Page 11 of Ward D
Dr. Richard Beck’s appearance surprises me. When Gabby was going on and on about how smart he was, somehow I pictured someone older, with a long white beard that he would stroke while thoughtfully answering questions about the human mind. (Yes, I apparently believed our attending physician tonight would be Dr. Sigmund Freud.) But Dr. Beck is not like that. Atall. First of all, he’s not old. Certainly not old enough to grow a long white beard. He’s in his thirties, with slightly sun-kissed brown hair, and a hint of dimples in his cheeks when he smiles at us.
Now I finally get why Gabby likes him so much.
“Welcome to Ward D,” Dr. Beck says, his dimples deepening as he smiles wider. “I appreciate your help tonight, and hopefully you can learn a little too.”
“I look forward to it,” Cameron says.
Kiss-up.
Dr. Beck looks at me as if expecting me to add something. “Thanks,” I finally say.
He nods, satisfied with my answer. “Let me show you around.”
“Can you show us how the keypad works on the door?” I say, a bit too eagerly. I can’t help it though. It’s the only way out of here. I’m not going to be able to relax until I’ve got the code.
“Amy’s freaked out about being in a locked unit,” Cameron explains. “She thinks she’ll be trapped here.”
I shoot him a look.
Dr. Beck laughs. “As well you should be! Don’t they teach you anytime you’re in a movie theater or auditorium to know where the marked emergency exits are? Let me show you how to get out of here if you need to.”
The two of us follow Dr. Beck back to the door where we came inside. As we walk past the patient rooms, the door to room 905 cracks open. A pair of blue eyes flecked with yellow peers out at me, and a shiver goes down my spine. Whoever is inside that room is watching us.
And there’s also something terribly familiar about those eyes.
It looks so much like…
No. No way. It couldn’t be.
When we get to the door to the unit, I see that ominous stop sign pasted on the door, and the keypad to the left of the door is glowing slightly green. Dr. Beck lifts his index finger to the keypad.
“The code is 347244,” he tells us.
I whip my phone out of my pocket. Sure enough, there’s no service. But I’m able to open a memo note, and I type in the six digits.
“You punch the numbers on the keypad, then hit the pound sign,” he explains. Then he demonstrates it himself. After he hits the pound key, a deafening buzzing sound rings out through the entire unit, even louder than it was outside. He laughs at the expressions on our faces. “Loud, right?”
My ears are still ringing. “A bit,” I admit.
“We want to know if anyone is entering or leaving the unit,” he says. “Now if somebody hits the wrong code, there is a quieter buzzing sound.”
He demonstrates this by hitting the number one six times. The sound that results is like somebody getting the wrong answer on a quiz show.
“Nobody is getting out of here if they don’t know the code,” he says, “but it’s helpful to know if somebody is trying to escape.”
As I watch him demonstrate the code, I get a prickly feeling on the back of my neck. Like somebody is watching us. I try to ignore the sensation, but then I can’t stand it anymore. I rotate my head to take a look, and sure enough, a patient is standing there. Staring at us.
The man is gigantic—way bigger than Cameron and twice as heavy—wearing what looks like a T-shirt on top of another T-shirt, on top ofanotherT-shirt, the armpits soaked in sweat, and sweatpants that are hanging down under his massive belly. His eyes have a strange vacant look to them.
“I’m leaving tomorrow,” he tells us in a Spanish accent.
Dr. Beck is silent, so I say, “Oh?”
The man turns his attention to Dr. Beck. “My father say I’m leaving tomorrow. So tomorrow, I go.”
“Sure,” Dr. Beck says agreeably.
“You gotta do it,” the man insists. “My father say you have to.”
