With a small squeeze of the handle she sprang to life for her last ride.

The old portable X-ray unit was balking and whining it’s way to the service elevator.

It stopped dead two feet in front of the sliding cage door. Its huge lead cell battery was spasmodically powering the large electric motor that drove the two-foot diameter hard rubber rear wheels.

“ahh…sonnafabitch!”

That really hurt. Red had just slammed his right ankle into the immobile portable. It was like kicking a parked car.

“Fucker… you are going down to the sub-basement whether you like it or not!”

It was like the old unit knew she was going to the Elephant Burial Ground of decrepit medical equipment deep in the bowels of Bellevue Hospital. This was one of the three elevators that actually went all of the way down to B7… the seventh sub-basement.

“I’ll bring you down in pieces if I have to!” The X-ray tech cursed as he jiggled the key. It leaped to life and surged ahead four feet… and died again… but just far enough inside to be able to close the gate and push the ‘B7′ button. All of the buttons on the elevator were gleaming shiny metal from many years of jabbing fingers wearing away the Bakelite caps… all except B7, that button looked complete and brand new, in a grimy sort of way.

All of the way down, down, down… the cage slowly quivered and shuddered. The rays of light that slipped through the grating got dimmer, dimmer and dimmer.

“Why me?” The tech kept saying out loud. “Why me?”

“Why did Doctor Gray single me out to bring this piece of shit to the lower basement? I thought he liked me!”

He had told him to wheel or drag this beast all of the way to the back area where the old iron lungs were lined up like a small armada of lonely one-manned submarines. They’d been there since the early 50’s. Some people, it was said, spent most of their adult lives inside those things after contracting Polio.

Thank you Dr. Jonas Salk, thank you.

Hmmmmmm.

Doc Gray had been getting pretty big these days too. Like, scary big. The techs in Main Radiology were all talking about how much muscle he’d been putting on. It was like he must be living under barbells now. A homeless drunk with TB had given him some lip when asked to put his mask back on in the chest x-ray area.

“Fuck you! When’s lunccccckkkk…”

Doc Gray grabbed him by the throat and lifted him clean off of the floor like a bag of garbage.

“Pleeeeeeease!”

The drunk gurgled and weakly nodded okay.

“Ah shit!”

The old portable would go no further. It had traveled a mere ten feet from the elevator’s entrance upon arrival at B7. Luckily the coiled on board three pronged grounded cable that recharged the tired old thing was just within the reach of and an old three post outlet that looked as if it were installed by Thomas Edison himself.

“Okaaaaaay…. this will take a while, might as well look around.”

“Boy, the Ghost Hunters would have a ball down here!”

“Give us a sign of your presence.” Red uttered earnestly, in his most Ghost Hunter Investigator like manner.

The unexpected disembodied echo hit his nerve endings like a dentist’s pick inside a cavity.

He shivered involuntarily.

Red was actually glad that the spirits were not cooperating. He may have had to change his underwear.

Sniff.

There was a faint musty-organic smell that hung in the still dank air. It didn’t seem right down here with all of this ancient apparatus.

Dead mice and rats… they had laid out strychnine a few months ago, that’s gotta be it.

What was this stuff worth anyway? Why didn’t they just sell it for scrap? How long has it been here?

Can you Ebay an old iron lung?

……. and what else did Doctor Gray say? How did he get so big?

“Dry aged meat! There’s nothing like it. Melts in your mouth. Pure protein, can’t build muscle without protein!”

He must be eating whole cows by now, horns and all.

The tech ambled gingerly over to the first iron lung. That musty odor was particularly strong over here.

To Red, it looked like the H. L. Hunley, the confederate submarine that drowned her crew, three separate times.

Rivets were plainly seen on its sides. Like the tin man from Oz, not ground aerodynamically flush to the skin like the fuselage of some kind of World War II airplane. It was a mish-mash of several things.

A lifetime spent inside one of these monsters. How horrible was that!

Phew! It stunk over here!

He realized that these were probably the first generation of iron lungs. Prototypes. Perhaps dating from the mid to late 40’s. The occupants were entirely inside. No large side view windows. No exposed heads poking out of the front end. There were rungs on the side to allow access to the top where the sole window and latches were located. Hermetically sealed to maintain negative air pressure.

A people-pressure cooker.

Red tried very hard to shake that imagery from his mind.

The inverted, angled mirrors were still in place and the porthole window directly below it had a thin film of dust.

Wiping the grime with the sleeve of his lab coat… issued clothing, it wasn’t his, so who cared…he shined the ARC AAA Flashlight that was on his key ring inside the tempered window glass…

A sepia colored face stared back, mouth agape!

Startled, he tumbled backwards and almost landed on the concrete floor… he was caught like a football by two large beefy arms.

“Doctor Gray!”

“Hey Red, are you okay? You look upset.”

“I…. I thought I saw somebody inside that thing!”

“Awwww… hey, it’s dark and spooky down here, let’s have a look.”

The two of them climbed back up the iron lung and Dr. Gray borrowed the key chain light.

Twisting the head on the small LED he shone its blue-white beam through the window, quickly drew back, and gave a soft low whistle.

“Holy shit man, I think you’re right!”

“See! See! I told you!”

“Go take a look at that other one over there will ya … here, catch”

He flipped the key chain over to the tech.

Red scrambled up over the other iron lung… feeling more confident that big Ol’ Doctor Gray was right there with him.

“I don’t see nothin’!”

“Open the latches… there on the side. Don’t worry, I’m here with you. I’ve got your back.”

He shot Red a wink.

Red formed a tremulous grin and turned back to the machine.

He flipped the two latches up and lifted the top hatch open.

He furtively reached his left hand inside desperately hoping not to find anything… bony. Precariously perched on one knee with the right arm extended holding up the lid. It smelled like an old suit that a very old man had lived in for a long time… but worse.

“Nope, nobody in here.”

A voice very close to his left ear hissed.

“This one is yours.”

And so… with that… Doctor Gray shoved a bewildered Red inside and slammed the lid shut, securing both latches.

The muffled yells, shrieks, wails and thumping emanating from the cylindrical- metallic coffin had echoed off the grim gray walls for a good forty minutes.

After a while, they softened and eventually stopped all together.

Doctor Gray stuck around for an extra fifteen minutes. He cleaned his fingernails with a tongue depressor and glanced at his watch, just to be sure.

He indifferently stopped and walked over to the now silent iron lung. First, putting his hand on the cold gray metal to get a sense of any possible vibrations, then his ear.

He remained so for two minutes. He looked like his right ear was frozen to the device.

“Good… very good.”

Wiping his hands and smiling he headed back to the elevator. Repeating over and over very quietly. Almost a fevered chanting.

“Protein, can’t build good muscle without protein.”

As he pulled the gate closed he flexed his biceps and gave it a loving squeeze with his free hand.

“Very good.”

He pressed the “G” button, stood back and looked upwards towards the lights and sounds that were oh so faintly filtering downward from the surface above.

The counter weight, strobing through the lights above was now hurtling along its black greased track towards him. The cables tightened. His weight seemed to increase at the soles of his feet, the knees buckled slightly but the strong thick lower limbs recovered swiftly.

It was like he was ascending from Hell.

He smiled.

Yes, it was all good, it was all good indeed.