Ken McClure - Trauma

Lafferty kept his eyes on the hands of the men in the doorway. Mace had gripped the bed frame; he was about to try to make the opening a little wider. Sotillo stepped forward to help him and Lafferty made his move. “Now!” he shouted, and he and Sarah heaved the glass waste tank over on to its side so that a tide of foul-smelling liquid swirled over the floor to engulf the feet of the men standing there. In doing so it completed the electrical circuit between the bed frame and the bare wire lying on the floor. Sotillo and Mace were electrocuted, adding a new, awful burning smell to the already foul atmosphere.

Only Murdoch Tyndall was left alive, and his face was a mask of fear. As Lafferty got up and started towards him, Tyndall picked up the metal spike that Mace had been using and flung it at him. Lafferty was too exhausted to move out of the way quickly enough and the shaft of the spike caught him on the forehead. Tyndall took to his heels as Lafferty fell to the floor. Sarah cried out in anguish and dropped to her knees to cradle Lafferty’s head in her arms. The wound didn’t seem too bad, but Lafferty was unconscious.

Sarah realised that she and Lafferty were alone. She could hear the lift taking Tyndall up to the Sigma lab and relaxed a little. “We did it,” she whispered as she looked down at Lafferty. She felt totally exhausted and let her head slump forward on to her chest. She closed her eyes for a moment, crooning softly to Lafferty that it was all over.

Suddenly, Sarah became aware of a fierce crackling sound. Her eyes jerked open. The short-circuited power pack had burst into flames and the fire was spreading rapidly.

Panic replaced exhaustion for Sarah and she struggled to her feet to start dragging Lafferty’s unconscious body towards the door. The fire had already spread to a coil of plastic tubing and noxious fumes were beginning to fill the air.

Sarah found great difficulty in moving Lafferty at all; he was so heavy. But she managed to clear a path through the debris round the door and drag him out of the room. She tried closing the door to contain the fire, but it had jammed against the bed-frame and the flames were starting to lick round it. She returned to Lafferty to start dragging his body down between the patient bays to the lift corridor.

Frustration and anger vied inside her as her strength began to fail with the effort required. Progress was now painfully slow and the fire had spread out of the room into the main ward. It was catching up on them. If only she had been able to close the door. It might have given her an extra few minutes. As it was, the flames had now reached the first patient bay. The plastic bubble was alight.

Sarah had to lean back fully on her heels to drag Lafferty along by the arms a foot at a time. The fumes were making her cough, interrupting her rhythm and heightening her fear. It seemed likely that the short-circuit Lafferty had caused had tripped out the ventilation system. As the smell of burning flesh reached her, she was filled with panic and given a final surge of adrenaline. She managed to make it to the swing doors, dragging Lafferty’s lifeless body and almost fell through them backwards. A final tug and Lafferty was through them too. She just had to get him to the lift and they would be safe. The fire was now half-way down the unit but there would be plenty of time to summon the lift and, if need be, the swing doors would afford them some protection from the fire. The air, however, was becoming increasingly foul.

Sarah checked Lafferty’s pulse and found it strong. “Wake up!” she urged. “We’re nearly there!” There was no response, so she pulled him slowly along to the lift and pressed the button. Sarah’s heart almost stopped as she saw that the little light above the button had failed to come on. She stared, unwilling to believe it. She pressed it repeatedly, but still nothing happened. It was not just a bulb failure. There was no sound from the lift machinery.

The truth dawned on Sarah like a knife in the ribs. Tyndall had turned off the power to the lift. There was no way out. What little strength Sarah had left in her legs drained from her and she slumped slowly to the floor beside Lafferty. Tears rolled down her cheeks for the first time. It had all been for nothing. They were both going to die. Lafferty groaned as if he was about to come round and Sarah shushed him. “Ssh,” she whispered through her tears. “Sleep on Ryan, sleep on.”

It was becoming increasingly difficult to breathe. The fire was using up all the available oxygen and the air was filled with toxic fumes. Her only comfort was the thought that they would both be unconscious or even dead before the flames reached them. Sarah closed her eyes and rested her head on the wall behind her. Lafferty’s head was in her lap.

She was on the point of losing consciousness herself when she heard the lift machinery start up. She opened her eyes and blinked, not sure if she was imagining it.

Lafferty groaned loudly and she said sharply, “Ssh!”

It wasn’t her imagination; the lift was coming down! She struggled to her knees and had half-turned round when the lift doors opened and Paddy Duncan stepped out. Two policemen were with him. “Sarah! What the hell?”

“Oh Paddy, thank God you’ve come. I’d given up hope. I thought we were going to die,” gasped Sarah. She tried to stand up but collapsed into Paddy Duncan’s outstretched arms.

One of the policemen got Lafferty into the lift while Paddy helped Sarah inside. The other policeman went to look through the swing doors at the fire. He held a handkerchief to his mouth. “What about the patients?” he yelled back to the others.

“They’re dead,” said Sarah weakly. “They’re all dead. Leave them be. Let’s get out of here.”

Fresh air had never tasted sweeter as Sarah and Lafferty lay on the ground outside waiting for the ambulance to arrive. The Fire Brigade were doing their best to contain the blaze, but it was a hopeless task. The very fact that the secret lift was the only access route to the sub-basement meant that they could not tackle the seat of the blaze. The ground floor was now alight and it was more a question of stopping the fire spreading to other buildings than attempting to save the Institute.

“How are you feeling?” asked Sarah.

“You saved my life,” said Lafferty, taking her hand.

“It was the least I could do,” replied Sarah, “after all you’d done for me... Maybe we’re good for each other?”

Lafferty turned to look at her in the light coming from the fire. “Maybe we are,” he agreed, squeezing her hand.

He turned away to look at the fire and started to think about what they would tell the authorities. Would anyone believe them?

Sotillo and his henchmen were dead. Cyril Tyndall was dead and all the evidence against Murdoch Tyndall was going up in flames in front of his eyes. Apart from that, there was the disturbing question of how easy it had been for Gelman Holland to obtain a government licence for the new vaccine. Sarah had pointed out that the government had put up half the money for the Head Trauma Unit. Gelman Holland had put up the rest. Could the partnership have had a deeper significance? Was it conceivable that the government actually knew that brain-dead patients were being used as human guinea pigs for faster vaccine development?

Suddenly he caught sight of Murdoch Tyndall out of the corner of his eye. Tyndall was at the far end of the building, talking to a group of policemen. They weren’t restraining him in any way. In fact, they seemed quite deferential, looking occasionally at the flames together as if sympathising with his loss. As Sarah and Lafferty watched, a distinguished looking man wearing a dark coat was allowed through the police barrier to join the group. Lafferty didn’t recognise him but Sarah did.