Date: December 20, 2012 22:47 P.M.

Stampard came back into the warm hospital foyer from the bracing December cold. Amazing how, when he moved down hear to Columbus Georgia a year ago, he thought it would be an 80 degree winter. Yeah right, he thought to himself.Gives poetic meaning to the phrase "When hell freezes over".

He didnt like Georgia at all, not even Atlanta. It was small, so small it wouldn't even have any more people in it than Mayberry on the Andy Griffith show if it werent for Fort Benning. Add to it that it wasnt a very clean town, relative when comparing it to New York City. And last, that southern hospitality was absent here.

The one part of Georgia he loved though was the food. If God had personally offered him a plate of barbecue instead of Shorty's Barbecue, he'd take Shorty's. Still, wasnt a whole lot of reason to stay.

As he walked back in from having a smoke, a habit his wife had told him many times to break, he threw the butt out on the pavement. The woman at the front  desk was searching frantically on a computer for something. She turned to Stampard, brown eyes as wide as possible. "Dr. Stampard!" Her normally quiet voice was shrill and hurried in speech, a sign that something was very out of the ordinary.

"Yes, Mrs. Catalano?" Her postured relaxed at discovering that he was right in front and ready for whatever was shaking her. These interns were so easily freaked out.

"We need you in surgery in the west wing immediately. Its a special case." He sighed. Why do people always have to get hurt? he thought.

A few moments later he was preparing to do surgery and was being told the condition. "What do we have," he asked one of the police officers in the room outside the patient's quarters.

"To be honest doc, We're not even sure. This crazed man calls us about this guy who starts tearing down his door while our victim is on the phone. We were fighting a big fire and couldnt send anyone to help for atleast a few hours. When we found him, he had two bite marks on his arm. There was a man on the floor whose skull had been caved in by a paper weight. Our victim looked like he'd had too much Jack Daniels with his Coke."

"Why do they always send me the nuts? Ok. Lets check him out." He entered the room where the man had been lying on a surgery cot, a male and female doctor standing near him. "Right," Stampard said nonchalantly, "Lets start by drawing blood." The man's eyes suddenly snapped open. He reached and grabbed wildly as Dr. Stampard tried to stick the hypodermic needle into the man's left arm.

The medical room was in chaos from the patient wipping about  until he ordered to the nurse, "Nurse! Handle the situation!" She was just standing by the heart beat monitor, staring at the scene unfolding. She awoke from her stupor and strapped the patient to the surgical station.

The doctor then drew blood, but something wasnt right. The vial would not fill up at all. He finally pushed down on his arm, feeling the cold skin of the patient, and the vein pressure began to rise and the vial filled, but only to his horror and shock. Instead of drawing blood, the needle was pumping viscous, black gel. The nurse turned and ran for the restroom, obviously having enough of this freak show.

Stampard, thoroughly confused, said he would analyze the blood first thing in the morning and decided to call it a night. As he was exiting, hesaw the male intern whom was in the room there with him. "Some patient, eh kid?" The boy seemed ragged and unnerved. "Yes sir, Doc Stampard." Stampard's eyes drifted lower and met with the boys arm which was wrapped in his scrubs. "Do I need to check that out, son," Stampard said suspiciously. "No sir," the intern replied shakily. "It's nothing. Just a bite the patient gave me. I've got to go. Have a nice night."

And just like that he was off, and stampard shrugged it off. His watch read that it was 12:35. December 21, 2012.

So much for the world ending, he thought.

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