Leeches climbed effortlessly over each other in a swirling, endless ocean of purple and black goo. Slime dripped from the residue left by the hundreds of leeches as the leechman indecisively moved back and forth, trying to decide which group would prove the easier target. The collective consciousness of the leeches worked feverously, calculating their chances of success, of obtaining their meal.
Not wanting to give the leeches time to pool their thoughts, George looked around, looked for something that could distract it enough for the others to regroup and push the leechman back. Nothing he could use was near, no brooms, no crutches, no flaming mops to be seen. Kevin stepped back, obviously giving the leechman the motive necessary for an attack. With a screech, it lashed out, throwing the twin lance-like rows of leeches out at the new target. Kevin sidestepped effortlessly and pressed tight against the wall, narrowly missing being hit by the leeches. Mark instinctively threw his arms up, covering his face from what he perceived as an attack on him.
Now more frantic than ever, George looked around thinking that he might be able to derive some use out of a small portable storage table next to Yoko. He abandoned the idea as pure hope; hope wasn't going to distract the leechman. His eyes worked over the stainless steel exterior of the table, he wondered why he recognized it, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Something about it roused some idea of necessity from it, as if it was more valuable than he first thought it to be.
Quickly, he turned back to the leechman. The leechman was bearing down on Kevin, feeding off Kevin's fear. George watched the leeches falling off the host's body and crawling back up its leg to rejoin the other leeches.
Leeches.
George felt his arm again; realization hit him like a brick wall. He suddenly spun back around and ran to the storage table. Pawing at the drawers, he fumbled around for a few seconds, pulling out half melted bags of ice. In his hand, he retrieved the object he was hoping to find. With the knife from his pocket, he flipped the blade out and plunged it into the dark red bag in his hand. The leechman froze.
George let out a wild scream as he had done once before, again squirting the blood everywhere. Knife and blood pack in hand, George pushed through the others near him, racing into the room opposite the elevator he had been standing next to. Like a cobra following the sound of a piper, the leechman
followed his every move. A trail of blood ran underneath the door as it swung closed, leading the leechman into the room beyond.
Two tables ran along the walls, meeting in an 'L' shape where two walls met adjacent to each other in the corner next to George. Another table, to his left held the dissected body of a man who was undergoing an autopsy. George assumed that the doctors performing the autopsy had to cut it short when the outbreak happened.
As he ran through the room, he realized that he was coming to a dead-end. The next room was only a temperature control room for handling blood packs. There was only one entrance to that room and George was about to lock himself in the room with the only thing that he had yet to find a way to kill. His mind ran faster than his legs, trying to find ways to skirt past the leechman and lock him in the room. George figured that he could probably run into the refrigerator with the blood packs and maybe break open one or two, hoping the leechman was more interested in them, than a fresh prey. Once the leechman was occupied, he could make a break for the door again, somehow barring it behind him.
Locking the leechman in was only a temporary fix; he knew they would have to find a way to kill it at one point. George grunted as he threw open the door that led to the temperature control room; only a few steps behind the leechman hobbled through the doorway before it slammed closed. As George ran, he pushed off he controls, trying to turn as fast as he could. The door that preceded the refrigerator slid open when George got close enough. Throwing the blood pack on the floor, George reached into one of the slots on the shelves that lined the walls of the refrigerator, grasping onto the first blood pack he could find. With his knife, he slashed open the pack and threw it on the floor too, taking only a moment to move away a few steps before taking another and tearing it open. He threw three more blood packs on the ground before running past the leechman, who was on its knees, lapping up the blood like a thirsty puppy. As the automated door slid closed behind George, he stopped to catch his breath, knowing the leechman would be a while before it finished with the blood on the ground.
He turned once more and stared at the leechman, drinking the blood, the leeches all trying to get to the blood, but fearing to remove themselves from the host. He was suddenly taken back to the time in the computer room, when the leechman had attacked, how easy it was to push it back, but nothing seemed to hurt it any. George had been able to give it pause, but never truly instill fear into it, never truly able to give it a reason not to attack again. He guessed that blinded by blood, the leechman would be willing to withstand anything to get what it craved.
However, that wasn't true. George may not have been able to stop it, but Cindy was. The leechman stopped when she waved the mop around, it backed away it avoided her.
Fire.
Of course! How could he be so stupid? Whenever someone got a leech stuck to them, they would burn it off, singe the leech until it took its tiny little teeth out of their body. The leechman wasn't afraid of fire, the leeches controlling it were.
George pushed off the window and turned to his left, running back to the control panel he had used to turn while running. Buttons riddled the face of the control panel; what at first was a confusing mess, soon turned out to be a lot of clearly labeled buttons. George frantically searched for what he needed as he saw the leechman stand up from another pool of blood and move onto the next one. Different gauges showed colors that went from a bright blue, to a mild yellow and finally an even brighter orange. Flipping all of the switches to the bright orange didn't seem to do anything.
He let out a loud growl, not knowing what else to do. It took him a few more seconds of searching until he noticed that on the right side, the control room was set to cool. With a growing sense of comprehension, George pushed the button next to the display and it blinked out. Suddenly, the fans in the room died.
Waiting, George searched the room for any signs of change, but none were apparent. He wondered if it worked, or if it just took some time. Still in a state of panic, George looked back at the control panel and wondered if he did anything wrong, but even the digital thermometer showed that the temperature was increasing. Then why was nothing happening? Maybe it required an instantaneous burn that a fire would give, maybe the leeches really did have a high resistance to heat, but it required a quicker administration to have any effect.
No, heat was heat. He was coming up with ridiculous answers to questions that need not be asked in his panicked state of mind, it would just take some more time that's all. His eyes darted back and forth in the room, watching for any telltale signs of change. George idly fiddled with the switches that he had pushed to the bright orange section, trying to push them up further.
"Come on…come on…" George said to himself as he watched the leechman move from the blood pool onto the last one. He was running out of time, if the heat didn't kill the leechman, he may not even have enough time to make it through and find something to block the door with before the leechman could have him. George could feel his heart hammering in his head, he was contemplating forgetting the whole thing and running back through the door, but if he left now he'd never know if the leechman was truly dead, he wouldn't know if it would sneak up on them and get one of the other survivors. It was better to take the chance and know that the leechman survived, than to abandon it now and risk someone's life.
As the leechman started on the last blood pool, it stopped suddenly. Bent halfway over, the leechman shot up and started to hobble over to the door, leaving the pool of blood. Leeches fell to the floor just like they had when Cindy hit them with the flaming mop, melting away into the same purple goo. More and more fell as the leechman tried to close the distance to the door. It was a futile effort, the squirming mound of leeches were moving faster than normal, each trying to find some refuge from the heat.
Blood began to boil in the plastic bags; it turned an odd brownish color. The plastic gave way, one at a time bursting open and shooting the browned blood all over the floor, covering like a macabre swimming pool. Blood leaked out from under the automated door, soaking the concrete floor next to George.
In a last ditch effort, the leechman lunged for the doorway, but missed. As it fell, the leeches seemed to stop moving, dying away at the last instant. When the leechman hit the floor, they scattered like a house of cards after a strong wind. Their host now lay on its stomach, somewhat obscured from George's view.
Quickly, George pushed all of the switches back down to the blue area on the visual bar and turned the cooling back on. He stepped through the metallic looking liquid, trying his best to ignore the fetid smell of the spent blood. As the door slid open, he finally got a look at what was causing him so much pain. Hursh lay spread out in a river of dead leeches, tiny holes pocked his face from where the leeches had bit into him, sucking the lifeblood from his face and neck. George looked away and stifled a sob at seeing his friend's corpse in such a helpless manner.
Guilt slowly took over; he had killed him. If he didn't turn the heat on, then this would've never happened. In some small way, George was responsible for Hursh's final death. The leeches were keeping him alive, but George killed the leeches. He had to lean on the wall to keep from falling down, his legs now too unsteady to hold all of his weight.
What if he didn't kill him though? Hursh would've been left to do whatever he wanted, he would've killed everyone. No, he couldn't blame himself, Hursh wasn't himself, he was already dead. A mere shell used as a home for those things. George passed his hand through his hair, feeling the cool air blowing on his scalp when he ruffled his hair.
The door creaked open, David walked in with his knife in hand. His eyes darted around the room, doing a threat assessment. Upon seeing nothing that could cause him harm, David's body visually relaxed. He replaced the knife in his pouch and walked over to George.
As he was about to say something, David took in the sight of Hursh lying on the floor, surrounded by the purple goo that once was the mound of leeches. "You found a way to…kill it?"
"Heat." George turned to face David. "Heat, I noticed that when Cindy hit it with the flaming mop, the leeches died. I then remembered that in order to remove a leech that was stuck on you, you would have to burn it off. Ergo, using the heat control from this room killed it."
George felt like he was somewhere distant, watching himself talking to David. Nothing seemed real; it was trying just to get a hold on his out-of-control emotions. David pushed past George and bent down at Hursh's side. His hand went into Hursh's lab coat pocket, grouping around inside. Finding nothing, he reached across the dead body and felt in the other pocket, pulling out a small plastic I.D. card.
"Is this the card we'll need?" David brandished the card, turning it over and examining it. George just nodded, not sure where to find his voice. David gave George a slight pat on the shoulder. "You had to do it George; if you didn't then we'd all have been dead."
George knew he was right, but knowing didn't make it hurt any less. With one last glance at Hursh, George turned and followed David out of the temperature control room. Finally, with the key card, they would be able to get out of the hospital. The idea of actually surviving seemed to be a little more tangible for George, with another accomplishment under his belt he felt like he might just be able to make it out yet.