Nothing to Fear

I couldn’t stop thinking about Dr. Crane’s kiss. It was a trauma I couldn’t get out of my head, much like the dreams that haunted me as a child. My heart still wasn’t beating regularly. I really didn’t know what had overcome me in Dr. Crane’s office. I snuck a peak at him on my left. He was walking slightly ahead of me, closer to Dr. Shields.

“Is there anything I should prepare myself for, doctor?” Dr. Shields spoke, his hands tucked into his white coat. He was meant to accompany us to Patient Observation, but I hardly knew why we needed an escort. If Dr. Crane was in the Medical lab so often, why could we possibly need assistance?

“Sorry?” Dr. Crane answered, a bit delayed. I bit the inside of my mouth. Was he thinking about what happened in his office too?

“Sharp has you set up as head of the department, you’re getting all the late shifts, and you got a damn assistant?” Dr. Shields’ voice went up towards the end of his sentence as he gestured to me.

“Is that a statement or an inquiry, Dr. Shields?” Dr. Shields stopped walking and turned to face Dr. Crane, who in turn also stopped. I kept my distance.

“Look, I know that you’re after my job. Hell, the whole department knows. Give it up, Crane.”

“Is that so, the whole department?” Dr. Crane was expressionless, though I felt that he was more amused than upset. Dr. Shields kept his stare constant and persistent. “Sharp and I may have an understanding, Dr. Shields, but I can assure you that his decisions of company placements are strictly his own. As for late shifts, I work on my own free time.”

Dr. Shields was quiet for a moment, probably going over what Dr. Crane had just told him. Even I was thinking over the information. “And your assistant? Don‘t tell me you‘re sleeping with her.” My face began to heat up. “Just remember that you’re not the only one who has an understanding with Mr. Sharp, Crane.”

Dr. Shields stepped to a door and held it open for Dr. Crane and I. I assumed it had to be patient observation. Dr. Crane passed through the doors’ threshold, but not before Dr. Shields put a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t want me as your enemy, Crane. You really don’t.”

“And perhaps you don’t want me as yours, Doctor.” A tight smile came onto Dr. Cranes face as he continued into patient observation. I watched Dr. Shields look after him, absorbed in his own thoughts. It made me wonder how someone could be so uptight about a hospital position. My eyes caught sight of his enraged eyes and his grip on the door handle.

“You think you have it all planned out now?” He huffed as I passed him. “You will get nowhere by assisting a lunatic like Dr. Crane.” I tried to burry myself in my thoughts to stop myself from hearing, but he sounded just like the voices in my dreams. “He’s crazier than anyone in this asylum.”

He reached out and grabbed my shoulder as he had Dr. Crane’s, but the anger had all but left his eyes. Something else peeked out from behind them. “And he’ll make you crazy too.” I stared at him for a moment, unable to breathe. The tension continued in silence, making me want to surrender and squirm like its’ pray. We remained locked in a world of silence and stillness, until Dr. Shields shook his head and broke the trance. He let out a deep breath, turned, and left. I watched after him, still dazed. Was craziness the only thing that Dr. Shields was threatening?

♦

“Subject patient, Victor Fries. He’s stopped responding to medical treatment. His temperature-.”

“His temperature is increasing?” Dr. Crane was flipping through files on a clipboard when I walked into Patient Observation. He was standing beside a frosted coffin-like capsule. A woman dressed in a white lab coat stood beside him, he arms crossed.

My eyes searched the see-through glass lid of the capsule. My stomach sank at what I saw. A man laid down inside the coffin, unmoving and as pale as the first snow fall of winter. For a moment, he even looked blue. I could tell that he was strong, obviously not built for an enclosed environment. The strangest feeling crept from this isolated mans’ presence. I felt suddenly desolate.

“I’m afraid that Dr. Fries is in such a fragile condition, I knew it wouldn’t be long before we couldn’t support him anymore.” The woman spoke. Dr. Crane looked up from the file. “He won’t eat, Dr. Crane. He’s stopped communicating. I think he’s unreachable at this point.”

“Have you adjusted the temperature panels?” Dr. Crane asked. His eyes were on the files again, frantically scanning every word.

“Yes, about a dozen times.” The woman answered, seeming bored with the question.

“What’s his heart rate?”

“Fifteen beats per minute.” Dr. Crane made a popping noise with his mouth. It wasn’t until that moment that he noticed that I had entered the room. My heart began to throb when his eyes met mine. It only quickened when his kiss played across my mind. “Oh. You will no longer be attending Dr. Fries.” Dr. Crane spoke as he turned back to the woman. Her eyebrows knitted together, but she didn’t speak. “My assistant, Miss Knight, will be watching over him.”

“Very well,” the woman cleared her throat. I could tell that she was upset, but I had never had a patient before. Already, I was watching over someone. This made me both excited and unfathomably nervous.

“Would it be too much to ask what will happen to my other patients, Dr. Crane?” The woman looked at Dr. Crane with cold eyes, her lips slightly quivering. Dr. Crane slowly looked up from his papers, yet another unreadable expression set across his face.

“Your other patients, Mrs. Holloway, will be yours to look after until I reassign them to another well-trained nurse suitable for the position. If you find yourself less than acceptable for the job, I will make different arrangements. Do you find yourself less than acceptable?” The woman looked taken back as much as I had been. Her eyes fell from his in defeat.

“No. Of course not, Dr. Crane.” Dr. Crane met my eyes for the first time since our kiss. I swallowed, not knowing what to expect. His voice seemed to make my ears ring.

“Mrs. Holloway will give you Dr. Fries’ files. You’ll have full access to his schedule.” My heart was throbbing strangely as he spoke to me. It was almost as if he had some kind of power over me that I couldn’t control. “Of course, you’ll have to have access to all of my patients.” He glanced down at the files again and spoke without looking up. “Mrs. Holloway, if you’re not too busy, will you take Miss Knight to her knew office?”

“Dr. Crane, I have paperwork to-”

“It can wait.” Dr. Crane said sternly without looking up. Mrs. Holloway nodded, but said nothing. She made her way to the door that I had come in. After pausing a moment to look at Dr. Crane I followed. A part of me didn’t want to leave him, but another part of me just wanted to be away from him again. I could think better when he wasn’t around.

Mrs. Holloway didn’t look at me for the longest time. She kept her head held high and stepped quickly down the long hallway, her pointy white shoes making a tapping noise as she made each step. I was listening to the tapping echo of her shoes when she spoke and she didn’t sound happy. “You’re new at Arkham then?” She asked, her voice seeming out of place in the quiet hallway.

“Yes. I’m new,” I answered, not wanting to unleash whatever wrath this woman had underneath her worn down exterior. She snarled, tucking her clipboard between an arm as she took a card out of her pocket.

“Someone with as much skills to man a living snow cone by herself surely is impressive. Makes me wonder where he picked you from.” She swiped the card through a slot on a door and it opened to show another long hallway. This one had many more doors and charts hanging on the wall.

“University of Gotham,” I stated quietly. She turned to me for the first time, her eyes wide and her mouth open in a snarl.

“How old are you?” My face heated up.

“I’m twenty-two,” I spoke in a quiet voice. She let out a laugh.

“That’s great. A kid is replacing me. I’ve worked here for seven years and it took me five to get a serious condition. Hell, they were practically assigning me bedpan duty when I first got here.” She stopped in front of a steel door and twisted the doorknob.

Aside from a desk, a computer, and a couple file cabinets, the room was empty. Mrs. Holloway let out a sigh. “I should have known that your office would be bigger than mine too.” She turned to me, looking me up and down as if she were evaluating me by my choice of clothing. I instantly regretted my red blouse and above-the-knee skirt. I probably looked too young to work there. “You’ll have to start wearing a white lab coat when you go into the observation room and when you’re dealing with patients.”

“But I don’t have-” I began, but before I could finish she pointed up towards a hanger by my desk where a white lab coat hung lifeless. “Oh,” I whispered.

“Well, if you don’t need my direction anymore, Miss Knight, I think I’ll be going.” She turned and took a step towards the door.

“Wait.” She turned back, her eyes brows knitted together. “I’m sorry about, well, taking your patient. I had no idea that he was going to assign me one this soon.” Mrs. Holloway was quiet for a moment, but then the corner of her mouth came up into a half smile.

“I’ve worked here for a long time, Miss Knight. This place is by no means a happy place. This place is real and it is terribly dangerous. You know all the headlines you see on the news? It’s ten times worse than that. The media covers it up.” Mrs. Holloway rubbed her forehead where it was wrinkled into long lines. “I feel like something bad is coming, something inhumanly dark that not even Batman can save us from. I just hope you know what your getting yourself into.”

I was reminded of the people in my nightmares, in my other world apart from this one. Darker than that? “Well, I’ve got to do something.” She smiled at that.

“Hang in there, Kid. Maybe we’ll get through this.” With that, she left. Make it through what exactly?
With my office to myself and no Dr. Crane, I went to sit at my desk. The steel desk sent a shiver up my spine as I sat at it. Mrs. Holloway left Dr. Fries’ file on my desk. I picked it up, feeling a small burst of excitement to know that he was my patient. On the first page, a picture of a bald man was paper clipped to the top. I unclipped it and brought it closer so I could see.

Dr. Fries looked like an ordinary man in this photo, though his skin looked really pale and his stare was cold and empty. Just looking at it gave me a chill. I began leafing through his papers. He was moved into the Secure Wing at Arkham nearly three years ago upon request of his colleague. There was no name, just colleague. I read deeper into his files.

'Dr. Fries or ‘Mr. Freeze’ as he’s been called, suffers from an extreme case of hypothermia. Must be kept at a temperature below zero. This was brought on many years ago after a fatal lab accident. Chemicals mixing with his B(+) blood flow, turned his blood cold. His wife, Nora Fries, fell ill with a fatal degenerative disease. There is not a cure for her. She remains frozen and still alive, awaiting a cure. Dr. Fries’ condition of insanity is most impacted by the tragedy of his wife’s fatal condition. He is driven by her life and seems to stop at
nothing to cure her. These qualities make him a dangerous patient at Arkham.'

I stopped reading, another chill evaded my body. Dr. Fries or Mr. Freeze seemed too extreme for me. Did Dr. Crane really think I was able to watch over him? I had studied a lot at Gotham University. I was nearly at the top of my class, but could I really watch over an extreme personality as Mr. Freeze?

“I hope you find your office comfortable.” My head jerked up to see Dr. Crane, his eyes hiding behind glasses and a black suitcase in his right hand. I shut Dr. Fries’ file and stepped from behind the desk.

“I do. It’s very nice.” I played with the sleeve of my blouse.

“Good.” Dr. Crane cleared his throat. “Well, that’s all for today. I’ll see you first thing tomorrow. Report to my office first before coming here everyday, are we understood?”

“Yes, Dr. Crane.”

“Very well. Goodbye.” He stepped out of my office and I could breathe again. I kept thinking he was going to pull me into another kiss. Was that a one time thing? I tried to clear it from my head. It was making me dizzy thinking about it. My eyes found Dr. Fries’ file on my desk. Who’s Nora?

Walking back down the hallway, I was alone. Then again, it was getting late. Most of the doctors had already left. I was wearing my white lab coat, looking much like a full-fledged doctor. As I was just about to open the door to the observation room, I heard singing.
I stopped, one foot in front of the other. It was a woman’s voice, powerful and breathtakingly beautiful. It was soft, but it grew louder and rose up, echoing in different places around the building. I closed my eyes and listened. I couldn’t make out actual words, or maybe it wasn’t in English.

“Hello?” I called in a small voice. There was no answer, but the singing stopped.

I left Arkham with my head spinning, repeating the entire days events. I couldn’t wrap my head around Dr. Crane’s kiss. Why had he done it? He had done it, right? Perhaps it was all in my head. I grunted as I twisted my key into my car door. Knowing Dr. Crane, I wouldn’t know the truth for a long time.

Sirens sounded off somewhere in the distance. My head jerked up to the busy city lights of Gotham on the other side of the waterway. I thought back to what Mrs. Holloway had said. Maybe something dark was coming to Gotham. Maybe it was already here, waiting for the opportune moment for attack leaving Gotham in ruins. I thought this over for a moment. Gotham already was in ruins.