"Lord have mercy, child!" exclaimed a woman dressed all in white upon entering my hospital room. "What happened to your face?"

     I sucked in my breath and lurched forward. Raising both hands – desperate to trace the familiar path of ugly black stitches – my fingertips skipped nervously across my skin, and came up empty. The stitches that had been keeping my rotting flesh from slipping right off my face...were gone.

    After Thomas had rescued me from that hell hole and crossed me over to the Realm of Angels, I'd pretty much accepted the miraculous healing of my body without question. Kind of went with the territory if you asked me. But here, back on Earth after nearly drowning, I expected to look like a reanimated corpse.

    Suddenly at my bedside, the woman pinched my chin between her thumb and forefinger. Rocking my head violently from side to side, she peered down at me as if studying a specimen through a microscope.

    "If you want to keep that hand lady, I suggest you remove it from my face," I hissed.

    The woman jumped back as if I'd tried to bite her. Truth be told, the thought had crossed my mind.

    "I'm sorry, it's just that I've never seen anything quite like it." She appeared visually shaken.

    "Yeah, I get that reaction a lot. I'm naturally ghostly pale. Just call me Casper."

    "No. That's not it," she breathed, narrowing her eyes. "The last time I saw you, your entire body was covered in stitches. Now there's not a mark on you. You don't even have a single scar. How is that possible?"

    She had me wondering too. Then I remembered. "I do so have a scar." Lifting my powder blue hospital gown, I showed her the bite on my leg where a zombie had tried to eat me for breakfast. "See?"

    I followed the direction of her eyes and gasped. The teeth marks were gone. "Bad example," I groaned, pulling a sheet as white as my complexion up to my chin. "I have plenty of scars. You just can't see them all."

    That's when I recalled my last encounter with her.

    The annoying nurse from our local hospital in Hastings. The one with the loud southern twang that almost caused me to launch her out the window.

    Gee, how could I forget? I must've fallen a lot farther than I thought.

    She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. Not even close. "I'll be sure to tell the good Doctor that he needn't be botherin' to remove your stitches. Although, I don't quite know what I'm gonna say when he asks me why. He's never gonna believe the truth in a million years." She backed up toward the doorway without ever taking her eyes of mine. "I guess I'll just have to try to come up with a good excuse."

    I folded my arms across my chest, leaning back against the rock hard pillows. "Good luck with that."

    Her lower lip started to tremble before she turned and exited the room. I'd barely recovered from her obnoxious accent when another voice – even more annoying – assaulted my eardrums.