The Rules of the Red - 2nd Edition |✓|

Chapter Thirteen, Part Four - Checks And Balances

The elevator opened into a spacious room filled with the color of silver–silver instruments like scalpels and saws, dozens of silver cabinets to house the dead, two neat rows of silver gurneys to hold the more recently dead, silver containers of embalming fluid, a shallow, silver basin with a silver sprayer for washing bodies. The color of silver was everywhere, and I hated it. Pure silver could burn the hell out of a Wolf–it could bring you right to death's horizon. I didn't find it ironic at all that the morgue was filled with the deadliest of all colors. Actually, it was fitting.

I thought it smelled horrible upstairs, but the stench of death was nearly toxic in the morgue. It was all around in here. You could feel it crawling up the insides of your nose, and pressing against the back of your eyeballs. With a shiver, I scanned the gurneys ahead. Six of them held bodies covered by white sheets stained with red.

"Hello?" I rubbed my arms to fight the cold, but the Wolf would warm me soon. "Just looking for a bathroom. Anyone here?" There was no one alive to answer my question, and a few, quick sniffs confirmed this. "Right--I'll check that computer over there, and you can get started on the filing cabinets."

Ethan nodded and we split up. I walked to the desk in the far corner of the morgue, noticing right away the computer was nothing more than a dirty, freakishly outdated monitor with a clunky-looking box to go with it. I looked down at the sticky keys with the faded lettering, momentarily intimidated by the grossness of it. I wiped the keyboard with the elbow of my jacket and pressed the power button. After a five second lag the screen came to life with a grey login menu asking for Mr. Harris' password. I gave a loud exhale and hung my head, thinking.

"Hmm," I clicked the cancel button. A new screen popped up, offering logins for Dr. Harris, Mr. Grey, and Guest. I smiled, recognizing the names of the two doctors from my father's autopsy report. A lightbulb went off in my brain and I clicked the Guest login. The screen temporarily blackened and then another fuzzy, grey background was loaded. I registered a wastebasket, tan folders, and other random icons of the home screen, and knew that it had worked.

I scanned the various folders and selected the one marked 'Patients Deceased'. "Gotcha," I whispered. The file loaded, albeit slowly, and then a long list of patient names appeared, beginning in the A's. I scrolled rapidly, but with every swipe the screen lagged and froze horribly, taking several seconds at a time to load new batches of names. This went on for quite some time (I had only just made it to the C's) when Ethan's whispered "Hey!" caught my attention from across the room. He put a finger to his lips before soundlessly returning a folder to one of the cabinets.

I was about to asking him what was wrong when I heard it–a whirring sound. The elevator. The elevator was going up, and soon it would be coming back down. Ethan sprint towards me. He grabbed me by the arm and yanked me to the floor as the sounds of the approaching elevator grew louder.

"Crap. What do we do?" I said.

"We need a diversion."

The elevator stopped with a solid thump and two bickering men stepped out.

"You're prettier than me," whispered Ethan. "Distract them."

"What?"

"Just do it!"

Ethan shoved me away from the desk and I lurched into the open, quickly regaining my balance. I cleared my throat and took a few steps forward in order to keep the two men focused on me.

"Who the hell are you?" The tallest one had spoken. He was an ugly, thin, old man and according to the tag pinned to his blue lab coat his name was Doctor Harris. This mean his short, portly companion had to be Mr. Grey.