Isolation

by CJ Lyons

  That was all she could do back then, too.

  Memories flooded over her, bursting through a dam built by eighteen years of willpower and desperation. Now they all came hurtling back: the man’s face, twisted in anger, as he clubbed her mother with a riot baton; Maria’s terror as she tried to scramble away; her pain as he’d grab her hair and haul her back, hitting her again and again.

  His voice asking her two questions over and over: “Where is it?” and “Where is the child?”

  That was when Maria had surrendered, stopped trying to run. She’d looked once in the direction where she knew Lydia hid, her expression one of sorrow too deep for her daughter to comprehend, and she’d never looked at Lydia again. Had instead given up, not made another sound.

  She’d died so that Lydia could live.

  And eighteen years later, the monster had returned. Maria’s sacrifice had been in vain.

  Lydia didn’t think about the gun in Smith’s hand, couldn’t think about the other man and his gun or Trey. If she could have gotten to her own weapon, buried beneath the layers of her parka and sweater, she would have shot Smith without blinking. But she couldn’t reach Sandy’s gun.

  Instead, Lydia lunged forward, startling Smith, bringing her left palm up and under his chin in a blitz strike. He stumbled back, off balance. She swept his legs out from under him, landing on top. His gun went off, the bullet striking the wall between the windows.

  * * *

  Lydia ignored the threat of the guns. They wanted her alive or else they would have already killed her and Trey. More than that, the weapon barely registered in her vision, she was so filled with hatred. She’d never understood the term bloodlust before. Not until now as her pulse pounded in her temples and her vision darkened. The only thing that filled her mind, the only thing strong enough to displace the fear, was rage. The rage wasn’t red or hot—it burned cold, crystallizing her vision and the killer standing at the center of it, blurring everything else.

  The other man behind her, the leader, was shouting something but she couldn't hear it through the blood pounding in her ears. She pinned Smith’s left arm against his body with her knees as she leaned her weight on his right thumb, twisting until it popped out of its socket. The gun slid from his hand. She reached for it, but it skidded across the hardwood floor. He twisted his left arm free, almost bucking her off him as he clawed for his weapon.

  Her fury wouldn’t be denied. She clubbed him with her cast, ignoring the pain that stampeded through her arm. Kneeling with one knee pressed against his windpipe, choking him, she hit him again, breaking his nose, releasing a spray of blood. But that wasn’t enough to satisfy her primal rage.

  This man had killed her mother, stolen her life, wanted to kill her and everything she loved . . .

  “Lydia!” Trey’s voice finally sliced through the roar in her brain. His arms were around her, hauling her off Smith before she finished what she’d started. “Stop! You’ll kill him.”

  “Do as he says, Dr. Fiore,” the second man, Black, instructed, his voice as calm as a computerized GPS navigator giving directions. “Unless you want your friend here to die.”

  She glanced back, saw that Black held his gun to Trey’s head. Trey! How could she have put him in danger like that with her brash attack? She could have gotten him killed.

  She relented, sagging in Trey’s arms, allowing him to drag her back to the couch. Her anger receded—not totally, never totally—but enough that her vision widened and she began to feel the pain drumming along her arm. Her parka and face had been sprayed with Smith’s blood. She licked her lips and tasted copper. Swallowed it without regret.

  “Don’t move,” Black said, turning to keep Trey and Lydia in sight on the couch as he backed up. Smith was on the floor groaning, climbing back to his feet. Black kicked the gun across the floor to him. Smith took it, wiping his bloody nose on his sleeve and aiming a look of pure venom at Lydia.

  Black laughed. "You're getting old," he told Smith.

  “I ought to kill her right now,” Smith said, his gait unsteady as he took up a position across the room in front of Lydia and Trey. “We might need you alive, but your boyfriend here is another story.”

  “Hey!” one of the men shouted at Gina. The red beams of the lasers angled up as they both fired over her head. “Stop!”

  Gina had no idea what she was doing or if she was aiming anywhere near them, but she raised the machine gun and pulled the trigger. Bullets flew out in a rush, the recoil pushing her back through the door to the morgue. She released the trigger, stumbling across the floor. Bullets pinged against the steel behind her, their impact louder than the actual shots.

  Ken was already pushing LaRose toward the locker rooms, the fastest exit to the main tunnel. He stumbled and tripped. LaRose and the wheelchair careened off the door jamb. Gina scrambled to her feet and took over, navigating the wheelchair through the door.

  Behind her the morgue doors slammed open.

  “Hurry, Ken!”

  Gunfire drowned out her words. Ken fell through the door, barely keeping to his feet. Gina pushed it shut behind him and locked it. Not that it would last for long against machine-gun fire. Already bullets splintered the door. She figured that the only thing that had saved them this far was that Harris had obviously told his men to take her alive.

  She hauled Ken along, both of them hunched over LaRose and the wheelchair as they hurtled down the short corridor dividing the men’s and women’s locker rooms. They flew out the door to the tunnel and made a sharp right-hand turn.

  “Are you okay?” Gina asked. She couldn’t see in the dark, but Ken was obviously having trouble keeping up.

  “Fine.” The lone syllable emerged with a gasp that was less than reassuring.

  They passed the laundry cart. Gina took a moment to topple it onto its side, hoping to slow their pursuers. As they rushed through the intersection with the tunnel to the research tower, she heard the men emerge into the tunnel behind them.

  Between Ken’s wheezing, the rumble of the wheelchair, and Gina’s footsteps, they weren’t exactly in stealth mode, but the men behind them were making even more noise as they collided with the linen cart. Gina took that as her cue and turned to fire the gun at them again, this time bracing herself before pulling the trigger.

  Ken’s grasp on the wheelchair slipped as they turned down a side corridor, and he was almost lost in the dark. Gina grabbed him, leaning his weight against her as she pushed LaRose forward. She wrapped her arm around his waist, and her worst fears were confirmed.

  Ken’s side was slick with blood.

  37

  Nora made sure the kids had all the blankets they could spare—over the last hour the temperature had plummeted in the auditorium. The cold quieted everyone, leaving them huddled together in groups. Mark Cohen was on his stretcher on the stage, still out from the morphine, and being watched over by Melissa, who seemed relieved to have something to occupy her attention. Jim’s body lay on the far side of the room and no one wanted to be anywhere close to it, leaving them all to congregate in one quadrant. Someone had produced a Bible, and a group of staff and patient families prayed together.

  Jason sat on the edge of the stage, feet dangling, body rocking as he played one of his incessant video games. As she made her rounds, Nora sneaked a peek at the guards. Fifteen minutes and they were still wide awake—she’d thought the ketamine-and-Versed combo would have worked by now. Could she have gotten the bottles mixed up?

  Patience. Versed took at least fifteen to twenty minutes to work when they used it for sedation, and who knew how long it took ketamine to be absorbed orally. Plus, neither guard had finished his juice yet.

  She shivered, hugging herself against the cold and the fear that they didn’t have much time. If Harris or the South African returned too soon . . .

  Then she realized Jason was gone.

  Nora whirled on her heel, doing another mental head count. There he was. He’d been sitting on the edge
of the stage near Mark all night, but suddenly now he was sitting on the floor, his back to the stage, still playing his game. Jason caught her eye and beckoned with one finger.

  Trying to look nonchalant, she meandered over to him. “How’s the game?”

  “Great. Want to learn? I think you’d like it.”

  He knew damn well she despised the damn things. If he hadn’t been the best clerk in the hospital, she would have forbidden him from bringing it to work. She smiled in case anyone was watching and lowered herself to sit beside him. “Sure.”

  He handed her the game and leaned over as if teaching her to play. He whispered, “Amanda’s here.”

  Nora jerked, then covered it by cursing at the game. “Where?”

  “Here,” came a disembodied voice behind her as a finger jabbed her through the drapes lining the foot of the stage. “I found a way out.”

  “Under the stage?” Nora asked, ducking and bobbing, pretending that the game had her mesmerized. But she really was calculating the number of people she could get under the stage—even though most of the patients were ambulatory, she didn’t think many of them could crawl. Certainly Mark couldn’t. Also, the space under the stage didn’t seem to be very big, which would eliminate any larger adults.

  “We made a hole in the wall through to the kitchen. It’s small—I can only take the children at first—but Lucas and Jerry are making it larger.”

  “I drugged the guards,” Nora whispered back, ignoring Jason’s look of surprise and admiration. “As soon as it takes effect, we can all walk out the front door.”

  “No. There are more guards out in the lobby. You’d be mowed down.”

  “Not all of my people can crawl under the stage, though. Plus, it’d take too long.”

  Jason put his arm around her shoulders, pointing out something especially exciting on the game. “Amanda, can you make the hole higher? Above the stage?”

  “Won’t the guards see?”

  Nora smiled at Jason. Good idea. “Give me a few minutes, I can take care of that.” She looked at her watch, pretended to be surprised, and handed the game back to Jason.

  “Melissa,” she called to the nurse on stage. “We’re late doing Mark’s dressing change. Could you pull the right-hand stage curtain so he can have some privacy?” The guards would never allow her to pull both stage curtains shut. She waved to them as Jason helped her climb up to the stage. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”

  The guards nodded, their response sluggish. One of them was actually sitting on the floor now, cradling his machine gun as if it were a baby, talking to it. The other was still alert enough to be standing, although he was leaning heavily against the wall. Jason joined her on the stage, helping to move Mark and position the curtain partway closed so that it would screen the wall to the kitchen from the guards.

  Nora made a show of him helping her and Melissa position Mark’s stretcher. “Let Amanda know we’re ready and then spread the word for people not to move even if they see the guards go down. We can’t risk someone trying something too soon and getting hurt.”

  Jason nodded and jumped back down to the main floor, pausing near the curtain below the stage to retrieve his video game and then moving slowly through the crowd as if he were taking drink orders.

  “Melissa, you pretend to do a dressing change,” Nora instructed. She unwrapped Mark’s splint, being as gentle as possible but glad that he wasn’t awake to feel any pain. Then she dropped the fresh Ace wrap, kicking it behind the curtain toward the wall. “Whoops.”

  The guards didn’t even seem to notice. Nora followed the bandage roll farther behind the drapes, scooped it up, and went to the wall. Softly knocking on it using the Morse code for SOS, she waited for a response.

  There was a small flaw in their plan, she realized as a muffled knocking returned. They’d need to cut through two layers of drywall up here, not just the single layer that was probably below the stage. It would take too long unless they worked at it from both sides.

  Nora went back out onto the stage where she’d be visible. The one guard looked asleep; the other was still standing, but his hands had dropped to his sides, away from his gun, and his head had rolled to one side. She wheeled one of the IV stands to just beside the drapes, pretended to be adjusting it, then pushed it behind the drapes, pulling Mark’s IV over to take its place.

  Melissa watched her with wide eyes, performing the longest mock dressing change in the history of nursing. Nora put a finger to her lips before quickly dissembling the IV pole, reversing the top of it so that the two-foot steel pole jutted forward like a pike. That ought to go through drywall without too much noise.

  She hoped. She stole one last glance at the others. Everyone except the guards was alert, watching her—they’d give it away if the guards noticed.

  “Melissa, tell everyone to start singing a song or something,” she whispered. “Anything to create a little noise and keep them occupied.”

  Melissa nodded and left Mark to pass the message to Emma Grey, who sat on the edge of the stage, tirelessly entertaining the children who refused to sleep. A few moments later “The Twelve Days of Christmas” rang through the auditorium.

  Nora moved back behind the curtain to the wall. She listened and could hear drywall being torn apart. Hoping that she wouldn’t hit Lucas or Jerry, she plunged the sharp end of the IV stand into the drywall and began jerking it back and forth, making a nice-sized hole.

  She pulled the pole free and put her eye to the hole.

  Jerry grinned at her from a few inches away. “Hey beautiful, where’ve ya been?”

  Even in the dark, Gina knew it was bad. The way Ken’s breathing sounded louder than the gunshots that had come before, the coppery smell of blood filling the air. Ken somehow stayed on his feet, periodically nudging her penlight to direct their route. He steered them around a corner and down a side tunnel she didn’t recognize. They came to an imposing solid metal door, one she’d never noticed before. Ken slumped against it.

  “Take LaRose someplace safe and meet me back here.”

  “No. Come on, Ken. You can do it.” She wanted to pretend that there was nothing wrong, that she hadn’t just gotten him shot, that she wasn’t responsible for yet another death. “We just need to make it to the tower and everything will be all right.”

  His face was ghastly white in the glow of her light. “Final stop.”

  He slid to one side, and the light splashed red with the blood he’d left behind.

  “We’ll take you upstairs. To the ER. I can help you.”

  He shook his head, his expression a half-smile but his eyes sad. “Open the door.”

  No sounds from their pursuers. She handed him the penlight and pulled the door open. It was heavy, as thick as her fist, but once she got it started, it swung silently on well-balanced hinges. The room beyond stank of burned matches, reminding her of her college chem lab. “What is this place?”

  “Chemical storage room. It’s built to withstand an explosion.” He lurched into the room, the penlight swinging madly as he held both hands against his right side. “Hurry back. I can’t do this alone.”

  “Ken—”

  “Hurry.” His voice snapped at her like a mad dog, pain and fury adding claws and teeth.

  For once she didn’t argue. Instead she hustled LaRose down the hall and around the corner to the laundry. LaRose had woken from her stupor sometime during their headlong flight through the tunnels, and now she raised a quavery hand, pointing to some sorting baskets that stood at least four feet high. “There.”

  Gina pushed her behind the baskets and camouflaged her with a sheet. Resisting the urge to huddle with LaRose and wait out whatever terrible thing was coming next, she kissed LaRose on the forehead. “I’ll be right back. Promise.”

  “Go.”

  She ran back to Ken. He was sitting on the floor, his back to one of the room’s many storage cabinets. “I need you to find me a container of sodium metal. It will be a plastic tub, pro
bably filed under N for natrium.”

  Sodium? She scurried around the room, shining her light into the many glass-fronted cabinets. She found the sodium, but the cabinet was locked.

  “Hurry,” Ken said, his voice tight and sounding miles away even though the room was only ten feet across. “I heard them talking,” he continued in that awful beyond-the-grave voice that made her shiver. “They’ve rigged the generator. Harris controls it—I think through his radio.”

  She reversed the Maglite and used it butt first to smash the glass, then grabbed the tub of sodium.

  “Water.” Ken nodded to the sink in the corner. “Get me a glass of water—a paper cup would be best.”

  “There are plastic specimen jars.”

  “That will do. Bring everything here.”

  She gathered the water and the sodium and returned to kneel by his side. “When I was a kid, I remember a high school science teacher who tried to impress us by throwing a tiny piece of sodium into water—made for a nice bang and a splash.”

  “I’m going to do the opposite. Add the water to the sodium.”

  “And what’s that gonna do?”

  He leaned his head back against the cabinet, his eyes vacant. “Room this size? This much sodium? About four seconds after I drop the water in there’s going to be one helluva explosion and a huge ball of fire.”

  “Thought we were trying to stop a fire, keep them from burning down the hospital.”

  “This room is blastproof. But the door needs to be secured.”

  “You lost me.”

  Ken’s hands were trembling. His entire body lurched with each inhalation as he raised the cup of water and braced it against his thigh. “Find something to barricade the door with. It won’t lock with the power out.” He heaved in a gasp after every word. “Then bring them here. I’ll be ready.”