Robin Cook - Terminal

Janet shivered. “I don’t like this.”

“This place is huge,” Sean said. “Either the architects had a low opinion of the competence of the medical staff, or they planned for a national disaster.”

“Let’s get this over with,” Janet said, hugging herself. The cold air was damp and penetrating. The smell was like a musty wet basement that had been closed for years.

Sean yanked back a sheet. “Oh, hello,” he said. The bloodied face of a partially crushed construction worker stared up at him. He was still in his work clothes. Sean covered the man and went to the next.

Despite her revulsion, Janet did the same, going in the opposite direction.

“Too bad they’re not in alphabetical order,” Sean said. “There must be fifty bodies in here. This is one scene the Miami Chamber of Commerce wouldn’t want to get up north.”

“Sean!” Janet called, since they’d moved apart. “I think your humor is tasteless.”

They worked around opposite ends of one of the concrete piers.

“Come on, Helen,” Sean called in a childlike singsong. “Come out, come out wherever you are.”

“That’s especially crude,” Janet said.

Tom Widdicomb was filled with excited anticipation. Even his mother had decided to break her long silence to tell him how clever he’d been to follow Janet and her friend into Miami General. Tom was well acquainted with the morgue. For what he intended to do, he couldn’t have found a better place.

Approaching the insulated door, Tom pulled his gun from his pocket. Holding the pistol in his right hand, he pulled the thick door open and looked inside. Not seeing Janet or her friend, he stepped into the morgue and let the door ease closed. He couldn’t see the couple but he could hear them. He distinctly heard Janet tell the man in the white coat to shut up.

Tom grasped the brass knob of the heavy lock on the door and slowly turned it. Silently the bolt slid into the striker plate. When Tom had worked at Miami General, the lock had never been used. He doubted if a key existed. Locking it ensured that he would not be disturbed.

“You’re a smart man,” Alice whispered.

“Thank you, Mom,” Tom whispered back.

Holding the gun in both hands as he’d seen them do on TV, Tom moved forward, heading toward the nearest of the concrete piers. He could tell from Janet and her friend’s voices that they were just on the opposite side of it.

“Some of these people have been in here for a while,” Sean said. “It’s like they’ve been forgotten.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Janet said. “I don’t think Helen Cabot’s body is here. It would have been near the door. After all, she just died a few hours ago.”

Sean was about to agree when the lights went out. With no windows and the door heavily girdled with insulating weather stripping, it wasn’t just dark, it was absolutely black, like the vortex of a black hole.

The instant the lights went out there was an ear-piercing scream following by hysterical sobbing. At first Sean thought it was Janet, but having known where she was before the darkness enveloped him, he could tell that the crying was coming from behind the wall near the door to the hall.

So if it wasn’t Janet, Sean thought, who was it?

The agony was infectious. Even the sudden darkness wouldn’t have disturbed Sean ordinarily, but combined with the terrorized wailing, he found himself on the border of panic. What kept him from losing control was concern about Janet.

“I hate the dark,” the voice cried out suddenly amid weeping. “Someone help me!”

Sean didn’t know what to do. From the direction of the wailing came the sounds of frenzied commotion. Gurneys were bumping into each other, spilling their bodies onto the concrete floor.

“Help me!” the voice screamed.

Sean thought about calling out to try to calm the anguished individual, but he couldn’t decide if that was a good idea or not. Unable to decide, he stayed quiet.

After the sound of more gurneys clanking against each other, there was a low-pitched thump as if someone had hit up against the insulated door. That was followed by a mechanical click.

For a moment a small amount of light fingered its way around the concrete pier. Sean caught sight of Janet with her hands pressed against her mouth. She was only about twenty feet from him. Then the darkness descended again like a heavy blanket. This time it was accompanied by silence.

“Janet?” Sean called softly. “You okay?”

“Yes,” she answered. “What in God’s name was that?”

“Move toward me,” Sean said. “I’m coming toward you.”

“All right,” Janet said.

“This place is nuts,” Sean said, wanting to keep talking as they groped toward each other. “I thought Forbes was weird, but this place takes the prize hands down. Remind me not to match here for my internship.”

At last their groping hands met. Holding onto each other, they weaved their way through the gurneys in the direction of the door. Sean’s foot nudged a body on the floor. He warned Janet she’d have to step over it.

“I’ll have nightmares about this the rest of my life,” Janet said.

“This is worse than Stephen King,” Sean said.

Sean collided with the wall. Then, moving laterally, he felt the door. He pushed it open, and they both stumbled into the deserted corridor, blinking in the light.

Sean cupped Janet’s face in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Life is never boring with you,” Janet said. “But it wasn’t your fault. Besides, we made it. Let’s get out of here.”

Sean kissed the end of her nose. “My feelings exactly.”

Mild concern they would have trouble finding their way to the elevators proved unwarranted. In minutes the two were climbing into Sean’s 4 x 4 and heading out of the parking lot.

“What a relief,” Janet said. “Do you have any idea what happened in there?”

“I don’t,” Sean said. “It was so weird. It was like it was staged to scare us to death. Maybe there’s some troll living in the basement who does that to everyone.”

As they were about to exit the parking area, Sean put on the brake suddenly, enough to make Janet reach out to support herself against the dash.

“What now?” she asked.

Sean pointed. “Look what we have here. How convenient,” he said. “That brick building is the medical examiner’s office. I had no idea it was so close. It must be fate telling us that Helen’s body is over there. What do you say?”

“I’m not wild about the idea,” Janet admitted. “But as long as we’re here...”

“That’s the ticket,” Sean said.

Sean parked in visitor parking, and they entered the modern building. Inside they approached an information desk. A cordial black woman asked if she could be of assistance.

Sean told her that he was a medical student and Janet was a nurse. He asked to speak with one of the medical examiners.

“Which one?” the receptionist asked.

“How about the director?” Sean suggested.

“The chief is out of town,” the receptionist said. “How about the deputy chief?”

“Perfect,” Sean said.

After a short wait they were buzzed through an inner glass door and directed to a corner office. The deputy chief was Dr. John Stasin. He was about Sean’s height but of slight build. He seemed genuinely pleased that Sean and Janet had stopped by.

“Teaching is one of our major functions,” he said proudly. “We encourage the professional community to take an active interest in our work.”

“We’re interested in a specific patient,” Sean said. “Her name is Helen Cabot. She died this afternoon in the Miami General emergency room.”

“Name doesn’t ring a bell,” Dr. Stasin said. “Just a minute. Let me call downstairs.” He picked up the phone, mentioned Helen’s name, nodded, and said “yeah” a few times, then hung up. It all happened extremely rapidly. It was apparent that grass did not grow under Dr. Stasin’s feet.