Chapter 1
There was a taste of copper in her mouth, and her tongue hurt. Ever since she was a small child when Beth was having a bad dream she would bite her tongue to wake herself up, it was her form of pinching herself. After having seen her patients pale, auburn haired frame sit up on her hospital bed some ten minutes after she had been pronounced dead had caused such certainty that she was dreaming that she had bitten her tongue almost clear through with her left incisors.
The next few moments seemed somewhat of a blur to her, as though she were watching a train wreck from a short distance and was completely incapable of actually doing anything about it. The nurse on duty and Dr. Burrows both seemed to move in towards the patient in unison, Darryl seemed completely flabbergasted, none of his training had prepared him as to how to react if one of his dead patients suddenly sat up in their death bed of their own accord. The nurse instinctively reached out her arm and rested it on the patient's left shoulder, intending to lower her back in the bed. Beth glanced at the EKG readout and still saw no pulse, the sound had been turned off but she could still clearly see the straight line on the screen indicating no heart activity whatsoever.
The moment the nurse rested her hand on the young girl's shoulder, what seemed to Beth to be complete bedlam broke out. The girl lunged at the nurse with such force that her bed frame slid out from under her and was slammed into Darryl's hip. Darryl let out a groan and fell backwards into the room window, shattering it, before sliding down the wall and landing in the shards of glass that had tumbled into the room. The nurse let out an almost tangible shriek and fell through an IV pole; she ended up on her right side with her left hand stretched above her head. The woman, who had slammed into her, gripped her arm and suddenly lowered her head directly into her armpit; to Beth it seemed as though she was nuzzling her like a dog would to its owner, the nurse however didn't seem to react in the expected way and screamed so loudly that Beth actually backed up a couple of steps. The nurse, thrust with her right arm and managed to sit halfway up; it was then Beth heard a wet ripping sound, as though someone had ripped an entire roll of scotch tape off a blackboard. She could see red staining the nurse's uniform and, in a moment of horror could see a gaping hole in her armpit.
Her training coming into effect, she realized the Nurse's Subclavian artery had been nicked, in the same moment she glanced at the woman and could see red smeared all over her face. The bandages around her eyes were stained a horribly crimson and tissue was falling from her chewing mouth, the nurse was bleeding profusely, the floor was literally pooling with blood. Beth instinctively moved to handle the wound, she wouldn't last more than a couple minutes unless that arterial wound was closed. The nurse, in a sudden burst of adrenaline, jumped up just as Beth reached her and ran toward the doorway, Beth switching direction chased after her, out the door and into the stairwell.
Darryl languidly opened his eyes; he felt like he was at home but had something he had to do. Did his alarm not go off? Was he scheduled for surgery? 'Wait' he thought 'didn't I just finish surgery?' He could hear a wet smacking over to his left, the dog must be drinking from the toilet again. Rolling over Darryl let out a groan and pain raced up his back, radiating from his hip; suddenly the events of just a few moments before came flooding back to him, his patient...dead...pain.
The feeling of the bed frame and the hit against the window and wall flooded back to him, he tried to roll further onto his back again and sucked in breath as he felt something jagged piercing his thighs and ass. "God Damn it" he muttered, he realized from the pain in his hip that there had been a lot more damage than just some glass, he'd broken, or damn near broken it. He wasn't going to be able to walk, glancing around the room he could see his blood on the floor, and what was that damn smacking noise? As he realized that the amount of blood on the floor was way too much to have come from him, he'd be nearly dead if he'd lost that much blood, and it was in two pools, one really big one and a smaller one around him, what in the hell had gone on?
As he was pondering the source of the blood, the strange noise ceased and he could hear movement behind the bed frame. It wasn't the lack of noise that caught his attention however, but the sudden sound of somebody moving against the bed, followed by a slapping sound as a hand came up from behind the frame on top of the sheets. For a split second Darryl thought it looked almost comical, clown-like, this wickedly distinct, partly pale, make-up white and crimson smeared hand. As the woman's face came into view, however, all thoughts of mirth immediately fled from his mind. Her face was a grotesque mask of blood and gore, what looked to be flesh hung from a widely sliced lip. Her bandages were little more than ragged strips now and he realized she must have heard him when he swore. Her gown hung in tatters around her frame, and she seemed dazed, 'Of course she's dazed' Darryl thought, 'she was dead just a minute ago'. He shifted his weight intending to grip the windowsill and force himself to stand up, it was at this point he realized his mistake. A slight, though thunderous in his ears, crunch of glass came from the ground; the woman's head suddenly shifted and she let out a horrific moan, moving purposefully now she leapt onto the mattress. Darryl's split second thoughts of finding a weapon a weapon were cut short as his patient ran toward him, 'Oh fuck' he thought, Darryl Burrows was going to die.
