Barry opened his eyes some time later to find himself in a place he didn't recognize. A haze covered his eyes, preventing him from seeing his surroundings clearly. He started to raise a hand to rub his eyes, only to find they were bound behind his back. He struggled a bit, sending a blinding pain ripping through his left hand in the process. He gritted his teeth to keep from yelling, lest someone hear him. The pain grounded his thoughts once again, and he slowly remembered the events that put him in this condition. He and Rachel had trailed Ernest to the basement, where the off-beat director suddenly went berserk and attacked them, shooting Barry in the hand. Just before he blacked out from the pain, he saw the man strike Rachel in the head. A deep chill flooded through him when he realized he didn't know what happened to her after that.
"Ugh…damn…" He didn't want to see the shape his hand was in, and at the very least the fact that both hands were bound tightly behind his back prevented him from doing so. It certainly felt as though it'd been run through a meat grinder, but surprisingly this did not bother him as much as the thought that something far worse could happen to Rachel. He had to find her.
Having finally gathered his bearings, Barry could see he was in an exam room of some kind. He was lying on his side on a padded exam table; not the most comfortable position, but with a grunt he was able to roll off the table, only to fall flat on his face on the hard tile floor. With a great deal of effort he was able to struggle onto his feet, and stumbled to the door, only to find that he was virtually unable to manipulate the knob in his current state. It was obvious that whoever had thrown him in here was intent on his inability to escape. Even so, he was more afraid that something even worse could happen to Rachel. In desperation he slammed his body against the door over and over, determined to get out even without the use of his hands.
"What the hell…" Much to his surprise, he could hear the sound of the door being unlocked from the outside. He backed away from the door, his heart pounding at the thought that they might be returning to finish him off.
"It's okay, I'm here to help."
Barry was both surprised and relieved at the sound of a female voice on the other side. Not Rachel, unfortunately, but at least it was another, seemingly normal person. He watched as the door opened slowly, and a blonde woman clad in a white hospital gown stepped inside.
"Don't worry, I'm not one of them," she said, noticing his wide-eyed expression, and held up a key. "I stole the director's master key, in case you were wondering."
"Thanks," Barry said dumbly as he got to his feet, and stared at the petite woman. He assumed she was a patient here, but she looked quite normal, fortunately. She smiled shyly and nervously ran a hand through her hair.
"No problem. My name's Lisa. You must be Rachel's partner…"
"Barry. You know Rachel?"
"Yeah…we go way back. Here, let me get that…" He watched as she took a pair of scissors from the counter, and then allowed her to turn him around to allow her access to his restraints.
"Oh my God…what happened to your hand?" Lisa gasped.
"He…Ernest shot me…" He drew a shuddered sigh. "How does it look?"
"Not good, I'm afraid. Here, I'll have a look at it for you." She proceeded to cut his bindings loose, and he hesitantly drew his left hand in front to have a look. Sure enough, it was not a pretty sight. It looked as though the bullet had gone clean through, and he was certain some tendons had been damaged enough to prevent him from moving his fingers, perhaps permanently.
"Holy shit…"
"Yeah, it doesn't look good…" She started to reach for his hand, and he instinctively backed away.
"It's okay, I used to be a nurse. Now let me see…" She gently took his wrist and examined the hand, and he drew in a sharp breath through his teeth.
"Ooh…yeah, it's pretty bad. At least let me disinfect it and bandage it for you."
"No, there's no time…"
"It'll only take a minute. Now come here." She started rummaging through the cabinets, and eventually turned up a clear glass bottle filled with a dark purple, almost black substance.
"Wait, that's…iodine," Barry said with the slightest bit of trepidation.
"Yeah, it'll burn like hell, but take it like a man, okay?"
Barry sighed wearily, feeling as though he would pass out at any moment, but his attention was quickly regained when she grabbed hold of his wrist and thrust his hand over the sink, where she promptly poured most of the bottle's contents over his hand.
"Fuck!" Barry let out a shriek that could've rattled the walls at the searing sting of the medicine, and watched wide-eyed as the volatile substance flowed over his hand and mingled with blood in the bottom of the stainless steel sink. He gave up trying to be tough and collapsed against the counter, breathing hard as she gingerly wrapped his entire hand with a bandage.
"How do you feel?" she asked.
"Like a million bucks," he grumbled. "So, you and Rachel are old friends or something?"
"Something like that…" The young woman stared down at the floor. "I'm worried about her. I saw that awful Ernest Baldwin drag you up here and put you in this room, and I just know he'll do something worse to her."
Barry's pulse raced at this. "You do?"
"Yes. He's a monster. He abused the patients here, and I'm sure he wouldn't stop at killing. He's crazy."
Barry sighed. "Well I'm gonna take your word on that for now. I have to find her, no matter what."
"I'll come with you."
He stared at her curiously. "I...I can't let you do that. It's too dangerous. I'll get you somewhere safe first."
"No." She surprised him with her resolve. "I can't expect you to understand, but I have to do this. It's Rachel."
He blinked. "I'm sorry…I guess I'm just a little confused. I don't remember her ever mentioning you."
She looked surprised, almost hurt at this. "Well, it was a long time ago…but I owe her. I never got a chance to thank her for what she's done for me."
He sighed again. "I don't know…"
"Besides," she grinned as she held up the key once again, "I have this. You won't get far without it."
"Fine, fine, you can come with me. Now we've wasted enough time. Let's get the hell outta here already."
She nodded her assent. "Let's start by searching the rooms on this floor. I can unlock any door in this place. If she's still here, we'll find her."
The pair went into the hall and through the doors to the first floor patient wing. The hall wasn't nearly as long as the patient wing on the third floor, but there were plenty of rooms to explore. Barry steeled himself for anything that might be waiting on the other side of the doors; something he had never had to do before.
"The day room…" Lisa turned to the double doors to the immediate left, echoing the faceplate that adorned them. It certainly didn't sound like she had the fondest memories of the place, but Barry was not at all prepared for what he saw when she opened the doors. In addition to the overturned tables and shattered chairs, the floors and walls were splattered liberally with blood. The smell of it was nearly overpowering.
"Holy shit…it looks like World War III took place in here," he said. "Do you know anything about this?"
She took a breath, her face turning an ashen gray. "I don't know much, but I do know one hell of a fight took place in this hospital two days ago. I hid the entire time. It's probably a miracle that I'm still living."
In that moment, Barry took a page out of Rachel's book and began constructing a scene in his mind, one that even he had to admit made little sense. "So let me get this straight…Baldwin called us in to investigate one murder when there was a veritable bloodbath here just a couple days earlier? What, he thought we were too stupid to figure it out eventually?"
"Well…I don't know about that…" She quickly changed the subject. "Look, we'll talk about it later okay? Right now we need to concentrate on saving Rachel. Now let's go."
The pair continued methodically searching the rooms, each one offering up even more blood and gore than the last, but Rachel was nowhere to be found. Barry's sense of urgency grew with each room they explored. He was beginning to suspect that Ernest was not the only one here with something to hide, but he didn't feel right badgering a mental patient, especially under the circumstances. He merely lingered in the background while Lisa took the lead in the search, all the while calculating when would be the proper time to question her more. By the time they reached the final room, the pool, his patience had worn about as thin as it could go.
"Lisa, you'll cooperate with us, right?" he asked as he anxiously waited for her to release the padlock that held the double doors shut. "I mean, there's gonna be a lot of questioning and stuff like that. You think you'll be up for it?"
"Sure I will. Why do you ask?" She calmly released the lock, and turned to him with a shockingly hostile look. "I suppose you think I'm in on it too, huh? You think he had all of us under his thumb? Well you know what? When and if-and that's a big if-I do decide to tell you guys shit, I'll tell Rachel. She's a saint. She's too good for you."
Barry's jaw dropped. "I…I'm sorry, I…I didn't mean anything. I was just wondering. I don't want you to feel overwhelmed."
All at once her demeanor changed again, reverting to the calm and rational woman he had met moments earlier. "I'm sorry…I don't know where that came from. I've…been under a lot of stress lately. But I'm okay, really."
He let out the breath he'd been holding. "Okay, if you insist. Let's keep looking, then."
The two entered the pool area, a dark and cavernous room that smelled vaguely of chlorine and dried blood. There were a few trails of blood on the tiled floor as if something-or someone-had been dragged across it, just as there had been in the other rooms. In the dim light, Barry could see that the pool itself was completely drained, its bottom crusted with foul brown stains. Fortunately there were no bodies piled up there, although at this point nothing would shock him.
"Locker room," Barry read the faceplate of one of the doors in the back, the first one they'd encountered that was not locked. "That's a pretty predictible place to hide a prisoner."
"We can't count anything out," Lisa said matter-of-factly, searching along the wall and flipping on the light switch, the lethargic fluorescent lights flickering to life to bathe the trashed room in a sickly white glow. More blood painted the floors and walls and lockers, but still no bodies or weapons were to be found.
"It looks like things were just going as normal when all hell broke loose," Lisa said as she observed the shower area, drawing Barry's attention to one of the shower stalls. The splatter of blood on the rear wall formed an ominous silhouette around a clean area that vaguely resembled a head and shoulders. Barry relaxed only a little when it was evident that Rachel had not fallen victim to the carnage-not yet at least. He leaned against the only clean part of the stall and dragged a hand down his face.
"Hey, does this bother you?" Lisa asked. "I figured a detective would be used to seeing this kind of stuff."
"I am…it's just…I'm not used to seeing it without Rachel by my side. I guess it's the only way I can be certain she's safe, is when she's with me."
"You sound like you're pretty close."
"We've worked together for a long time now," he said. "I've practically watched her grow up. She's a big part of my life."
"So you're friends, then?"
He nodded hesitantly. "Yeah, you could say that."
"Think you could ever be more than friends?"
"I…" He stopped. "Well, I…I don't know…"
"Sure you do." Lisa folded her arms and glared at him. "I can tell by the way you talk about her. You want her. You go home at night and fantasize about her. You don't respect her at all…you just want her in your bed, don't you?" Her voice rose with her anger.
"Lisa…?"
"Don't misunderstand me. I'm not helping you. I'm doing this for Rachel. She's done so much for me…it's my turn to protect her."
"Isn't that touching…" a disembodied male voice spoke out of nowhere, and the pair looked around frantically.
"Leonard?" Lisa gasped.
The old man chuckled softly from his unseen location. "I couldn't help overhearing, and I thought it warranted pointing out that while you're here bickering, your beloved Rachel could very well be breathing her last."
"Leonard you bastard!" Lisa bolted into the locker room, looking all around for the source of the voice. "Where are you? You know where she is, don't you?"
"Well, yes and no." The elder patient spoke in a maddeningly calm tone. "Rest assured, though, that I can see her plainly from where I am."
"If there is so much as a scratch on her I'll break every fucking bone in your crusty old body," Barry snarled.
"Spare me your idle threats. I'm just the messenger," Leonard said. "At any rate, I just thought you two would like to know that this hospital has been rigged with explosives."
"Rigged with what?" Lisa blurted out.
"Yes, there are four bombs set up somewhere in this building. Every 25 minutes, one of them will be detonated. In an hour this place will be nothing but a smoldering hole in the ground…that is, depending on your actions."
"God damn it…" Barry clutched his head with both hands.
"Just to clarify, we are not terrorists," Leonard said. "We will give you a chance to save yourselves, and Rachel as well. If within the course of this hour you manage to find Rachel, we will surrender. We'll dismantle the bombs and give you the girl. Note, however, that we are so confident you will not find her that we decided to make you this offer. If at any time we become bored with your antics, we might just change our minds altogether. Do keep this in mind. Oh, and best of luck to you both, as well."
"Bastard…" Lisa muttered under her breath as the faint sound of an intercom being switched off echoed through the room. She turned to Barry with a look of desperation. "What the hell do we do now?"
The detective ran a hand through his thinning hair and stared up at the ceiling, gazing directly at what he could have sworn was a surveillance camera.
"Well," he said. "Looks like it's crunch time."
"Find the Holy One…find the Holy One…find the Holy One…"
Rachel opened her eyes. She was vaguely aware of being seated somewhere, a floor, she discerned, with a rough concrete wall at her back. Her shoulders ached, and she realized with a sudden chill that her hands were bound behind her back. The rough surface of the unfinished concrete dug into her knuckles.
"What the fuck…" She raised her head, and shook the haze from her brain in time to see a figure not six feet from where she was. It was a man, seated cross-legged on the wood plank floor, rocking back and forth erratically with both hands clearly occupied in his lap. Her eyes widened with horror, and she quickly looked away as he got to his feet, looking back just in time to see him quickly zipping up his pants.
"I'm sorry, Rachel. You weren't supposed to see that," Ernest said as he walked over to her.
"Ernest…what the hell is going on here?" She tried to move her hands from their uncomfortable position, only to find that they were firmly secured behind her back. "Damn…not again…what is it with you freaks and bondage, anyway?"
He smiled eerily and brought a hand to her face, stroking her cheek lightly with one finger. "It's only for a little while. Soon we'll both be free."
She looked up at him in disbelief. "You're completely insane…"
His expression changed to one of anger, and his hand knotted into a fist near her face, only to relax a moment later. "You don't understand yet, but you will soon. Please believe me."
A sudden sick feeling struck her when she remembered what had happened directly before she lost consciousness. "Where's Barry? What did you do to him?"
"He's somewhere safe, don't you worry about him. All you have to do now is relax and wait."
She was beginning to panic, but she didn't dare let it show. "I want to see Barry."
"And you will soon enough. But you'd better make the most of it, becauseit will be for the last time."
She found herself extremely irritated by this comment; her patience was running even thinner than usual. "What the hell are you guys planning?"
"That's for us to worry about, dear." His hand came to rest on the gun holstered at his waist. "I see you still don't trust me, but that will soon change."
"Trust you? You expect me to trust you? You've got me tied up God knows where, and you think I'm gonna fucking-"
At that moment, a sharp stinging blow across her right cheek cut her off, and her head snapped to the side with the force. She felt the hot trickle of blood, but she would not give him the satisfaction of seeing the tears well up in her eyes. She kept her head turned to the side and refused to look at him.
"Oh no…oh no, what have I done?" She looked up long enough to see him place the gun on the floor. A spot of blood could be seen where the hammer had cut into her skin when he hit her.
"I didn't mean it…oh God, I didn't mean it…" His fingers traced lightly over the gash on her cheek. She cringed as he leaned in to kiss her lightly, his fingers traveling slowly down her face to her neck, leaving a trail of blood in their wake. Her horror and disgust grew as his attention shifted from her lips to her cheek, where he gently licked and sucked at the wound, consuming her blood as if it were a fine chianti. She squirmed as he travelled lower, cleansing the blood trail from her neck with his tongue before progressing to sucking and lightly biting the sensitive area. Only when she tried to struggle loose from him did she realize that he was now straddling her legs to inhibit any movement from her.
"God damn it!" She jerked away from him with all the pent-up rage in her body. Ernest shifted his weight momentarily, raising himself up slightly and backing away, leaving her the perfect opening to land one good hard blow to the groin. He exploded with a cry of pain as her knee met its mark, and collapsed in a fetal position in the far corner of the tiny featureless room. It was only then that Rachel realized she was being held in such a small, claustrophobic space. She felt her pulse racing in her veins, but she tried not to show it.
"I deserved that…" Ernest whimpered. "I'm not worthy to touch you…that way…"
"Don't beat yourself up…it's been awhile since I've let any man touch me."
"No man is worthy of touching you that way…I'll kill anyone who tries." He stood up with a look of resolve unlike any she'd ever seen. It made her fearful of what paranoid thoughts might be running through his head concerning Barry, and just what he planned to do about them.
"Ernest…can you tell me what's going on here? Why are you doing this?"
"It's a test," Ernest answered quickly. "When I can pass this test, I'll have earned my place in paradise."
"Paradise, huh? What kind of place is that? Are the drinks complimentary or is there a cash bar?"
Ernest did not look amused. "After the Judgment and Atonement, all of us will live there, under the guidance of our mistress and guardian…that's you, Rachel."
"Okay, so…I guess that means I get my drinks for free?"
Ernest actually cracked a smile at this. "This is not your true self, you know. Your true self is already there…but she is not yet complete. She will not come into her true form until you join her, and the only way for that to happen is for your earthly form to, well…die." He choked up visibly at this. "But it's okay, because death is not permanent. We're going to a better place."
"Uh..." She gaped at him. "Okay, wow, just...wow. This has got to be a dream. Just how hard did you hit me in the head?"
By this time Ernest was no longer paying attention to her; he had returned to his place in the corner, muttering something under his breath. Rachel sighed and let her head fall back, and in the process caught a glimpse of something she hadn't noticed before, concealed in the shadows of the small, dark space. "What the hell is that…?"
"What's that?"
"Up there in the corner…is that a camera?"
Ernest rose slowly and stepped slightly to the side, causing the object to follow his motions. He turned back to her, his eyes ablaze.
"Someone's watching this? Who is it? What the hell is going on here, Ernest?"
"It's nothing. You saw nothing!" With this he retrieved his gun, and struck her hard across the temple with it. This time she willed herself into the dark void of unconsciousness. Anything had to be less painful than this.
