And let’s not forget that little episode you just had back there in the hallway, she told herself.
She didn’t know if what she’d seen had been a hallucination or a vision or maybe even one of Anna’s leftover memories still lingering about in the cell tissues of her brain. She supposed at this point it really didn’t matter. First things first. She’d deal with what she’d seen once she got out of confinement.
It was coming up on 1 am. The nursing staff wouldn’t start their rounds for at least another half-an-hour. If she was going to get out of here, now was the time to do it.
Knowing her chances of sneaking out weren’t going to improve by waiting, she stepped out of her room and retraced her steps down the hallway, headed for the stairwell just past the exit sign at the far end.
She almost made it.
Gabrielle was less than a yard from the door leading to the stairwell when a voice spoke up from behind her.
“Where are you going?”
For a moment her imagination made it into something it was not, a deep, guttural voice reminiscent of some denizen of the hell. Adrenaline flooded her system at the sound, kicking her heart into overdrive and causing it to beat like a kettledrum in her chest. For just a moment she considered making a break for it, grabbing the door, flinging it open, and charging down the stairs as fast as her feet could carry her, but she knew that doing so would call a lot of attention and that was the last thing she wanted to do. She fought the instinct to run, forced herself to keep it together, and calmly turned around to face her inquisitor.
Who turned out to be nothing more than a young girl.
She couldn’t have been older than five or six and stood staring from a nearby room. The girl had curly, blonde hair that came down to her shoulders and was dressed in a long, white nightgown with the Little Mermaid on the front of it. She looked up at Gabrielle and repeated her question.
“Where are you going?”
This time Gabrielle heard it for what it was, the voice of a child, full of innocent questions.
“For a little walk,” she replied, smiling.
The girl took that in and then looked up and down the hallway, taking in the darkened corridor on either side. Gabrielle had the distinct sense that the child was making sure they weren’t being overheard. When it was clear that they weren’t, the girl turned back to face her and in an exaggerated whisper said, “But you’re in your PJs like me!”
Gabrielle’s relief was so great that she wanted to laugh, but she stifled it, not wanting to offend the youngster. She bent a bit lower, bringing her closer to the girl’s level.
“And I forgot my shoes, too,” she said with a grin, lifting one foot off the floor and wiggling her toes, making the girl laugh. “But I won’t tell if you won’t.”
“Do I look like a tattletale?” the girl asked.
“Not at all.”
“That’s cuz I’m not one.”
And thank God for that, Gabrielle thought. To the girl she said, “I’ve got to get going. See you later!”
“Not if I see you first!” the girl said with a giggle and then slipped back inside the room.
No sooner had the girl turned away than Gabrielle pushed open the door to the stairwell and headed downward at a rapid pace, knowing that every minute that passed was another minute in which her absence could be noticed.
She raced down the last set of stairs and reached for the door leading to the lobby only to stop herself at the last moment when the swell of noise from the other side of the door caught her attention.
It was the dead of night and still the faithful remained, waiting for their chance to meet “Santa Anna.”
Gabrielle knew immediately that she couldn’t open that door. Going back up the stairs was out of the question; they’d find her missing from her room soon enough and when that happened she wanted as few floors between her and the outside world as possible. Which meant she had only one other choice available.
Down.
The stairwell in which she stood went down one more floor. Perhaps she could find an emergency exit or a way to access the parking garage from down there somewhere, allowing her to get out of the building. Frankly anything was better than having to fight her way through the crowd in the lobby.
Turning, she headed down the stairs.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Reaching the bottom of the steps, Gabrielle emerged into a long corridor running perpendicular to the stairs. Unlike the brightly illuminated hallways of the floors above, this one was deserted, the lab techs and staff workers having long since gone home for the evening. It was lit only by an occasional overhead light along its length, allowing pools of shadow to gather and lurk in the spaces between. Despite the dim light, she could see that there were doors set at regular intervals on either side and a red sign flickered off and on all the way down at the far end to her left.
Salida, it read.
Exit.
Gabrielle headed for it with a quickened step.
She passed darkened rooms with names she didn’t recognize etched on the door glass, but ignored them, intent on reaching the sign and the exit it signified. Normally she didn’t mind the dark, but something about this place – perhaps the late hour or the things she’d overhead on the phone earlier – had her feeling spooked. The sooner she reached the exit and got out, the better.
She had just reached the end of the hall when she heard the elevator ding behind her. She ignored it, turning the corner…only to stop short.
Another hall stretched before her, nearly identical to the one she had just left, except this one ended in an emergency exit. The door was propped open and an orderly leaned against it, standing in the circle of light just beyond smoking a cigarette.
The orderly’s attention was fully focused on enjoying his smoke and he didn’t appear to have noticed her, standing there in the shadows. Perhaps the exterior light kept him from seeing much in this direction, she didn’t know. She was just glad he hadn’t looked in her direction when she’d come around the corner. Moving as slowly and as quietly as she could, she backed up a step and peeked around the corner.
A second orderly, head down and hands in his pockets, was headed her way, having just stepped off the elevator and most likely headed for a rendezvous with his buddy outside.
If they saw her, she was finished.
Dressed as she was, it was clear she was a patient; they’d return her to her room where the nurse would most likely give her something to help her sleep and keep her from wandering off.
She couldn’t allow that to happen.
For a moment she considered trying to bluff her way past the orderly at the door, but an inner voice told her that wasn’t the way. Instead, she pulled her head back around the corner, and moving as quietly as she could she stepped to the nearest door and tried the knob.
Locked.
She looked down the hall, noted that the orderly hadn’t moved from his position outside, and slipped over to the next door down the hall, only to find that it, too, was locked up tight.
Now she could hear footsteps approaching behind her as the second orderly drew closer.
Another glance ahead with still no change in the first orderly’s position convinced her to move closer and try again.
Come on, come on, she thought, as she grabbed the door knob.
At first she thought that this one was locked too, but when she used a little more force she distinctly heard the latch click beneath her hands and felt the door swing open into the darkened room beyond.
Gabrielle didn’t hesitate, just threw herself inside and closed the door as quickly and as quietly as she could manage. Not knowing where she was or what she might stumble over if she tried to move around the room in the dark, she crouched down with her back pressed against the door, praying that she hadn’t been seen.
Outside in the hall, she heard footsteps approaching and she froze, not daring to move, not even to breathe.
The steps drew closer…
Closer…
…and then began to recede as the orderly passed the door she was hiding behind, calling out in Spanish to his friend down the hall.
Gabrielle let out the breath she’d been holding in a rush of relief.
So far, so good, she thought.
She was trapped in a room in the hospital basement with two orderlies less than fifty feet away, but that was still a damn sight better than remaining in her room waiting for whatever it was that Dr. Vargas had planned for her.
All she had to do was wait for the orderlies to finish their smoke break and skip out the exit at the end of the hall with no one the wiser.
She could hear the orderlies talking and joking with each other, so she knew they were still there. As the minutes ticked past with nothing more to do but wait, Gabrielle began to get curious about the room she was standing in. Perhaps there was something here that she could use once she escaped from the hospital. It seemed like it was worth a look.
She didn’t dare turn on the light as she was afraid it would easily be seen shining into the corridor from underneath the door. Instead she stood up, keeping her back to the door, and reached out with her hands, first on her right, where she found a counter of some sort, and then on her left, where her hands discovered some clothing hanging on a rack.
Lab coats.
She carefully took one down from the rack, doing everything she could not to make any noise while doing so, then squatted down and laid the coat lengthwise against the crack beneath the door, forcing it into the gap with her fingertips. Satisfied, she stood up, felt along the wall for a light switch and, finding it, flicked it on.
Brilliant white fluorescent light flooded the room, causing her to blink several times against the brightness. A quick glance toward her feet told her that she didn’t have to worry about the light leaking out into the corridor; the lab coat completely filled the gap beneath the door and then some.
Satisfied, Gabrielle looked around the room, discovering as she did so that she was standing in the hospital morgue.
Lovely.
The room was much larger than she expected, stretching out lengthwise in front of her, with three autopsy tables laid out in the center, the first and third of which held bodies draped in white linen, and several large metal sinks along the right wall. Opposite those, on the other side of the room, were cold storage drawers in three sets of four. Seeing them, Gabrielle found herself wondering just how many of them were occupied. A computer workstation, currently shut down, a counter containing various scales, specimen containers, and a stack of files, with a whiteboard hanging on the wall behind it, filled the rest of the space. Beneath the counter were several long drawers.
She hurried over and began quietly opening one drawer after another, until she hit the jackpot; this drawer was filled with folded sets of light blue hospital scrubs. She found some that looked like they would fit her, then stripped off her hospital gown and pulled them on. They were a little large, especially the pants, but the drawstring allowed her to cinch them up tight enough to make do.
Now if I can only find some shoes…
She nervously went through the rest of the drawers, conscious that someone could walk in at any moment, but in the end she was glad that she did for she found a set of tennis shoes, tagged as evidence and most likely from one of the deceased on the tables behind her, that, while too large to be comfortable, would do well enough for the time being.
Her spirits now buoyed significantly by the simple fact that she was dressed enough to at least appear in public. She turned and surveyed the room again. From where she stood, Gabrielle could now see two other exits from the room. The first was to her left, next to the cold-storage drawers, and had a sign hanging over it that read Family Viewing. The second, directly opposite her on the far side of the room past the autopsy tables, also had a sign. This one read Ambulance Bay.
Gabrielle’s heart leapt at the sight and she hurried across the room toward it.
She was halfway across the room, just passing the center autopsy table, when the lights went out and the sudden scent of ozone, like right after a lightning strike, filled the air.
What the hell?
Gabrielle came to an immediate halt, afraid of banging something and giving herself away to the men out in the hall. The smell was there for a moment and gone again, just as quickly as it had come. She brushed it aside as a hefty whiff of leftover cleaning agent and focused instead on dealing with the darkness in which she found herself. She put her hands out, feeling around, until her fingers found the edge of the autopsy table. She grabbed it and pulled herself over to it, but was careful not to feel around any further; she didn’t want to put her hands on the body she knew was lying just inches away.
Gabrielle was tough; she’d been through literal hell since the Adversary had seized her in its grip on that summer night so many years ago. She’d seen more than her fair share of horrors and had survived them all, including having her body possessed by an evil so ancient it made the mountains seem young. She knew how to handle herself in a tough situation. But there was something about being trapped in a darkened room with only the dead for company that sent a primal shiver of fear down her spine. She knew there wasn’t anything here that could hurt her – the orderlies in the hall were a far bigger threat to her freedom – but the sooner she got out of here, the better.
As she stood there in the darkness, she thought she heard someone whisper her name.
Not her assumed name, but her real one.
Gabrielle.
She turned slowly in place, her ears straining to pick up the sound again even as she told herself she had to be imagining it. No one here knew her by that name; it had to be her mind playing tricks on her.
When the lights came back on she glanced about, startled and needing to confirm that she was still, indeed, alone.
Not alone, an inner voice said. You have the dead for company.
“But the dead don’t speak,” she answered aloud, feeling foolish but for some reason needing the reassurance of hearing her voice, “or turn off the lights.”
The whispering she could put down to her imagination, but the lights?
Faulty wiring, she told herself. That’s all it is.
Before she could convince herself otherwise she started toward the ambulance bay door again but had only taken a few steps when she heard the rustle of a sheet behind her, followed almost immediately by that whisper again.
“Gabrielle…”
She whirled about.
The corpse that had been lying flat on the autopsy table behind her just seconds before was now sitting straight up as if held erect by unseen marionette strings, the sheet still draped over it like a ghost.
This isn’t happening, she thought distantly, as the flesh on her arms broke out in goose bumps and her hair tried to stand on end.
The sound was coming from the corpse; she was certain of it.
Run! an inner voice commanded, but she didn’t listen to it, strangely captivated by the sight of the corpse sitting there whispering her name.
She took a step toward it, her arm coming up as if intending to pull off the sheet, to see if the corpse was really whispering to her or if this was all in her head.
As if on cue, the six cold-storage drawers to her right rolled open with a clatter, drawing her attention. She looked on, stunned, as the corpses there jerked upright, their covered faces turning as one to “stare” in her direction.
The room began to fill with the sound of the newly dead whispering her name.
She broke then, turning away from the drawers and their suddenly talkative occupants, intent to get the hell out of there as fast as her feet would carry her, only to find the corpse that had been lying on the last autopsy table now blocking her access to the ambulance bay.
He’d been a big man in life and death seemed to have only made him more solid-looking. He was naked, the grayish-purple color of his flesh broken by the thick lines of the
surgical stitches running in a Y-shape from just above his crotch up and across his chest to toward either shoulder. His eyes, white with death cataracts, focused on her.
The corpse tried to smile, its facial muscles twitching, but was prevented from doing so by the thread holding its lips together. Thwarted, it decided on a different course of action, shooting its arms out unexpectedly and locking its thick fingers around Gabrielle’s throat.
Then it began to squeeze.
For a second her brain stuttered like a record caught in a groove, her rational mind trying to make sense of the craziness going on around her, and then her instinct for survival asserted itself.
Gabrielle exploded into action without conscious thought, her body seeming to remember what to do in a situation like this faster than her brain had even started to comprehend. Rather than wasting time trying to pry the finger away from her throat, which is what most people who’ve found themselves in such a situation would do, Gabrielle brought her arms up sharply, striking the underside of the corpse’s arms with her own just in front of its elbows. The explosive movement tore its hands free of her, letting precious air flood her already bruising throat.
She wasn’t finished there, however. Already inside the corpse’s reach, she turned partially sideways and delivered a vicious kick to the corpse’s right knee, shattering the joint and compromising its ability to stand upright. As it started to tumble forward, she continued her turn, lashing out with her elbow to strike the corpse in the side of the head. The blow was strong enough to twist the corpse’s head three-quarters of the way around and Gabrielle heard the audible snap of vertebrae.
That should have been enough – would have been enough if she’d been fighting a human opponent; the strike was powerful enough to incapacitate, if not kill outright. But this was not a living, breathing person and the force animating it did not care about the physical condition of that body it occupied.
Fall of Night: A Templar Chronicles Novel Page 8
