Young and old, men and women, some in hospital gowns, others in street clothes, they stood two and three deep in places.
Until they saw me.
That’s when they surged forward.
It was a solid wall of spirit, and I knew what would happen if either Dan or I came in contact with it. The cold of a Winnetka winter night was nothing compared to the icy chill that happens when flesh and blood meets even one spirit. If our flesh and blood touched that many ghosts . . .
Well, I wasn’t exactly sure what would happen, but I did know that I, for one, was not willing to be the guinea pig who found out.
I stepped back, my body pressed to the frosty metal door.
“What is it?” Dan looked down what he thought was an empty tunnel, then back at me. “You’re pale and you’re breathing hard. It’s not—”
“Ghosts? You bet it is.” I had never confronted so many spirits at once, and though I was long past being surprised by their presence, it didn’t mean I wasn’t scared—especially when I realized the ghost nearest to me was the woman I’d seen in the cafeteria only a few days earlier. The one who’d been staring into her oatmeal.
“There are a lot of them.” The least I could do was share this information with Dan. Then maybe he’d understand why I grabbed onto his arm and held on so tight, I was pretty sure he’d have a bruise by morning. “They must be the spirits of the people who died in the hospital. The ones whose bodies were brought out this way.”
“And you really can see them?” Dan was as excited as a kid on the first day of summer vacation. Grinning, he glanced around, as if he thought that if he just looked hard enough, he could see the ghosts, too. “Does that mean . . . ?” He gave up on the ghost hunt and looked into my eyes, his voice clogged with emotion. “You weren’t lying when you told me . . . Maddy? You really have seen her? You’ve . . . you’ve talked to her?”
“Well, duh! I told you that, didn’t I? And Madeline’s the least of our problems right now.” The ghost of a man with sad eyes and gaunt features stepped toward me. I hung onto Dan and whispered, “I’m not sure they’re going to let us out of here.”
“Well, we can’t go back.”
I knew Dan was right. Even with the heavy metal door closed, we could hear the distant sounds of the commotion in the hospital and the constant blare of the alarm that signaled that one of the inmates—me—was missing.
“What are we going to do?” I asked Dan.
He slid me a look. “You’re the expert.”
Just for the record, I don’t like being responsible. Not for anything. But I did know he was right. Thanks to the Gift that kept on giving, I was the only one who could get us out of the trouble my Gift had gotten us into.
Oatmeal Lady reached out a hand for me, and the other ghosts took their cue from her. They closed in on us.
“Oh no!” I held up one hand to stop them. “You know who I am, right?”
A man in an Indiana Jones-type hat spoke up. “You can help us move to the Other Side.”
“I can. I will.” Even I knew this was a line of bullshit, but hey, talk about an impossible situation. No way I could ever investigate the deaths of all those ghosts. But no way I could stay in that tunnel, either. “But here’s the thing . . . I can’t start helping you until I get out of here. And I can’t get out of here if you don’t let us pass.” I bent my head, listening. A whole lot of people were running down the steps and into the basement.
“If I can’t get away from here, then I won’t be taking any more cases. Ever. And if I can’t do that—”
“You can’t help us.”
This comment came from Oatmeal Lady. I was grateful. I nodded.
“So what do you want us to do?” the man in the hat asked.
It really was pretty simple. I asked most of the ghosts to stand flat up against the wall so we could get by without touching them. The rest I had stand near the door. I didn’t think they could hold it closed, being incorporeal and all, but maybe—just maybe—the presence of that many spirits would somehow make the searchers feel uneasy and keep them from even trying to come through the door and into the tunnel.
I can’t say if my plan worked or if plain old dumb luck played some role.
I do know that the crowd of ghosts parted just like I asked them to, and Dan and I raced through that tunnel. Less than ten minutes later, we were standing on the icy shores of Lake Michigan.
15
Dan didn’t think it was safe for us to go back to Chicago that night, and I wasn’t about to argue. Almost an hour after we stepped out of that icy tunnel, we found ourselves in a no-tell motel somewhere north of Winnetka. Our room was right off the just-about-deserted parking lot and was furnished with a lumpy bed, a nightstand that hadn’t been dusted in a couple weeks, a dresser topped by a cracked mirror, and one chair. All of it looked as if it had been new long before I was born. The walls were pumpkin orange, a color that had never been one of my favorites. The carpet was lime green shag, and let’s face it, that is so yesterday. The bedspread? Gold and black paisley. I will not even comment on the splotchy stains that dotted it.
It was the most beautiful place I’d ever seen.
The results were predictable; I was so hopped up on adrenaline, I couldn’t keep still. I stripped off Dan’s parka, tossed it aside, and paced from one end of the room to the other. When he opened the bag of burgers we’d picked up at a McDonald’s near the freeway, I never bothered to consider calories or fat content. I tore into a Big Mac, snaffled it down in a dozen ravenous bites, and started in on the supersized fries.
“Here’s what I don’t get.” I hadn’t bothered with ketchup, and when Dan opened a little pouch of it, I darted forward and dipped my fries. “What’s he trying to prove? Doctor Gerard, I mean. I mean, you know who I mean, right? I don’t get what he’s up to. I mean, you do know what I mean, right? You know that I was right when I said he—”
“You told me the people who go into the study aren’t seen or heard from again.” Even though he hadn’t taken a bite, Dan set aside his fries. I grabbed a few of his and wolfed them down. “I didn’t believe you, Pepper.”
“But now you do, right? That’s a good thing. You—”
I am not by nature an emotional person. At least not when it comes to warm and fuzzy. Chalk it up to the drugs; I teared up. When I swallowed down another mouthful of fries, my throat ached.
“You believed me when I told you something fishy was going on at the clinic, didn’t you? You said you didn’t, but you really did. That’s why you came to rescue me.”
Instead of gloating like any self-respecting knight in shining armor should have, Dan looked away. “If I would have listened to you sooner, maybe . . .”
Just like he didn’t want to say it, I didn’t want to hear it. Suddenly, I wasn’t all that hungry anymore. I set down my container of fries and wiped salt from my hands. The adrenaline—all that had kept me going—vanished, and I suddenly felt as if I’d crawled through a ceiling, fought my way out of a creepy mental hospital, and dealt with an army of ghosts. I dropped down on the bed. “How did you figure it out?” I asked him.
Over by the window, Dan slipped out of his lightweight jacket and tossed it on a chair upholstered in a shade of orange that didn’t match the walls. “I thought about what you said, you know, about the missing people. But I’ve got to tell you, Pepper, as much as I like you . . . well, I just couldn’t believe it. Hilton Gerard . . .” He shook his head and his hair flopped in his eyes. He didn’t bother to push it away. “I’ve known Hilton for years. I’ve worked with him. He would never—”
“But he has.”
“So you said. And while you’ve always been a little . . . well, how should I say this? A little different . . .” Apparently satisfied that I wasn’t going to jump up and punch him in the nose, he went on. “But I knew you wouldn’t tell me those things about a man I respect if you didn’t think it was important. I spent a couple days deciding what to do. That’s w
hy it took me so long to find you. If only . . .” He dashed the thought away with a twitch of his shoulders.
“There was a fundraiser for the clinic the other night, so I knew Hilton would be wining and dining the city’s elite. While he was gone, I went to the clinic and looked through the files.”
This sounded encouraging. I sat up. “And you found out I was right, right?”
“I found out that the information in his research files isn’t complete.”
I guess this was supposed to be an aha moment. To me, it was more like huh?
Dan must have recognized this, because he explained. “No research scientist worth his weight in salt would be such a sloppy record keeper. That was my first clue that something was wrong. The second one came when I realized Hilton has done no follow-up with his subjects. It’s part of the research protocol. He should have done it. Maddy would have if she were still in charge. She did everything by the book.”
Pardon me for bristling, but since I was the one who’d just been held prisoner and drugged by a mad scientist . . .
And I was the one who’d helped in my own escape by clunking Burly Attendant Guy over the head. . .
And I was sitting there in that motel room with Dan . . .
Well, I didn’t think it was exactly fair for him to play the dead wife card.
I knew it wouldn’t do any good to point this out, so I didn’t bother. Instead, I reminded him, “Now you’ve seen the truth with your own eyes. The files aren’t complete like they should be, and I think that’s because there’s no one to follow up. He’s got jars of brains, Dan!” I yelped, and I could have gone right on yelping if I didn’t control myself. I took a deep breath.
“Once his experiments are done, Doctor Gerard doesn’t care about those poor people anymore. And he kept me prisoner. You saw that, too. He wanted to experiment on my brain. And you . . .” Something told me Dan wasn’t going to listen unless I made this as clear as clear can be. I got up and closed in on him and looked him in the eye. I didn’t want to play the dead wife card, either, but I couldn’t think of any other way to make Dan see the truth. “Doctor Gerard took advantage of you, Dan. He knows you want to communicate with Madeline and he knows you’re the only one brilliant enough to figure out how to do it. He figured if he funded your research—”
“I’d lead a whole bunch of people right to him and then he could experiment on them for his own purposes.” Dan’s shoulders drooped beneath the weight of his responsibility.
“Neither of us has the luxury of feeling sorry for ourselves. We’ve got to save everyone else. We’re going to call the cops, right?”
“Sure.” Dan said it, but he didn’t look convinced. “We will. I promise. It’s just that—”
“What?” I couldn’t believe I was hearing this from him. “You saw what’s going on there, Dan.” Just for emphasis, I pointed, though whether it was in the direction of the Gerard Hospital for the Insane and Mentally Feeble was anybody’s guess. “You know it’s not right. Locked rooms and bars on the windows and weird experiments.” The very thought made me queasy. I stuffed a few more fries in my mouth to keep my stomach from rebelling. “We’ve got to help those people. If you won’t go to the cops, I will. I—”
He grabbed my shoulders to stop me. His voice was calm, but his grip was steady. “I will. I promise. After I talk to Hilton.”
“But—”
“Nothing’s going to happen to anyone. Not tonight. For one thing, the staff has an escapee to worry about. They’re going to be too busy looking for you to do anything else.”
“But I have a list of their names and everything. The missing people, I mean. We could just—”
“I know how he thinks, Pepper. He sees you as his best chance ever. He’s not going to worry about the others. Not for a while, anyway. And I’m going to talk to him first thing in the morning. I’ll give him a chance to explain himself. I owe him that.”
“But why wait?” No way I could stand still. Not when I was so hyped, and so frustrated by Dan’s convoluted logic. I spun away. “We’ve got all the proof we need to go to the authorities. Oatmeal Lady was down there in the tunnel, Dan. I saw her. I had breakfast with her a couple days ago. Now . . .” I didn’t want to take the chance of clogging up again, so I wiped the image from my mind. “She’s a ghost. She’s dead. Believe me, she wasn’t dead the last time I saw her. That means something happened to her at that hospital, and that means somebody’s got to stop your buddy Hilton. Before it happens again to someone else.”
“You saw a ghost in an old tunnel. You think the cops are going to believe that?”
“Do you?”
Dan let out a sigh. “I want to. Really, Pepper, I do.”
“Then if the cops raid the place—”
“They’re going to find some very sick people who they’ll be thrilled to know are off the streets and in locked rooms where they can’t hurt themselves or anybody else.”
“And when I tell them what happened to me?”
“Hilton is going to paint you as just as crazy as the rest of them. I’ll bet he’s dummied up the records to prove it. And he’s got your brain scans. They are strange. There’s no denying that.”
Before I had a chance to defend my brain scans, Dan went right on. “Believe me, Pepper, my way is the best way. We’ll wait until morning. I’ll talk to Hilton and then—”
“And then?”
His shrug wasn’t exactly the reassurance I needed. “If he can’t provide a good explanation, then I’ll have no choice. I’ll go to the cops.”
It’s not the way I would have handled the situation, but it made sense. Sort of.
With all the pacing and spinning going on, I found myself near Dan’s fries again. I reached for a couple and chewed thoughtfully while I sorted things out. I guess it was all the chewing that made me start asking questions.
“How did you find me, anyway?”
“I knew you were scheduled to give your talk on the Resurrectionists at the conference and—”
I gulped. “Oh my gosh, I forgot all about it! Did I miss it? Is the conference over? Ella’s going to freak.”
A smile touched Dan’s lips. “She might understand when you tell her you were kidnapped.”
“She might.” I couldn’t help but smile back. Right before I shivered. “It’s kind of what Doctor Gerard must be doing,” I said, thinking out loud. “When his patients die, he studies their brains. Just like the Resurrectionists did. They dug up bodies to dissect them.” Suddenly, the ketchup didn’t look all that appealing anymore. I didn’t bother dipping the next handful of fries I ate. “Maybe he’s not even waiting for them to die,” I said, talking with my mouth full. “Maybe he’s—”
Dan held up a hand to stop my wild imaginings. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, OK? After I talk to Hilton tomorrow, I’ll know more.”
I realized Dan had dodged my original question. I chewed and stared at him. “And you were saying . . . about how you found me . . . ?”
He blushed like any humble hero would have. “After I went to the clinic and saw the files, I knew something wasn’t right. I wanted to talk to you about it, but you weren’t at your hotel. And you didn’t answer your phone. So I went back to the clinic and talked to a couple of the homeless guys outside. One of them said he saw a woman who matched your description leave the clinic a couple days earlier. I’ve gotta tell you, I breathed a sigh of relief when I heard that. If you were at the clinic and then left, I figured you were all right. But then he mentioned that you left, all right, but you left in a wheelchair. He said it looked like you were sleeping, and that he saw Hilton Gerard put you in a van and drive away.”
“Which explains how I got to Winnetka, but not how you knew to go there. Unless . . .”
My face must have betrayed what I was thinking, because Dan stopped in the middle of taking a slurp of a chocolate shake. “I didn’t know what was going on in that hospital. That’s the God’s honest truth, Pepper. I didn’t
even know the hospital was open. I was there once. With Maddy. I’d read so much about the place in my studies, I talked her into taking me there just so I could look around. It was years ago, and I swear, when we were there, I didn’t see any signs of life.” As if it would prove it, he held up one hand, Boy Scout-style.
“Anyway . . .” Dan rolled the milkshake cup between his palms. “After I talked to that homeless guy, I spent a few hours trying to figure out what might have happened. I thought maybe when you were at the clinic, there was an accident of some sort, that what that guy had seen was Hilton taking you to a hospital. I called every one in the area. I even checked with the police. I went to your hotel again. Then I thought about Winnetka.”
Night of the Loving Dead Page 19