by Joe Stanley
iii
He felt both small and anxious, as so may others had, as he passed through the doors. Facing a small examination room, a long closet yawned open. Lined with shelves stacked with small boxes, it held the clothes, shoes, and other effects given up for a gown. The next room beyond was a wing of the cavernous ward.
To the interior, a glass nurse’s station gave watch over the room. A dispensary window was marked with its strange half-door. But the remainder of the room was open space, the walls lined with gurneys serving as beds. They crowded each other, once-gleaming steel now dull and speckled with rust. Moldy, discolored cloth allowed the stingy padding to poke through here and there. A happy mural had once been painted with bright colors above the beds and below the windows which were high above.
Fantastic figures had once danced and played on the wall. In the dark, embellished by mold, a dim and hellish nightmare looked out over where children used to sleep. But who could really sleep in a bed which came complete with strong leather cuffs? To have been in such a place must have made the whole world seem full of monsters.
The ward simply ran around the far wall and out of sight. The nurse had kept an eye on both sides of the building. At the far end of the ward, more double doors bounded its domain. Like the first, they showed signs of use in the dusty floor. When he was through them, he found no urge to look back.
Another staircase wound up and away. He had no doubt the upper floor would be arranged identically to the one he just passed. Up there, he imagined, were those whose symptoms might upset those down here, those who had not progressed so far… But these stairs also offered something else. These ran down to some basement. This was the way. He was sure of it, but not why.
The bottom floor was also reached by a steep, concrete stairway, running along the side of the building and down into the earth. Looking up, he saw the light of morning in the overcast sky. The room that waited inside chilled him with its familiarity. To one side of the glass doors was a cage, where paperwork was filled out. Across, a bench and chair held room for two, a patient (or prisoner) and a custodian (or officer). As intimidating as the experience was for grown men in the jail, it must have a quiet, hopeless hell for a child.
Large double doors, stood across from the entrance, padlocked, their glass windows blackened. To the right, a sturdy metal door confined those beyond. It the other direction, a similar door was missing and this was the only way to proceed. The punk had to have come this way.
He knew, in a sense, what to expect, but it shocked and saddened him all the same. To the inside were the walls of the room behind the double doors, lining the outside were tiny, padded cells. Glancing through the open doors as he passed, he shivered, and he was stunned to see just how many cells there were. Then he saw a dark shape on the floor of one of them.
This door was almost shut, with the form partially behind it. Giving the door a firm push, he had hoped to hear the boy cry out, but he was greeted only by a gruesome crack. There was indeed a body, but one long devoid of life. It was a homeless man, judging by the threadbare tatters of clothing. With a quick vow, he promised to return and see him buried properly.
The hall ran on around the corner. Halfway along, there were more double doors to the inside. He moved toward them noting that the chain had been removed, it lay upon the floor. But the lock caught his eye as well. He had never seen one twisted open in such a way. His hand rested on his pistol as he pushed his way inside.
What archaic medical horror had he found? It seemed like a cross between a surgery and a garage. Strange, obsolete machines stood like mechanical demons, overseeing a hell on earth. Gurneys, and their ever-ready straps, littered one half of the room, surrounding two operating tables. In the center of the room stood a large counter, strewn with rusting tools, sets of test tubes, and papers too crumbling to read. And the half of the room beyond it was worse still.
There were more tables and gurneys, but on shelves sat a disgusting collection. Large glass jars held “samples” suspended in some wicked fluid. There were organs, lungs, hearts, and several brains. All of these were tiny. He saw a malformed fetus next to a jar of eyes and was nearly ill. Retching, he backed away from the hideous sight and into a gurney where a body, not so tiny, rested under a sheet.
This was a woman, finely dressed and well-off. Like the man, she had been here for some length of time. But her place here was a mystery that he could not deny. He drew his pistol at a sound, as faint and distant as it was. It was a breathy sound, something like a yawn. Beyond the doors at the building’s far side, a utility closet promised an end to all. Still, but for the rags and splinters of wood and an old generator, it was empty.
He was tired and he was hungry. The punk had escaped, but there were two bodies, maybe more, that needed processing. It would make a hell of a story to tell the sergeant, he thought as he started back. But then he paused and turned to look again. There was a vent low on the wall and a single screw on the floor told him all he needed to know.
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