The elevator door opened. Lauren walked in, thankful to have the elevator to herself. She didn’t think she could bring herself to engage in small talk today. She pressed ‘B’ and the elevator dropped down toward the basement, down to Midland Hospital’s morgue.
The basement was one area untouched by the renovations to the building over the years. The walls were still bare brick just as they’d been for over a hundred years. A maze of pipes ran in crisscross patterns overhead, attached to the ceiling with thick metal brackets drilled into the masonry. The floor was painted a no-skid industrial yellow in a poor attempt to brighten up the gloomy surroundings. The morgue was at the far end of the hallway that extended from the elevator. To get there, corpses were treated to a gurney ride past laundry rooms, supply cabinets and storage areas.
The end of the road for the bodies was a large stainless steel door, similar to an oversized subzero refrigerator, large enough to fit a gurney through. The door appeared surprisingly modern in the turn of the century basement, more a high-tech bank vault than a door. On the other side of the sub-zero doors, bodies found refrigerated temperatures and a choice of ten separate ‘beds’ for their temporary resting places. Morbid as it was, Lauren knew that the nurses and orderlies who had access to a key sometimes came down here on their breaks during the hot summer days. A strange place to eat a sandwich, but at least it was cool. The morgue was small but Midland had only run out of room once.
Stanley Mansfield had told her the story on her first day. There was a freak storm in early December back in 1986. A freezing rain coated everything with a full inch of ice, turning the Interstate into a demolition derby. A semi truck lost control and did the most damage, wiping out a whole row of cars pulled over to the side of the road to wait out the storm. After rescue workers sorted through the mess all ten beds in the morgue were spoken for. Somehow two terminal patients, a Mrs. Gunther and a Mrs. Brookside, both ready to get on with dying, found out about the predicament. The women were southern belles of the old breed and they proclaimed they would not die until a space was available for them. True to their words, they held on for a few more days. They died the same day they were told the morgue was ready for them. Stanley swore that he believed they would still be alive today if he had just kept telling them there was no room for them in the morgue.
Like many of Stanley’s stories, it was charming, but always with a disturbing undercurrent. Lauren brushed it aside. Most of the doctors she worked with developed gallows humor over time. It was just a way of coping with some of the horrible sights that came with the job. She had just never become comfortable with the jokes. She never laughed about death.
Lauren fished in her pocket and found her keys. The morgue was always kept locked since security into the basement was minimal. The days of bodysnatching were long gone, but the morgue was kept under lock and key because of an over eager reporter eleven years earlier. The reporter, a kid from the local paper, snuck in through the basement and photographed the bodies. He had thought it would make a great story about lack of hospital security. Instead the prank landed him in jail for a few weeks. Still, once the story got out there was a public outcry for better security which led to the space age doors in front of her. Lauren smiled. Another Stanley story with a twist.
There was a soft whoosh of air as she opened the stainless steel door. She stepped inside and closed the door behind her. She checked the log book to find which drawer contained Felicia Rodriguez’s body. With a grunt, she pulled open drawer three and slid it from the wall. Empty.
Lauren slid the drawer back in a rechecked the log book. She had read it correctly. Felicia was supposed to be in number three. Lauren sighed. Someone must have entered the wrong drawer. It happened sometimes, but it was sloppy.
She heaved on the handle for drawer number one. Empty. Drawer number two. Empty. Again and again, she tugged open the heavy drawers only to find them empty. By the time she got to number nine there was sweat pouring down her face and she was out of breath. She pulled hard at the handle and groaned on seeing that the drawer was empty. She laughed in spite of herself, wishing she’d started with drawer ten instead. “Murphy’s law,” she said to herself, pulling open the last drawer.
Empty.
Lauren went back to the log book. It clearly indicated the date and time when the body was brought down to the morgue. There was no indication that the body had been removed for any reason. There were strong protocols in place when bodies were moved, especially when the body posed a possible public safety threat. She and Stanley had discussed that on the phone. The body would need to be kept at Midland until results of the blood work were back from the CDC.
She threw the log book back in place and went to the door. She pulled on the handle. The door didn’t move. She tried again.
Nothing.
She was locked in.
She grabbed the handle and leaned her weight on top of it. She grunted with the effort. No matter how hard she pushed, the handle wouldn’t budge. Someone must have locked the door from the outside.
She stepped back from the door, tears welling up in her eyes. She was trapped. She felt her heart thumping in her chest. Her hands shook.
Then she noticed the sign on the side of the door. She rubbed her eyes to clear away the tears and started to laugh. God, she was tired. She needed to be careful that she didn’t make any mistakes that could hurt someone. She promised herself that she wouldn’t treat any patients today. Definitely not today. Not until she got some sleep. Not until got a hold of herself.
She reached over and pushed the large button marked, “Open Door.” The morgue door clicked and swung open.
Lauren sucked in a deep breath to calm her frayed nerves. There was too much going on. Jack’s hallucinations, Sarah’s bizarre writing, strangers stalking her house and now her patient’s body going AWOL. She was stretched too thin. Maybe Jack was right. Maybe she should have gone straight down to her friend’s house in Baltimore. She needed to get some perspective and a little time and distance would give her a chance to sort things out, come up with an explanation for what was happening to her family. But she felt a responsibility to Felicia too. She needed to understand what had happened to her.
As strange as the last few days had been at home, she expected to deal with emotional issues there. It was part of marriage and part of raising a family. She and Jack had brought their marriage back from the edge of the cliff they had found themselves on in California. All the resentment and alienation brought on by their jobs and fast lifestyle seemed now like a lifetime ago. Seeing Jack deal with the death of Melissa Gonzales and helping him cope with it had reminded her of how much she loved him. The result of that horrible experience was that they were a team again. The decision to move to Prescott City and work on rebuilding their lives proved it. She started to believe that they could handle anything life threw at them, just as long as they stayed together.
But the hospital was supposed to be different. Her work was her constant. The calm methodology of science was her refuge. Now, when she could really use the reassurance of normalcy, she faced another mystery. As tired as she was, she wasn’t about to give up. If anything, her lack of sleep had made her more emotional. Now she was beyond being curious. She was angry.