Lack of Evidence--Pt4

Chapter 4

Sam knew where he wanted to go - the Medical Lab at the University of Florida. He knew he could bypass the security system and let them in - and those monsters Michael had been afraid of would have to get past that first. Hopefully, even if they managed to track him down, that would slow them down enough. He slowly walked towards the side entrance, trying to stay out of view of the cameras.

It was a complicated security system that required a key-card. But the more complicated the security, the easier it is to exploit its weaknesses. He never attended the university for their medical program, but he knew the grounds. He’d wanted to be a Rabbi so badly that he’d worked as a janitor for three semesters to help pay for his education. He despised cleaning up other people’s messes, but it was a living. They taught him well about security at the university; even his English class taught that once the rules were mastered, they were easily broken. Sam knew this system’s rules. It wasn't difficult to crack, at least for someone with the right tools.

“Julie,” he said. “Do you have any spare change?”

“What for?”

“I need a nickel.”

She rummaged through her pocket and showed him a dime. “Does this work?”

“If it’s all you have it’ll have to do. Now, give me one of your shoes.”

“I won’t even ask.” She was wearing white high-heeled shoes. She took one off and handed it to him.

The electrical system for the keypad was enclosed in a separate plastic box above the main circuit breaker. Sam raised the shoe and hammered it against the box until it opened. Inside were nearly thirty wires. Almost without thinking, he tugged loose one end of a white wire and completely removed an orange wire. Metal scraped against metal as the bolt on the heavy metal door slid open.

"Hurry, we got about twenty seconds to get in before the door closes," he said, pushing Julie in. He wrapped the orange wire around the dime to increase its width and placed it in the slot where the bolt was soon to go. It was looser than the nickel would have been, but suited his purpose. The door slid shut.

“I thought you were a Rabbi concerned with your own conscience,” Julie said.

“I am more concerned more with being safe,” he said. “The security system now should allow us a twenty second leeway every time we open the door to close the circuit before the alarm goes off.”

She looked around. The floor was tiled, as were the walls. It was dark and it smelled like a rotting carrot. "Is this it?" She said.

"Medical School. A very good hideout. I used to catch young med students in here making out when they didn’t want to be in class. It's dark, quite secure, and nobody minds an additional body. Provided they don't cut me open, but all I have to do is hide in a locker and play dead."

"And what about me?" Julie said.

Sam started heading down the south corridor. He seemed to remember another entrance and he wanted to make sure it was secure. "The same for you if you are staying. Oh, grab my bible. I got some money stashed in there. Tonight we will bunk with the dearly departed and tomorrow we will wait until they open the building, and will go out as soon as the maintenance men get through with the cleanup. Like I said at the synagogue, they rarely stay in this building long. The stench gets to you after a while. There is a building just north of here that isn’t really secure but on Fridays they don’t check it.”

Julie followed him down the corridor and they entered a large room with a glass tank filled nearly to the top. It was at least three meters high, and equally wide and long. It was filled with a slightly green liquid, and in the liquid, floating, were naked bodies. Their open eyes seemed to look at them.

Julie shivered. "Eww."

Sam nodded. "My thoughts exactly. Let's move on."

The other entrance was through another long hallway connected to the room with the embalmed bodies. Sam approached it and tugged on the door’s handle. It was locked.

“Now we can get some sleep.”

“Sam, now that I know you are secure, I am going to find John. I can’t have him going solo on this. Just for the mere fact that if I don’t get some answers I am going to strangle you and whoever else comes in my way. If I don’t come back here tonight, I will in the morning.”

“If you want to get back in, just holler when you enter. I don’t want any surprises.”