(Editor’s note: SHORT SHOTS is a column where I review short stories from horror anthologies, collections, and zines.)
SPOILER ALERT!
“Close Encounters of the ER Kind” by N.J. Gallegos begins as a typical night in the emergency room for Dr. Seline; however, it quickly transforms into an intense life-altering confrontation with one of the most famous serial killers in U.S. history.
“Close Encounters of the ER Kind” is one of the standout stories in the anthology Jane Nightshade’s Serial Encounters. Released March 7, the anthology includes 18 fictional tales about real-life serial killers and examines the question, “What would happen if I met a serial killer in real life?”
I had read and reviewed Gallegos’ debut novel, The Broken Heart, and she delivers the same intensity, sense of foreboding, and transformational twist in her short story as adeptly as she does in her novel.
In “Close Encounters of the ER Kind,” Dr. Seline enters the room of an assault patient named Cammie Greene, who — and here’s the spoiler — is an alias of real-life female serial killer Aileen Wuornos. Of course, the physician is unaware of her patient’s past, but Greene is quick to make Dr. Seline uncomfortable with sexually suggestive comments about her beauty. For example, Dr. Seline asks, “Is it okay if I take a look at you?” Greene replies, “Hoping you’ll do more than that.”
The doctor administers stitches, but the patient is itching to tell Dr. Seline about the assault. Greene said she was hitchhiking, and the man who picked her up “started gettin’ handsy.” Greene’s story is a tough listen, but it takes a darker turn when she says the man “didn’t know she had a gun.” She points to a huge blood stain on the thigh of her jeans and says, “That’s his, not mine.”
Dr. Seline doesn’t want to know any more of the story and just wants to finish the suture job, but Greene continues to talk, comparing killing a man to having an orgasm. Then, the tension ramps up to 10 as Greene grabs the doctor in an apparent death grip. What happens next is unexpected as Gallegos boldly creates a new wrinkle to the Wuornos narrative that helps explain why she murdered so many men.
What impressed me most about “Close Encounters of the ER Kind” was the serial killer’s description and dialogue. I watched Monster, the movie about Wuornos that won an Academy Award for Charlize Theron. Wuornos was an uneducated high school dropout who had one of the most horrific lives, particularly as a child and a teen, that I’ve ever read. Like Theron, Gallegos captures the way Wuornos looks (“rode hard and put away wet”) and speaks (“You’re real purdy for a doctor”).
However, my favorite moment in the story — and here’s another spoiler — is Dr. Seline watching TV one night and seeing the news about Wuornos’ trial. She creeps up to her TV screen to examine the mugshot and realizes Wuornos was her patient, Cammie Greene! The shocked doctor notices the faint scar on Greene’s forehead and thinks, “I couldn’t help but congratulate myself on the repair; it healed up great.” What a perfectly delivered shot of dark humor. It reveals so much about the good doctor who may not be so good after all.
RELATED LINKS
HORROR BOOK REVIEW: The Broken Heart
The Official Website of Horror and Fantasy Writer Lionel Ray Green 
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