Chapter 8: It Won't Let Us Leave
"I know now that my wife has become host to a Candarian demon. I fear that the only way to stop those possessed by the spirits of the book is through the act of... bodily dismemberment..."
What woke me from my narcotic induced semi-coma was the all too familiar sound of breaking glass…I think. My hazy mind was filled by the distant noise of all those shattering pieces tumbling from their window panes. But…I thought I heard something else…just before that…damn these drugs. I don't think it was on my floor, it all sounded so far away, but then again, my mind wasn't exactly crystal clear. The numbness was wearing off, but everything still felt heavy from my eyelids down to my toes. The first sensation that really hit was the painful kink in my back from the tip-top staff letting me "sleep" wherever it was I fell. Which, by the way, felt like the floor of an industrial freezer.
I lifted an eyelid slightly, still groggy. After that the second one raises, partial mobility, that's a good sign. Next comes the attempted lift of an arm—halted! I lifted my spinning and aching head to get a better peek at my condition. A straightjacket. Well aren't those fun.
"AAHHHHHHH!" through the cloudy haze inside my brain I could still decipher a faint scream emanating from somewhere down the hall. At least I assumed that's its origin. The damn drugs make everything so damn difficult!
Something else shattered in the distance…or hell, right in the next cell over for all I can tell. With a giant heave I tried flinging the bulk of body upward to sit up. This tactic fails on my first attempt, and instead a flop back against cold linoleum. That's gonna leave a mark. Well if at first you don't succeed…
Try it again, Ash, I say to myself (whether out loud or in my head I can't tell) and heave my drug pumped body up again with a grunt.
…maybe failing's more your thing.
Dr. Tilly walked briskly from the elevator to the hospital's main lobby, completely unaware of the impending chaos waiting to be unleashed within the old building's walls. She heard no strange noises happening up on the fifth floor as she shrugged into her coat. She heard nothing, in fact, save the swift clicking of her no longer missing high heels as she traveled the barely lit hallway.
For a moment she paused—breath caught in her throat—as the doctor heard something crash from within the open space of the lobby. That was the moment her eyes and her busy mind finally connected to see the looming darkness the hallway emptied into. Normally the room was well lit, even sunny. Not now.
"H-hello?" Renee called softly. She took a step forward, gingerly, and her call was replied by the sound of shuffling against wet tile. Then a cough, soggy and agonizing, "Jake!" Renee's voice grew in volume and fear. Her feet nearly slipped out of her heels as she scampered into the darkened lobby. The Doctor's vision was immediately removed upon entering the eerie room.
"Jake!" she near whispered, suddenly afraid of the possibly of intruder in her hospital, "Darryl?" she called for the second guard on duty that night as well. Her calls were followed by a crumpling noise, scratching against the ground from somewhere in the dark. As her eyes adjust Dr. Tilly's gaze fell upon an old newspaper page, then another, and another. They skated gracefully, though slightly crumpled, across the smooth ice like tile. But, how? The doctor thought.
He answer came in the form of a breeze, cool and crisp, gliding against her cheek. She shivered as it tickled over her skin and floated her bangs out of place. "Hello?" she asked, stupidly, into the darkness. Dr. Tilly willed her body forward, now trembling with the slightest sensation of fear. She blindly approached the source of the chill upon her cheek and outstretched a palm.
"Is there anybody in here? Jake? Darryl?"
CRUNCH
Renee jerked her foot back the moment her toe crunched against glass. Bits surrounded her, all covered by the darkness, fallen from the shattered front window. "Oh god…" she whispered, "Darryl? Jake?" she kept her voice low as she backed carefully out of the graveyard of glass shards, "is there anybody in here, hello?"
Renee bit her lip. That was a stupid question. Of course someone was in here, or at least had been, the window didn't shatter by itself, and something had to break it.
Dr. Tilly's back bumped against something solid, startling her. She turned in a flash to find she had backed into the Plexiglas partitioned security booth. She released a long, noisy breath.
"Help me!" the doctor screamed, and leapt right out of one of her heels when Jake's heavy form pressed itself firmly against the glass separating them. He beat his bloody hands against the clear wall, "p-please doctor!" he gargled, red slipping from the corners of his mouth. His frame gradually slid downward against the barrier, his lower half unable to support the chubby security guard. A trail of blood remained in his wake.
"Jake!" the doctor gasped. She threw her palm against the Plexiglas and hurriedly felt her way through the darkness her eyes had not yet full adjusted to. A broken piece of barrier tugged briefly at the skin on her palm, drawing blood. Renee hissed as she felt her way around the hole defiling the safety of the cubicle. Within in seconds she reached the closed door to the minimum security office.
"Jake, I'm here!" she shouted as she flung open the door. Her foot was caught in something liquid and sticky. Her hand slithered frantically against the wall inside desperately searching for the light switch. She didn't dare move any further into the office without somehow seeing what was making the awful gurgling, scratching and hissing noises against the cold floor.
At last her fingers glided over the switch to illuminate the small room, and again the doctor shrieked. Renee stood in a pool of blood that completely covered the white floor tiles. Lying face down in the disgusting liquid was Darryl, his uniform stained, his finger nails long and bloody, his body twitching, and the back of his skull blown to pieces. Bits of bone and brain matter added to the mess. The doctor felt her stomach lurch mid scream, right before a set of bloody hands grabbed tight to her ankles. Renee's breath caught in her throat. She kicked and wiggled her legs, whimpering for the hands to release her.
"Doctor!" a hoarse voice cried, "Doctor!"
Dr. Tilly ceased her thrashing upon realizing the hands that captured her were Jake's. She crouched down beside him, averting her gaze from the body in the middle of the floor. "Jake, what happened!?" she cried, she hadn't meant for her voice to sound so hysterical. Jake's fierce grip released itself from Renee's ankles and moved up to her forearms. He pulled on the doctor as she looped her arms under his for support.
"D-Darryl, he…he…" the guard was unable to finish his story and broke into a fit of bloody coughing to stain the lady's white blouse. She paid no attention to her ruined attire.
"Jake, we have to call 911," she instructed, though she knew he was incapable of handling a phone is his condition. She tried with all her might to lift the heavy man off the floor though she clearly lacked the strength to do so. Her eyes darted over the guard's injured body. His left leg was hurt the most; completely red with cuts and scratch marks, down to the ivory bone in some places. Renee grimaced at the sight of his torn flesh and muscle, one of the reasons she choose the field of psychiatric care was so that she wouldn't have to deal with all this blood.
"What happened here?" she gasped, feeling the tears building in her throat, "who did this, Jake?"
"D-d-d-" the body on the floor suddenly gave an energetic jerk, freezing both guard and doctor. One of Jake's hands freed Dr. Tilly's arm and shot for a black object resting in the blood pool. Renee could not steady the two of them after his spontaneous movement and both hospital employees toppled to the hard ground. Jake didn't seem to notice, "t-take this," he gasped, practically shoving pistol under the woman's nose. She squirmed and raised her thin body out of the sticky puddle without taking the firearm. "Take it!" Jake shouted, tossing the weapon at her. Renee shrieked, avoiding the gun. Her companion groaned in pain and frustration as she did so.
"I'll swallow your soul…." Something hissed from inside the same security cubicle. Renee could feel her heart pounding within her chest. Not wanting to know where the noise came from her trembling bloody fingers reached out Jake once more, "I'll swallow your soul…" the same sound hissed again, louder this time. Dr. Tilly's attention was unwillingly drawn to the now eerily steady dead security guard lying not far from her.
A hand shot up, followed by a second. Renee's voice box blurted a short yet terrified scream as she watched the body begin to reanimate. The dead hands groped blindly for something solid to sink their nails into. Finding a filing cabinet the moving corpse clutched on and heaved its upper half out of the puddle. In a flash the head sprang to life as well, fixing its milky white demonic eyes upon the still living souls. A black and crimson bullet hole disrupted the smooth skin of Darryl's forehead. Streaks of blood rolled down the dead man's face.
"I'll swallow your soul!" it spoke frantically, "I'll swallow your soul! I'll swallow your soul! I'll swallow your soul! I'll swallow your soul! I'll swallow your soul! I'll swallow your soul! I'll swallow your soul! I'll swallow your soul!"
The body lurched for her and Renee wailed, stomping her remaining shoe heel into the face of her once co-worker. The shoe remained stuck in rapidly decaying flesh. The woman cried and yelled and whimpered again, attempting to dislodge her foot before the thing could sink its claws into her Achilles.
A firm hand yanked on Renee's arm. The force of the grip dragged her across tile whilst she continued to scream, and ultimately pulled her foot free of its Stiletto prison. Someone stepped in front of her—blocking the doctor's view—and fired into the cubicle. She squeezed her eyes shut and covered her ears against the loud firework like pops in reflex.
"Get up!" someone told her once the firing stopped; "get up!" the hand pulled once more, this time yanking Renee onto her feet. Standing upright Renee finally got a look at her rescuer: a slightly shaggy haired young man. It took her several seconds to place the face, but it did come to her.
"You…" she said breathlessly, recognizing Detective Curtis from that morning. The phony Detective's face dropped as she recognized him, his focus elsewhere.
"Shit!" he shouted, nearly tossing Dr. Tilly to the ground. He threw her aside—though Renee still managed to securely latch onto the young man's arm. Renee had not been aware that he had pulled her over to the previously broken window. There another visitor was attempting to sneak inside after hours. Curtis fired his own gun and Renee tucked herself into his arm to escape the noise of the shotgun blast.
"Dean, we've got a problem!" he yelled. Dr. Tilly gradually lifted her face from Curtis's arm to have her eyes locked with the pupiless white orbs of the monster that managed to crawl through the broken window. Though impossible for the creature to stand due to its twisted and missing limbs the thing held its ground between the living and their only chance of escape, blocking the path to the front windows and entrance.
"Joooiiiinnn uusssss…" it cooed evilly, "Joiiiinnnn uusssss…" fresh buckshot holes decorated its practically faceless head and shoulders.
"Jesus H. Christ, Sammy!" the second man, Myers, trotted to his partner's side, "I thought we got rid of this thing already!?" he half shouted half gasped, completely taken aback by the appearance of the second zombie like creature. The thing began to inch its way further into the building, dragging itself by one elbow. The three responded by taking one unified giant step in the other direction, keeping three pairs of eyes straight ahead.
"So did I," Curtis gulped, "how could that exorcism not have worked?"
"Join us, Sammy!" the decomposing corpse teased, "or I shall swallow your souuuuulllll!" it finished with a twisted cackle.
"Yeah we've heard it all before!" Myers retorted. He patted his partner on the shoulder, "get out the knife, Sammy."
Curtis grew still, "I…thought…you had it…" he answered slowly.
"I'll swallow your soul! I'll swallow your soul! I'll swallow your soul! I'll swallow your soul!" Darryl's bullet infested body leaped through the tear in the Plexiglas, shredding parts of its flesh and clothing as it did so.
The partners exchanged, perhaps, too long of a stare as the demons marched forward.
"Don't even tell me we left it in the car!" Barked Myers.
"I'll swallow your soul! I'll swallow your soul! I'll swallow your soul! I'll swallow your soul! I'll swallow your soul! I'll swallow your soul! I'll swallow your soul!"
"Jjjjjoooiiinnnnn uusssssss, Doctoooorrrrrr!"
Renee had had enough, "Stop arguing and do something!" she roared, throwing an exasperated punch into Curtis's left arm. He barely even flinched.
"Right…" he replied instead. He stood quietly for just a moment, trying his best to picture the layout of the hospital he received from the boys' brief tour in his mind's eye, "Elevator!" he said, then turned to Renee, "It's down this way right?" she nodded, "then run!" He hooked the doctor by the arm and sprinted down the black hall.
"Jake!" Dr. Tilly screamed, "Don't leave him!" she tried her best to pull free of the man's grasp but he held tight to her.
"Dean!" he shouted, firing the second round of his shotgun into the belly of the oncoming undead security guard. The body was thrust backward, blood spewed in every direction.
"I got it!" his partner called in return, lunging for the security office door. Curtis continued to sprint— his had locked on Renee's forearm—for the elevator. Once in reach the woman shot her hand outward and tapped the up button before her running mate had the chance. Luckily, the metal doors sprang open with their soft ding at once.
Renee flung herself onto the back wall, positioning her back to the corner and holding to the cool metal rails to steady her shaky form. Curtis waited in the threshold, keeping the metallic doors from sliding closed. He shouted and motioned for his partner to hurry—who Dr. Tilly could spy jogging down the hall with a limping Jake supported be his shoulders. Renee could not, however, decipher any specific sounds. Adrenaline pumped through her body, all her limbs trembled, and the only sound she could hear was the horrified throbbing of her pulse in her ears. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply in an attempt to calm herself. The moment she exhaled all the previously muted sounds flooded her earlobes.
"Hey, Lady!" one of the 'detectives' yelled at her. Renee's eyes lids snapped open. Jake and Myers were already in the metal box, the doors sliding shut. The former moaned where he lay in the opposite corner and the latter hovered inches away from the woman's forehead, his brow knitted. Renee stared at him in utter bewilderment, "I asked what floor is Williams on?"
"W-ha—" she stammered, "A-ash Williams?" she needn't wait for Myers reply, the doctor already Ash was exactly who he meant, "f-five. Floor five!"
Curtis pressed the button and their metal box jolted upward.
"What…what the hell is going on here?" Dr. Tilly panted, her voice returning to her, "What was that?!"
"We don't know," Curtis gently replied. Renee blinked.
"You don't know!" every man winced, "you storm in here, guns blazing and you don't even know!"
Curtis turned to face the astonished woman, "we're doing the best we can to figure everything out right now Dr. Tilly," he answered, keeping the calm in his voice, however, when he began again his tone held a certain edge, "but right now, no, we don't exactly know what that was. We…have an idea."
"What idea?" the lady demanded but received no reply, "What idea!"
Silence.
"Who are you?" Renee sincerely asked, "You're not detectives."
Curtis sighed, "My name is Sam Winchester and this is my brother, Dean."
Dean raised his hand in a wave and continued, "We, uh, hunt things. Things like what you just saw."
"Aha!" Renee couldn't help it, the skeptical laugh simply floated out of her gut, "for a living?"
"Yeah, pretty much."
"How'd you get in?"
"Same way," he paused to find the word that wasn't there, "whatever that was got in."
"D-d-darryl…" the chattering trio had nearly forgotten about their fourth passenger.
"Jake!" Renee gasped and dropped to his side, taking his bloody hand in hers.
"It just…" his was quivered, "it j-just…got…Darryl. Th-the window…broke through the window," his tale was intermissioned for the need to consume air, "just a gust o' wind…b-blew through the g-glass an' it…it just h-hit Darryl an' he…he…"
"Shhh, it's alright Jake," Renee wished to comfort the wounded man.
"I shot 'im."
"But that didn't stop him," Dean finished.
The elevator dinged, announcing their arrival. Sam crouched down at Jake and Renee's level, "Dr. Tilly I'm gonna need you to show us where Ash's room is up here."
"What do you want with him?" Renee wasn't sure why her tone came off so defensive. It's not like she wanted to protect that murderer from these boys, rather the other way around.
"Please?"
The doctor sighed in defeat. Upon her request the brothers hoisted Jake out of the elevator and laid him out on a wooden bench protruding from the clean white wall. Renee reassured the loyal man that they'd return in a minute, and the group set off down another dimly lit hallway.
"I don't have the keys on me," Dr. Tilly remarked as she lead them.
"I'm sure it won't be a prob—" Dean blinked, "lem."
Having ventured deeper down the hall the trio began to notice signs of a disturbance on this floor as well. Doors were busted open, walls covered in scratch marks, blood spattered at odd angles. A breeze met the group head on, emanating from the direction of the common room at the end of the hall. The outside air leaking in through the broken windows was cold and caused (among other things) Renee to shutter.
"Oh God!" Renee groaned upon reaching Ash Williams' cell and finding it already opened. The doctor stomped in, her expectations proven right finding the room void of any human being. What she did find was a mattress thrown from its cot, said cot standing crooked due to a missing limb and an empty straightjacket. "How the fuck did he—" the frustrated woman did not finish her sentence with words but instead an angry groan. She picked up the white jacket and flung it across the room in rage.
"What's this?" Sam asked from behind her. She turned; in his hands was a squiggled piece of metal. One end of the scrap was filed just thin enough to slip in and pick the cell lock. Renee snatched the piece from Sam's hand and stormed for the mattress less cot.
"Damn it," she muttered. The metal piece was a perfect match to a stretched out spring pulled from the cot.
"Damn it!" Renee snapped again, marching briskly back for the elevator. How long had that bastard been planning his escape? Did those things downstairs have anything to do with it? Why were the Winchester brothers hunting for a man who was already a prisoner? Did they think he was behind all of this? She wouldn't doubt it.
"Heyyyy!" Dean called for her, "wait up a second! Where do you think this guy's gone?"
"Who the hell knows?!"
"Well," Dean feigned being egotistically wounded, "I would like to know."
"And I, Dean, would like to get out of here and get Jake to a hospital!"
"What this place not good enough?" the eldest brother quipped, expecting another testy reply. One never came, "Renee?"
"Where's Jake?" panic gripped the good doctor's voice.
"Aw shit," Dean cursed under his breath. The bench they had left him on was empty.
"He couldn't have gotten very far on that leg," the younger brother offered, "we'll find him." he said more to comfort Renee than anything else.
His words did nothing to sooth the woman's troubled mind. She paced the hall, calling for the missing man as Dean and Sam did the same, peaking into any open rooms along the way. Though the brothers expanded their search beyond the immediate area Renee could not tear her eyes from the thick trail of blood that spanned from the elevator to the bench. Jake had lost so much blood, she thought, he couldn't even get up on his own before. Is that blood trail leading from the elevator to the bench or…the bench to the elevator?
Renee took a few brisk steps forward to press her thumb against the open door button, "No sign of him down this way!" Sam called as she did, heading back in her direction, "no sign of any others, save for whatever patients are still locked up. Shouldn't this place have a night staff?"
"It does,"
DING
"Renee!" Sam shouted, lunging for the woman. At first Renee was confused by this action, but the moment an icy hand curled around her ankle—again— she knew. Sam yelled for his brother, who was racing down the hall as he did so. Yet they were still so far away and Renee was already being dragged on her belly back into the elevator, screaming all the way. She whipped her head around to view her attacker: Jake. Good old Jake had become one of…them. His eyes were bone white, his lips curled and snarled in incoherent inhuman noises as he stood—leaned over to pull the doctor—on his bad leg. Bone now protruded from his wound, and the undoubted pain had no effect on his possessed body.
"Help me!" she screamed.
"Renee!" she snapped her focus back to Sam. He grasped both of her sweaty hands in his own to keep Renee from being pulled away.
"Ahahahahahahahahahahahaha!" The monster behind her cackled. Out of her view range the doctor more sounds of breaking glass. Dean rushed back into her view, a fire axe gripped in his hands, he charged for Renee and the pudgy former security guard.
"Get the hell off of her!" he shouted. He drove the blade of the axe into the creature's wrist. Blood squirted from the wound and Jake wailed. The eldest Winchester kept at this bloody routine. Meanwhile his sibling pulled Renee back to safety. Once both hands were completely severed Dean delivered a swift kick to the demon's nose, forcing it backward into the elevator. Renee shrieked, twitching her legs to throw the still clutching hands from her ankles. Sam grabbed them and harshly ripped the dead fingers from the woman's skin, chucking them down the dark hall. His bother made sure to press a button, any button, inside the metal box before the thing in its floor could recoup. The plan succeeded. The doors slide shut just as the demon began to screech, leaving all the living safe on the fifth floor.
"S'not gonna let you leave," a solemn voice remarked from the darkness. The panting trio all swirled to meet the voice. There, just down the hall, cast in shadows a tall man leaned casually against a pale wall. His body was swallowed by the darkness, but from the window just above him the moon set his scared and handsome face aglow. His arms hung loosely at his side. In his left hand he carried the broken cot leg, sharpened for protection. His right arm hand no hand at all.
"How long you been standing there?!" Dean spat.
"Long enough," Ash shrugged.
Renee shivered as his deep chocolate eyes weighed down upon her. He had been there the whole time and he didn't lift a finger to help. "We have to get out of here," Renee suddenly blurted. The doctor wrapped her arms around herself and began to rock back and forth from her stop on the frigid floor. Te fear was evident in her voice. Except this time, she wasn't thinking about the undead waiting to collect her soul as she spoke. She in no way wanted to be anywhere near the brooding man before her; especially if he was armed and she was not.
"Not gonna happen," he said in a smooth, low voice, his stare aimed directly at the doctor.
"How the hell do you know that?!" Dean demanded. For a moment Ash's gaze seemed lost. His mind was miles away from Sunny Meadows but rather deep in the woods of Tennessee instead.
"Because," he finally said with an almost lifeless tone, "it won't let us leave."