J.L. Doty - Dead Among Us 01 - When Dead Ain’t Dead Enough by J.L. Doty Page A

heard voices in the hall coming his way. He looked about desperately but there was no place to hide, so he ducked into the shadows behind the nearest bed. He didn’t dare look up over the bed, but the smear of light on the floor of the ward suddenly filled with moving shadows. He heard a woman’s voice say, “He’s in the last bed on the right, doctor.”
    A man answered in a thick Russian accent, “Thank you. You can return to your station.”
    Paul’s heart started hammering in his chest and felt like it was climbing up into his throat. He tried to crouch even lower and hold his breath as the shadows on the floor started walking down the ward. The three Russians appeared in silhouette only a few feet from him, first the old fellow, then the ugly blond and finally Joe Stalin, the two thugs carefully screwing cylindrical silencers onto the end of semi-automatic pistols. If any of them glanced even a little to their left they’d see Paul easily and there’d be no escape. But Paul and the midgets had ducked into the shadows behind the first bed on the left, while the Russians were focused on his bed at the far end of the ward, so his luck held and they passed him by.
    He heard the older man say, “We won’t need the hardware. He’s already unconscious, so a simple spell will make it look like the hospital was at fault. Much cleaner that way.”
    As they walked toward his bed all three of them had their backs turned his way, but that wouldn’t last once they reached his bed, so he took his chance when they were half way down the ward. He knew the moment he stepped into the light from the door he’d alert the Russians with his own shadow, so he stayed in the shadows near the beds as he dashed on tiptoe toward the entrance. When he reached the wall at the end of the ward he looked back toward the Russians. They were still walking away from him, so he sprinted at a shallow angle through the door and out into the hall.
    His shadow momentarily darkened the ward and he heard a single, startled exclamation from one of the Russians, but as he pressed his back to the wall outside he heard no running feet coming his way so he guessed they hadn’t turned quickly enough to identify him as the source of the shadow. But he had only seconds before they discovered his bed was empty, so he turned immediately toward the elevators at the far end of the hall, only to freeze when he saw McGowan and the hippie woman talking to the nurse.
    Jim’Jiminie snarled, “This way, hurry!”
    Paul looked down at the midget, who hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “The stairway, you idiot.”
    The two midgets ran back the way they’d come, toward a red exit sign at the far end of the hall past the ward from which he’d just emerged. To follow Paul would have to pass in front of the ward, and he’d be exposed to the Russians again, but he had no choice so he ran after the midgets. As he passed the ward he glanced inside, saw the two young thugs angrily ripping the sheets off his bed, and the old Russian looking his way.
    He kept running, heard shouts from the Russians in the ward, heard a shout from McGowan and the hippie-woman at the nurse’s station, tried to ignore it all as he ran for the stairwell. And then a door just in front of him opened and Katherine McGowan stepped in his way, her eyes wide with surprise and a gasp escaping her lips. He plowed head-long into her and they both tumbled to the floor in a tangled sprawl, overturning a wheeled metal cart in the process, medical supplies clattering loudly across the floor. Paul only managed to get to his hands and knees when Joe Stalin stepped into the hallway about fifty feet away. Paul instinctively rolled to one side just as Joe raised his gun and fired. The silenced gun popped like a muffled firecracker, and the bullet dug chunks of tile and concrete out of the floor next to Paul’s hand, kicking up debris that stung his face and arms painfully.
    Paul reversed direction, rolled