LIFE SUPPORT

It was dark, cold. The stench was sickening, strong and full of vomit and feces. The pale, feeble glow of her flashlight shone on a bench, a billboard, a gurney. It was a hospital, but it was wrong.

Anne Cunningham moved forward, gun out, eyes darting from one side to the next. After her encounter with Pendleton at the radio station, the town had once again changed, and she had once again found herself in a new, macabre parody of reality.

She stopped by a wall, clutching her side. Her hand came away red, coated in blood—the handiwork of one of those creatures, human only in looks alone. She grinned mirthlessly; the same creature was lying now in a pool of its own blood, a gaping gunshot through its head, rotting in the rain outside.

She checked the remaining ammunition of her pistol. There were two bullets left in the current clip, and she had a spare—enough for a few of those monsters, Pendleton—and herself, as well. That was all right. As long as she could put that son of a bitch in an early grave, she was okay with dying.

The elevator opened, revealing another dank, dark hallway, its walls grimy and wet. It was ironic—hilarious. Of course it was a hospital; of course that same, strained metallic whine beckoned her. He was waiting, crumpled and broken in that wheelchair, waiting for her to find him. He was always just out of range, just a little too far. A door would open, close. The lights would flicker, darken, and then he would be gone. Frank. Her father.

It had never been easy, seeing him like that. She would spend hours sitting with him, reading to him, talking to him, helping the nurse feed or bathe him. It was the least she could do for all the years he had spent putting up with her. He had always been a good man with a particular zeal for life. He had always been willing to forgive, be merciful. He had looked for the good in people, not the bad; there was no doubt in her mind he would have disapproved of her doing this, of hunting down Pendleton. But she wasn't as strong as he was. She couldn't forgive, not after what he did. Not everyone deserves forgiveness. Some people deserve to die.

Beeping. She looked up, tense, still busy carefully applying the bandage to her wound. It wasn't perfect, but it would keep her on her feet long enough to get out and find something better—or Pendleton. Faintly, she could hear the rain falling outside. It was getting worse, punctuated by the occasional rocking blast of thunder. But this beeping was louder, more prominent. She stood up.

Going into law enforcement had been a means of paying tribute to him. It was an honor to help people the way he had. But clearly the universe or God or whomever was in charge up there thought that good deeds weren't enough. Maybe you couldn't be good in this world. Maybe you couldn't give people the benefit of the doubt, because the minute you turned on them, they'd pounce. It was sick. They were laughing at her, at her father. This whole goddamn place—the whole fucking world.

She nudged the door open, eyes peeled, waiting for the horrid scream, the erratic swipe of claw—but there was no deranged monster, no rusted, waterlogged room. It was clean and sterile, the hospital room he had lain in those last few days. The monitors and equipment flanking the bed beeped and hummed. He lay under the sheets, shriveled and small, wispy gray hair jutting from his head, his eyes glassy and distant.

"Fuck you," she said, though it was not the town, Pendleton, or even herself she meant. This was rotten, wrong. She was living on borrowed time, just as he had. Some people deserve to die—and if she was one of them, too, because of this, so be it. It was better than living like this.

(A/N: Just a little something to stay active. Thanks for reading.)

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