by Edward Lee
Harley Mack chewed the inside of his lip. “Fuck, we gotta at least take a quick look. Don’t seem right coming all this way just to bust into one room.”
Cinny didn’t like it. “But we already got what we came for.”
“Maybe there’s more. Maybe there’s a safe, or a petty cash box. Come on.”
Damn!
Turning the knob latch was all it took to unlock the door. Now they were standing in a long lit hallway, and suddenly they were both looking at the same thing.
The door at the end of the hall.
“That looks different from the other doors,” Cinny observed.
“That’s ’cos it’s a security door. It’s got a keypad on the lock.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means I can’t pick it, and it means the door’s probably wired.” Harley Mack’s eyes narrowed. “But that ain’t all it means.”
“What?”
“It means the people who run this place got something behind that door that’s more valuable to ’em than that fuckin’ shitload of smack we just bagged. Ain’t no way in hell we’re leavin’ here without takin’ a look-see.”
“You just said it’s wired,” Cinny whined. “It’ll set off an alarm!”
“Yeah, it sure would, if we busted the door down. But not if we go around it.”
Then Cinny knew.
They were back down the hole and into the hot darkness again. Cinny realized it would be a really bad idea to complain—it would spoil Harley Mack’s good mood. Back on her belly and crawling through smelly dirt and dust, she followed her man’s scuffling, dragging the bags with her. Ten minutes later, Harley Mack and his jack had cranked open another hole in the floor, and they were crawling up.
“Exam room. Big deal.”
Now they stood in a typical examination room as one would find at a doctor’s office. When Harley Mack opened a door, he found a similar room behind it. Cinny opened a second door—
“Here’s a hallway.”
“Let’s make this quick. Just look for drugs or safes; meet me back here in five minutes. You go that way, I’ll go this way.”
Cinny’s swollen lips parted to object—
“Don’t start,” he warned. He touched her lips with a pointing finger. “I’ll make ’em fatter if ya start whinin’.”
No way Cinny wanted that again. Her lips already looked like a pair of bratwursts pressed together, and they hurt like the dickens.
Just do what he says…
So far all of the doors were unlocked, and there was nothing of interest behind them. Another exam room, a records room, a room with a bunch of computers. Toward what must’ve been a far rear corner of the building, though, she opened a door and found a room that contained nothing but a round hole in the floor, like a manhole. We went to all the trouble of breaking the floor with a jack when we could’ve used this? But when she looked down she saw that that wasn’t the case. A metal ladder descended down at least ten feet, well past the ground level below the clinic. Looks like a big pipe, she deduced, squinting harder. It looked like the ladder dropped down into a sewer pipe that was at least five feet in diameter.
All right. So what?
She just wanted to get the search done and get out.
“Shit, there ain’t nothin’ here,” she muttered. A few more doors revealed offices, a conference room, a lab, a janitorial closet. Nothing of interest.
Cinny frowned when she opened the last door in the hall. Yet another examination room. Larger than the others, though, and against one wall were four separate exam areas that were curtained off. Metal cabinets mounted over a counter showed a variety of drugs through their glass panes but the cabinets were locked.
Should I break ’em? she asked herself. Naw, I better go get Harley Mack, see what he wants. But then a better idea occurred to her.
They’d had great luck so far. Why jinx the luck by being greedy?
This is dumb. We already got plenty of junk. I just won’t tell Harley Mack about these cabinets. Damn it, I just wanna go home!
She was just about to leave when—
Her eyes widened. Did she hear something?
What was…that?
Maybe she hadn’t heard anything at all. It was probably just her imagination…
Then she heard it again, the softest sound, almost like a sigh.
Very slowly, her wide-open eyes turned toward the row of curtained sections.
No! I ain’t lookin’ behind them curtains!
The sigh slithered out again, and as she concentrated, she thought she heard something else even softer: the faintest humming like a distant machine.
If there really was someone here, she needed to find out and tell Harley Mack. There might be a patient behind those curtains.
Twitching with fear, Cinny walked to the first curtain, peeked in through the gap.
Nothing!
Then she pulled the curtain all the way back. It was an empty convalescent bed, and that’s all that was behind the second curtain too. Her heart slowed down a bit now, as her fear tapered off.
The third section was different. There was a long metal table with two grooves down the middle that reminded her of a rolling track of some kind, and at the head of the table was a wide hatch-like device with a round window in it.
A fuckin’ washer machine! she laughed at herself. A large one like the kind at laundromats. This must be where they washed the clinic’s gowns and linens. What a scaredy-cat I am! Cinny thought. Practically tinklin’ myself ’cos of a washer! And it must be the dryer over here behind the last curtain. That’s what the humming sound is.
Unafraid now, she pulled back the curtain and—
There was no “dryer” behind it.
The scream ripped out of her chest like a bomb-burst. Spittle flew off her lips and her eyes bugged out. What lay before her on the padded table was a quivering naked woman who had to have been nine months pregnant. Straps secured her to the table and her legs were raised and wish-boned from the gynecological stirrups that her ankles were belted to. Sweat glazed the woman’s skin so profusely that she looked drenched in oil. The huge gravid belly was churning.
Horror pushed Cinny back a full yard; she hit the grooved table behind her and fell sideways.
“Harley MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!” her lungs exploded, and when she turned back upward to regain her balance and run, she found her face looking directly into the washer’s circular window.
Harley Mack’s face looked right back at her from the other side.
He’s inside the washer!
None of this she could reckon, of course. The pregnant woman began to gibber at her, drooling. The humming was coming from the washer, and Cinny’s first impulse was to open it, pull Harley Mack out, but when she yanked on the handle nothing happened.
Harley Mack was locked inside.
Frantic, she looked in the window again, and that’s when she realized it wasn’t a washer machine.
It wasn’t revolving, and something bright and orange began to glow inside. Harley Mack’s face was pressed right against the glass, and so were his hands. He was staring out at her, screaming. Cinny could only look back in the horrific confusion.
Harley Mack’s face looked like it was cooking.
Each time his mouth opened to scream, smoke came out. He was flip-flopping in there now, more smoke sifting off his hair, steam pouring out of his ears, and then—
splat!
His eyes exploded against the glass, the humors boiling instantaneously.
Cinny’s screams pinwheeled behind her as she flew out of the atrocious room. Escape was the only impulse now, and though there wasn’t much space in her psyche for calculation, some baser part of her mind was able to recognize a few deductive points. Harley Mack hadn’t gotten into the hatch-thing by himself—someone had put him in it, and they’d obviously done so within the past few minutes.
So whoever had done it was probably still here.
She
raced down the hall, tore around the corner. She flattened herself against the wall, listening over the thud of her heart for the sound of footsteps following her, but she heard none.
She didn’t consciously remember how to get back to the room they’d entered through; instinct took her instead. Jesus and Moses were coming through in spades—the first door she threw open was it, the section of flooring torn up and open, as if waiting for her. Cinny jumped in, thudded to her knees—
I’m out!
But—
She looked out from the small block of light she was kneeling in. The cloying, hot darkness looked back from all sides. Without the flashlight, how would she find her way back to the screen they’d removed? Her heart was thrumming, her breathing close to the point of hyperventilation. It never occurred to her that she was wasting precious time.
Just go! Crawl in a straight line till you get to the outer wall, then just follow it around till you get to the screen—
It was the only option, but one she would never get the chance to take.
In the split-second before she would begin to crawl out she was screaming again, a high, hard shriek more like an animal being dragged down by a leopard’s jaws.
A hand had reached down and grabbed her hair, and was pulling her back up into the building.
(II)
The cottage was hot when Clare returned; she’d forgotten to leave the a/c on, but after a second’s thought she elected to leave it off and open the drapes and long sliding-glass doors instead. She kept all the lights off and stood for a while just looking out on the moonlit bay and feeling the breeze sift in through the screens. The sheer serenity relieved her.
An aimless glance to one side showed her a glimpse into the next cottage: Mrs. Grable’s. Not this again, she thought. In candlelight, Mrs. Grable was doing another sultry dance for her husband, moving vamp-like in the shadows and dim slices of light. Clare looked away.
Yes. This again, she thought, for when she turned her gaze away from the Grable’s cottage, it fell immediately on Joyce’s. Rick and Joyce were brazenly making love right out on the back balcony, Joyce’s sleek legs wrapped tight around Rick’s back. It was the contours of their bodies that betrayed them, the moon highlighting lines of glimmer from the sweat on their skin. Clare nearly winced as she dragged her gaze away. She didn’t want to watch this time.
Love was all around her tonight, but none for her.
She traipsed back into her living room, removing her top, shorts, and panties one at a time as she did so, then lay down on the long couch. By now her disgruntlement was no mystery to her at all; her crush on Dellin was so potent, and she knew now how useless it was to just keep ordering herself to get her mind off it. Ain’t gonna happen, she thought, curled up on the couch in a fetal position. The night out at the bar had been a lot of fun; it let her feel like she was part of something for a change—and she liked that—but now it was all over and she was alone again, in the dark.
She decided to sleep on the couch again, suddenly too depressed to even walk the short distance to the bedroom. Inadvertently, her eyes fell on the large blank tv screen just ahead over her, then lower, to the storage shelf on the television stand. She could see the shoebox there that contained the lewd videotapes. A three-pack, she remembered, but only two tapes in the pack. The inkling wouldn’t leave her: Where’s the third tape? What’s on it? Two tapes had been enough, though, the erotic revelations all too impressed in her memory. Yes, Grace Fletcher and her colleagues were a kinky bunch. It had been shocking just to see such things on a tv screen, but even more shocking to see her old friend Donna Kramer so eager in her participation. Donna had never seemed the promiscuous type, but… Who am I kidding? Clare thought, her eyes sliding closed. I’m probably just jealous and not admitting it. The girl nobody wants is always the first to call someone else a slut.
Next, just as inadvertently, she caught herself wondering if the lucent-green vibrator was still in the shoebox too. Great… Her inhibitions and deteriorating self-esteem clashed with her memory of the images from the tapes, and even with thoughts of Dellin now. She knew that the rising arousal was less genuine and more a reaction to her frustration. She didn’t dare masturbate; it would be too unreal, it would make her even more depressed afterward.
The soft breeze continued to eddy in off the bay. She knew she should lock the sliding doors and close the drapes, if only for security reasons. Then, a fleeting thought: A monster in the woods… She chuckled groggily. And to hell with closing the drapes. Sleeping nude on the couch right in front of the sliders would’ve been out of the question any other time, but: I doubt that even a pervert like Adam would be up at this hour, and if he is—I don’t care.
Sleep was what she needed. The happenstance depression would be gone tomorrow, and she could start afresh. Yes. Just a nice, long sleep.
What seemed moments later, her eyes shot open to blinding white light. Her heart was racing at the ceaseless, blood-curdling shriek, but as adrenalin and instinct urged her to lunge for her gun, the ruse of fitful sleep wore off. Jesus Christ! Nude, sweating and shuddering, she rolled off the couch, thudded to the floor. A nice, long sleep indeed. The night had passed in the cruelest haste; the wall clock read ten a.m.! That blinding white light proved to be the sun glaring from the porch, and the screaming?
It was just the phone, set a bit too loud for her liking.
It seemed to have been ringing so many times, she thought the caller would give up before she got to it.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Clare, this is Dellin. I’m really sorry to bother you.”
Dellin! But her mind felt bogged down, sluggish. And his tone didn’t sound right. “Is something wrong?”
“Well, I’m at the clinic right now.” A pause. “Did your alarm beeper go off last night by any chance?”
Now she felt even more fuddled. She snatched up the beeper at once, saw that no messages had been sent. “No, and it’s been with me the whole time. Dellin, what’s wrong?”
“I remembered what you’d mentioned last night at the bar, about the unnecessary second delivery from Hodder-Tech.”
“Right. Those element things. The delivery confirmation said they’d be arriving Monday,” Clare said, trying to shake out some cobwebs.
“I’d planned to call them today to cancel the order but it just now dawned on me that their offices are closed on weekends. So I came in to the clinic to send them a fax, but I can’t figure out how to get the damn fax machine to work. Would you mind—”
“Give me ten minutes and I’ll be there. It’s easy.” A sudden burst of enthusiasm rushed her; any excuse to see Dellin would make her day. But then she thought a second. “But, Dellin, why did you ask me if my beeper went off?”
“That’s the other thing,” he said with some uneasiness. “Something’s not right here. I think someone’s been in the building.”
— | — | —
Chapter Thirteen
(I)
“All exterior doors and windows are sensored to the alarm system,” she was explaining, showing Dellin the readouts on the monitor. “You ought to know, you’re the one who ordered the system. And the entry/exit-record in the computer shows ziltch for Saturday night. No authorized entrances, and no breaches. If anyone had broken in, not only would’ve the alarm been engaged, the location of the breach would’ve been flagged right here on the computer. But as you can see…”
“Nothing,” Dellin acknowledged, examining the screen. “But, damn. I’m sure someone was in the pharmacy vault.”
Clare shrugged. “The door’s lock is wired. If someone had gone in there, the key-code would tell us who it was and what time. And if someone had broken the lock, same thing. Time of the breach would’ve been recorded.”
“Hmm.”
“Let’s go look at the room itself,” she suggested. “Maybe it’ll occur to you what’s wrong.”
Dellin followed her, quiet, preoccupied. She suspected he felt a bit foolish, w
ith this “hunch” that something was wrong in the vault. After his strange phone call at the cottage, Clare had taken a fast shower, put on her uniform and gunbelt, and was at the clinic as quickly as possible. Looks like it’s all just a false alarm, she realized now. In her business, it was always prudent for security guards to be paranoid, but not the client. What the hell’s bugging him? she wondered.
“And you were right about this, too,” Dellin mentioned off-handedly. On their way down the hall, he stopped and opened the door marked IRMT. The room was empty, as Clare already knew. “I just don’t understand how all of this equipment could’ve vanished without me knowing about it.”
“I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation,” she tried to assure him. “One mystery at a time.”
Down the hall, Clare unlocked the door to the pharmacy vault, turned on the light. Nothing appeared amiss, and all of the pharmaceutical inventory appeared to be intact. “The room looks normal to me,” she said. “Just take your time, think. What is it about the room that doesn’t seem right to you?”
Dellin shook his head, frustrated. “I don’t know—you must think I’m an idiot. I’m not doing a very good job of putting it into words but—” He squinted around the small room. “The drugs are all here but…they don’t look right. It just seems that some of them aren’t in the right place.”
Clare took down a small box of pills marked MS-CONTIN. She opened the box, took off the cap, but was satisfied by the safety seal. “I’ll check every bottle, make sure the seals haven’t been broken.”
“No, that’s not necessary. And it would take hours.”
“It’s my job, Dellin. If you think someone’s been in here, I have to investigate every possibility. I’ll call in Joyce and Rick to help.”
He shook his head again. “No, it would be a waste of time. You’ve already established that no one came into the room.”
“All right.” But Clare didn’t know what to do beyond that, and she definitely didn’t want to suggest to her boss that he must be imagining things. “So you think that some of the boxes are in the wrong place? That someone’s moved them?”