Richard Harris, hospital administrator, smiled when the sound of sirens woke him before dawn. Their sound wafted through the slightly open bedroom window along with a hint of air carrying pre-Christmas chill. Harris listened intently for a moment- an ambulance, he decided, business for the hospital. He smiled again and turned back to his still-warm pillow. A few minutes later, another siren and then yet another established a cacophony of impending disaster. Richard Harris’s smile began to dim as the ululations continued.

Harris still had a ghost of a smile, more of a grimace, when the hospital called. In the days before Christmas, many hospitals resemble high-tech ghost towns. Expensive ghost towns, as patients put off caring for all but the most life-threatening illnesses. Nurses and techs gather to chat idly under festive garlands and cards and small Christmas trees at the nurses’ stations beam twinkling lights that illuminate otherwise darkened halls.

Like an Armani-suited grinch, at this time of year, Harris would prowl the halls of Merry Hopes Hospital and grit a smile to the nurses, while his CPA trained mind tallied salaries and benefits going to waste.

Revyval Hospital Management purchased Merry Hopes from Craven County two years ago. Harris’s corporate instructions were simple: make a profit in three years or seek new employment.

He was knotting his tie, briefly strangling a cheerfully whistled tune, when the phone rang. The nurse was in tears and virtually unintelligible. Something about the emergency room being full. It must be even better than he thought. He snapped out a short response and hung up. As he walked out of his bedroom, he checked his tie in the mirror; he was smiling again. Correcting himself, he frowned and tried to look professional. “You’re a hospital administrator,” he reminded himself, “great tragedy, whatever it is.”

The engine in his BMW coughed once in the cold and then settled down to an expensive purr. Harris wheeled the car out of the drive and onto the town bypass. He saw lights flashing up ahead. As he watched, an ambulance turned into the high school and headed for the gym. Harris’s brow furrowed while he mentally accessed the emergency disaster plan that included the high school gym as a makeshift morgue, he thought. He slowed the car and peered down the school’s drive to see another ambulance backing up to the gym. Harris felt the first clutch of unease. This was not your usual holiday crack up. What was going on here? Dead people would not help him. He wanted wounded, wounded that healed and were grateful, preferably after a protracted stay.

The speedometer was close to eighty as he turned on the final stretch to the hospital. Blue lights flashing, the sheriff’s car arrowed onto the horizon behind him. Harris slowed and began to rehearse his speeding speech. He watched the rearview mirror in astonishment as the blue lights and siren dopplered by him without pause and then faded in the distance ahead. The sense of unease worsened.

The tires on his Beamer screeched as he rounded the entrance to the hospital drive and pointed towards the emergency room in the back of the hospital. He reflexively ducked and braked as a shattering roar burst up over the hospital. Several seconds passed before his eyes could make sense of the flashing bulk as a helicopter rose above the hospital. As he peered through the frosty windshield, the helicopter spun on its axis and hurtled north towards Charlotte.