Number One-Part 1

I have yet to come up with a title for this particular tale, so should one occur to you, please share!

It had been one of the longest shifts in history, Melanie Stanton thought as she took her shoes off and tossed them into the bottom of her locker. Three traumas in one night was bad enough, but to completely lose use of the lab information system on top of that, well, it was just cruel. She was so tired she couldn’t feel her feet anymore. So tired she had reached the point of not really being aware of what she was doing anymore. Thank God it was over and she was free of this hellhole for a good four days. Four blissful, lazy days of drinking coffee, reading books, and long easy jogs.
She slammed her locker shut and slung her backpack over one shoulder, popping her earphones into her ears.
“Have a good sleep, Mel,” a co-worker said as she passed them on the way out.
“I’m already halfway there,” she replied, and pushed open the door to the hospital lab, entering the hallway. She walked right by the bank of elevators and pushed the door to the stairwell open. She preferred taking the stairs in the morning. It avoided all the chipper, happy people just coming in for their day’s work. It was irritating as hell when it had been a long, busy night to see that just as you were leaving. She made her way quickly down three flights of the dank concrete stairwell, her knees screaming in protest. Oh, she was gonna sleep good today, all right. And she was turning off her damn alarm clock. Today, she would sleep as long as she wanted. To hell with the rest of the world.
The cool, crisp air of the morning hit her full in the face as she stepped through the glass sliding doors of Howitz General Hospital. She took a deep breath and began the long walk home. Normally she rode her bike, but she’d discovered a flat tire the previous night and hadn’t had the time to fix it before she had to leave for work. It was all right, though. She liked the walk, even after a long shift. Especially after a long shift. She found it cleared her mind and melted the tension away. She flipped to the mellow playlist on her mp3 player. It was definitely a John Mayer kind of morning.
She was less than 4 blocks from the hospital, lost in reverie about what she was going to eat for dinner when she got home, when a van pulled up next to her. The driver rolled the passenger side window down. She glanced over and saw the driver moving his mouth, but despite the low volume of her mp3 player she couldn’t hear him. She pulled the her earbuds out.
“Sorry, I missed that,” she said.
“I was wondering if you know where Franzen street is?” he asked. She glanced at the van. It was plain white.
“You’re on the wrong side of the highway. You need to get to the other side. It’s about in the middle of town.” She went to put her earbuds back in, but the driver pulled out a map.
“Could you point it out for me? I have to make a delivery and I’ve been looking for it for half an hour.” He held the map towards her. She sighed, and stepped up to the passenger side of the van. She pointed to a spot on the map.
“Right there. You’re close, you just need to get across the highway,” she said. As she was about to step back onto the sidewalk she heard the sliding door of the van open quickly behind her. Before she could turn she had a gloved hand clamped over her mouth and nose, and a strong arm wrap around her waist. A sickly sweet smell assaulted her senses as she gasped for breath. Her eyes lost focus and her head swam. She felt herself being pulled viciously onto the back floor of the van, but her legs didn’t obey the run command her brain was screaming at them. Then the edges of her vision started to darken. The last sound she heard before she slipped away was the scrape of the van door closing her in.