Part XVIII

Ok, Kurt was ready to admit that he was never going to go to this Hospital ever again; he could easily go to Lima Memorial, even if it was smaller and didn't have as much technology as this one did. He wasn't going to put a feet inside this hospital ever again.

If the smashed windows and the overturned furniture weren't enough, the closer they got to the inside of the building the more blood they found and the more crept out he got. By then they couldn't even see if they weren't using their flashlights and everywhere they looked at they had to double check because sometimes the light got a small reflecting surface and he couldn't help imagining that one of those creatures/zombified neighbors must have been hiding ready to get them.

So far they hadn't encountered anything really scary, besides blood, so his fears were a bit unfounded, but he couldn't help to get closer to Puck and grip tighter his gun. The boy hadn't said anything about it; he even got closer to Kurt until their shoulders touched, so at least he wasn't being mocked because of his fears.

What did happen, anyway, is that the halls got darker and the attention boxes looked ridiculously scary. They started calling for people, the classic "is anyone there?" and hoped that whatever answered them wasn't crazy and trying to eat people.

"Kurt, look at that" Puck said after they turned a corner with Hiram and Tina behind them but not that close. On the floor, obvious over the white marble-like ceramics, was a trail of blood that seemed to go on endlessly down the corridor to one of the boxes.

"Oh my God" Kurt whispered.

A small fleshy tube, like a gut, like a stretched intestine, was dangling from one of the vents and falling on the floor and making a bloody path that got lost down the corner. The sight was awful in itself, but it wasn't much different from the chunks of coagulated blood and skin they could find on the roads. What really made this different and nasty was the way that the long tendril was throbbing, pulsing, beating, like a vein, alive.

No one really wanted to know what was waiting for them on the other end of that path, if it ever ended, but they all knew that that bloody thing held almost as many answers as it held questions, and right then it was the more clear inkling they had to understanding what had happened and where were their families and friends.

They followed the trail, flashlights and guns at the ready, walking slowly and in silence. The only sounds they could really hear was the blood rushing in their veins, but even that kept them on their toes because, as hypnotic the steady rhythm was, they couldn't be completely sure if the pulse they heard beating on their ears was actually their own or if it really came from that tendril on the floor.

The hallway was dark, absolutely no light from any other source than their lights. The glass tubes smashed on the floor sometimes gave them little reflections that had them doubting where their lights had gone, but they managed to keep sane enough to keep walking.

The floor got bloodier by the second, with smears and splashes and Kurt getting closer and closer to Puck every time the thing throbbed. There was no way to really feel safe when you were waiting for someone to jump you all the time.

"Maybe we should go back" Hiram said in a whisper.

"No" the teens answered, just as quietly "We need to know what is this thing, and if it's related in any way to people vanishing from the city"

The trail had them even closer to the buildings core than they thought at first, not even realizing when they started to go stairs down to the place where the labs took residence. There were more closed doors here than in the upper floors, but at least it seemed that the emergency lights still worked here. The hallways had a red tone lighting their walls, making it so much easier to look around them.

From behind a counter Kurt could see something big move and tried to get Puck's attention to it without moving too much. His heart beating fast on his ears as he kept contact with whatever that thing was. They didn't know if it would attack on sight, whether it was one of those crazy people or not, so it was better to just keep looking at it instead of waiting for it to look at them first.

Puck looked at him; worry clear on his face, before following the path Kurt's eyes had taken. He motioned to his flashlight and pointed discreetly to Hummel's gun.

Tina and Hiram didn't waste a moment trying to figure out what was happening and just covered their ears when they saw the way Kurt was taking of the safe in his gun.

In a few seconds Puck had turned on his flashlight in the direction of that thing and Kurt had waited no time in pulling the trigger.

He didn't really need a second opinion on his target when he saw the way the creature's eyes had shone when they caught the light.

He had a decent aim and his target was quite near, he had a gun with a big caliber and he knew how to deal with the gun's kick. He didn't miss.

The creature's head exploded almost at the same time as the sound of the gun going off finally permeated their brains.