"Godzilla and The Smog Monster"
Chapter Nineteen
At around two in the morning, Craig Brice was awakened by a loud 'BANG' ing on his apartment door. He buried his head beneath his pillow and tried to put the annoying noise out of his sleep-deprived mind.
But the irritating pounding persisted.
So he tossed his pillow and covers, climbed stiffly out of his comfortable bed and staggered off, to put a stop to the disturbing racket.
The paramedic placed one of his half-open eyes up against the portal's peephole.
His partner was standing out in the building's lit hallway—in his uniform.
Brice unlocked the door and allowed him access. "What are you doing here, at this ungodly hour of the morning, dressed like that, Dave?"
"Sorry 'bout that," Bellingham replied. "But this was the only way I could reach you. Your phone seems to be out of order."
"I took it off the hook."
"Paul Seachrist and Brian Moschetti were in a building collapse a little while ag—"
"—They gonna be okay?"
"I guess they got pretty banged up. Headquarters wants us to fill in for the rest of their shift."
Craig stood there, staring incredulously at his early-morning visitor. "If this is supposed to be somebody's idea of a joke, I do not find it amusing."
"I'm serious!" Dave assured him. "I've got Squad 36 parked right outside…"
Jim Mason's rant, about how the Fire Department disrespects its paramedics, replayed in the overly fatigued fireman's brain. Speaking of his tired brain…Brice had half a' mind to just tell Headquarters to 'Shove it!', and crawl back into his cozy, warm, inviting bed.
Alas, the Captain's further comment, about paramedics being so highly dedicated, was also accurate.
Craig exhaled a resigned sigh and headed off to find a fresh uniform.
Three hours later…
A stolen van backed up to a loading dock at the 'Service Entrance' behind Rampart General Hospital.
Carl Iverson used the vehicle's rear view mirror to make a few minor adjustments to his phony wig and beard. Then he zipped the front of his stolen coveralls up and exited the van.
He pulled the vehicle's back doors open and then wheeled a large cart out onto the loading ramp. He pushed the cart across the deserted dock and then stood there, fumbling with a set of stolen keys. He tried several, before he finally got the 'Service Entrance' unlocked. The keys were shoved back into a pocket and he and his cart disappeared into the building.
One of the nurses, on duty at the Nurses' Station on the sixth floor, heard the elevator 'ping'. The woman glanced up from the patient chart she'd been studying, to watch who got off.
The doors slid open. A guy stepped out into the deserted corridor and pushed a cart into the ICU's Visitor's Lounge.
The nurse gave the back of his blue coveralls a disinterested glance and returned her attention to the medical chart.
It was just the 'Shaefer Vending' guy, as usual, coming to fill the coffee vending machine, as usual, and the coffee would probably be 'lousy'…as usual.
The woman glanced up again, as a couple of loud 'crashing' sounds suddenly came from the lounge. She set the chart down on the counter and hurried over to investigate.
Doris Mestnik stood in the room's open doorway with her eyes wide and her mouth agape.
The 'Shaefer Vending' cart and the vending machine were overturned and coffee was pouring out onto the carpeted floor of the lounge—in gushes!
"What the—?" she exclaimed and took a fateful step forward.
As the woman's head cleared the doorway, the not so usual 'Shaefer Vending' guy brought a heavy metal pitcher down upon it.
The nurse joined the coffee on the floor of the lounge.
Iverson raised the pitcher back over his head and calmly waited, pressed up against the wall beside the open doorway, for another unsuspecting victim to step into his trap.
The criminal's 'clanging' and 'crashing' trap claimed two more casualties.
Finally, five full minutes passed—and no other hospital personnel appeared at the Nurses' Station, and no one else showed their head into the room.
So Carl lowered the pitcher, stepped calmly over an unconscious nurse and back out into the deserted corridor.
RN Patricia Sandstrom was seated at a console, in a glassed-in cubicle behind the ICU's Nurses' Station, staring at a wall of closed-circuit television screens. She heard the doorknob 'cli-ick' and turned her head, for just an instant, to see who had opened the portal. "Thanks, anyway," she told the 'Shaefer Vending' guy with the pitcher in his hands, "but we have our own coffe-maker, here, at the Nurses' Sta—" The woman stopped speaking, as something smacked the top of her head—very hard. The TV screens—and everything else—went blank.
Iverson stared calmly up at the lit screens.
601 showed a child, peacefully sleeping.
603 depicted an elderly woman, also dozing.
604 showed…
Carl smiled and quickly left the cubicle. He didn't hear the phone 'ringing' and 'ringing' on the counter at the Nurses' Station.
But then, neither did anybody else.
At another Nurses' Station, five floors below…
"That's odd," Craig Brice muttered to his partner, and slowly lowered the phone from his ear. "No one's picking up…"
"They're probably too busy to answer it right now," Dave Bellingham informed his zombie-like companion. "C'mon! You can try again, once we get back to ou-our Station."
Craig ignored him. He quickly clicked the receiver down, waited for a dial tone and then rang the hospital switchboard back. "Yes. Room 600-A, please…" he requested and then stood there, impatiently drumming his fingers on the countertop. The paramedic's impatience quickly turned to panic. "Something's wrong!" he determined and shoved the phone at his startled partner. "Send hospital security up to the sixth floor and call the police!"
"Bri-ice—?" Bellingham began to protest, but gave up, as his panicking partner disappeared down the hall, in the direction of the elevators.
John Gage couldn't move. Smoke was pouring into the room he was lying in and it was getting harder and harder for him to breathe. He tried to crawl clear of the smoke, but his arms and legs seemed to be paralyzed. "Ro-oy!" he called out, in complete desperation.
Roy DeSoto awoke with a start, fully expecting to find his partner standing over him. Instead, he found himself lying—alone—in his living room. He'd fallen asleep, fully clothed, on his sofa, and his thoughtful wife had covered him with a blanket.
He gazed around the empty room in confusion. He could've sworn he'd heard Johnny calling him. The unsettled man settled back under his blanket and closed his eyes.
Gage was growing more and more light-headed, from oxygen deprivation. He tried, one last time, to summon his partner. "Help…me…Roy! I can't…I…can't…brea-eathe!"
This time, DeSoto sat bolt upright. He'd just heard his partner calling for him—again. He got stiffly up off the couch and started heading for his bedroom.
"Jo?" Roy quietly spoke and gave his sleeping spouse's shoulder a gentle shaking.
His wife's eyes half-opened. "Umm. What time is it?"
"Five thirty."
Joanne sat up in their bed. "Did the hospital call?"
"Not exactly," her husband replied. "Look, I can't explain it—I don't even understand 'why', myself—but I gotta go!"
"Go where?"
"The hospital."
"What's the point? They're not going to let you see him. Why can't you just ca—?"
"—I told you, I can't explain it."
Joanne wasn't exactly thrilled with his 'can't explain it' explanation, but she smiled in surrender. "I guess if you gotta go, you gotta go."
Roy planted a kiss on his understanding wife's forehead and then disappeared out the door.
Carl Iverson stood beside the fireman's bed, in ICU's Room 604, holding a pillow pressed firmly over the unconscious young man's face. He met with no resistance. But then, even without being heavily sedated, the gravely injured guy's strength would have been no match for his own.
Carl continued to hold the pillow firmly in place. He stood there, calmly watching a little green line dance across the monitor screen above his head. It seemed to take an eternity, but, at last, its constant, steady rhythm began to change.
The line started jerking rapidly up and down and at a completely random pace.
Iverson didn't hear the 'clanging' of alarms automatically being triggered by his victim's sudden coronary distress.
But then, neither did anybody else.
TBC