The Third Son

Present Day

Dr. Daniel Riddle doubled over, using a hand to steady him against the wall, and retched onto the linoleum. The splatter was limited to one of the dust-covered paths near the wall, the right side when walking to the stairs, not the clear path Dr. Riddle’s feet had created on his frequent visits into the otherwise seldom used basement.

The Doctor wanted to cry, but his stomach contents came before his tears. He lurched his way to the stairs and dropped himself on the bottom one, pulled his knees tight to his chest, and reminded himself to breathe. The industrial grade anti-slip step was his purgatory. His next stop promised to be his hell.

He wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead and played the scenario in his mind, knowing the established protocol for such an event.

#4 - MISSING:

Call Dad

Review the story

Alert the police

Clean the basement storeroom

Prepare the hospital staff

He now needed to add one more item; clean the sick off the basement floor. The protocol outlined the story he would tell, based on what they believed the patient would say when captured; that he had been held prisoner at Woodhaven Psychiatric Hospital. The escaped would tell the authorities to check the basement room for signs of his imprisonment. Of course, he’d be telling the truth, but having escaped from a secure mental hospital, his story could be considered the ravings of a disturbed mind. Daniel could talk the police off the story when they brought the “patient” in, so long as Daniel stuck to the oft-reviewed plan.

He would need to be delicate when preparing the nursing staff. They would be receiving a patient they never knew existed and admitting him without proper paperwork. Nurses don’t function well with ambiguity; they have been honed into analytic beings that seldom see the world as it’s presented. After all, a headache could be a tumor, but chest pain could be anxiety. It would not be easy, but he would put his trust in the story he and his father had created.

But Daniel didn’t begin the process for #4 MISSING. He rocked back and forth on the step, wasting his limited cache of minutes. Something was wrong, something about the recent chain of events. The days leading to this mess made him doubt the man was simply missing. He hadn’t just gotten out of bed and walked away. Daniel kept him in a locked room, and the sole exit put the man in a high traffic area outside the cafeteria. The prisoner’s escape options were limited. He might pull the fire alarm and run, somehow procure clothes and walk out with a group, or break through an upstairs window and escape naked into the night. Each option would send up alarms, literal and figurative. Nothing suggested a simple escape. #4 MISSING was not the procedure to follow.

Neither was #1 DISCOVERED, #2 AWAKE, #3 DYING, #5 DEAD, #6 BUILDING BREACH, or #7 M.D. UNABLE TO ATTEND.

Daniel and his father didn’t have a plan that covered what was happening. The man had vanished. Daniel had read his father’s files on the man to the point of exam readiness. Nothing about the man’s life had been normal, and Daniel never expected his death to be.

Daniel’s stomach had upended over the worst possible outcome, that he was the one responsible. That he crossed a line with Thomas McKenna, as the man was now known. Under his birth name, Thomas was one of the most famous humans ever to live, bested by Jesus, and maybe Mohammed Ali. Daniel heaved again, managing no more than a mouthful of bile. He spit the bitter secretion to the floor and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his lab coat.

These situations never ended well for the people that crossed Thomas, all outlined in the man’s file and personal notes. Daniel tried to be rational, he hadn’t done anything to kill the man; he only had disappeared under Daniel’s care. The Doctor couldn’t be sure, but logic told him he wouldn’t be punished. He could only wait and see, and that was punishment enough. He raked the sleeve of the coat across his forehead again, now reacting to his anxiety more than the presence of perspiration.

His options were dreary. If he began the process for #4 MISSING, and the man was dead, it would be reported that an escaped mental patient was loose. The police would inquire if the ”patient” were not found. Daniel was confident any such inquiry would land both he and his father in prison.

If Daniel let the situation unfold on its own, the man would again hunt down the people he tried to kill 25 years ago. Dad would eventually come to check on the patient, and the Senior Dr. Riddle would try to stop Thomas again. Daniel had to let his father know. Once he told his father, his dad would contact Jonathan, for Jonathan’s protection. Jonathan would panic, go into hiding, and risk exposing their crimes in his hysteria.

Daniel’s heart was a war drum in his ears and throat, its presence signaled panic and fear. The coarse sleeve of his white lab coat wiped against his forehead again. Daniel would need to navigate the hospital staff, finish the day, and go to his dad. He stood and waited for the room to steady itself, returned to the hidden room and locked away its secrets, as he had done for years.

He wiped again at the now nonexistent sweat on his forehead and prepared to act in a way that would not raise questions. His vomit could wait, his upstairs patients could wait, he needed to get to his office and sit until 5:00. Anything out of the ordinary and some nurse would start asking questions. Nurses were, by nature, curious creatures.

Daniel stepped upstairs and, as usual, locked the stairwell. He navigated the cafeteria hallway without interaction, raking the starched lab coat sleeve across his forehead without thinking. His nerves peaked as his first test approached.

“Good evening Doctor Riddle. I put a few things in your office for review, no rush.” The Nurse Manager greeted him.

“Thanks, Dana. I’ll look them over tomorrow.”

“Everything okay Doctor Riddle?”

Daniel ’s legs stopped working. Could she see something in his eyes, or maybe in the way he walked? He stammered.

“Doctor. Did something happen in the basement.”

Daniel felt his head spin. He strained to keep focus. Time stopped and held his brain with it.

Answer. Damn it, say no and walk away. Dana never lets anything go. Say no.

“No.”

“Then why are you bleeding?”

Dana pointed to his head. Daniel reached up to touch his raw scalp and saw the pink stain on his lab coat sleeve. He wanted to cry. He had managed to keep the world’s most famous human hidden in a hospital basement storeroom for 25 years, and it all threatened to unravel over his preference for heavy starch.