Chapter Eight

One.

Two.

Three.

Seconds, minutes passed as he crouched down alone in the darkness, his eyes never leaving the double doors he had used to get into the building. He needed to make sure that they weren't after him anymore. And until now he had kept the flashlight off to avoid giving his position away to the ones outside, still searching. Had they seen him enter the hospital? If they had, why hadn't they come in after him?

In the silence, he could still hear his heart thumping against his chest, the sound of his own breath which he was struggling to regain now.

Deciding finally that they hadn't seen him come in, or at least weren't coming in after him just yet, Keith rose to his feet and walked past the reception area before turning his flashlight on, where it wouldn't pass the glass doors to the things lurking outside.

'Oh crap.'

The first thing the light fell on was a stretcher lying on the floor, and on it was a thing draped in a bloodstained sheet that conveniently resembled that of a dead body. If the shape wasn't convincing enough, the smell that accompanied it gave everything away.

And as Keith shone his flashlight away from the dead body, the next sight wasn't any more comforting.

A message, written in blood on the wall:

'He deserved to die, and so did she. We all, in the end, deserve death. Even you.'

Keith had no time for all this. Apart from hiding from the monsters, he had come here to find his father. The clue left for him in the hotel room was supposed to lead here, or so he expected. Kyle had said that 'daddy hasn't changed one bit', and in that sense, Keith guessed that Kyle meant his father's workaholic tendencies. He tended to come home late a lot, working at the hospital.

He hadn't exactly visited his father while he was working before, but Keith remembered clearly the place his father used to talk about the most.

The morgue.

He hadn't exactly thought about how much that scared him until now. The dead body lying in front of him now wasn't the first he'd seen, and it was most definitely not going to be the last, judging by his luck so far. In fact, if the rest of the bodies he'd see today would be draped in sheets like this one, that could be considered lucky.

-

While Keith was taking the stairs heading downwards, Claire was in a room two floors above him.

Strapped to a bed, with the killer going through a set of rusted surgical equipment beside her, she would have screamed out if she hadn't realized hours ago that it brought no good. The town, whatever this place was, was now devoid of life. She didn't know if what she had seen this morning had been an illusion, of if this was just some kind of alternate dimension, but the fact in the end was that she was alone here with the killer. She didn't know if Leo, Sean and Keith were here too, but even if they were, she doubted that they would be in any position to help her.

Her eyes were red from crying, still wide with fear. Surprising thing was, she wasn't as scared of this man as she was of the voice she had heard on the phone.

When she found the strength, the courage to speak, the first question she asked was, "He's not alive, is he?"

And the killer stopped, obviously surprised to hear her finally speak. He turned around to face her, a slight grin on his face. "Everyone, everything is alive here, little girl. Or, maybe I'm wrong, maybe everything's dead. In heaven, the two make little difference."

His answer made little sense. But still she wanted to know. "I fucking stabbed him," she said, sounding calmer than she felt. "More times than I fucking dared to count."

"Seven," the killer answered, turning back towards his tools. "If you'd stabbed him 59 times, it wouldn't have made a difference. As I said, in heaven, there's very little difference between life and death, which is why you'll soon forgive me for what I'm about to do."

"You're not going to get away with this," she spat. "Keith, Leo and Sean will be looking for me you sick fuck, and-

"They'll what, kill me? You know Leo and Sean wouldn't have the balls for that," the man replied simply, without turning to look at her. "But Keith on the other hand…" he chuckled. "Keith is capable of many wonderful things."

Claire's eyes narrowed. "What are you getting at?"

"He's a killer, Claire. A murderer."

-

Leo bent down to pick up the flashlight.

It was the exact same one he had given Claire. And yet Claire was nowhere to be seen. The cabin was empty, but the bloodstains on the floor, the upturned furniture and now the flashlight were all proof enough that there had been people here recently, and at least one of them would have been Claire.

There was no body, however, and the bloodstains near the fireplace were mostly dried ones, so there was reason enough to believe that Claire was still alive. He could still save her.

'I'd worry about myself if I were you.'

Leo's eyes widened with surprise. "Keith?"

No answer came. Only the slamming of the door behind him, trapping him inside the dark wooden cabin.

-

Keith found the light switch. Not that it made any difference. Maybe the power was out. But then maybe it wasn't such a bad thing after all. Giving up, he turned away from the wall and shone the flashlight ahead.

It didn't fall on a dead body.

It fell on a severed hand.

'The hands of the guilty do not belong to them, they belong to God.'

The words were written in, surprise, blood before the severed hand.

He paid no attention to it. He shone the light around the room, walking deeper inside. He was careful enough not to step on any of the bodies that lay sprawled on the floor, not that it would matter, logically. Dead bodies were dead bodies, Leo would say. Whenever they all hung out and watched horror movies, Leo would always remind them that. This was real life, where dead bodies would not come to life.

Yet, had Keith not seen a dead body this evening? This town was a horror movie. Worse, it was hell. And after seeing Kyle, he knew full well that dead bodies would come to life here.

They did not, however, much to his relief. They were, if anything, distractions from what he was really looking for.

"Dad?" he called out once.

No answer. He searched the room for a familiar face, whether it would belong to his father or any of his friends.

None.

Sighing, he turned around to leave-

And his flashlight shone on a figure standing in the doorway, pointing a finger straight at him.

He nearly jumped with surprise, nearly screamed. His grip on the pipe loosened when he saw that the figure pointing at him was not alive, and it wasn't a dead body either.

It was a mannequin, propped up on a stand, wearing a pink dress with blue flowers. It had no face, like most store mannequins, but someone had taken the trouble to draw a grin on its face.

"Fuck," Keith spat. He hated Kyle's sense of humor. And he knew exactly why the mannequin had a black wig and was dressed as it was.

It was what his mother had been wearing when she had died.

'She's not pointing at you, idiot.'

Kyle's voice was a whisper in his ear, but it was enough for him to spin around quickly, his eyes widening with surprise.

The mannequin had been pointing over his shoulder. Behind him was the thing he had seen in the streets, where he had killed Sean. The thing with the metal pyramid covering its face.

Keith didn't know how it had gotten there in the first place, but noticing the giant knife it was carrying, he didn't bother to even think about it.

He pushed the mannequin aside on his way out, running as fast as his legs would carry him while it followed after, walking calmly.