Lisa felt her face flush a bright red as she turned away from her friend.
"Nothing, really," Lisa said softly.
"Nothing? You call seeing an old lover for over an hour nothing? What did you talk about?"
Lisa raised both hands to her cheeks. She was on fire just thinking about what went on in Chad's office earlier.
"Come on, girl. Now what happened?" Marilyn giggled.
Lisa turned around and smiled broadly, nervously playing with her golden hair as she told Marilyn the details of what went on between her and Chad. When she was through, Lisa looked closely at Marilyn, almost breaking out into loud laughter as she saw amazement register on her friend's face.
"Well, honey. I always knew you were a hot number. But you really turned on in style tonight," Marilyn said, breaking into a nervous giggle and embracing her friend. The two women kept on chatting for several minutes, their conversation suddenly interrupted by the same patrolman who'd challenged Marilyn.
"Who are you?" he asked two men dressed in green baggy shirts and trousers. They had surgical caps on their heads and masks covering their faces.
"Here to pick up the gurney," the first man said as they walked easily past the line of officers in the long corridor.
Lisa heard the explanation and reached out, grabbing Marilyn's arm tightly.
"What's wrong?" the nurse asked.
"They took the gurney back up with them after they brought down Mr. Decker. They know that," Lisa said, rising from her chair and watching in agonized horror as the two men walked freely into the ward. They could be from surgery, coming down here by accident. The crew in surgery was awfully drifty. But even they knew what floor to find their equipment.
Lisa moved around the desk and started to walk to the young patrolman she'd spoken with earlier. He was standing against the opposite wall, talking with his partner. Three other policemen were standing nearby.
"Is anything wrong?" he asked, noticing Lisa's nervous manner. The words hardly got out of his mouth before the room was filled with a loud explosion. The blonde stopped dead only three feet in front of the patrolman. She saw his eyes widen in surprise as his body jerked back and crashed against the wall. There was another explosion. This time Lisa screamed, dropping to the floor and covering her ears. She looked up and saw the young patrolman grabbing a bloody spot on his shirt. His eyes were closed, and trickles of blood, oozed out of his nostrils and the corner of his mouth. He slid down the wall slowly, his cap falling off and toppling to the floor. He crumpled into a bleeding heap next to it.
"Oh God!" Lisa shrieked, crawling over to the wounded officer as more explosions rang through the room. The other patrolman had dived behind an empty bed and was wedged into the corner where Decker and the two green-clad men were. She could hear the sounds of shattering glass and clanging metal mix in with the horrible blasts of gunshots as bullets whistled through the air.
"Help… me," the young patrolman begged as Lisa reached him. Grabbing him by the arm, she pulled him across the floor, trying to keep as flat as she could. She had to get him out of that room and stop the bleeding. Her sense of professionalism took over and defeated the natural urge to run and hide until the battle was over.
Lisa noticed the policemen crouching in the corridor, tiring almost blindly. The glass windows surrounding the nurses' station had all been shattered by bullets. Fragments of glass lay blanketed the floor. As the fight continued, Lisa reached out and swept her escape path clear with her hand, dragging the moaning patrolman behind her.
"Get back," the policemen warned.
Lisa looked up again and saw two officers shot down shortly after they warned her. Their bullet-ridden bodies slumped to the floor.
"Take it easy," Lisa said, pulling the policeman into the shattered nurses' station behind her. Marilyn was crouched down in the one corner. Her arms were pressed tightly against her face while her legs were hunched up against her chest. Bullets thudded into the wall above them as shouts for help filled the corridor. "Help me with him, Marilyn," Lisa said, grunting as she let go of the wounded man and crawled over to the medicine cabinet.
"God, what's happening!" Marilyn cried out, lowering her arms and looking wildly into Lisa's eyes.
"Never mind. We're all right here. Let's do something about him or we'll lose him," Lisa said as she pulled out packs of gauze and broke them open.
"I'll get something to help with the pain," Marilyn said, still cringing with terror as she pulled the drug bottles and syringes out.
The two women worked frantically over the fainting patrolman as the wild battle raged over them. Lisa managed to stop the bleeding, and while they worked feverishly, the shooting stopped.
"What's happened?" Marilyn whispered tensely as she looked at Lisa.
"I don't know," Lisa replied, stopping her work over the patrolman.
"Don't!" Marilyn whispered as the blonde nurse started to peek over the desktop.
"I'll be careful," Lisa said, reassuring her friend with a slight pressure on her arm.
The blonde pushed her head up slowly until she could survey what had happened. At first, all she saw was the glass scattered on the floor and pieces of hospital linen that had literally been shot off spine of the vacant beds. Then she saw the other policeman. He was sprawled on the floor face-down. A thick, clotting pool of blood was slowly forming on the polished floor under his belly. His gun was still tightly gripped in his right hand.
Lisa fought the desire to scream out and turned her head toward the brightly lit corridor. There were three policemen who had fallen on top of one another. The entire ward was suddenly shrouded in silence, broken occasionally only by terrified moans from the patients in the other rooms.
Lisa was about to tell Marilyn to get up and drag the patrolman out when she saw something moving in the corner. She squinted her eyes and saw two fingers in green slowly rise from behind three hospital beds that had been overturned and used as bullet shields. Behind them was Art Decker, leaning against the rear wall of the ward and leering at Lisa.
"My God, they've killed them all," Lisa exclaimed in a hoarse whisper.
"Come on, I think we're okay," a young blond man in green said as he signaled his brother to drag Art out into the open.
"What is it?" Marilyn whispered from the floor.
"Get down," Lisa said as her heart pounded wildly with terror. She was certain they were going to be butchered by those maniacs. "They're free."
Marilyn's eyes widened in horror. She covered her face with both hands and moaned softly to herself as the three men walked closer to the station.
Lisa looked around desperately for something, anything that could be used as a weapon.
"Okay, girlies, up. We're goin' on a trip," the blond Decker brother said to Lisa and Marilyn when they reached the nursing station.
The two women started to get up when bullets started to crash into the ward once more from the corridor. Lisa and Marilyn shrieked and dove behind the desk once more as the Decker brothers lurched to the left.
"Okay, coppers. You want two dead broads in here?" the blonde shouted out as he dove across the doorway to the ward and slid into the nursing station. He plowed against Lisa, knocking her roughly to the floor. She tried to crawl away from him, but it was hopeless. He reached out and grabbed her by the right arm, forcing her to her feet as he scrambled up and pressed his side to the wall. Pinning her arms tightly behind her, he shoved her roughly into the doorway and crouched behind her.
"Don't shoot!" Marilyn screamed. She gritted her teeth and held her breath, waiting for the bullet she knew was about to shatter her skull.
CHAPTER FOUR
Lisa was aware of the helpless expressions she saw on the officers in the corridor and Marilyn's whimpering behind her. Claude and Hank Decker negotiated with the police for three hours while the two women crouched in the doorway-right in the line of any fire if there were going to be any shots fired. They wanted a car and three hours head start before the police started looking for them. They promised to let her and Marilyn go safely once they were sure no one was after them.