?”
Vivian’s cheeks burned like coals under his intense
eyes.

“
Definitely
not.”

Milo laughed and the melody rolled off
Vivian like an ocean wave.

“
Well, let’s get started
then.” A substance drained into the syringe one drop at time and
Vivian followed every detail in silent horror.

The needle loomed as large
as a spear in her mind’s eye. She always dreaded needles, but an
experience last year only magnified that irrational fear. She had
every right to her phobia of needles after her unfortunate
rendezvous with the serial killer
Viktor
Rezník
. After all, how could she forget
waking up in his basement of torture?

Within minutes of coming to her senses
in restraints, she had come face-to-face with the man responsible
for the serial murders in Prague.

With syringe in hand, he shot her
veins full of a drug called Syllax. That needle exposed her to
trials and tribulations that no sane mind should ever
endure.

That moment changed her life in
countless ways. Syllax was an experimental drug designed to help
patients overcome repressed trauma. However, it did anything but
help them cope. It filled Vivian’s head with post-traumatic
hallucinations for weeks on end.

Almost a year passed since that ordeal
and the events preceding it. Each time she reflected on the
experience, she asked herself the same question: What led to such a
bizarre and almost fatal encounter?

Every downfall seemed to stem from the
moment she ran away from home. If only her father never discovered
the bundle of cash in her jacket and learned about her stripping
pastime to finance her college education.

Her father wasn’t disappointed in
her—he almost collapsed of a stroke at the dinner table. Half of
Vivian’s possessions were thrown on the lawn by the time her mother
calmed him down. Of course, the rites of punishment didn’t end
there. He wanted to transfer Vivian to a sex therapy program called
the Magdalene Midnight Mission.

Supposedly, it would mend her woefully
flawed character.

The idea of living as a prisoner for
something so insignificant proved too much to bear.

Vivian opted to live on the streets
rather than share a room with other wayward girls. Life on the
streets almost seemed like a paradise compared to life in a cage.
Alas, anything but paradise waited. Her descent into depravity
accelerated as she resigned herself to prostitution as the only
means to survive.

Of course, she differed from the
typical caterers by specializing in the taboo realm of pain and
pleasure. Within weeks, her cruel methods earned her the moniker
“Red Widow.”

In many ways, she resembled the brutal
red widow with her violent demeanor toward males. Vivian also
plummeted into the underworld of recreational drugs.

Sometimes after serving clients, the
only solace she could find was at the tip of a psychotropic-laced
needle. With the drug scene freshly exploding onto the streets of
Prague, Vivian found herself drifting ever more into listless daze
of pleasure, guilt, and rage.

On one such unforgettable night, she
transferred that rage onto one of her clients. Vivian would never
forget his bizarre request: to be brought to the brink of
death.