Disclaimer: See Chapter 1

A/N: This is the first chapter with big revelations in it. To those following this story, please let me know what you think of it. I could always use a little feedback, thank you.

Chapter 6: Brookhaven Pt. 1

Brookhaven Hospital turned out to be rather small, all things considered. But he guessed that a lot of hospitals would seem small after going to Seattle Harborview for so long. Still, it was probably too big to navigate without a map. With that in mind, he turned on his flashlight and spun around to get a look at the walls. Not too far from the door he came in, he spotted the tell-tale reflection of a glass enclosure fixed to the wall. Walking up to it, he saw that it was indeed the map for the hospital. Liberating it was of no difficulty, just a hit with the butt of his gun and he was victorious.

Sam looked at the map to see if it could point the way to the records room, where he guessed his answers would be. He came across a stumbling block, when he couldn't find anything that stated outright that his records were there. First, he would try the receptionist's station, hoping to make this as quick as possible. The map was folded and stuffed in a jacket pocket, so that it wouldn't get mixed up with the town map. Walking around the corner, he cautiously approached the door into Reception. It opened easily, a resounding creak hinting at extreme neglect.

His heart fell a little at the mess he found inside. It was a small office space, with two desks and several filing cabinets crammed inside. Files and folder were stacked and scattered everywhere. Cabinet drawers were left open in places and random papers were visible in all four corners of the room. A heavy sigh left his mouth; it was hard to tell if someone ransacked this place, or if it was just the victim of a bad filing system. Either way, it could take hours to sort through the whole thing.

Sam walked up to the closest desk and looked it over. Past all the folders and notes, something was taped to the surface of the desk. Brushing all the paper work to the side, some of it falling to the floor, he saw a white sheet of paper taped there. It had a list of contents for the filing cabinets. Most of it seemed completely unhelpful and the actual medical records here only went back to the '90's. A note next to an asterisk at the bottom suggested that older records could be found in storage in the basement. Well, at least he wouldn't have to search through this mess anymore.

He took out the hospital map, looking at it in the flashlight's glare. There were two storage rooms in the basement, though, and he had no clue which one it was in. The only thing he could do was check both. Sam put the map away and left the room. In the hallway, he turned left and made his way down the hall toward the stairs.

The hallway split into two directions, with the door to the stairs to the right. Trying the handle, he encountered a problem. While he could turn the handle, the door refused to budge. Either something was lodged against the other side, or the lock was broken and stuck. In truth, it didn't really matter. Can't get through means can't get through, no matter what. Looking at his map again, he decided to try the elevator. It was located in the other direction, where the hall opened out into a lobby.

A check of the elevator proved fruitless. It looked like he would have to find another way downstairs. Sighing, he pulled the map out once more, not seeing another way down. He did see, however, a way to get into the stairwell, from upstairs. On the far end of the medical ward on this floor was another set of stairs and another elevator. There was a possibility that, by doing that, he could get access to the central stairwell from above. If that was an issue, he could maybe try from the third floor. Regardless, there weren't many other options out there, short of prying the elevator doors open and climbing down the shaft. As things stood, it was the only thing he could do (that seemed to be a line he was selling to himself a lot, lately). On top of it, he saw that it would take him near the men's locker room and he could check to see if there was a spare shirt there. By this point, he didn't think he cared if it might be considered stealing from a dead man. His jacket itched quite severely and it was starting to bug him.

He ran into a problem when he got to the door that led to the medical wing on this floor; it had an electronic lock, one that was actually in working order. There was a door leading to an examination room that could get him into the hall, but it refused to budge. None of the doors in this place looked vulnerable enough to just bust down, so he was going to have to play ball on this. Below the keypad, a strange note was taped to the wall. It read: the clues come in threes, with half their values in the end.

Sam furrowed his brow, curious as to it's meaning. It had to have something to do with the pass code, of that he was pretty certain. But there was information missing. The note talked about clues, yet didn't provide any of them. If they weren't on the note, then they had to be written down elsewhere. He most definitely hoped they were, otherwise, he was stuck. This was getting frustrating; so much for getting in and out quickly. Snagging the note from the wall, he pocketed it and decided to take a look around.

Being in this hospital was a little creepy. There was something about it that spoke of undefined malice, a sense that went beyond what he felt elsewhere in this town. Well, he knew of one event that occurred here that the Devil engineered, so pure evil had to be a requisite of this place in some capacity. His birth had apparently taken place at a significant location. Why was it that he was born here, anyway? Did Satan need this place for his birth, somehow? It made Sam uncomfortable to think about this, but he felt that he needed to. He really wanted his friends right then, if only to tell him it was going to be okay. Saying it to himself just didn't work, not when he was alone and trapped in some sort of purgatory with the denizens of hell crawling around within it's depths. At the moment, his parents weren't exactly his favorite people. If they had just owned up to their shitty situation, none of this would've been an issue. After thinking that, he immediately felt guilty. He loved them, no matter what, and didn't want to fall to such a low level of bitterness.

Taking a moment to wipe a tear from his eye (due to something getting caught in there, he assured himself), he tried the handles of any door he came upon. Most of them didn't open, but a few of them did. The cafeteria held nothing of interest in it, neither did the kitchen. Sam didn't strike gold until he entered the Doctor's Lounge. Something odd was drawn on the whiteboard hanging from the wall. It was a series of twelve arrows, all in a line. The first arrow pointed diagonally up and left; the second, down; the third, down and right; the fourth, right; the fifth, up; the sixth, up and left again; the seventh, down; the eighth, down; the ninth, up and left once more; the tenth, right; the eleventh, down; finally the twelfth, up and right. Taking out the note, he read it again. It stated that the clues came in threes and there were twelve arrows.

He walked up to the board, set down his shotgun, and grabbed a marker. Sam uncapped it and placed commas at every third arrow drawn. Doing this, it looked like it made up a four digit pass code. What he couldn't figure out, was how the arrows translated to numbers. Setting the backpack a nearby table, he opened it up and pulled out a bottle of water. After taking a drink, he picked up the marker again and drew a grid with nine boxes in it. The grid was three boxes across and three down. He then wrote numbers in the boxes, starting with one at the top left and ending with nine on the bottom right.

Looking at the grid he just drew, something came to him. If he started at the center (an arbitrary starting point, he admitted), then the arrows pointed at specific numbers. Following it like a line, the first three arrows led him to eight. Sam continued this pattern and wrote down the numbers that fit the directions of the note. His tactic yielded him the numbers, eight-two-four-six. But the note said that they only had half their values in the end. Dividing the numbers in half, he came up with four-one-two-three. Satisfied with that as his answer, Sam cleaned up after himself and slipped on his backpack and grabbed the shotgun, before leaving the room to try it out.

Coming up to the keypad again, he entered in the numbers and hit enter. A dull click could be heard coming from the door. Smiling, he walked over and opened it with ease. Happy to be done with that distraction, he looked down the corridor. It looked clear from here, if a little eerie. His steps slow, he made his way down the hallway, all his senses on alert for anything that was out of place. If he knew that he would end up here, he would have never bitched so much about capturing escaped souls. In fact, he would love nothing more than to be off catching one right then, Sock and Ben by his side. As strange as the thought was, it sounded like heaven to him. Anything was better than being subjected to this madness. One thing he had learned from his fate, though, was that bitching didn't really get him anywhere. Oh, it felt nice, but was ultimately useless. There were times when he could hear himself complain and realized what a whiner he could be at times. It wasn't easy to acknowledge one's own shortcomings, but also hard to deny.

Sam mentally berated himself for this bout of weakness and resolved to stop these self-indulgent pity trips. All that mattered was the here-and-now, nothing else. When he got himself out of this, he could waste the rest of his days away, picking himself apart until nothing was left but a quivering neurotic mess. Bringing himself back to his horrible reality, he realized that he had reached the stairwell. The door opened obediently for him and he began walking upstairs.

Coming out into the second floor hallway, Sam started down it in the hopes that nothing else would get in his way. He remembered to stop by the men's locker room for a new shirt. His jacket was just plain obnoxious, something he only had limited patience for. Passing by the rooms, he paid them very little attention. It would take forever to check each and every room. Who would want to possibly spend that much time in this wretched building? No, he had a clear idea of where he wanted to go and wasn't going to let himself get distracted.

Sam exited the hallway and entered the faculty section. Passing the door to the stairwell, he turned the corner and navigated the corridor until he arrived in front of the door to the locker room.

He entered quietly and found two rows of lockers, each lining a wall. Poking around, he found an open locker with a leather day bag set inside. A search of the bag yielded a clean-looking polo shirt, the color of light blue. He shrugged off his backpack and unzipped his jacket, letting it slide off his shoulders. The air was cold on his bare skin, so he slipped on his new shirt. Surprisingly, it turned out to be a good fit, pleasing him greatly. Putting his jacket back on, he zipped it back up and followed up with the backpack. With that annoyance out of the way, he could continue on with his mission and get the fuck out of here. He turned to leave, when something inside the leather day bag caught the glare of his flashlight. Curiosity overcoming him, he leaned over and peeked inside. Sitting between a pair of socks and some underwear, was a strange object.

Plucking the strange object from the bag, he held it up and inspected it in the light. It was a medallion, hanging from a strand of leather. There was an emblem engraved on one side, depicting a figure standing in an archway. His head felt light and his vision went grainy, then the sensation faded. This trinket was important, he wasn't sure how, but it was. Before he put it on, he decided he would learn more about it first. This item was strange and he had no clue what it signified. Until then, he would keep it. Sticking it in his pocket, he left the locker room.

The door to the stairwell opened up and he stepped inside. The air in here was stale and just a little foul. Motes of dust swirled around lazily in the beam of his light. Sam took the stairs down, feeling more than a little closed in. This place was a tomb, as if it was a place the living weren't meant to be. That got him to thinking about how he came to be here. It was as if he had gotten the chance to see a part of existence that ran as a current just underneath the surface of reality, some alternative "place" where it reflected everything like a mirror. The only difference was that the image was distorted and appeared like a crude mockery of all that was right. Sam stopped here, feeling his brain break a little. No one ever accused him of being overly cerebral, something he readily acknowledged.

He passed the first floor landing and continued deeper down, feeling like he was heading into a deeper layer of this waking nightmare. Sam had lost all sense of time, his mind beginning to overtax itself in coping with the strain that it brought. The very feel of this place was getting to him. Looking at the wall as he walked down, it took on a sinister edge. That was the nature of this God-forsaken pit, he realized, to tear your mind to shreds by stripping from you those things that made you work properly. When the very room you're in could betray and consciously visit acts of evil upon you, then you had no reprieve from it, none whatsoever. It was upon the finishing of that thought that he reached the basement floor landing, the stairwell opening out directly into the hallway.

Wow, he thought to himself, what a shit-hole. One look around and he got the story. Surgical beds were lined up along the walls, some in extreme disrepair. The air was dank and a little moist. Mold wafted through the air and elicited the urge to sneeze, which took all his willpower to prevent. Luckily, the door across from him had a plaque on it that read: Store Room. Going to it, Sam opened it up and walked inside.

Inside, the beam of his flashlight swept over stacks of boxes and broken hospital equipment. Along the wall to the right, he made a gruesome discovery. A line of six gurneys were set flush with the wall, a sheet draped over a suspicious-looking shape on each one. The sheets were positively soaked with blood, it's metallic scent permeated the uncirculated air of the store room. Ignoring the bodies, he turned his attention to the boxes stacked along the far end. There were over two dozen boxes altogether in six stacks, each at least four boxes deep. Getting a close look at one, he confirmed that the box was designed for long term document storage. Each box was labeled according to year, from 1989 all the way back to '63. He had hit the jackpot, a brief bubble of joy rising within him at coming this far. Here was his moment of truth, at long last. Sam spotted his box, the year 1986 standing out in bold red permanent marker. After moving a couple of other boxes out of the way, he grabbed his and searched for an open spot to sit down.

Removing the lid, he looked inside and saw that it was packed with files. There was no discernible code for the filing system, which was no real surprise, considering the disastrous condition of the receptionist's station. He spent the next several minutes searching. Over time, he went about making himself more comfortable. His backpack was resting next to him, the shotgun on the other side. The water bottle he was drinking earlier was out, with an empty candy bar wrapper next to it. Sam had gotten over three quarters of the way through and was beginning to lose hope. The thought of leaving empty-handed was extremely disheartening. If he found nothing here, then what else was there? Did he just wander this place in constant torment forever, without any answers and completely alone? Fear settled in him at that prospect. Determined not to let that happen, he refocused his attention on the remaining folders.

His eyes spotted the last name Oliver on one of the folders. Taking it out of the box, he flipped it open. It was a clump of different pieces of paper work; hospital bills, medical records and birth certificates all shoved into the same manila folder. Sam felt his jaw drop at what he read. He was a triplet, his mother gave birth to two other boys that night; what's more, the birth record stated that his parents were only expecting twins. According to the ultrasound, there wasn't a third fetus visible at all, but it turned out to be dead wrong. Sam flipped to the birth certificates. He saw his and the next one was for Brandon Oliver. His mind went to his encounter with that strange boy who called himself Brandon. Was it a coincidence? What did it all mean? Sam did note that Brandon seemed familiar, third certificate was for Charlie Oliver; he was the youngest, coming two minutes after Brandon who, in turn, came a minute and a half after Sam.

It was surreal, looking at the information he had gathered. Sam never expected any of this, not at all. The truth of it knocked his world right out from underneath him, sending him to a whole new world, one where he did not know his place in it. The worst part of it was that it didn't really tell him if the Devil was his father or not. He didn't really know what he thought he would find, nothing like a signed doctor's note stating that the Devil was identified as his biological father. It was supposed to, well, just be different. He had to find that kid, Brandon, talk to him again, and this time try to get on his good side.

The sound of the door opening startled him, causing him to drop his file on the floor. His hands flew straight for the shotgun and he stumbled to his feet, trying to get it aimed at the door and be standing. His flashlight beam, revealed a familiar-looking man. He was older, with a thin frame and wearing a white doctor's coat. The man only looked mildly surprised to see Sam there, saying, "Oh, there you are. I've been looking for you."

Sam, recognizing him then, could only say, "Dr. Kaufman?"