Butcher's Moon

Fifty-three

Frank Elkins parked across the road from the hospital and switched the headlights off. Then he and Ralph Wiss waited a minute to get used to the darkness.

Across the way, the hospital showed the only lights in the neighborhood. It was equipped with standby electric-generating equipment sufficient for operating rooms, medical machinery, refrigeration equipment, and some internal lighting, but not enough to illuminate the parking lots or other outside areas, so from here it was merely a pattern of lighted windows hanging in black space.

Wiss said, “It looks like a Halloween pumpkin.”

Elkins squinted. “I don’t see any face.”

“No, a pumpkin done like a building. You know? Instead of a face.”

Elkins frowned in the darkness, uncomprehending. “A pumpkin done like a building?”

“Forget it,” Wiss said. “Come on, let’s go.”

They got out of the car—the interior light was an oasis of warm yellow while the doors were open—and walked across the road and up the driveway to the hospital building. The Emergency entrance sign was off, but they could make out the blacktop lane leading around to the side. They walked around that way, and saw the glow of low-wattage bulbs in the vicinity of the glass doors leading into Emergency. In the yellow-brown light two ambulances were parked near the doors, facing out.

Avoiding the light, Wiss and Elkins skirted the Emergency entrance and made their way toward the rear of the building. Light-spill from windows over their heads gave a faint yellow sheen, enough for them to see what they were doing.

Inside a fenced enclosure was the hospital’s motor pool: four more ambulances, a mobile operating unit, and two other specialty vehicles. Wiss touched the simple padlock closing the gate and it opened for him. He stood by the gate and waited while Elkins selected the ambulance he wanted, crossed the wires under the dash, and drove the vehicle out without switching on its lights. Wiss locked the gate again, got into the ambulance with Elkins, and they rode together out to the street. Elkins stopped next to their car, and Wiss said, “I’ll follow you. I don’t know the way.”

“Right.”

Wiss changed over to the car, Elkins switched on his headlights, and the two vehicles drove away.