Five minutes later, he had five stitches in his chest and a bored looking doctor standing over him. The doctor completed the nurse’s first shot at a question. “…the hell happened to you?”

Kevin had been dreading this. What would be a good answer? Somehow, giant economy size fly/bug monsters didn’t really seem to be a wise choice. “I was coming home from a party, across campus and I got jumped by some guy. Never saw him coming.”

“Harvey, call the cops.”

“Long gone. You want to let me tell the story?”

“Indeed. Go ahead. Harvey, call the cops.”

“He jumped out from behind that statue of Newton by the Physics building, slashed me across the chest with a knife then ran off, shrieking, and I quote, ‘Tag, you’re it. Tag, you’re it. Tag, you’re it.’”

The doctor regarded him for ten seconds and then looked at Harvey the orderly and said, “Forget the cops.”

He regarded Kevin once again. “You’re going to try and tell that to the cops?”

Yeah.”

“They won’t believe you.”

“I don’t believe me.”

“Well, that makes it unanimous. What’s going on?”

“That’s what happened.”

“Sure it is. Look, you’re not stoned—I don’t think. You certainly aren’t drunk. The wound isn’t that bad, actually. Just damn painful and messy as hell. But you have lost a lot of blood. It’s also 4 a.m. So, what’s your pleasure? You want to spend the next three hours trying to stick to that story in the face of three cops, a doctor, a nurse and an orderly who don’t believe you?”

“I believe him.”

This was from Harvey.

Everybody looked at him.

“Some stupid frat stunt. It’s happened before. Gotten out of hand and then they come in here with stories like that. We all end up agreeing that the stupid story is stupid, but we all also end up with no story at all, cause they never talk. Let’s cut to the chase and say we believe him and find out if he wants the cops. That way, I can get off work at a normal time without having to spend a couple of hours of talking to cops myself.”

Everybody looked at Kevin. “I don’t want the cops.”

“See?” Harvey walked off, disgusted.

The doctor sighed. “He’s got a point.” He still looked unhappy, and finally said, “I’m prepared to let this slide if you will swear you don’t think anybody else is going to get hurt. Otherwise, I’m calling in the cops, anyway.”

Kevin actually laughed. “No, nobody else is going to get hurt. You will not be seeing a string of people with similar wounds coming in, either. I can’t believe this happened once, much less a second time.”

“I assume you want to leave now as well?” This was from the nurse.

“Yeah, that would be good,” Kevin acknowledged.

The doctor shook his head and muttered something about private practice before he headed off with the nurse. Two minutes later she returned with a form to sign and four tablets. “Sign this, take two now, and he wants to see you this afternoon. Just to make sure there’s no infection.”