"The door won't open!" Julia screamed as she tugged at the knob.
She looked back to see Ryan aiming the shotgun at the closest monster. The group of nurses were several feet away, but they would get to them within seconds. Ryan was more concerned with the big one coming from the other direction. Blood oozed from unseen sources on its body. It made horrible dripping sounds as it fell off her and onto the floor. The Blood Nurse raised its ax again, ready to swing. The others were closing in as well. Just then, the Blood Nurse swung its ax in a long arch towards Ryan and Julia. Ryan's eyes widened.
"DUCK!" he screamed as he pulled Julia to the ground.
The sound of something parting the air went over his head. Ryan was terrified when he realized that the ax was inches away from taking the crown of his head off. Instead the ax connected with one of the "normal" nurse monsters. It hit the thing in its chest and an awful crunch sound of bones breaking echoed in the hall. It screamed out as it was thrown into the wall where Julia had just been standing. The ax and the creature became lodged in the wall as the Blood Nurse jerked at the weapon, attempting to retrieve it. It wouldn't budge and the monster tried in vain to pry it from the splintered mess of wood and flesh.
Without hesitating, Ryan aimed his shotgun at the Blood Nurse's stomach. He squeezed the trigger and a point blank slug ripped into the creature, propelling it back. But something happened that Ryan didn't expect. The Blood Nurse didn't fall down. It didn't even drop to its knees. It wasn't possible. A round like that should have put the creature down for good. There was no way it could just shake something like that off. It just looked down at the gaping, ragged wound in its abdomen and then looked back at Ryan. Even without a visible face, he knew that it was extremely angry.
"Come on!" Julia said as she was pulling him off the ground.
They ran past the Blood Nurse as it went to the wall for its weapon. They had to act fast while they still had an opening. Leading him by the hand, Julia spied a door that had the words "Stair well" painted on it. They ran to it and she grabbed at the knob. Her heart jumped when it actually started to turn in her hand. She put some force against the door but was shocked to find that it wouldn't budge. She looked at Ryan as he pointed his shotgun down the hallway and unloaded five rounds. A few of them hit the nurses, making at least one of them fall to the ground. There were just too damn many of them.
"What are you waiting for?!" he yelled over the gun blasts.
"It won't move!" she yelled back at him. She saw that the monsters were getting closer. They would be on them in seconds.
Ryan pushed past her and started to ram the door with his shoulder. He fell back, clutching it in pain. The monsters moved closer. The Blood Nurse had retrieved her ax from the wall and had started to make her way towards them with a menacing limp. Julia pointed her pistol into the hall and unloaded a whole clip. The bullets slammed against the monsters and a few lodged into the walls. The snap and hiss of the rounds tearing through metal rang through the hospital. Still the nurses just kept coming.
"Jesus, why won't they just die?" she thought as the gun clicked empty.
She ejected the spent clip and fumbled for a new one. Slamming it in, she turned back to Ryan.
"Move!" he yelled, pushing her to the side away from the door.
She watched as he faced the door and aimed the gun at it. An extreme "Boom" exploded through the hall as a slug tore through the door. A small hole where the knob had once been shone through to the other side.
"RAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWRRRRR!" screamed the Blood Nurse as it swung the ax in the air.
The sound was all Ryan needed to get his ass in gear. He reared back and kicked the door with his foot. Wood splintered and flew outwards as the door was almost blown off its hinges. Ryan grabbed Julia and they ran into the stairwell. The moment Ryan set foot inside, the wood under his feet gave way and collapsed. Julia grabbed him as he fell over an edge, one of his arms catching the edge and another hanging onto the shotgun. Catching the ground as he hung on for dear life, he realized in fear that the stairs leading down were gone. He stared down and saw that there was darkness beneath him. The flashlight revealed nothing but a void. Ryan didn't know how far down it was, but he was guessing at least a sixty foot drop. That would be enough to kill him.
"Can't…hold…on." he thought as he struggled to pull himself up from the edge.
Julia looked down at him in terror as he was losing his grip on the edge of the stair well. She dropped to her knees as his weight brought her down. He was too heavy and she couldn't hold on forever. From behind her, Julia heard the nurse monsters getting closer. She turned around and saw them slowly walking towards them from the hall. Julia turned and looked at Ryan in desperation. He was struggling to hang on, to pull himself up, but it wasn't working. Then in a swift motion, he reached up and set the shotgun next to her. Reaching back down to his pants, Julia saw him reach into his back pocket for something.
"Julia!" he said as he struggled. "Take this! Find your aunt!"
Julia reached down and grabbed the piece of paper from him. Looking at it, she realized that he had taken her aunt's profile from the nurse's center. She saw that he was looking past her, towards the creatures that were several feet away. She looked at them as well and then looked back at him as he grabbed the shotgun. She knew what he wanted her to do.
"No!" she said as she tried with all her might to pull him back up. "We're in this together. You can't just leave me now!"
"Julia" he said with a soft voice that made her pay attention to him. "You have to let me go. Those things are coming. Just let me go and find your aunt. Go up to the third floor. You can use the elevator to move around. But you have to get away from those things. Save yourself. Now go!"
"I can't!" she cried
Ryan smiled at her. It was an unnaturally happy smile. Julia knew it was the smile of someone who was going to let it all go, with no regrets.
"You can" he said. "You have to"
With that, Julia's grip on his arm slipped and he fell into the darkness. The light on the shotgun spiraled in the dark and became fainter as it plummeted, till she could no longer see it.
"RYYYAAAAAAAAANNNN!" She screamed as he disappeared. His body became smaller and smaller as the dark took him from her.
He hadn't just done that. He couldn't have. How could he leave her all alone like this? Julia looked behind her. The Blood Nurse was coming through the door way. It lifted the ax above her head, ready to strike. Julia, tears running down her cheeks, grabbed her aunt's profile and ran up the stairs to the third floor and away from the creatures. She felt sick from fright and loss. She had to make it to the third floor. But how she could do that, now that she was all alone? It was what pained her the most. Julia blocked the thoughts from her head and ran for all she was worth. The nurse's screams and cries died out the farther up she ventured, like a distant memory.
III
It was cold and dark for so long. He didn't know if he was alive or dead. In heaven or hell. All he knew was that he was in a dream like state and was remembering times from long ago. Times that he had lived and was reliving again through someone else's eyes. It was so clear that he could swear that it was as if the dreams were real. He swore he could smell the hospital equipment and blood in the air. The smells and sounds covered him like a blanket.
"Pulse is dropping. Let's get that defibrillator ready people!"
"Walter! What's happening to my Walter!"
"I'm losing the pulse! He's going into cardiac arrest"
"He was fine ten minutes ago. What the hell happened?"
"Please, we're doing everything we can. But you have to let us do our job"
"I lost the pulse! Prepare to defib.
"WALTER! NOOOOOO! OH GOD, JESUS PLEASE NO! DON'T TAKE HIM FROM ME."
"Some one get her out of here. She doesn't need to see this"
"CLEAR!"
"No pulse. Try it again!"
"CLEAR!"
"Nothing. Get me a shot of epinephrine, now!"
"WALTER!"
"Almost got the pulse, shit I lost it again. Where's that epinephrine"
"Here"
"Pulse is back up. No, it's falling again. Start CPR"
"Come on, you are not going to die here today old man. You are going to live. Live, live, live. LIIIIIIIIIVVVE!"
"Call it"
"No! Fuck you! Come on, fight you bastard"
"Call it"
"I can save him"
"He's gone son. Let him go"
"No…still…gotta…still can do…something"
"Time of death…"
The memory slipped away and was replaced with another. This time it was in the children's ward of the hospital. He remembered it so visibly. The rows of beds, the children either sick, happy, getting better, or getting worse. The colorful posters and stuffed animals adorned the large room. A favorite with the kids had been Robby the Rabbit. Almost every one of the kids had one to call their own.
"Hey Danny? It's time to wake up Danny. Time to get you outside for some fresh air. Danny? Danny? DANNY?!"
"He's not breathing"
"What's wrong with Danny?"
"I need Dr. McGee in the children's ward STAT!"
"What's wrong with Danny? Is he going to be okay?"
"How long was he like that?"
"Must have gone in his sleep. Poor kid"
"His red cell count was really low. Looks like his organs gave out on him too"
"Was there anything that could have been done?"
"No. Nothing"
"Jesus. Every single time I see one of these kids go…I'm telling ya. It really does a number on you"
"Does it ever get any easier?"
"I'm sorry. But it never does"
Time slipped away again and another memory came to the surface. Ryan could see himself in a locker room of the hospital. He was angry and sad. More so than he had ever been before in his life. He had never felt like this. Not since his grandfather died, not since his girlfriend left him, nothing like this. He could see himself punching and kicking lockers. The metal was denting and his hands were bleeding pretty bad. It seemed he was oblivious to the pain. As if his mental anguish was over riding anything else he could be feeling right now.
"Ryan, Ryan, Ryan! Stop! You got to stop"
"No, I could have saved her. She was doing fine then…then…AH FUCK IT!"
BANG, CRUNCH
"Stop, it's okay…it's okay"
"No…let me go! Let me go! Let me…me…Awwwwwwwwwww… It hurts… so… bad"
He could see himself crying into a woman's arms. She held him as his sobs echoed through the locker room.
"Shhhhhh. I know sweetheart, I know. It's alright. Let it out, let it all out. You don't have to hold it all in anymore. Shhhh. Just let all your pain out. I'm here.
"I…I…coulda…coulda…
"Saved her" he said as he woke up.
It had all been a horrible dream. The memories had seemed so clear and perfect that he could have sworn that he was reliving them again. He looked up into the darkness. Taking in a big breath of air, he discovered that he wasn't dead. He was lying down with his back to the ground. It felt cold and hard. Ryan understood that he was lying on metal. He didn't know where he was or how long he had been there. The last thing he remembered was that he was in the dilapidated stairway with Julia. The monsters had been coming and he had fallen off the edge of the broken floor. He had told her to go, to find her aunt. To leave him. She didn't want him to go. She was crying and scared. Then she had lost her grip and he had fallen, knowing that he had done the right thing.
But he wasn't dead. As far as a drop as he had taken, he was still breathing. Ryan made a mental check of himself. Nothing hurt and nothing seemed broken but he felt that something was wrong. He had a feeling that one gets when they're not totally awake. Regardless, he tried to shake it off. Looking to his side, he spied the shotgun next to him, the flashlight still shinning from the barrel. He fought to sit up, pushing up against the metal floor. It felt old and rusty to the touch. He stood up and shook his head.
"Just a dream. Old memories" he said to himself. But they had brought back unwanted feelings of loss and despair.
He noticed that his MP3 player was gone.
"Shit". There was nothing he could do about that. He'd have to manage, and hope that he didn't run into anything unpleasant.
Ryan went over to where the shotgun lay and picked it up. He checked to made sure it had not been damaged in the fall. He was relieved to find that it was still working and he used the light to check his surroundings.
"Where the hell…am I?" he said to himself.
The area was unlike anything he had ever seen. The entire place was a horrible mess. The floor was nothing but rusted, steel mesh. Pointing the light at the walls, he was stunned to see that it was rotting paint and wood. The look was so different that he almost thought that it was decaying flesh on the walls. Curious, Ryan stepped forward and touched one of the walls.
"Jesus Christ!" he said as he pulled his hand back and wiped it on his pants.
The walls were decaying flesh. Or at least made of something close to it. Ryan tried to grasp what he was seeing. It didn't seem possible. Places didn't fall apart like this. The stuff on the walls had to be mold or something. It couldn't possibly be rotting flesh. That was just insane. He continued to wipe his hand on his pants and made a mental note to take a long shower when he got home. Rotting wood, decaying flesh, or the worst paint job in the world. Whatever it was, it was making him want to hurl. His stomach started to churn and he couldn't take it anymore.
"BLEEEEEUUUUUUUGGGHH"
Ryan emptied the contents of his stomach on the floor, inhaled some air and threw up again. Digested food sloshed to the ground and formed a puddle. The entire place was making him sick. When he was sure that he was out of vomit, he wiped his mouth with his sleeve and tried to collect himself. Moving the light around the area, Ryan could see several, old wooden doors. Perplexed, he reached into his pocket and took out the hospital map. He knew it was a long shot, but it wouldn't hurt to check. Pulling out the paper and making sure that he didn't step in his own vomit, Ryan checked the map. Cross-referencing it with the doors around him, Ryan came to a stunning realization.
"Bloody hell! I'm in the goddamn basement" he said as he looked around the area. "Man, and I thought the upstairs was a mess"
As crazy and impossible as it seemed he was standing in the basement of the hospital. But how could that have been? He had fallen from a second floor stair well. A fall like that had to have been over 100-110 feet strait down. By all intents and purposes, he should have been dead. But here he was.
Looking at the map, Ryan saw that he had only several doors to choose from. A boiler room, generator room, store room, morgue, elevator and the stair well behind him. Unfortunately, that last choice was blocked by debris. Looking past a collection of metal and broken hospital gurneys, Ryan saw that there were no stairs leading up. The only way he was getting out of here was by using the elevator. Walking over to it, he pushed the button on the wall and waited. Nothing happened. He pushed it again. Then again and again and again.
"Come on" he said as he pressed the button. But there was no response. "Something must have tripped a breaker. Or something's wrong with the power." He stopped to think for a few moments. "Power, power……………………power!"
He started to jog towards the generator room. Keeping his senses open for anything out of the ordinary. He begrudgingly took the door handle in his hand and pushed down on it. The metal of the door creaked open as he walked into the room. The place was small but was mostly taken up by the huge generator. Walking past the enormous piece of equipment, Ryan searched the walls for a circuit breaker or something to get the power back online. He soon came across a panel that rose up from the ground. It was situated near the far end of the generator.
With a quick look at the thing, Ryan was able to find a button that read "Start". Without any further thought, he pushed it. In seconds, the massive generator rumbled to life. Strangely, there was no electricity going through the room he stood in.
"Weird" he thought as he made his way to the exit. "Aw well. The elevator should be back on line. That's all I care about"
Closing the door behind him, he stepped back out into the hall and walked towards the elevator again. Then, from somewhere to his left, something made a loud banging sound. The sound made him jump and he trained the shotgun towards the source of the noise. From what he could tell, it was coming from the store room. Standing in the hallway, Ryan deliberated with himself whether he should investigate the sound or not.
"What the hell" he said as he shrugged his shoulders. He opened the door to the store room and walked inside.
Sweeping the gun through the area, he quickly found that it was devoid of life. That fact made his paranoia level rise. If a sound had come from this room, where was the thing that had made it? His breathing increased as he walked deeper into the darkened room and found it surprisingly well kept in comparison to the hallway that he had just come through. The room was filled with shelves that held various medical supplies as well as linins and even some nonperishable food. Even though he was hungry, there was no way that he'd touch anything in this hospital.
The banging sound was getting a little louder, making him breathe heavier in fear. The gun was getting a little hard to hold as his hands were sweating. The metal only intensified the clamminess that his body was feeling. Moving to the back of the storeroom, Ryan saw a row of lockers. He also noticed that he banging sound was coming from one of them. Against his better judgment he gave into curiosity and slowly reached towards the locker.
CLANG, "Raaaaaaaarrwwww!"
"Holy shit!" he yelled out as a small black form jumped out of the dark at him.
His finger slipped on the trigger and he accidentally fired off a round. Thunder kicked through the small room and night turned to day as the muzzle flashed in the dark. He tripped over something on the ground and fell backwards into one of the shelves. A few jars were knocked over, fell to the ground and shattered. His heart pounded against his rib cage as he tried to understand what had just happened.
"Cat. Just a fucking cat" he said as his heart rate returned to normal. "How did a cat get in here? Jeez, I hate this pop up crap"
From somewhere in the dark he heard a "meow" and then nothing again as the small animal disappeared somewhere. Collecting himself, Ryan looked at the opened locker and was amazed by what the flashlight was reflecting off of. Reaching into the locker, he removed the long deadly weapon.
"What the hell is a thing like this doing here?" he thought as his hand closed around the sword.
The weapon was easily recognizable. It was a Japanese katana enclosed in a sturdy wooden scabbard. The weapon had a shoulder strap attached to it as well. Wonder clouded his eyes as he removed the sword from its sheath. There was a familiar sound of metal grinding against the wood of the scabbard as he removed it. It reminded him of kung fu movies that he had watched from time to time. Lifting the weapon in his hand, he was amazed at how heavy it was. The thing had to be at least twenty pounds. But it was no matter. He knew he could handle it if he had to. He waved the thing up and down to get a feel for the sword.
That's when he noticed that there was a little strip of paper attached to the hilt. Looking down at it, he saw that there were words written on it.
Answers to the past
Lie buried
In the remains of the present
"Answers to the past? What the bloody hell does that mean?" Ryan thought as he returned the sword to its sheath before putting the sword on his back.
Why was something like that attached to a sword? Must have been some old Japanese proverb or something. Either that, or it was the worst haiku he had ever read. He figured he'd worry about why the weapon was in a hospital later. Right now he had a new toy. If he was lucky, he'd get through the rest of the night without having to use it.