Robin Cook - Shock

While Deborah unlatched the front cover, Joanna nervously glanced around. She was concerned about too much time passing. They needed a hiding place, and they needed it sooner rather than later.

As Deborah pushed the iron lung's door open, it squeaked but not as loudly as the sterilizer.

"Shine the light in," Deborah said.

"Deborah, we can't be fooling around here," Joanna complained.

"Shine the light in!" Deborah repeated.

The moment Joanna did as Deborah suggested, a distant fire door banged against a wall followed by the flickering of a flashlight beam out in the main corridor.

"Oh God!" Joanna voiced. She turned off the light.

"Well, this has got to do," Deborah said. "We're hiding in here." She grabbed a side chair from between the beds and shoved it under the front lip of the iron lung. She gripped Joanna's arm. "Quick! You first, and feet first!"

The play of flickering light increased in intensity through the open doorway to the main corridor.

"Quick!" Deborah repeated.

With some reluctance but feeling she had little choice, Joanna climbed up on the chair. Holding on to the upper edge of the cylinder's rim, she got one foot inside. With Deborah supporting her backside, she got the other one in as well. She then slid her body in.

Deborah grabbed the chair and returned it to where she'd found it.

"Where are you going?" Joanna demanded in a whisper when Deborah disappeared from her view.

Deborah didn't answer but reappeared almost instantly. "I've got to get in without the chair," she said. "It would be too much of a giveaway."

Using the strut between the iron lung's two front legs as the first step, Deborah rose up so her chest was above the iron lung's top. Finding a narrow toehold in the top of the leg where it was welded to the iron lung's body, she draped herself over the top. Then by swinging around, she was able to get her feet into the cylinder's opening. But then she ran into trouble. She couldn't fig-Tire out how to get the rest of her body in without falling to the: or, even if Joanna tried to hold onto her legs.

"This is not going to work," Deborah said. She twisted to the:e. and dropped back to the floor.

You've got to hurry," Joanna rasped in a whisper. The light in the hall was brighter still and was now accompanied by voices.

It was the two men coming all the way to the end of the corridor.

Deborah stuck as much of her upper body head first into the iron lung as she could. "Grab onto me, and pull," she told Joanna out of desperation.

With a little leap and Joanna's help, Deborah managed to get herself into the iron lung but not without scraping the front of her thighs and shins on the front lip of the metal cylinder. She had to claw herself into the depths. Because of the tightness of the space, the two women ended up on their sides pressed against each other head to toe.

"Try to close the door as much as you can,' Deborah whispered from the recesses of the ventilator.

Joanna reached out and grabbed the rubber collar and pulled. The door slowly began to close, but as soon as it squeaked, she stopped. It was none too soon. A flashlight beam came into the room and moved about. For a brief moment the beam came directly inside the iron lung through the three glass side ports on the side facing the door. Then the beam dropped and arced around the room beneath the beds, searching out the recesses.

Both women involuntarily held their breaths. One of the men quickly walked up and down the center of the ward, passing within ten feet of the half-open iron lung not once but twice. He was bent over and swinging the light from side to side beneath the beds to illuminate their undersides, particularly up under the heads and along the sides of the intervening tables.

"See anything?" the man suddenly shouted, causing both women to start.

From the ward across the hall the other man answered with a negative.

A moment later the man who'd come into the women's ward could be heard in the connecting room rapidly slamming open cabinets and cursing loudly. The flicker of his flashlight could still be seen by Deborah through one of the viewports until he moved beyond the procedure room and on into the next ward.

Almost in unison the women let the air out of their lungs and took in deep breaths. For Deborah it was hardly fresh.

"That was almost as close as the freight elevator," Joanna whispered.

"They must be sweeping the building as you suggested," Deborah said.

"Let's stay put for a while in case he comes back," Joanna said. "And we'd better start thinking about what we're going to do to get ourselves out of here."

Time dragged by, especially for Deborah, who began to feel claustrophobic wedged down in the base of the narrow cylinder designed for one person. For her the situation was hardly conducive to thought. The smell of the old bare mattress was ripe and the dust bothersome. On several occasions it took sheer will for her merely to avoid sneezing. Eventually she began to perspire and experience a progressive shortness of breath.

After almost a half hour Deborah couldn't take it any longer. "Have you heard anything or seen any lights?" she asked.

"The only light I've seen has been some flickering through the windows," Joanna said. "There's a light outside that wasn't there before."

"Nothing inside the building?"

"Not a thing," Joanna said.

"I've got to get out of here," Deborah admitted. "Push open the door and try to do it without making any noise."

Joanna pushed on the door. It swung almost fully open without making a sound.

"I'm coming out," Deborah said. "If I put my hand someplace you'd rather I didn't, I'll apologize in advance."

With a lot of wriggling and grunting Deborah managed to ease herself back out of the iron lung. Her eyes scanned the room, noticing that the ambient light had increased as Joanna had mentioned. Then she mopped her forehead with the back of her hand and ran her fingers through her damp, shoulder-length hair. She felt bedraggled and exhausted, yet she knew the night was still young, with more trials ahead. In her mind's eye she could picture the razor-wire-topped fence, and she knew that even if they managed to get out of the building, leaving the premises was not going to be easy.

"How about getting that chair?" Joanna said.

"Oh, sorry," Deborah said. She'd been distracted by her worries. She dragged the chair over to the mouth of the iron lung.

"Did you come up with any ideas about getting out of here?" Joanna asked as she extracted herself from the ventilator.

"I didn't," Deborah confessed. "Jammed in that tube the way I was, I couldn't think. What about you?"

"Something did occur to me," Joanna said. "The power plant could be the way to get out of this building."

"How so?" Deborah asked.

"If they're creating heat over there to heat this building, it's got to get here," Joanna said. "There's got to be a tunnel."

"You're right!" Deborah said.

"I noticed that the freight elevator control had six buttons,' Joanna said. "I hadn't given it any thought until I started thinking about a tunnel. This building must have a sub-basement. Maybe that should be our goal. The more I think about our trying to get to a phone in the Wingate Clinic the more risky I think it would be."

"But I haven't seen access to a sub-basement," Deborah said. "There wasn't any in the stairwell we used tonight when we got here, or the one I used this afternoon."

"Let's check out the freight elevator," Joanna said.

"We can't use that," Deborah said. "It's too noisy."

"I'm not talking about using the elevator itself," Joanna explained. "Usually they have a ladder in elevator shafts. I don't know why, I guess for maintenance."

"Where did you learn this?" Deborah questioned. She was impressed.