The Lost and the Damned (10 page)

The reception area was well lit from the floodlights. I made great care to be in the line of sight of the hospital doors for as short a time as possible. I flattened against the wall and darted behind the reception desk. The desk was a mess of papers, the chair turned over on its side. There were two remaining doors from this room. One was the broken door I had seen when I came in. That’s where those five monsters came from, I was sure of that. The corridor was masked in darkness, but I could smell ash. The idea of going that way was less than appealing. That left the other door. When I had run through before, it had been closed and locked. Now it was ajar. Darkly, I realized that the nurse and her injured patient had come through that door before going outside and… I decided I didn’t want to think too much more about that. I took that route out of the reception area.

Refreshingly, this corridor didn’t smell like ash and fire. What this corridor did have was broken glass and lots of it. All the overhead fluorescent lights had fallen in the shockwave, covering the floor with broken glass. There was an audible crunch with nearly every step I took. I tried a few doors along the hall, finding two conference rooms, a locked door, and another door that seemed stuck. I think the shockwave had shifted some of the structure of this old place, causing the door to get stuck. I passed it up, hoping that the key to finding Katie wasn’t in that room.

I rounded a corner and saw much more extensive damage. A part of the ceiling had come down in the hallway. Strangely, not all of the lights had fallen here. The switch must have been on, because the intact light was flickering with a strange tempo. It was a disorienting strobe effect as I looked down the corridor. I squinted my eyes to see the end of the corridor beyond the wreckage, but the flickering light thwarted me. I started walking toward it when I saw something odd in the rubble.

I looked closer and discovered that there was a body beneath the rubble. They must have been in the corridor when the ceiling fell. The body was face up, rubble pinning it at chest level. I could see white clothes, so I guessed it was a nurse. I crouched down near her, just looking when I heard a wheezing gasp of breath. I immediately jumped back, losing balance and falling backwards. The nurse was alive! I heard a weak cough.

“Are you okay?” I asked, immediately thinking that a stupid question.

“Help… me…” she said.

With shaking hands, I turned on my flashlight and got back on my feet, shining the light to get a better look at her. I recognized her at once. It was the nurse who was at the reception area when I had inquired about Katie. She had seemed so nice, I felt so horrible that this had happened to her. A trickle of blood had made its way out of the corner of her mouth at some point, which was now not quite wet, not quite dry.

“Oh god,” I said, feeling completely out of my depth here. “Let me see.” I shined the flashlight at the wreckage. A pile of plaster, drywall, and… stuff. I really don’t know much about building materials. “There’s a bunch of wreckage on you. I can try moving it. But…” I tried to think what I had seen people on TV say in these situations. I cursed myself for not watching more medical dramas. “Does it feel like you’re pinned anywhere in particular? Your legs? Your feet?”

“I… I can’t feel my legs,” she said.

I knew enough to know that was a very bad sign. It might be saving her from some additional pain, but it was definitely on the list of not-good things. I put the flashlight down so it pointed at the pile of wreckage, then took a moment to think how I would do this. Not finding any good ideas, I just grabbed a piece of the rubble and tossed it aside. Then I grabbed another piece and did the same.

Slowly, I moved pieces from the rubble, during which time I tried to be reassuring to her. I told her such lies as “You’re going to be okay,” and “Help is on the way,” just so she wouldn’t give up hope. I thought that if I could get her out from the rubble, it would at least improve her situation. She’d still be hurt, but maybe she would have a chance at surviving. Maybe she could breathe properly. Or I could at least carry her… outside… to the Army… I shook my head and tried to banish such thoughts from my mind.

As I removed a particularly large piece of rubble, my heart sank. I quickly pulled more pieces off and cleared it away from her body. I had found a large beam that was buried under the rubble. One end of it appeared to be pushing toward her abdomen. Almost franticly, I grabbed at the debris near her abdomen, shoveling it away as fast as I could. I had it almost all cleared away when I reached down and I felt something wet. Something wet, sticky, and warm. I pulled my hand up to my face and saw dark blood on my fingers in the flickering light. The beam had pierced her abdomen and she was bleeding.

I was worried about trying to move the beam, but I knew I had to find out if I could move it. Gently, I grabbed at it, trying to lift it away from her body. I clutched it and pushed. I got it to move slightly, invoking a grunt and a cough from her, but I could not move it elsewhere. I’m not sure if the beam was too long and heavy or if it was wedged against something that prevented it from moving.

I knelt down to her. “There’s… There’s a beam – I tried to… I… I’m sorry,” I said.

Her eyes, formerly half lidded, opened wide, finding my face a moment later. “It’s… It’s okay.”

“But it’s not okay!” I said. “I can’t move the beam! I don’t know how to help you! I’m not a doctor…” My voice dropped to a whisper. “I can’t fix this.”

“It’s okay,” she said again. “I had… I had resigned myself to my fate long before you came by.” I realized that she had been trapped under the rubble for an hour, maybe hours, bleeding the entire time. “I… I said my prayers to God. I told him that I… I understood, and I was… was ready. I had told him that I was afraid to…” she coughed, bloody showing on her teeth, “I was afraid to die alone. But I said that I was ready.” She started coughing again and I opened my mouth to say something, but she shook her head. “But he… he sent me you,” she said, smiling.

I had nothing to say. I’ve never been one for faith, but I’m not so sour a person that I’d deny someone else theirs. I reached out and took her hand. It was cold and clammy. It was too weak to squeeze back, but she smiled.

“You’re… you’re still looking for your niece, right?” she said.

“Yes,” I said. I wanted to further the lie, to explain that I had come into the hospital after the beam of light to make sure she was okay, just to explain my presence in the hospital. But then I realized. It didn’t matter. Not to her. None of who I was really mattered. The only things that mattered were that I was there and my heart was open.
“K-Kate is a good girl. K-Katherine, I mean,” she said. “You should bring her home. She just needs a good home to bring her back.”

Bring her back? I wondered what that meant. “Yes, I need to find her,” I said. “To bring her home.”

“B-building D,” she said. “She’s in D Wing. That’s… that’s on the other side of the hospital, back the way y-you came,” she said with a gasping intake of breath, “past the reception area.”

I turned and looked back down the hall. I wasn’t looking forward to going back that way, but at least I hadn’t walked even farther this way. “Thank you,” I said, giving her my warmest smile. She returned it weakly, but I knew that was a great effort for her.

“What can I do to make you more comfortable?” I said.

“J-just hold my hand,” she said, her voice weak, her breathing difficult. “Just hold my hand.”

I took my left hand and held it over my right hand which still held hers, holding it tightly. She smiled, looking at me again before she closed her eyes. I watched her breathing, watching as it grew weaker and weaker, as she herself grew weaker before me.

I held her hand until she passed away, and then I kept holding it a few minutes after that.

I wiped my eyes (dust from the rubble must have gotten in my eye), and folded her hands over her chest. I pushed the hair out her face and stood up. I grabbed my flashlight and turned away. Beneath the flickering lights I turned and walked away back around the corner and down the hallway to the reception area.

At that moment, I was unconcerned with hiding myself in the reception area. Army be damned. I walked to the broken door and the burnt corridor. I shined my light into the darkness, revealing scorch marks and broken doors. I took a deep breath, the smell of ashes and smoke filling my lungs, causing an involuntary cough. I remembered my goal, Katie, and stepped through the broken door.

Five

TRANSCRIPT: OBSERVATION ROOM 2. PATIENT 457. ATTENDING PHYSICIAN: DR. ASHBORN

PATIENT: This world is falling down. This place is falling down. Nobody sees it, but I see it.

DOCTOR: Why do you see it?

PATIENT: It’s easy to see in this place. I was supposed to be a god, so I can see all the cracks. These rooms, these halls, they’re unstable. Transient. Space isn’t what it used to be, y’know.

DOCTOR: Tell me more about this space.

PATIENT: It’s unstable. There are the metaphysical cracks all over. I can feel them crawling. But I really would like my medication again. I think it’s past when I should get it.

DOCTOR: You’ll get it in due time. I just need you to answer more questions.

PATIENT: Can I get it soon? This whole house will come tumbling down much sooner than we all realize.

The corridor was dark and smelled of smoke. The doors facing the front of the hospital were shut, so the hallway was doused in darkness. I clicked on my flashlight and scanned the hallway. The walls were scorched and there were gaping holes in the wall where it had burned longer. I was amazed the entire hallway - hell, the entire hospital hadn't burn down. This was a very controlled burn, presumably so the hospital didn’t fall on them when they came through the hallway.

I shuddered. Those Five came through here, burning and destroying. I was not looking forward to finding the ruin they left behind. I had visions of stumbling over burnt bodies. The memory of the nurse was still too fresh in my mind. What I dreaded more was the other possibility. As horrible as those Five were, they had to come from somewhere. What if the place I was going was even worse?

After a few minutes of creeping through the hallway in near darkness, I saw a light down the hall. The fire had blasted down a door to a room facing the hospital front, so light poured through the opening. I let my flashlight drop to my side and walked forward. Beyond the lit section of the corridor was a large pile of rubble. No body underneath it this time, which I was thankful for. Unfortunately, it blocked the entire hallway. There was no way to get through.

I cursed in frustration. I didn’t expect anyone to hear me, but it made me feel just a slight bit better. I pointed my flashlight at the ceiling, revealing a large hole. It looks like the entire ceiling had fallen down. That explained the rubble. It also didn’t help my situation. I tentatively stepped up onto a chunk of rubble. I shined the light up toward the hole again. It looked like the corridor was clear upstairs. I tried climbing the rubble, but to no avail. Every step I took had my foot sliding rubble down to the floor rather than gaining purchase. I moved to grab chunks and try to clear the way, but a sparking wire stopped that short. Where the rubble was close to the ceiling, wires poked out like an open wound. Frayed edges of copper and gold twisted in the air, sparking. I was not getting through here. Getting electrocuted is the stupid man’s way to die, and I was willing to go out of my way to prove I was not a stupid man. So moving the rubble was out, same with climbing it. I looked back up at the hole. It wasn’t too wide, maybe there was a way past it upstairs.

I sighed and tapped the flashlight against my head, trying to spur thoughts. I needed a way up. I had no rope or grapple. I could really go for that grapple gun Batman uses. I thought I remembered seeing a stairwell back down the hallway. That seemed like my only option, my hope was that the way was not blocked there either. This backtracking thing was really starting to get old. I was already pretty uncomfortable about being in a creepy hospital that was half burnt and surrounded by the Army. Backtracking through that same hospital as it’s falling apart? Not high on my list. I turned on my heel and started back the way I came.

I entered the stairwell, the door slamming shut behind me. The loud noise echoed up the stairwell, leaving a cold silence. With the flashlight I could see that it was a pretty sterile stairwell: metal and plastic stairs, exposed pipes, blank white walls. I spotted some plaster bits on the floor, but neither the ceiling nor the walls had come down, so the way was clear. I climbed the stairs, each step making a loud clank as I went up. I took them slow, the spotlight from my flashlight my only illumination.

After one landing I reached the second floor door. There was a smaller staircase continuing up, possibly to the roof, but there was a locked gate preventing me from going any higher. I shined my light on the door, revealing the big “2” sign for the second floor, and, more interestingly, a map of the building. The map was for purpose of finding your way out of the hospital should there be a fire. The authorized route would take me downstairs, through rubble and sparking wires, out a fire exit door, where I would immediately be gunned down by men with assault rifles. Very informative. Instead, what was more helpful to me was that the map showed all the hospital buildings. The map was old, probably from the pre-Bellingham years, but I doubted they made many architectural changes.

The map told me I was currently in the hospital main building, which was unsurprising. From outside the hospital, I remembered one behemoth building and wings expanding on either side. I figured I would have noticed if I had passed into a wing. The hospital had six other wings attached on either end of the main building. Wings A and B were attached to the main building, with their wings attached to them. Picture in your head the main building as the body of a bat. The wings came off either side of the main building. Wing A led to Wing C which in turn led to Wing E. Wing B led to Wing D which led to Wing F. I knew that Katie was supposedly in Wing D. Tracing the route with my finger, I groaned. From here I had to get to Wing B, then travel through its entirety to Wing D. Then once there, I had to figure out where she actually was. Then, after all that, we had to find someplace safe. We could try finding a way out of the hospital. Maybe the Army wasn’t guarding the back of the building? I knew I had to find the girl first and then figure things out from there. In a pinch I wouldn’t be afraid to kick out a first floor window and make a run for it with her into the trees.