Shock

by Robin Cook

  “You were right about there being a ladder,” Deborah said. “But how do you get to it?”

  Joanna moved the light beam to the side wall of the elevator. Attached to the cab’s wall were ladder rungs. The rungs led up to a wire-mesh trapdoor in the elevator’s ceiling.

  “All we have to do is climb to the top of the elevator,” Joanna said.

  “Is that all?” Deborah questioned sarcastically. “Where are you finding this sudden chutzpah.”

  “I’m pretending I’m you,” Joanna said. “So let’s do it before I revert back to me.”

  Deborah gave a short, derisive laugh.

  The women stepped over the half-open lower elevator door. Joanna held the light while Deborah climbed the ladder rungs. While holding on to the top one, she pushed up the trapdoor. Just beyond ninety degrees it hit up against a stop and stayed open.

  Joanna handed up the flashlight, and Deborah placed it on top of the elevator before hauling herself up. The elevator swayed slightly when she stood up, forcing her to grab the supporting cables, which were covered with grease the consistency of petroleum jelly. A moment later Joanna came up through the hole. She stayed on her hands and knees rather than standing up.

  The ladder ran along the back wall of the shaft and cleared the elevator car by only twelve inches.

  “Well, what do you think?” Deborah asked.

  “I think we should give it a try,” Joanna said. She shined the flashlight down the shaft. It wasn’t strong enough to reach the bottom. The ladder merely disappeared into a murky haze.

  “You first,” Deborah said. “And you keep the light.”

  “I’m not going to be able to climb and hold the light at the same time.”

  “I know,” Deborah said. “But you have a pocket, and I don’t.”

  “Okay,” Joanna said with resignation. She was accustomed to Deborah’s being the leader in such a circumstance. Joanna turned out the light, plunging them into utter blackness. She pocketed the flashlight, then groped for the ladder. When she got ahold of it, she had to argue with herself to abandon the relative safety of the elevator, especially when the elevator swayed slightly during the transition. Gripping the rung of the ladder tightly with both hands, she tried not to think about being suspended on a vertical ladder four stories above a black hole.

  “Are you doing okay?” Deborah whispered in the dark when she didn’t hear any movement.

  “This is harrowing,” Joanna said.

  “Are you on the ladder?”

  “Yes,” Joanna said. “But I’m afraid to move.”

  “You have to!”

  Joanna lowered one foot to the next rung and then the other. What she had more difficulty with was letting go with one hand. Finally she did it, and then repeated the movement with the other hand. Slowly at first, and then with building confidence she descended between the elevator and the ladder. It was a tight fit, which made the process more difficult.

  “Can you give me a little light so I can see where the ladder is?” Deborah asked from above.

  “I can’t,” Joanna said. “I can’t let go for that long.”

  Deborah mumbled a few choice words as she reached out blindly with one hand while maintaining the grip on the greasy cable with the other. But the ladder was too far away. Eventually she had to go down on all fours like Joanna and creep over to the edge of the elevator’s cab. Finally she got ahold of the ladder, transferred herself onto it, and followed Joanna down.

  The women moved slowly, particularly Joanna. Although she began to build up confidence, a new concern emerged from feeling corrosion on the rungs. She began worrying that one of the rungs might have become so weakened from rust that it could give way under her weight. Before she put her weight on any rung, she kicked at it to get an idea of its integrity.

  The blackness of the shaft aided Joanna, especially after passing below the elevator cab. Without being able to see, the height was only a mental problem, not a visual one.

  Deborah had to slow herself down when she caught up with Joanna.

  After a quarter-hour of climbing, Deborah was ready to reconnoiter. “Can you see the bottom?” she questioned in a whisper. The muscles of her arms were beginning to complain, and she imagined Joanna’s were as well.

  “You must be joking,” Joanna answered. “I can’t even see my nose.”

  “Maybe you should shine the light for a second. You could hook your arm around one of the rungs.”

  “I think I should just keep going until my foot touches the floor,” Joanna said.

  “Do you want to rest?”

  “I really think I should keep going.”

  Another ten minutes passed before Joanna’s outstretched foot touched litter-strewn pavement. She pulled her foot back. “We’re here,” she said. “Hold up!” Hooking her arm in a rung as Deborah had suggested earlier, she got out the flashlight and turned it on. The bottom of the shaft was filled with debris as if it had been a garbage dump over the years.

  “Can you tell if we’re at the sub-basement or not?” Deborah asked.

  “I can’t,” Joanna said. “Come on down, and we’ll see if we can get the doors open.”

  Joanna used her foot to push away some of the trash at the ladder’s base before stepping onto the pavement. She waited for Deborah to come the rest of the way down, keeping her hand over the flashlight lens.

  “Wow, it’s freezing down here,” Deborah said, rubbing her arms once she got off the ladder. “It certainly feels like a sub-basement.”

  The women gingerly made their way to the doors through the junk which was mostly paper, rags, and miscellaneous pieces of wood interspersed with a few cans. While Joanna held the light, Deborah reached up and got her fingers between the upper and lower doors. Try as she might, they wouldn’t open.

  Joanna put the light down on the floor and lent a hand. Still the doors wouldn’t so much as budge.

  “This is not good,” Joanna said.

  Deborah picked up the light and took a step back. She shined the light around the periphery of the doors. She stopped at a spring-loaded lever arm protruding out from the wall at the edge of the doors just above where they came together.

  “That’s our problem,” Deborah said. “I haven’t seen too many action movies, but that has to be a fail-safe mechanism to keep the doors locked until the elevator is in front of the doors.”

  “Meaning?” Joanna questioned.

  “Meaning one of us has to hold it down while the other opens the doors.”

  “You’re taller,” Joanna said. “You get the fail-safe mechanism, I’ll try the doors.”

  A moment later the doors cracked open, although it wasn’t until Joanna leaned her full weight on the lower door that they opened fully. Deborah shined the light into the space beyond.

  “It’s a sub-basement all right,” Joanna said. The entire floor was just intersecting supporting arches through which ran a tangle of clay sewer pipes and insulated cast-iron heating pipes. There were no doors or separate rooms. The walls were brick like the basement above, but the arches were flatter and the adjoining piers thicker.

  A passageway with a vaulted ceiling higher than the rest of the sub-basement led from the freight elevator to intersect with a similar corridor that ran the length of the building. Bare electric wire looped along the peak of the vault to lighting fixtures, but they were not lit.

  The women stopped at the intersection and shined the light in both directions. In each direction the view was a study in perspective, with the arches marching off into the darkness as far as the meager light was able to penetrate.

  “Which way?” Joanna questioned.

  “I’d favor going left,” Deborah said. “That will take us toward the tower section of the building. That’s the center.”

  “But if we go right, we’re going more in the direction of the power plant,” Joanna said. “The power plant is off to the southeast.” She pointed forty-five degrees off the axis of the main corridor.
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  “How are we going to decide?” Deborah asked, looking in both directions.

  “Shine the light on the floor,” Joanna said. She knelt down. The floor of the passageway from the freight elevator, as well as the main corridor, was paved in clay tiles whereas the rest of the sub-basement was paved in the same brick as the walls and arched ceiling.

  “There’s definitely more evidence of traffic going to the right,” Joanna said. “The tile shows a lot more wear in that direction, which not only suggests to me the tunnel is to the right, but also that the tunnel was used for a lot more than just heat.”

  “My word,” Deborah commented, looking down. “I think you’re on to something. Is this another trick you learned from watching those action movies with Carlton?”

  “No, this is just common sense.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Deborah said sarcastically.

  The women commenced walking rapidly to the south. Deborah kept the flashlight trained ahead. Their footsteps echoed off the concave ceiling.

  “This is like a catacomb down here,” Joanna commented.

  “Perhaps I shouldn’t ask, but what were you thinking when you suggested the tunnel was used for more than heat?”

  “It occurred to me that the tunnel was probably the way they transported dead bodies from the morgue to the crematorium.”

  “Now there’s a cheerful thought,” Deborah said.

  “Uh oh,” Joanna voiced. “Maybe we spoke too soon. It looks like our footworn corridor is coming to an end.”

  About thirty feet directly ahead the flashlight beam illuminated a blank brick wall.

  “We’re okay,” Deborah said after they’d taken a few more steps. “The trail is just turning to the left.” When the women reached the wall they noticed that not only did the vaulted corridor take an abrupt left-hand turn around an arched pier, but it also fell away relatively steeply. Also joining the descending corridor was a large-diameter insulated pipe.

  “Thanks to your sleuthing I think we’re on our way to the power plant,” Deborah said as they began their descent. “Now we just have to hope these batteries hold out.”

  “Good grief!” Joanna exclaimed. “Don’t even suggest such a thing!”

  With a new worry of being lost underground in utter darkness, the women picked up their pace to the point of practically jogging. After several hundred yards the tunnel leveled out and became significantly more damp. There were even occasional puddles and stalactitic formations hanging from the arched ceiling.

  “I feel like we’re halfway to Boston,” Deborah said. “Shouldn’t we be there already?”

  “That power plant was farther away than it looked,” Joanna said.

  Becoming winded, the women hurried along in silence, each harboring an unspoken worry about what they would face at the other end. A locked, stout door would spell disaster by forcing them back the way they’d come.

  “I see something up ahead,” Deborah said. She extended the light at arm’s distance as they walked. A few moments later the women found themselves at an unexpected juncture; the corridor and the heating pipe bifurcated.

  The women stopped, figuratively scratching their heads. Deborah shined the flashlight into both tunnels. They appeared identical, and all three tunnels intersected at approximately the same 120-degree angle.

  “I wasn’t expecting this,” Joanna said nervously.

  Deborah shined the light at the corner between the tunnel they were in and the new tunnel to their left. Set into the brick at chest height was a cornerstone of granite. Using the heel of her hand she rubbed off a layer of mold, beneath which were incised letters.

  “Okay!” Deborah said with renewed enthusiasm. “One mystery is solved: The tunnel to the left goes to the farm/living quarters, which means the other one must go to the power plant.”

  “Of course,” Joanna affirmed. “Now that I look, the pipe heading to the power plant is definitely a larger diameter.”

  “Wait a second,” Deborah said, reaching out and restraining Joanna who’d already started in the direction of the power plant. “With a choice here, maybe we should think for a minute which might be a better destination. Assuming we’re going to be able to get aboveground at either location, I think we . . .”

  “Don’t even suggest that we’re not going to be able to get out,” Joanna snapped.

  “Okay, okay!” Deborah soothed. “Let’s think where we’d rather be: at the power station or at the farm. Once we’re out of the hospital building, our problem has become getting off the grounds. Maybe being at the farm would be the best idea. They probably get delivery trucks there like we saw the other day on a regular basis.”

  “I thought we decided we have to get off the premises tonight,” Joanna said.

  “That would be best, but we have to have some alternatives in case we can’t manage it.”

  “I still think if we don’t get off tonight we’ll be caught.”

  “Do you have any ideas?”

  “Considering the razor-wire fence, I think our only chance is going through the gate. If we could get a vehicle, particularly a truck, maybe we could just smash through.”

  “Hmm, that’s an idea,” Deborah said. “So where do we have the best chance of getting a vehicle with its keys?”

  “I suppose I’d say the farm,” Joanna said. “But it’s just a guess.”

  “I’d guess the same thing,” Deborah said. “Let’s try the farm at least first.”

  With newly found resolve the women set out toward the farm. They moved quickly, avoiding the puddles as well as they could. The puddles had become decidedly more plentiful in this section of the tunnel. After only a hundred yards the tunnel bifurcated again. Another engraved cornerstone directed them to the right for the farm and to the left for the living quarters. The women continued on the right fork.

  “Seeing the sign for the living quarters makes me think of Spencer Wingate,” Joanna said. “Maybe we should give some thought to approaching him for help.”

  Deborah stopped and Joanna did the same. With the flashlight directed downward, Deborah looked at her roommate. Joanna’s eye sockets were lost in shadow. “Are you suggesting we go to Spencer Wingate?”

  “Yes,” Joanna said. “We go to his house, which we’re at least familiar with, and we tell him what we’ve uncovered here. We also tell him that the security people are trying to hunt us down and possibly add us to their ovary collection.”

  Deborah let out a short, scornful laugh: “This is a strange time for you to be developing a sick sense of humor.”

  “At the moment it’s the only way I can deal with the reality we’re facing.”

  “Are you basing this idea of putting ourselves in Spencer Wingate’s hands on overhearing that argument between him and Paul Saunders?”

  “That and his response to you asking him about the Nicaraguans,” Joanna said. “Neither one of us thinks Spencer truly knows what’s going on around here. If he’s a normal human being, he’d be as horrified as you and I.”

  “That’s a big if, and it would be taking a mighty big risk,” Deborah said.

  “We’ve already taken a lot of risk just being here,” Joanna said.

  Deborah nodded and stared off into the darkness. Joanna was right; they’d taken more risk than they’d bargained for. But did that justify taking the irreversible risk of going to Spencer Wingate?

  “Let’s check out the farm,” Deborah said. “We’ll keep the Spencer Wingate idea on a back burner. At the moment finding some big truck that can take us out of here seems like the best idea to me. Do you agree?”

  “I agree,” Joanna said. “I just think we have to consider all our options.”

  TO THE WOMEN’S RELIEF, THE TUNNEL ENTERED THE FARM complex the same way it left the hospital building. It ran unobstructed into a basement area where the heating pipe splintered off in multiple directions before disappearing up through the ceiling. Also like the hospital, the corridor, which was continuous with the tunne
l, led to a freight elevator. But the women did not try to open the elevator doors. Instead they searched for stairs. They found a flight behind the elevator shaft.

  At the door at the top of the stairs, the women paused. Deborah put her ear to it and reported back to Joanna only the quiet hum of distant machinery. After dousing the light, Deborah cracked the door slowly. The fact that they were in a barn was immediately apparent from the smell. All was quiet.

  Deborah eased the door open enough to get her head through and take a look around. There was a low level of illumination from infrequently spaced bare lightbulbs on the ceiling of the post-and-beam structure. Across the way, numerous stalls lined the wall three deep. To the left were a number of closed doors. In between were huge stacks of cardboard boxes, bales of hay, and sacks of animal feed.

  “Well?” Joanna whispered from a few steps down the stairs. “Do you see anything?”

  “There are plenty of animals in the stalls,” Deborah said. “But no sign of any people, at least not yet.”

  Deborah opened the door and stepped out onto the hay-strewn, rough-planked floor. A few of the animals sensed her presence and grunted, bringing others to their feet. Joanna joined Deborah, and the two continued to survey the scene.

  “So far so good,” Deborah said. “If they have a night shift they must be sleeping.”

  “What a smell,” Joanna said. “I can’t imagine how anyone could work in this kind of environment.”

  “I bet it’s the pigs,” Deborah said. She found herself looking across the room at the beady eyes of a large pink-and-white sow. The pig seemed to be regarding her with great interest.

  “Somebody told me pigs are clean,” Joanna said.

  “They’re clean if they’re kept clean,” Deborah said. “But pigs don’t mind being dirty, and their excrement is bad news.”

  “Do you see what I see on the wall behind you?” Joanna questioned. She pointed.