Halfway through the month! It’s been a hectic month for me, but writing helps energize me when I’m tired, so maybe it’s for the best. Tonight I have a short story about…well, about a situation none of us would want to be in, a situation where…well, I’ll let you read for yourself.

BEHIND THE DOOR

 

Jocelyn was stern with the young volunteer; it was her first day and she needed to learn the routine immediately. “You are never to go in that room. It is off limits to any but authorized personnel.”

The girl cocked her head. “Are you authorized?”

“No. And neither are you. I’ve worked here ten years, I do not know what is behind that door. If you try to open it again, you will no longer volunteer here.” Jocelyn tried to soften up her words. She understood what the girl was feeling; curiosity was a strong emotion, and she felt it many times. The only time she tried to go in, she was written up with a warning that transgressions were grounds for termination. “What’s your name?” She wanted to make the girl feel at home.

“Cessna.” The girl whispered.

“Cessna?”

“My dad…is a pilot.”

“Well, Cessna, we’re glad to have you here. I’ve lost several volunteers to that door lately, and I don’t want to lose another. Come, let me show you around.” Jocelyn spent the next half hour going over crucial parts of hospital functioning, especially those that were performed by volunteers. When her shift ended, she walked out with her, chatting like old friends. It helped make the volunteers feel like they belonged.

“No.” Cessna…now back in her usual identity as Kirstie…sent a one word text. She tried not to be discouraged. She stopped for a cold brew and discovered her boss had the same idea. Juliet was just getting the text; she invited Kirstie to join her. They didn’t talk about the day. Casual chit chat as long as they were in a public place.

Juliet walked to the car with her. She leaned in the driver’s window as if saying good-bye. “Did you learn anything?”

“The nursing staff doesn’t know. None of them have been in there.”

“We learned one thing. There is definitely a secret room. That verifies part of the story. Keep up the good work. If you can’t get into the room, see if there is any way to access it from outside. The old window washing trick probably won’t work?”

“They have a contract for washing windows with a company that doesn’t use scaffoldings. I’m not sure how they work on fourth story windows, but we would arouse suspicion…and maybe get the police called…if we tried that.” Kirstie went through her mental file of possible means of getting in. “Maybe…do we have any friends that are pregnant? That might be willing to use that hospital?”

“I’ll check. No one I know is pregnant, and they’d have to be close to delivery. This can’t wait forever.”

Discouraged, Kirstie drove home without stopping at the store. She was already in her apartment when she remembered she needed to stop. She apologized to her cat. “I forgot your food. You’ll have to eat…chicken…or maybe tuna? Would you be all right with that?” Fuzz rubbed up against her legs; he was fine with tuna. He devoured the can she opened and went to sleep on her feet while she wrote down everything she saw and learned hoping it would help her get into that room.

It was two days before she was scheduled to volunteer again, so she went to work as usual. Sterling was in fine form today; she worked up a marvelous rage against the Supreme Court in yet another decision she felt was bad for women. For the first time, Kirstie listened. “Wow. They really did that?”

“Don’t you ever listen to the news?” Sterling sneered. “Why is it no one I know working on the news ever actually pays any attention to it?”

“I write the news, I don’t listen to it.” Kirstie glared at her friend. “Maybe you’d be happier if you didn’t.”

“Happier? Maybe. Smarter? Nope. Safer? Definitely not. I need to know what’s going on. How can I be part of the solution if I’ve never heard of the problem?” Sterling grabbed her wallet, shoved it in her pocket, and stormed out the door.

“Sterling!” Juliet called in vain. “I had a job for her. I guess I’ll give it to you.” She handed Kirstie an address. “Cover the protest, will you? And read up on what they’re protesting about, please. We need to get all the details right this time.”

Kirstie sighed. She hated covering protests. Everyone was so intense, so passionate…and most of the time, it seemed like it was over nothing. She grabbed a camera; they didn’t have enough capital right now to have a cameraman…camera person, she reminded herself. If she was going to work for a feminist publication, she should at least get the language right. She didn’t care, but the editor…Juliet…did. It was just a job to Kirstie, and frankly, she found feminism boring. They won all those battles years ago, long before she was born, but some women just couldn’t give it up. She remembered Sterling’s rant and frowned. No, Sterling was wrong. The Supreme Court did not allow the states to limit the women’s vote to married women. No way.

The protest carried her near the hospital, and her attention kept getting distracted by the other situation. Sex trafficking? Alien workers being paid sub-minimum wage? Kidnapping for ransom? What was going on behind that door? She glanced toward the hospital, letting the voluble feminist talk without paying much attention; she’d clean up the interview later. She imagined she saw something moving past a fourth floor window with dark coverings. So the window washer idea wouldn’t have worked anyway; there was no way to see in.

Thursday. Time for her volunteer shift. She dressed carefully, attaching the nametag that gave her name as Cessna. She slouched into the hospital, trying to look like a bored teenager. The look the receptionist gave her suggested she succeeded. She arrived at the fourth floor to find the hallway and the nurse’s station empty. She looked at the door but didn’t touch it. Somehow she had to get in there. Ever since last Friday, when a mysterious woman dropped in on the office to weave a story about her sister being taken away, sent to the hospital to a mysterious room for some mysterious purpose, she had become obsessed. She had to find out what was in there. She was prepared for disappointment, for it turning out to be a room where doctors brought mistresses or something, but she had to know.

Jocelyn blew around the corner and noticed her. “Cessna, we’ve got an emergency and I need you to man the desk. Think you remember enough?”

“Yeah.” Kirstie slid into the chair, wondering what sort of emergency you could have on a maternity ward. Women had their babies, and then they stayed a couple of days. Nothing to worry about. She stayed with the desk but nothing happened. No patient lights lit up…that was sort of odd. It was quiet. She was in a great position to notice when a doctor opened the forbidden door. He didn’t open it wide enough for her to see inside. He disappeared, leaving her as curious as before.

“Okay, we’re fine now.” Jocelyn sat beside her. “Anything happen?”

“No. Unless you count Dr. Fetner going into that room.”

“No, he goes in there at least twice every day. Nothing to think about.” Jocelyn sat back with a yawn. “I wish I slept better last night.”

“What was the emergency?”

“I’m not sure. We stood around waiting by the bed, Dr. Fetner came in and fussed around the patient, but she didn’t look ill. She barely looked pregnant. Nothing I would call an emergency, but he seemed to think it was. I do what the doctors tell me.”

The door opened and Dr. Fetner squeezed out through a small opening. He left the floor, finished with his rounds, but Kirstie noticed the door didn’t close all the way. She didn’t mention it to Jocelyn. “I’ve gotta go to the bathroom.”

“Sure. I’ve got it here.” Jocelyn yawned again.

Kirstie stood in the bathroom long enough to make it believable. She washed her hands and shook the water off, hoping wet hands would cover her. She adopted a casual gait as she moved back to the desk, now in the right position to possibly see through the crack in the door. She paused at the nurse’s station; Jocelyn was asleep. She didn’t notice as Kirstie entered the forbidden room.

The room was dimly lit, but there was enough light to see the beds, all of them filled with women, all the women pregnant. That’s all? A maternity ward? What was so secret about that? She crouched by the nearest bed, hoping no one came in. From that position, she was able to see that the patient was strapped to the bed. All the patients were strapped to the beds. They were pale as though they hadn’t seen the sun in ages. The women ranged in age from too young to be pregnant to too old to be pregnant, but they were all pregnant.

Kirstie slipped the record out of the pocket at the end of the bed. She read the details of the woman’s care. She grew more horrified as she read; she didn’t believe this was happening. How could they? Without someone noticing? Without someone saying something? She slipped the record inside her pants and pulled her shirt over it. Now she had to get out without anyone seeing her. She peeked out. Jocelyn was awake, and another nurse was with her. She was trapped. There was no where in the room to hide if anyone came in, except under one of the beds.

An alarm rang, sounding the warning to get out of the building. A fire drill? What a handy coincidence. She watched as the nurses filed out, leaving the patients behind. She hoped it was a drill; if it was a real fire, the patients could burn up.

“Has anyone seen…the volunteer? She’s here this afternoon, right? She needs to get out.”

“She’s in the restroom. I’ll stop and tell her, but she probably heard the sirens.” Jocelyn grabbed her purse and headed off, the last nurse at the station.

Kirstie slipped out and joined the exodus, looking like she had been with them all the time. When Jocelyn returned to say she couldn’t find Cessna, she waved and told them she was there. No one suspected anything. They assumed she heard the bells and came to join them. She felt the file crackle and knew she had to get out. She would abandon her post as soon as they were outside.

Juliet was waiting; she pulled her to a car waiting at the side of the hospital, driven by Sterling. “Come on. The fire I set is small; they’ll have it put out, and then they’ll come looking for you.”

“Why?”

“You figured out what was happening, didn’t you?”

“How did you know?”

“Women’s intuition.” Juliet believed in all sorts of psychic nonsense, but Kirstie was glad for the moment she did and followed her feelings. They returned to the office and Kirstie opened the file on the desk.

“This was one of the women in the room. She thirty-four, and has been there since she was eighteen. From what I could see, she has lost touch with where she is; she just lies there. Here…look.” Kirstie showed them the key passages. “A good specimen, highly fertile. Generates multiple births, and they take the babies away to adoptive parents.” She turned to the earliest entries. “Apparently when she had the first baby she was still aware enough to want to keep the child, and they had to subdue her to take it away. She’s been drugged ever since. They get a hefty fee for delivering babies, and…here.” She read out one of the more horrible phrases. “Homeless. No one will miss her. Not good for anything else.”

“Wow.” Sterling and Juliet spoke together.

“I knew men were capable of some godawful things”, Sterling said. “But kidnapping women to create babies? Wow.” She looked and sounded stunned.

“What do we do? Go to the police?” Kirstie realized for the first time the work they were doing was important. The danger to women in the modern world was more real than she assumed.

“Not the police. The FBI. Did you notice how many women were in the room?”

“Something like…twenty-four, thirty maybe. The youngest of them weren’t women, they were just girls.” Kirstie was shaken by what she saw.

The next few days were a whirlwind of activity. As journalists, they presented at the hospital, eager to do a story on some of the innovative methods of childbirth, methods that centered the women. That allowed Sterling to be there when investigators showed up with a warrant. While everyone was arguing with the investigators, she was able to get a look at the emergency of the day before. The woman was gone, her room vacated, and no sign she had ever been there. They discovered her in the secret room, waiting to see if the artificial insemination was successful. She and a handful of others were aware enough of their surroundings to talk to the investigators; many of the women had been there so long they barely remembered who they were.

The story broke in their paper first, the first scoop they had that anyone cared about. Kirstie testified at the trial, giving details of what she saw, and producing the file she pinched in response to subpoena. Her voice cracked as she spoke; she almost broke down. The jury found the doctors not guilty, but the nurses, who had never been in the room and didn’t know what was in there, were found guilty and sentenced to prison. The one nurse who was aware, and assisted in the operation, got the longest term, but on her testimony, they all went to jail. Kirstie told what she knew from Jocelyn, but the jury simply didn’t believe the women.

Kirstie cursed, but there was little she could do except report it in the snarkiest possible manner. She turned off her computer and went to vote. She was turned away at the polling place; it seemed she was no longer able to vote because she wasn’t married.