Could it really be possible, Kelly wondered feverishly to herself, as she jiggled another and yet another door handle.
Could it really be possible that every godforsaken door on the second floor, except for the nightmare room was locked tight? She quickly yanked at the last door on the left side of the stairwell and breathed a frustrated stream of curses. Out of habit, her hands pressed up against her temples in desperation and the unconscious gesture made her head wound sear with pain. Kelly cursed loudly and slammed an angry palm against the stubborn locked door.
It looked that way.
"Kelly," Jill whimpered from the floor where Kelly had set her down. "Let's backtrack. There was another hallway over by the elev-"
Kelly couldn't even let her finish her sentence.
"No!" she interrupted, the hysteria in her voice alarming Jill. "No, we can't go that way. There's gotta be somewhere."
The momentary loss of control in her friend's demeanor was frightening and even in light of their current situation, Jill was immediately suspicious. Kelly had seen something and whatever it was, it had badly shaken her. "Kelly, what's over th-" She started fearfully, but her friend would have none of it.
"Nothing. We can't go back." Kelly cut her off in agitation. She dropped her hands to her sides with a breathed curse and launched herself toward another set of three doors on the opposite side of the hallway, swearing to herself as she jerked at each door handle without success.
Jill sat in silence, listening to the jiggling of the heavy door handles and casting nervous glances towards each end of the hallway. Her stomach was in knots and the urge to throw up was only in part due to the injection she'd been given.
Knocking out that nurse had bought them some time but not much, she knew. Any second now, she'd hear footsteps running toward them. They'd get louder and louder and then someone would appear in their hallway but only this time it would be Bruce and there'd be no way Kelly could fight him off.
And Kelly wouldn't run either. She'd have to watch helplessly as her friend tried and failed to protect her knowing that as soon as Bruce overpowered them, there'd be nothing between them and whatever fate befall anyone after the injection had run its course.
A sudden whoop of joy made Jill shriek in surprise.
"What?!" Kelly cried in alarm, rushing forward and dropping to her knees in front of her friend. "Are you ok? What's wrong?"
Not wanting to tell Kelly that she'd worked herself up into such a state, Jill only shook her head. "Everything is wrong." She groaned, letting her blue eyes travel in the direction Kelly had been standing. To her immense surprise, a door was wide open, a possible escape from this waking nightmare.
"Oh! You found something!"
She began scrambling to her feet immediately, letting Kelly help drag her the distance between them and the open door.
"Yeah-" Kelly grunted through her effort. "-it might buy us more time until Sabrina can get here."
Jill had more to say but by this time she was close enough to see what lay beyond the open door. Her face fell.
Nothing.
It was a closet. A tiny closet that stored folded sheets and random small equipment shadowed in the darkness.
"I know, I know." Kelly started, beginning to push her inside. "But you'll be safer in here until I can figure out something."
Figure out something?
A wave of horror washed over her as Jill finally understood her friend's intentions.
"No!" She cried, jerking herself out of Kelly's grasp. "You're not gonna leave me here to play hide and seek while you wander around with those crazy people out there! Have you lost your mind?!"
"Dammit, Jill!" Kelly snapped back, shaking her friend in frustration. "You can't walk! If I have to drag you around, they'll catch us both and-" Her mind went back to the room of horrors and she shuddered. No, they couldn't get caught. "- and we can't let them catch us. Please, Jill. Hide in here. I'll come back for you."
Jill could only stare at her friend in disbelief. Was she serious? Was she really leaving her behind? Fear, anger, and betrayal took turns washing over her, bringing tears pricking at her eyes.
"No, Kelly..." She started pitifully, but Kelly's mind was made up.
"Yes. Please, Jill."
She pushed gently at Jill's chest and this time met no resistance. "I'll stand a better chance if you're hiding. I'll come back for you, I swear it. Okay?"
Jill let Kelly scoot her as far back as she could inside the tiny closet. The tile floor was cold underneath her, the closet reeked of some strange smell and the added misery only helped along a few more tears. She stayed silent as Kelly shoved around a bucket and a few heavy boxes to make room for her before reaching up and snatching a folded sheet off of the shelf above her head.
"You'll be safer in here. I won't let them find you, okay?" Kelly whispered quickly, wrapping the thin sheet around her friend's shoulders. "Just be real quiet and don't move. I'll come get you when I find a way out. It'll be ok, I swear it, Jill."
Jill wiped her eyes and stared solemnly at Kelly's face. The determination in her friend's voice in no way matched the strained and terrified look on her face. Her green eyes were glazed, her face was bruised and blood was now trickling down the side of her face and pooling wetly into the collar of her shirt. She looked awful.
And right now, as much as Jill hated to admit, she was the only chance they had.
"It will." Kelly continued to plead. "I promise. Will you just trust me?"
Jill sighed loudly and swiped a hand across her wet eyelashes. "Okay, okay." She muttered. "Hurry up before they find you." She finally screwed up the courage to look at Kelly without bursting into tears. "And you better be careful. I have another watch at home. Don't make me use it on you."
Kelly smiled, seemed as if she was going to say something back, then stood and gently shut the door leaving Jill alone in the dark.
She'd be alright, Kelly told herself over and over in her head as she hurried silently through the dark upstairs hallway, away from the unconscious nurse. No one else knew they'd made it up here.
No one alive anyway.
The fresh memory of Bruce's mangled hand dangling down from the door frame and the sickening crunch his body had made against the ceiling made Kelly shudder. The others would find him soon and there'd be a price to pay. She'd just have to make sure her and Jill were safely out of here before they came to collect.
She turned a corner and cautiously headed down a new hallway. It was very dark now. The west side of the building for sure, Kelly noted to herself. No windows to let in any moonlight on this side of the floor.
Groping her way along the wall, Kelly's fingers finally found the long, cold handle of what had to be the door to another stairwell. She leaned into it and it opened with only a slight squeak, allowing her to quietly slip inside.
The west stairwell for sure. It was even darker here. Humid and at least ten degrees warmer.
Kelly gritted her teeth and tried to ignore the cold sweat that was making her shirt stick to her back. The only escape was on the ground floor, she reasoned to herself as latched onto the railing and, fighting feelings of claustrophobia and paranoia, struggled blindly with the stairs in the darkness. It wasn't like they were in any condition to climb out a second story window, she thought as she made her way down. Though being this far away from Jill was making her very nervous, this was the only way.
Her descent was slow and tedious but after several minutes of stumbling blindly step by step and navigating a few turns, a faint light told her she'd reached the first floor. Sighing to herself in relief, Kelly took advantage of the bit of light to speed up her descent. She turned the final corner and the source of light was revealed. The long vertical window of the first floor stairwell door.
Kelly cautiously made her way to it and chanced a glance outside.
Her blind trek had taken her to a quiet hallway, lit only from the bright fluorescent light that was halfway illuminating the lobby. Was this the hallway Nurse Stone had taken her earlier that night or was it on the opposite side? Kelly wracked her brain, knowing full well that their survival depended on her being able to ignore the pounding in her head and focus on her bearings. Could she be in the same hallway where she'd been locked in less than an hour ago?
She closed her eyes, hoping to clear the fog in her head and rested her forehead against the cool metal surface of the stairwell door.
Where was she, where was she, where was she?
Muffled voices and flitting shadows caught her attention just as she'd decided she was on the opposite side of where Nurse Stone had taken her. She instinctively jerked backwards, every nerve in her body tensed and ready to dash back up the stairs if needed.
But a few seconds later, she realized it wasn't necessary.
With her face again pressed to the window, Kelly was able to see more flitting shadows at the end of her hallway. Running footsteps told her that whatever was going on, it was going on towards the other side of the building. It couldn't be Jill, she ruled out. They were running toward where she guessed the entrance was. Kelly's eyes suddenly went wide.
Sabrina?
Had there been enough time since Jill had called her? Had she sent the police for them? Whatever was going on, no questions were going to be answered by standing in a dark stairwell and bleeding.
All fear aside, Kelly jerked open the door, pressed herself against the opposite wall and quickly but silently made her way to the end of the hallway. The added light was also revealing how badly her head was, she noted grimly. The walls seemed to slant and warp unnaturally as she walked, the hallway itself shrouded in a dull haze that no amount of blinking could clear. Focusing on anything farther than a few feet away was nearly impossible and the effort made her dizzy. She couldn't keep this up much longer.
But despite her waning strength, her guess about her location proved to be correct, though the small victory went unnoticed. From her vantage point huddled against the wall, Kelly was able to peek into the main lobby and see the flurry of activity that something or someone was obviously causing.
"- hearing your excuses! They're the ones that called them and you let them get away!" an angry female voice called out.
Kelly narrowed her eyes and nervously shrank back into her hallway. Nurse Stone.
"I'm sorry, Irene! I didn't know... no one told me! I-I didn't expect anyone to be up there and she hit me and -"
Kelly's eyes widened. That had to be the nurse from upstairs and the realization made Kelly's stomach drop. The young woman had beaten her downstairs somehow and only through sheer luck had they not crossed paths. She must have taken the opposite stairwell since it was closest to her.
She sure as hell hadn't taken the elevator or there'd be an entirely different conversation to overhear.
"I said I was tired of hearing your excuses!" Nurse Stone's voice hissed, her tone so dark and full of rage that the woman she was talking to immediately snipped off her pleas. "As far as I'm concerned that girl just took away the only thing the doctor found useful about you. You've been a disappointment since the day you got here and I don't have the time nor the patience to listen to all the reasons why."
The second woman's answer was so quiet Kelly didn't hear it.
"Apologies." Nurse Stone sneered in response to whatever was said. "I have no use for apologies. You'd better hope Bruce has found them. Have you seen that worthless boy anywhere? Or Anna?"
"I was upstairs. The doctor wanted me to-"
"I don't care what you were doing. Have you seen them or not?"
"No, Irene." Came the girl's timid reply.
Nurse Stone's response was too muffled for Kelly to understand, but from her tone it had to have been something crude.
"Those two. They think they can do what they please. They'd better be handling those girls. Now take this and get out of sight. There's only one from the looks of it, a girl, doesn't even look old enough to be driving. She hasn't seen you so if I can't get rid of her then you have to do it. Can you handle that? Can you handle this one simple thing?"
Again Kelly strained to hear the woman, but this answer went unheard as well.
"My God, you're an idiot. Of course I want you to kill her. Are you really so dense that you couldn't follow? Or maybe you want to go to jail?"
"No, Irene." The woman finally spoke up softly. "I follow."
Irene snorted in disgust. "Good. Now hurry up."
Their footsteps clicked off in two different directions and, now half wild with panic, Kelly poked her head around the corner and chanced a peek into the lobby. So now Jill was safe and Sabrina was in danger? The night appeared to still be offering up all kinds of surprises.
From her vantage point she could see the backs of the two nurses walking quickly towards where she knew the entrance was. The younger of the two suddenly veered off and headed to the right, where she pressed herself nervously against the wall. Clutched tightly in the right hand of that younger nurse was something Kelly, even in her haze, immediately recognized.
Jill's pistol.
If Sabrina tried to come in, they'd kill her, Kelly realized. Taking advantage of their distraction, she headed toward the entrance, staying in the shadows and taking care not to make a sound. Her only hope was getting Sabrina's attention and warning her of the danger without alerting the attention of either of the nurses.
Easier said than done. Kelly took a quick look around. She was in the lobby again just as she had been what seemed like days ago, only this time she was alone.
Her eyes darted around the room, seeking somewhere to hide. There was the big front desk in the middle of the room. She glanced at the nurses again, both still with their backs to her and without a second thought, hurried over to the desk and fell to her knees behind it.
She was close enough to hear whatever conversation was going on at the door now and strained her ears, desperately listening over the pounding of her heart for Sabrina's familiar voice.
"I understand your concern, officer." Nurse Stone was saying in a sugary sweet and polite voice.
Kelly perked up at once. Officer? A cop?
"But we aren't even open yet. We're here calibrating the equipment that arrived this evening. The door is kept locked so if someone had come in, we would have had to open the door for them."
"Oh, I see." The officer answered in a voice that made Kelly's features twist in confusion. "Why are you in uniform to calibrate equipment, if you don't mind my asking?"
Nurse Stone gave a dismissive little laugh and Kelly could no longer contain herself. She'd been waiting to hear a familiar voice and she had. Only this voice wasn't Sabrina's.
Curiosity temporarily overpowering common sense, Kelly popped her head up over the desk to see who was at the door. A moment later, she lowered herself with a frustrated sigh. Nurse Stone was blocking the officer from her sight. A flash of khaki uniform and blonde hair had been all she'd been able to see.
"I know it seems strange but… well, doctor's orders. We here at Divinity are very professional." Nurse Stone explained lightly. "He's a particular boss. You know the type."
"Uh huh, sure do." The officer said, her tone unconvinced. "So are there any other entrances where someone could have gotten in?"
"No, officer. We keep the doors locked. Never know who could walk in."
"No, guess you never do."
Behind the desk, Kelly was doing all she could to not beat her head into the hard wooden surface. That voice. She knew that voice.
"So is there anything else I can help you with tonight, officer?"
Kelly heard the officer sigh and fought the urge to scream. What was going on?! That was Jill's sigh, Jill's voice with only slight differences, an authoritative tone it usually didn't have. Not Jill though, someone else. But that someone else her weary brain kept coming up with just didn't make sense.
"Listen, ma'am. I'll level with ya." The officer's voice began again and behind the desk, Kelly was now certain of it's owner. "I have two women reported missing in this area and this is the only building for miles. None of you heard or saw anything strange tonight?"
Kelly nearly stood up, the urge to see the officer's face and put to rest any lingering doubt too great to resist any longer. Nurse Stone was blocking the officer's face but just before Kelly lost her patience and gave in to the urge to run over and shove her away, she stepped aside.
Kelly immediately ducked back behind the desk, head spinning and bile rising in her throat. It was Kris. Jill's little sister, for some reason dressed as a police officer, was standing at the door. Talking calmly with that psychopathic nurse. But that sight hadn't been the one to send her back into hiding.
Standing just out of Kris's sight was the other nurse. This woman's name Kelly didn't know, but her swollen face, disheveled hair and bloodied uniform identified her without a doubt as the nurse she'd hit earlier. And even with her battered face, her features were grim and emotionless. She was out to redeem herself and by the way she was expertly leveling Jill's gun, she'd kill Kris without hesitation to do it.
Kelly swore under her breath. She couldn't call out to her. Alerting Kris to her presence would get her killed.
But how could she let her go?
Fighting the urge to scream, Kelly peeked out over the desk, praying with everything she had that Kris would turn around and walk away. She had to let her go, she realized. Getting Kris killed wasn't something she could live with. Sabrina must have called her. Sabrina would have been clear headed enough to remember that Kris lived in San Francisco. She would have called her and the police, that's what Sabrina would have done. She would have sent help and Kris just happened to be the first on scene.
Though why Kris was dressed like a police officer was beyond her.
"No officer, we've been working in the back room. We didn't hear anybody." Nurse Stone went on sweetly. "In fact you're the first non-employee I've seen all day."
Kelly heard Kris sigh again. "Who else is here tonight?"
Go away, Kelly willed her desperately, but it seemed Kris would never let up.
"I have two of my new girls here with me. Nurses in training, you know. They're in the back with the equipment. Oh, and Bruce. Bruce was here earlier, but he left about a half hour ago." Nurse Stone answered. "If he saw anyone he would have stopped to help or at least called to tell us I'm sure."
Kelly poked her head out again, nervous sweat beading up on her forehead. Her ears were straining to hear Kris's conversation, but her eyes were glued on the nurse with the gun. She watched the young woman take a few steps forward. She'd caught a signal from Nurse Stone and was moving in.
"I see." Kris answered, crossing her arms over her chest. Her chin raised as she took a look around the room over the taller Nurse Stone's shoulder. Just to her left, the younger nurse raised Jill's gun and tensed. "Would you mind if I took a look around? I'd like to speak to your trainees."
Kelly couldn't see Nurse Stone's face, but her body language was easy to read. She stiffened and unconsciously blocked the door with her arm. "Officer, there's nothing to see here and we are very busy. Delicate equipment and all, we can't afford distractions." She said, her tone so sugary sweet it made Kelly want to retch. "Do you have a search warrant with you, dear?"
"No, ma'am." Kris sighed. "But this is a public hospital-"
"Not until it opens. Until then, it's under construction and private property. So if you don't have a warrant, then I'm afraid the doctor would object to my letting you come in. You understand don't you, dear?"
Kelly felt her stomach turn as she ducked out of sight out of fear for Kris's safety. Her heart was hammering so loudly in her chest, it was a miracle no one else could hear it. She had to think. The nurse didn't have a shot yet. But if she moved again, Kelly would yell out to Kris and charge the armed nurse, she decided impulsively. They would probably both get killed either way, but she would have to do something.
There was a heavy, awkward silence that went on so long, Kelly was forced to peek out from hiding place again. The nurse with the gun hadn't moved, but if Kris took another step forward she wouldn't have to. Kelly held her breath and waited.
"Alright, then." Kris said after what seemed like an eternity. Kelly nearly passed out with relief as watched her young friend take a step backwards and turn to go. "Here's a picture of them. If you see anyone matching their description give us a call."
Nurse Stone smiled, wiggled her fingers in a little wave and the battered nurse finally lowered her gun. Kelly let out the breath she hadn't been aware she was holding and slid behind the desk.
"I most surely will, officer." She said sweetly. "God bless."
"Uh huh." Kris answered, her voice blessedly getting farther away. "Good night."
The entrance door opened and then clicked shut and Kris, along with any hope of escaping with her, was gone. Kelly felt both relieved and sick at the same time.
She dropped to her hands and knees and took one final glance at the two nurses. Both of them were watching Kris leave now. Knowing and not caring that she was taking a huge chance of being seen, Kelly pushed off of the desk and scurried out into the open and back into the hallway she'd come from.
Kris was out of danger now, but her and Jill weren't, she thought frantically to herself as she reached the relative safety of the hallway unseen. Her speed picked up and her footfalls grew louder as she pushed her exhausted body into a sprint.
Jill's sister might be out of the hospital but there was still a precious bit of time left.
There had to be a way to get to her before she was truly gone.