Two more pellets fell as he hesitated.   Then no more.

The two medics exchanged a puzzled look, then George reached out and pulled away the cover sheet.

As George lifted the white cover sheet, there was a great flash of green, like an exploding emerald.   Then in a second the vital energy had flooded into Robbie Pavlidis’s body.

“Eeeeeeeeeiii!” squealed Dryadia in shock as she flew backwards, hitting her head and temporarily stunning herself against the back of the cabin.

“Did you see that?” asked George.

Tony started to speak, then stopped as he saw the pale, willowy brunette lying on the floor near the cabin.   “Who the heck are you?” he asked.

“What?” asked George, thinking for a moment that the younger man was talking to him.   Then looking round to his right — where Tony was staring — George saw Dryadia lying stunned on the ambulance floor.

At first she seemed to be unconscious.   Then reaching up, she began to rub at the back of her head with one hand.

“Who are you?” repeated Tony.

Dryadia stared at the two men for a second not certain if they could see her.   Then as Tony repeated his question again, she realised she had lost her invisibility.   Screwing up her eyes, she clenched her fists hard and concentrated upon making herself fade out of sight.

At first her attempt fail and the two men watched her efforts in puzzlement, wondering what she was doing?

“Are you all right?” asked George.   He started to wonder if she was in shock — having perhaps seen the two service station salesmen gunned down.

Then, as she concentrated harder, the dryad’s image began to rapidly fade in and out, like a fluorescent light vainly struggling to come on.

Having started toward her, the two men stopped again and stared open-mouthed as the woman flickered in and out of sight at an increasingly rapid tempo.   Until after nearly a minute of flickering, her image faded out entirely.

“My God, did you see…?” said George reaching to point to where the woman had been a second before.   But before he could even finish the gesture, he heard moaning from behind him.

Thinking that Tony has passed out in shock, George looked round and to his horror saw the corpse of Robbie Pavlidis sitting up on the stretcher.

“What…?   Who…?   Where…?” muttered Robbie, struggling against the corpse sheet that still covered his head.

“But you’re dead!” cried Tony backing away and falling against the stretcher on the other side of the ambulance.

“Dead…?” asked Robbie, puzzled.   He yawned and stretched wide as though just waking from a long sleep.

Now invisible again, Dryadia climbed slowly back to her feet, trying not to startle the two ambulance men any more than she already had.

Careful not to bump into either of the medics, the dryad tentatively hovered just above the floor of the vehicle for a moment, testing her bearings.   Then she flew past Tony and George to hover just above Robbie’s feet of the stretcher.

Although unable to see her, Robbie Pavlidis was conscious of the pale woman’s presence nearby.   And for a moment he thought he was still lying on the floor in the service station shop.   But seeing the two medics standing over him, Robbie started to look around slowly, and realised where he was.

As the left hand side of his face began to itch, Robbie reached up to scratch it and asked, “What happened?   How did I get here?”

“You … you were shot,” explained George Long.   Then, feeling a little light-headed, the grey-haired medic sat on a small chair near the cabin, before he could pass out.

“Shot…?” asked Robbie in amazement, looking toward Tony — who looked as though he was about to throw up — to George who clung to a rail at the front of the ambulance, as though afraid of falling to the floor.

*      *      *

At the foot of the stretcher, Dryadia ignored the two medics to examine Robbie Pavlidis’s face.   She had done a pretty good job of rebuilding it from her life essence.   However, it was a little deflated, like a balloon that had not quite been blown up enough and didn’t quite match the right side.   Also it was a little lighter in shade than the right side of his face, not quite matching Robbie’s swarthy complexion.   So, she decided she would have to have another “session” with Robbie to finish the job.   Once she had recovered her strength again.

*      *      *

3.

When at last the ambulance pulled up, the driver and his assistant leapt out and raced around to the back of the vehicle.

“All right, let’s get it open,” said the driver, Len, who had been driving ambulances of one kind or another since the Korean War.

Opening the door, they expected to find two live medics standing over a probably D.O.A.   Instead, to their shock, the two men saw Robbie Pavlidis sitting up on his stretcher, looking none the worse for wear, despite having been shot at close range in the face, and grey-haired George Long trying to revive his assistant Tony, who had fainted to the floor of the ambulance.

“What’s going on here?” demanded Len, almost fainting himself at the sight of Robbie sitting up on the stretcher seemingly unhurt.   “But I thought you had half your face shot away when they carried you in here!” thought Len, careful not to say it aloud for fear of seeming an idiot.

“That’s what they tell me,” said Robbie, still rubbing gently at the left side of his face.   He yawned and stretched wide again, then started to step down from the stretcher.

“No, no,” said Len stepping into the rear of the ambulance to stop him.   “I don’t know what’s going on here, but you’re going into the hospital on the stretcher.

Robbie started to protest, then lay back and allowed Len and his assistant, Tom, to carry him in through the emergency doors of the hospital, where he was raced down a long corridor, toward the operating theatres.

*      *      *

As the stretcher-bearers ran down the corridor, Dryadia soared along behind them.   Until they passed a chocolate vending machine.   Then, feeling drained still from the vital energy she had passed on to Robbie, she stopped to help herself to some candy.

At first the dryad struggled to work out how to make the machine give up its delicious cargo.   But by concentrating with all her might, she managed to somehow influence the coils containing the chocolate bars, to make them roll forward until each of the sixteen sections had dropped one or two bars into the tray at the bottom of the machine.

Abandoning most of the candy, she grabbed two Mars bars, a Snickers, and two Crunchies, then zoomed off down the corridor to find Robbie Pavlidis and the others as she restocked her energy.

*      *      *

“Well, what’s the verdict?” asked Robbie as a doctor, an anaesthetist and three nurses stood round goggling at him.   They had expected to have to perform emergency surgery, or else declare him dead-on-arrival.   Not to see him sitting up on the stretcher, wide awake and seemingly unharmed.

The doctor gave Robbie a complete physical, before declaring, “Nothing seems to be wrong.   But we’d better keep you in for observation overnight.   Just to be on the safe side.”

“But I’m fine, Doc,” protested Robbie.

“Nonetheless,” said the puzzled surgeon.

*      *      *

It was nearly 2:00 AM when a tired Nurse Sarah Brown was passing room 414 and saw a strange greenish glow emanating from under the door.

“What the…?” said Sarah opening the door a crack.   Inside she saw a willowy brunette leaning across the sleeping service station salesman.   At first a green aura seemed to envelop the man and woman.   But as it faded away, Sarah decided it was just a reflexion from neon lighting across the street.

She studied the tall, pale woman for a moment.   Then deciding she was probably a new nurse checking on the patient, she turned and shut the door again, leaving them in privacy.

*      *      *

Dryadia waited till she heard the retreating footsteps in the corridor outside.   Then she began to exchange vital energy with Robbie Pavlidis again, pleased to see the left-hand side of his face fill out properly, then start to take on the deep swarthy complexion of the right-hand side.

As she finished healing her “friend”, Dryadia picked up a Mars bar from the gray, metal cabinet beside the bed.   As she began to eat the chocolate candy, she decided to make the hospital her new home.   She enjoyed healing sick people.   And the vending machines on each floor were a ready source of nourishment to allow her to restock after passing on her vital essence to the sick and injured.

THE END