Chapter 7 The Climb to Freedom

Chapter 7

The Climb to Freedom

(Rough Draft)

Nancy watched with growing annoyance as Star failed, again, to work the mechanism which released the hatch. If it wasn’t for the tiny little crawlspace they had she’d have gone around and done it herself. But that wasn’t an option unless she wanted to fall into whatever room lay below her.

Star paused, whimpered, and then tried again to work the latch. It was meant to be worked from the other side, but from this side there were supposed to be a release. There had to be a release. I mean it was a safety thing since they wouldn’t want people trapped up here. The ladder did cross her mind, knowing that they wouldn’t technically be stuck up here, but there should have been another exit.

“Nancy,” Star whispered. “I can’t find a way to get it to move. Does it need to be oiled or something?”

Nancy thought about that for a moment. The humidity in the air during the summer could have caused things to rust. Would this have been on the normal maintenance routine? Perhaps it was one of the low end tasks after wax the floors and had been missed.

“I think it should be fine,” Nancy said. To be honest she didn’t know for certain. She was operating on instinct here. There was very little light coming into the crawlspace, most of it from vents which had been placed in the hallways. While she could make out that Star’s hands were shaking, she couldn’t see the finer working points of the lock.

“It’s not fine,” Star said. Nancy could hear frustration coloring the words.

“You have to do something Star,” Nancy said. Now she could hear frustration in her own words. “You’re in the lead, so be a leader.”

Star’s whole body began to shake at this point. From behind her Nancy could make out the sounds of her breath coming in fits and starts. Her entire train of thought derailed, the annoyance now gone, leaving her with a feeling of uncertainty of how to proceed.

There were things that Nancy didn’t like to admit, such as the joy she had began to take when dispatching another blood sucker on her ward. The moments of the fight, the intense focus, the sheer rush of adrenaline, it all made her feel alive. Each time she came out of it victorious, each time she knew that she would live to fight another day, brought her an overwhelming sense of joy. Sure there was the adrenaline crash after, followed by the slew of "what if" questions that would begin shortly there after, but you had to live life for the highs and the lows. Right now though she didn’t want to admit that she never had any clue what to do when someone started crying.

She knew that there were tears of joy, tears of pain, tears of insanity, and tears of frustration. Yet she had never got the hang of comforting a grieving patient, or their family. That had been one of the worst parts of her first few years. She’d check on a patient on the brink of death. They often were surrounded by family. Each of the people in the room had begun to grieve in their own way, but they would face her in a stone wall of silence. They were united in their purpose, while she had felt like a person who had brought beer to a wine tasting.

“Star,” Nancy said. She froze then, she knew that if she said the wrong thing it could make matters worse instead of better. “I’m sorry I snapped.”

No response came from Star, her body still shook, her breath still came in short gasps. Nancy mind brought up the memory of telling a man his father had lived a good life. She had been trying to comfort the man after seeing the heart monitor flat line. She hadn’t expected the response.

“He’s finally dead,” the man had said. “I’ve been waiting for him to die for years, that man was a devil.” She shuddered at the look on the man’s face. He looked relieved, his eyes were tearing up, but he had a smile on his face as he stood and spit on the man.

“You can’t do this,” she had shouted. “This is a hospital, that’s desecrating a corpse.”

“You want to know what that man did to my daughter?” he asked. His eyes were lit with an inner fire. She’d never seen eyes which she could describe as burning before, but knew the look ever since.

“I found him after Thanksgiving, when she was down for a nap,” he shuddered. Instead of continuing he began to cry. “Therapy hasn’t been enough, she was only six at the time.”

He left the room before she had a chance to respond, her words were frozen in her mind. She wanted to chase after him, to tell him it was going to be okay. Wasn’t that what you were supposed to do? Was it going to be okay for him though? Was it going to be okay for his daughter, or maybe sister? The doctor came in and found her standing speechless in the room, staring at the body, and the spit as it rolled its way down the corpse’s cheek.

“It’s okay,” Star said. It broke Nancy out of her memory, and she quickly tried to fill the silence.

“I’m not used to having someone around who hasn’t dealt with traumatic circumstances before,” Nancy said. “On my ward, on my shift, we’re all veterans until they hire a replacement for Nurse Johnson. We work like a well oiled machine, and you and I don't have that yet.”

“No,” Star interrupted. “I work in the ER, I deal with trauma. I just had a thought that made me want both laugh and curl up in a ball to cry. It was a horrid thought and the loss of my team got to me.”

“What do you mean?” Nancy asked. She found herself curious as to what the thought was that had provoked the response. She hoped the question set off another round of tears. Again she found herself feeling like an outcast, unable to empathize with others.

“Well, it is kinda round about and I don’t really want to explain it,” Star said. “I realized that one of the nurses owed me lunch and I’d never collect on it. It made me laugh because I thought ‘That’s one way to get out of the bill,’ but I still miss her already.”

Nancy found herself chuckling at the thought. It was totally something that she would have thought about the someone on her ward. “It’s called ‘Gallows Humor’ Star, and it comes with the territory.”

Star looked back to her, a look of surprise on her face. “You mean that it’s not out of the ordinary?”

“Nope,” Nancy said. “After Nurse Johnson died I found myself regretting not getting her chocolate chip cookie recipe. She really made amazing cookies.”

Star began to laugh at this, followed by a sniff. Nancy was happy that Star was recovering, but they still needed to get out of the crawl space.

“So, any chance you can try again?” she asked.

“Once I stop laughing I can,” Star said. “The thought of you making cookies though…”

Nancy slapped her lightly on the calf and Star gave a yelp before kicking backwards at her. “I just can’t imagine you at home playing Betty Crocker. You don’t fit the part at all.”

“Then you’ve never tried my chocolate cherry-glazed bundt cake,” Nancy said. “That will make you think Betty Crocker should have taken lessons from me.”

Nancy heard Star begin to fidget with the mechanism again while she crossed her fingers. She wanted to be out of the crawl space, wanted to get up to her floor, and most of all wanted some revenge on the bastards who had invaded her hospital. A click sounded and her eyes snapped up to the panel on the wall.

“I think I got it,” Star said. Slowly she began to press the panel away from the wall. There was a moment before the emergency lights of the landing flooded the area. Nancy realized that she was holding her breath again as the panel opened. If one of the vamp’s from downstairs was climbing the stairs right now she knew Star would be killed before she could put up a fight. She felt guilty for not mentioning that possibility. Would it be better if she did though? Would Star go into possible death willingly? She didn’t think that she would.

“Is the coast clear?” Nancy asked.

“I think so, the stairs are quiet,” Star said. “Shouldn’t they be trying to evacuate?”

“The power has only been out for five minutes Star, maybe ten,” she said. “They won’t start evacuation until we get to thirty minutes, and then only the Intensive Care patients.”

“It seems like so much longer,” Star sighed.

She lowered panel and they both cringed as metal struck the wall below. Star froze and looked up and down the stairs. Nancy wanted to push her out and get to her own feet. There was something unsettling about being cornered in a familiar place, especially when freedom was so close, just a single stair case above her head. She knew that they would be under lock-down procedure, but at least she would have her trusty hammer, and co-workers that could support her in a fight.

Star stepped out into the stairway, and then motioned for Nancy to follow her. Nancy didn’t need any further prompting. It took her longer to climb to the opening than to climb out of it. She gained her feet and started to go up the staircase to the second floor.

“Nancy, do you think I might be able to sneak out down there?” Star asked. She pointed to the emergency exit that was at the bottom of the stairs.

“You know those doors have alarms right?” Nancy answered in reply. She headed up to the next landing and looked out the window. Outside the window there was a steady flicker of light being cast on the parking lot. The fire burned at least as high up as she was and glowed from the building that housed the emergency generator. Bricks were scattered around the grounds, some of them embedded in the windshield of nearby cars.

“Besides Star, I think you might have trouble driving with the brick embedded in your windshield,” Nancy said. She watched as Star took the steps two at a time until she reached the landing. After one glance out the window she was able to confirm what Nancy had said.

“Those bastards,” Star said. “I had to replace the windshield last month, it was brand new, not a chip on it.”

“Yeah, that’s probably the last of our worries though,” Nancy said. “If they knew where our generator was and how to kill the hospital’s power this isn’t some random group. They have a plan which means they aren’t alone.”

Nancy punched in her code on the door only to see the light blink red this time. She tried again and saw it glow red again. “Star, can you try your code?”

Star walked over and punched a few keys, the light shone green and the door latch clicked. “So they locked you out of your floor, but not the supply closets.”

“To be fair, who really goes in the supply closets to steal supplies,” Nancy said. “If I wanted to steal the expensive stuff I’d clean out my cart.”

Star nodded as she let Nancy pass. The door opened into the far side of the imaging wing. This hall had the same spotty light as the floor below had shown. At the end, as though in some kind of beacon an emergency light illuminated the door to her ward.

“Walk towards the light Nancy,” Star said in a raspy voice. She followed it with a laugh that didn’t sound entertained so much as nervous.

From the far end of the hall Nancy heard a laugh echoing, the laugh she’d become familiar with minutes before. She hoped that he was laughing because that was what the Warbling Laugh guy did. Perhaps if they ducked into one of the rooms here he wouldn’t notice that they were here. The door behind them slammed, causing both Nancy and Star to jump, the sound echoing down the hallway.

“Hello, is someone there?” called Warbling Laugh. His laugh grew in volume along with the slap of his shoes against the tile floor. “I’m coming to find you!”