Chapter 4 - The Locked Corridor
Marcus searched the viewing room for another exit.
The space was designed for families, not emergencies. Two upholstered chairs. A side table with tissues. A water dispenser. One locked door back to the public lobby and another leading toward the staff corridor.
Both used electronic access.
Both were dead.
He lifted one of the chairs and drove its wooden leg into the narrow window beside the corridor door.
The first strike cracked the inner pane.
The supervisor shouted through the glass for him to stop.
Marcus struck it again.
The pane shattered inward.
An alarm should have sounded.
Nothing did.
He cleared the remaining glass with the chair, wrapped his jacket around his forearm, and reached through to the mechanical handle.
The door opened.
He entered the cold preparation room.
The female attendant stepped between him and Alina.
“You cannot touch her until we know what is happening.”
Marcus was close enough now to see the fear she had been containing.
Her name badge read Dana Mercer.
“I am not leaving her,” he said.
“Then help us do this safely.”
Dana instructed him to stand near Alina's head and watch for movement without lifting the sheet. The supervisor introduced himself as Harold Pike. The second technician was Owen Briggs, twenty-six years old and less than a month into the job.
Harold tried the service door again.
Still locked.
A security shutter had lowered outside the narrow corridor window, blocking the parking lot.
Marcus asked who could control the building remotely.
Harold said only the crematory's regional operations center and the contracted fire-suppression company.
“Who called?” Marcus asked.
“I don't know.”
“You heard the voice.”
“Male. Altered or routed through a digital system.”
“What did he say?”
Harold hesitated.
Marcus stepped closer.
“What did he say?”
“He said Alina Hale was under a federal medical hold and that moving her could kill her.”
Dana looked at him sharply.
“You left that out.”
“I was trying to determine whether it was a hoax.”
Marcus almost laughed.
His wife had moved beneath a cremation sheet, the room had locked itself, and the disconnected chamber had regained power.
A hoax would have been the simplest explanation available.
Owen found an old analog landline in a maintenance closet. He plugged it into a wall jack and dialed emergency services.
A recording answered.
The number you are calling from has been restricted.
Dana pulled the sheet back just enough to see Alina's face.
Marcus moved beside her.
Alina's eyes were closed. Her lips were pale. A faint line marked her cheek where it had rested against a hospital pillow.
Marcus touched two fingers to her temple.
Her skin was cold.
Not the deep, unnatural cold he had feared.
Cold like someone left in a poorly heated room.
“Alina,” he said.
No response.
He leaned closer.
Her lips moved.
Only a fraction.
Dana placed a hand near Alina's mouth.
A whisper of air touched her glove.
Harold turned toward the ceiling camera.
“If anyone is watching, unlock the exterior doors now.”
The lights flickered.
Then every overhead fixture except one went dark.
The remaining light shone directly above Alina.
Marcus looked at the small dark mark visible through the sheet over her chest. Up close, he realized it was not a stain.
It was the outline of a square adhesive patch beneath the fabric.
Dana carefully exposed it.
A medical sensor was attached below Alina's collarbone.
No wires.
No hospital label.
A tiny blue light pulsed once every ten seconds.
Owen recognized the device.
His father had participated in a cardiac trial at Harborview Regional.
The patch was not used to declare death.
It was designed to suppress dangerous heart rhythms by delivering timed electrical signals.
“Could it make a pulse difficult to detect?” Marcus asked.
Owen swallowed.
“My father was warned that experimental settings could slow the heart almost to nothing.”
Dana looked at Alina.
“Who put this on her?”
The emergency phone rang a third time.
Marcus answered before anyone else could reach it.
May you like
The altered voice spoke one sentence.
“Your wife was never supposed to reach the chamber awake.”
