Chapter 37 - The Hospital Beneath the Hospital
By 3:00 AM, the city of Oakridge was shrouded in an unnatural, dense freezing fog. St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital loomed out of the mist like a monolithic fortress of glass and steel. But beneath the polished lobby, beneath the pediatric wards and oncology units, lay a sprawling subterranean labyrinth of Victorian brickwork and steam pipes dating back to the 1950s.
Margaret led them through an abandoned coal chute behind the hospital’s central heating plant.
They crawled through iron pipes coated in thick black grease, dragging Vance with them. Above them, through the rusted ventilation grates, they could hear the muffled, frantic activity of the hospital above: alarms blaring, automated lockdown protocols echoing over the public address system, and the distinct, rhythmic tread of heavy tactical boots patrolling the corridors.
Clara had already occupied the facility.
“Listen to me,” Margaret whispered, crouching in the shadowy steam recess directly beneath Sub-Level 3. “Ethan, you stay with Noah. Thomas, you guard the perimeter. I am taking Arthur into the lab to prep the dampener.”
“Mom, no,” Ethan gripped her hand tightly. “You can’t go out there alone. Clara knows you’ll come here.”
Margaret reached up and touched Ethan’s face. For a brief second, the hardened warrior faded, replaced by the mother who had tucked him into bed every night of his childhood. “I let her into our home, Ethan. I let her play the devoted mother while she poisoned our family from the inside out. I watched her sit in that nursery while my grandson cried in agony, pretending to be a saint while she turned him into a weapon. I am ending this tonight.”
She racked the slide of Thomas’s backup 9mm pistol.
“Arthur,” Margaret whispered, grabbing the doctor by his collar. “If you make one wrong move, I won’t just shoot you. I’ll make sure Clara finds out you tried to help us escape. She’ll skin you alive.”
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Vance swallowed hard and nodded. “The dampener is in Laboratory 304. Access requires a dual biometric key.”
“Then let’s go get the key,” Margaret said.
