The Thing in B-3: A Tale of the Supernatural

A Shocking Realization

Dr. Josiah Hornaday came into the anteroom still wearing green cap and gown. He was a tall, thin, slightly stooped man with a long, lantern jaw and a long, thin nose. His thinning gray hair partially exposed a long, narrow skull that caught the light.

So many sharp features might have added up to a knifelike total. But Dr. Hornaday’s large, brooding eyes softened everything else about him, giving him a sort of Lincolnesque aspect.

He sighed with relief that the job in the autopsy room was over. With quirked brows, he gave his head a short shake as if asking himself how a man ever chose pathology in the first place.

He noticed that the lights had been turned on in his private office. He heard the sounds of movements and assumed Bill Latham was the source.

As he thought about Bill, a fight flickered in Dr. Hornaday’s eyes. He had known Bill from birth and had occasional glimpses over the years of William Latham’s boy growing up.

It was Dr. Hornaday who had offered Bill the job here. Actually, the arrangement had solved a minor labor problem. Like everything else around a large hospital, the maintenance force was chronically shorthanded. Bill’s efficient tours of duty helped pull the ends together. Dr. Hornaday wondered sometimes how they had managed without him.

Fine young man, Dr. Hornaday thought as he shuffled with his long, loose stride across the anteroom. Not a flash in the pan, but a steady young man whose mind held what it absorbed. He might even make a better doctor than his father, though he’d have to go some to do that.

Then the train of thought broke as Dr. Hornaday reached his office door. A frown burrowed across his high, ridged forehead. Across the office, Bill Latham had opened a filing cabinet and was digging through it with the blunt energy of an air hammer.

Dr. Hornaday cleared his throat in a courteous warning.

Bill’s head snapped around. At the sight of the man framed in the doorway, Bill’s breath was a gusty burst.

“Am I glad to see you, Doctor!”

Hornaday craned his neck to look at the file. “What’s going on here?”

“I’m looking for something in the records.”

“So I would assume — and not very neatly, either.” Bill’s eyes followed Hornaday’s gaze at the mussed-up file. “To tell you the truth, sir, I didn’t mean to make a mess. But I was getting a little desperate.”

Hornaday had ambled over. He reached and thumbed the protruding file folders idly. “Now, what’s this all about, Bill?”

“There’s a... a girl in one of the compartments.”

“There are several cadavers in the compartments,” Dr. Hornaday said.

“But this one is — different.”

Dr. Hornaday’s brooding eyes turned toward Bill’s face. “Different? In what way?”

“For one thing, the tag on her drawer is blank.”

“Impossible.”

“My own first impression, sir. But it’s true. She’s also clothed in a dress — not a shroud.”

Dr. Hornaday’s tensile fingers restored the folders to some order. He slid the file cabinet closed. “Bill, if I didn’t know you better...”

“That makes two of us,” Bill said. “But why don’t you see for yourself? Not a thing about her in the records, but, believe me, she’s back there.”

“At least your suggestion makes some sense. I guess my dinner can wait a little longer.”

Bill’s quick stride led the way. He paused only to fling open the sliding door. Then his footsteps knocked soft echoes from the vinyl flooring as he rushed to the bank of refrigerated compartments. He bent slightly, grasped the handle, and slid the drawer open.

With a shallow breath, he stood looking down at the pitiful wreckage of her face.

He felt Dr. Hornaday’s presence beside him. He assumed the doctor’s moment of silence was due to shock rivaling his own. But when he turned his head, he saw that Hornaday was looking at him, having taken but a brief glance at the drawer.

The doctor’s long face seemed to gather in its sharpest lines. His eyes were darkening thunderclouds.

“Bill,” Hornaday said, too quietly, “if you were a freshman pledging a fraternity, I might excuse a hell-week assignment. But for this, I see absolutely no mitigating circumstance!”

The force of Dr. Hornaday’s delivery was numbing to Bill.

“Let me point out, Doctor, that I didn’t put the body where it is or foul up the records.”

“Of all the brazen, idiotic...” Then something shifted in Hornaday’s eyes. He took a backward step. He looked from Bill’s face to the open drawer, then back again.

“I preach self-control and try to practice it,” he said on a heavy breath. “I’m reminding myself of your past record and a lifetime of friendship. But you’ve got about five seconds to explain this silly joke!”

“Doctor, if you’ll only examine what’s in the drawer...”

“You know the compartment is quite empty!”

Bill felt a flash of heat, then a murky coldness. It was his turn to stare. The soft eyes and doleful, angular face before him were serious.

Bill ripped his eyes from Hornaday’s features and strained the edge of his vision toward the interior of the compartment.

She was still there, of course, in all her pathetic loneliness.

Why would Hornaday deny the obvious fact of her existence?

As a joke? No. Never. Not Hornaday.

Because Hornaday was a part of the conspiracy to sneak her in? No. Never. Not Hornaday.

Hornaday — and Bill went sick with the discovery — must have gone a little crazy. That would explain it. Hornaday had faced so many on the autopsy table that his mind simply refused to see another one right now.

As if some unseen force were nudging his thinking, Bill decided to change his tactic. He needed time, for whatever it was that he was supposed to do. It wouldn’t help to have Hornaday at odds.

A crafty smile, not quite normal to him, wreathed Bill’s lips. “Okay, Doctor. You win. You were right the first time. I was pulling your leg. You’ll have to admit I really had you out of sight for a minute.”

Under the weight of Hornaday’s heavy frown, Bill turned and slid the drawer closed.

Hornaday cleared his throat. “And what was the reason for this act?”

Careful now... Hornaday is a lean, poised cat...

The warning was a vibration, a sensory experience rather than an actual thought. With it, a sly cover-up slipped full-blown into Bill’s mind. “I didn’t mean to upset you, Doctor. But the reason was a good one. I was acting in the interest of science.”

“Really?” The word was frigid. “In what way?”

Bill turned from the now-closed drawer. “We’ve been doing some experiments in parapsychology and I just had to test your reaction to my power of suggestion.” A faint, small part of his mind marveled at the ease with which the he fell from his lips — almost as if a stranger had borrowed his vocal cords.

Hornaday’s eyes narrowed. “Young Dr. Patrick Connell’s class is where these experiments have been taking place?”

“We’ve been investigating...”

“Yes, yes I can imagine!” Hornaday’s mouth tightened. “Him and his ideas about nailing down psychic forces! They’re not exactly viruses to be isolated and identified, you know.”

“Yes, sir, but...”

“But what?”

“For a long time,” Bill ventured, “the only thing we knew about viruses was that they are filterable. We couldn’t trap them, couldn’t see them in the best microscopes of that day. ‘Virus’ was a word for something we couldn’t be sure even existed.”

Hornaday’s face endured an angry twitch. “I’d expect you to defend Pat Connell. He’s also your faculty adviser, isn’t he?”

Bill nodded. “But the little experiment was my own idea. Professor Connell didn’t suggest it.”

“Perhaps his methods did.” Hornaday’s flat, bony chest rose and fell with a long breath. “I’m far from satisfied, Bill. I’m going to think some more about this business here tonight.”

With that, Hornaday turned, his slew-footed stride carrying him across the barren, sterile room. Bill flinched slightly as the sliding door banged shut behind Hornaday.

The usual deathly silence returned, muffling Bill with a sense of aloneness.

Bill stood near the coldly impersonal surgical table, not moving for several minutes. Now and then, the silence was broken from the distance, clues to what Hornaday was doing. A whisper in the water piping told of Hornaday’s freshening up in the small locker room wedged beside the autopsy room. The faintest clang of a locker door drifted back. The opening and closing of the front door was unheard, but Hornaday by this time must have left the building.

Bill had so far avoided the final possible explanation for Hornaday’s actions. But he couldn’t put it off any longer, as much as the mere thought chilled him. Was it his mind — not Hornaday’s — acting up? Was there really a faceless, nameless girl in the compartment?

Unaware of the gesture, he put a steadying hand on the edge of the surgical table as he turned his head slowly. His eyes brooded on the bank of refrigerated drawers, one in particular. He seemed to need time to gather himself.

When he moved, it was with a snapping of muscles. He crossed the distance and opened the compartment with a quick, hard tug on the handle.

A warmth touched his muscles. Not a detail had shifted. His mind grasped at the fact. Dreams shifted like smoke on a windy day. If he’d flipped, surely some small detail would have altered from one time to the next.

The burring of a bell jarred through to him. He swung about, his eyes losing their glaze as his mind connected. Bell, emergency, ambulance...

The emergency was one of those that might have been much worse. Two cars had collided at Monterey and U.S. 49. The smashed-up cars partially blocked the intersection while a squad car policeman directed traffic around them. Glass, water, and oil littered the street. But passengers and drivers had escaped serious injury. A young woman, bruised and bleeding from a superficial scalp cut, was more hysterical than hurt. Dr. Barney Childers had her fairly quiet by the time they trundled her into Emergency.

Bill came out, got in the ambulance long enough to back it into its parking slot, and then walked across the lawn toward the morgue.

Someone was standing outside the doorway. Bill stopped short at the sight of his father.

“Hi, Bill.”

“Dad! Anything wrong at home?”

“No, not at all. Mrs. Hofstetter should be turning on the dishwasher about this time, and I imagine Victoria is bruising her portable, practicing copy-writing for Fortesque Fifth Avenue.”

He gripped Bill’s shoulder briefly as Bill turned to open the door. “I just wanted to see you, that’s all.”

Bill stepped aside for his father to enter, then followed.

Dr. Latham’s robust, hearty presence pervaded the pleasant anteroom. He surveyed the surroundings. “I still think the architect did a great job when this little wing was tacked on. Additions can turn out to be eyesores, but not this one.”

“You didn’t take the trouble to come over and extol the beauties of the boneyard,” Bill said. “What’s on your mind?”

“I bumped into Josh Hornaday a little while ago, Bill.”

Crossing the office. Bill had raised the top section of a chrome smokestand to lift out and empty the ash receptacle. At his fathers words, the silvery metal top clattered back in place.

“I see.” Bill straightened slowly and looked at his father. “I guess that figures.”

“Bill—” Dr. Latham’s eyes smoldered with concern. “Hornaday was pretty much upset. What happened over here?”

Bill’s quick irritation with Hornaday edged the tone of his voice. “What was Dr. Hornaday’s tale?” he countered.

“Tale?” Dr. Latham drew a breath. “The insinuation you put on the word hardly becomes you. You know Josh Hornaday better than that. Anything he mentioned was for your good, not a gossip’s pleasure.”

Bill knew this was true-if Hornaday was his normal self.

“Just what did Dr. Hornaday say?”

“That you were—” the older man endured a difficult moment — “acting strangely.”

Bill recoiled slightly. “You’re a doctor. What do you think? How do I look to you?”

Bill hadn’t intended his words to be quite so belligerent. The relationship between him and his father had always been man-to-man, lay-it-on-the-line. For a second he had the feeling that a shadow was slipping between them.

“You do look a little tired, Bill.”

“Well, I’m not. I feel great.”

His father waited a patient moment for the air to settle. “Bill, whatever is troubling you...”

“Please, Dad,” Bill said on a full sigh, “don’t let Hornaday’s imagination run away with you.”

The old, stout shoulders moved in a vague gesture. “I guess that’s one way of putting it.”

“Sure, Dad. Hornaday — he’s okay. But he can make mistakes like any of the rest of us.”

“I’m sure he would admit that.” Dr. William Latham hesitated, knuckling day’s-end stubble on his jawline. “How about letting me have a look at the compartment that raised the fuss?”

“You want to...” Bill measured the words.

“Just mark it up to the curiosity of an old sawbones.” His father was trying to pass it off lightly. “Okay?”

A short laugh burst from Bill. “Be my guest!”

Leading the way along the corridor, Bill felt his spirits rise. The emergency run and his father’s unexpected appearance had kept him from immediately facing a serious and depressing problem.

The problem of Hornaday. The quirk that kept Hornaday from seeing the girl could only mean that Hornaday himself had received her. Then Hornaday’s mind had refused the experience.

And the problem of the identity of the girl — and the unpleasant revelation of Hornaday’s condition.

It was all going to be a little heartbreaking, and Bill’s dad might help in a way he hadn’t dreamed of.

Bill slid the door on its tracks and courteously waited for his father to pass. They moved through the chill, white silence of the boneyard, his father a few steps in the lead.

“Help yourself.” The near emptiness of the huge, high-ceilinged room caught Bill’s words with the suggestion of an echo. “Third drawer from the farther end, middle row. B-three.”

Inured to unpleasant sights by his years of medical practice, Bill’s father opened the compartment without hesitation.

Standing to one side and slightly behind, Bill watched his father glance at the open compartment. One look was all he seemed to need. But before he turned, Dr. Latham obeyed an antiseptic instinct developed over a lifetime. He idly picked up a contaminate fuzzy of muslin lint that had collected in a little ball on the slab.

His hand and arm reached right through the girl’s body... out again...

He straightened, rolled the lint fuzzy between his fingers, and glanced about for a receptacle in which to throw it away.

Bill choked back a scream. He was dizzy, as if he’d fainted for a second without falling off his feet. His body tremored between hot and cold.

A thought surfaced: Spare Dad, if you can... don’t hit him with it, not yet...

Bill turned, using all his strength of will to keep his movements normal. He managed to reach the utility closet on feet and legs that felt nothing. He opened the small door and groped for the mop and bucket. It was an act of hiding, of stealing a moment to collect himself and compose his face into a mask.

“Satisfied, Dad? Now, why don’t you forget Hornaday and leave me to my chores?” Bill plopped the mop into the bucket and closed the closet with his other hand, keeping his back toward his father.

“It’s not Hornaday I’m worried about,” his father said. “Hornaday isn’t my flesh and blood.”

“Then why worry about anything?” Bill had to turn at last.

His father was standing at the end of the surgical table, one hand resting on its edge. His eyes gave Bill the desperate feeling that his father could see through the flimsy mask.

“Bill...” His father struggled to frame a question wholly hateful to him. “Tell me... straight out... on the line... do you see anything in that compartment?”

Bill forced himself to look across the room. His father hadn’t yet closed the drawer. She lay there, as real as death.

Somehow Bill dredged up a faint resemblance of his old grin. “I think,” he said, “I’m safe in saying that no material substance is in that compartment.”

“Hornaday seemed to think that at first you were...”

“Hornaday shouldn’t be such a thin-skinned, hungry-looking old wolf.” Bill carried the mop and bucket the few steps to the stainless steel basin. He turned on the hot water tap. “Why don’t you just forget it, Dad? You’ve plenty on your mind without running up and down Hornaday’s molehills.”

Without turning his head, Bill cut his eyes and watched his father move to the compartment and close it.

The weight of his father’s eyes returned once more across the distance of the room. “Then it was nothing more than a gag, a silly experiment suggested by something that rubbed off in one of Dr. Pat Connell’s classes?”

“Didn’t Hornaday say that?” Bill countered.

Dr. Latham’s grin was an older, and at the moment less strained, version of his son’s. “Okay — and say, Bill...”

“Yes, Dad?”

“How about judging the annoyance gently? One of these days you’ll have a musclehead of your own, and you’ll know how it feels when you think something is haywire.”

“Sure, Dad.”

He watched the hallway receive his father, and the door slide closed. He pulled in a breath and held it, giving his father time to leave the building.

The water ran, forgotten. Little white ghosts of steam wisped up from the long, deep sink.

Bill crept to the compartment and touched the handle. His hand refused the command of his brain. He was helpless for a long, empty minute. Then his trembling muscles reacted, and he eased the drawer open.

He stood beside the girl in a crouch, simply looking at her, breathing in and out.

The dismal thought was reflected in his face: Why don’t you be a nice chick and just go away?