by Chase Austin
Chapter 28
Bellevue Hospital Center, Manhattan
Forty-year-old Doctor Reid Adams was at the end of a lifesaving surgery when the OT’s lights went off. He looked at Kevin and Brian, the two doctors assisting him and Martha and Patricia, the two nurses in the OT, and they seemed confused too. No one had any idea of what was happening on the first floor of the hospital. Reid signaled Martha to go out and check if it was just the OT or the whole floor.
Martha nodded and walked towards the door. She pushed the door open. Outside, the hallway was dark and deserted.
‘It’s only afternoon,’ she thought to herself.
“Security!” she yelled, and immediately she heard footsteps in the direction, where she knew there were stairs. She closed the door behind her and impulsively turned towards the faint sound. A couple of seconds later, a man appeared at the far end of the hallway, at the edge of the stairs. In the dark, it took her a moment to realize that the man was neither a patient nor one of her colleagues. Something that looked like a gun hung from his right shoulder, its barrel pointing at the floor. The man too saw the silhouette of a petite woman standing in the hallway, unsure. Without warning, he leveled the barrel at her.
Dr. Reid had decided to follow Martha out to investigate the reason for the lights out, and he was just about to open the door when his hand froze at the doorknob. Successive gunshots in the hallway had shattered the silence. He looked at the other three, Patricia, Kevin, and Brian, and found his own fear reflected in their eyes.
“What the hell is going on?” Patricia asked no one in particular. Her tone was hushed.
“I don’t know, but we’re getting out of here. Move it! Kevin, lock the main door. We’re taking the back stairs.” Dr. Reid had involuntarily taken the responsibility of getting the four of them to safety. The three of them followed Dr. Reid to the back door of the operation theater, reserved only for the medical staff.
Every hospital had rooms, doors, and stairs, only available to the staff. The visitors or the patients had no idea about these. There were no signages either to help them identify these ‘officials only’ pathways. Dr. Reid hoped that whoever was shooting in the hallway was one of the lunatics high on TV shows and loneliness and would leave them alone if he found the rooms locked.
“This isn’t going to work...we better use the elevator,” Kevin said.
“Shh.” Dr. Reid put his right finger on his lips. “What the hell is that sound?” They all stopped in their tracks and listened hard. And then they saw it, a cat. They heaved a collective sigh of relief.
Kevin heard Brian faltering on his feet. “Brian, you okay?” he asked. Brian was getting breathless and almost collapsed on the floor, his head in his hands. No one knew what it was, could be a mild panic attack, but they had no time to find out either.
“Calm down, you’re going to be alright.” Dr. Reid spoke carefully, making sure to keep his voice down.
In the parallel corridor, they heard footsteps clanking on the floor and they looked at each other with fear. Brian heard them too. He was already trying hard to soothe his nerves, but his fear had returned with extreme ferocity.
“We’ll be fine. Now, let’s hurry.” Dr. Reid encouraged Brian, when a door not far from them opened and a hand grenade rolled over in their corridor.
Run!
Dr. Reid helped Brian get up. Kevin clutched Patricia’s arm and started to run in the opposite direction. He opened the first door he found unlocked and pushed Patricia inside. Reid and Brian entered behind her followed by Kevin who then quickly shut the door behind him. The grenade blast rocked the corridor behind, but quick thinking and the steel door had saved them by a whisker.
It was a general ward and the four of them stood in silence in the darkness. No one moved. The fear of getting caught was very real. As their eyes got accustomed to this new dark, they lay on their bellies and started to crawl underneath the beds. If they made no sound, they possibly would be able to get out of this nightmare, alive.
Lying on the floor, Kevin checked on the others while looking in every direction he could possibly check while keeping his head down. And then a face appeared out of nowhere in front of him. A familiar face. Mr. Quinn, a man in his seventies and suffering from dementia, was on the floor like Kevin.
Quinn’s eyes rested on Kevin, maybe he was trying to recognize him, but Kevin knew that he wouldn’t be able to even if he wanted. His brain cells had already stopped giving a shit about faces a long time ago. Quinn, like Kevin, had no idea why the gunshots, but he knew that it wasn’t good. So maybe he himself thought of cowering under his own bed or maybe someone from the hospital staff had helped him. Whatever it was, Quinn was at least hidden. The only problem, his bed was the one nearest to the main door.
Kevin signaled Quinn to crawl towards him with both hands, just to make him get away from the door, but Quinn got further confused. The only way to get to Quinn, was to crawl up to him and drag him to safety.
Kevin was mulling his options when the door near Quinn’s bed opened. A set of boots, boots that did not belong to the hospital staff, approached the first bed, the very bed under which Quinn was hiding. Kevin knew that the boots were not friendly, but Quinn had no idea, and he crawled towards them.
Quinn sobbed, “Doctor help me! I don’t know why I’m on the floor. Do you know where my wife is?”
The man in the boots stopped at the cry and squatted beside Quinn. A pistol appeared in his right hand. With his left, he grabbed Quinn’s collar and without any warning put a bullet in his head. Quinn couldn’t even understand what had happened to him. His brains wasted on the floor.
Kevin turned his face to the other side. Reid and Brian did the same too. But it was Patricia who was finding it impossible to believe what had happened. An innocent patient was shot without any reason and none of them could do anything. She almost shrieked but couldn’t, as if her fear had grabbed her throat. Her tears flowed uninhibited, but she kept quiet.
The man grabbed Quinn’s leg and dragged him to the door; then left him there to keep the door open. The militant then walked away, probably to find other targets. Once they felt that the killer was gone, Reid whispered from behind, “Let’s move.” He himself crawled away. Brian followed him but a hand gripped his right leg. He looked back. Another patient who had been in a road accident.
“Help me! I don’t want to die...!” the patient cried.
Brian tried to turn back to help him and jerked his leg to smooth his movement. The patient’s grip loosened, letting his leg go free. Their eyes met.
The other door of the ward opened, and someone entered the room. The visitor looked at the yelping patient and shot him twice at the back. Brian saw his eyes going lifeless. The man then grabbed his foot and dragged him away. Brian’s fear made him crawl further under the safety of the bed, taking as little space as was humanly possible.
As soon as the killer took the dead patient out of the ward, the four of them crawled out into the other side of the ward where a door was semi-open.
Patricia was the first to enter the darkened corridor that had a large window where it ended. Sunlight lit up the corridor, and she suddenly saw an opportunity to escape. Getting up as fast as she could, she ran towards the window, shouting for help.
“Here! Over here!”
Khalid heard Patricia’s cries on the other side of the hallway and walked fast to turn at the corner. He immediately saw an easy target. He aimed his pistol at Patricia’s back and shot three rounds. She was almost at the window. The momentum of the gunshots further pushed her moving body into the windowpane. The bullets penetrated her body and emerged out leaving big holes, smashing the window glass. Patricia’s lifeless body jerked forward. Dr. Reid who was behind her at the exit hid in time behind a stationary table kept near the door. His eyes widened as he saw Patricia’s limp body hitting the windowsill and then disappearing. Moments later he heard a thudding sound.
He forcefully muffled his screams
. He heard the shooter’s footsteps approaching the table, and he didn’t know if retracing his steps back inside the ward would be a good idea.
Khalid stopped at the table, his eyes staring at the windowsill, where a moment ago there had been a human being. Dr. Reid made himself as small as possible. Any movement meant death. He did not dare look at the killer but he still couldn’t stop the smell of death from surrounding him.
Despite the darkness, Khalid could’ve easily found his next target cowering near his feet, if only he had looked down, but his eyes remained focused on the window. He could hear the police chatter outside the window, and he couldn’t give away his position. He turned around and went back to the safety of the darkness. He still had a lot of things to accomplish.
Kevin and Brian who were still in the general ward behind Reid were shell-shocked at the turn of events. In a matter of minutes, their world had turned upside down. Two of their colleagues were dead.
Kevin checked Reid who seemed to be frozen in place. He seemed to have no strength to tread further. Kevin knew that their safety lay in movement. He walked forward in his crouching position in order to pull Reid back into the ward. As soon as he reached Reid, he checked the corridor and from behind the table, saw one of the militants shooting at someone else. He looked back at Brian and Reid, and with his right hand pointed at the next opened door. Brian moved first and quickly covered the distance in the same bent position.
“Doc, let’s go,” Kevin whispered, shaking Dr. Reid. Reid looked at Kevin as if he had woken up from a long slumber. “We need to move,” Kevin whispered while pointing at the door. Reid’s eyes moved to where Kevin was pointing, and he saw Brian’s back. He followed him without question. Kevin followed the two and as soon as he was inside, Brian locked the door. Reid, who was now back in control, blocked the door with a heavy steel table.
The sound of the table in the deserted corridor attracted the attention of the shooters.
Inside, the three of them heard footsteps approaching and saw the door trembling. The door was locked from inside and the thumping on the door grew exponentially high within minutes. The door looked like it could give up any minute now.
Outside the door, Khalid ordered two of his men, “You two, go and cover the adjacent corridor.”
Inside, the three of them were panicking.
“What now?” Brian asked.
“This way. Come on.” Reid signaled towards the room’s second door.
Kevin pushed opened the door but then had to slam it shut immediately.
The two shooters had torched the corridor. The fire spread quickly and without warning, spreading onto the stairs. That corridor contained mostly general wards. All locked. The fire in that corridor meant that whoever was inside would soon be dead because of the heat and the suffocation.
“It’s ugly down there. Check the other door!” Kevin shouted. Reid opened another door that led to the adjacent corridor but found the way blocked by patients and a few nurses. All scared but unhurt till now.
“What’s going on?” one of the patients asked Reid.
“Everything will be alright,” one of the nurses tried to console him.
“You need to run. Don’t stand out in the open. Hide now.” Reid yelled at the group. Hearing the warning, the group suddenly started to scramble in all directions. Kevin and Brian pushed through the crowd.
Suddenly, the militants appeared at the far side of the hallway and started shooting with a vengeance. But the three of them managed to drag as many people as they could with them inside the two opposite wards nearby.
“Get down!” Brian shouted. Kevin sprinted towards the door. Reid was in the opposite ward. Once inside he turned back to close the door and saw the nurse who was consoling the patient, lying inert in a pool of blood in the corridor.
“They are here.” They heard one of the shooters shouting and rushing towards the wards. Reid’s eyes met Kevin’s who was standing at the edge of his ward and they both shut their respective ward doors with full force. Others jammed the door with beds and cabinets.
“Stay away from the door. Take cover,” Kevin shouted. Reid was doing the same in the opposite ward.
The militants banged the doors. Soon more joined them.
“Wait.” Khalid suddenly seemed alert.
Kevin and Dr. Reid heard the commotion silenced, but the shooters were still outside, they knew.
Militant #1: “What...?”
Khalid: “Someone is coming.”
Militant #2: “I cannot hear anything.”
Khalid: “Shut up and listen.”
Meanwhile, Kevin looked at Brian, “We’re sitting ducks here. We need to leave this room.” The only way out was the ward’s large windows. ‘Could they jump and still be alive?’ Kevin wondered. But he didn’t know. On the ward on the other side, Dr. Reid was thinking the same thing. ‘There were patients and there were nurses. Would they survive the jump from this height to the ground?’
There was no more banging on the doors.
Dr. Reid and Kevin listened hard.
The silence outside was eerie. Had they left?
Chapter 29
Despite killing as they willed, Khalid felt an uneasiness. It seemed as if the noose was tightening on him. The hospital was now a deserted playground. The rooms were either locked or vacant. Wasting bullets on the people inside wasn’t prudent. The approaching footsteps and the darkness made him question his training and belief system.
“What should we do?” one of the shooters asked. Khalid remained silent. The uniforms were inching closer.
“What now?” The shooter shook him wildly. Khalid looked at him with disbelief. He was back to his reality. He was fighting for his brothers and sisters. He had to avenge them.
“This is it. This is our moment of truth. We’ll fight them. This floor is now our fort. We will kill or die.” Khalid’s voice was feverish. Others raised their guns in unison. This was their training’s last lesson. Kill or die trying. No other option.
They quickly took positions: two each at the two staircases, and two each at the two windows, using the sidewall as their cover.
Waiting for the uniforms, Khalid checked his watch and a derisive smile seemed to appear on his lips. Over the next ten minutes, twelve vehicles were going to explode on the streets of Manhattan, Houston, and Philadelphia. Three each at the Farmer’s Terminal Market and at the Union Square Park and six in the parking lots of Marina and Onyx.
Chapter 30
Onyx Hotel, The Marina, Houston
On the second floor, Olivia locked her office, switched the lights off and ducked under the table. She pulled the intercom along with her. The wired set was connected to every other telephone in the hotel. As long as it worked, she would find someone to come and save her. The office had glass partitions separating it from the rest of the space. A few minutes later, she saw the silhouette of a man in the hall, busy checking every cabin, opening and closing the glass doors. A rifle hung from his right shoulder. She retreated further under the table, furiously praying, sweating and crying incessantly.
The shooter was two doors away from Olivia’s office, when something captured his attention. It was the sound of soft music coming from the adjacent corridor. The militant moved away.
Olivia heaved a sigh of relief, semi-collapsing on the floor when she heard a gun-blazing and a blast, followed by screams. Then she heard a loud bang at the west wing of the hotel. It had multiple guest rooms. She could only imagine what was going on in that part of the hotel.
The grenade blast had started a fire on the second floor. Fueled by the powerful centralized air conditioning system, the choking smoke had started to spread across the second floor. In the darkness, Olivia couldn’t see it, but her chest started to burn. Her lungs badly needed fresh air but going out of the room wasn’t going to save her. The whole second floor had turned toxic.
The heat finally switched on the water sprinkler on the second floor.
Cha
pter 31
Onyx Hotel, The Marina, Houston
Mike Noyon was lying on the carpeted floor of the Monarch Room of the Onyx towers, looking at the hundreds of bodies lying on the floor, limbs tangled with each other in the darkness. Bullets raged through the room in quick succession above them.