especially if Lona was injured like the report had said she had been, he knew that they would likely need more supplies or a body.... No, he wouldn't think they might need one of those. If anyone had been seriously harmed... He knew he should have done something about the problem with the earthquakes long before now instead of just trying to cover them up. Why hadn't he taken things more seriously? If anyone had been hurt or killed he would never forgive himself!
"Have you heard anything from in there?" Sally asked as she moved over to Bobby's side. She was slightly surprised that he son was actually still hard at work. That was probably a first for him.
"Nothing, Mama, and I don't want you to go wandering off anywhere"
Bobby told her firmly. "Stegman's around here somewhere and I don't want
him anywhere near you!" If Stegman got his hands on his mama, Bobby didn't
even want to think about what the seriously deranged doctor might do to
her.
Sally nodded her head in agreement. Although, of course, she hated
to pass up any chance to find out more about little, lost Mary, she knew
that Bobby was only concerned for her safety. Although he could be a bit
much at times with his laziness and his lack of faith in the supernatural,
Sally adored him and wouldn't do anything to alarm him if it was
unnecessary. She drifted across the area where people were working to
join Abel and Christa in passing out food again. If they would only get
some sort of good news soon. She started to silently pray as she passed
out the drinks. 'Mary, wherever you are, child, please protect them in
there now.'
'Well, at least they're making a small attempt at a rescue'
Antubis said as he and Blondi watched the firefighters and staff working to
move the debris out of the way.
'They got Bobby Druse to actually do some work.' the dog said with
a shake of his head. 'Now there's something that you don't see everyday.
What's next, Johnny actually doing his job for a change?'
'Somehow, I doubt that. He's the janitor, after all. His job involves cleaning this up. I wouldn't count on seeing him here for at least a week.' Antubis said, motioning for his friend to follow him as the two animals slipped silently and unnoticed along the wall and then walked through the debris pile and into the blocked section of the hospital.
'I wonder if they were able to do anything for Dr. Massingale'
Blondi asked as the two headed down the hallway looking for any sign of the
trapped doctors.
'I don't know if there was anything that could be done, at least not down here.' Okay, ever since the events of over two hundred years before, the anteater had tried to distance himself from the humans, to not let himself care about what he knew their eventual fate would be. His time with Mary had changed that decision more than a bit, though, especially in these last few weeks with the situation with Peter. There was a human that he definitely liked.
'Do you think they'll have nice food for her funeral if she dies'
Blondi said. 'I hope they don't have the hospital cafeteria cater'
Better to think about food than the seriousness of the current situation.
If Lona did die, what were they going to do? They knew that it was
Stegman's fault but how could they make the humans see that he was a
murderer? They couldn't just let him get away with it. And then there was
how Elmer would take it if Lona died. That nutty human would go even
nuttier if such a thing was possible.
Suddenly, Antubis stopped for a moment. 'This way. I thought I heard some of them.' Had the humans separated for some reason? He hoped not. It was so much easier to supervise them if you could herd them into one place.
A moment later, the two animals peered around the corner as Hook and Chris came into view. 'Well, at least those two seem okay.' Antubis muttered. 'Come on, let's check and see if the others are still down in the morgue.' He was definitely more than a little concerned about Lona and her injuries.
"Hook, did you just see something down there?" Chris asked as she reached out and grabbed his arm with one hand, pointing in the direction in which Blondi and Antubis had vanished with the other.
"It looked like Otto's dog." Hook said after a moment. But how would Blondi.... "Come on. We need to get to the collapse site. If that was Blondi, then maybe there's a way out!"
A few minutes later, the two were inspecting the pile of debris.
"I don't see anything." Chris said with a shake of her head. Blondi
wasn't exactly a small dog. Surely they would see a space large enough for
him to squeeze though.
"Keep looking." They had to get out of here and the sooner the better. Lona and Louis both needed attention. "Hey, is anyone out there?!" Hook called.
Jesse stopped tugging at the pile of debris as he thought he heard a noise. "Wait a minute." he called to the others. "I think I heard something!" He moved closer to the debris, straining his ears for any noise. "Hook?" Let it the other doctor, just let it be the other doctor saying that everything was fine and they just needed to be dug out.
Hook shook his head when he recognized the voice, Dr. James. Would
he actually be any help to them or.... Not like they had any choice,
though. "Dr. James?" he called in reply.
"Here." one of the firefighters said as he hurried over. "Let's see if we can get a microphone in there." At least it looked like one of them was alive anyway, a definite good thing.
"Dr. Hook?" Jesse called once more. "They're going to try to get a microphone in there to you. Is everyone alright?"
Chris and Hook both sighed when they saw the microphone appear through a crack in the debris a few minutes later. "Dr. James?" he called as he picked it up.
Yes. Jesse sighed himself. Hook sounded perfectly fine anyway.
"Dr. Hook, we're working on getting you out as fast as we can. Is everyone
alright in there?"
"Chris and I are fine and Elmer's pretty much okay." Hook said after a moment's thought. "Louis and Lona are both hurt, though."
"How bad?" Jesse felt a cold chill run over him at Hook's words about injuries. If anyone was seriously hurt....
"Louis took a hit to the head when one of the lights in the morgue fell on him. He's having vision problems. I need you to contact radiology, get them to get set up for a MRI as soon as we can get out of here and get an ophthalmologist consult in here." At least if Jesse ordered it, they wouldn't have to listen to Stegman's complaints about unauthorized scans, a small blessing, anyway. "Part of the sleep lab ceiling fell in on Lona. She's got a collapsed lung that Elmer managed to fix for the moment and there was damage to the spleen."
That definitely didn't sound good. "How bad is it?" Jesse called,
motioning for Liz, the closest nurse, to join him and jot down what Hook
needed.
"We have the bleeding stopped and she's stable for the moment but
she needs to be upstairs for further treatment. We need a chest tube setup
and at least a couple of units of O negative blood ready to go as soon as
you can get this out of the way. Tell radiology I'm going to need an
abdominal ultrasound STAT and someone needs to pull Lona's records, see
what antibiotics she can have. She's definitely going to need something.
We had to do the surgery in the morgue and it isn't exactly set up for live
people down there. Make sure they have an open OR or someone that can be
bumped if we have to, too."
"We'll take care of it." Jesse said as he motioned for Liz to go and get the ball rolling on contacting the needed departments and gathering supplies. "Just hold on, alright? We'll have everyone out as soon as possible."