The Poisonous Ten (25 page)

“Will do,” said Fairmont.

Wilkes left the stairwell and started across the floor toward the opposite end where the door to the other staircase was.

“Detective Hayward, what’s your ten-twenty?” Wilkes said into his walkie-talkie.

Wilkes opened the door and stepped into the stairwell and found it abandoned.

“Detective Hayward, what’s your ten-twenty?” Wilkes stood there getting more impatient by the second. “Detective Hayward, do you copy?”

As Wilkes clicked off, he heard feedback from another walkie-talkie a few flights below.

“Hayward?” Wilkes called down into the stairwell, his voice echoing throughout the metal surroundings. The walls, steps, even the window treatments in the stairwell were all painted white, giving a sanitarium feel to the whole place. “Hayward?”

Wilkes retrieved his gun and started taking the steps down. He’d made it halfway between the sixth and fifth floors when he turned the corner and saw a body lying on the stairs, facedown, with a slash of blood along the wall leading to his head, beneath which a puddle had formed on the lower steps.

“Hayward?” Wilkes said.

Wilkes was about to leave the landing for the stairs when he heard a noise from behind him. As he turned, a lead pipe slammed into his head and knocked him down the flight of stairs to the floor below. He moaned for a second before passing out in the stairwell.

30

“So what’s he planning next?” Parks asked Jackie. “What poison? How? Where? The warfarin is what made them pee blood?”

“Mixed with the spider venom? Yes,” Jackie said. “But it’s mostly a blood thinner. I think that’s the key. He plans to bleed them out somehow.”

“Are there poisons that can cut through the skin?”

“Yes,” Jackie said, nodding. “There are acids and whatnot that can eat through the skin, but those take time. They’re messy and unstable. I’m not sure what he’s planning. But if they’re cut, they will bleed. Badly.”

“I have some more tests I need to check on,” Dr. Lynch interrupted. “Do you want me to inform you of the results?”

“Can I go with you?” Jackie asked before turning to Parks. “I’ll call you on your cell and let you know if there’s anything immediate that needs to be relayed.”

“Sounds good,” Parks said. “Okay, Ramirez. I want you to stay with the brothers.” Ramirez nodded. “You two,” Parks said pointing to Officers Conrad and Hunter. “You’re going to stay with me. We’re going to check this place out floor by floor.”

“I hate to say it, sir, but we’ve been instructed that at least one of us has to stay within eyesight of the two prisoners at
all times,” Officer Conrad said. “And no one’s called us to tell us otherwise.”

Fairmont made it back onto the floor, catching Parks’s line of vision. “Oh, good, Fairmont. You’re joining me.” Parks turned back to the two officers. “One of you stay here then. You two decide who.”

“What about me?” Moore asked.

“You’re going to stay here and keep guard. Go through the paperwork at the front desk over there. All admissions. All patients. See if anything sticks out as odd or wrong. But give Hardwick a call first and give her an update on what’s going on here.”

“Will do.” Moore nodded.

“Dave,” Fairmont began when Moore gave him a look. “Detective Parks. Look, doesn’t this seem a bit . . . wasteful? I mean, how do we even know this guy is going to attack today?”

As if on cue, the fire alarm in the building went off, lights flashing as sirens began to wail throughout every room on the floor. The tension raised as everyone on the floor began to panic and move about quickly as if fleeing the Titanic.

“When was the last time you had a coincidence that was just that?” Parks asked.

“Got it,” Fairmont agreed, retrieving his gun.

“Let’s go. Coming with me is . . . ?”

“Conrad,” answered the older officer.

“All right,” Parks said looking to Fairmont and Conrad.
“You two, let’s go. Starting with the floor above us.”

Parks led the way to the staircase and up to the seventh floor.

*                            *                            *

“Think we should leave the door open like that?” yelled O
fficer Hunter.

Ramirez
mentally rolled his eyes at the kid almost half his age.

“What’s it matter?” Ramirez yelled back over the siren.

“Isn’t someone trying to kill these two?” Hunter asked.

Evan and Wesley
were still handcuffed to their chairs, looks of concern growing on their faces.

“Yeah, but he’s not going to shoot them,” Ramirez re
plied. “He wants to poison them. It’s all right. We have a guard outside as well. No one’s getting into this room.”

“I gotta go,” Moore said, sticking her head through the door.

“What’s up?” Ramirez asked.

“There’s a fight breaking out because everyone’s panic
king. Nurses need help. I’ll be right back.”

Ramirez looked past her and waved her on. “Go.”

Hunter’s breathing deepened and his eyes bulged to the point that the fear in the air was becoming infectious.

“Fine,” Ramirez said, nodding toward the door. “Go ahead, if it makes you feel better.”

“Just until she gets back,” Hunter said, closing the door.

The thick steel door latched shut, and Hunter stared out
through the wired-glass window in the center of the door then turned and went back to his post in the other corner, keeping an eye on the two brothers. Evan continued scratching the top of his scalp as if digging for something he could not locate.

“Man, this is fucked up,” Wesley said. “We can’t die in here. You can’t keep us in here if we’re going to die. That’s, like, unconstitutional or something. We need to get out of here. Like, now.”

“Shut up,” Ramirez yelled back. “You’ll be fine if you just shut up and don’t do anything stupid.”

“Yeah, whateve—” Wesley stopped talking and eyed the air around him, sniffing at it, as if he suddenly noticed som
ething out of place. “Does anyone smell that?”

“Shut up,” Ramirez said again.

“No, seriously, man,” Wesley continued.

“Shut! Up!”

“Don’t you smell that? That can’t just be me.”

“I don’t smell nothing. Now shut the fu—”

“No, wait,” Hunter said. The young officer turned his head around to face the air duct above everyone’s head. “What is that?”

Ramirez sniffed the air when suddenly his eyes began to water and he coughed deeply. Though chained to the chair, Wesley tried to stand, looking around wildly at the air above him. Then his brother began coughing.

“Shit,” Hunter said.

“Something’s coming in through the air duct,” Ramirez said. “We gotta get out of here. Get their handcuffs.”

Ramirez went for the door only to find it wouldn’t open. He banged against it, yelling as loud as he could, not realizing he went unheard thanks to the one-and-a-half-inch-thick metal door and wailing fire alarm. He continued to pound away at the door when Moore showed up, looking confused as she jiggled the handle.

“What’s wrong?” Moore shouted at the window in the door.

“Locked,” Ramirez mouthed inaudibly, also motioning toward the air vents to try and signal what was happening within the room. 

Moore tried the handle while Ramirez continued poun
ding against the door, his eyes tearing up as his lips swelled and his nose began to run.

“Hold on,” Moore said. “We’ll get you out of there. How’s everyone doing?”

Ramirez turned around to see for himself and to allow her a view, something she wished she could take back. Officer Hunter was doing the same as Ramirez, his eyes turning pink and tearing up while the rest of his face swelled up and became flushed. The two convicts, still handcuffed to their chairs, screamed in pain as the poison being released into the air affected them more. Their mouths bled as they coughed up blood, while their noses became leaky faucets that couldn’t be stopped. Their faces were red and swollen, as if their entire bodies were on fire. The handcuffs around their wrists dug into their skin as they jerked against them. The undersides of Wesley Cosway’s wrists bled freely, and he began to cut through the skin with his teeth in an attempt to free himself from his restraints.

“Dammit,” Moore cursed as she retrieved her cell and d
ialed Parks.

“What is it?” Parks shouted over the sirens wailing throughout the hospital.

“The attack. It’s going on. Now. Ramirez and the other officer are trapped in the room with the Cosways. The door is locked, and we can’t open it. And the room is filling up with some sort of gas. Not sure what, but everyone’s reacting badly to it.”

“I’m coming right down,” Parks shouted back. “Call Jackie. Get her up there with the doctor right away.”

“Okay,” Moore replied. She hung up and dialed Jackie’s number while looking back into the room. Inside the locked room, Evan Cosway choked on some of his blood as he screamed in pain while also gnawing away at his wrists, trying to free himself. He stopped and jerked his hands back violently from the handcuffs, trying to apply enough force to break them. Ramirez heard a snap and looked over at Evan as he freed his right hand from the still unbroken cuffs.

“Dammit, Cosway, stop it,” Ramirez choked.

Evan Cosway ignored Ramirez’s orders and with his free hand immediately went about wildly scratching at his neck, his fingernails digging deep to get at the root of his pain. He let out a sigh of relief when he broke through the skin on the back of his neck, drawing blood as he continued to scratch.

Moore looked on in horror, realizing there was nothing she could do to stop what was happening, when Jackie broke her concentration.

“What’s up?” Jackie asked through the phone line.

“Get up here with the doctor, right away. Something’s happening. The room with the Cosway brothers is filling up with some sort of gas, and Ramirez is trapped in there with another officer. We can’t open the door.”

“On my way,” Jackie said and hung up.

“Get this door open,” Ramirez shouted, still not realizing he was going unheard.

Moore ran off to find something to help pry the door open, running back a few seconds later with a fire extinguisher in her hands. She motioned for Ramirez to back up then began to bang the extinguisher against the glass window in the door. She was able to crack it but not break it enough to allow for fresh air. She then began to slam the extinguisher against the handle in the doorway. Moore peered in through the shattered glass and saw that everyone looked worse than before, the two brothers now bleeding through their eyes and ears as well as their noses, mouths, and ears. As she looked to Ramirez, she saw his nose began to bleed.

“Hold on,” Moore shouted when she started banging against the door handle again. “Almost there.”

“Rachel!” shouted Fairmont from down the hallway as he and Parks swung through the door at the stairwell and ran toward her. “Stop!”

Over the commotion of nurses and patients evacuating the hospital, and the fire alarm that had yet to stop, there was no way for Moore or anyone else at the other end of the floor to hear Fairmount’s shouts.  

“I got it,” Moore gasped as she slammed against the door once more and broke through the lock.

The door swung open at the same time the extinguisher slipped from Moore’s hands. Both the door hitting the metal wall and the extinguisher hitting the floor caused not one but two sparks, and immediately the room erupted in a ball of flames. The fireball was big and quick, consuming the entire inside of the room. The two brothers shouted in pain while their bodies burned up, both of them still handcuffed to their chairs, Evan Cosway’s one free hand waving wildly, neither one able to run away or do anything about the flames.

Detective Ramirez and Officer Hunter had also both been engulfed in the flames and flailed about as they tried to get out of the room. Hunter ran into a wall, slipped on the floor, and banged his head against the corner of the counter as he fell. Ramirez made it out of the room, but had no clear direction to go as he couldn’t see with his face on fire, and he fell over a nearby couch, crashing through a glass coffee table. He writhed about on the floor, his body still in flames, his neck sliced open by the glass shards, his life rapidly bleeding out. As his blood soaked into the hospital carpet, it began to cook from the flames, emitting a foul smell into the air. Parks and Officer Conrad ran to his aid and began patting the fire out.

The ball of fire that had swept through the room quickly dispersed, but not before sending a wall of fire out the door and engulfing part of Moore. Fairmont tackled her and beat at her sides as he tried to put out the fire consuming her clothes. A few seconds later, Jackie was at his side with a blanket to help smother the flames.

“Doctor!” Parks shouted to no one in particular. “I need a doctor.”

Dr. Lynch was at Parks’s side, checking on Ramirez
and shouting at several of the fleeing nurses, all of whom ignored him. Parks backed away from the doctor to allow him room to conduct his business on the detective. He turned toward the room Ramirez had escaped from, everything inside black from the fire. Parks walked past Fairmont, who cradled Moore in his arms as tears made clean tracks down her soot-covered face. Parks approached the doorway to the room and saw the two Cosway brothers, both dead, looks of horror forever burnt into their faces, while their charred bodies remained chained to their chairs. In the corner of the room the young officer lay face down, his body burned almost beyond recognition. The smell of burnt flesh filled the hallways of the sixth floor, making everyone left breathing ready to gag as their eyes watered. 

This was an absolute nightmare. In all his years on the force, he couldn’t recall a more horrifying sight.

They had tried. He wasn’t sure what went wrong, but they had still lost. And just like Tippin had warned, there were casualties. The people who had tried to stop the Palisades Poisoner had paid a price. And as Parks looked over his beaten team, he wondered who else would pay with their life as they tried to stop this madman from killing again.