Creepers

49

"If Ronnie's in the elevator, he can't stop us from going down the stairs," Tod said.

Vinnie scowled at the closed door. "How do we know he's in there?"

"He's gotta be. Somebody's gotta be in there to run the controls."

"But what if the elevator works like a dumbwaiter?" Balenger asked. "What if Carlisle arranged for outside controls so his meals could be sent up without a waiter intruding on him?"

"Well, if that jerkoff isn't in the elevator, who is?"

"Or what is? I'm not sure I want to hang around and find out," Vinnie said.

The elevator stopped below them. Although the rain persisted, the absence of the whir made the room seem tensely quiet.

Then the whir began again, the elevator rising.

"Must be on a separate electrical circuit," Cora murmured.

"When it gets here, shoot the door," Tod urged. "It's wood. The bullets will-"

"I don't shoot what I can't see," Balenger told him. "There might be a policeman behind that door."

"You want to open it and find out?"

The group stared at the door, concentrating on the stillness behind it. Then the stillness changed to the rattle of the interior gate being pushed aside.

"Shoot!" Tod yelled.

"You in the elevator!" Balenger aimed. "Identify yourself!"

"Pussy! Give me that gun!" Tod grabbed for it, but Balenger whacked the barrel against his forehead, knocking him to the floor.

Balenger whirled and realigned his aim as something thumped against the door. He motioned everyone into the medical room. Then he pushed the weights from the door and took cover behind the treadmill.

The door budged outward.

He tensed his finger on the trigger as the door opened slightly, revealing a portion of what seemed to be an empty compartment.

Tod groaned on the floor.

The door opened farther.

Balenger saw motion. Tod's flashlight remained in his hand, gleaming across the floor. It revealed rats scurrying from the elevator, three, eight, a dozen, some with open sores, others with no ears or two tails or only one eye. Squealing in the lights from the headlamps, some leapt under the stationary bike or onto the treadmill, veering when they saw Balenger, following others that scrambled into the other rooms.

Cora screamed. But not because of the rats. A figure stumbled from the elevator.

Balenger almost fired but suddenly recognized the bloody jeans and Windbreaker, the muscular torso bent forward in pain, the blood, so much blood, a wooden spike sticking into the figure's chest.

"Rick!" Cora ran to him.

"Wait!" Balenger said.

But his warning was too late. Rick tripped over Tod's squirming body, lurched into Cora, and knocked both of them to the floor. Cora's hard hat clattered away.

Balenger rushed to the empty compartment. Aiming, he shouldered the door all the way open. As his headlamp dispelled the shadows, he studied the ceiling but didn't see a trapdoor through which Ronnie could have squeezed up and hidden himself. He now realized that the compartment wasn't totally empty, though. On the floor, in a corner, mocking him, were the five bottles of urine that had been abandoned on the fourth level.

"Vinnie, use the weights to keep this door and the gate from closing! As long as they're open, the elevator can't go down." Balenger turned toward Cora and Rick. Rick was on top of her, gasping from pain. She struggled to get free. Balenger turned Rick over and saw that the fall had rammed the spike deeper into his chest. Rick's lung made a whistling sound. His front teeth were broken away. His lower left arm projected at a right angle to his side.

"Jesus," Cora said. "Rick." She wiped his blood-smeared forehead. "Baby."

Vinnie hurried to prop a weight against the elevator door.

Cora stroked Rick's face. His eyes were unfocused. His chest heaved, continuing to whistle.

Balenger looked over his shoulder toward the medical room. "Help me get him on the exam table-"

Together, he, Amanda, and Cora lifted him. Rick moaned. Cora pressed his shoulders down to keep him from rolling off the table.

Amanda propped the flashlight on the counter. "We'll need more light. I'll get the candles from Vinnie's knapsack."

Balenger used his knife to cut open Rick's Windbreaker, sweater, and shirt. As Amanda and Vinnie lit candles, the increased illumination showed an alarming amount of blood streaming from Rick's chest.

"The spike's all the way through," Balenger said.

"Hang on, baby," Cora told Rick, stroking his brow. "Hang on."

But Rick didn't seem to hear.

"If I take out the spike, he might hemorrhage worse than he is now. But if I don't…"

Rick's groan communicated his agony.

"Can't we at least help him with the pain?" Cora begged. "The morphine."

"No. It'll kill him," Balenger said.

"Surely just a little-"

"Morphine depresses heart rate and blood pressure." Balenger felt Rick's wrist. "I can hardly find a pulse as it is."

"Pull the spike out. Use duct tape to stop the bleeding the way you did with the professor."

Balenger couldn't think of an alternative. "See if there's rubbing alcohol in that cabinet."

Vinnie yanked open the glass door.

"Wait," Balenger said.

"But-"

"Never mind," Balenger said.

Rick's lung stopped wheezing. His chest became still.

"No," Cora said. Frantic, she stared into Rick's eyes, searching for a sign of consciousness. She opened his mouth and breathed into it. In horror, she stopped when the air whistled past the spike in his chest.

"Twice." She sobbed. "Oh, baby. Oh, Jesus, twice." Weeping uncontrollably, she held Rick's head against her chest. "Twice."

Amanda put an arm around her.

Thunder rumbled. In its aftermath, they heard the crackle of static. Balenger frowned toward his equipment belt and then toward Vinnie's.

More static.

"What the-" Vinnie stared down.

It came from the remaining two walkie-talkies. Balenger's mind swirled. With a sense that he shifted deeper into madness, he raised his unit to his mouth and pressed the transmit button.