Chapter 1 - The Condemned Ward
SHE CALLED 911 FROM A HOSPITAL THAT CLOSED 12 YEARS AGO
At 9:17 on a rainy Thursday night, Natalie Reed woke beneath a ceiling she had never seen before.
One fluorescent tube flickered above her, flashing just often enough to reveal water stains spreading across the plaster. The room smelled of disinfectant, damp concrete, and something metallic.
Natalie tried to sit up.
A sharp pain pulled across the lower half of her stomach.
Her hands immediately moved to her belly.
“Lily?”
The baby shifted beneath her palm.
Natalie let out a broken breath. She was thirty-five weeks pregnant. Her doctor had warned her about false contractions, but the pain she had felt in the grocery store had been different—sudden, deep, and strong enough to bring her to her knees beside a display of canned soup.
A cashier had called 911.
An ambulance arrived within six minutes.
Natalie remembered two paramedics lifting her onto a stretcher. One had told her they were taking her to a specialist because her obstetrician suspected placental abruption.
The other had injected something into her IV.
After that, there was nothing.
Now she was alone.
A clear tube ran from her arm to an empty IV bag. Her shoes were gone. The hospital gown covering her body had no logo or name printed on it.
“Hello?”
Her voice disappeared into the darkness beyond the open door.
No answer came.
Natalie swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her knees almost collapsed beneath her, but she caught the metal rail.
Her coat had been folded on a chair. Her purse sat on the floor beside it.
Whoever had brought her here had not taken her phone.
It showed one bar of service.
Natalie called 911.
A woman answered immediately.
“911. What is your emergency?”
“My name is Natalie Reed. I’m pregnant. I woke up inside a hospital, but I don’t know where I am.”
“Were you transported there by ambulance?”
“Yes. I was at Gordon’s Market on Pine. I started having severe abdominal pain.”
“Are you bleeding?”
Natalie looked down.
“No. I don’t think so.”
“Can you see the name of the hospital?”
Natalie stepped into the hallway.
The corridor was lined with closed doors. Dust covered the floor except for two fresh tracks left by stretcher wheels.
A faded blue sign hung crookedly at the intersection ahead.
Natalie moved closer and read it aloud.
“St. Catherine Women’s Hospital. Four-eighteen Mercy Avenue.”
The dispatcher did not respond.
“Hello?”
“Ma’am, are you certain that’s what the sign says?”
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“My name is Claire Dawson. I need you to listen carefully. St. Catherine Women’s Hospital closed twelve years ago.”
Natalie stared down the dark corridor.
“That’s impossible.”
“The building has been condemned since the closure. Police are being sent to the address now.”
“I was brought here in an ambulance.”
“We’re checking the transport logs. Stay on the phone with me.”
A sound echoed somewhere beyond the next hallway.
Natalie froze.
It was high, weak, and brief.
Claire heard it too.
“Was that a baby?”
Natalie’s heart began pounding.
The cry came again.
She followed it past an abandoned nurses’ station. Old papers lay scattered behind the desk, yellowed and curled with age.
At the end of the corridor, light leaked beneath a pair of swinging doors.
Natalie pushed through them.
She entered a small neonatal room.
Unlike the rest of the hospital, this room was clean.
A heart monitor glowed beside an empty bassinet. A warming lamp was still hot. A small blanket had been folded with military precision.
The baby she had heard was gone.
“Natalie,” Claire said, “do you see anyone?”
“No.”
On a stainless-steel tray beside the bassinet were two freshly printed identification bands.
Natalie picked up the first.
**BABY REED
FEMALE
TRANSFER APPROVED**
The second band carried her own name.
**NATALIE REED
MATERNAL DEATH**
Beneath it was a date.
Tomorrow.
Natalie’s hand began to shake.
“They printed a death band for me.”
“What?”
“It says I die tomorrow.”
A door slammed somewhere behind her.
The lights in the neonatal room went out.
Natalie heard footsteps approaching through the corridor.
Not running.
Walking slowly.
Claire’s voice sharpened.
“Natalie, hide now.”
Natalie lowered herself behind a row of metal cabinets.
A woman entered the room wearing pale blue surgical scrubs and a mask. Natalie could see only her shoes beneath the cabinet.
The woman picked up the tray.
Then she spoke.
“She’s awake.”
A man answered through a radio.
“Find her before the police do.”
The woman left.
Natalie waited until the footsteps faded.
Then she crawled out.
“We need to get you out,” Claire said.
Natalie looked at the empty bassinet and the band marked with her daughter’s name.
“No,” she whispered. “There was a baby in this room.”
“Natalie—”
“They moved it when they heard me calling.”
She found a door behind the neonatal station. It opened onto a concrete stairwell descending into darkness.
Beside the door was an electronic reader.
A green light blinked when Natalie’s hospital bracelet passed near it.
The lock released.
The stairs continued beneath a large sign painted on the wall:
**AUTHORIZED MATERNAL TRANSFER ONLY**
May you like
Natalie placed one hand beneath her belly and started down.
Behind her, the door locked again.
