Basement Dwellers

by Holly Copella

  As Tracy scanned the list of names, she saw the names of the four crash victims who’d died last night. He’d given them all injections of some sort. What he was up to almost didn’t even matter. He was experimenting on critical patients, which was gross negligence no matter what his excuse. Tracy removed one of the viles and placed it in her lab coat pocket. She kept the notebook and shut the drawer. She quickly returned the keys to the desk drawer where she’d found them and slipped out of the office. As she turned, she nearly collided with the same orderly she’d seen on the fourth floor outside Ava’s room. Tracy appeared slightly startled to see the orderly but forced a false smile.

  “You startled me, Newman,” she announced and collected herself. “Have you seen Dr. Sharp? He’s not in his office.”

  “He’s making rounds in ICU,” Newman said then indicated the notebook she held against her chest. “Did you take that from his office?”

  Tracy forced the notebook into her pocket and took an authoritative tone. “If you see Dr. Sharp, tell him I’m looking for him.”

  As she walked past him, Newman grabbed her arm.

  She glared at him and became hostile. “Unhand me or I’ll call security.”

  Newman released her arm without hesitation. Tracy walked halfway down the corridor then uncertainly looked back. Newman followed her. She walked faster toward the elevator. The orderly picked up his pace. She removed her cell phone and pressed a button. When she looked back, Newman ran for her. Tracy cried out and ran for the elevator. She frantically pressed the button. The orderly grabbed her and pulled her into the nearby stairwell as she fought him. Newman slammed Tracy against the wall and clutched her throat to keep her from screaming. He removed the notebook and shook his head.

  “You shouldn’t take things that don’t belong to you,” he remarked in a low tone.

  Tracy stared into his eyes while gasping for her breath as she clutched his hand on her throat. She scratched his hand while attempting to pull free from his grip. Newman suddenly tossed her down the stairs. Tracy’s scream was deafened by the sound of her body thumping against the metal steps. She struck the landing halfway down and lay motionless. Newman turned and was about to leave the stairwell when he heard her moan faintly. He groaned softly, hurried down the stairs, and tossed her onto her back. He checked for a pulse. She was unresponsive but still alive. Newman grabbed her head and prepared to snap her neck when he heard shouting from the stairwell below.

  “It sounded like someone fell! Hurry!” Rose was heard shouting from two floors down.

  Newman straightened with alarm and stared over the railing to the stairs below. There was a wet spot on his pants leg where he knelt alongside the doctor. There was a matching spot on Tracy’s lab coat pocket. He subconsciously brushed the spot on his pants and then wiped the sweat from his face. He hurried up the steps as someone also ran up them from ground level. Newman bolted through the stairwell door and quietly closed it behind him. He hurried along the fifth floor corridor while clearing his throat then coughed several times.

  Rose and the EMT, Evan, hurried up the stairs and saw Tracy lying on her back on the landing.

  “Dr. Kirby,” Rose gasped with horror.

  Evan briefly checked her vitals and looked at Rose. “She’s breathing,” he announced with concern in his voice. “We’re going to need a stretcher and a trauma board.”

  Rose nodded and ran back down the stairs. Evan remained on his knees alongside the young doctor and visually accessed her injuries. Moving a fall victim could do more damage, possibly causing paralysis. He cleared his throat several times then coughed. The spot on Tracy’s lab coat was almost completely dry already, so Evan didn’t even notice it.

  The fourth floor stairway door flew open as Rose ran into the corridor from the stairwell and grabbed a nearby stretcher. She coughed several times then cleared her throat, almost stopping her in her tracks.

  “I need help! Stat!” Rose shouted and again cleared her throat. She began pushing the stretcher toward the stairwell.

  Alpert was the first to approach and ran to catch up to her. “What’s happening?”

  “Dr. Kirby fell down the stairs,” she cried out. “We need a trauma board!”

  Alpert turned and ran in the opposite direction for the nearest trauma board. He ran back to Rose, tossed the board on top of the stretcher, and helped her maneuver it through the stairway door.

  Chapter Nine

  Alpert, Rose, and Evan rushed Tracy on a stretcher through the emergency room corridor. It had only taken the trained professionals a few minutes to put her in traction and transport her onto the stretcher. They wasted little time rushing her to the emergency room. Gunther had been alerted to the situation and hurried toward them, meeting them halfway. He checked the unconscious doctor’s pupils with a penlight as he ran alongside the stretcher to emergency room four. They carefully and efficiently striped her of her clothing and dressed her in a hospital gown, keeping her neck in traction until they could scan her for fractures. Rose assisted Gunther while Alpert placed the doctor’s clothing into a bin. He carefully folded her lab coat to fit it inside the bin. He suddenly cried out with surprise and instinctively pulled his hand back. Blood seeped through the tiny cut in his latex glove. Alpert carefully opened the lab coat pocket and dumped the broken vile into a dish. Rose approached and saw the blood as he vigorously scrubbed his hands with betadine solution.

  “Are you bleeding?” Rose suddenly asked with alarm while attempting to look at his bleeding finger.

  Dr. Sharp appeared alarmed and looked at them across the room from the exam table. “What happened?” Gunther suddenly demanded.

  Alpert shook his head and waved them off with little emotion. “Just a broken vile,” he announced. “It didn’t contain blood. Just an empty vile. It’s nothing.”

  “Empty or not, you’d better bag that just in case,” Rose scolded her friend.

  “Yeah, I’ve got it,” Alpert muttered.

  Rose cleared her throat several times then coughed. She shook her head and again cleared her throat.

  Alpert eyed her while drying his freshly scrubbed hands. “You getting sick?”

  “Just a scratchy throat,” she replied and gently massaged her throat. “This place is so dry.”

  “Let’s get her to x-ray,” Gunther ordered and began waving them from the room.

  Rose and Alpert wheeled Tracy from the room on the stretcher. Gunther glanced at the counter and uncertainly stared at the broken vile in the sealed, biohazard bag. A bewildered look crossed his face. He cast a glance toward the door, watching as Rose and Alpert disappeared with the stretcher. Once they were out of sight, he took the biohazard bag.

  †

  It was late afternoon. The fourth floor ICU seemed fairly quiet with limited activity. It may have had something to do with four less patients requiring critical care after the recent deaths. Lexx stepped off the elevator and headed toward Brandon’s room. A loud commotion suddenly erupted, startling her. Nurses and orderlies began scrambling from every corner of the floor followed by a page over the intercom.

  “Dr. Sharp to ICU, stat,” came the frantic nurse’s voice.

  Lexx watched the corridor now alive with activity and felt her heart suddenly pounding in her chest as she watched them run toward her uncle’s room.

  “Please, no,” Lexx whispered softly and was suddenly unable to move.

  The swarm of orderlies and nurses ran into the room just before her uncle’s room. Lexx felt relief even if it was at the expense of some other poor soul. She continued past the room filled with emergency staff, peered in as she passed, and then headed for Brandon’s room. Within Ava Martin’s room, Rose and another nurse cleared the rolling table and any unnecessary equipment out of the way. Newman pushed the crash cart closer to the bed. Ava’s heart had stopped, which was indicated by the relentless humming coming from the heart monitor. Rose inserted a tracheal tube down her throat, attached the portable resuscitation bag, an
d squeezed the bag, filling her lungs with oxygen. Dr. Sharp ran into the room as the second nurse prepared the defibrillator paddles. He took the paddles from the nurse.

  “Clear!”

  Everyone stepped back from Ava. He zapped her with the paddles, causing her body to jolt in the bed. Her heart monitor began beeping, causing everyone to sigh with relief. Dr. Sharp returned the paddles to the nearby machine and pat Rose on the shoulder.

  †

  Lexx sat alongside Brandon’s bed and held his hand while he remained comatose. The commotion from Ava’s room next door had ceased, so she assumed the woman had survived yet another trauma. Lexx watched her uncle in silence and wondered if he would soon share the same fate as the others. Seeing him unresponsive was frightening to her. She knew he was alive, yet it was almost as if he wasn’t. Lexx feared seeing him on her prep table, cold and lifeless. It was a thought she couldn’t fathom.

  “I don’t know if you can hear me, but I need you to come back to me,” she said softly with a quiver in her voice. “Rolan’s trying to fill your shoes, and he’s making me absolutely insane. I think he misses you almost more than I do.”

  There was no response and nothing to indicate her words made it through to whatever world he was stranded. A tiny smile crossed her face despite the tear rolling down her cheek.

  “Hey, I have a date,” she announced in a failed attempt to sound cheerful. “I thought you might be happy to hear. Of course, I’ll have to postpone it until you’re back with us.” She shrugged and attempted a soft laugh. “So if you want me to go on that date, you’ll need to wake up.”

  There was still no response from the motionless man. She didn’t think it would actually work, but she was willing to try almost anything to bring him back.

  “You have a really hot doctor,” Lexx announced. “You’ll definitely want to check her out. Although, Carson’s currently your competition.”

  Carson slowly entered the room while rubbing his eyes and attempting to keep from losing control. Lexx saw his red, puffy eyes, noted his distressed mood, and felt alarm rushing through her. Something had obviously happened, but she didn’t know what it could be. It wasn’t Brandon, since she was sitting alongside him the last half hour.

  “What’s wrong?” Lexx suddenly asked as she slowly stood to face him.

  “The nurse just told me,” Carson said softly as his voice cracked and finally made eye contact. “Tracy fell down the stairs. She’s in critical condition.”

  Lexx stared at him with surprise as horror filled her eyes. “Oh, my God,” she gasped. “I can’t believe that. Did they say how it happened?”

  He shook his head and sniffed. “Dr. Sharp thinks the next twenty-four hours will give us a better idea of her condition,” he informed her while fidgeting and ran his trembling fingers through his hair. “She, uh, has a dozen or more broken bones.” He stared into his sister’s eyes. “Do you think you can sneak a peek at her chart? They, uh, won’t really tell me anything. Four dates doesn’t qualify as a significant other.”

  “They aren’t going to let me near her chart, Carson,” Lexx gently informed him. She wished she could say something more to console him, but she knew there was nothing she could do. “Not a doctor; not one of their own.”

  Carson attempted to hold back his sobs. “You know, this is just so typical. We clicked,” he interjected while haphazardly wiping the tears from his eyes. He was in a state between sorrow and rage. “I felt so comfortable with her, and now this--”

  She felt the pain her brother was going through, but the words that came out of her mouth were the same lies she was being told about Brandon.

  “You need to have a little faith, Carson,” she said gently. Her own words almost caused her to grimace. She had little to no faith at that moment herself.

  “When your business is death, it’s hard to have faith in life,” he replied callously.

  He didn’t have to tell her. She already knew that. She had no words to comfort him. Lexx placed her arms around her brother and held him. He clung to her and sobbed softly. It was possibly the first time she’d ever known him to cry. He obviously had deeper feelings for the woman he’d just started dating than he’d confided to her.

  Chapter Ten

  Monica, Evan, and Alpert sat on one of the benches outside the emergency room near where the ambulances were parked. It was another quiet morning, and they preferred it that way. Monica drank take-out coffee from a paper cup while Evan and Alpert smoked their cigarettes and discussed the hot topic from last night. Dr. Kirby’s tumble down the stairs was all anyone was talking about that morning.

  “Sounds like more damage than I expected,” Evan reported. “Usually when someone falls down steps, they try to brace their fall. To me, it looked like she dived down them.”

  “Dr. Sharp didn’t make that assumption,” Alpert remarked with surprise. “Are you sure you saw right?”

  “We’ve seen a lot of falls in our job,” Evan informed him. “You start recognizing which ones are accidents and the ones where someone had a little help.”

  Alpert appeared stunned and stared at his friend. “You suspect someone pushed her down the stairs?”

  “That’s insane,” Monica finally chimed in. “Who’d toss a doctor down the stairs?”

  Evan was about to respond then suddenly cleared his throat several times and coughed. He removed a throat lozenge and sucked on it. Alpert puffed on his cigarette then coughed several times as well. Monica glared at both men with annoyance then moved further down the bench from them.

  “If either of you gets me sick, I’ll kick your ass,” Monica snapped.

  Alpert glared at Evan and cleverly raised his brow. “Your girlfriend is bitchier than usual this morning. You’re slacking in your nightly duties.”

  Monica cast a glare at Alpert. She wasn’t humored.

  “She’s not my girlfriend,” Evan bluntly announced then grinned with amusement. “I wouldn’t date a woman with balls bigger than mine.”

  Both men laughed at Monica’s expense. Monica glared her disapproval at the comment. It was a chilling look that almost stopped their laughing. Almost.

  “If you girls are finished doing your nails, can we get back to work?” Monica snarled.

  †

  The Davenport Funeral Home was quiet it the early morning. The country setting with few homes nearby was the ideal location for the nature of their business. The entire area was usually serene and with limited activity. Lexx wearily shuffled into the kitchen. She’d had another sleepless night. Since Brandon had been in the coma, she barely slept more than a few hours each night. She saw Carson slumped over the island counter while holding his head. He looked like he hadn’t slept at all. Lexx knew he’d been through a lot the last few days between Uncle Brandon and Dr. Kirby. She tensed slightly as she stared at him. He seemed particularly sedate, telling her something had happened.

  “Is everything okay?” Lexx gently asked.

  “The hospital called--”

  Lexx stared at him in silence. Her heart nearly pounded out of her chest. She feared the words that were certain to follow. Something happened to their uncle!

  “Tracy died,” he said softly.

  The news was heartbreaking, and she felt terrible for her brother. She couldn’t deny some small relief that the bad news hadn’t involved Brandon. She shamed herself for even thinking such things. Lexx placed her arms around Carson’s neck from behind and held him.

  “Oh, Carson. I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

  The cordless phone lying on the counter near Carson rang. Both looked at the phone as if it would bite them.

  “Let the machine get it,” Lexx finally said and attempted to console her brother.

  He wiggled free from her hug and showed little emotion. “No, you should answer it.”

  She picked up the phone, pressed the button, and placed it to her ear. “Davenport Funeral Home, Lexx speaking,” she announced in the most pleasant voice she could
manage. There was a tense moment of silence. She immediately fidgeted. “Mr. Kirby, I’d just heard. I’m so sorry for your loss.” Carson eyed Lexx. They exchanged looks of surprise. “Uh, Carson just walked in. May I put you on hold?” She awaited his approval. “Thank you.” Lexx pressed a button, looked at Carson, and appeared tense. “Tracy’s family wants us to handle her final arrangements,” she informed him. “If you don’t want--”

  “No, that’s fine, Lexx. I’m okay, really,” he replied then exhaled deeply. “Make the arrangements and go with Rolan to the morgue.”

  It was obvious he wasn’t okay with taking the case. Carson stood and left the kitchen without another word. Lexx watched him leave and couldn’t help but frown. Handling Tracey’s final arrangements was going to be difficult for her and mortifying for Carson. She didn’t know why he agreed to it. It wasn’t as if they needed the work, and Tracy’s father would have understood once he heard she’d been seeing Carson. She frowned and stared at the cordless phone with the ‘hold’ light blinking at her. She inhaled deeply and picked up the phone.

  “Hello, Mr. Kirby--?”

  †

  Nathan sat at the counter near the back of the morgue with his morning coffee. He looked refreshed and well rested. It was another beautiful day in the hospital morgue with just a hint of formaldehyde in the air. The knock on the door disrupted his perfect, quiet morning. He looked up as the door opened to reveal Alpert and Newman. The orderlies pushed a sheet-covered stretcher into the morgue. Nathan uncertainly stood, stared at the stretcher, and appeared almost sedate.

  “Is that--?”

  “Yeah, it’s Dr. Kirby,” Alpert said in a dreary tone. The staff had all taken her death hard. “The funeral home will be along later today to pick her up.”

  Nathan attempted to hide his frown. He approached the freezers, opened one of the doors mid-row, and pulled out the metal slab. Newman and Alpert removed the sheet to reveal Tracy’s pale, lifeless body in a hospital gown. Her exposed legs revealed a large black and blue mark that was undoubtedly a broken bone. Stitches were visible on her lower, left arm where Dr. Sharp had surgically repaired a compound fracture. Surprisingly, her face remained unscathed from the ordeal. Even in death, she was still beautiful. The orderlies gently placed her on the slab.