Chapter 1 - The Vanishing in Pod C
The tires of our SUV shrieked against the asphalt as Daniel slammed his foot onto the accelerator, running a red light at the intersection of 5th and Elm. The dark, sleeping suburban streets blurred past us in a haze of yellow streetlamps and driving rain.
“She’s not there, Daniel! She’s not there!” I screamed, my fingers digging into the edges of the tablet so hard the plastic frame creaked.
On the grainy black-and-white display of the night-vision camera, the empty plastic incubator looked like an abandoned glass coffin. The tiny pink blanket, decorated with small embroidered stars, lay crumpled in the corner next to the dangling, useless pulse oximeter wire.
And in the background, half-shadowed by the harsh glare of the hallway lights, Nurse Evelyn Shaw stood frozen.
She wasn't running. She wasn't pressing an emergency panic button. She was staring directly up into the lens of the overhead camera, her pale face completely devoid of emotion. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, she reached up with a gloved hand and tilted the camera upward, aiming it at the blank white ceiling tiles.
The screen went black again.
“Hold on!” Daniel yelled, swerving wildly into the hospital’s emergency bay driveway.
He didn't even park. He slammed the car into drive, pulled the emergency brake right in front of the main ambulance entrance, and threw his door open. I was already out of the passenger side before the engine stopped dying.
We burst through the automatic sliding glass doors. The lobby was eerie, dead, and quiet, lit only by the pale blue glow of security monitors behind the main reception desk. A lone security guard, an older man with a thick grey mustache named Officer Pete, looked up from a crossword puzzle in surprise.
“Whoa, hold on! Visiting hours ended at—”
I didn't stop to explain. I bolted past the desk toward the secure double doors that led to the central elevators.
“Hey! You can't go up there!” Officer Pete shouted, the heavy clatter of his duty belt echoing behind us as he gave chase.
Daniel grabbed the heavy wooden bench in the lobby and shoved it backward, blocking the narrow hallway just enough to slow the guard down. “Go, Rachel! Get to Pod C!”
I reached the elevator bank and slammed my palm against the call button over and over again. The display showed the elevator sitting at the 4th floor—the NICU level. It wasn't moving.
“Damn it!” I sobbed, turning toward the heavy steel fire exit door at the end of the hall.
I threw my weight against the crash bar. The door flew open, and I began clawing my way up the concrete staircase, two steps at a time. My lungs burned with every breath, my knees trembled, but the image of that empty incubator burnt into my retinas kept me moving like a woman possessed.
Thirty-four days. Thirty-four days I had sat beside that plastic box, listening to the monotonous beep-beep-beep of her heart monitor, holding her tiny, fragile hand with a single pinky finger. She weighed three pounds. She couldn't regulate her own body temperature. Without external oxygen, her tiny air sacs would collapse within hours.
“Sophie!” I gasped, reaching the 4th-floor landing.
I threw open the fire door and burst into the hallway of the neonatal intensive care unit.
The hallway was strangely silent. Normally, the night shift had a rhythmic background hum—the soft hum of white-noise machines, the faint murmurs of nurses charting at their stations, the distant chirping of vitals monitors.
Tonight, there was nothing.
The central nursing station in Pod C was completely deserted. Two computer screens sat open, displaying blank medical intake forms. On the counter lay a half-empty mug of coffee, still steaming slightly into the cool air.
“Sophie!” I screamed, throwing open the glass door to Bay 3.
The room was ice cold. The main overhead air conditioning vent was blowing at maximum capacity, churning out freezing air.
I threw myself against the incubator.
It was empty. The mattress was cold to the touch. The monitors had been completely powered down—their power cords pulled directly from the wall outlets.
“Rachel!” Daniel gasped, bursting through the door behind me, clutching a deep scrape on his forearm. He took one look at the empty plastic box and staggered backward, clutching his hair. “Oh God... oh God, no. Where is she?”
“She took her,” I whispered, my voice trembling violently. “Evelyn took her.”
Footsteps pounded down the corridor. Officer Pete finally caught up, his face red and sweating, holding his hand over his holster. “What the hell is wrong with you two? You can't be in here! I’m calling county police—”
“Look!” Daniel roared, grabbing the officer by his collar and dragging him toward the incubator. “Look at the bed, you idiot! Where is my daughter?”
Officer Pete blinked, his aggression instantly evaporating as he stared at the empty, cord-unplugged incubator. “What... where is Nurse Jenkins? She was on shift tonight.”
“Where is Evelyn Shaw?” I demanded, stepping into the officer’s face, my hands covered in her cold blanket. “Where is she?”
“Shaw?” Officer Pete frowned, pulling out his radio with trembling hands. “Evelyn Shaw isn't on the roster tonight. She took medical leave three weeks ago after her husband passed away.”
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My blood ran completely cold.
If Evelyn Shaw wasn't on the roster... then who had been standing inside my daughter’s room every single night at 2:17 a.m.?
