Inanimate (45 page)

“
You
found a way in?”

The smaller dummies shook their heads in
response.

“
Well keep
lookin
’!”

Th
e two smaller ones obediently ran off in
opposite directions around the building, searching for ways into
the structure. Intermittently banging on doors and windows, they
sent echoes throughout the station while simultaneously causing
chills within its inhabitants.

Alone still in a hospital room,
Doctor Crass sat thinking of his wife, and how he would cope if he
were to lose her
. His phone vibrated loudly on a small table next to him,
rousing him from his thoughts. Assuming it was MacNamee he picked
it up without looking.

“
Greg, there’s still no
word.”

“
That’s alright Doctor Crass,
this
isn’t
Greg.”

Crass
thought about the voice for a second,
he recognized it after a long moment.

“
Frieda?”

“
Good job
Sir!”

Frieda
sat on his couch, which was now torn
up and slashed open. His condo was in ruins, broken glass and
splintered wood lay all over the place. His slow, emotionless voice
threw Crass through a loop. Frieda had never called him on his cell
before, in fact, Frieda had never spoken to him outside the
hospital before. Right now, the young doctor’s voice did not seem
like a pleasant one.

“
Frieda what do you want?
How did you get my number?”

Crass
had no patience for Frieda right now;
he had too much on his plate to pretend even in the slightest that
he liked him.

“
What do I want? How did I get
your number?
…I’m fine by the way, thanks for asking.”

“
Frieda I’ve had a bad
night…”

Crass
was losing patience
rapidly.

“
Oh you
have? Well then let me be brief. I’ve
had your number for a while now, I’ve had it just in case I ever
worked up the courage to call you and tell you what a prick you
are!”

Crass looked genuinely puzzled as Frieda
continued.

“
But it’s alright; I know you
don’t mean to be. It’s just who you are. But, answer me this
Doctor. Would it ever have killed you to maybe once say
‘Good job
Frieda’
or
‘How’s your day doctor?’
Just anything at all, anything that might
suggest you have any respect for me whatsoever.”

“
Frieda
are you drunk?”

The only logical reason Crass could
think of as to why Frieda decided to call him like this was the
involvement of alcohol.

“
I wish. If I was drunk then
I
’d know the
thoughts in my head would go away after a good night’s sleep but
they won’t, because I’m not. I’m not… I’m not anything. Not
anything to you, or to anyone else at the hospital. Not anything
except a fucking joke.”

Crass
realized Frieda was having serious
issues now and decided to put his feelings about him on hold. He
switched into psychiatrist mode.

“
Frieda
, come on now, I’ll be at work in a
few days, we can talk about this then.”

Frie
da laughed emptily.

“
Even that little kid mocks me.
That little fucking psycho kid! He wants to kill me. But that’s not
the way I’m going out. I’m not gonna let some little kid scare me
like that.”

“
Frieda
, don’t worry about a thing. Connor
Williams is locked up tight in his cell, you don’t have to worry
about him.”

By saying
Connor’s name, Crass made him
into a real person instead of this monster that had the ability to
kill. He hoped that by humanizing Frieda’s fear, he could make him
realize Connor was only a child.

“
But I am
worri
ed. I
worry about my safety while that boy is around and my safety is
something I should not have to worry about.”

Crass
began to feel weight pressing on him;
so many problems were just begging him to buckle.

“
Look Frieda, Wilma is sick, let
me talk to you later. How about I call you tomorrow?”

“
No Doctor Crass. You’ve never
cared about me before; I don’t see why you should bother now,
goodbye!”

Frieda
hung up, leaving Crass in the
hospital waiting room alone once more.

The two smaller dummies
return
ed to
the parking lot after circling the building, looking for a way in.
Dummy looked down at his smaller counterparts who shrugged their
shoulders in unison, silently telling their superior they had
failed. Dummy looked carefully around the building, his eyes rolled
fluidly around as he scanned what was in front of him. Dummy was
about to send his minions on another scout when they heard a noise.
A distinctive click caused them all to turn towards a back door in
unison. All three stared as the door swung open. The sight before
them caused the trio to smile broadly. Betsy had opened it from the
inside, offering entry to the demonic dummies. The two smaller
dummies giggled and jostled with each other as they ran inside the
building. Dummy himself walked slower, appreciating the teamwork
Betsy was showing. Standing before her, Dummy nodded graciously.
She returned the nod and allowed Dummy entry as well. Betsy was
about to close the large brown door when she spotted something else
in the parking lot. With a smirk, she admired the sight of Basket
standing tall on the tarmac, saliva dripping from the corners of
his mouth. Although the dolls were all different, there was no
competition between them, simply admiration for each other’s work.
It was due to this admiration that Betsy held the door while Basket
skipped across the parking lot before jaunting past her into the
dark hallway. She quickly scanned the area to make sure there were
no more visitors to be let in. Quietly she pulled the door shut
before snapping the handle off in a fearsome show of strength.
Looking down the dark hallway, she smiled. She knew tonight was the
night that would see the most blood.

CHAPTER 41

Oates, Murdoch and Matthew moved
through the underbelly of the station. Murdoch had heard colleagues
of his refer to this area of a police station as the “bowels” as
this is where all the “shit was stored.” Although the Sheriff’s
police station was smaller than the city police
station
, both
of them used this lower floor for much the same purposes. Interview
rooms, jail cells and offices were what were down here but Murdoch
couldn’t help but notice that most of these rooms were not being
used. He could tell this from the fact they had to keep turning on
lights. Not just to the individual rooms themselves but to the
corridors as a whole. You would never turn off the lights in a
corridor of the city police station because there was always
someone using it as passage to get from one place to another. He
never mentioned any of these thoughts to Oates. He knew Oates was
not stupid so he had to assume the Sheriff already knew the station
was unnecessarily large for the purpose it served.

As Oates had said many a time to many a
person, the station was full of “wasted space” but right now it was
something else. Right now that “wasted space” had become “places to
hide.” As he searched rooms his thoughts drifted back to Mayor
Shannahan who denied him permission to have the building redesigned
on more than one occasion. Yes, Sheriff Oates was glad Mayor
Shannahan was dead.

Matthew
held his gun awkwardly. He didn’t
mean to sound ungrateful when Deputy Lynch cracked open the gun
locker and handed him “a piece,” he just didn’t want to admit he
had never actually used one before. He had, in fairness, racked up
many hours on shooting games on his games console at home but that
was hardly important right now. Right now there was no pause
button, no exit option and no extra lives. This was not a game and
he did not feel safe, but, thanks to his pride forbidding him to
tell the truth he was standing in a quiet corridor, guarding the
backs of two men who were relying on him not to miss a target if
the opportunity arose. The cowardly young Matthew stood, legs
akimbo, watching Oates and Murdoch search rooms simultaneously,
while using a series of nods alone to communicate. Cold air blew
softly on his back. A man, comfortable in his position might have
realized this air was coming from a recently opened door but
Matthew was not that man. Instead he alternated his glances between
nervous looks over his shoulder and shaky looks ahead. He did not
want to think what would happen if something did actually approach
him. He simply prayed that it didn’t. Pain pulsed from his leg
wound. Aside from doors being barged open there was not much noise
down here. His brain decided that focusing on his own pain was
better than focusing on what might happen to him in the near
future. He hadn’t lost much blood, the wound had dried up but it
was starting to get infected, and that was where the pain was
coming from. Again, his pride had stopped him asking for help to
get it properly dressed so it was only going to get worse. Every
few minutes he would use one foot to scratch at his wound which was
getting itchy due to the infection, leaving himself off balance and
even more vulnerable. He wanted to go back upstairs; something
seemed off down here, something seemed not right. Still he knew he
had to stay, he was not about to admit to Murdoch and Oates that he
was afraid. His pride would not allow that.

Brian found himself in a similar
situation to Matthew, except Brian had used guns before.
He used to hunt with
his father years earlier and so, he had been chosen over the
inexperienced Anne to accompany Graham and Lynch on their sweep of
the upper floors. Brian still had a buzz going from his day’s
alcohol intake so he was nowhere near as scared as he would have
been had he been here sober. Brian was well aware of where his
sudden courage was coming for and he was thankful for
it.

Deputy Lynch and Detective
Graham operated with the same level of professionalism and Oates
and Murdoch, both pairs worked silently which Brian watched their
backs. The main difference here was that these three were checking
large rooms filled with desks, laid out in much the same way as the
main floor where Jacobs, MacNamee and Anne remained.
Both Lynch and
Graham were alpha-males, but there was no butting heads here. A
mutual respect and a primal desire to find a missing child bonded
them in camaraderie. Because of the fact the desks provided low
hollows for things to hide in, this search was much slower than the
other. Although Jacobs, Oates and Lynch all had radios, they were
for emergencies only. They would only use them if they found
Jessica or Betsy and at this point none of them knew Betsy had
allowed others in, as far as they knew, it was one on three and
they liked those odds. Quickly, the trio’s eyes scanned the room,
while intermittently calling out Jessica’s name and listening for a
response. The three kept to the left hand side of the room, they
did not want to split up into the middle of the desks for fear of
being ambushed from one of the many hiding spots, instead they were
following Lynch’s hunch that Jessica would be on the roof. The only
basis he had for this hunch was that he knew that would be where he
would go if he were a kid. If she were not on the roof they would
check the rooms more thoroughly on their way back down to the main
room.

The three men kept
tight to the wall,
watching for any movement. When they reached the door to the
staircase, Lynch instructed Graham to stay behind while he and
Brian checked the roof. Despite the fact that Brian did not want to
thin out the numbers he was happy he was not the one being asked to
stay behind, alone in the room. Graham instantly acknowledged the
common sense behind the logic of one remaining behind to cover the
door, watching the other two’s back so he put up no fight. Lynch
and Brian scuttled off through the door to the staircase as Graham
vigilantly stood watch.

No one
had thought much about Tony Oates,
all alone in the damp downstairs. Everyone was too caught up in the
hunt for Jessica and before that their thoughts of
self-preservation had allowed them to forget about Tony. He didn’t
mind though. In his mind he was safe from any outside dangers; he
would never have thought the station could be compromised. In his
mind, the station was a fortress, when in truth it was poorly
guarded at best. It was simply too big to be fully protected by the
small group that were holed up there but Tony Oates did not think
this way. He lay on his cot reading the book he brought with him.
The hero in his book was a down-and-out, sent to an island with to
join other down-and-outs in manual labor. Tony related to the main
character in the way that this societal reject ended up becoming
the hero of the story. In Tony’s mind, he was the hero. This is how
he thought of himself. This is what he believed.

Bars all around him signified
that
this was
the “drunk tank.” If he had stepped into the holding cell, solid
walls would have offered him way more protection but less
visibility. Tony wanted to be able to see a threat coming and that
was why he chose bars over walls. Natural light was scarce down
here and Sheriff Oates like that. Apart from a small tinted,
window, all the light down here was artificial. A series of lights
above the cells and a couple outside were the main source of light
down here day or night; and as Tony was about to found out, the
problem with artificial light was that it could be switched off.
The switches by the stairs had always been there, there had never
been a problem with having them so accessible before. Oates liked
his men to have the option of turning out light as a punishment to
unruly detainees, or as a reward to well behaved ones. Oates had
realized years earlier that darkness was an effective, non-violent
way of controlling inmates. Up until now however, Tony never gave a
thought to the positioning of the light switches in a police
station, but he was about to start wishing he had.