Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Call

by P. T. Dilloway

  “Not too bad. The doctor said you have a couple of nasty cuts, some bruising, a sprained ankle and a mild concussion. They’re probably going to keep you for a day or two for observation.” It was then that something unexpected happened: Becky began to cry, something she hadn’t done—at least in Emma’s presence—for eleven years. “When they first called me, I thought for sure—” Becky broke down into sobs.

  Emma reached out unsteadily to pat her friend’s back. “I’m sorry. But it’s all right. I’ll be fine. Nothing to worry about.”

  Becky shook her head. “You don’t understand. I promised I would look after you. I promised. But I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there for your parents and when you went to school and now this.”

  “It’s not your fault. You can’t be everywhere.”

  “I’m supposed to be your big sister. Instead I’m more like my mom.”

  “Becky—”

  Becky backed away from Emma and then wiped at her eyes. “I’m going to tell the nurse you’re awake. Do you want anything?”

  “Some water would be nice.”

  “Sure. I can do that.” Becky poured a cup of water from the pitcher beside Emma’s bed. She held this up to Emma’s lips, despite Emma’s pleas that she could do it herself. The water glided along her throat; the cold liquid soothed as it went down.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Wait right here. Don’t try getting out of bed again.”

  “I won’t,” Emma said. She thought of mentioning her strange dream, but then thought better of it. Becky had enough to worry about at the moment.

  Becky opened the door and nearly ran straight into Detective Donovan. “Good, she’s up,” Donovan said. “Now we can have a little talk.”

  ***

  Donovan had never really liked hospitals. This was far from a unique feeling. Most people hated them for the blood or death or the antiseptic smell. Donovan hated all the water cooler dictators who constantly got in her way. Any quack who wore a set of scrubs instantly thought he or she was the most important person in the room, more powerful than a gold badge.

  For about ten hours Donovan had bashed her head against this world of ego run amok. First she had flashed her badge to the doctor treating Dr. Emma Earl. The doctor refused to give any information except to say the patient was stable and recovering. She tried to get into the room only to have a nurse shoo her away as if she were a housecat. The badge didn’t help her there either; the nurse actually shut a door in her face. Since then she had tried to ask nicely and even attempted to flirt with the male doctor. Nothing.

  When not trying to break through the hospital red tape, Donovan was on the phone with Detective Martinez at the Plaine Museum. At first they thought no one had been seriously injured, except for Earl, who had been found on the front steps of the museum. Then the firemen discovered a body up on the third floor. They had not identified the body yet, but from the location, it was believed to be Dr. Ian MacGregor.

  Donovan had nearly dropped the phone when she first heard this. First MacGregor’s wife and unborn son and then the same day as the funeral his workplace went up in flames, probably with him in it. Donovan was cynical enough to rule out coincidence. Someone was gunning for MacGregor. Not just him, but his entire family. That would seem to be a mob thing, except there was no evidence MacGregor had dealt with shady characters like that. From what she had seen in the last couple of days, MacGregor was on the up-and-up.

  She was still at the hospital when Martinez called back. MacGregor was still alive. He had gone on leave from the museum, had been at a hotel at the time. They knew this because MacGregor had seen the reports on the television and gotten in touch with the museum director to find out what had happened.

  So until they could do a dental records identification on the fricasseed corpse, they had one dead John Doe and one injured girl. An injured girl who as recently as twenty-four hours ago Donovan had thought could have murdered a pregnant woman. Though she hadn’t felt strongly about it even before she confirmed Earl’s alibi, she again couldn’t chalk this up to coincidence.

  She finally got lucky after they took Earl upstairs to recover. The nurses up there weren’t any friendlier; they refused to let Donovan into the room. “Friends and family only,” the nurse said. Donovan had grumbled under her breath, but there had been nothing she could do—at least until the nurse went off to respond to an emergency call. Then Donovan bolted into Earl’s room.

  As she reached for the door handle, the door opened on its own. Donovan nearly slammed into a woman whose bulk took up the entire doorway. For the moment she ignored this; she saw over the fat girl’s shoulder that Earl was awake. “Good, she’s up. Now we can have a little talk.”

  “You leave her alone,” the fat girl said. “She’s resting.”

  “I don’t care if she’s composing a goddamned symphony over there. I need to talk to her.” Donovan reached into her jacket for her badge. “Now you want to get out of my way or you want me to run your ass downtown?”

  “You don’t scare me,” the fat girl said. “This time you don’t have your goon squad backing you up.”

  Donovan glared at the fat girl’s face, until she finally placed it. “Lintner’s office,” she said. “How’s your little friend doing?”

  “You can ask her yourself the next time you raid the place.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  “Becky, what’s going on?” Earl asked.

  “Becky? You’re the roommate, aren’t you?”

  “I’m Emma’s best friend.”

  “Well, what a small world.” Donovan wished she could take out a cigarette, but the hospital forbade smoking. “I need to talk to your friend.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “It’s important.”

  “Emma is resting. She doesn’t need you badgering her.”

  “Look, your friend has been hurt, half the museum has gone ka-blooey and someone is dead. I want to get to the bottom of this—”

  “Dead?” Earl said. “Who’s dead?”

  “We’re not sure. Maybe you can tell me.”

  “She’s not telling you anything.” Becky pushed forward with her gut to try and force Donovan out the door. Donovan grabbed the doorframe to steady herself. “Get out of here and come back later.”

  “You’d better watch it,” Donovan growled, “before I take you in for assault.”

  “You go ahead and try.”

  “Becky, don’t,” Earl said.

  “Stay out of this,” Becky snapped.

  “No.” In a softer voice Earl added, “I want to help.”

  Becky glared at Donovan for a moment and then stepped aside. “Fine. But you’ve got five minutes. Then I’m getting the nurse to throw your ass out of here.”

  “This shouldn’t take that long,” Donovan said. She reached into her jacket for her notebook. Other than a bandage on her head and her ankle, Earl didn’t look too badly injured. “First, why don’t you tell me what happened to you. You get hurt in the stampede?”

  “No. I tried to go upstairs. To the third floor.”

  “Before the explosion?”

  “After.”

  “You ran towards an explosion?”

  Earl nodded. “I thought I could save something.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Samples, reports, or something.”

  Christ, what a workaholic, Donovan thought to herself. Donovan would as soon let an explosion vaporize her desk and all the paperwork on it. “Did you find anything?”

  “I didn’t make it. There was something up there on the third floor.”

  “You mean like debris blocking the door?”

  Earl shook her head. “No. It was a monster.”

  “A monster? Like Frankenstein?”

  Earl shook her head again and then closed her eyes. “I know you’re not going to believe me. It looked like a man, only it had spikes on the shoulders and knees. It had claws like some kind of ani
mal. And it had these terrible red eyes.”

  “You think those could have been night vision goggles?”

  “No, they were eyes.”

  “How good of a look did you get at him?”

  “Not very good before he attacked me.”

  “I think you’ve asked enough questions. She needs to rest.”

  “Just one more thing. Did you see anyone else up there on the third floor?”

  Earl shook her head. “No. I didn’t get that far.”

  “You know who might have been in Dr. MacGregor’s office? The firemen found a body, but we know it’s not him.”

  Earl paused long enough that Donovan thought the girl might have fallen asleep. Then she whispered, “Dr. Brighton. He took over for Ian.”

  Donovan jotted the name down to look up later. Then she stood up to lean over the bed and pat Earl’s shoulder. “Thank you for your help. I’m sorry I had to be a little rough. Once you’re feeling better, I might have to talk to you again about this ‘monster’ of yours.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t believe me, but I saw it!”

  Donovan went down to her car, to smoke a cigarette and try to make sense of it. Earl was probably hopped up on painkillers or confused from the fall. There were plenty of monsters in this city, but all of them of the human variety. She would have to figure out which one had nearly diced the kid up.

  Chapter 12

  They released her from the hospital on Sunday afternoon. Despite Becky’s worries, Emma got up for work on Monday. “Come on, kid, you can take another day or two after what happened,” Becky said.

  “I’m fine,” Emma said.

  “What about those scratches,” Becky said. She pointed to the bandage over Emma’s midsection.

  “It’s not too bad. Just itches a little.”

  “I don’t know what’s the point in going. Your office is a bunch of ashes.”

  “Maybe I can salvage something.”

  It turned out she wouldn’t get the chance to look for any salvage, at least not yet. The police had the eastern half of the third floor sealed off for their investigation. This included the geology department and some of the botany department. She, like Dr. Stevens and Dr. Lemieux, waited in the cafeteria to find out where—or if—they would be working.

  To her surprise, Ian came into the cafeteria to give them the news. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in days, with dark circles and bags under his eyes. The stubble he’d sported at the funeral had become longer, rapidly approaching an actual beard that was mostly black with flecks of gray.

  Despite all of this, his voice was still the same. “Well now, gang, I’m afraid I’ve had to cut my leave a bit short with this crisis. If you haven’t heard, poor Dr. Brighton was killed in the explosion.” He paused for a moment, to let this sink in. “The police should be here for a few days and then the cleanup will begin. This could take quite some time. Until then, we’re forced to make alternate arrangements. I hope you don’t mind getting a bit cozy with each other, as we will be having to share what space we have available.”

  Ian gave out the new office assignments, which housed most of the geology department in the zoology department. This came as somewhat of a relief to Emma, who feared for a moment she might be asked to share an office with Dr. Dreyfus. Though when it came to her assignment, she found out she would not be likely to see him or anyone else.

  “I’m very sorry about this, lass, but I’m afraid all we have left is the subbasement. You can rest assured I will do everything I can to find some better way to accommodate you. For now, you’ll have to make do down there.” He cleared his throat and then smiled tiredly. “If you’d like to file a grievance, I’d be happy to pass it along for you.”

  “No, that’s fine,” Emma said. “I don’t mind.”

  “The equipment you requested is on its way, but until then you should be able to find something down there you can use.” Ian waited until the others had left to pull her aside. “I’m very sorry about Dr. Brighton. He was a good man.”

  “Yes, he was.”

  “The director and I have spoken and we agree that it’s perfectly understandable if you would like a leave of absence or perhaps a transfer to another institution.”

  Emma didn’t hesitate even a moment to answer, “That won’t be necessary.”

  “If you have any problems down there, you let me know right away.” He gave her a pat on the shoulder and then she was on her own.

  As an institution that had been around for well over a century, the Plaine Museum had accumulated a lot of stuff over the years. There were old artifacts not on display at the moment, research notes, and office records, all of which needed storage until used again, donated to another institution, or destroyed. The subbasement served this purpose, with thousands of square feet devoted to storage for crates.

  Now it would also house Emma, at least temporarily. She searched for the light switch with her hands. Once she found it, a bank of industrial lights like those in the Karlak II exhibit came to life, bathing the cavernous room in harsh white light. She resisted the childish urge to call out and hear her voice echo.

  She felt a hand brush against her back. Her mother’s voice whispered in her ear, “Emma. It’s time.”

  She looked around but didn’t see anyone there. Then she heard her mother’s voice again. “You’re so close, baby. You only need to go a little farther.”

  Emma closed her eyes tightly. This couldn’t be real. She must be suffering a setback from the head injury. When she opened her eyes, she saw her mother hovered by the elevator, glowing bright white like in her dream. “Mom?”

  “Come with me, Emma.”

  “To where?”

  “To your destiny, baby.”

  Emma shook her head. This isn’t real, she told herself. She should go home sick and get some rest. In a few days she would be fully healthy. That was what she should do.

  “Emma, please,” the image of her mother said. “You have to do this. It’s important.”

  “Go away,” Emma whispered. “You’re not real.”

  A hand caressed her cheek; it certainly felt like her mother’s hand. She opened her eyes and again saw her mother in the flesh, just the way she remembered. “Mom?”

  “It’s me, baby.”

  “How?”

  “That’s not important. I don’t have much time. You have to come with me.”

  “To Heaven?”

  “No, not yet.” Her mother smiled. “Not for a long time.”

  “Then where?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  Emma knew she was still hallucinating and that she should stay right where she was. Yet when she looked at her mother, she was the same woman Emma remembered tucking her into bed at night and waking her up in the morning. If it was a hallucination, it was a really good one.

  She took her mother’s hand; Mom helped her out of the chair. It was only then Emma realized her mother was shorter than her now by a good six inches. This brought tears to her eyes to think how much her mother had missed. Mom pulled her close into a hug and stroked her hair. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.”

  Far too soon for Emma’s liking, her mother pulled away to walk over to one of the crates. From this she took out an old janitor’s jumpsuit—one that had belonged to Mr. Graves. “You’ll need this for where we’re going,” Mom said. “Unless you want to ruin that pretty suit of yours.”

  “I wouldn’t want to do that,” Emma said. She slid the jumpsuit on over her clothes, finding Mr. Graves to be much larger than her in length and width. His feet were smaller than hers, something she found out when Mom handed a pair of galoshes to her. “Is all this really necessary?”

  “You’ll see,” her mother said ominously.

  Emma didn’t like the sound of this, but couldn’t bring herself to raise an objection. Somehow her mother had come back from the dead for this, so it must be important. She took her mother’s hand as she’d done when she was little to cross the street
. In this case she was grateful for the hand to help steady her in the tight galoshes.

  They stepped into the elevator, where Mom hit the button marked S2 for the sub-subbasement. “Is that where we’re going?” Emma asked.

  “That’s it.”

  Emma didn’t question why she needed the jumpsuit and galoshes to go down one level. The answer to this became apparent a minute later when the elevator doors opened to the sub-subbasement. “This is it?”

  “Yes,” Mom said. She looked up at Emma with a sad smile. “And now I must go.”

  “What? No, you can’t go now. What am I supposed to do?”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out.” Mom touched Emma’s hair. “You’ve always been my little genius.”

  “Mom, don’t go. Please.”

  “I have to, baby. I’ve stayed too long already.”

  Emma tried to wrap her arms around her mother, to hold her close forever, but it didn’t work. Mom’s body began to glow once again, turning from gold to bright white that hurt Emma’s eyes even when she closed them. “I love you, baby,” Mom whispered. Then she was gone.

  Emma wanted to drop to her knees and sob at losing her mother a second time. Even if it had been a hallucination, it had felt so real. She wanted to cry until she didn’t have any tears left, but she couldn’t. Her mother had brought her down here for a reason and now was the time for Emma to find out what.

  She stepped out of the elevator, into an inch of mud. In the dim light of the elevator, she saw what appeared to be a cavern. To her left someone had posted a civil defense sign that indicated this was an approved bomb shelter. A bomb shelter? Why would Mom want her to go to a bomb shelter? Was a nuclear war about to break out?

  As she considered this question, she stumbled over something and fell into the mud for an impromptu facial. She spit out a wad of mud, grateful for her glasses, which had kept the mud from getting in her eyes. With her clothes covered in mud, she didn’t have any way to clean the glasses, which meant that for the moment she couldn’t see more than two feet in front of her clearly. In this two-foot radius she saw an olive drab crate had tripped her up; a label stamped on the side indicated it contained C-rations that had expired back in 1974. Clearly no one had been down here in a while. So why did the elevator still go down here? She shook her head and decided to worry about that question later.