“I think so,” Marissa answered.
“Then I think we’d better get out of here,” Wendy said.
“AD of a sudden I have a terrible feeling.”
“All right,” Marissa agreed.
“Try to stay calm.” She didn’t feel too calm herself.
“Let’s head over to the door.”
Still holding on to each other and fearful of turning on the light, they blindly inched across the room with their free hands out in front of them. They moved a half step at a time until they touched the wall. Advancing along the wall, they came to the door to the narrow hall.
As quietly as she could manage, Marissa opened the door, first a crack, then wider. At the end of the short hallway they could see weak light coming from the waiting room windows.
“My God!” Marissa said.
“The door to the waiting room is open. I know I closed it.”
III
“What should we do?” Wendy pleaded.
“I don’t know,” Marissa said.
“We have to get to the stairwell,” Wendy said.
For the next few moments, the two were paralyzed with indecision.
They let another few minutes go by. Neither heard another sound.
“I want out of here,” Wendy said at last.
“Okay,” Marissa answered. She was equally as eager. Together they edged down the corridor to the lip of the waiting room. Slowly they leaned out and scanned the shadows. Beyond the waiting area and down another short hall they could see the red glowing Exit sign indicating the stairwell.
“Ready?” Marissa asked.
“Let’s go,” Wendy said.
The two women hurried across the waiting area, moving toward the hall that would lead to the stairwell. But they didn’t make it. They stopped dead in their tracks as Marissa let out a stifled cry of surprise. Directly in front of them, a figure had stepped out from the recess of one of the elevators. His face was obscured by shadows.
Wendy and Marissa spun around in hopes of making it back to the ultrasound room. But they stopped again. In front of them the door to the ultrasound area swung shut with a slam. To their horror another dark figure stepped from behind the door.
The two threatening figures began to advance. Cornered from ahead and behind, they were trapped.
“What is going on here?” Marissa asked. She tried vainly to make her tone sound authoritative.
“I’m Dr. Blumenthal and this is Dr.-” But she didn’t finish her sentence. A blow flashed out of the darkness and caught her on the side of the head, hurling her to the floor with her ears ringing.
“Don’t hit her!” Wendy shouted. She tried to go to Marissa’s aid, but was met by a similar blow. The next thing she knew, she was sprawled on the carpet.
Then the lights went on.
Marissa blinked in the sudden glare. Her head was throbbing from the blow. She pushed herself up to a sitting position. She rubbed the spot where she’d been hit just over her left ear. Then she looked at her palm, half expecting to see blood. But her hand was clean. She glanced up at the man standing over her. He was a security guard dressed in a well-pressed, dark-green uniform with epaulets. Marissa saw that he was an Asian. He smiled down at her, his black eyes shining like onyx.
“Why did you hit me?” Marissa demanded. She had never expected such violence.
“Thieves!” the guard snarled in heavily accented English. His 7 hand shot out again and slapped Marissa in the same spot he’d hit her the first time.
A burning pain went through Marissa’s face as she again fell to the carpet.
“Stop!” Wendy called as she tried to get to her feet. But the man in the gray suit kicked her feet out from under her. She fen back to the floor, knocking the wind from her lungs. Helplessly, she struggled to get a breath.
“Why are you doing this?” Marissa wailed. She pushed herself up to her hands and knees, then struggled to her feet. She was beginning to think she was dealing with two lunatics. She tried to 4 speak again, but before she could say a word, her ketamineinspired nightmare came back as vividly as it had at the restaurant, adding to her panic.