Crazy Dangerous (25 page)
“Yeah, yeah, besides the blood. I mean, did you see, like, a tree or one of those tarns or something, like you did before?”
She stared and stared at me with those wide eyes. Then she shook her head. “No. Just . . . bodies. Just blood.”
This was no help, no help at all. “
Why
are there going to be bodies, Jennifer?” I tried asking then. “How are the people going to die?”
She looked at me now as if I was being silly, as if I didn’t understand the simplest thing. “The demons! The demons are going to kill them.”
Right, of course. The demons. Great.
I knew I was running out of time, fast. I had to get out of there before I was caught. But I’d come so far, I couldn’t help but try to reach her one last time.
“Jennifer,” I said, “is there anything—anything you could tell me—anything that would help me find the demons, that would help me find out who the demons are, or where they live or how to stop them?”
The question seemed to reach her. At last, she seemed to understand. There was a long moment of silence in the dark room. Jennifer’s eyes drifted away from me, and I could tell she was thinking it over, trying to help me out, trying to think of some clue that would give me the direction I needed.
And then, in the shadows, I saw her face brighten. I saw the idea come to her. She turned back to me.
“Yes!” she said. “Yes, there is something . . .”
Wouldn’t you know it—at that very moment, the door swung open. Light from the hallway flooded the room, catching us both.
I swung around and saw the nurse, standing in the doorway, staring at me.
All three of us—me, Jennifer, the nurse—stood frozen like that for one more second.
Then the nurse—without saying a single word—lifted a lanyard clipped to her uniform. There was a small black device at the end of the lanyard. It had a red button on it.
She pressed the button and an alarm went off.
The alarm wasn’t loud. In some ways that was the scariest thing about it—how soft it was. Instead of some high-pitched, shrieking siren that sounded like a woman trapped in a burning building, this was a mild, calm, repeated tone that sounded like it was all business. The second I heard it, I knew it was probably sounding on a device clipped to the pocket of every aide in the hospital. Probably on a direct line to the police station too. That meant the large block-of-cement guy around the corner was probably already on his way—not to mention several carloads of armed officers of the law. I figured I had less than thirty seconds before I was in custody.
That meant there was no time to think. There was no time for anything—unless I was ready to grow old in jail. I had to run for it. Now.
The nurse stood there, blocking the doorway. I grabbed hold of the cart handle.
“Get out of the way!” I shouted at her.
And at the same time, I started pushing the cart straight toward her.
I didn’t push it too fast—I wanted to give her time to step aside so I didn’t hurt her. But I didn’t slow down either.
The nurse hesitated a moment as the cart barreled toward her. For another moment I thought,
Oh no, I’m going to knock her down!
But then, thank heavens, she moved—she didn’t have much choice really. At the last second, just before the cart slammed into her, she dodged to the side and the cart went hurtling through the door right past her.
I ran out after it. Or, that is, I tried to run. But I couldn’t—because Jennifer was still holding on to my arm with both hands. As I went forward, she stumbled after me so that I dragged her out into the hallway with me. I tried to shake free of her. But I couldn’t.
“Jennifer, let go!” I shouted.
“No, no, no!” she cried, holding on.
“Let go of me!”
She wouldn’t.
I looked up. Oh yeah, there he was, all right. Block-of-Cement Guy, larger than life. Charging around the corner full speed and racing down the corridor toward me. The other aide who’d been at the counter with him—the one who looked like a female block of cement—was right behind him.
I had to make a choice: surrender and find myself back in the police station facing Detective Sims—or take Jennifer with me.
“Run, Jennifer!” I shouted.
Then I started running—and to my relief, so did she.
We raced down the hall together, side by side at first, Jennifer’s straight brown hair flying back behind her. After a second, I took the lead, dragging Jennifer after me.
I might have outrun Block-of-Cement Guy by myself—I probably would have—but there was no chance of it as long as I was hauling Jennifer around behind me. At this rate, the aide was going to tackle me in about ten seconds. I had to think of something—some other plan—and fast.
But what? The elevator was no good—too slow. There had to be a stairway. That was it. I had to find the stairs.
We reached the end of the corridor. Block-of-Cement Guy was closing in behind us. I could hear his sneakered footsteps getting louder on the floor.
At the corner, I looked to my left: there was another corridor. To my right: Yes, there it was! The stairwell door.
Pulling Jennifer by the hand, I ran to it, yanked it open, dashed inside.
Now Jennifer and I were thundering down the steps. I clutched her hand in one of my hands. With my other hand I steadied myself on the banister as I flew downward two and three steps at a time.
I heard Block-of-Cement Guy bang through the door upstairs and come thundering after us.
The stairs switchbacked as we went down. We reached the first floor and went spinning around to get on the next flight. As we did, Jennifer tripped. She let out a scream. Her hand slipped out of mine. She went down two steps and was about to topple over. If she’d been wearing shoes, I think she would’ve kept going. But she was barefoot, I realized now, and that gave her some extra traction. Somehow she managed to spin around in front of me and grab the banister, holding herself up.
I just kept running past her. To be honest, I figured it didn’t matter that much if she got caught. What would they do to her? They’d just put her back in the hospital, where she already was. I was the one in danger of going to prison if Detective Sims heard about this. I was the one who had to get away at all costs.
I kept running.
I reached the bottom floor, the basement. I could hear Block-of-Cement Guy’s footsteps right above me—and more footsteps and more doors opening up there as more people came into the stairwell chasing after us.
I pulled open the door. Jennifer went flying past me, racing out of the stairwell. I charged after her, pushing the door shut behind me.
As I did, I noticed something. A keyhole on the outside of the stairwell door. Sure, they had to be able to lock the stairwell when they needed to. Maybe . . .
I yanked out the Buster.
I could hear the footsteps of my pursuers come down the last flight of stairs. I figured I only had seconds before they came plunging through the door. I figured—if I know how to open a lock, I must be able to close one too.
I pulled a lockpick out of Buster and went to work on the keyhole as fast as I could.
Inside the stairwell the charging footsteps reached the bottom of the final flight and raced at the door as I struggled to turn the latch with the Buster pick.
“Sam Hopkins!” Jennifer screamed behind me in a panic. “They’re coming! They’re coming!”
The pick clicked. The lock turned over. The stairwell door locked shut just as Block-of-Cement Guy ran into it with a thud—at least, I guessed it was him. The door rattled against my hand as the big aide tried to force the door open. He couldn’t do it.
I heard him curse.
“He locked it somehow!” he shouted to the others behind him.
I didn’t wait around to hear him curse again. After all, I’m a preacher’s kid! I can’t be listening to that sort of thing. So I took off.
By now, my overalls were starting to unroll. The places where I’d rolled them up at the sleeves and cuffs had come most of the way down. My hands were swimming in the sleeves and I was tripping over the cuffs as I moved—like a little boy trying to walk around in his daddy’s clothes.
But with the pursuing aides locked in the stairwell, I had a few seconds of freedom. I used those precious seconds to stumble down the hall, looking for somewhere—anywhere—to hide.
I found another supply closet. Good thing too, because just then I heard the bell of the elevator ring around the corner. I heard the door slide open and a big, angry voice say, “They must be down here somewhere.”
I pushed into the supply closet—and Jennifer quickly crowded in behind me.
I shut the door.
“Sam Hopk . . .”
“Shh, shh, shh,” I told her. I put my finger to my lips for emphasis, but it was too dark for her to see me, so I put the finger to her lips and she was silent.
I pulled out my flashlight and quickly passed the beam over the place. It was just like the room I was in before when I first came in: carts, garbage cans, brooms, supplies. As the flashlight beam went around, I saw Jennifer’s face in the outglow. Her eyes were shining, her mouth was open. She looked . . . she looked
happy
, to tell you the truth. Excited. As if this were all some sort of big hilarious adventure. Well, like I said, she wasn’t the one who would go to jail if she got caught.
There was no lock on this side of the door. But there was a big garbage can that seemed just the right size. I rolled it over and wedged the edge of it under the doorknob. That would hold people off for a couple of seconds anyway.
And they were out there looking, that’s for sure. I heard the footsteps running down the hall. I heard the voices, loud enough so I could make out the words:
“I don’t see them!”
“Start searching the rooms!”
“Someone unlock that stairwell door!”
I pulled down my overalls. Peeled them off my pant legs, threw them aside. I flicked the flashlight on, then off again—just long enough to find my way. Then I moved through the crowded supply room to the window.
The window was high on the wall, but the latch was on the bottom. I could reach up and get it, unlock it. Then I grabbed hold of the ledge and pulled myself up, using my head to push the window open as I went. I crawled out onto the ground and scrambled to my feet.
“Sam Hopkins!”
I heard Jennifer’s desperate whisper below me. I looked back through the windows and saw her standing in the supply room, reaching her hands up toward me, the way a baby reaches when it wants to be picked up. It occurred to me that if I just left her here and ran for it, I might have a chance of getting away.
But then I remembered: Just before the nurse caught us in Jennifer’s room, Jennifer had been about to tell me something. There was some clue, she said, that might help me find out about tomorrow, about the dead. If I left her behind now, I might never hear what she had to say. All this craziness and danger would’ve been for nothing.
I stuck my hand down through the window. Jennifer grabbed it. I pulled her up until she could take hold of the window ledge herself. Then I caught both her arms and dragged her up and through the window, out into the open air.
We both stood up—and immediately we heard the sirens. Police. They sounded close too. Very close. I figured they’d be coming up the hospital driveway in under a minute.
“Hurry,” I said.
I ran to the edge of the building and peeked around until I could see the entrance and the long driveway.
We were already too late. A couple of aides had come out through the front door and were shining flashlights over the lawn, searching for us. I had to duck back quickly as one of the beams went sweeping past me.
Then there were the police. They were already in sight. When I looked down the driveway, I saw the red glow of their cruiser lights running up into the high branches of the winter trees down by the road. They were seconds away from the driveway. Soon they’d be coming into view over the hill.
“Sam Hopkins!”
Jennifer’s voice had dropped to a low whisper, but even so, the sound of it made me jump, made me turn to her with my face scrunched up in a warning, too scared even to tell her to be quiet.