Paging Doctor Baxter Huntley Part IV

My name is Henry James. And I’m Sunny Alexander and we’re writers for Dark Sides of the Truth Magazine.

Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Conclusion

After some serious discussion on how in the hell we were going to pull this off we both decided we needed to get in sync with each other’s writing style pretty damned quick.

It became obvious to the both of us a Henry James article was more of a throw it out there and see what comes back where a Sunny Alexander story was more of a look it up, validate the hell out of it then pour it out.

Two writers with two different approaches on the same story.

What the hell was Rick McDonnell thinking?

The one thing we realized was if we were going to write this story together we needed to do everything together. Web research, note comparisons, initial and final drafts, everything had to be shared.

Except bathroom breaks and showers of course. Both of us drew the line on that.

We set our sights on finding anything we could on Baxter Huntley’s past. Thank’s to Sunny’s adept computer skills and my ability to be nosier than a giant Vermilingua hanging out in the middle of an ant farm, we managed to find several smoking guns.

But what we found disturbed the both of us.

Sunny pushed my laptop aside and flopped hers on my stomach.

“Check it out Henry. This doctor of ours has a really nasty past.”

The picture wasn’t very flattering of the old man, but there was no doubt it was the same man. It was the title of the article that really caught my attention.

Butcher of County Medical Has License Stripped.

I read the entire article then gazed up at Sunny.

“Damn,” I muttered.

“It’s worse than that. Look at the date the article was released.”

“Oh shit, that was…was…”

“You must suck at doing math in your head. Twenty five years ago. Nineteen ninety four. Didn’t you say Baxter died around that time?”

I nodded and continued to stare at Sunny’s computer screen, “yeah, that’s what Doctor Suripurith told me.”

“There’s more Henry, check out the other web tab.”

“What other web tab?”

“Seriously Henry?”

After a few deft strokes, we were both staring at another article on Baxter Huntley. A story of how he’d been found in a decommissioned surgery room on the first floor of County Medical.

Half of his brains blown away by the single shot of a forty five caliber pistol.

“There’s got to be a reason he did this Henry.”

“Ya think?”

“So maybe that’s why he made contact with you.”

“Again, ya…”

“You say that again and I will punch you in the throat.”

“My dear, that’s exactly why I made contact with him. Somebody needs to set the record straight. Someone needs to let everyone know what really happened that night.”

Sunny and I locked gazes. Neither of us had said that. We both eased our heads around.

Doc Huntley was sitting in the chair staring at us.

“You seeing this Sunny?” I don’t know why I was whispering but I was.

“Yes Henry, I’m seeing it.” I thought James was stupid for whispering, but I whispered right back at him.

“You ma’am are simply gorgeous. Henry must be a very happy man.”

Both of us stammered out explanations of the fact our involvement was entirely professional, but Doc Huntley just sat there and let us stumble over each other seemingly pleased with his original assessment of our union.

“Doctor Huntley sir I know you’ve already spoken with Henry, but he never mentioned anything about you killing yourself. Why did you commit suicide?”

We watched him stand and straighten then he pointed at the doorway and said, “before I tell you both there’s something you need to see. Henry, you may want to consider getting dressed before we go. That gown’s a bit too revealing even for me.”

We both looked at each other, then began the search. Discovery of the clothing of course brought about a conversation on how to dress for success or in some people’s view how not to.

“This is what you wear all the time? I mean, like all the time?”

“Hey, what the hell is wrong with what I wear? My boots are broke in, the jeans are relaxed. It’s comfortable.”

“Those jeans aren’t relaxed. They’re dead.”

Both of us discovered another interesting fact during that five minute fire drill. Not only were our writing styles completely different but our fashion sense was clearly at opposite ends of the pole.

“If you don’t mind you two, I’d like to get on with this. I may be a ghost, but listening to you two bicker all night might just possibly put an end to me…again.”

We both called a truce to the clothing war and followed Doc Huntley into the hallway. There were more shadows than light. To our left about halfway down we saw an opening in the wall where light spilled across the floor at the nurses station.

But we were headed the opposite direction, deeper into the shadows. So deep we almost lost sight of our semi-transparent escort.

Had it not been for the white of his surgical coat, neither of us would have been able to follow.

He led us to the end of the hallway and to the emergency exit stairway then waited for both of us to catch up.

“Most times opening this door sets off an alarm, but for some reason tonight the thing seems to be broken. Wonder how that happened?”

Doctor Baxter Huntley winked at both of us then stepped through the closed doorway, turned round and centered his head in the tiny square of glass.

“You two coming?”

We followed, of course in a more traditional fashion. Although we had our doubts about the alarm Doc Huntley was right. The only thing we heard as we pushed the emergency release bar was the gentle clicking of the latch as it swung back into its cavity.

We went down one flight, then another. Then two more. As we stepped off the last step Doc Huntley waved us over to where he stood on the inside of the door.

“Okay you two. We’re going to step into this hallway, turn right and walk until we hit a dead end. There’s a keypad on the side of a door with one of those old time locks where you have to push the button in that corresponds with a number. The code is five, two, seven, zero, five. Got it?”

There are those of us writers who seem to think they have steel traps for a brain and can remember everything better than an idiot savant. Then there are some writers who know they can’t and write stuff like this down for future reference.

We’ll let you figure out which is which.

We stepped into the room and after searching the walls next to the doorway found a switch.

A single set of fluorescent lamps flickered into life, but it was hardly enough light to chase away most of the shadows in the room.

Hospital beds were lined up on one side, in addition to mismatched furniture of various types of wood and plastic lying about.

We seemed to be standing inside a huge storage room.

Doc Huntley was standing in the middle. He was staring around the room and had a terribly sad look on his face as if he was seeing the most heartbreaking, and yet terrifying thing he’d ever witnessed in his life.

“That night we lost eighteen. Ten were DOA, three died on the table as me and Charles Macy struggled like hell to keep them alive.”

He pointed across the store room at a door opposite us.

“I never even got to look at the other five before they died. Well, I didn’t but Charlie did. I didn’t find out what really happened that night until much later. But by then it was too late to do anything about it.

Besides, I couldn’t have done much anyway. I was already dead.

READ ON — PAGING DOCTOR BAXTER HUNTLEY PART V

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