Chapter 9 Alchemilla Hospital part 1.
Chloe slowly opened the glass door of the entrance of Alchemilla Hospital. She held the pocket radio out ahead of her to ensure that there was no danger within. After a moment of total silence she understood that there was nothing waiting in the darkness to attack her. She gingerly stepped over the threshold and entered the dark stillness. She turned to address the boys waiting on the ash covered, concrete sidewalk behind her.
"Looks clear." She said before moving forward.
Lex entered next, the pupils of his eyes expanded as they tried to adjust to the lack of light within. Clark brought up the rear and let the glass door close behind him, taking pains not to make noise; he was still apprehensive about alerting anything inside the building to their presence. The trio lingered in the reception area tying to decide what to do next. They switched on their respective flashlights and began sweeping them around the room.
Like everything else they had explored in the gray version of the town it was deathly silent. It was hard for any of the trio to imagine this now abandoned place of healing as a bustling center for the treatment of illness. The beam of Chloe's flashlight fell onto a map pinned to a cork board behind the front desk. She made her way to it and proceeded to remove it.
"Found a map." She said as she spread it across the front desk counter. She scanned it and began trying to determine where they should start looking.
Lex moved to stand opposite her and leaned over the counter to study the map from for himself. "Gotta love this town, always a map when you need one." He said sarcastically.
Chloe shot him an annoyed look before returning her gaze to the paper on the counter. Clark lingered near the door waiting for some direction as to what to do next. After a moment he cleared his throat and spoke up. "You guys find any other clues?" He asked.
Chloe shook her head but didn't look up. "No, there's nothing marked on this one, and since the crazy lady at the church wasn't very forthcoming with info, I'm flying as blind as you two." She answered making a motion with her right hand between Lex and Clark.
"If you care what I think..." Lex began looking up from the map to Chloe. "It's best to take each floor one at a time and conduct a thorough search." He was feeling more than a little irritated that Chloe was relying more on her instinct and less on his intelligence.
Chloe huffed and looked up to meet Lex's gaze, but before she could retort there was a loud bang that emanated from the end of the hallway beyond the reception area. The heads of the trio immediately snapped in the direction of the sound. "That sounded like a..." Chloe began.
"Like a gun shot." Clark finished before bounding down the corridor toward the source of the noise. Lex immediately took off after him. Chloe quickly stuffed the map into her bag and took off on the heels of the other two.
"Clark wait!" Lex called out as he caught up with his boyfriend. Clark had stopped in front of a door at the end of the hallway. He was sure the sound of the gunshot had come from the room beyond. Clark turned to look at Lex with a questioning look on his face.
"What?" He asked. "That could have been Lana, or maybe someone else in trouble." Clark turned around again to reach for the knob on the door, but Lex shot out his hand to stop Clark from turning it.
"Just wait a minute and think." Lex hissed. He pulled the revolver out of the back of his pants and cocked the hammer back. "We don't know what's in there and it would be pretty stupid to just burst in there." Lex kept his voice low in case anything in the room beyond was listening.
Clark's brows knit in annoyance at Lex chiding him. "Lex now's the not the time to..."
Chloe who had been hovering behind them interrupted Clark. "Lex is right Clark." She said before stooping down to retrieve the kitchen knife she had stored in her left boot. She brought it up to her side and continued. "Better safe then sorry." Her nerves began to hum and her adrenaline peeked in anticipation of what lay just beyond the wooden door. She nodded to Clark. "Open it."
Clark reached for the knob and carefully turned it. Swinging it wide open the trio looked into the room. It appeared to be an examination room, standard to most hospitals. The tiled floors were the traditional white and black checkered style. The there were a couple of hospital beds with their respective curtains hanging from the ceiling above them. The was only a minimal amount of gray light pouring in from the windows but even in the low light their eyes could see a man sitting on a stool in the middle of the room. The man's head was down staring at the floor. He was dressed in a business suit, an exceptionally well tailored one at that. His visual aspect was quite incongruous with what was laying at his feet.
At the base of the stool lay one of the monster dogs. It was silent and immobile. A large puddle of black blood was quickly spreading out beneath it's prone body. It was then that Chloe caught sight of the gun in the man's hand. It was obvious that he had killed the creature himself. Her usual curiosity began to take hold. Who was this man? Was he another survivor? And, most importantly had he seen Lana? Clark decided to take a step forward and enter the room. The moment he did so the man immediately jumped to his feet. Though the light was dim the trio was able to get a good look at his face. His eyes were blood shot and sunken. The deep creases around his mouth gave him a jouled look. His closely cropped black hair was peppered with white and gray. It was difficult for any of the trio to determine his age, but most troubling was the fact that he had raised his gun and was aiming at the three of them.
Lex raised his own revolver instinctively. His focused honed in on the man standing before them, if the stranger intended to shoot, Lex wanted to be sure to get the drop on him first. "Drop the gun!" Lex shouted. Chloe felt herself involuntarily raising the kitchen knife in a defensive gesture. Logically she knew that it wouldn't save her from a gun shot, but she couldn't stop herself.
Clark threw his hands up in a gesture for everyone to calm down. "Wait! Don't shoot, we're not here to hurt you." He said trying to keep his voice calm and steady.
The stranger's eyes shot to Clark. "Who are you?" He demanded still keeping the gun raised and ready to fire.
Clark kept his hands up trying to assure the man that they were not a threat. "My name is Clark." He began. "This is Lex, and Chloe." He continued nodding in the direction of the other two. "We're here looking for someone. A friend of ours that disappeared several days ago. We think she's come here." Clark looked over to Lex. "Put the gun down Lex." He instructed.
Lex shot Clark a look as if to say Not a chance in hell. But before the situation got out of control the stranger lowered his weapon and slumped back onto the stool.
"Thank god." He sighed. "I thought I was the only one left in this town."
Lex slowly lowered his revolver back down to his side, but he kept his finger on the trigger in case the stranger got any ideas. Clark carefully advanced into the room, with Lex and Chloe following after. Chloe had brought her knife down as well, however she felt the man in front of them was no longer a threat. She approached the man and asked. "Do you work here?"
The man looked up to meet her gaze. "Yes. My name is Dr. Michael Kaufman. I'm the head Physician at this hospital."
Lex was still suspicious but let his finger off the trigger and put the revolver back in his back pocket. "Do you know what's going on in this town?" He asked.
Dr. Kaufman hung his head back down and shook it slowly from side to side. "No. I can't really say." He looked back up at the trio. "I was taking a nap in the Staff Room, when I woke up it was like this." He got up from his seat on the stool and wandered over to one of the windows on the opposite wall. "Everyone seems to have disappeared, and it's raining ashes." He turned away from the gray light of the window and leaned against the wall. "Something has gone seriously wrong. Have you seen these monsters?" He pointed to the dead creature on the floor. "Have you ever seen such aberrations, or even heard of such things?" At touch of anger seeped into his voice as he took a few steps toward the trio. "We all know creatures like this don't exist."
Lex felt his annoyance rising again. He was beginning to think this Dr. Kaufman was as loony as the woman they had met in the church. "Yeah anyway, like Clark said we're looking for someone." He said crossing his arms over his chest.
Chloe took the opportunity to speak up. "Her name is Lana, she's about 17, long black hair, we think she may have been born in this town." Chloe wasn't completely sure about that last bit, but if he'd been the chief doctor 17 years ago he may have known Lana's birth parents.
"She's missing?" Dr. Kaufman said, as if he was grasping what they had said for the first time.
"Yeah, she left our hometown in Smallville Kansas several days ago." Clark clarified. "We've tracked her here, but we haven't been able to find her."
"I'm sorry." Dr. Kaufman sighed. "But with all those monsters around down I doubt that she's..." He trailed off.
Chloe felt her heart sink. "So you haven't seen her." She said matter-of-factually.
"No." Dr. Kaufman replied. "I haven't seen anyone except for you three." His expression softened to something resembling sympathy. "I didn't mean to alarm you, it's just..." He couldn't seem to find any words to console the trio. He sighed again before getting up from the stool. "Well I need to be going. I can't just sit around doing nothing." He walked over to an examining table and picked up a black briefcase the trio hadn't noticed before. He started to walk toward the door when Chloe rushed forward to try and stop him.
"Wait you can't just leave!" She exclaimed. "There's danger out there. And, where could you possibly be going?"
Dr. Kaufman's expression changed again to sudden anger. "That's none of your concern!" He said sharply. "I just can't sit here in this place a minute longer. I'd rather take my chances out there." He motioned toward the window, and the ash covered streets outside. "Now move out of my way."
Chloe was stunned by his sudden mood swing. She moved out of his path. Clark and Lex followed suit and allowed Dr. Kaufman to pass between them. The doctor lingered for a moment in the door way and turned back to the trio. "I am sorry about your friend." He said his tone calmer now. "But, I wouldn't get my hopes up if I were you." He turned around and headed out the door of the Examination Room. "Good luck." He called over his shoulder before heading down the hallway and out the front door of the Hospital.
"Well that was completely unhelpful." Lex said as he uncrossed his arms.
Chloe sighed heavily and ran a hand through her hair. "Well, back to the task at hand I suppose." She said as she started to leave the room.
"So we're not even going to pretend to address what just happened?" Lex asked cocking an eyebrow.
Chloe turned to face Lex. "What's to address?" She asked in an irritated tone.
"Well for one..." Lex began. "Why did we just let the only survivor that could be of some use to us walk out? And two, if this town has been shut down since the 70's, how could he have just woken up and everything was like this?"
"Obviously this place has taken it's toll on the survivors." Chloe stated. "Between his lack of information and the ramblings of that lady in the church it's apparent that anyone we find here is suffering from extreme trauma."
Lex scoffed and rolled his eyes. "And how did you arrive at that pseudo-psychoanalysis?"
"Lex you're not helping." Clark chided. "Chloe might not be right about what's going on with these people, but she's right about what we should do, it's best to just keep of the search, we're bound to find something if we keep looking."
Lex gave up. There was no way he was going to win any arguments with Clark and Chloe. "Where do we start?" He said looking back over to Chloe.
Chloe pulled the map back out of her bag and scanned it. There's a set of offices across the hall, might as well start there." She said putting the map back. Before the trio moved to leave the Examination Room. The limited amount of light in the room began fading. They looked to the windows and watched as the gray light outside began to dissolve into shadows. The darkness was beginning to over take the town once more. Chloe felt her hairs stand on end as the last of the diffused light vanished leaving the room in total darkness.
"There goes the sun again." Lex said turning his flashlight back on.
"That means my powers are gone again." Clark lamented, switching his flashlight back on as well.
"If it's any indication of what's coming next, we need to get a move on." Chloe said motioning for the boys to follow her. The trio stepped out into black hallway and headed down several doors to the offices Chloe had identified on the map.
*I know these chapters are a bit short, but I'm breaking up the hospital segment into several parts. It's just easier that way considering it takes up a large portion of the game. Hope you enjoyed this.