Chapter 6 - The Room Nobody Had Counted Empty
By the time Brooks reached the pump station, twenty-four residents were safe.
Some lay on transport stretchers.
Others sat wrapped in blankets beneath harsh work lights.
Rose Mercer slept with Elias beside her.
He held her hand so tightly that a nurse gently reminded him to let the circulation return.
Brooks stepped around a line of oxygen cylinders and found Ruiz speaking with the transport coordinator.
“Nineteen residents remain inside,” she reported. “The next group is moving.”
He nodded.
“Staff count?”
“Coming through with each group. We’re tracking them separately.”
Through the open doorway, he could see the little trestle across the ravine.
Beyond it stood the laundry annex.
Beyond that, half-obscured by rain and trees, the nursing home leaned against the dark hillside.
From this angle, the danger looked worse.
The slope was no longer a slope.
It was a raw wound in the earth.
Brooks put on the protective equipment Harris’s team required and waited for clearance to approach.
He did not declare his rank an exemption.
At the residence, Clare checked the fourth group against her list.
Thirty-two out.
Eleven remaining.
Jessa made the same count.
“Eleven.”
Clare read the names.
Samuel Ellis.
Amos Reed.
Three residents needing assisted transfers.
Six who could move with substantial help.
Then a nursing assistant named Beth looked up sharply.
“Where’s Arthur Bell?”
Clare found his name.
Arthur had been included in the group waiting near the east corridor.
His chair was empty.
For a second, nobody spoke.
Then people began offering explanations at once.
He had been by the window.
He had asked for his photograph.
Someone thought another staff member had taken him ahead.
Clare raised a hand.
“Stop. We verify.”
She called the pump station.
Ruiz checked the received list.
Arthur Bell was not there.
Jessa’s face drained.
“I counted the chair.”
Clare looked at her.
“Now we count the person.”
A distant thump came from the east corridor.
Beth pressed a hand to her mouth.
“His room.”
Arthur had spent months telling people he would never leave his wife.
She had died the previous winter.
Her photograph stood beside his bed.
Clare looked down the corridor.
The ceiling had sagged near the far end.
Water gleamed across part of the floor.
She reached for her flashlight.
Then she stopped.
Amos’s words returned.
You’ve got someone waiting.
Clare turned toward Harris.
“We’re missing a resident. Likely room eighteen. I know his condition and how he responds. You assess the access. I’ll go only as far as you clear.”
Harris nodded.
“Good.”
Together, they approached the corridor with another rescuer.
Every few steps, Harris paused.
Clare waited.
From behind a half-open door came a thin voice.
“Maggie?”
“Arthur,” Clare called. “It’s Clare.”
“Can’t find her.”
“We’re coming.”
They found him on the floor beside his bed.
He had tried to retrieve the photograph and lost his balance.
One wrist looked injured.
His pajama sleeve was wet.
In his other hand, he held a silver frame.
Clare knelt where Harris indicated it was safe.
Arthur looked ashamed.
“I was supposed to stay.”
“You were.”
“I forgot.”
“I know.”
Behind her, the ceiling gave a soft, unpleasant creak.
Harris looked upward.
“We need to move.”
Clare did not tell Arthur to drop the photograph.
She placed it inside the front pocket of his robe.
“There. Maggie’s coming too.”
He began to cry.
The rescue team moved him with practiced care.
Clare stayed beside his head, talking about the framed woman with the laughing eyes.
At the corridor entrance, Brooks appeared.
For one second, she saw him as she remembered him six years earlier.
Dust on his uniform.
Blood on one sleeve.
An expression that meant he was about to say something she would never stop hearing.
Then the present returned.
He reached for the carrier where Harris directed him.
No speech.
No explanation.
Just another pair of hands.
They brought Arthur into the waiting area.
Jessa checked him off.
“Eleven accounted for,” she whispered.
Clare looked at her.
“Say it again.”
“Eleven accounted for.”
Across the building, something heavy crashed into the flooded lower floor.
Everyone froze.
Then Harris spoke.
“We move now.”
Brooks looked at Clare.
For the first time that night, neither of them looked away.
“We move them together,” he said.
May you like
She nodded.
And they did.
