Death Rounds (26 page)

It was whimpering—a steady, repetitive whimper. It was coming from down the corridor that I was bracing myself to enter. While I listened, it kept getting farther away until I could barely hear it anymore. Torn between fear and my determination to see what it was, I forced myself to look.

A hundred yards away near the far end of the long passage I could see the back of a person in greens pushing something. Even from that distance I could make out two horizontal white straps tied behind the person’s head, indicating a surgical mask. The whimpering was the sound of squeaky wheels on a supply cart of some sort.

I let out my breath, once again feeling foolish at having become so alarmed at a simple noise. Probably an orderly getting something out of storage, I thought. I stepped into the hallway and started for the elevator.

Then the figure in the distance abruptly turned right without looking back and entered the tunnel leading into the asylum.

Chapter 13

I froze in midstep. Why would an orderly go in there? The place was posted off limits. It was hardly a suitable location to store supplies. My thoughts raced ahead unchecked. Was it the figure who’d attacked me? Maybe even the killer himself? After poring over two-year-old traces, had I suddenly stumbled on him returning to his present lair? Or was it simply someone ducking into the deserted tunnel for a cigarette? The nonsmoking nineties had driven nicotine addicts into back doorways among the garbage pails in most hospitals that I knew of. A dark tunnel on a cold rainy night would be a luxury.

Whoever he was, he’d either presumed he was alone or didn’t care. Either way, he didn’t know I was here, and I felt a heady rush of excitement. The advantage was clearly mine. If this was the creep who’d put Michael in ICU, then maybe I could take him by surprise, hunt
him
down and crack
his
skull. The prospect rekindled my fury and abated my fear. Damn you to hell, I thought bitterly as I started for the ominously dark entranceway up ahead.

I needed a weapon. There was nothing in the hallway. I quietly opened a few of the doors as I went, looking for something, anything I could wield. Nothing. As I passed the elevator doors, now closed again, I saw the overhead indicator light read
SB,
telling me the car was still there in case I needed a quick getaway. There also had to be stairs somewhere, but I hadn’t seen them.

I continued along the hall, still searching for something to protect myself with. But opening door after door, I found only furniture or stacks of boxes which I hadn’t time to explore. I was about forty yards from the tunnel entrance and was increasingly careful not to make any noise.

I came up on an alcove full of pails, mops, and cleaning supplies. I found a wooden push broom and settled on the handle, unscrewing it from the brush. As I crept the rest of the way to where the dark passage led off to the right, I took some practice swings with the hardwood stick and was satisfied I could certainly whack my quarry’s head enough to stun him.

At the junction, I paused before turning the corner and listened for the squeak of the cart. I heard nothing, nor could I detect the telltale smell of tobacco. Only the pungent odor of damp earth seeped into my nostrils. Nevertheless, if I’m wrong about this, I thought, I’m going to give some poor slob one hell of a Smokeenders program. I got my staff ready, holding it up over my shoulder to swing like a bat, and stepped around into the center of the passage.

The lamps from the corridors behind me sent light about twenty yards into the darkness. No one was there. I moved to the far wall, pressed against the rough cold stone of the century-old construction, and crept forward. I usually swung a baseball bat left-handed—once a year at a charity game between the staff and the residents—and needed my back against this side of the tunnel to get a good shot at whoever came at me.

Yet again I neither heard nor saw anyone.

As my eyes got used to the dark, I could see enough to continue farther up the passage, but I knew there would soon come a point where it would be pitch black. What then? I was beginning to have second thoughts about my impulse to come up here.

I proceeded about another thirty yards when I saw something glinting dimly up ahead. It looked like a barrier of some kind, stretched across the entire passage, from the roof to the floor. A few more steps brought me close enough to see it was made of heavy wire mesh, like the fencing around a school yard or tennis court but with much smaller openings. It was held in place against the dark stones of the ceiling, walls, and floors by a lighter-colored cement, suggesting it was erected in a more recent era. In its center was a door-size gate, also made of mesh, and kept closed by a heavy U-shaped latch. There was no lock, and when I lifted the catch, the gate swung open with barely a creak. It was obviously kept oiled. Now why the hell was this barrier put here? I wondered, stepping through.

I kept going forward but was rapidly running out of light. Finally I had to stop, barely able to see my own hand in front of my face. I stood in the dark and held my breath so as to hear better, but not a sound came from the darkness up ahead. For all I knew, the figure was familiar with his way around the massive old building and could be anywhere. One thing I was certain of. This was no one slipping off for a smoke.

The air here was perceptibly cooler than before and felt slimy against my skin. There were more odors now too, the metallic hint of damp rock joining the moist earth smells wafting toward me. I once again imagined the basement rooms with dirt floors where they used to chain inmates to the stone walls. The reminder of those poor souls left me chilled to the bone.

I also began to feel foolish standing there with my broom handle. Even if I were idiotic enough to press ahead, I could fumble around in the dark all night in this place and still never find him. But I’d be damned if I was about to turn around and go home. At the very least I might find some answers, such as who’d bashed me into the elevator and the reason why. But far more important, if it was the killer, I wasn’t going to miss my chance to stop him here and now. There would be no more glass coffins if I could help it.

I turned and looked back the way I’d come. The light from the distant entrance gleaned off the rough-hewn walls and stone floors like moonlight on water. It shone through the wire mesh, throwing it into a shadowy relief, making it appear softer, like a web strung over the way out. But the sides of the passageway, where the floor met the walls, remained in shadow, and as far up the tunnel as I was, that space was ink black. I could lie there, undetected, and wait for whoever it was to come back. I’d then be behind him as he walked toward the light. When he stopped to open the gate, I’d be in a perfect position to jump him.

Or I could stay hidden and follow after him until he reached the corridor where I’d at least see who it was. If I knew him, chances were no surgical mask would keep me from identifying him. If he spotted me and ran off, I’d give chase. If he attacked, I’d be ready. I’d also have better justification for splitting his scalp open.

While I thought about these next moves, I realized my initial fury was giving over to a colder, more critical, far more effective anger. Obviously clobbering whoever it was without warning ran the risk of letting him come up with some cock-and-bull story about why he was down here. I might even end up giving him a chance to charge
me
with attempted murder. I certainly had no real proof that whoever I’d seen come in here was the killer. Hell, apart from Janet, poor Michael, and maybe Williams, no one else even thought there was a killer.

I crouched down and felt the surface of the cold stones. They weren’t outright wet but damp enough to be hard on my joints as well as my muscles. I stretched out facedown, managed not to groan, and tried to fit the bony parts of my hips against uneven hollows in the rock wall at my side. I’d keep the white of my face shielded by my arms as he went by. My stick was in my right hand.

I lay there listening to the absolute silence, figuring I’d have no trouble hearing his approach, with or without his cart, but I’ d have to breathe as silently as I could to avoid detection when he was beside me. I glanced at the luminous dial of my watch, easy to read in the total darkness. It was a few minutes after 4:00. I was ready.

                           * * * *

I awoke with a start. The first sensation I had was of total pain the second I tried to move. I wasn’t sure at first where I was. Something scrambled over my right foot, tugging on my trousers. Then I remembered everything and bolted upright. I exhaled a loud groan as all my muscles shot into spasm, and in the dim light I saw the humped outline of a large rat scurrying about my feet.

“Shit!” I screamed kicking at it with both feet, then frenetically propelling myself backward.

It shrieked, either in surprise or rage at being disturbed, and scuttled off into the darkness. I hadn’t made contact enough to hurt it any and wondered if it would charge back at me. Keeping my eyes fixed on where it had disappeared into the black passageway, I backed up to the gate, let myself through, and slammed it behind me. I now knew what the barrier was for—to contain the rats.

I was shaking—from revulsion of that thing crawling over me while I slept, from being bone cold and stiff, from my muscles recoiling into spasms every time I tried to use them. My teeth were chattering, and besides everything else I really had to pee. I managed to get my wrist steady enough to read my watch. It was a few minutes after 6:00.

                          * * * *

Mist had replaced the rain but it was still dark when I raced back to St. Paul’s. My driving hadn’t improved any, and my mood was as foul as my breath.

I’d blown a God-given opportunity to put a face on this nightmare and was furious with myself.

At the entranceway to that accursed tunnel, I’d stood around as long as I could, freezing, hopping from one foot to another, and wondering what to do. Was he still somewhere up there? Or had he already gone back out, passing me in the dark as I lay sleeping? Possibly. But in the silence he probably would have heard my breathing, unless it was muffled by my head being facedown on my arms. Had he instead left the asylum through some other unguarded exit—an unlatched window or unlocked door known only to him? Maybe he needed a way to come and go without security knowing he was in the building.

I shot through the remaining pools of water in the street, sending great cascades arching away from the car all the way to the sidewalk. Despite an overnight scouring from the storm, the stone fronts of the houses remained stained and shabby in the passing glow of my headlights.

The meeting I’d arranged with Williams was to have been at 6:00 in my office. I’d intended to explain why I thought a serial killer was infecting people and hopefully to show him some specific leads from a night of going through records at UH. Now what he’d hear was how I’d armed myself with a broomstick, followed some orderly pushing a cart into an abandoned asylum, and then fallen asleep! I took my rage at my own stupidity out on yet another puddle, roaring through it and scattering it into a million droplets.

I had hoped if I could at least create the suspicion in Williams’s mind that the infections were caused deliberately, we could then use Death Rounds to sound the alarm together—convince some members of the meeting that Michael had been attacked, show them his note which I still carried in my pocket, and get them to consider that something deliberate and sinister was behind the infections.

“Bloody pathetic,” I muttered, given how hopelessly naive that idea seemed now.

I spotted Williams’s big four-by-four parked near the entrance to ER as soon as I pulled into the doctors’ lot at St. Paul’s. When I got closer, I saw the big man himself was waiting in the driver’s seat, pouring himself a coffee from a large thermos. He eyed my car suspiciously for a few seconds after I pulled up beside him, probably recognizing from my vehicle that I was the
jerk
who’d cut him off Friday. Nevertheless, he saluted me with his cup when I got out, smiled, and started to step down from his much higher cab. I inwardly winced when I saw how immaculately dressed he was in a blue blazer, a white shirt with crisp-looking cuffs, and a hand-painted tie of the kind I never even bothered to price when I went shopping.

My own outfit—the slacks, shirt, and sports jacket I’d spent the night in—were smudged and wrinkled from lying on the stone floor. The bottom of my right pant cuff was torn where the rat had pulled it. Even though I’d tried to brush my teeth with my finger in the first washroom I’d found back at UH, my mouth still felt like a toilet. I needed a bath, a shave, and a change of clothes, and I hadn’t time to get any of them.

Williams looked me up and down in astonishment when I walked up to him. His eyebrows arched; his nose wrinkled. “Decided to look our best for the ordeal, have we?” he commented wryly.

“Come on, we’ve got to talk,” I said, turning toward emergency. My watch told me Death Rounds started in twenty minutes. The trouble was, I wasn’t sure I could convince Williams even if I had twenty hours.

* * * *

In my office Williams sat across from me and poured us each a coffee from his thermos while I called ICU and asked about Michael.

No change—still shocky, on a respirator, and unconscious.

Then I dug out an electric razor that I kept for the times I worked overnight in ER and started to explain the connection between three nurses with
Legionella
and the so-called victims of the Phantom from two years ago.

By the time I got to my being attacked five nights ago in the sub-basement, half my stubble was gone, and Williams was frowning hard enough to send furrows all the way up to the front of his shiny, immaculate scalp. The furrows deepened during my resume of what I found in the archive charts and my speculation about the probable agents used in those first attacks. When I told him I’d followed someone into the abandoned asylum a few hours ago, it was enough to make him lean forward, massage the grooves in his forehead with his free hand, and mutter, “Jesus Christ!”