Night Chill

by Jeff Gunhus

  Go get the police, Lauren. Don’t do this by yourself.

  No sooner had the thought torn through her mind than she saw who pushed the other end of the gurney. She had only met him once, but she would not forget Scott Moran’s face for a long time. His words had devastated her conceptions of her husband. Hell, his short conversation with her had devastated her life. She just couldn’t understand what he was doing in the morgue. It didn’t make any sense.

  Neither of the men had seen her yet. Giving in to her instincts, she hurried back into the stairwell and pushed the door shut, hoping the final click of the lock engaging didn’t sound as loud in the basement as it did to her.

  With the door closed, she turned and ran up the stairs. She burst through the door into an empty hallway on the first floor. Earlier that day there had been police everywhere, but now the place was deserted. Running toward the cafeteria, she tried to get her thoughts in order. What was she doing? Wasn’t it plausible that the nurse had made a simple error? That Lauren hadn’t heard of one of Dr. Mansfield’s patients dying last night? Was grabbing a cop to confront and accuse a respected doctor of hiding a body really what she wanted to do? God, she was so confused. And exhausted. She needed help.

  Styrofoam cups still littered the cafeteria tables, but all other signs of the command post for Sarah’s search were gone. The room was empty. As far as the police were concerned, the case was solved. Now it was just a matter of finding a body. Dragging the river. Looking in dumpsters. Before her mind could go too far down that path, Lauren decided to go to reception. There had to be someone in this Goddamned hospital.

  She spun around and ran straight into a body.

  She screamed and desperately pushed the man away. Thick, strong hands held her shoulders. The man was talking, and it took a few seconds to realize the words were soothing.

  “Easy, easy. No one’s going to hurt you,” the man said.

  Lauren pulled away and straightened her posture, her façade of emotional control back in place. She looked at the person who had, in her mind at least, crept up behind her. After a quick calculation, she decided he was the right person to help her. She told the man about Dr. Mansfield. He nodded as she expressed her concerns, both for what he might be doing and how it would look if she were accusing him unjustly.

  “Tell you what,” the man said, “we’ll go down and see what’s going on. Just you and me. No need to tell anyone else. That way if it’s no big deal, it’s no big deal. Sound good?”

  Lauren nodded. After voicing her concerns about Dr. Mansfield out loud, she felt self-conscious, suddenly sure that the whole thing was a result of her over-wrought mind. “Thanks, I really appreciate it.”

  “No problem,” Sheriff Janney said, following Lauren back to the stairwell. “In fact, you wouldn’t believe how glad I am that I ran into you.”

  SEVENTY-TWO

  “Is that enough?” Jack asked as he leaned in to get a better look. To him, the thin ribbon of what looked like grey play-dough wrapped around the thick steel bar seemed inadequate.

  “The shape of the charge is more important than the amount of explosive used,” Lonetree explained as he curved the C-4 into small half moon shapes. “These little guys will cut through the bars and probably won’t spray shrapnel on us at all.”

  “Probably?”

  Lonetree smiled, “It’s more an art than a science.” He handed a few of the small crescents to Jack. “Wrap these around the inside base of the bar. One per bar.” He noticed Jack’s nervousness handling the material. “Don’t worry. It can’t go off until I put in the blasting filament.”

  Jack looked at the wire curled up on Lonetree’s lap. “Looks like fishing line.”

  “It’s made special for booby traps. And that’s what we’re making.”

  “We agreed no killing if possible, right?” Jack asked.

  “Don’t worry. We’re going for minimal collateral damage.”

  “Some of the cops out there are hardly more than teenagers.”

  “They might get banged up a little, but nothing too serious.”

  Together they rigged the explosives. Within five minutes they were ready. Transparent wire connected each of the charges, ran along the floor to the back wall of the cell and terminated in the trigger device in Lonetree’s hand. After getting Lonetree’s signal, Jack reached up and pressed a large red button on the door of the cell. They were told to use the call button sparingly or it would be turned off. He breathed a little easier when he heard a ring in the outside office.

  No one came.

  He hit the button again.

  They waited a full minute and still the door remained closed.

  Jack and Lonetree exchanged looks. Jack guessed they were thinking the same thing. What if Janney had left instructions that no one go into the cell block? If so, the whole operation became trickier. They could get out of the cell but not without alarming however many police were in the next room. By the time they set the charge and blew the door that led out of the cell block, there would be a wall of guns lined up against them.

  Jack thumped the buzzer with his fist. Hitting it repeatedly and yelling at the door.

  Finally, the door opened.

  Jack recognized the man. He was one of the Midland police, tall and lanky, probably still in his twenties even though his neck and cheeks were covered with the acne of a teenager. He closed the door behind him and did his best to look impatient.

  “What d’ya guys want?”

  Jack backed away from the bars. “We’re getting hungry.”

  “You just ate. What d’ya think this is? A hotel?” He walked closer, snorting from his own joke.

  Lonetree waited until the young cop reached the far corner of the cell, then he yelled, “NOW!”

  Jack turned his back and covered his ears. Lonetree punched the detonator. There was a flash of light, then a series of explosions. Jack’s ears stung from the concussion wave, even though his hands were clutched to the side of his head. Blue-grey smoke hung suspended in the cell and the air burned from the chemicals in the explosives.

  Lonetree rushed past him, waving his hands to clear out the smoke. Most of the bars they had fixed with C-4 had shorn off cleanly and now lay on the floor. Two bars still hung in place, but a well placed kick from Lonetree sent them crashing to the ground.

  Jack surged forward and followed Lonetree through the smoke. The young cop was on the ground, holding his ears and moaning. Blood covered his face.

  Lonetree dragged the cop to his feet, deftly grabbing the gun from his holster. “Tsk, tsk. You should know better than to bring a weapon into a jail cell.” He turned to Jack “Thank God for small town cops.”

  “Is he all right?” Jack asked waving his hand in front of the dazed man’s face.

  “Only scrapes. No real injuries that I can tell.” He put the gun to the young man’s head just as the door leading to the police headquarters opened. “STOP RIGHT THERE. WE HAVE A HOSTAGE.”

  Jack followed Lonetree out of the cell block into the exterior room. There were six police that they could see. The office space was set up without walls so there was no place for anyone to hide and the window shutters were pulled shut. Finally, luck seemed to be on their side.

  In less than five minutes, they disarmed the officers and herded them into the still intact jail cells. Lonetree dragged the young cop around with him and barked at the others to follow in order to save their friend’s life. Jack checked the officers for weapons and removed their radios to make sure they couldn’t call for help.

  With all the police in one cell, and the door closed behind them, Jack and Lonetree took a minute to catch their breaths.

  Lonetree slapped Jack on the back. “You did good. Kind of a wild, huh?”

  “Actually, yeah. It was a rush.”

  “The looks on their faces…” Lonetree laughed.

  “I wish we had on that on video.”

  “If you ask nice maybe they’ll give you a copy.” Lonet
ree nodded up to the corner of the room. Jack looked up to see a camera mounted on the wall, the red light on.

  “Great. How about we get the hell out of here?”

  “Right.” Lonetree started searching through the desk nearest him. “Look for car keys.”

  Jack turned and patted the papers on the desk. “I’ve been thinking about access to the cave. There has to be an easier way. There’s no way Huckley and the others are going in the way we did.”

  “There’s another entrance. I’ve seen it from inside the cave. There’s an elevator going up a crude mineshaft. Using GPS, I figure the entrance is somewhere on Huckley’s property. That’s how we’ll go in. Even if they hear us coming they won’t be able to escape without running right into us. Find any keys?”

  Jack raised his hand in the air and shook a plastic container full of keys. “I think this is what we’re looking for.”

  Lonetree walked over and took the container. “Perfect. I’ll drive.”

  SEVENTY-THREE

  Sheriff Janney opened the basement door for Lauren. When she hesitated, he smiled and offered to go first. Lauren shook her head and stepped into the basement. The corridor looked the same as when she left. Both the morgue and elevator doors were jammed open. But now there was a gurney in the elevator. Lauren assumed it was the same one Dr. Mansfield and Scott Moran had been pushing. Faint noises came from the morgue at the end of the hallway.

  “I’m going to see who that is,” Lauren whispered, pointing to the elevator. She hoped she could take a quick look, see that the body was actually one of the terminal patients from the third floor, and sneak back upstairs without Dr. Mansfield ever finding out about her suspicions. Janney nodded and followed closely behind her. Lauren stepped over the chair that held the doors open.

  Lauren inched her way toward the cadaver’s head. The body bag zipped vertically so Lauren only had to unzip a few feet to expose the face.

  She pulled slowly, noticing that her hands trembled as she did so. The stench from the rotting body wafted into her nostrils as soon as the bag’s seal was broken.

  Under her breath she whispered, “What are you, back in med school? Afraid of a cadaver? Get a grip, Lauren.” With a final tug she pulled down the zipper to the body’s chest, pushed away the edges of the bag and stood back.

  The body was in horrible condition. Dark sores had eaten deep into the flesh, especially across the girl’s chest. Clusters of raised bumps covered the neck and jowls, like massive spider bites that had been scratched until they bled. The cadaver’s face was swollen and blotched with crimson rashes that looked like burn wounds, making the girl’s features almost unrecognizable. Lauren stood with her back against the elevator wall. The type of pustules were the same. The rash. The discoloration. All the same.

  But it wasn’t Felicia.

  It could only mean one thing. This girl was another case of the same disease that killed Felicia. The disease was contagious and Dr. Mansfield was trying to keep it a secret. But why? What the hell did the old man think he was doing?

  “What is it?” Janney asked from outside the elevator. “Is it your patient?”

  Lauren was going to re-zip up the body bag, but it really didn’t matter now. The hospital would have to be quarantined until the pathogen was identified. If it was an airborne contagion they were already exposed anyway. She left the bag open, the girl’s face staring blankly at the elevator wall. “No, it’s someone else.”

  “So there’s no problem.”

  “No, there’s quite a large problem,” Lauren said, not ready to scare Janney with the details quite yet. She felt her confidence return to her. This was the type of situation she had been trained to deal with. Something that required an ordered medical response. First, she had to find out if there were other cases. The answer to that was down the hall in the morgue with Dr. Mansfield. “Come with me, Sheriff.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Janney said, falling into step behind her.

  Lauren hoped the noises coming out of the morgue were enough to cover the sound of their footsteps as they marched down the corridor. With a deep breath, Lauren turned the corner and walked into the morgue.

  There was a gurney in the center of the room. Judging from the outline visible under the white sheet, it held another cadaver, this one smaller than the one in the elevator. That’s Felecia, Lauren thought. It has to be. She tore he eyes away from the body and looked up at the man who had violated her trust. Dr. Mansfield was bent over one of the body drawers, helping Moran pull himself out. They both froze in place when she appeared.

  “What you are you doing here?” Dr. Mansfield demanded.

  “What am I doing here? Jesus! What are you doing?” She noticed his eyes dart behind her as Janney walked in. She was glad she had thought to get the sheriff before she came down. “What is he doing in there?” she said pointing to Scott Moran.

  The psychiatrist finished extracting himself from the body drawer. When he did, Lauren walked over and leaned down to look into the drawer. The back of it was gone and it opened into a small room behind the wall of body drawers. “What the hell is this?” Lauren said.

  Dr. Mansfield looked down at her. “I wish you had stayed upstairs. This is really unnecessary.”

  “Unnecessary! You’ve covered up a potential viral outbreak here. This is insane.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “You’re right. I don’t.” Lauren squinted at the impassive doctor. “You never sent the blood work to the CDC, did you?”

  “I didn’t need to. I know what killed your patient.”

  “What do you mean? How could you possibly…” Lauren’s voice faltered as he looked from Dr. Mansfield’s face to Scott Moran’s and back again. They weren’t scared. They had been caught in a major cover-up, yet they weren’t scared at all.

  An alarm sounded in her head. There was no reason these men should be so calm. Unless…

  She spun around to look at Janney. The sheriff shrugged and blocked the doorway.

  “Oh God. What are you all doing?”

  “Science. Advancing civilization.” Dr. Mansfield kicked the body drawer closed with his foot.

  “Are you conducting experiments on these girls? Is that it?”

  Janney cleared his throat behind her. She turned in time to see him pointing at his watch. “Sorenson has the ambulance upstairs. We should get going before people start asking questions.”

  “Where are you taking them?” Lauren cried out. Then it hit her. The thought that should have occurred to her from the beginning. Her voice came out no more than a whisper. “Did you have something to do with Sarah disappearing? Do you know where she is?”

  Dr. Mansfield looked as if he might answer her but then thought better of it. He looked past her to Janney. “You’re right. We’ll take her with us.” His voice was changed. Gone was the smooth gentility of the country doctor. His words came out in a clipped tone, with the stern confidence of someone used to having orders followed without question. “Make sure there’s a cover story and her car is removed from the parking lot.”

  “I’ll take care of it, Boss.”

  Dr. Mansfield straightened up as Janney said the words, his eyes darting to Lauren. Janney caught the unspoken reprimand and stared down at the floor.

  Lauren noticed the interaction. Slowly, she made the connection of what Janney had said. She turned and stared open-mouthed at Dr. Mansfield. “Jack said someone called the Boss was responsible for all this. For taking Sarah. Is that you? Are you the one they call the Boss? Are you the one doing all this to my family?”

  Dr. Mansfield looked at Janney again, a wave of anger flashing in his eyes. When he turned back to Lauren, he was back in control, his voice calm. “Your daughter is safe. If you come with me quietly, I’ll take you to her.”

  Lauren broke down, sobbing. “How could you? How could you take my baby? What’s wrong with you?”

  “I’ve always liked you. This wasn’t personal. If you knew what I do,
you might appreciate the decision I had to make. I will explain things to you, but right now we have to go. Scott here will medicate you for our little trip. It’s only sodium butabarbital. You may not believe this, but you can still trust me.”

  “Screw you.” Lauren said. “Screw you and your trust. If you hurt my baby, I’ll kill you.”

  Lauren watched as Scott Moran produced a syringe from a bag and indicated that Janney should hold her. She relaxed her body as the sheriff grabbed her arms.

  Thinking that Lauren had given in, Janney loosened his grip. As soon as he did, Lauren twisted forward and kicked, hard, into the man’s groin. His grunt told Lauren the heel of her shoe had found its mark.

  Quickly, she spun to the side and used Janney’s momentum from bending over to push him headlong into the room. Her path to the door clear now, she ran into the corridor and sprinted to the elevator at the end. She tried to ignore the shouting behind her. And then the heavy footsteps as the men ran after her.

  Stairs or elevator? Finding the right key to unlock the door, or waiting for the elevator to close. She chose the elevator just as she reached the end of the corridor. With a fluid movement that surprised even her, she launched herself over the chair that blocked the door, hooking it with her foot as she did to drag it into the elevator. She spun around and slammed her fist into the buttons to close the door.

  She backed up against the rear of the elevator, tears obscuring her vision. Janney and Moran were running down the corridor, racing to get to the elevator before the metal doors slid shut.

  They were too close.

  She wasn’t going to make it.

  She cussed under her breath, pleading for the doors to move faster. She looked around the compartment for a weapon but there was nothing. If they got there she was dead.

  Please God. Please God.

  Janney’s face filled the narrow gap between the doors. He reached out with his hand to force the elevator back open. Lauren shut her eyes and cried out.