At the nurses’ station a late-middle-aged man argues and pleads with a police officer and a nurse. His hunter-green flat cap held in hand, he’s a stooped and grayed Oliver Twist, weary from all the years of begging for more. From what Ramola can piece together, he is not a patient but a visitor who, in the newer chaos ushered in by the alarms, managed to sneak up to the second floor to either be in the room with a family member or to help his loved one evacuate the hospital. Both the officer and nurse shake their heads and say sorry as they attempt to herd him wherever it is the healthy are supposed to go and go alone.
Once through the open area of the nurses’ station, their group quickly huddles around Natalie in the elevator vestibule and in front of the exit stairwell. She grimaces and slowly flexes her left hand as they ask her how she’s doing and if she can walk down one flight of stairs, as they should bypass using the elevator. Natalie says she is fine to walk and still stubbornly won’t allow anyone else to carry her bag.
The guard, Stephen, opens the door to the stairs and the four of them step onto the cement landing. Contained and compressed within the cold metal-and-concrete stairwell, the alarm is again transformed, cruelly mimicking human vocalization, growing more weary and desperate with each ricocheting call. Smoke gathers around the recessed emergency lighting as though the wisps are moths. The smell is not the pleasant roast of wood at the campfire or fireplace but the cloying, sickening tang of melting plastic and other substances that shouldn’t be burned.
Natalie says, “Jesus, aren’t there other stairs?” then covers her mouth.
Stephen says, “We’re okay going down. The smoke is coming from the third floor.”
Ramola is the last to step off the landing and onto the stairs. She can finally see over the others’ heads from her elevated vantage, but she can’t see around the turn to the landing between the first and second floor. From above, a percussive bang almost sends her tumbling into Natalie. Everyone stops. Ramola turns, looks behind and up; the third-floor landing and door are not visible. The alarm still cries. There’s a click and a whoosh before another exploding bang. The same sounds repeat, caught in a loop. Someone is opening and then slamming closed the third-floor door.
Dr. Awolesi urges everyone to continue on. “Keep moving. Keep moving.”
A woman shouts from above, “She had great power and was dreaded by all the world.” The door slams shut and then swings open without pause. “Surrounded by a high wall,” she says singsong, lilting at “high” and separating “wall” into two syllables. Her voice is the same tone and pitch as the alarm and it sounds like there are two of her. The woman continues shouting between the pistonlike opening and closing of the door. “Let it cost what it will cost.”
Ramola eases down the stairs, a reluctant swimmer stepping into freezing water, one hand on the railing, neck craned, trying to locate the shouting woman, to see if she’s following. Ramola reaches too far out with her last step and stumbles onto the landing. The others have stopped walking.
“In the desert she has to live in misery.”
Natalie has her back pressed against the far wall. Dr. Awolesi shields her and speaks rapidly into her radio. Stephen has his Taser gun pointed at a teenage boy standing a few stairs below the platform. The boy wears a fitted gray hooded sweatshirt adorned with a sneaker-brand logo and black skinny jeans, both showing off his wiry frame. Gauze bandaging is visible, a secret peeking out from under the sweatshirt at the base of his neck.
“The beautiful bird isn’t singing in the nest,” the woman says. She has stopped slamming the door and her heavy, descending footfalls vibrate throughout the stairwell’s exoskeleton.
Stephen scoots to the edge of the landing, talking to the boy, telling him to turn around, to walk downstairs, telling him they can get him help if he goes downstairs.
Wild-eyed and as twitchy as a short-circuiting electrical panel, the boy snaps and growls, atavistic in his new animalness. He does not turn around or walk down the stairs. He holds his ground. His legs are spring-loaded. His fists are rocks, his teeth bared in deimatic display, broadcasting the threat of our most primitive weapons.
“The cat got it.” The woman jumps onto the platform between the second and third floor. She cries out as she thuds and crashes, landing on all fours judging by the sounds of her scrabbling hands and feet, but quickly gathers herself and continues progressing down the stairs.
The boy leaps and wraps his arms around the guard’s legs. Stephen cries out and falls backward, onto his butt. There’s a pop and rapid ticking from the Taser gun. The boy and Stephen stiffen and then convulse in thrall to 1,200 volts. As the ticking slows and ceases, the boy slumps, slides off Stephen’s legs, and rolls into a fetal ball. Dr. Awolesi rushes to Stephen’s side. His eyes are closed and he is groaning. The boy unfurls and lies facedown on the platform, crying.
“It’ll scratch out your eyes too!” The woman rounds the corner onto the second-floor landing above them. Her feet are bare and dirty, and her hospital johnny hangs loosely around her shoulders and chest. Her forearms are streaked with blood. She points at Ramola, rooting her to the spot. The woman laughs; a terrible hitching, grinding gears within her chest, and her sputtering, sickly engine springs a leak and she hisses and spits, flailing one arm as though it is a trebuchet.
Ramola backs away until Natalie grabs her arm and says, “Let’s go.”
Stephen is sitting up and shaking out his left hand. Dr. Awolesi has his right arm draped across her shoulders, urging him to get on his feet. Natalie and
