Basement Dwellers

by Holly Copella

  “You don’t need her files,” Nathan replied. “I’m almost certain she went backwards down the stairs with no indication she attempted to brace her fall.”

  Hill looked from Lexx to Nathan and appeared surprised. “Are you saying you both think she may have been pushed or thrown down the stairs?” he suddenly asked.

  Both nodded.

  “Her file should be archived in the file room down the hall,” Nathan informed him.

  “We wouldn’t need a warrant if you have access to those files,” Hill pointed out.

  “Give me ten minutes,” Nathan replied then removed a set of keys from the wall and left the room.

  Lexx slid the body back into the drawer and moved to the last freezer door while casting a look at Hill. “We’re going to need tox screens on all the crash victims who died as well as my uncle and Ava Martin,” she sternly announced as she opened the freezer door. She looked at the toe tag on the dead body and immediately frowned. Lexx looked at Hill and raised a brow. “It’s Ava Martin,” she said with disgust. “That means my uncle is the only one left.” She slammed the freezer door with disgust. “If Dr. Sharp was injecting them with something questionable, there’s a good chance my uncle will die too.”

  Hill studied her hostile expression and attempted to soothe her mood. “You don’t know that.”

  Lexx again opened the freezer door and pulled out the slab containing Ava Martin. She pulled the sheet back to reveal the young woman wearing a hospital gown. As she stared at the partially frozen body, she couldn’t help but be disgusted by the situation and more than concerned for her uncle’s fate. Hill stared at the dead woman and grimaced. He fidgeted and attempted to look anywhere but at the corpse. Lexx wasn’t sure if she found his squeamishness around the dead off-putting or endearing.

  “She’s not going to bite you, Sheriff.”

  “I know,” he muttered, again fidgeted, and then looked at Lexx. “Aren’t you even the least bit freaked that they might sit up or open their eyes?”

  She grinned and had to keep from laughing. “Believe me, it’s happened.”

  He appeared stunned. “You mean a corpse actually sat up once in front of you?”

  “It’s just muscle spasms and reflexes,” she informed him.

  Hill groaned softly and again looked away. “Nice to know,” he muttered.

  “Keeping their eyes closed is more difficult than you’d think. We need to use these--”

  “I don’t really need to know,” he announced gruffly.

  Lexx hid her smirk.

  He finally looked back at her and appeared curious. “Can you do blood work?”

  “No,” she replied and finally looked at him, “but Nathan does tox screens as part of his job. He can make that decision without anyone’s permission.”

  “The man also abused a corpse,” Hill reminded her. “Do we really want his help?”

  Lexx frowned while staring at him. She felt defeated with the response she had to give him. “It’d be the proof you need to get a court order to check the other bodies.”

  “It would make my job easier,” he replied with a defeated sigh then ran his fingers through his black hair. He again looked at the dead woman on the slab. “Could you--?” Hill made a motion for her to push the slab back inside the drawer.

  “Honestly, Sheriff,” she said with a groan and placed the sheet back over Ava.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The hospital waiting room was strewn with blood and nearly a dozen dead or dying men and woman. More than twenty zombies kneeled over the bodies scattered throughout the waiting room and pulled vital organs from their twitching hosts. It was nearly dark outside beyond the few windows within the waiting room. Flashing red and blue lights from police cars outside created a wave of endless colored lights along the interior walls. Alpert and a zombie in a white lab coat, painted red with blood, played tug-o-war with a man’s intestines, attempting to take them from the other. They grunted and snarled for possession of the coveted, sausage-like meal. Men in biohazard suits walked past the main doors and looked inside. A few zombies looked up from their meal at the passing men, but they weren’t interested in seeking out more dinner. Most returned to their current feast and ignored the men outside.

  Rose approached the glass doors in less of a hurry while chewing on a severed forearm. The hand was still attached with a cell phone firmly clutched within it. The expensive cell phone chirped a musical tune as the face lit up. Rose stopped her approach to the door and the men in yellow plastic suits. She looked quizzically at the chirping cell phone, lifted it to her ear, and then reconsidered her actions. She placed it in her mouth and bit into the phone, cracking the plastic face. She pulled the phone from her mouth and grunted, seemingly displeased with the taste. She tossed the arm aside and continued closer to the door and the man standing on the other side. She paused before the door and stared at the man in the plastic suit beyond it. He stared back at her in silent observation. She placed her bloodstained hand to the glass near him. He hesitated and placed his gloved hand to the glass on the other side. It seemed unusual that she’d actually retained some of her prior thoughts and emotions. She slowly reached for the bar to open the door, but it didn’t budge. She tried again, but it still wouldn’t open.

  The man in the suit signaled to a soldier nearby. The soldier quickly approached with what appeared to be a dogcatcher’s pole. The soldier readied himself while the man from CDC unlocked the door. Rose looked at the lock as it clicked. She looked back at both men and waited with an almost childlike innocence. The man from CDC opened the door only a couple of inches, allowing the soldier to slip the noose in through the opening. Rose watched the noose rise past her face, about to slip over her head. She suddenly grabbed the pole while snarling and yanked on it with all her might. The soldier was pulled forward and crashed into the partially open door, pinching his arm in the opening. He fought to pull his arm from the door and the pole free from her grip. He appeared ready to release the pole in order to free his arm.

  “My arm is stuck!”

  “Don’t let her go,” the man from CDC muffled a yell through his mask.

  The solider struggled for control over the pole. Alpert was suddenly alongside Rose and grabbed onto the pole as well. He yanked on it, pulling the soldier’s pinched arm further in through the opening. Rose grabbed his hand and bit his arm through his shirt. The soldier cried out in agony and struggled to pull his arm away from her teeth. Alpert attempted to grab the soldier’s flailing arm before he could break free. The soldier pulled his arm free from Rose’s grip and back outside before Alpert could grab it. Having seen the aftermath within the waiting room, Alpert almost certainly would have chewed his arm off. The soldier clutched his bleeding arm as the man from CDC locked the door.

  Rose pressed her hands and face against the glass and watched both men, again with childlike innocence. She had managed to lure them in with a false sense of security. Had she lured them in on purpose? The man from CDC checked the soldier’s bleeding arm. The solider looked up and was about to question his chances when the man from CDC pulled a semiautomatic from his holster and shot him in the head without hesitation. Blood and brains splattered against the glass near Rose’s face. She watched as the soldier slid down the door to the sidewalk. She tilted her head with a curious look. Was her look sympathy or just hunger?

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Nathan entered the morgue with a file in his hand and a perplexed look on his face. He shook his head as he approached Lexx, who stood over Ava’s sheet covered corpse on the freezer slab. Hill attempted to look anywhere but at the corpse.

  “I’ve never heard so many sirens before,” Nathan announced. “Something big must be going on outside.” He handed Lexx the file and eyed Ava’s covered corpse. “You didn’t honestly think someone slipped Dr. Kirby back into the morgue while I wasn’t looking, did you?”

  She ignored the question and drew a deep breath. “How would you feel about perfo
rming a tox screen on her?”

  “It’s within my power to conduct a tox screen,” he replied then eyed Lexx suspiciously. Nathan appeared able to read her mind and gently tilted his head in question. “Is it just me, or is something bothering you, my dear?”

  She fidgeted knowing he was sensitive to her moods, but she couldn’t help the hostile feelings she harbored for him at that moment. “I’m having a bad day,” Lexx replied gently without looking at him.

  Nathan opened Ava’s chart, glanced at Lexx, and then wrote an order on the physician’s page. “Maybe it’s just me, but I feel you have daggers in your eyes for me tonight. You’re acting very strange.”

  Lexx shifted and held back her hostility. She wished she didn’t like and respect him so much. “I’m sorry if you think I’m taking out my frustrations on you,” she announced and forced a sigh. “I’m just a little cranky about misplacing a client. Carson’s going to kill me when he finds out.”

  Nathan offered a sympathetic smile then removed several empty viles and a syringe. “To be honest,” he announced, “I lost a corpse once myself.”

  Hill watched Nathan draw blood from the dead woman and grimaced. “This day officially sucks.”

  He walked across the room to get as far away from the corpse as possible. Hill removed his cell phone, attempted to place a call, and then frowned with disgust. Nathan eyed him and appeared humored by his ignorance.

  “We’re in a basement, remember?” Nathan announced with a hint of mockery in his tone. “Too much concrete. Use the in-house phone. Press nine for an outside line.”

  Hill remained disgusted as he approached the phone on the wall near the counter and pressed nine. He appeared bewildered and eyed Nathan, who busily worked on drawing blood from the chilled dead woman.

  “I’m not getting an outside line.”

  “Did you press nine?” Nathan asked.

  “I’m not stupid,” Hill snapped. “I pressed nine. There’s no outside connection.”

  Nathan set a vile on the counter and snatched the phone from him. “That’s impossible. If there’s an in-house connection, there has to be an outside one.”

  Nathan pressed an outside line, appeared dumbfounded, and then dialed the operator. Although the phone rang, there was no response. He pressed another number, and the phone in his office rang. He hung up and appeared baffled.

  “No one’s answering upstairs,” Nathan remarked then sank into thought. “I wonder if that has something to do with the sirens outside.” He looked at the smoke alarm. Nothing flashed. “If there had been a fire, the alarm would have sounded and the lights would be flashing.”

  Lexx approached, picked up the phone, and dialed a different number. The phone was answered and a woman’s voice was heard on the other end.

  “Hello?” the woman on the other end said into the phone. “Who is this?”

  It was a strange response. Usually the nurses on the fourth floor answered the phone with ‘ICU’.

  “This is Lexx Davenport, I’m in the morgue with the coroner,” Lexx announced and remained curious. “We can’t get an outside line.”

  “Of course you can’t,” the woman scoffed lowly. “All communication with the outside has been cut off. We can’t even use our cell phones.”

  Lexx’s expression dropped. “What? Why?”

  “Why?” the woman squawked. “Haven’t you looked outside? CDC has the entire hospital locked down. Didn’t you hear about the incident on the first floor?” The tone in the woman’s voice was unprofessional, and it suddenly occurred to Lexx that this person probably wasn’t even a hospital employee who’d answered the phone. “It’s a war zone down there. It might be terrorists. No one’s sure. Either way, no one is allowed in or out of the building. We were told to lock the fire doors on all floors. We aren’t supposed to let anyone on or off our floors.”

  “No, we hadn’t heard about that,” Lexx announced and remained stunned. “Thank you for the update.”

  She hung up the phone and looked at both men, who now stared at her while waiting for a recap of the unusual conversation. She hesitated a moment as she attempted to make sense of what she had just heard.

  “What is it?” Hill suddenly asked. “I don’t like that look on your face.”

  “Someone at the ICU nurse’s station said CDC locked down the hospital. No one is allowed in or out.” She shook her head with disbelief. “All floors have been ordered to lock the fire doors. There was some sort of incident in the ­E.R.”

  “Wait, you mean we’re trapped down here?” Hill suddenly demanded.

  “No reason to panic, Sheriff,” Nathan announced and seemed more calm then either Hill or Lexx. “The CDC likes to flex its muscles from time to time. In an hour or two, they’ll realize it’s nothing and everything will return to normal. If you work here long enough, you eventually see it all.” He snorted a soft laugh. “And trust me, I’ve seen it all.”

  There was a commotion in the corridor, alerting all three. Hill hurried to the door and opened it with more vigor than he’d intended. Carson, Rolan, and Warren hurriedly rolled the casket along the corridor.

  “What the hell--” Hill exploded.

  “Carson?” Lexx gasped with surprise.

  She couldn’t believe her brother was in the basement and pushing a casket from their display room, one of the more expensive caskets at that. Carson and Rolan stopped and looked at Lexx standing in the doorway alongside Hill.

  “Lexx, what are you doing here?” Carson suddenly asked while staring at his sister. The concern on his face seeing her within the hospital was frightening.

  “It’s a long story,” she replied and again eyed the expensive casket. “What are you doing with that casket?”

  “That’s an even longer story,” Carson muttered.

  “Save it for family night,” Warren growled. “We need to get this to the laboratory.”

  Carson and Rolan continued pushing the casket along the corridor on Warren’s command. Lexx and Hill hurried after them. Nathan turned and looked back at the woman lying on the slab within the open freezer door. He approached the dead woman, took a deep breath, and leaned over her on the slab.

  “You and I are in for a long night,” he informed the dead woman.

  He straightened and returned to the counter for the empty blood viles. Ava’s eyes suddenly opened.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  At the opposite end of the basement corridor, Lexx and Hill followed the three men and the casket into the lab. Lexx was anxious to find out what was going on and why her brother and associate were being so secretive. Whatever happened had them rattled. A paper cut was usually enough to rattle Carson, but Rolan exercised nerves of steel. The blood on the lab floor had been hastily cleaned, leaving a pink stain, although no one seemed to notice. The sheet-covered body on the exam table with blood covering it was the main focus of their attention. If that wasn’t enough to send minds reeling, what they saw in the corner definitely did the trick. In the corner, there was another blood-soaked sheet covering a small mass on the floor. As they looked from the covered corpse on the stretcher to the covered mass on the floor, the others shared the same concern for their situation.

  Gunther sat at the counter and was so preoccupied with his work that he hadn’t even looked up when they entered. He turned toward the casket then appeared surprised when he saw Sheriff Burke staring at the bloody mass in the corner of the room. The doctor immediately tensed then covered his emotions with a slight grin. He wasn’t very convincing.

  “Sheriff, how nice of you to join us in quarantine,” Gunther announced almost pleasantly.

  The sheriff wasn’t in the mood to humor the chief surgeon. “Skip the pleasantries,” Hill snapped and gave a nod to the mass in the corner and the body on the table. “What the hell is going on here?”

  Gunther ignored the sheriff’s question and glared at Warren. “Did you bring enough friends, Warren?”

  “They’d already been exposed at the
funeral home,” Warren announced and gave him a secret signal with his raised brows. “I had no choice.”

  “Exposed?” Carson suddenly gasped and looked from Warren to Gunther. “What were we exposed to?”

  Gunther ignored Carson’s question and stared at Warren with surprise. “You mean she was infected?”

  There was a dull thumping from within the casket. Lexx and Hill jumped back with surprise and stared at it. Neither could believe the sounds they were hearing. It sounded as if they had locked a live person inside the casket. Warren casually looked from the thumping casket to the doctor.

  “Something like that,” Warren replied with little emotion while placing his hands in his pockets.

  The look on Hill’s face was somewhere between alarm and panic. He looked from Warren to the doctor. “Someone had better start explaining fast,” he lashed out, losing his patience.

  Gunther finally looked at Hill and inhaled deeply while attempting to sound calm. “There’s been an infectious outbreak in the E.R., and CDC has sealed the entire building,” he explained. “The infection is contained on the main floor, but there’s no telling how many have been exposed.” He casually indicated the thumping casket. “The funeral home received an infected corpse, so I had Warren bring it back. If I can isolate the virus, I may be able to create an antidote.”

  “Whoa, wait a minute,” Lexx announced while waving her hands around then indicated the expensive casket. “Are you telling me the person thumping around in that casket is a corpse?”

  “It’s true, Lexx,” Rolan gently informed her and nodded to the casket. “It’s Dr. Kirby.”

  “Dr. Kirby? She’s alive?” Hill suddenly asked then became enraged. “Get her the hell out of there!” He appeared two seconds away from pulling his gun and shooting people.