Gothic

by Steve Hester

CHAPTER 21

  The hospital had sent the footage from the pathology lab through a secure file exchange to the police station. There had been nothing from inside the lab, setting up cameras in a room full of dead people had been considered to financially worthless, not to mention slightly disrespectful to the dead, but the halls in all areas of the hospital were monitored.

  Usually it was for both staff security and the wellbeing of the patients. Despite the fact that the nurses and doctors were there to help, attacks still took place and patients still took it upon themselves to try and leave before they were well. If someone had just undergone some extensive surgery and were still groggy they presented a danger to themselves if they went on a walkabout.

  Sarah, Jack and the superintendent were gathered around a computer at the police station watching the footage.

  “Here he goes...” said Jack. “That shirt isn't his; he took it from the doc. His was torn and bagged up for evidence. He comes out and pauses to button it up... Then stops to look back at the door...”

  They watched as Jason looked back at the door.

  “Then he walks off.” Said Jack as Jason walked down the corridor and under the camera.

  “Where does he go to next?” asked Sarah.

  Jack fiddled with the controls on the screen.

  “Ah. He walks down this corridor and get half way before...”

  They watched as Jason suddenly slouched and crumpled to his knees, grasping at his arm.

  “Is he having a heart attack?” asked Sarah.

  “No, just watch.” said Jack.

  On the screen Jason's gasping eased off and he eased himself up onto his haunches.

  “What's he looking at in his hand?” asked Lovell. “Can you zoom in?”

  “No, sorry.” said Jack shaking his head. “This is as well as we can do until we get someone to tidy the footage up for us.”

  He rewound the video and froze it. Jason was looking at something glinting in his right hand. The corridor was dark with only very low-level lighting on. There was no need in the pathology building for keeping it lit but they did have motion sensor that turned on full lights as someone entered. Not only had they not been triggered but whatever he was holding was giving off a glow all of its own.

  “Ok, what next?” asked Sarah. “Where does he go?”

  Jack sped up the video. They saw Jason climb unsteadily back on his feet and walk out of the door at the other end.

  “The path labs aren't directly connected to the main hospital building,” explained Jack, “he gets out through the door here, into the bus lane...”

  He switched the view again, this time to one of the high cameras that was atop a pole near the hospitals bus stop. Jason walked out and along the pavement before he turned up the main road that led away from the grounds.

  “... And that is where we lost him.” said Jack as he leaned back in the chair.

  “Damn it.” said Sarah. “If he'd been in the main building he could have been stopped by security, we might still have had him.”

  “Yeah, looking like that he would have been questioned at least.” Said Jack nodding.

  “Have you put out a description of him?” asked Lovell

  “Yeah, as soon as I got the footage I asked Tina to put together a description for him. He can't have gotten far but there's a lot of houses round there, little pathways and the like. It's going to be tricky to work out which way he went.”

  “Tricky isn't impossible Jack.” said Lovell going to the door. “Get on it.”

  They nodded at him as the Superintendent left.

  “What you thinking?” asked Jack.

  Sarah sat on the desk and folded her arms.

  “To be honest? I haven't got a damn clue. Guy wakes up on the slab, freaks out and attacks the mortician? I'm not going to lie to you, I'd probably go a little crazy if I woke up there myself.”

  “How do you think Stokes fits into it all now?”

  Sarah sighed and examined the ceiling tiles while her brain tried to make some sense of the evening. One person had come back from the dead and the other one should be dead but seems to be healthier than anyone in the station. She rubbed her temple and started to wish she were back on the beat where life was a lot simpler. Give her a mugger any day.

  She stood up and picked her coat up from the back of Jack's chair.

  “I don't know. Let's go and ask him.” She said.

  …

  Down in his cell Rob could feel the exhaustion on the night starting to weigh on him. He lay back on his bunk, his mind racing but his body giving up the ghost. All his adrenaline had been used up and his limbs felt like lead. Even the hardness of the concrete slab under him felt like a feather bed at this stage.

  As he lay there, his eyes locked onto a point on the ceiling, he became aware of another voice coming from somewhere close. It was grumbling.

  “...He knows I don't like it! It's not as if there's anyone else he could send down, I know, but c'mon! 'You go. We'll be there soon'. Oh do me a bloody favour...”

  His cell was empty. As far as he knew there was no one in next-door and he certainly hadn't heard the door slam but that's where it seemed to be coming from. To his mind it sounded like a drunk.

  “Now where is he? Got to be in one of.... This one?”

  There was a pause for a few moments.

  “Nope...”

  The voice seemed to be getting closer now the more Rob thought about it. It must be a guard.

  “Not that one... AH! Hey. Hey! Can you hear me?”

  The hatch on the cell door was still up so maybe not a guard. Who is this guy? He sat up on the edge of the bunk, willing life back into his limbs and listened.

  “I bloody hate this! Can. You. Hear. Me?”

  Rob stared at the door wondering whether or not he should answer. Given his current circumstances, he reasoned, he couldn't make things much worse.

  “Me?” He said uncertainly.

  There was a sigh of relief from the other side of the door.

  “You can hear me! Good! That’s half the battle right there. Listen to me and listen very carefully. You’re in danger, all right? Really big, top grade, high quality danger! 'Your life is in danger' type danger, you follow me?”

  Rob looked down at the floor trying to work out what the voice meant.

  “What are you talking about? Who are you?” He asked.

  “Don’t really have time for all that right now, Rob.” Said the voice. “People are coming for you, a man and a woman. You’re not safe! When they get here, you need to go with them but there’s also someone else coming for you who you REALLY don’t wanna be alone with, do you understand?”

  “How do you know my name?” said Rob.

  “That really isn't important right now!” said the voice irritably. “All you need to remember is man and woman: good, anyone else bad.”

  “Do you mean those two police officers who arrested me?”

  “No of course I bloody don't! You think I'd come into the middle of a POLICE station at this time of night to tell you that two police officers are coming for you? It's two others!”

  Robs legs twanged with pain as he stood up.

  “I'm not going anywhere with anyone! Now who are you?”

  There was no reply from the corridor. He banged on the door.

  “Who are you? What the hell is going on??”

  He banged again.

  “Answer me!!”

  There was a clank from down the far end of the corridor. One of the guards walked down to his cell and opened the hatch on the door.

  “Knock that bloody racket off Stokes!” He said.

  Rob put his hand on the hatch before it could close again.

  “Wait, wait! Who was that man out there?”

  The guard’s brow wrinkled.

  “What man?” He said. “There's no one else out here.”

  Rob peeked out and scanned the corridor as best as he could. There was only one way out of the ce
llblock at that was through the heavy metal door the guard had just come in through.

  “Nonono, there was another man, he was just here talking to me through the door!”

  “Look mate,” said the guard, “There's no one else here. You’re the only one we’ve got in so far tonight so just do me a favour and go mental quietly will you?”

  The guard wasn't an unkind man but he had seen many people come through his cells over the years and was ready for many of the tricks a prisoner would try and use to play for sympathy. There was something though about the look on Rob's face as he sloped back to his bunk that haunted him slightly.

  He slammed the hatch back up and walked back up to his post in the room beyond the metal door, locking it behind him. Turning to the monitors on his desk, he checked the cameras in the corridor and in the cell over the last few minutes and the only thing he could see was the prisoner talking to himself.

  Poor sod, he thought as he settled back into his paperwork.

  Back in the corridor Smithy sat down at the far end and wondered how far away Jacob and Annie were. He hoped they'd get here in time.