Chapter 11 - The False Security Guard
The officer moved faster than anyone expected.
He grabbed Emily by the wrist and pulled her in front of him while pressing a small blade against her side.
Olivia stepped back.
“You work for Voss.”
The man smiled.
“I don’t work for him.”
“Then who?”
“For the people who own what is beneath this hospital.”
Margaret quietly moved one hand toward the wooden box.
The false officer noticed.
“Don’t.”
Richard stood low to the floor, waiting.
The man tightened his grip on Emily.
“Place the letters on the table.”
Margaret obeyed.
“Now the vial.”
She removed the blue liquid from the box and set it beside the letters.
The man’s eyes remained fixed on it.
That brief distraction was enough.
Emily drove her heel down onto his foot.
He released her.
Richard leaped.
The dog struck the man’s chest and knocked him backward into the shelves. Boxes and tapes crashed around them.
Olivia pulled Emily away while Margaret grabbed the vial.
The false officer reached for the silver device on his belt.
Richard bit through the strap and threw it across the room.
The device struck the wall and exploded with a sharp burst of sparks.
Smoke filled the air.
“Down the stairs!” Margaret shouted.
They entered the hidden opening.
Richard followed last.
Margaret pressed a switch, and the concrete wall began closing.
Through the narrowing gap, Olivia saw the false officer rise.
Voss entered the room behind him.
Neither man tried to stop the wall.
Instead, Voss watched them disappear.
He smiled.
“They’re going exactly where we need them.”
The wall sealed shut.
The staircase descended steeply beneath the hospital.
The air became colder with every step.
Old emergency lights flickered along the stone walls.
Richard moved in front, following a path no living dog should have known.
At the bottom, they reached a long corridor.
Names had been carved into the concrete.
Hundreds of them.
Some belonged to children.
Others were numbers.
Emily touched one of the markings.
“These dates are from the 1950s.”
Margaret held up the blue vial.
“This substance was created here.”
“What does it do?”
“It doesn’t transfer memories.”
Margaret looked toward Richard.
“It awakens responses buried through generations.”
Olivia glanced at the dog.
“So he remembers this place?”
“Not as images.”
Margaret’s voice softened.
“As fear. Smell. Direction. Danger.”
Richard stopped before a rusted door.
A child’s handprint had been painted across it in red.
He began whining.
From behind the door came a faint mechanical hum.
Then a voice spoke through an old ceiling speaker.
“Harold Bennett has twenty minutes.”
Olivia looked upward.
Voss’s voice continued.
“Return the vial and both letters, or his medication system will be disconnected.”
Emily grabbed the wall-mounted intercom.
“You touch him and—”
The speaker clicked off.
Richard scratched frantically at the rusted door.
Margaret stared at the red handprint.
“There is another way back to Room 307.”
“Through there?”
“Yes.”
She inserted the 1951 key.
The door opened only a few inches before something heavy blocked it from the other side.
A pale hand appeared through the gap.
May you like
Someone inside whispered:
“Please don’t let them know I’m still alive.”
