by Mark Kramer
I watched him as he tried reaching for me from the floor. I stepped back about two feet so that I was just out of his reach. Oksenberg’s blood covered his fingers as they stretched out, trying to grab hold of my foot. Wasn’t until our eyes met that I got the chills and had to turn away. For me, their dead eyes haunted me the most.
That’s when I saw Melvin in trouble. I picked up one of the legs from the broken chair and ran to help him.
After taking down the patient at the window, we heard screams and moans. We saw another five patients running toward us. I knew we’d end up dead if we stuck around. I’m sure Melvin felt the same way.
We ran toward the door.
We passed the four who were still feasting on the dead nurse; God rest her soul.
“Help Oksenberg,” I shouted to Melvin. Then I ran to Haas who wasn’t fighting the attacking patient, but doing his best to protect himself with the wooden chair.
The attacking patient didn’t see me approaching. I came from behind at full speed, leaned forward with my shoulder leading the way, and drove into his back. He was lifted off his feet and flew a couple yards before smacking against the tiled wall.
Doctor Haas wasted no time in fleeing from the room, the chair still in his hands.
I looked to see where Melvin and Oksenberg were. I saw the injured doctor, a few feet away from me, crawling toward the door. Melvin was grabbing something off the nurse’s cart and then ran toward me.
I threw my hands under Oksenberg’s arms and lifted him up, then dragged him out of the room.
I could hear the screams getting closer. I dropped the doctor in the hallway, turned back and saw Melvin running out now. The screaming patients, with their arms outstretched, were about four feet behind him.
Chapter Six
We shut the door and pressed our bodies against it, waiting for the head-on crash.
It came and our bodies bounced off. But we knew if they made it through then we were done. So we stood our ground. We put all the might that we could into keeping that door shut.
There was a small window in the door, about a square foot. My face was right up against it. I looked through and my eyes met with some of these lunatics. They snarled at me, wanting to break through and get their pale hands on us.
I leaned my head away, out of their sight. I was trying not to entice them; hopeful that if they didn’t see anyone through the window they would think we were gone and give up trying to bust out.
My eyes went to Melvin, he was a few inches from my face, and he was covered in sweat. He looked to Haas who was leaning against the wall, trying to catch his breath, and shouted, “Bring that goddamn chair over here.”
The doctor, startled by Melvin’s demanding voice, jumped up and brought the chair over. Melvin grabbed it and, as I continued pushing on the door with my hands, he wedged the chair under the handle. “Let go,” he said. “Slow.”
We both stepped back and inspected the door, making sure the chair would hold it shut. Looked good. “That should buy us some time,” I said. I turned back and Doctor Haas let out a sigh of relief, then sat on the floor. Me and Melvin looked up and down either ends of the hallway. Empty. Not a person in sight. We followed Haas and sat on the floor. Oksenberg was lying on the floor, his back pressed against the wall. We knew we had to keep moving, but for the moment, we wanted to catch our breath.
“What the hell happened in there?” I said. “Don’t they usually test this stuff on guinea pigs or monkeys before testing it on humans?”
Doctor Haas was silent. He saw the hard gazes that me and Melvin were giving him and knew he had better say something. “Those were the guinea pigs.”
“They’re people,” said Melvin. “You ain’t no better than them, doc.”
I looked at the doctor, waiting for his response. He had this look on his face like he was biting his tongue, dying not to give us his opinion of the Philadelphia State Hospital patients. He squinted, then his eyes went to his injured colleague. “We must get him to the emergency room.”
“What about the rest of the people in this building? We need to clear this place out.”
“He’s right,” said Melvin.
“Do you realize if you release these patients you are going to be faced with a potential catastrophe? Some of them are very mentally ill, and if you think we have a problem now with whatever it is that happened to the patients in that room, then wait until you unleash the patients that I mentioned on this campus.” He stopped for a moment, his eyes moving between me and Melvin, then he continued as the banging on the barricaded door began to recede. “We’re surrounded by farmland, for miles around. The day shift is gone until morning. The few remaining guards would not be capable of handling such a problem; a problem that would arise if we begin to evacuate this building, or any building. And it would be some time before police could arrive. For now, we leave them where they are, and we get Doctor Oksenberg to the emergency room.”
“Leave me, Scott,” whispered Oksenberg. “I won’t make it.” Blood was running down the corner of his mouth. Not a good sign.
I gazed at Oksenberg. Couldn’t take my eyes off him. Poor guy. Not too long ago, I thought he was a grade A jerk. Now, looking at him, riddled with bites, covered with blood, I felt bad for him.
He began to mumble, “What did we do? Dear God…God…What did we do?...” He continued repeating this as Melvin jumped to his feet, a bit more energetic.
Melvin said, “You hear that?” We listened. I didn’t hear a thing. “They stopped banging on the door.” He ran to it and peeked through the window. “Sweet Jesus.” He turned to me with wide eyes. “Get a load of this.”
I ran over, put my face beside his, peeking through. “It can’t be.”
“What is it?” said Doctor Haas from the floor, sounding curious.
I turned to Haas and said, “It’s not possible.”
“What is not possible?”
I couldn’t believe it myself, even after seeing it with my own eyes. “The nurse…She’s alive.”
The doctor came to the door. He shoved Melvin out of the way, anxious to prove us wrong.
Her white uniform, almost completely covered in blood, had been torn from her body and discarded near the foot of her cart. She was naked now, walking with a bad limp, around the room.
They mutilated her to the point where she didn’t appear to be human any longer. She looked like a monster from the creep shows. Her face was gone; there may have been small sections of flesh and tissue still showing, around her temples, but most of what used to be her face was now bone and muscle, covered in blood. Her entire body was covered in bites; the crazy bastards must have eaten off half her body weight. On certain parts of her body I could see bones through the torn flesh and muscle; some of her ribs showed; her calf was gone and her fibula was bare, even appeared as if they licked the blood right from the bone. I was shocked. Unbelievable, I thought. No human would do this to another. Who would be sick enough?
“How could she live through that?” said Melvin.
Doctor Haas shook his head. He was speechless.
I thought it over before I opened my mouth. Did I really want to say what I was about to say? Would that make me just as crazy as some of the patients in this place? But I know what I saw. She was dead. “She didn’t live through the attack.”
They both gazed at me. Doctor Haas said, “What are you trying to say?”
“I saw her die. You did too.”
He shook his head. He was adamant, saying, “No, no, it’s not scientifically possible.”
“Hey, to hell with your science, doc,” said Melvin. “Can your science explain anything that went on in there?”
The doctor moved his mouth, wanting to say something, but nothing came out. He knew he couldn’t make an argument against what we were witnessing.
Then we heard screams. Sounding like they were far away, outside somewhere. Our eyes went back to the small window. We saw all of the patients running to the fr
ont-side windows. The few patients who were shackled were struggling to break free, yanking on the chain; one of them had the strength to stand and drag the bed with him, following the others.
The screams were coming from outside, and the enraged patients, including the tortured nurse, were attracted to them. They stood along four or five windows, banging and screaming. The nurse appeared weak; she was smearing her bloody fleshless skull, with a small patch of long brown hair dangling in the back, against the window, letting out a gurgling moan at whoever was on the ground below.
“Those screams are coming from outside,” I said, my eyes sealed to the window.
Melvin said, “Yeah, but…?” He stopped, confused.
Doctor Haas interrupted, saying, “The guard.” We turned to him, not sure what he was getting at. “The guard who took the patient out of here, the patient must have gotten loose.”
My mouth dropped. If that first patient was loose, then our problem was about to explode.
For the first time this evening, I thought of my girlfriend, Clara. She was a nurse working at the children’s camp, and now I was afraid for her. If this problem grew, then she and the others at the camp were in danger.
We heard windows being smashed. Our eyes went back to the small window. The patients were throwing chairs through the glass, shattering them. Then we saw one jump out, then another, followed by another.
The screams on the ground grew louder and more terrifying. Whoever was outside was now being chased by these psychos.
Then one of them turned and looked back, their eyes were right on us. They moved toward the door. A few others took notice and followed behind him.
We fell back, away from the door. “We need to get moving,” I said.
“Follow me,” said Doctor Haas. He threw his arm around Oksenberg. Melvin went to the other side, giving Haas the extra hand. They started walking down the hall. I followed as the banging picked up again. This time, however, I could hear the wooden chair beginning to squeak.
We turned the corner and saw this part of the hallway was empty as well and, except for the faint banging around the corner, it was quiet.
I continued following behind Haas and Melvin as they stood on either side of Oksenberg, supporting him. Then I saw Oksenberg’s head turn. He leaned toward Haas’ ear, about to whisper something.
Chapter Seven
Haas was screaming. And loud. He screamed so loud that he began coughing when his screams reached its pinnacle. His left ear was attached to his head, taking in the sound of his high-pitched scream, but his right ear had a new home: inside Doctor Oksenberg’s mouth.
Oksenberg was one of them now. He was chewing on Haas’ ear. Haas grabbed the bloody hole on the side of his head that once bore an ear.
Melvin grabbed Haas and pulled away from Oksenberg. We were on either side of the newborn creature; Melvin and Haas on one side and me on the other. We could do nothing but stare at him, for the moment. Except Haas, he was busy screaming, the blood seeping from between his fingers now.
Oksenberg’s attention went to Melvin, then his gaze drifted to me. My eyes widened as I saw the yellow in his eyes. He began walking toward me. Then a loud slam was heard, then screams.
I looked past the approaching Oksenberg, at Melvin. He was staring past me and said, “Christ. Let’s go.”
I turned back to see three or four patients from the room. They busted the door open and were headed our way.
I’m not ashamed to admit it, but when I saw those raging maniacs headed toward me, I wet my pants. Then I turned and saw Oksenberg about to grab me. I barreled past him, knocking him to the ground like a rag doll.
The three of us ran down the empty hallway.
We passed a couple of elevators but didn’t want to stop and wait for them. Who knows how long it would take, probably no more than a minute, but we didn’t want the ones chasing us to catch up. Besides, we had no clue what would be waiting for us inside of that elevator. With people running out of here screaming, we suspected the first patient was on one of these floors, terrorizing whoever he came across.
“Down the stairs,” shouted Doctor Haas. He pushed the stairwell door opened, leaving behind a bloody handprint on the knob. Melvin followed.
Before I entered, I checked to see where they were. Still near the end of the hallway, but some were moving faster than others.
I followed them into the stairwell.
I looked out the rectangular window as I ran down the stairs and saw it was beginning to rain again. For the past few days, we had seen almost two inches of rain fall over Philadelphia, and it left this area of Byberry very muddy, and some of the roads had been forced to close due to flooding from the nearby Poquessing Creek. Because of this, much of the scheduled staff had called out yesterday and today, and all that remained for the night shift was a skeleton crew. If this downpour continued, we would be trapped here, helpless.
We could hear maniacal screams coming from outside and screams of staff members trying to flee. I said, “We should stay away from the first floor. I don’t think we’ll be able to leave this building.”
“Second floor,” said Doctor Haas. “The nurses’ station. You can call for help while I see what I can do to fight off this infection.”
Me and Melvin followed Haas out of the stairwell, onto the second floor. The hallway here was also empty, looked exactly like the third floor.
We ran down the hallway until it led us to a large open area with about twenty alcoves and three beds to each one. It was supposed to be used as a dormitory for any nurses working here in N-3, but for the past several months it subbed as a ward for patients who were to be tested with experimental drugs.
The doctor led us to the temporary nurses’ station that was set up when it was converted into a ward. We passed about twenty patients, all of which ignored us. Most of them had received frontal lobotomies and were now vegetables. Some sat or laid in their beds; others walked the floor like they were in a trance, but I passed one who was sitting on the terrazzo floor, naked, smearing his own feces along the alcove wall. I cringed and kept moving.
We entered the nurses’ station and there he was, sitting on the chair, his legs kicked up with his bare feet resting on the desk. He was smoking a cigarette and holding a revolver in his hand. He smiled, the cigarette dangling out the corner of his mouth, as he pointed the gun at us.
It was Billy the Kid.
Chapter Eight
William Kelly was born in Hatfield, PA, sometime during the summer of ’31. He was the oldest of what would blossom into a four-boy family over the next seven years.
His parents were farmers. His father, Richard, was given the family farm after his own father had passed a few years before William was born.
William had a normal childhood for any kid growing up in Hatfield at that time. He would wake up at sunrise, help his father with chords on the farm (something that he loved to do), then he’d head off to school (something that he preferred not to do.)
At school, he did his best to learn what he could, but he was always anxious to get back home, to the farm, to help his father wrap up any duties before sundown. After setting up for the next morning, he and his father would head into the house and enjoy the supper that his mother, Ethel, had been preparing for the last several hours.
After supper, the family would sit in the living room and read or talk about their day. Three or four days out of the week, Richard would read stories to his children. William enjoyed them all, but he grew to love one book in particular: The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid by Pat Garrett. The book was old and worn; it belonged to his grandfather from when he was a boy, but it didn’t matter to William. He was enthralled by the adventures of Billy the Kid, and whenever he had a chance he was playing with his brothers, shooting down the dangerous desperadoes as the famous lawman, or robbing stagecoaches as the notorious bandit.
As he grew and learned to read, his father would buy him Dime Western Magazines whenever the fami
ly had money to spare. After a couple of years, he had a stack of them. He loved the stories by Walt Coburn, but his true affection was always with The Kid. He began to idolize the famous outlaw, especially when, for his tenth birthday, his father bought him a cowboy hat, a toy gun and took him to the picture show to see Billy the Kid. It was a new flick at the time and it fascinated William, not only because he loved the story, but it was also the first color flick he had ever seen. That may have been the happiest day of his life; sitting with a huge grin on his face, beside his father, wearing his cowboy hat and aiming his toy gun at the screen whenever Billy the Kid shot someone in the film.
After the Japs attacked Pearl Harbor, Richard was sent to fight in the Pacific. William, being the oldest, was forced to leave school and get a job to help earn money for the family. He missed his father and the fun times they had. He still read his dime westerns, but it was only when he had time, which wasn’t very often.
In 1944, the Kelly family was dealt a blow that tore them apart; Richard was killed in battle. At first, they were able to keep afloat. William continued working and his mother cared for his younger brothers, but she would soon suffer a nervous breakdown. She never recovered and was sent away. The boys never saw her again.
The boys were split up, sent to orphanages. William wanted no part of this. All he wanted was his father to come back so that the family could reunite. He ran away and returned to the family farm, but it didn’t belong to them anymore.
With no one around to handle the finances, the bills went unpaid, and the local bank took the farm. They had since sold it to a neighbor of the Kelly family. When William returned, he broke in the house and fell asleep in his bedroom.