“Here!” Wendy whispered. She had discovered a cleaning closet filled with a slop sink and mops. Marissa slid inside and Wendy followed, pulling the door closed behind her.
The two women held their breath as the footsteps bore down on them. They had no idea if they had been seen or not. When the footsteps passed their door without hesitation, Marissa and Wendy breathed a sigh of relief. They heard the elevator doors open, then close. Then silence.
“Whew,” Wendy whispered.
“I don’t think my nerves can take much more of this slinking around.”
“It’s a good thing whoever that was didn’t see us,” Marissa said.
“I doubt if our doctor’s coats would help us down here.”
“Let’s get out before I have a heart attack,” Wendy said.
Marissa gingerly opened the door. The corridor was clear.
Venturing out, they returned to where the corridor took a bend toward the main building. No one was in sight.
“Okay,” Marissa said.
“Let’s go.” The corridor dipped down and then up again. Thick exposed pipes ran along the left wall and along the ceiling.
At the end of that corridor, they came to another fire door.
This one wasn’t locked. Pushing through, they entered the basement of the main clinic building.
A red Exit light marked the door to the stairwell. Feeling progressively more and more nervous, Wendy and Marissa entered and hurried up two flights, passing the ground floor where the janitorial staff had been working on the marble.
At the door to the second floor, they paused and listened for sounds of activity. Thankfully the place was as quiet as a mausoleum.
“Ready?” Wendy asked, putting her shoulder to the door.
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Marissa said.
Wendy cracked the door against its automatic closer. The hall beyond was dark and the fluorescent light from the stairwell spilled out onto the vinyl flooring in a bright, shiny puddle. After listening again for a moment, they quickly stepped from the stairwell and let the door close quietly behind them.
The light was extinguished with the closing of the door. They waited for their eyes to adjust; there was still a bit of light coming from the streetlights outside. Once they could see again, it didn’t take them long to get their bearings. They were just beyond the main elevators, near the waiting room of the in-vitro unit. This was an area of the clinic the women knew only too well.
Edging slowly down the corridor, they advanced to the waiting room itself. There the illumination was somewhat better.
Marissa and Wendy skirted the receptionist’s desk, making a beeline for the doorway to the main corridor. This gave access to the doctors’ offices, examining rooms, procedure rooms, and the in-vitro laboratory.
The first door they opened was to an examination room. In the dim light spilling in from the hall, the room took on a particularly sinister aspect. The stainless-steel table gleamed in the darkness, and with its stirrups, it appeared more like a medieval torture device than a piece of medical equipment.
“This place gives me the creeps in the dark,” Wendy said as they circled the room.
“My thoughts exactly,” Marissa said.
“Besides, there’s no terminal in here.”
“Let’s check the doctors’ offices,” Wendy suggested.
“We know there will be a terminal in each of those.”
Farther down the corridor there were a few dim lights from glazed laboratory doors; otherwise the whole clinic was dark.
They moved quickly but carefully, Marissa trying the doctors’ offices on the left while Wendy tried those on the right. All were locked.
“They certainly are careful,” Marissa said.
“I swear this place seems more Re a bank than a clinic.”
“I don’t think any of the offices will be open,” Wendy said,. stopping halfway down the hall.
“Let’s go back and try ultrasound.
I think each of the units has terminals.”
“I’ll try the rest of the offices,” Marissa said.
“You go to ultrasound.”
“Oh no!” Wendy said.
“I’m not going anyplace by myself I don’t know about you, but I’m really spooked in here.”
“Me too,” Marissa said.
“The idea of coming in here sounded a whole lot better before we got in.”