New Year's Eve Kill (3 page)

   As more scratching came from beyond the curtain Ethel clutched her hands on the white hospital sheets. She was going to lose her mind if the sound didn’t stop. At last she couldn’t take it anymore and tried to get out of bed but her legs felt strange. Almost like she had weights strapped to them.

   Did Missy give me drugs to paralyze me?

   She felt lucky she didn’t swallow all the pills, but knew they must have been strong to start working already. Is this what they had given Mr. Grant and that’s why they knew he was definitely out for a while? She thought in horror. Fatigue was taking over and she wondered if she should just give up. The clock on the wall said it was getting closer to the New Year and that woke her up. This was not the way she wanted to die.

   Ethel took every ounce of strength she had to get out of bed. When she did get out, the white sheets went with her to the cold floor. It took her a moment to entangle them out of her feet. As she crawled across the floor, tears fell from her eyes. She didn’t know why she was crying but guessed the stress of everything was getting to her.

   She was about to crawl pass Mr. Grant’s bed when she heard talking outside in the hall. Were they coming to get her? She quickly lifted some of Mr. Grant’s curtain up and rolled under as it fell back down like quicksand. The footsteps came into the room and walked past Mr. Grant’s bed and over to where her bed was. Ethel had another quick look at Mr. Grant and slid herself partially under his bed and closed her eyes. The footsteps were getting closer to the outside of Mr. Grant’s side of the room. Then Ethel heard movement from the other direction by the door and someone saying something that sent the mysterious feet scurrying out of the room.

   Ethel let out her breath and opened her eyes. A scream almost left her mouth but she swallowed it and almost choked.

   There was a body lying under Mr. Grant’s hospital bed. The bed was raised in such a way you wouldn’t have noticed if you were standing or even sitting close by, but being on the cold floor you could see the horrible sight. Ethel closed her eyes and thought when she opened them the dead face would be gone, and she would tell friends later how her imagination had been running wild.

   If Ethel lived through the evening she would be telling a story to her friends, but not the one she had first envisioned. Under the bed was the very stiff body of Dr. Dutter. His dark eyes opened wide in shock and terror. The doctor had a clear plastic bag wrapped around his face. But there was a tiny hole around where his mouth was. She knew she shouldn’t touch him but she had to see if he was still alive.

   It took her a couple of minutes to move. Her legs were still heavy, as well as her lower body. Her hands felt a little numb but she could still move them, for now. Dr. Dutter was warm but he had no pulse or signs of life. He must have been the one making the odd sounds. Did Missy murder the doctor and why? Could he have been her married lover? And who was making the sounds? If it wasn’t Dr. Dutter, it had to be Mr. Grant, though he seemed passed out. Ethel decided she didn’t have time to overanalyze things. She had to two choices. She could crawl back to her bed and get her cell phone and call the police. Or she could somehow escape and alert the police.

   Both choices were not the grandest. If she called the police from her room, how long would they take to get there? New Year’s Eve was one of the busiest times in New York. Whoever killed the doctor could come and shut her up, for good. She would have to make a run for it, or if you will—a crawl.

   When it seemed like she couldn’t hear any sounds from outside the room, she rolled from under the curtain and to the doorway. The hallway was still dark with certain spots being lit up with a buzzing noise and light. Her legs seemed to be getting worse and felt even heavier. How long would it be until her whole body was numb?

   Ethel tried to close her red and yellow kimono. The outfit was so fun but really didn’t offer much warmth in the cold hospital. Ethel had a taste for odd fashion and wasn’t the type of person who wore something for practical reasons. Maybe her crazy fashion style would finally get her killed, she thought—by giving her pneumonia before some murder happy loony got to her.

   If she even survived the night.

   Looking down the hall, she tried to find the exit door but couldn’t see much. Ethel didn’t want to take the chance and run into anyone. Finally, the overhead lights flashed to the left of her and she could see an exit sign about fifteen-to-twenty feet away from her room. She was about to make a left turn when she saw a tall figure coming down the hallway. It was the hulking orderly that she had seen before. She didn’t want to know if he was a good or bad guy. She was determined to get out of Christmas hospital for good.

   Her feet felt like she had sand bags for shoes as she moved slowly into the direction of the door. Turning to her right she saw the orderly break the glass on a square box on the wall. The lights went dark on him for a moment until they hissed back on. The orderly had taken a fireman axe off the wall for emergencies and was coming for her.

   Bad guy.

   Ethel moved her feet so fast the pain engulfed her but she wouldn’t stop. The orderly waved the axe around like it was a baton. Ethel left her slippers with fuzzy pink balls on them in her wake as she reached the exit door and slammed it behind her. The orderly bent down and looked in the small glass window and gave an evil laugh. It was almost comical to see the hard features of the man through the cheerful looking Christmas wreath that was hanging over the window on her side.

   Ethel knew she was no match for the big man but couldn’t think of anything else to do but try to hold onto the door handle with her feet dragging so the brute couldn’t get at her. The monster of a man almost got the door open several times but luckily for her the door had springs and kept closing. The orderly made an obscene noise and decided he was sick of playing with her and stood back. Ethel picked up her dead feet and fell over, just in time as the axe ripped through the small window, shattering glass everywhere and knocking the wreath from the door, sending it rolling down the stairs like a tire.

   The axe was stuck in the door window and it gave Ethel a few seconds to go down the stairs. She was moving so fast that she tripped over her dead feet and fell down about ten steps. Picking herself halfway up she raised her hands up and pulled her body down each step as the sound of the orderly’s axe got freed from the door.

   “I was going to kill you quick but now since you made me run after you, you’re going to die slow, and painful.”

   The orderly’s words chilled every bone in her body as the sound of his heavy footsteps made their way down to the landing that Ethel was at.

   “Why are you doing this?”

   “It’s all because of Missy—stupid Missy.”

   The orderly raised his axe as Ethel covered her face.

Chapter Three

Ethel opened her eyes and saw the Christmas wreath from the door had tumbled down the stairs next to her. The orderly had put down the axe for a second because his phone kept ringing. With her right hand she grabbed the wreath and put it in front of her just as the axe came down and split the wreath in two. The few glass ornaments that had been left on the wreath had crashed to the ground around her. Luckily, the axe was stuck again, this time in the wreath. Ethel used the minute before the orderly tore it free to dig around in the debris on the stairs with her hands. Her fingers were getting pricked but she worked fast until she found the sharpest piece of glass to jam into the orderly’s thin hospital scrubs.

   “Ouch! You bitch! Oh!”

   The orderly pulled the glass out of his crotch area as blood poured out of him. Ethel went by him and rolled herself towards the stairs. Her legs were getting a little better but still felt heavy and were hard to move. She used her backside to go down the last steps as the sound of the orderly’s cries and curses bounced off the enclosed walls.

   Ethel reached the bottom door and hit the bar to open it and found herself in an underground parking lot. There were tons of cars, but not a single person in the place.
Just my luck
. A huge, plastic mechanical snowman was waving and smiling by the door entrance with a sign on its chest.

  
HAPPY HOLIDAYS. HAPPY CHILLY NEW YEAR.

   The whole idea of Christmas and celebrating New Year’s seemed crazy after what she just went through. Her heart started racing when she heard moaning coming closer from the stairs. She had slowed down the crazy man but there was no doubt in her mind that he still had the axe and a thirst for her blood.

   Ethel crawled around from car-to-car in the hopes that one door was open. Her legs were still heavy but getting better every minute. Whatever drug Missy had given her was wearing off and she wished she could run, or even walk faster. She was bleeding from several cuts and scrapes. The mixture and smell of the cement ground and car oil filled her nostrils and made her want to cough. She held it in as the terrible sound of an axe was being dragged across the concrete.

   “Where are you, my sweet? I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to talk to you. This has all been one big mistake. We didn’t mean to kill Mr. Grant. But before we could remove him, you were placed in the bed beside him. And then when Dr. Dutter got nosy, I had to tie him up and put him under the bed. It’s not my fault he smothered himself to death.”

   Ethel was confused because she saw Mr. Grant breathing. Was the orderly trying to trick her or was it all just a bad nightmare? The pain in her body felt real enough. She did know one thing, she didn’t believe that he didn’t want to kill her. With her out of the way, no one would probably find out what they had been doing. She wondered if it was really Missy who was helping him or someone else. And why did they kill the doctor? Was Dr. Dutter the one Missy was having an affair with, or was he working with them, and they decided to make a smaller team?

   Luckily, the orderly was going the opposite way in the parking lot. Ethel felt excited when she saw her friend, Anita’s vehicle. Her friend was famous for always forgetting to lock her car door. With luck, the handle moved and Ethel tried to quietly get into the blue Honda. She remembered Anita always kept a spare set of keys in the glove compartment. Her legs were much better and she could move them more. It would be painful to drive the car but she was getting away from this horror, no matter what.

   Ethel slowly put the keys into the ignition, still with her head down. She hadn’t closed the car door yet because she thought it would make too much noise. Peeking up, she couldn’t even see the orderly. So she slammed the car door and quickly started the engine. Living in New York didn’t give her a chance to drive often, so it took a moment to remember how.

   As she was driving slowly towards the exit, the sounds of outside let her know that the New Year had begun. People’s voices were raised, cheering and hollering. The sound of fireworks blasted and sounded like gun shots in the closed parking garage. When she saw the happy face of the plastic snowman, she felt so relieved to be leaving the hospital that she almost waved back.

   The orderly jumped in front of the car and Ethel slammed on the brakes, screaming. The man was mad, very mad. His eyes looked like burning coals and he seemed to be dragging his left leg. With a wicked grin, he came at the car windshield with the axe. She could see he was bleeding badly, but it didn’t seem to be slowing him down. Before she could think, she stepped on the gas pedal and it lunged the car forward. Pinning the orderly between the huge snowman and the car.

   One of the snowman’s twig arms had fallen over the bloody face of the orderly, almost protecting him.

   Luckily, the noise had brought hospital security outside. Before Ethel passed out, she was getting pulled out of the wreckage.

***

Ethel laid in a flower filled room on a different floor of Christmas hospital, surrounded by some of her Clover Court neighbors, and Detective Vince Carpino. Besides a few bruises, she had made it to New Year’s Day.

   “So sugar, explain to me again what was going on this whole time. I’m still confused about it,” Doris said, her trademark cowboy hat on top of her head.

   “Well, two of the nurses on my floor—“

   “—Missy and Gita.” Vince added. His warm, handsome face was only interrupted by his large nose.

   “Right. They had—well Missy had accidently given my roommate Mr. Grant the wrong medication. She gave him a pill form of Lidocaine. The usual use is tropical and you just rub it on the area. The medication numbs the body, and when taken orally, numbs the mouth as well. Mr. Grant had a stroke, or heart attack because of it. Anita is doing the autopsy now. I thought at first Mr. Grant was breathing but when the staff removed his blanket, they found a tiny massage machine that was making the movements. Missy got Gita involved, and the senior nurse didn’t want to lose her job for letting one of her nurses be so careless.”

   Ethel paused to sip the water Vince had poured. She still felt weird as the drug was leaving her system, and she had the worst dry mouth on the planet.