Ch. 6 The Night in St. Helen's
He looked down at the yellow strip of paper in his hand. He had to be kidding himself to trust a child.
Thursday
2:13 AM
West St. Helen Hospital
Who was he kidding? How was this kid going to know when that beast attacked again?
"So are you going to check it out?" she asked as the car paused at a stop sign.
He sighed. "It's the only lead we've got right now."
"So that's a yes?"
He remained silent. He was remembering the last crime scene. The man in the apartment had been Carlos Geraldo, the secretary of James Harking, the head of the Gains company representative comity. When they'd turned him over they saw the huge gashes in his chest where his insides were trying to fall out of his skin. He'd been torn apart by what appeared to be an animal. Even his cat hadn't been spared.
But he knew better.
This wasn't an animal. But it wasn't human. It was a monster. A white, deadly monster that had nothing better to do but tear innocent people apart.
They'd found papers in Geraldo's home resulting in several cases against Gains, including the illegal dumping of toxins in the Waikon pond, several missing persons reports, sweat shops, and unidentified monetary gains, just to name a few.
But the victim before Gerlado had been a family. A mother, her husband, two daughters and a son. The only one to survive was one daughter, six, who'd been thrown against a wall when the attack began and pretended to be unconscious. He didn't even want to think about the mental damages to her later in life.
He let out another sigh as he looked out the window. The wife had been a home mother and the husband a lawyer. One might thing the attacks were provoked by Gains, since the man had worked on a case with them six years ago. But none of the previous attacks consisted with this pattern. The previous victim had been a man working in a laundromat. The one before a homeless woman. The one before that an illegal alien from Mexico who sent money home once a month.
None of this was consistent. None of it seemed to be important to the killer. The only thing that seemed to matter was the hunt. The kill.
So how did this kid, this Daniel know when the next attack would be?
His brows pulled together.
Was this boy connected to the killer in some way? Was it possible the monster had a day form like the rest of us? Was that how it had gotten away so many times?
Did Daniel know the killer personally?
"Where did he say he lived?"
"What?" she asked. The car had been so quiet only a second before. "Who?"
"That boy. Daniel?"
"Um, I don't know off-hand. But I have it on file at the station. Why?"
"I want to speak to him again."
"Have a eurica moment?" she chuckled.
He gazed out the window without answering.
----------
Daxter watched his chest rise and fall steadily, the sound of the heart monitor pulsing all the way to his bones, his heart soon following the rhythm. He breathed with him, holding his breath at the short intervals.
The blond lay peacefully on the bed, eyes closed, with a tube into his mouth. He didn't talk anyway.
The doctor had said he only had some minor internal bruising and bleeding. He was already stable, but visitations weren't allowed. So he lied. He'd said he was Jak's brother so he could sit here for six and a half hours watching him, waiting for him to wake up.
So he could smack him.
What the Hell had he been thinking?! Pushing Daxter out of the way like that and then going and getting hit himself! Was he stupid?!
The door behind him clicked softly open and closed. A familiar head of aquamarine hair caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. Daxter looked up to see Kiera standing just around the white curtain. She noticed him and forced a small smile.
"How is he?" she whispered as she took the empty chair next to the red-head.
He shrugged. "Stable," he whispered back. Why were they whispering? It didn't matter. Weren't they waiting for him to wake up anyway?
But it seemed taboo to speak in the shocking silence of the white room. Blue curtains hung from the windows in a futile attempt to give it some atmosphere. Daxter wished they wouldn't even try.
"I was terrified when I got the call. Daddy was worried too." Daxter nodded in false appreciation for her words.
The two watched the blond in silence for a long while longer. But the red-head was once again dragged from his thoughts when the girl spoke.
"You should go home," she said quietly. "Get some rest." Was she trying to get rid of him? Send him away so she'd be the one there when Jak woke up? Yeah, right! He'd saved his life, Daxter's! Not hers! She had no righ--
He shook his head. "I'm fine."
"Dax..." she murmured as she looked at him with worried eyes. "You've been up so long. It's late."
"I'll be fine."
"... Dax, I know how you must feel--" No you don't! "But he wouldn't want you to hurt yourself over this--" Stop talking about him like he's not here! He is! He is damn it! He's gonna wake up in a little while, and he's gonna smile and pretend it never happened and I'm gonna yell at him for being stupid! Like always! Like always--
"I'm fine, really. Don't worry about me." He looked at her with a masking smile on his face. But even she could see the heat in his eyes. "What's a nice girl like you doing up so late anyway?"
She stammered for an answer. Finally she settled on, "I couldn't sleep. I was worried."
"So why didn't you come down sooner?"
"I just heard--"
"From who?"
She paused. "A friend."
"Which friend?"
"Why are you interrogating m--"
"Which friend?" he repeated.
He tried not to feel guilty at the hurt in her eyes. Suddenly she stood, taking a deep breath. "Call me. When he wakes up."
"Sure," was all he said as he watched her nod and walk out briskly.
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1:47.
Half an hour to go.
Daniel pulled the cap lower to cover his face as a nurse walked by. He was going to stay this time. Make sure nothing went wrong this time.
He couldn't afford failure again.
----------
Daxter jerked awake. He pulled his arm from under his head and looked around tiredly. He'd fallen asleep?
His eyes suddenly cleared as he looked to the bed. The covers were stern about, half on the floor. The breathing tube lay lifeless on the floor, the IV liquids near empty and dripping onto the speckled tiles.
Jak was gone.
A blood curdling scream met his ears and Daxter jumped to his feet. He slid across the wet floor, hitting the wall. He propelled himself toward the open door. Catching the frame in his hand his breath halted in his throat and he was sure his heart stopped cold.
The white walls were coated in a thick gel of blood. Layers of it. You could tell from the hues, the dark red first, then a lighter color, and sometimes another splash just for effect. The floors weren't spared from this onslaught of bodily fluids either. Then entire hallway, to every corner he could have looked for, was at least an inch deep of crimson liquid.
Bodies, it seemed like a sea of them, arms and legs and torsos, mixed and matched like Lego's. They lay upon the floor, on chairs, on tables, out of doors. Just a few rooms down an old man took his last shaky breath as he watched with one eye as Daxter stared at the monster that had murdered him and his wife, the child across the hall, the mother a room down, and the pregnant woman in the next hall down. The monster that had killed Nancy. Derek, Marie, Lexus, Steven, and Hilda. All nurses. Nurses and doctors.
All dead.
But Daxter didn't even notice the man as he died three doors down, choking on his own blood. He didn't notice the walls. He didn't notice the floors or the bodies.
He noticed the monster.
Pale hair shocked his vision against the red around him. The dotted blue and white medical gown was dyed red and the white skin underneath made him look only half there. The small black horns protruded from the stark hair and long, dark claws were sunk deep into the throat flesh of a new body. But the head that should have been there was not. The pale bone, chipped and broken, stuck out of the bloody stump, as well as hundreds of tiny stringy veins that had slipped from the muscle as it was torn apart.
The death grip eased and eventually dropped the shredded corpse. The head barely moved for so long he thought it hadn't moved at all until the black pools were already gazing at him, the mouth twisted into a sneer exhibiting the red stained teeth ending in sharp points.
Monster.
Before he'd been fooling himself. It had all been a joke. Just a joke. He could never care. A sick freak. A sick, sick monster consumed by hatred.
Monster.
How could he have fallen for it? Those eyes showed it from the start. All it saw was death. Decay. Hurt. Pain. Nothing else.
Monster.
He'd been so blind. So deaf, so dumb. He'd been denying it the entire time. But it was always right in front of him.
Monster.
Before he knew it he was screaming. Why, why did you do it?! Why?!
The Thing was standing in front of him, laughing. Laughing. Why? Why are you laughing?! How could you laugh?! How?!
He clenched his eyes together as tight as he could, covering his ears. How was this possible? Why? Why was this happening?
The wetness touched him, his cheek. He opened his eyes. He saw a long, slender ear in front of his eyes. White. Hair tickled his cheek as a shoulder pushed into his trembling chin. It was touching him. Holding him...? The creature's thick arms wrapped around his thin frame as he felt the tongue lap again at his skin. He swallowed hard, but his mouth was dry as cotton, his eyes stealing the liquid.
You blend in.
A pop echoed through the hallways and he was thrown to the floor, his back drenched, and he watched the White Thing summer-sault over him to land a few feet away. Daxter barely saw the man appear in the doorway. But he saw the gun. The bright black metal gleaming in the fluorescent lights as it appeared right above him. It still smoked from the last shot.
"Now you die," he heard.
Without a single thought, the red-head pushed himself off the floor and into the man above.
"No!!!"
The gun went off.
----------
Daniel checked his watch. 2:37. That was the thing about cops. Always late.
He peeked back down the hall from his position just behind the locked doors of the ICU.
Heh. ICU.
He chuckled at his own joke as he gazed at the red halls. Wasn't that boy awake yet? They'd been shrieking for what seemed like hours. He couldn't stand it any more. He knew Jak hadn't touched him when he'd woken. He knew better. But all this screaming-- You'd think it'd wake the dead!
Oops. Another bad joke.
Suddenly it caught his eye. There.
The smirk on his face vanished as he turned from the door. The elevator was on it's way up. The S.W.A.T. was in the stairwell. And Daxter was seeing his friend fall to pieces.
Just as it all should be.
----------
Daxter was thrown against a wall, the metal hook from the IV stabbing into his shoulder. He cried out as he grabbed his arm in agony, not only for the outside pain, but the inside pain as well.
Glass shattered in his ears as he collapsed to the floor. Cursing and shouting was everywhere. He'd let it escape.
He'd let it escape.
Monster.
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Ok um... it only goes downhill from here. XD We've got one- mayyyybe two- chapters left. If it's two the last one's pretty short...
Anyway, THANKS SO FREAKING MUCH for the reviews!! X3333 Loves sooooo much!!! I feel special... X333
I'm already almost to the end now, so don't get pissy if you don't like it lol. I know the ending sucks so badly. But hey, that's the story line. Oo You wouldn't really want to have a textbook ending after all this hard work making it wacko, would you? XP