The Virus

Chapter Thirteen

A week later I got a call from Tory saying he was granted permission for our trip. He picked me up and we drove out to the hospital. It was warm out, the sun beating down on our heads as we crossed the parking lot two hours later. Once inside the building, I pushed my sunglasses to the top of my head. Tory did all the talking and I just watched. We were so close to getting the key to the records but since Tory was no longer an intern, no go. So I did what any smart (suicidal) person would do. I swiped the key off the desk when the attendant wasn’t looking.

“I need you to stand watch,” I whispered to Tory.

            I opened my palm slightly to reveal the glittery silver key. He nodded and we took the elevator to the floor where the records were kept. I slipped inside and he stayed out in the hall. My heart was pounding. What if we got caught? There were no cameras in the record room, lucky for us. Running over to the filing cabinet, I tried to pull it open but it was locked. There had to be a key somewhere.

            I searched the room, all the while my heart was hammering in my chest. The key was taped to the underside of a desk. I unlocked the filing cabinet labeled “W-Z”.  My parents’ file had to be in here.

            Young, young, young, I thought, repeating my last name. I finally found the file and a hard knock came at the door. I froze, then, almost automatically, started freaking out. We were busted. I ran to the desk and re-taped the key to the bottom, then I hid along with the key. Moments later the door opened and I heard Tory talking and joking around. He sounded more nervous than jokey. I held my breath, clutching the file to my chest.

“It’s been great seeing you again Tory,” another male voice said.

“Yeah, I’m surprised you’re still here.”

“I’ve got to get college credit somehow,” he replied with a chuckle. I heard the file cabinet open and I sucked in a sharp breath. There was the sound of complete silence as if someone heard me but their conversation resumed as normal. “I should get back to work…unpaid work.”

“We should have coffee later. Catch up,” Tory offered helpfully.

“I leave in an hour. How’s that?”

“That’s cool.” Their conversation faded until I heard the door closed.

            I released the breath I was holding and came out from under the desk. I skimmed through the file quickly and decided to take it a few pages with me. As I was replacing the file I remembered Carter saying his mom stayed here. I looked through the other cabinets for Carter’s last name. There were two different ones. One for his mom and apparently he’d been admitted at one point as well. I looked through Carter’s file but found nothing of interest just some random tests he had done. I looked through his mom’s but there were so many things that I wouldn’t be able to get the gist of it by just skimming.

            I stuck the file in my bag along with the papers I took from my parents’ file and quietly slipped out of the records room. Tory was waiting down in the lobby. Apparently he thought it was better to leave me alone than to hang out in the hall. It didn’t matter, I got what I came for.

“Did you find anything interesting?” he asked.

“Yeah. A lot,” I said cryptically. I couldn’t tell him I stole the file. “It seems it was more complicated than I thought.”

“Did you get the answers you were looking for?”

“Sort-of.”

            We hung around for an hour so he could have coffee with his friend. I didn’t join them. Instead, I ducked into a nearby bookstore and found a deserted corner to read the files in. My parents had internal bleeding after being shot blah, blah, blah. Doctors couldn’t stop the bleeding blah, blah, blah. My dad died first and my mom a few days later. There were no exotic diseases hiding in their bloodstream and if there were, no one documented it. I sighed. It was nothing I didn’t know already but somehow it put my heart slightly at ease.