The night air had gotten even colder than it had been when Deb dropped Liz off at the hospital. Liz shivered and her body trembled. She felt wobbly even leaning on her cane. The wind had picked up and was whipping at her from the left. She pulled her coat collar up and held it tight about her neck, but the coat tails of her long winter coat flared up with the wind and the biting cold nipped at her legs through the thin fabric of her slacks.
She had been waiting for Ben MacCready to get his car from the ramp garage for less than five minutes, but the cold night air had made it seem longer than that as she stood just outside the front entrance to the hospital. As she wavered from side to side and back and forth against her cane, the automatic sliding glass door behind her would occasionally detect the movement and slide open and shut needlessly with the annoying sound of the activated motor mechanism.
She counted the cars emerging from the garage as the drivers stopped to pay the toll at the small kiosk. She had counted six cars already and each had driven off and turned into the drive leading down the hill from the hospital to the street below.
She didn’t know what kind of car MacCready drove, but she knew he would have to swing to the left beyond the kiosk in order to circle around to the front entrance of the hospital to pick her up.
Two cars later, one turned in her direction, but she could see early on that it was not MacCready. The driver was an older man with long white hair. He pulled the car beyond where Liz was standing. A middle aged woman, who had been standing inside the glass wall enclosure, hurried out and got in the car. The car moved on, circled around in front of the kiosk and on down the drive toward the street, just as a black Chevrolet emerged from the garage and stopped at the kiosk.
The driver rolled down the window and leaned out to pay the attendant. Even in the dim light of the parking lot street lights, Liz could see it was MacCready.
Suddenly, her heart began to pound with fear, and she felt a pain in her stomach as her abdomen muscles tightened. A black Chevy! MacCready was driving a black Chevy. The man who had followed her and had stalked Celia Parks drove a black Chevy!
My God! Deb was right! Ben MacCready was a man to be feared after all! And she was going to be getting in a car with him. No! She couldn’t do that. She would have to avoid it somehow.
MacCready took his change from the attendant and put it away in his wallet. He was lifting his body off the seat to put it away in his hip pocket as he let the vehicle roll forward past the uplifting gate.
Liz turned sharply and pushed herself through the automatically opening sliding glass door. She hurried through the inside door and across the lobby toward the hallway where the elevators were.
She stumbled as much as walked and used her cane only once every three or four steps. Her legs ached and her stomach pained with rising gas.
She reached the hallway and headed toward the elevators. She threw a quick glance over her shoulder and saw MacCready rushing in through the front door after her. She tried to hurry faster, but she was already doing the best she could.
What if she had to wait for the elevator? MacCready would surely catch up to her. Chances were that he would catch her even before she reached the elevators. She made a quick decision. Forget about the elevators! A side hallway branched off to the right from the main one. She turned in here and headed for the next hallway that ran parallel. To the left it stretched toward the rear of the hospital. To the right it led a short distance back toward the front of the hospital and hooked to the left toward the Emergency Area. There were restrooms to the left side of this hall. First, was the men’s room, and then the ladies’. She would hide there, if only she could get there before MacCready caught up to her.
Her legs just didn’t seem to be working and were bending like rubber. It seemed to take forever to just pass the men’s room. The ladies room seemed a long way off. What if MacCready saw her go in? What would she do then?
Panic and paranoia was engulfing her. What if she did get there in time? Would he be bold enough to go in the ladies’ room looking for her?
Yes! He would! Of course he would! She needed a better place to hide and she spied a door next to her on the right. It had louvered slats high in the door for ventilation; obviously a storage or maintenance closet of some sort. And it was close. She wouldn’t have to stumble any farther.
She tried the door handle and pulled. It came open and she smelled the mustiness of dirty mops and the pungent odor of disinfectant and detergent. It was a janitor’s supply closet. She slid inside, pulling the door behind her just as she heard the clicking of rushing heels down the hallway from the direction she had just come from.
The contents of the stocked closet crowded her against the door. Her cane was pressed between her legs and was of no use to her. She held tight to the door handle and hoped she didn’t make it move. She was breathing deeply now, but as she peered through the louvered openings she saw MacCready enter the hallway. She tried to hold her breath, but the pains in her stomach and abdomen were increasing in intensity.
MacCready looked up and down the hallway in both directions. Apparently, he decided she had not headed toward the rear of the hospital, because the hallway was too long and she would still be exposed if she had gone that way. He turned and headed toward where Liz was hiding.
Slowly, he moved forward; his dark eyes darting back and forth as he approached.
Liz sucked in a breath and held it. The pain in her stomach was excruciating now and she felt like she had to pass gas, but she held herself stiff and silent, save for the rumblings of her innards. She remembered the stories her little niece told of her friend, who passed gas for two minutes straight. She thought to herself, this could be her last thought on this earth.
He was almost directly in front of her now. He stopped in front of the closet, turned and glanced back the way he came. Then he turned back and moved on down the passageway to the ladies’ room. He pushed the door open and shouted in.” Liz. Liz Porelli. Are you in there? He waited for a moment and then went on in.
Liz still holding herself in check waited until she saw him emerge from the rest room. His face was dark with anger and he stomped off back the way he had come.
As he disappeared around the corner, Liz let out a breath and let her taught body relax. But on so doing, she unleashed the monster as it took over her bowels and released the pent up gas. A stench filled the small closet and Liz felt the momentary warmness between her legs before it turned to a cold sticky wetness streaming down her pant legs.
She clenched her eyes tight shut with despair as she realized what was happening. Of all times for this to happen, when she was alone, in danger, and far from home without Deb to help her, clean up after her, and say funny, snippy things to make her more comfortable and take it all less personal. After all, this was the monster, not her. She leaned her head against the door and started to sob, but after a moment she took hold of herself. Tears were not going help her. She was going to have to get a hold of herself and do something. She couldn’t stay in this closet. And she was going to have to clean herself up, somehow, some where.
Ben MacCready had already checked the ladies’ room, so perhaps it would be safe to go in there now. It would have to be, Liz told herself. The only thing she could do now was to get in there and out of her soiled clothes and clean herself up.
Slowly, she pushed the closet door open, looking up and down the hallway in both directions. No one was in sight. She pushed her cane out in front of her and realized that it was also soiled. Her fingers slipped on the gooey brown covered handled and her hand came away with the same material smeared on it. She re gripped it and leaned forward on it, walking slowly toward the ladies’ room door. Her legs were bowed and she tried to hold them away from the stickiness between her legs. Her slacks sagged with the weight of the mess and she felt the sliminess continue to trickle down her leg. She tried to hold her coat out from her body to keep it from becoming infected. Her right shoe was already cover
ed as was the sock around her ankle. A brownish tread mark was left in the middle of the hall.
Her odor followed her like a cloud and it seemed like it took forever to reach the ladies room.
Once inside, she opened a door to a stall, pulled off her coat and held it up to examine it. It didn’t look like it had been stained. She hung it on the stall door hook and went to work at stepping out of her shoes and peeling off her slacks and socks and underwear that were pasted tight against her skin. She cleaned herself up as good as possible with toilet paper, then, proceeded to the sink to wash off her cane and shoes. At first she was going to try to wash her clothes in the sink, but decided against it. The clothes were too soaked and stained. There was no time to try to salvage them. Besides she had nothing to carry the wet clothes in anyhow, even if she could get them clean. She wrapped them in paper toweling and stuffed them in the waste paper receptacle. She then washed up as good a possible and dried herself. Oh, how she wished she could shower; she felt so dirty. Her legs and bottom half of her body felt clammy and the wet shoes felt cold and rough on her sockless feet.
She put on her long coat, over her naked body, and buttoned all of the buttons and left the ladies room. When she emerged, there was no sign of MacCready or anyone else for that matter, in the hallway. She continued on down the corridor toward the front of the hospital and into the lobby. Still there was no sign of MacCready. Perhaps he had given up and left, she hoped. She headed for the front entrance once again. But now, she felt like people were looking at her and knew she was naked, beneath her coat.
As Liz stepped through the open sliding glass door, she once again felt the wrath of the cold night and the strong wind. This time it felt even colder as the chill blew up under the coat and attacked her naked flesh. She lifted her cane so she could hold both hands against her coat to hold it tighter to her body.
Just as she did this, she froze with a start. The black Chevy was still in the circle. Ben MacCready was still there!
She half turned to look back inside the hospital lobby. At the far end, just emerging from the main corridor near the elevators, she could see him entering the lobby.
Her heart was racing once again and she felt so tired. She tried to move away from the door, but her legs felt like lead and she was sure she was not moving. But she was moving and everything was rushing past her in a blur and slow motion at the same time.
She felt herself bumping up against a wooden wall and then realized that she had moved far enough away from the main entrance and past the parked Chevy to collide with the green wooden fencing that surrounded the Emergency Room expansion construction site. Her fingers slid along the wood as she traced her way to the front corner of the enclosure. She thought to herself, that if she ever got home again, she was never going to leave it again.
She turned around and looked back. MacCready was just coming through the entrance door. She twisted around sharply; her back to the wall and rolled around the corner into the shadow of the sidewall. She pressed her back tightly to the wooden slats and caught her breath. She rested a moment, wondering if MacCready had seen her. Needing to know, even though not wanting to know, she peered out around the corner. She saw MacCready standing in the light of the entranceway, looking about.
Liz pushed herself back around the corner, once again pressing her back to the wall. The wind whipped through her hair and she felt naked with the wind rushing up beneath her coat. It made her think of Marilyn Monroe in ‘Some Like it Hot’, when she walked over a grate in New York City, which was a blow off from a factory and her dress flew up over her face. Only, this time the air was biting cold and the force of it pulled the lower buttons of the coat free. She slipped back into the shadows, hoping MacCready didn’t come this way. She was feeling weaker by the moment and only through sheer will power did she manage to move. She slid her back along the wall, using it for support; dropping her cane somewhere along the way.
She had reached the far end of the wall when she saw the lights of MacCready’s car flash into the drive, heading down to the street below. If he were to look to the left as he passed by, he might see her there against the fence. She rolled around the corner to the back wall into further shadows. As she twisted, her foot slipped on the wet grass and before she could realize that the back wall ran along the top of a hill above the street below, she found herself falling. The ground came up hard and she rolled down the bank all the way to the sidewalk at the bottom of the hill. A streetlight glowed above her as she lay there unconscious; her coat flung open and hiked above her waist, leaving her lying there; bottom half naked to the world.
*****
Chapter Twenty Two