He usually let it slide, but this morning Pete had pressed the wrong button.
Harry gave the idiot a long, hard look. It took tremendous self-control to let go of his grip on Pete and back away.
“I’m going to lunch, but before I do, I’ll tell you this: one more insult out of you and you’ll be flat on your ass … for days.”
Pete ran his hands through his hair, looked Harry square in the eye and said, “Fuck you.”
* * * *
Harry knew he had to get out of this place. He was feeling what Gina complained about when she was scared, like her world was suffocating her. No, he wasn’t scared. But he was uneasy and suspicious.
When he was out the front door, he walked to their rental Jeep, still parked where they’d left it, along side the building. He took a lap around it, studying the tires, the canvas top; everything looked fine.
He was finally calming down, but now he was angry for losing his temper with such a fool like Pete. He didn’t like the guy, or his buddy Rocky. Their being here didn’t make sense. Why would Ethan hire two obviously untrained losers to work with sick people?
He walked around to the back of the facility and gave the out-of-place gray boulders a once-over. He didn’t see anything suspicious. A little farther on, there was a rift between the rocks. He ambled toward it, found a pathway, and kept walking. After a short time, the foot path ended and he was staring at an eight-foot-high door.
It was definitely an old mining era door, with elaborate tendrils of curled, rusted iron decoration affixed to a solid wooden frame that was held in place by modern heavy metal hinges. A no-nonsense hasp was secured with a large, new padlock.
Harry stepped back. Someone had recently sealed this entrance to a mine.
He pulled at the padlock, hoping it would somehow spring open, but it was firmly clamped shut.
Probably the only way to keep out unwanted visitors … like me.
Harry turned and pushed on into the open desert, past hump after hump of mine tailings, more evidence of mine activity. Looking up when he should have been looking down, he tumbled over a half-buried door. He kneeled down, touched the lacey, rusted-out metal. The door had been ripped off its hinges and was covered with ragged holes. Finding this second door convinced him there was a mine somewhere beneath his feet. He started making wider and wider perimeters around the area of the two doors, but found nothing else.
He noticed that the sun was getting lower and lower; soon it would be hidden behind the boulders. A sudden chill hit him. Someone was walking across his grave. He couldn’t explain why that kind of kid’s talk popped into his head. For a moment he did feel weird. He scanned the area. Nothing but desert, mine tailings, and the strange boulders.
He threw his head back and laughed.
What’s so unusual about any of this? These mines helped the North finance the Civil War … provided most of the funds to build San Francisco. Nothing weird here.
I need to get my ass back to the unit.
Still, he wasn’t looking forward to spending the rest of the day with Pete after their little encounter.
It took him longer to return than he’d anticipated. He’d wandered out farther than he intended.
Back at the unit, he walked up to Pete the first thing.
“Hey, man, you kind of pushed my buttons earlier. I apologize for taking off on you like that.”
Pete hard-stared him and said, “You have no idea just how sorry you’re gonna be.”
Chapter 24
Gina tried to catch her breath, but she sounded like a dying animal.
“Why won’t you open?” she screamed.
She couldn’t feel her legs anymore, and although there was cold air coming from whatever there was in the space in front of her, sweat trickled down between her breasts.
She tried to punch at the door again, but couldn’t really do much with an underhanded back swing, and her legs felt dead and caught in something. She was growing weaker and weaker, could barely hear the thump of her fist as it hit the door. Tears filled her eyes; her sobs surrounded her.
It was getting colder and colder.
Gina had to face it—she was jammed into a hole in the ground. She couldn’t go back the way she’d come; and there was nothing but dirt and darkness in front of her.
One part of her brain wanted her to go to sleep, escape all the terror she was feeling. The other part told her that if she didn’t do something soon, she wouldn’t be able to move or breathe; the blackness would swallow her.
Her mind spun, spitting out little green dots that bounced all around her.
“Let me out!”
Nothing in response.
She screamed it again, “Let me out!”
You’re such a wimp, sis.
“What?”
You heard me.
“Vinnie? What are you doing here?”
Wimp!
“Vinnie, don’t talk to me like that, you little brat.”
Whadda you gonna do about it?
“I’m gonna beat the shit out of you … like always.”
Yeah, sure! You ain’t goin’ nowhere, big sister. And you sure as hell ain’t gonna beat on me.
“Sez who?”
Gina tried to bring her fists in front of her but her arms lay lifeless at her sides, they wouldn’t move.
Sez me, said a different voice, deep and hard. She cringed. It was her ex-husband.
“Get out of here, Dominick!” she shouted. “Leave me alone!”
Her heart was racing. He’d kill her this time … said he would when he got out of jail.
“If you touch me, you’ll go back to prison. You’ll rot there. That’s what the judge told you would happen if you touched me again.”
Ain’t no judge gonna find you in this hole, Gina girl. No one will find you, you bitch!”
Dominick was coming; his voice was there in the tunnel in front of her. She could feel his cold breath on her face.
“No!” she screamed. She slammed back into the door with both fists; did it over and over and over until there was nothing to hit. The door was gone.
She moved an inch at a time as she backed through the wall. When her knees landed on the lab floor she collapsed.
Chapter 25
Gina lay prostrate on the lab floor. It was a long, long time before she could muster the strength to stand, and make her way out of the lab. Every fiber in her body ached. She didn’t dare take the elevator and risk exposing herself. But as she walked up the stairs, she had to cling to the banister to keep from slipping back down. When she finally arrived at the unit, it took all of her will power not to drop her head onto the desk and weep.
Sensing a kill, Rocky had given her nothing but lip for coming back a half hour late. She didn’t take the bait even though he was relentless in hounding her with every possible dig. She was too empty inside to respond. She was cold and stiff, her mind constantly drawing a blank. She did what had to be done, working only on auto-pilot.
All she could think about was being trapped in that hole in the ground and never coming out … no one would ever find her.
And Harry? He probably would never know what happened to me.
Her heart sped up, tears trickled down her cheek. Would he think she’d just run away? Would he really think that?
Everything was wrong in this place, had been from the very start.
They’d barely arrived at Comstock, her very first traveling nurse assignment, and instead of the big adventure she expected, the administrator and staff were disgusting. And now, she’d almost died!
* * * *
Harry plopped down on the sofa beside her.
“Harry! Don’t do that!”
“Do what?”
“Sneak up on me like that! I almost went through the ceiling.”
“Sorry, doll, I just sort of collapsed.”
Gina looked into his eyes, saw her own misery reflected there. “What is it, Harry? What’s wrong?”
“
I almost killed Pete today … I mean really kill him.”
She reached for his hand. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “He wasn’t anymore asinine than usual. I think Rhonda’s sudden disappearance got to me. The fool opened his mouth and said one wrong thing too many. I snapped.”
“Oh, Harry, I’m so sorry.”
“I saw a side of me that I don’t ever want to see again.” He kissed her on the forehead, looked into her eyes. “Hey, doll, you look totally washed out. What a jerk, laying all this on you.”
“It seems we’ve both had a horrible day.” Before she could say anything else, a sob tore out of her. And then she couldn’t stop.
“Hey, hey!” He pulled her into his arms. “Tell me about it.”
“It was so horrible, Harry. Blackness closing in all around me. I couldn’t move … my arms, my legs were paralyzed.”
“Whoa! Back up, Gina. What blackness? Where?”
“I went to the basement again on my lunch break … found an underground laboratory.”
“No!” Harry held her at arms length. “You said you wouldn’t go there again. You promised.”
“It was because of Rhonda. I had to know…” She was shaking so hard, Harry grabbed a comforter from the back of the sofa and wrapped them both in it and squeezed them together until she stopped shivering.
“The lab. It was so grotesque … walls covered with jars of floating brains.”
“Probably part of the Alzheimer’s study. Ethan must be analyzing the brains of the patients who died here at Comstock.”
“I tried to tell myself that, too, Harry. I mean, at the time it seemed not only logical, but essential for the study.”
“The only way to see what damage AZ-1166 might have caused; how it worked on the brain.”
“I could understand that, and even go along with it. But it was something else that got to me. I mean, being in a lab or even an autopsy area is no big thing for me. Been there, done that. But that place, not only smelled of formaldehyde, it smelled of fear.”
“You think they cut up Rhonda while she was still alive. That she was the one you heard screaming?”
She squeezed his hand and nodded.
Was it her fear I smelled in that horrible place, or was it my own?
“Rhonda Jenkins shouldn’t have been down there,” Harry said. “Maybe she couldn’t see, “but she wasn’t ill … she certainly wasn’t dying. Besides, screams are not what you usually hear at an autopsy.”
“When Ethan … it must have been Ethan, was coming into the lab, and there was no place to hide, I forced my body through a small floor-level opening in the wall. Maybe it was an opening to an old mine.”
“Hey, you were lucky you found any hiding place at all.”
“Yeah, but when Ethan left the lab, I tried to back myself out and got jammed in there. It was like being buried alive.”
* * * *
Gina sat at the tiny dining room table, her hands encircling a cup of hot mint tea. She breathed in the warm steamy mist. It was reassuring to hear Harry moving around in the shower. She’d practically singed herself trying to warm up before him with the shower’s hot water. Now, she was feeling better. But she still was racked with sudden chills that shook her from head to toe.
She visualized all the containers of floating brains lined up on shelf after shelf along every wall. It was the perfect setting for a horror flick about a mad scientist, but certainly not something you ever wanted to see in real life.
When Harry came in from the bathroom, he was wearing a Nautilus warm-up suit and running sneakers. His hair was still wet and it glistened with tight, black curls that clung to his head. He pulled a chair close to her, sat down, and kissed the palm of her hand.
“Hey, Ms. Mazzio. Why don’t we get out of here and drive up to Virginia City, grab some dinner, and just hang out? Sort of leave this place behind to simmer in its own polluted juices.”
“It’s kind of late, isn’t it?”
She looked into his soft eyes; saw nothing but trust. He believed in her so completely. She was glad she’d told him everything that had happened.
Well, almost everything.
Maybe he was right. Just do something real, something normal.
“Come on, babe. Let’s just do it, get away from this place for a while.”
Once she made up her mind to go she was up like a shot; it took her only five minutes to slip into jeans, sweat shirt, add a touch of makeup, and grab a jacket.
* * * *
It was dark, but lights dotted the hills when they climbed through the pass to Virginia City. When they entered the town’s main area, old-time saloons lined both sides of the street. Sounds of rinky-dink piano music floated through the air and Gina was having fun walking on the boardwalk—it felt quaint, like she was the star of an old Western movie.
They’d parked the Jeep down a ways from a twentieth-century Denny’s-style restaurant. Gina didn’t think the place brought any visions of what the original mining town would have looked like in the 1800s—but it was food and she was suddenly ravenous.
Once inside the restaurant, they slid into a booth; a waitress was immediately at the table with the menus. She was somewhere in her fifties, with a bright smile; it was obvious her feet were killing her.
“Hi, there. Welcome to VC.”
“Been a long day?” Gina said.
“Bet your boots on that.” She shifted from one foot to another. “It’ll be this way until the snow makes it too tough for tourists to get through the pass to Sun Mountain.” She took a moment to stretch her neck from side to side. “You folks staying in town?”
“No,” Harry said. “We’re nurses. We work at the Comstock Medical Facility, about ten miles down the road.”
“Don’t know that place … mmmm; wait a minute now … is that the place near all those big boulders, way back in the hills?”
“That’s the place,” Gina said.
“Yeah, I remember them bringing in those rocks. Seems to me that was two or three years ago. Rocks came in sections, as I recall. Folks around here thought it was kind of weird, putting rocks together like that. especially since we’re not all that shy of rocks around here in the first place. But we don’t pay much attention to outsiders if they don’t bring business to the town. If you get my meaning.”
“Why do you think they brought them in?” Harry said, laughing.
“Only thing we could figure, it had to do with all the empty mines in the area.” The waitress shifted feet again. “The old timers said that piece of land was riddled with shafts going off in all directions. Maybe they wanted the rocks so they could seal off some of them.”
Gina was up to her neck with rocks and Comstock. She read the name on the waitress’ pin. “Well, Rosa, I think I’ll have a nice thick hamburger with everything you can think of jammed inside. Also, I’ll have a Caesar salad instead of French fries.” She handed the menu back.
“Cost you two bucks extra for the salad.”
“Done deal.”
“I’ll have the same,” Harry said, “except I’ll take the fries.” He laughed. “Two bucks is two bucks.”
“Coming right up.” The waitress limped a few steps before she caught herself and straightened out her gait.
“Rosa is right about the mines,” he said. “During my lunch break I wandered around out back and there were plenty of signs of old mining activity.”
“Let’s forget the mines.” Gina reached across the table and squeezed Harry’s hand. “Thank you for getting me out of that place, even if it’s only for a couple of hours.”
“I know my gal.” He scooted around to sit next to her; leaned over, and kissed her on the neck. “Something still on your mind, doll?”
She shook her head.
“Hey, it’s me. You can tell me anything.”
“No, no, Harry. I just don’t like the job or any of the personnel who work there. I wish we’d never come.”
“I feel exactly the same way.” He started toying with the silverware, moving a fork back and forth. “I’ve taken on many assignments over the years… some have been boring, some really challenging, but never one that felt … shady.” Harry watched the waitress step their way with their dinners.
“Yeah, that’s the right word. Shady,” Gina said.
“Are you up for finding out what it is?”
She was silent for a long moment. “You know I’d like to just run away. But I’m willing to stay a little longer and see how it plays out.”
Harry took her hand and squeezed it.
Rosa placed the food in front of them, pulled a big bottle of catsup out of her pocket and set it on the table.
“Thank you, Rosa,” Harry said. “Can’t eat fries without the red stuff.” He gave her a big smile.
* * * *
Dinner had been great. They’d laughed a lot and there was nothing like a hamburger to make things feel right again.
They were walking down the boardwalk over the rickety wooden planks when Harry pulled her toward the doorway of a bar called The Silver Stope.
“Let’s get a nightcap before we head back.”
“Hey you!” Gina said, “we’ve got to get up early tomorrow. Maybe we ought to leave now.”
“Oh, come on. A drink will relax us both.” Harry pulled her inside. They slid up onto bar stools and Harry put some bills on the counter.
The place was dimly lit; long split logs with a layer of rocks jammed behind covered both the ceiling and the walls. It immediately gave her a bad feeling, reminding her of the mine she’d been in with Harry.
A white-haired guy was hunched over an ancient upright piano playing some Scott Joplin. The counter top was covered with Lucite, but underneath, perfectly aligned, were silver dollars from one end to the other.
“Man, that’s something else,” Gina said. “Must have invested a load to get this fantastic bar top.”
The bartender, a grizzled man with large square shoulders laughed. “Nah, tourists donated their dollars just to get their name planted on a bar top in Virginia City.” The man had a cynical smirk on his face. “Ain’t anything dumber than a tourist.”
Bone Pit: A Chilling Medical Suspense Thriller (The Gina Mazzio Series Book 3) Page 14
