Page 104 of To Save Him

 

 

 

Chapter Thirty-five

 

WE’D BEEN TAKING quick, furtive steps down the carpeted hallway and hadn’t seen a soul, although we’d heard plenty of activity in the distance.  The noise waivered from close to farther away but, so far, we’d been lucky.

I didn’t know how long that would hold out.

Brandon had been testing doors but all had been locked and we kept moving at a pace designed to get us out of there.  Only we weren’t.  Instead, we were moving deeper into the hospital, and I had no idea if that was Brandon’s intent or not.

We got closer to where the hallway intersected with another and as we got ready to turn, we heard voices.  Brandon squeezed my hand and pulled me back, turning to a door and punching in a code before I could even register what was happening.  Five beeps and then a click and he turned the doorknob, letting us into the room.  He pulled me inside what appeared to be a storeroom of some kind.  “How did you—?” I started to ask, but he put his finger to his lips and then pressed the light switch.  It had automatically turned on when we’d entered, but he made it pitch black in there, I assumed to keep anyone passing by from noticing that it was occupied.  I was trying to reason out how Brandon had gotten us in there, ultimately deciding that he must have seen the man who’d brought us into the hospital proper and watched him punch in a code that miraculously worked on this door as well.

I could hear voices outside the door and I strained to hear what they were saying.  Meanwhile, I wondered if I should keep quiet or shout for help.

It came down to if I trusted them or Brandon more…so I kept my mouth shut.  I noticed, though, that my hands were shaking, and I still didn’t know if it was for fear of Brandon or of the people outside the door.  I finally recognized a voice in the hallway, and it was of the man who’d brought us to his office in the first place.  “They couldn’t have gone far.”

Then a woman spoke.  She was harder to understand.  “The front desk said they haven’t gone out that way.  They’re keeping an eye out for them.”

Another voice spoke but it was clear to me that they were walking away from us.  After it sounded quiet again, Brandon moved to the door and slowly opened it.  The light streamed in as a sliver, widening second by second, until he paused to glance out.  Then he opened it the rest of the way, taking me by the hand and leading me out into the hall.  It had sounded like the party of three (or more) who’d been searching for us had gone to our right; Brandon took us to the left.

We came to the end of the hallway, because there it split into two, and Brandon didn’t hesitate, taking us to the right.  As we moved deeper into the hospital, I could hear voices.  Lots of them—like a crowd.  Brandon turned to me and said, “Cafeteria’s ahead.”

A cafeteria?  In the back of a hospital that was hard for visitors to access?  And yet there were lots of people in there—I could hear them.  But Brandon navigated us past them.  We were getting passed by people now—patients—and none of them seemed to really even notice us.  Just when I started to relax, though, the PA system jolted me back into a tingly state of fear.  “Code Gray.  Repeat, Code Gray.  Location unknown.”  I didn’t remember seeing that color on the back of the man’s badge earlier.

Brandon paused before saying, “That’s us.  Come on.”

Us?  Meaning…they were looking for us?  The entire hospital now?  I had to assume that was it.  Brandon picked up the pace, taking me with him, his grip on my wrist close to painful.  If we were caught, I wondered, then what?  Questioning?  Jail?

It depended on one thing and one thing only.

If these folks were who and what Brandon claimed, my imagination suggested that there might be even more to look forward to upon capture…but if they were just an ordinary hospital and Brandon had completely lost his mind, then I figured they’d take us, hold us, call the cops, haul him off to jail—and maybe me, as well.

The second scenario offered me some hope and relief—but I started to wonder if the first was just as likely.

I didn’t have much time to ponder, though, because we were moving quickly.  We passed a few patients, most of whom seemed to be either in pain or not in their right mind, so they weren’t a threat.  They didn’t seem to be in any hurry to report us.

One, though…a bald man with green eyes like a hawk who seemed to be paying attention…he looked at us as we rushed past.  And he made eye contact with me.

He wasn’t in pain and he certainly wasn’t insane.  And I knew with my last glance that he knew we were the folks who’d instigated the Code Gray.  So I had to hope we got far enough away to be safe before he reported us.

We turned one corner and then another and then, as we got near the end of the hallway we were in (I hadn’t seen out a window in a while, so I had no sense of direction anymore), Brandon pushed on an unmarked door after punching in another code and pulled me inside.

It was a stairwell—plain and also windowless.  White walls, gray steps.  As we began walking down, our footsteps echoed off the walls.  It sounded so loud to me and I almost wanted to remove my black shoes with the noisy heels, but Brandon was hauling ass now, and there was no stopping.  All I could do at this point was keep up with him.

When we got to the bottom of the stairs, there was no place to go except through the white steel door.  There was a tiny rectangular window on the door, and inside the glass was woven metal threads.  Again, without hesitation, Brandon pushed through the door…

And then he stopped cold in his tracks.

“What the hell?”

He started walking slowly, taking in the sight.  It was a cavernous room—white, bathed in fluorescent rays triggered by our motion—but it was divided by cubicle-like walls.  We moved through the room, and each cubicle appeared to have MRI-like machines for testing patients.  But I could tell from the feel and the sound that there was no one there.  As innot a soul.  That in itself was odd, because why would a hospital have all this equipment and all this space and not be using it to help the people they were serving?  But, in spite of the new-looking equipment and the carpeted cubicle walls that had a new smell, the floors, the ceiling, and the outer walls felt and looked old, used and abused.  I couldn’t hold my tongue any longer and asked, “What is it?”

He turned to me then, his pupils wide, his breathing shallow.  “This…”  He looked around, struggling to take in a breath.  “Kimberly, this is where the program took place.”  Another slow, difficult breath.  “I had no fucking idea it washere.”

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