“You’re such a good kitty, Luce,” Michelle said, petting him, knowing the cat had saved her with his warning yowl. But Omar would be back searching for her soon. She had to get to the lobby and outside, where she might find help.
Hoping Omar was intent on getting to the floor where her room was located, hoping he wouldn’t look back behind him as he climbed, she crept to the doorway and tentatively started down again.
She could feel the stairs vibrating, both from Omar running up behind her, and there were people coming up from down below. Dim lights were moving up the stairs. She could hear some swear words, cursing, when someone touched the stair rail. She almost smiled, and again had a feeling that the murmurs and voice tones were familiar. She wondered why they were whispering.
One of the people from below started pounding up the stairs, coming fast, and Michelle, who had reached the seventh floor landing, slipped under the stairs and crouched there in a little ball. She looked up through the stairs as the guy went by. He looked just like Heather’s boyfriend, Mike. The same shaggy black hair, handsome face and athletic build. That’s impossible, she decided, as she shakily straightened up and started down again.
As she descended, the voices from below became more and more clear, echoing in the stairwell. Quiet whispers that she recognized. She knelt and looked through the opening between the steel stairs at the people coming up from below.
She saw Rod, first, leading the way. Heather was right behind him and the professor, Vincent Middleton, was further behind. She stood up. They were apparitions, put there by Omar to confuse her. She could probably walk right through them and they would disappear into thin air, because they weren’t real.
Michelle was so intent, peering at the hallucinations coming up the stairs, that she didn’t become scared when Lucifer started his low growl. She was thinking that apparitions were insubstantial. Like holograms. They would waver in and out of focus. Mostly, you could see through them, like putting on 3D glasses in a movie.
These visions, though, seemed substantial, like real flesh and bones, although it was so dark on the stairs that she really couldn’t trust her eyesight.
Lucifer was snarling now. Getting loud. His little claws dug into her shoulder and it was painful. She almost smiled at the thought that the tiny cat could see the visions she was having. That, too, was impossible Michelle thought, as she unhooked his claws.
Also strange, if she was merely having visions, was that she could hear individual footsteps coming up the stairs. Ghosts, visions, apparitions, hallucinations; they didn’t make any noise when they moved.
Michelle let out a yelp when she felt a strong arm suddenly clamp around her waist, pulling her backwards. A hand covered her mouth, so she couldn’t make another sound. It was pulling her away from the sight she longed was real. She wanted to keep watching, seeing her beloved friends, but she was being pulled forcefully backward.
She felt a sharp whack at the back of her neck. Then all went black.
***
Mike ran to the top floor, to the door that said Twelve, and went inside a large room. The whole floor seemed to be empty, and he reasoned that the staff had left for the night. He was using the flashlight app on his phone and quickly noticed that there were many storage rooms, a janitor’s room, and one that looked like a break room for the staff, with a snack and a coffee machine when he peeked inside. When he got to the last room in a long hallway, he hit pay dirt.
This one held medical supplies. He went further inside, past desks and long benches where the lab workers performed their duties. There were lots of microscopes and other medical stuff he didn’t recognize. He finally found a locked glass case that held prescription medications. Beside it was a locked refrigeration unit. It was clicking and buzzing. Probably because the electricity was off and the motor was trying to turn itself on again. The temperature inside must be getting too high.
Shit, shit, shit, he mumbled to himself. This must be the storage unit for the live patient embryos and eggs. Michelle’s eggs had to be in there somewhere.
He could just unplug the machine, he thought, when he saw where the cord went to an electrical outlet. When the electricity went on again everything inside the refrigerator would die. In all probability, no one would notice until it was too late.
Both Rod and Heather thought Michelle would rather her eggs die than let Omar have use of them. But perhaps there were women who would be heartbroken if their potential babies were destroyed. Also, in vitro fertilization is enormously expensive. These eggs and embryos might be a last chance for childless couples who desperately wanted a baby.
Mike started riffling through the nearest desks, yanking drawers open. On his third try he found a hunk of keys on a chain. There were so many he sighed when he examined them. No labels. He might be here all night, trying different keys.
He knelt down in front of the refrigeration unit and started trying each key in the lock. It was a mechanical, mindless chore and he allowed his mind to drift. Mike was smiling as he remembered the first time he’d seen Heather, in that hospital room after she’d been struck by lightning.
He didn’t know if he really believed that Omar caused the strike that almost killed her, but Michelle, Rod, and even professor Middleton, seemed to think so, and they had all been there as witnesses that night.
When a person is struck by a lightning bolt it can leave a big ugly scar, but sometimes it leaves beautiful tracings that almost look like an elaborate tattoo of a leaf or tree branch. Mike had seen some examples. He wished he could see if Heather had
