The Secret of Zormna Clendar by Julie Steimle (great reads .TXT) 📖

him. The moment he stumbled back to the door for help, he found it shut in his face.

It had locked when Zormna pulled it closed behind her.

Right away Zormna was somewhere she did not recognize. A bare linoleum hall. Dark. The tile under her feet was cold and a little damp, like it had just been mopped. With the entire building now shrouded in shadows, it was easy for Zormna to hurry without being seen.

She went to the right, down the hallway, with the softest of steps (despite the cutting pain from the pieces of glass she had been unable to dig out of her feet) heading towards light. Workers in white and green uniforms rushed out of individual rooms to the halls to find out what happened, as other people called to them inside. Voices around her called out with suffering moans over the blackout.

Zormna slipped by, hiding once in the recess of a doorway when a group of white-suited doctors ran past. She leaned against the cold wall. Orderlies and nurses follow after the men in suits. But they did not run to get to her room, not yet anyway. In fact, one nurse actually saw Zormna as she went by and shook her head at her.

“Go back into your room. Everything will be fine. Only the power is out.”

Zormna ducked her head and nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

She stepped from the recessed doorway and walked down the hall, going farther from her room, yet pretending to obey. She stepped into an open doorway with an apologetic smile, hoping the woman would leave soon. And the woman did, in too much of a hurry to verify if it was the correct room.

As soon as the woman was gone, Zormna continued her search for an exit. She took care to remain in the shadows.

At the end of her hall, where the light had come from, she found a wide corridor with fancy veneered wood trim, lined in carpet with cushy padded chairs and low lounge tables. All the lamps on the tables were out, as were the frosted glass fluorescents overhead. High skylights provided the only light to the open space. She was right. It was no prison. And it was definitely no science lab. But a hospital with carpet? That was not likely. Hospitals were bloody, body-fluid-spilling places. Where was she?

Glancing from the left to the right, Zormna noticed a few people going here and there, crossing the corridor between the halls—but no one she recognized. In fact, it seemed strange how yet another nurse passed her a disparaging glance but just walked by without saying anything at all. Then again, it was dark and they could not see her clearly.

Drawing in a breath, Zormna crossed the wide corridor, hiding within a small hall just across the way. It was barely in time too. As soon as she got into that shadow, Zormna saw faces she did recognize.

The first doctor she had met in her room marched briskly past the doorway. He turned down the hall she had come from. His shiny leather shoes tramped with crisp taps as he practically ran to her cell. Others followed him, including one of the orderlies who had manhandled her earlier.

She listened to their echoing footfalls, waiting for the noise to die down. But the sound of footfalls increased, this time coming from behind. Whipping around, Zormna peered down the hall she was in. The sound of footsteps only got louder.

Searching to her right, Zormna snuck through the first open door she saw then pressed herself flat against the wall behind it. She held her breath.

The rumble of feet went past the door, crossing the corridor to the other hallway. Zormna peeked through the crack, only catching a glimpse of the dark hair and white suit coat of one man. No one else went by.

Clutching her chest, trying not to breathe too loud, Zormna lifted her eyes across the little room. Two small windows (locked and barred) gave the room light. The first thing her eyes set on was a disheveled man sitting in an adjustable hospital bed. Doughboy innocent in his smile, he wore a large baseball shirt and some teddy bear slippers. The man stared at her with genuine curiosity.

Then she noticed his room. It was nothing like her cell at all, but a little home—including bookshelves and a small flat screen TV.

Zormna managed an awkward grin as she gave the man a small wave from her wrist.

“You get away?” the man asked.

Zormna nodded then peered through the crack in the door, watching more men in dark suits run to her hall. Many of them had guns in their hands, but only three of the men she recognize. Agent something or other, and that apple man. They passed the door, crossed into the main hall and then went down into the hall she had come from just as the others did. Zormna glanced back at the smiling man.

“You won’t tell on me will you?” Zormna whispered.

The man shook his head. “No sirree, Bob! I won’t.” And he smiled wider, honestly cheerful. “What’s yer name?”

Zormna watched through the crack again then peeked back at the man. “Zormna. You?”

“I’m Babe Ruth, the best ball player there ever was.”

Zormna nodded with a forced smile then peered out the crack again.

A blur of white passed in front of the slit between the door and the wall, footsteps strong. Holding her breath once more, Zormna pressed quietly against the wall to make herself smaller.

“So, Eugene, you’re still claiming to be Babe Ruth? I thought we agreed you were Mr. Eugene Willis, the greatest diesel mechanic ever.”  A nurse carrying a tray with a pleasant, yet tired grin passed through the doorway and fully into Zormna’s view.

Zormna made a face. She tiptoed past the door back into the hallway.

“Well, she said her name was Zormna. So if she is named something weird like Zormna, I want to be Babe Ruth!” 

“She said? Whom have you been talking to?” There was amusement in the nurse’s voice. She turned around to see whom he was talking about.

But Zormna was already gone.

She had hurried back to the main corridor. Wide corridors usually led to foyers, or main entrances, Zormna surmised. And at the end of this hall, there seemed to be a glowing white light beckoning her. So Zormna followed it. It had to be the way out. She finally understood that this place wasn’t a real hospital. More like something called a home or an institution. That meant soft ‘humanitarian’ like guards at the doors, where deadly force was not even an option.

She walked, at first remaining along the wall while keeping an eye on the hallway she had escaped. Her bare feet hardly made noise on the soft piled carpet. Zormna leaned behind a fichus tree when another set of men in suits rushed out of the hall, searching. A pair of orderlies came out looking intently, but she had skillfully ducked behind a soft arm chair. From thereon, she moved low, keeping herself out of sight from where her hunters were coming.

 A few people puttered around the hall in bath robes, muttering to themselves with vague expressions on their faces. Nurses were reassuring them that all would be made right soon. Past them, in the glowing end of the corridor, Zormna spotted what was probably a reception desk. She could hear the conversation between the receptionist and a well-dressed elderly woman at the end. It resonated over the distant echo of running feet.

“Do these things happen often?” The elderly woman sounded like she was perpetually cranky. “I want my son taken care of, not neglected in a slip-shot place.”

Standing more upright, Zormna attempted to walk casual-like into the foyer. Yet her eye caught on the guard at the door who stared her down. Immediately she sat into a chair, pretending to be as dim as the others around her appeared to be. Smugly, the guard went back to his stiff watch.

It was just one barrier, possibly the last, though Zormna doubted it. She glanced up at the guards again, searching for gaps and weaknesses in his attention. Oddly, the guards really weren’t watching the foyer at all, but the outside. Probably they were to ensure a secure location to protect the inmates rather than the other way around. It seemed to be that kind of place.  

So, to test this theory, Zormna meandered to the large windows, surveying the scene outside. Nobody stopped her.

And the view? Lawn. Lots of it. And beyond? A large fence. Wrought iron. Beyond that? Zormna could hardly be sure, but she noticed how the lawn sloped down towards the possibility of trees, and houses. She was in a neighborhood.

That meant someone could have heard her.

Her heart beat a little faster. Her chances for escape had increased.

“There she is! Don’t let her out of the building!”

Or not.

Zormna would have glared at them, but she was practically at the front doors and her pursuers were closing in. Zormna made a mad dash for the glass doorway. Hard-soled shoes on the firm hall carpet thundered behind her.

She disabled the two lazy guards first, swinging the heel of her foot into the face of the one, which sent him reeling into the other guard. They dropped like bowling pins.

The elderly woman turned around with a scream.

Zormna had no idea what she looked like, except that her hand was still bleeding and she had blotted it on her stained hospital gown to keep from dripping on the carpet and leaving a trail. But after the ordeal the day before, with bed-head and vomit stink, she guessed she probably looked like a frenzied madwoman.

“Lock it down!” shouted the clipboard doctor.

The receptionist reached over her desk groping for some sort of button to do so. But Zormna had already pushed through the doors to the outside. There was no way she was going to try to throw herself through a plate glass window if she didn’t make it.

Hurdling over the front steps, she landed barefoot on the concrete path outside, the glass in the bottoms scraping in deeper. Painfully, Zormna looked to the right and left before dashing onto the sloping grassy lawn. It surrounded the building, which was indeed at the top of a hill. Her eyes took in the immediate environment as she went straight to a wrought iron fence that stood more than ten feet high at the bottom of the hill. She could see the bars were too narrow to squeeze through, and there were pikes up top. Looking beyond that, Zormna saw the main gate. It stood closed with guards that appeared comparably more attentive than the ones at the door. These had sidearms.

Zormna glanced back to the front entrance, panting as her mind went blank in panic.

Already five of the suited men had followed her outside. One had a gun in his hand. All of them rushed after her.

Turning sharply, Zormna darted to the nearest fence. “Jennifer McLenna! Help me!” 

Almost immediately, an earsplitting crack cut the air, stabbing straight into her left leg. Zormna collapsed just a few yards from the fence, face-first in the grass. The echo of the gunshot continued to resonate against the houses around the gated structure.

 “Put that down! We don’t want to kill her!” The apple man’s yell carried through the ringing in her ears.

Pushing up with effort, Zormna clenched her teeth. They would capture her again if she didn’t move. She did not bother to look at her wounded leg, but pressed on, limping towards the fence.

“Kevin Jacobson! Brian Henderson! Jessica Clark! Anybody, help me!”

She grabbed hold of the bars as soon as she could. It would take some pressure to scale them without supports—but she could do it.

Beyond the bars, she noticed the neighbors stick out their heads from their homes—at first. But then they closed their doors and windows, and drew their curtains shut. Of course. People were same everywhere. It was easier not to get