by Alexie Aaron
“Yes, I think that a whole lot of hell could go down in that building. I would feel better if Murphy’s axe head was in your possession. Think of it as shared custody of our boy.”
“My mother would be proud of her 150-year-old step-grandson,” Ted teased.
“As soon as Beth gets any info on this place, call me with it,” Mia requested. “I’m looking for any reason little girls would be dragged here. Remember, information is power, so don’t edit the stuff, comprende?”
Ted nodded. “Mia, wait,” he ordered. Ted went back into the truck and emerged with an item wrapped in a towel. Mia turned her back to Ted, and he unwrapped it and shoved it into her pants. She reached around and confirmed she could get to it if needed. He pulled the hoodie over it. Mia left and Whit walked over.
“I’ve hacked into your radio’s system, and you can use it to communicate with me and the PEEPs team,” Ted informed him. “This is the infrared camcorder.” He opened the viewer and turned it on. “This will allow you to see things that hold heat. A human will look like this.” He pointed the camera at Mia’s retreating form.
Whit saw the red and yellow auras detailing the heat of Mia’s body.
“And as you can see, next to her, that is what Murphy will look like in the viewer,” he explained, “as will other entities.”
Whit nodded and watched as the dark blue entity moved along his girlfriend’s arm. That caress caused Mia to give off a lot more heat. Whit frowned.
“Any questions?”
“What did you give Mia? What’s she got stuffed down the back of her pants.”
“Insurance,” Ted said and moved away, motioning for Tom to come over.
Mia pretended to be talking to Ted with her com link for the benefit of Butch and June. “Please, go and be with Whit and Tom. Be their eyes, and watch your back.”
Murphy shook his head no.
“We are going to the upper floors, and you know the trouble is more likely to be below ground. Now I need you to watch these boys. For me,” Mia urged.
Murphy studied her face as he took off his hat. He ran his hands around the brim before nodding.
“Thank you.”
Murphy put his hat back on his head and picked up his axe. Mia watched as the farmer, forever garbed in his dusty work clothes, stood tall next to Whit and Tom. Mia did a double take, knowing Murph was much shorter than Whit. She laughed to herself when she realize that Murphy was floating off the ground. He winked at her. She smiled. Tom thought she was smiling at him and blushed.
“Come on, people, we are losing daylight,” Sheriff Ryan’s voice boomed. “Mia, let’s lead off this parade.” He opened the door of the asylum and said, “Ladies first.”
Mia cringed. What was it with these males putting her into harm’s way with their damn Midwestern manners?
Ted tested out the com links after the four entered the building. “Mia.”
“Loud and clear.”
“Ryan.”
“I can hear you, son.”
“Deputy dudes.”
“Roger,” Tom answered.
“Fine,” Whit sighed.
CRACK!
“Thanks Murphy,” Ted said. “Okay, I’ve got an hour of battery life left. My backups will be here in forty minutes. Good luck everyone.”
The group headed for the main staircase before they split up. As Mia climbed the stairs, she wished that she would have stuck to cleaning the gutters and going to the homecoming dance. She had a feeling that she was in for a long night. They reached the landing. She stopped while she dealt with a wave of anguish emanating from this floor.
Sheriff Ryan put his hand on her shoulder and turned her to him. “This isn’t what we chose to do tonight. But it has chosen us. So let’s make the best of it. And call me John. All this Sheriff malarkey is for the uniforms.”
“Thanks, John,” Mia responded. She looked over at him and asked coolly, “Are you a mind reader?”
“A wee bit. But let’s keep it our secret.”
“I will as long as you keep my secrets,” Mia warned.
“They are safer in my head than in a vault,” he assured her.
“Good,” Mia said simply and took a deep breath. She pulled out the thermal imager and scanned the hall to the right. Nothing appeared on the viewer. “It’s clear, shall we begin?”
“After you,” John said as he unbuttoned his holster and drew his gun.
Chapter Six
Whit and Tom searched the corridors and rooms on the west side of the building.
Whit asked,” Why is there so much medical equipment left behind. Didn’t it have a use somewhere?”
“Of course, but who wants something from crazy town,” Tom answered.
“It’s just such a waste. How many wheelchairs have you run into tonight?”
Tom mentally counted his bruises from shin to hip. “Ten.”
“Seems to me at the time when this facility went bottoms up, that those ten wheelchairs could have come in handy somewhere else,” Whit complained.
“I don’t have an answer for you.” Tom looked around the last room. “This area seems clear. How about it Murphy?” Tom asked.
They heard a scratching sound of metal on wood.
“Murphy says we’re clear. Let’s head back and check the other side before heading down into the bowels of the place,” Whit suggested.
“Gee, you make it sound so inviting.”
“Come on, loose asbestos, lead paint flecks everywhere, an industrial cesspit of diseases. What’s not to love?”
Tom looked at Whit and shook his head. Whit did a quick scan of the corridor before they retraced their steps. Nothing. “Come on, Murphy, times a wastin.”
Murphy dragged his axe a few feet and then joined the boys.
“Sounds surly,” Tom observed.
“He thinks he drew the short straw to end up with us,” Whit explained.
“I think we all wanted to be matched up with the beautiful Mia, but alas our boss had other ideas.”
“He’s way too old for her,” Whit said half in jest.
Tom started laughing. They passed by the staircase and headed into new territory. Tom called into Ted. “Tom and Whit heading east.”
“Gotcha,” Ted answered quickly.
Mia and John moved slowly through the second floor. A series of doors impeded their progress. John examined each door, making sure that they wouldn’t lock behind them. Every room was checked. Special attention was taken to the floors to see if any footprints showed up in the dust. Mia moved the thermal imager, and after a few false starts when she caught their reflection on a glass door and shiny tiled walls, she had little to report.
A shadow crossed at the end of the hall. Mia lightly touched John’s arm. She signaled the position with her hand and thought it with her mind. John watched, and sure enough, something small was making its way towards them. It wove back and forth. Mia picked up its heat signature. It was some kind of mammal, a rat maybe?
They stood still and watched as out of the gloom a small dog walked up to John. John warily stooped down and picked the dog up with one hand. “It’s a Yorkie. Awfully thin. It’s coat is matted and it has a ribbon around its neck. Can’t tell the color in this light.”
“Poor thing must have been lost, but considering his size how did he… she…”
John looked under the dog. “She,” he confirmed.
“How did she get up here?” Mia lightly tapped her ear. “Ted, are you reading me?”
“Yes, Princess Leia,” he answered her.
“We have a Yorkie dog. Looks starved and needs water. Could you meet me at the door, or send one of the deputies to come and get her? Make sure they have gloves on. Lord only knows if it’s a biter.”
“Hold on.”
They continued down the hall, Mia opening doors and John backing her up with a dog in one hand and a gun in the other. Mia mused aloud which one he would shoot with if startled.
“Very funny, Cooper,�
� John said over his shoulder. “I would toss the dog in the air, fire a round and catch her before she hit the ground. I’m that good.”
She laughed at his exaggeration.
“Mia, Deputy Alar will meet you at the first floor landing.”
“Thank you, Ted. We will be there in…” She looked at John.
He grunted, “Ten.”
“Ted, we will pass through there in ten minutes. Don’t have him there too soon. It’s a dangerous place to wait.”
“Copy that.”
Mia and John examined the last few rooms, paying close attention to the room the dog had exited from. They didn’t find anything. Not even scat. Just dust, bed frames, broken toilets, and sinks. They turned around and headed for the stairway.
Butch stopped at the base of the staircase and looked up. His tumble down the cliff side was starting to take its toll. He took a deep breath and started climbing. He heard his mother’s voice in his mind and hung on to the railing. He brought along a canvas bag emblazoned with the PEEPs logo on it. Ted had also insisted the man put on a head lamp. Butch felt like a fool. Bad enough that he fell down the cliff, but if the other deputies heard about him walking around with a purse and a head lamp on, well he’d never live it down.
He finished the first flight and took a minute to catch his breath. It was so cold in the stairwell. He could see his breath. Butch squared his shoulders and started up the remaining flight to the second floor.
John and Mia passed through the last set of doors. They had a hundred feet of corridor left to travel, when they heard the growl. Mia whipped around, and the thermal imager picked up a low, thick heat signature stalking them. It was too dark to see it.
“John, something is behind us. I suggest we move very quickly to avoid tangling with an animal in the close quarters of this hall. Toss me the dog.”
John did exactly that. He lobbed the Yorkie to Mia. She stuffed it in her pack, turned and began to run. She touched her earpiece. “Ted, we have a problem. I think it’s, oh fuck. It’s a dog, a large dog.”
John, who was behind Mia, ran, picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder in one movement, running like hell, the dog giving chase. Through gasps he said, “Pit bull.”
“Copy that. Butch, we have a pit bull chasing Mia and John.”
John managed to get ahead of the dog several yards as the canine lost traction on some loose floor covering. He saw a light up ahead and ran towards it with all his might.
Mia, bouncing over his shoulder, watched as the dog closed the distance and began barking. The noise bounced off the walls, and Mia felt the tiny dog in her pack shake in fear.
Butch inched his way up the last of the stairs. Ted had alerted him to the situation. His mother’s voice told him to not pet the stray dogs.
John saw the staircase and whipped around the corner, heading up as the dog jumped at his back and Mia’s head.
Mia watched as something black caught the dog in midair. She blinked as she was sure she saw little florescent chickens as the dog fell to the floor.
Butch held on and twisted the tote bag’s handles around the thick neck of the stunned dog. He hadn’t spent his time sleeping when he worked animal control. He knew how to catch a dog.
John put Mia down and leaned on the wall panting. “What the hell just happened?” he asked between gasps of air.
Mia sunk to her knees and watched in awe as Butch calmed the monster that almost bit her face off. In the dim light of the stairwell, she noticed something about the dogs and pointed it out to the sheriff.
“Ted, send June up with some rope or wire. I need to make a leash, over,” Butch ordered.
“Done and done, Superdude,” Ted answered.
“Nice work, deputy,” John said evenly. “Nice work.”
“Thank you, Sheriff, glad to be of help.”
The dog growled and shook its head, trying to get loose of the bag.
“It that a PEEPs bag?” Mia asked.
“Dunno. Ted gave it to me.”
“I didn’t know we had them, cool beans.”
They heard footsteps ascending the steps. June appeared carrying a length of cord. She handed it to Butch who quickly fashioned a choke collar and leash. Mia handed June the Yorkie and watched as she baby talked to the dog. She swore she saw the dog smile at the deputy.
Mia and John watched the deputies descend the staircase leading the blinded dog and carrying the other in silence.
“Heads up,” Ted’s voice came over both coms. “The PEEPs team has arrived.”
“Once they get settled and you get your generators set up, give us a call,” John requested. “In the meantime, we will continue to check the east side of the second floor.”
Mia knew the sheriff was pushing himself. They had two indications now that it was quite possible the girls were brought into the hospital. The first was the little Yorkie. How did it manage those stairs? The second was the pit bull that was wearing a red ribbon, twin to the Yorkie’s, around its neck.
~
Burt pulled the equipment van in beside the command vehicle making sure to leave access to the parked sheriff’s car. Mike leaned over and nudged Beth who had fallen asleep in the backseat. “Wake up, Beth, time to go to school.”
Beth jolted awake and looked around confused.
Mike laughed and got out of the car.
“Great, everyone’s a comedian,” Beth said to herself. She was tired, not physically, but brain tired. She had worked furiously on her laptop looking for information about St. Joseph’s. It was a mental hospital that had been used for seventy years before being closed as a more state of the art facility was built in the next county over. It dealt with people with minor breakdowns to the criminally insane. She found, during a keyword search, the self-published memoir of a former patient, Barbara Minos. She had “learned to live a normal life on medication” and was released. Beth purchased the e-book and scanned it, paying close attention to the hospital gossip. She also checked the place’s security record and found it interesting that they claimed to never have had a patient from the upper floor escape.
Burt and Mike carried the generators under the tented area. Ted had used his brain and created a dry zone by elevating a platform built with the odds and ends he and the Harbin deputies had scavenged from the first floor of the hospital. The rain continued, and even though the calendar said they had an hour of daylight left, it was dark.
The PEEPs team always wanted to do an investigation in a mental asylum, and the fact that tonight was the 30th of October, Devil’s Night, was not lost on them. The team had been successful in selling their first six adventures to a cable station and received some notoriety. It was enough to get them a thirteen show contract and some heavyweight sponsors. With sponsors came money, money to buy and develop equipment. Ted had been doing exactly that when the kidnapping occurred.
Mike thought it was excellent publicity for the PEEPs team to be involved, as long as there was a positive outcome. Beth said it was their duty as Americans to help find these girls. Burt could see both sides.
Ted filled them in on the present situation. He introduced them to deputies Alar and Monroe. The Harbin deputies were busy trying to secure a vicious pit bull while still being humane. Ted mentioned that Mia thought the stolen dogs were a gift to someone. She didn’t know if they were for someone living or dead. She suggested that someone check if these dogs were reported missing. Ted looked at Beth and she nodded. He handed her a flash drive with the dogs’ pictures he had taken on them.
~
Whit and Tom reached the last room on the east wing of the first floor. They had reached the administrative offices. Large battleship-gray filing cabinets, sporting rust spots where the coated metal had been dented, filled the inside wall. The windows had no glass in them, just security wire fencing that kept the room secure from the fauna of the area. The flora had moved in. Moss and ferns crept along the outside wall, and mushrooms grew in areas where dirt had accumulated. Whi
t pulled a dirt-encrusted paper blotter, bearing the date 1983, off the warped wooden desk. He pulled back as he read the words scratched deeply into the wood. “She lives still!”
“That’s creepy,” Tom commented over his shoulder. “Better call it in.” He touched his radio. “Ted, over.”
“Ted here.”
“Something strange in the southeast admin office, over.”
“Go ahead.”
Tom reported the find. Ted noted the information before requesting that the deputies work their way back to the center to meet up with their sheriff and the PEEPs team.
“We have about five more minutes here, and we’ll head back. ETA ten minutes.”
“Bring Murphy along. He must be tuckered out by now.”
“Actually, I think he’s bored. Not much going on presently,” Tom pointed out. “Not that we’re complaining.”
Tom heard Ted laugh. “Good attitude, dude.”
Whit took his cell phone and asked Tom to shine his light on the desk. Between the flash and Tom’s light he was able to illuminate the desk enough to show up in the photo. This gave Whit an idea. He took the paintings and plaques off the wall. Sure enough, the same phrase was penned into the wall under two of the three spaces. He shot pictures of the walls before asking no one in particular, “Who the hell is she?”
~
John’s and Mia’s nerves were at an end. Every scratching sound had them primed to run. They continued to search the east wing of the second floor.
“John,” Mia started, “I’m sure that there have to be additional stairways on either side of this building, fire regs and health and safety?”
“Perhaps, although we haven’t found any. Maybe this was one of the reasons the building was no longer used,” he offered. “Maybe OSHA shut it down.”
“There has to be an elevator. Wheelchairs and gurneys…”
“We may have passed them in the dark,” he admitted.