Excerpt of Fever Dream by Dennis Palumbo

Finally, night. Crowding out the last faint rays of a stubborn summer sun. Though a stale heat still lingered, fringed the air. Made the darkness heavy, oppressive.

I pulled into the parking lot at Pittsburgh Memorial, under the glowing UPMC sign. Only a few cars dotted the line of spaces, their roofs shining like new coins off the glare of the parking lot lightposts.

I went into the hospital through a side entrance, by-passing the main reception area, and took the elevator up to the ICU-- Where, to my surprise, the doors opened onto a deserted corridor. Silent. Empty. I paused a moment, then stepped out of the elevator. Heard the doors close with a whispered rumble behind me.

The corridor wasn't just deserted. It was dark. Long shadows painted the dull walls, making gray the familiar hospital white. I looked up, saw that the overhead flourescents were out. Tubes of flat black that ran the length of the high ceiling, disappearing at the end of the hall.

I took another step and glanced toward the nurse's station. It was empty. The wheeled chair behind the semi-circular desk was pushed back against the corner, as though shoved there.

As though somebody had bolted out of it in a hurry.

I swallowed, mouth suddenly dry as dust. Felt my heart revving up in my chest.

Something was definitely wrong.

Steeling myself, I started down the corridor toward the last room. Treva's room.

The first two rooms I passed were empty. Silent. Unlike earlier today. No sounds of machinery pumping. No beeps, blinking lights, pneumatic wheezes.And no patients. Again, unlike earlier today. I remembered that there'd been one in each of these rooms. Now the rooms were dim as caves, lit only by a rising moon's faint glow through the windows slats. The beds were stripped. Sheets gone.

I'd been around ICUs enough to know what that meant. Or what it usually meant. The patients had died.

But where was the night nurse? More importantly, where was Treva's guard, Detective Robertson?

That thought made me swivel where I stood. Nerves wound tight, vibrating. Fight or flight. Nothing. And no one.

Then I looked again toward the end of the long, shadowed corridor. Saw for the first time a soft, pale light that bloomed faintly up ahead, coming from the last room. Somehow more ominous for being the sole illumination in the darkness of the silent ICU.

I squinted in concentration as I drew closer to that light emanating from Treva's room. Gripped by a sudden, visceral sense of forboding. Of dread.

The light grew brighter. A few feet more and-—

Something caught my foot. Big, soft, heavy. I stumbled, clawing the air. Righting myself at last by grabbing the doorframe at the threshold to the room.

I peered down in the darkness. A body lay on the floor at my feet. A large-bellied man, jacket thrown open.

I got to my haunches, made out his features in the light from Treva's room.

Robertson.

Quickly, I checked his vitals. He was unconscious, but alive. A smear of blood tattooed the vinyl flooring beneath his head. I spread his jacket, checked for more blood. Other wounds. Nothing.

I knew I had to get him help, but not before checking on Treva. I got to my feet again and bolted into her room.The light I'd seen had come from two small table lamps, one on each side of her bed. The overheads were out.

The shaded lamps made the room seem incongruously cozy. Safe. The pillows were pushed up against the head- board, as though perhaps she'd decided to read by lamp-light. Had in fact asked that the overheads be turned off. Cozy. Safe. The IV drip was unhooked and coiled. Hospital slippers positioned side-by-side under the bed. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Except that Treva was gone.

A trail of blood, a series of irregularly-spaced black-red droplets, shone wetly on the white floor.

Like a trail of scarlet bread crumbs in a nightmarish fairy tale, they led me away from the bed. Out of the room.

Into the corridor behind me. Toward a service door at the far end. Disappearing under that door...

Without a thought, I pulled it open and half-ran, half-fell down the right-angled service stairs. The stairway was as brightly-lit as the ICU corridor had been dark, and the drops of blood glowed absurdly red against the worn paint-flecked concrete steps.

Three floors down, and the blood trail went right, under another door. I pushed it open.

Another, smaller hallway. Violently bright from the overheads. But just as empty as the corridor above.

A series of double-doors lined the wall to my left. But the only doors that got my attention were the ones that stood open, a dozen feet or so down the hall.

I slowed my steps. Came up carefully to the opening.Took a breath. Steadied myself. For some reason--perhaps in answer to an old impulse--I clenched my fists.

And stepped inside.

It was an operating room. White-sheeted surgical bed in the center. Trays of instruments on wheeled carts. A canopy of goose-necked lamps positioned for maximum visibility, beneath the familiar ceiling flourescents.

The room held two people, both staring at me, wide-eyed. Faces drained of color. Pinched with fear.

Lloyd Holloway. The young doctor I'd met up in the ICU. Standing at the surgical bed, hands at his sides. Linebacker's body ramrod straight, strained from tension, held upright by extreme force of will.

And Treva Williams. Sitting on the floor, knees up, her back against a far corner. Shivering in her flimsy hospital gown. Hands behind her back, obviously bound. Bare feet also bound, at the ankle.

I registered them both in what seemed only a second.

Then I saw Treva's mouth open, forming an "O," and her eyes widening, looking at me with sudden horror.

No, not at me. Past me...

I felt a searing pain at the back of my head, and looked up at the blinding overhead lights as they began to whirl like a vortex of spinning stars.And then I saw nothing at all.