The Thing in B-3

by Talmage Powell

  Betty laughed. “Eat your pudding.”

  Bill’s afternoon today included a research stint and a lab period. Usually he breezed through such activities. He enjoyed ferreting out facts and putting them together like pieces in a puzzle.

  But in the quiet of the library, surrounded by millions of thoughts written down by thousands of men, his mind wandered. He sat at a long oak table, clipboard, pencil, and open book before him. He read over several paragraphs of Pierre Duhem’s philosophical observations on physical law for the third time. The words were little more than hieroglyphics. They refused to convey their sense to his mind.

  He gave up for the moment and sank back in the wooden chair. His fingers toyed with a pencil.

  His attention wandered about the large reference room with its long aisles between massed bookshelves, its high, beamed ceiling flooding fluorescent light, its tall, Gothic-arched windows.

  The activity at the tables about him proceeded with its usual quiet rustle. Students flipped pages, scratched notes, exchanged murmurs, pored catalog numbers from the card files, moved to seek volumes from the shelves.

  Suddenly an unusual impression crept over Bill. It was a reversal of that unaccountable feeling of familiarity he’d experienced that first time in the Atherton living room and on the road to the lake resort. This time he had a distinct feeling of strangeness in his surroundings.

  He looked about, picking out details that should have put the room back into its commonplace familiarity.

  The pencil flitted between his nervous fingers. He wondered if any of the others felt it, this disturbance in some dark recess of the mind, this barely detectable, way-out feeling that his brain was trying to frame a thought not its own.

  A thought from some outside source? Like a TV set picking up an invisible wave from a satellite hanging weightless in space?

  This was the first unhurried moment he’d had all day long. In this quiet surrounding his brain was receptive. . . .

  A jarring awareness of the trend of his thoughts struck him. His lips pulled tight. Cool it, he chided himself. It’s because of those weird dreams last night when someone invisible was trying to tell you something and you were struggling in dark pits, trying to understand That’s all there is to it. Just the memory of some bad dreams.

  He concentrated on Duhem’s complicated passages with fresh determination, and M Duhem began making some sense at last.

  Because of his schedule, Bill had to eat dinner earlier than his father and Vicky, except on weekends. He preferred Mrs. Hofstetter’s food, but he didn’t like to put her to extra trouble. So he usually arrived at the hospital complex in time to eat in the commissary.

  Today his six-year-old fastback rolled onto the hospital grounds at the hour of twilight. On the way to his space in the employees’ parking lot, he swung past the emergency entrance. Three ambulances crouched on the cement apron, ready for service.

  Bill took some comfort in the sight of the idle vehicles. Frankly and unashamedly, he didn’t get any kicks from the ambulance runs. Sometimes he passed his feelings off with a crack about the runs giving him some relief from the boneyard. But the hospital personnel understood; they all faced similarly unpleasant duties. They didn’t need to be told how Bill really felt, or any nurse, intern, or doctor, for that matter. Each time he had to turn on a siren, it meant a human being was in trouble.

  With three on the line, it was possible that his ambulance duty would be light this evening.

  He parked his car, got out, and strolled toward the side entrance with three heavy textbooks under his arm.

  He had a pleasant dinner in the company of two nurses and an intern, taking a bit of good-natured kidding about doing his homework in the morgue.

  He punched the time clock outside the employees’ locker room ten minutes early, and moved off through the labyrinth of vaultlike corridors, exchanging nods and hellos with passing doctors and nurses.

  He was outside briefly as he crossed to the morgue wing. Entering, he noted that the small red light over the wooden door to his left was on. It meant that an autopsy was in progress, and that no one was to be admitted. Bill wondered if Dr. Josiah Homaday was working late, or if some other doctor headed the team that was in there cutting, probing, dissecting, determining the cause of death of a human creature.

  Bill crossed the anteroom and pushed through the swinging wicket of the railed-off secretarial office. He parked his books on the corner of the desk. He stood a moment, indulging a yawn. The loss of sleep last night was catching up, he realized.

  During his first week of employment, Bill had conducted his own time study. Then he had arranged his janitorial duties in a routine that stretched the minutes. Empty the ashtrays, then the wastebaskets. Dust the furniture. Water potted plants and arrange magazines on the table in the anteroom. Then vacuum, check supplies, and, lastly, swab down the boneyard.

  But tonight the gears didn’t want to mesh. He wandered across the anteroom, looking at the red signal. His eyes strayed to the sliding door at the end of the hallway. Was there a connection between the autopsy and the nameless girl?

  The question assumed a reasonless sense of urgency in his mind. A reluctant frown etched his face as his feet carried him along the hallway. He opened the sliding door, stepped through, and closed it behind him.

  Visibly, the boneyard was the same sterile, functional place. Bone-white light. Stainless steel equipment. And yet it had changed subtly. It seemed strangely warm. Rather, it had lost its suggestion of coldness. For Bill, it had lost that alien feeling. The room seemed to welcome him, to have waited for him.

  He was at the refrigerated drawer almost without knowing that he had moved. He heard the soft sound of his own breathing, the only breakage of the deep, antiseptic silence.

  The plastic tag was still blank. Was it possible they’d taken her to autopsy without filling in the ID?

  Bill saw his hand touch the metal handle. He heard the drawer slither open. The girl was still inside. Bill’s reaction was not so immediate or reflexive as it had been last night. He didn’t slam the drawer closed. Instead, he looked at the figure with coolly clinical eyes.

  And then, just as Mrs. Hofstetter had predicted, the detail that had bugged him popped into the forefront of his mind. It was right in front of his eyes, as it had been last night.

  The yellow dress. If standard, legal procedure had been followed, the girl should be swathed in one of the white, muslin-like shrouds, not the dress.

  Bill was rigid with dismay and shock. It didn’t seem possible. And yet everything indicated that someone had somehow slipped an unknown body into the morgue.

  3

  A Shocking Realization

  DR. JOSIAH HORNADAY came into the anteroom still wearing green cap and gown. He was a tall, thin, slightly stooped man with a long, lantern jaw and a long, thin nose. His thinning gray hair partially exposed a long, narrow skull that caught the light.

  So many sharp features might have added up to a knifelike total. But Dr. Homaday’s large, brooding eyes softened everything else about him, giving him a sort of Lincolnesque aspect.

  He sighed with relief that the job in the autopsy room was over. With quirked brows, he gave his head a short shake as if asking himself how a man ever chose pathology in the first place.

  He noticed that the lights had been turned on in his private office. He heard the sounds of movements and assumed Bill Latham was the source.

  As he thought about Bill, a fight flickered in Dr. Homaday’s eyes. He had known Bill from birth and had occasional glimpses over the years of William Latham’s boy growing up.

  It was Dr. Homaday who had offered Bill the job here. Actually, the arrangement had solved a minor labor problem. Like everything else around a large hospital, the maintenance force was chronically shorthanded. Bill’s efficient tours of duty helped pull the ends together. Dr. Hornaday wondered sometimes how they had managed without him.

  Fine young man, Dr. Homaday thought as
he shuffled with his long, loose stride across the anteroom. Not a flash in the pan, but a steady young man whose mind held what it absorbed. He might even make a better doctor than his father, though he’d have to go some to do that.

  Then the train of thought broke as Dr. Homaday reached his office door. A frown burrowed across his high, ridged forehead. Across the office, Bill Latham had opened a filing cabinet and was digging through it with the blunt energy of an air hammer.

  Dr. Homaday cleared his throat in a courteous warning.

  Bill’s head snapped around. At the sight of the man framed in the doorway, Bill’s breath was a gusty burst.

  “Am I glad to see you, Doctor!”

  Homaday craned his neck to look at the file. “What’s going on here?”

  “I’m looking for something in the records.”

  “So I would assume—and not very neatly, either.” Bill’s eyes followed Homaday’s gaze at the mussed-up file. “To tell you the truth, sir, I didn’t mean to make a mess. But I was getting a little desperate.”

  Homaday had ambled over. He reached and thumbed the protruding file folders idly. “Now, what’s this all about, Bill?”

  “There’s a—a girl in one of the compartments.” “There are several cadavers in the compartments,” Dr. Homaday said.

  “But this one is—different.”

  Dr. Homaday’s brooding eyes turned toward Bill’s face. “Different? In what way?”

  “For one thing, the tag on her drawer is blank.” “Impossible.”

  “My own first impression, sir. But it’s true. She’s also clothed in a dress—not a shroud.”

  Dr. Homaday’s tensile fingers restored the folders to some order. He slid the file cabinet closed. “Bill, if I didn’t know you better...

  “That makes two of us,” Bill said. “But why don’t you see for yourself? Not a thing about her in the records, but, believe me, she’s back there.”

  “At least your suggestion makes some sense. I guess my dinner can wait a little longer.”

  Bill’s quick stride led the way. He paused only to fling open the sliding door. Then his footsteps knocked soft echoes from the vinyl flooring as he rushed to the bank of refrigerated compartments. He bent slightly, grasped the handle, and slid the drawer open.

  With a shallow breath, he stood looking down at the pitiful wreckage of her face.

  He felt Dr. Hornaday’s presence beside him. He assumed the doctor’s moment of silence was due to shock rivaling his own. But when he turned his head, he saw that Hornaday was looking at him, having taken but a brief glance at the drawer.

  The doctor’s long face seemed to gather in its sharpest lines. His eyes were darkening thunderclouds.

  “Bill,” Hornaday said, too quietly, “if you were a freshman pledging a fraternity, I might excuse a hell-week assignment. But for this, I see absolutely no mitigating circumstance!”

  The force of Dr. Hornaday’s delivery was numbing to Bill.

  “Let me point out, Doctor, that I didn’t put the body where it is or foul up the records.”

  “Of all the brazen, idiotic. . . .” Then something shifted in Homaday’s eyes. He took a backward step. He looked from Bill’s face to the open drawer, then back again.

  “I preach self-control and try to practice it,” he said on a heavy breath. “I’m reminding myself of your past record and a lifetime of friendship. But you’ve got about five seconds to explain this silly joke!”

  “Doctor, if you’ll only examine what’s in the drawer... .”

  “You know the compartment is quite empty!”

  Bill felt a flash of heat, then a murky coldness. It was his turn to stare. The soft eyes and doleful, angular face before him were serious.

  Bill ripped his eyes from Homaday’s features and strained the edge of his vision toward the interior of the compartment.

  She was still there, of course, in all her pathetic loneliness.

  Why would Homaday deny the obvious fact of her existence?

  As a joke? No. Never. Not Homaday.

  Because Homaday was a part of the conspiracy to sneak her in? No. Never. Not Homaday.

  Homaday—and Bill went sick with the discovery —must have gone a little crazy. That would explain it. Homaday had faced so many on the autopsy table that his mind simply refused to see another one right now.

  As if some unseen force were nudging his thinking, Bill decided to change his tactic. He needed time, for whatever it was that he was supposed to do. It wouldn’t help to have Homaday at odds.

  A crafty smile, not quite normal to him, wreathed Bill’s lips. “Okay, Doctor. You win. You were right the first time. I was pulling your leg. You’ll have to admit I really had you out of sight for a minute.” Under the weight of Homaday’s heavy frown, Bill turned and slid the drawer closed.

  Homaday cleared his throat. “And what was the reason for this act?”

  Careful now . . . Homaday is a lean, poised cat. . . .

  The warning was a vibration, a sensory experience rather than an actual thought. With it, a sly cover-up slipped full-blown into Bill’s mind. “I didn’t mean to upset you, Doctor. But the reason was a good one. I was acting in the interest of science.”

  “Really?” The word was frigid. “In what way?” Bill turned from the now-closed drawer. “We’ve been doing some experiments in parapsychology and I just had to test your reaction to my power of suggestion.” A faint, small part of his mind marveled at the ease with which the he fell from his lips— almost as if a stranger had borrowed his vocal cords.

  Homaday’s eyes narrowed. “Young Dr. Patrick Connell’s class is where these experiments have been taking place?”

  “We’ve been investigating...

  “Yes, yes I can imagine!” Homaday’s mouth tightened. “Him and his ideas about nailing down psychic forces! They’re not exactly viruses to be isolated and identified, you know.”

  “Yes, sir, but. . .

  “But what?”

  “For a long time,” Bill ventured, “the only thing we knew about viruses was that they are filterable. We couldn’t trap them, couldn’t see them in the best microscopes of that day. ‘Virus’ was a word for something we couldn’t be sure even existed.”

  Homaday’s face endured an angiy twitch. “I’d expect you to defend Pat Connell. He’s also your faculty adviser, isn’t he?”

  Bill nodded. “But the little experiment was my own idea. Professor Connell didn’t suggest it.” “Perhaps his methods did.” Homaday’s flat, bony chest rose and fell with a long breath. “I’m far from satisfied, Bill. I’m going to think some more about this business here tonight.”

  With that, Hornaday turned, his slew-footed stride carrying him across the barren, sterile room. Bill flinched slightly as the sliding door banged shut behind Hornaday.

  The usual deathly silence returned, muffling Bill with a sense of aloneness.

  Bill stood near the coldly impersonal surgical table, not moving for several minutes. Now and then, the silence was broken from the distance, clues to what Hornaday was doing. A whisper in the water piping told of Homaday’s freshening up in the small locker room wedged beside the autopsy room. The faintest clang of a locker door drifted back. The opening and closing of the front door was unheard, but Homaday by this time must have left the building.

  Bill had so far avoided the final possible explanation for Homaday’s actions. But he couldn’t put it off any longer, as much as the mere thought chilled him. Was it his mind—not Homaday’s—acting up? Was there really a faceless, nameless girl in the compartment?

  Unaware of the gesture, he put a steadying hand on the edge of the surgical table as he turned his head slowly. His eyes brooded on the bank of refrigerated drawers, one in particular. He seemed to need time to gather himself.

  When he moved, it was with a snapping of muscles. He crossed the distance and opened the compartment with a quick, hard tug on the handle.

  A warmth touched his muscles. Not a detail had
shifted. His mind grasped at the fact. Dreams shifted like smoke on a windy day. If he’d flipped, surely some small detail would have altered from one time to the next.

  The burring of a bell jarred through to him. He swung about, his eyes losing their glaze as his mind connected. Bell, emergency, ambulance. . . .

  The emergency was one of those that might have been much worse. Two cars had collided at Monterey and U.S. 49. The smashed-up cars partially blocked the intersection while a squad car policeman directed traffic around them. Glass, water, and oil littered the street. But passengers and drivers had escaped serious injury. A young woman, bruised and bleeding from a superficial scalp cut, was more hysterical than hurt. Dr. Barney Childers had her fairly quiet by the time they trundled her into Emergency.

  Bill came out, got in the ambulance long enough to back it into its parking slot, and then walked across the lawn toward the morgue.

  Someone was standing outside the doorway. Bill stopped short at the sight of his father.

  “Hi, Bill.”

  “Dad! Anything wrong at home?”

  “No, not at all. Mrs. Hofstetter should be turning on the dishwasher about this time, and I imagine Victoria is bruising her portable, practicing copywriting for Fortesque Fifth Avenue.”

  He gripped Bill’s shoulder briefly as Bill turned to open the door. “I just wanted to see you, that’s all.”

  Bill stepped aside for his father to enter, then followed.

  Dr. Latham’s robust, hearty presence pervaded the pleasant anteroom. He surveyed the surroundings. “I still think the architect did a great job when this little wing was tacked on. Additions can turn out to be eyesores, but not this one.”

  “You didn’t take the trouble to come over and extol the beauties of the boneyard,” Bill said. “What’s on your mind?”

  “I bumped into Josh Hornaday a little while ago, Bill.”

  Crossing the office. Bill had raised the top section of a chrome smokestand to lift out and empty the ash receptacle. At his fathers words, the silvery metal top clattered back in place.