Revenant

Chapter 31

Running down the corridor, I had a hard time distinguishing between the pounding coming from the metal box I was pushing and the thumping of my heart as it attempted to beat its way out of my chest. Before long I came upon a set of hospital-style double doors, and I allowed the metal box to slam into them at speed, and-

I felt a flash of agony in the whereabouts of my hip, and the world spun around me crazily for a half-second or so, at which point I discovered I was lying on the floor, doubled over in pain. Eyes watering slightly, I managed a quick look around me, and very quickly pieced together what had happened.

Only the left door had been left unlocked... the door on the right was still locked in place.

Thump! Thump!

Right.

I quickly got to my feet and hobbled over to the doors, located the lock mechanisms for the door on the right, pulled the latches at top and bottom into the unlocked position, then limped back around to the noisy metal box and heaved against it. Both doors parted gently to give way this time, and I picked up the pace. The pain from my injury was already beginning to recede, but I could sense I wasn't moving at the same speed I had been before.

Goddamned locked doors....

It only took a handful of seconds for me to fly down the last twenty feet or so of hallway and through the open doors leading to the very warm room at the very back of the building, the one housing the crematorium. Upon entering I had to grab the gurney and lean back, my boots sliding against the concrete floor in an attempt to arrest its forward momentum. For a moment I was afraid that Stevie's prison would slide off the top of the gurney and fall to the floor, but the welded metal box managed to stay in place.

Its ability to stay together was a whole different story....

The top of the box now resembled a rounded metal boulder whose surface was composed of frighteningly large outward dents, some of them bearing what appeared to be knuckle imprints. The sides were starting to bow outward as well, causing the rectangular box to become warped and slightly misshapen. There was another rage-laced grunt of effort followed by a tremendous thump, and yet another bulge appeared on the metal surface before me.

My eyes strayed to the locks, and then to the welds that held the box together. Most seemed to be holding up fairly well, but one seam at the top had come apart slightly and produced a crack running along the corner, one that was almost a half-inch wide and a few inches long. Though I could now hear Stevie's furious grunts of effort better through the slight gap he'd exposed, it appeared he hadn't noticed it yet, else he would probably have switched gears and focused on attacking the weak spot to make it wider.

My mind raced through all of the factors I now had to consider. I was hurt, and I didn't know how bad it was, but it might affect things like lifting and pushing. In the original plan I had assumed that the box would be sufficient to contain Stevie, which would give me lots of time to load both it and him into the incinerator in an orderly fashion. Trying to tackle this sort of weight in a hurry was a different matter altogether, especially with nobody around to help.

The guy on the roof, maybe? The one I was using as bait? Could I go and get him, bring him down here and get him to help?

Thump!

No, that wasn't an option either. By the time I made it up to the rooftop, convinced him to come down with me and then got back here Stevie might be loose.

Thump! The crack in the weld widened a little.

Okay, there was no 'might' about it... Stevie was going to be breaking out of his reinforced metal prison, and soon.