Poe

Chapter Thirty-Seven

In the chaos surrounding the discovery of not only a dead nurse, but three missing inmates and a doctor, it took an extra seven minutes before someone had the wherewithal to send a guard to check the floors that the supply elevator serviced.

The guard’s initial stop was naturally the first floor, where he wasted an additional four minutes determining there was no sign of anyone recently exiting the cramped elevator there. He lost even more time in the basement, where the elevator was housed in a rarely used section of the building that he had no idea how to get into. A full six minutes passed before he located someone with the correct key and unlocked the right door.

The guard navigated a dusty corridor, stepped through an open doorway, and saw that the elevator car was indeed there, but the room itself was empty.

He radioed the information in, and was told to report back to the main floor where a room-by-room search was underway. He was so focused on joining the search upstairs as he headed back the way he came, he didn’t notice the dark door to his left that was slightly ajar.

A door that, when opened, was prone to an initial, loud squeak.