Jake sat outside Max’s hospital room, chewing his fingernails. He always chewed his fingernails when he was worried, which meant that he never had a lot of fingernail left to chew.
She was sleeping now, and despite the fact that they had not removed her makeup, she looked like ten miles of bad road. Maybe twenty, with miles of construction and a hardware delivery truck that has spilled its cargo of nails all over the place.
She blinked rapidly in her sleep and groaned; it wasn’t a pleasant sound. Jake went and stood in the doorway of her room, thinking she might appreciate a familiar face if she woke. She’d been in a lot of pain from that bite and she wasn’t handling it well; she just kept shouting something about not climbing the ladder for ten years only to be the entrée at some sort of twisted geek buffett. They’d sedated her pretty heavily.
Yet she was talking in her sleep. Jake leaned in closer to hear what she was saying, but couldn’t quite make it out. Something about braids? Did she want her hair braided?
Jake shrugged. Well, so be it. He was never really good at it but he had braided his sisters’ hair for them a time or two and if it would make Max feel better, he’d do it.
He hoped that she was sedated enough that she wouldn’t wake; he pressed the button on her bed gently and it gradually sat her up. He didn’t try to get behind her so the braiding was a little difficult; he wasn’t sure what she wanted so he opted for pigtails.
When he was done, he stood up and surveyed his work. The pigtails made her look weirdly young. And kind of cute.
A stray tendril had eluded him and he reached out to push it behind her ear.
Jake about jumped through the ceiling when Max’s eyes jerked open; she was never exactly chummy with him but the look she gave him was distinctly unfriendly. Her hand zipped up and grasped his wrist, holding tightly.
They froze in that tableu for a terrible minute, Jake’s heart pounding, his eyes wide. How did she get such a powerful grip? His wrist was already aching.
“Max, let go,” he said. “You’re safe, in the hospital.” She didn’t release him, and her mouth opened and closed, like she was trying to say something and couldn’t. He thought it might be the medication but a look in her eyes told him she was not nearly as sedated as he had thought. She looked very awake.
“Br…. Brai… brrrraaaaaaaiiiiiiii,” Max moaned.
“Braid? Yes, I braided your hair,” Jake said, smiling hopefully. “I thought you’d like it.”
A look of bafflement came over Max’s face and she let go of his hand, reaching up to tug on her pigtails.
“Braiiiiiiiiiiiid?” she moaned, her tone disbelieving.
Jake nodded.
“Not braid,” she said, working her jaw some more; it seemed to be helping and the words came out more clearly now.
“Oh.” Jake paused. He wasn’t sure how to make amends for mismanaged hair. Flowers, maybe?
Jake lost track of what he needed to apologize for this time when a horrific scream echoed down the hall, followed by the sound of pounding feet. A frantic nurse, bleeding from a terrible wound on her shoulder ran past, howling. Jake frowned. What now?
Behind the nurse came two… well, men he guessed, but they didn’t look much like normal men anymore. In fact, they looked like the geeks from the convention, the ones who’d attacked Max. They were shambling, but somehow still appeared to be gaining.
Or they were until they noticed Jake, unresisting, unmoving Jake. Both of them, as though of one mind, veered towards him, their dirty hands extended like claws. Jake yelped and backed into Max’s room, slamming the door shut. Before it latched, one of them was there, blocking it. He jumped at Jake, but was slow and clumsy. Jake picked up a (hopefully) empty bed pan and clocked the other man on the head as hard as he could, then pushed him back out the door and slammed it shut. His heart was beating like crazy. He fumbled with the handle, hoping there was a lock. There wasn’t. He leaned against the door while the men on the outside pounded and clawed at it. On the other side of the door he could hear more screaming.
“Jake?” Max’s voice sounded normal, if very confused. He turned to her; she was giving him her usual cool and calculating look. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to hold the door shut,” he said. “There’s no lock.”
She looked at him like he was stupid. “Yeah, this is a minimum security hospital. Why are you trying to hold the door shut?”
Now it was his turn to look at her like she was stupid. Couldn’t she hear the screaming, and people running frantically up and down the halls? Couldn’t she hear the grunting from the other side of this very door?
“These people are violent, Max! I’m trying to protect us!”
“They’re not violent, they just want… “ she stopped in the middle of the sentence, and her eyes seemed to gloss over a little.
“They want what, Max?” Jake asked softly, not really sure he wanted to know.
“Braiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-“ Her mouth wasn’t working again.
“Sorry, what?”
“Braiiiiiiiiiiiii,” she gulped, and her eyes started to clear. “Braiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiised beef,” she said finally, blinking and coming back to herself.
Jake stared. “Braised beef?”
Max cleared her throat. “Yeah, braised beef. Braised beef is delicious. It’s not an abomination, you know.”
But she wouldn’t look him in the eye.