Kevin's face was flushed and he was drenched in sweat. He wiped his brow, watching the two in the room, expecting them to jump when he finished talking.
"Let's go!" He screamed once more, trying to spur them on.
"W…well," George started, looking at Cindy, just as confused as she, "what's going on?"
"They're everywhere, come on." Kevin waved them on and shut the door. George took one last look at Cindy before jumping out of bed in fright. They were in the hospital?
It took him a few seconds, but he noticed Cindy's face went scarlet and she diverted her eyes. George looked down, his own face turning red; he felt his face get hot. He was standing in only his underwear. Instantly, his hands shot out, attempting to cover as much of himself as possible.
"…Right, I'll uh…give you some time to get yourself dressed." Cindy said, stifling a giggle and passing through the room to the door. By this time, George had taken the blanket and draped it over his mostly naked body. He mentally cursed himself for being so rash and jumping out of bed, of course he would be in his underwear, he was lucky he wasn't naked. Hursh had to professionally re-set his leg meaning he had to have unrestricted access to his leg. The clothes would just be in the way.
It was then that he realized that there was little pain on the leg that had been dislocated. George tested it out and was satisfied with the results; Hursh was a good doctor. Still reeling from the embarrassment of being caught mostly naked by Cindy, George reached for his clothes that were in a bin at the foot of the bed and began dressing himself.
Time was of the essence, these people had already wasted enough time getting him to the hospital, and luckily, Hursh was here to help him out. George couldn't worry about those things though, they had to move on and find a way out of the city. The door creaked open as George finished buttoning his vest, Hursh walked in with a solemn look on his face.
"We need to find a way out of the hospital, but the elevators had to be shut down in order to get all the electronics working for you, so I have to go reroute the electricity now. I was just coming in here to see how you were doing George." Hursh's deep English accent was apparent. He had moved to England from India, as many of England's immigrants do but he didn't stay long after getting his M.D. at Oxford. Hursh needed to find a place to work, and he wanted out of England to come to America. For some reason, he chose to come to an out-of-the-way place like Raccoon City, said he'd had enough of the big city life in England. Regardless, Hursh was one of the best physicians in this hospital, George was glad he had a friend here.
"I'm great Hursh, I have no idea how you did it, but my leg is feeling great." George was astounded, with the little equipment Hursh must've had, he couldn't think how Hursh had managed to make his leg feel so normal again.
"Well, that plumber had done what was necessary to get the bone back in place, but it wasn't quite there, I merely moved it slightly over to the right." Hursh paused a moment, considering if he should tell George the rest. "Also, I had to use a lot of localized anesthetic."
George had thought he would, but there was something he wasn't telling him. "And?"
"I had to use morphine, and in the state you were in, the pain was sending you into a mini coma, so we had to use a lot."
"How much is a lot?"
"Enough to get the job done. You might start to get a little loopy and when this is all over, you will have major withdraw, but you'll be alive okay?"
"If", George corrected as he threw his arms into their respective holes in his jacket, "If I get out of this. Thanks Hursh, I'll buy you a beer if we get out of this."
"Make it a nice hard Scotch and you've got a deal." Hursh turned and left through the door. George buttoned the top two buttons on his jacket and started to walk to the door. Before he could open the door, Alyssa burst through the door in a huff.
"Are you done yet? We need to get out of here and we're all waiting on you."
"Yes, I'm finished in here, let's get a move on." George said, following the agitated woman through the door. Outside, he could see the group of survivors all bundled together in one large gaggle in a small space outside of his room, near over turned wheelchairs and piles of crutches. To George's left the hallway went back behind his room and to a set of stairs that was covered by a large metal grate, with a single zombie banging longingly on the grate. Next to the stairs was another sick room and a hallway covered by another metal grate. In front of him were the rusted elevator and the control room for the floor. He watched Hursh say something to Kevin and then exit into the control room. George shuddered as cold air blasted onto him from above, the ventilation shaft was blowing out cold air at full speed.
Quickly, George rejoined the silent huddle and Kevin started to speak. "Alright, Doctor Hursh is going to turn the power back on. He told me that we should look around for any supplies that might be useful, and to watch out for anything that could be hiding in the rooms or the hallways. Apparently, this hospital was just evacuated and not thoroughly checked, there may be more survivors, and there may be more creatures out there."
"So, basically this could be a walk in the park or an all-out fight for our lives…great." Jim said, folding his arms and backing up to the wall.
Kevin disregarded Jim's interruption and continued. "So, before Doctor Hursh can turn the power back on, we should scavenge anything useful we can find anything that can be used as a weapon or some band aids for all I care."
Everyone nodded and left in separate directions, looking for anything that could help them. George began walking down the hallway, towards the other sick room. Usually the staff would store random items they would need for a patient in the rooms, in lockers for when they would need them. He thought that there might be something in one of the lockers in the room.
George heard the distinct sound of Cindy's heels clicking on the marble floor as she jogged to catch up with him. "So, how're you feeling?"
Cindy's kindness brought a smile to his face. "I'm a lot better now, thanks to Doctor Hursh and you."
"Me? I didn't do anything but sit there, helpless."
"Oh, you argued for them to stay, and more importantly you stayed by the bed. You know, studies suggest that a person in a coma can hear everything around them, and usually, it's the sound of a loved one, or a good friend that brings them out of the coma." George said as they rounded the corner.
"So…you uh heard things then?" Cindy looked down at the floor.
"Sadly, I could never remember my dreams." George smiled and opened the door, motioning for Cindy to go in first. "Ladies first."
"Why thank you." Cindy walked into the room and flicked on the lights. The primary electricity still wasn't on, so the backup generator had the lights on a dimmer, providing enough light to maneuver around in, but not really adequate for anything more than that.
George felt along the smooth metal of the foot of the closest bed until it suddenly dipped away. He measured with a keen efficiency the area of the room from his memory. In a few steps, he felt the second bed, following it along until its end. From his memory, he remembered that there were only two beds in each room, meaning he was near the wall opposite of the door. The locker should be to his left somewhere.
With both hands, George ventured from the bed and into the unknown, feeling for the locker. He closed the distance quickly; his fingers encountered the semi-cold metal locker. Quickly, he brushed his hands across the doors, finding the crease in the middle where the ends of both doors met. Following it down, he found both handles and tore the doors open, inside he could barely see, but all of the shelves had been torn through already, nothing left at all. As he turned to shut the door, something caught George's
eye. At the bottom of the locker, something dark jutted out oddly from underneath a few papers. George crouched down and moved the papers revealing more of the object. A handle started to come into view and then a barrel. A wicked grin appeared on George's face as he pulled out a pistol from the locker. With this, the firepower would be spread out a bit more throughout the group, the more people with guns the better off they were.
He stood in silence and showed his find to Cindy. Her face lit up just as much as George's had when he found the pistol. In the stillness, he shared a look with Cindy, but something seemed wrong. He couldn't place it, but something was definitely wrong. It was quiet, quieter than it should be.
Why was it quiet? Something should be noisy and George knew it, but what he couldn't figure out. Then it hit him, George felt the metal bed again, it was warm. He felt the locker again; it too was warm. Why wasn't the air conditioner on like it was outside?
Suddenly the lights flicked on, the contrast from the dim lights to the very bright ones, made George shield his eyes. George rubbed his eyes subconsciously, peering out every so often to help acclimate his pupils to the new level of light exposure. In his blindness, George could hear the scraping of metal overhead, something was moving. He forced his eyes open, looking around the room quickly, scared at whatever it was that was moving above them.
Cindy clung to George's jacket as he moved his new weapon around like a shield. From right above the door they had come in, the cover for the ventilation shaft fell to the ground as a black ball fell from the duct. Instinctually, George pulled the trigger, but only heard a disappointing click. He took a glance at the gun before pinning it to his stomach with his waistband on his pants.
The black ball began to move and elongate, forming a sort of humanoid figure before their eyes. The black blob moved as if it were made up of individual parts all forming to a hive mentality, collecting against a single entity.
After a few seconds, George's heart stammered, the thing stretched to its full height, revealing the two human legs beneath. Leeches, that was what they were, leeches. The leeches fell and climbed back up the legs to rejoin the others. With arms stretched out, the leech covered man hobbled towards the two people standing in complete fright.