A moment later the door opened, and a man wearing the clean white overcoat of a doctor walked into the room. The pair relaxed their guard, yet Marcy held onto the can of mace she’d pulled out of her purse.
“Simmons told me you were awake. Let me check you out.”
Chapter Four
September 16th, 2013
Mobile, Alabama
Tyler and Marcy walked through the hallways of the lower levels to stretch Tyler’s legs and to help him get used to the motion of walking. His doctors said they wished the situation was different in the hospital, but with a shortage of beds and the influx of wounded soldiers from the attack the day before they no longer could spare a room for someone who could walk. Yet, thanks to the orders given by the National Guard, they were unable to leave the building for any reason.
The vertigo and dizziness were gone, except for the occasional bout that tried to set in when he moved to fast. But as long as he maintained a steady pace he could stay upright as long as he wished.
Down in the dregs of the lower level of the hospital, the mood of the other people was somber at best and aggravated at worst depending on who they passed and when. One group of people, hanging near the lobby, simply wanted to leave. Some of them had lost loved ones and wanted to be far way from their final resting place. Others had only stopped in to search for some of the thousands of people still missing. Yet another group conspired in the shadows of the lobby, planning ways to overtake the men and women patrolling the parking lot. They didn’t like being confined to the hospital, believing it was their right to come and go as they pleased.
Tyler understood each of the groups and even emphasized with them. After losing his warm and comfortable bed, he’d been told to hang out in the lower level. The regular monitoring by the doctors exchanged for a system where he went to a central location to have one of the overextended nurses give him a quick once-over before giving him a pass only to repeat the process again in a few hours.
Unlike how the hospital was run before, regular meals were a thing of the past. Instead, small rations of food were given out twice a day. Today’s breakfast was an uncooked portion of canned green beans with a Styrofoam cup half filled with heavily watered-down fruit punch that did more to irritate his throat than to quench his thirst.
Through all of this Marcy seemed upbeat as usual. Tyler figured it had to do with the relative safety of having the military close by. At times, after living through two brutal attacks of his own, Tyler had to agree it was nice to be protected. Yet, he couldn’t help wanting to be out of the hospital.
As they approached the cafeteria, they passed a group of people that stopped talking as they got close. One of the men, a tall guy with a goatee with an attached five o’clock shadow glared at them as they passed. Tyler, not wanting to be intimidated, glared back.
Marcy nudged Tyler with her elbow. “Take it easy. You just woke up.”
Tyler held his gaze for a moment longer before allowing it to drift over to Marcy. “Sorry. I hate people like that.”
“Him?” She pointed to the man Tyler had been staring at.
Tyler nodded.
“He’s not a bad guy,” she said. “He’s just upset with how the hospital is handling his daughter’s death.”
“Then why is he staring at me like I’m enemy number one? I haven’t done anything to him.”
“You’re new to the lobby. That means you either know one of the guardsmen outside or they sent you down from topside. He doesn’t know where you stand. That’s all.”
Tyler held in a laugh. He doesn’t know where I stand? Since when is that a good reason for staring someone down?
The pair made it a few more steps before Tyler felt a hand on his shoulder. He spun around to find the man he’d been staring down standing two feet in front of him. Half the guys that were at his table moments ago stood behind him, hands clenched as if they expected a fight.
Tyler wasn’t in the mood to fight, or spend a moment longer at the hospital than necessary. He decided discretion was the best plan without an army of his own to back him.
“Sorry,” he said, pulling his shoulder free to turn around. He made it two more steps before they pulled his shoulder again. This time the man held it tight to keep Tyler from pulling free.
“You have a problem, mate?” the man asked, in an Australian accent.
“Me?” Tyler pointed at himself and smiled. “Nah. Just woke up yesterday. Trying to get my bearings.”
The man looked over his shoulder, at his group of friends that were itching for a fight. “Looked to me like you were trying to overhear what we were saying. Planning on taking it back to the commander outside? Think it will help you get out of this place?” He leaned in to whisper in Tyler’s ear. “They don’t care a lick about us, mate. We could die today and they wouldn’t shed a tear. What do you think they’d do if I killed you here in front of all these people?”
Tyler shrugged. “They had their hands full out front from what I remember.”
“Exactly.”
Marcy stepped between the two men, pushing them both back an arm’s length. “Easy there. We don’t mean any trouble.” Once they were separated, she turned her back to Tyler to look at the man. “He didn’t kill your daughter, Dan. He’s stuck here like the rest of us.”
Tyler held his arms up. “I have family on the outside. Like to make it home to them one day.”
Dan’s eyes shifted between Marcy and Tyler before settling on the later. “Best find a comfortable place to sit. Wouldn’t recommend taking anyone’s seat though. Easy way to get hurt.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Tyler smiled, offered his hand, and introduced himself.
“Family on the outside?” Dan asked. “Wife? Kids?”
“Wife and two kids. Son and daughter.”
Dan’s expression sagged. “Have you heard from them since…”
Tyler shook his head. “Not since a few days before. I’ve been in here for a few days.”
“One of the unlucky ones then. Get hurt after the event or before?”
Tyler rubbed his bandaged head. “What event?”
Dan looked back at his group and laughed. “You can’t be serious.”
Tyler’s face flushed as the rest of Dan’s group broke into unsteady laughter. But he didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. The only event he could think of was the rash of car accidents and blocked roads throughout the city. The same scenes that kept emergency responders busy that first day. The only thing Tyler could think of was the massive amount of mission people Marcy mentioned the day before. Was that the event Dan was talking about?
“Like I said,” Tyler rubbed his bandaged head. “I’ve been in here for a few days.”
“He got hurt after,” Marcy said, speaking up. “He got attacked that morning. Someone wanted his truck.”
“One of the really unlucky ones then. It’s amazing how fast things went to shit, isn’t it?”
Marcy nodded. “Hours really.”
Throughout the lobby people stirred. Large groups of people moved towards the windows overlooking the parking lot, all jostling to get a better view.
“What’s happening?” Dan asked, standing on his tiptoes trying to get a look outside.
“Another group of people attacking the Guard,” one of his friends from the back of his group answered. “These guys have much better guns.”
Dan smiled. “Looks like this is our chance.” He looked back at Tyler, who’s head was spinning from all the noise. “How bad you want to see your family, mate?”
“Pretty damn bad,” Tyler admitted though he wasn’t sure he wanted it this bad. He vaguely remembered the attack on the hospital yesterday. How the National Guard had taken out the threat with little effort. Sure, they sustained some casualties, but nowhere near the amount they’d dished out.
If this group was armed with anything resembling decent firearms, the battle would get bloody in a hurry. Bullets don’t care where they end
up once they leave the gun. He knew any shots that failed to find their mark on the body of a guardsmen or on the side of one of their vehicles was a projectile headed towards the hospital. Without the cover provided by the walls, it wouldn’t take much to bring them down.
Even if they could be assured that the attacker’s shots wouldn’t hit them, there was still the matter of the Guard. They’d not only been tasked with keeping anyone else out, but keeping those who were already here in. How willing were they to kill anybody trying to escape?
As much as Tyler wanted to be back home with his family, he wanted to do it in one piece. There were too many miles of highway to cover without having to worry about treating gunshot wounds as well.
“Well, here’s your chance,” Dan said.
Before Tyler could object, he was being pulled toward the front of the building by Dan and the other members of his crew. As he passed a window, Tyler noticed the people taking cover around the opening, while trying to keep a view on the action out front. It wouldn’t be long before someone fired the first shot and turned the parking lot into a real battleground.
Tyler felt the urge to drop to the ground, joining the people with the front row view. He knew it wasn’t much safer behind the cover of the walls than it would be outside, but at least inside they wouldn’t be targeted by weapons themselves. Instead, he kept his footing and followed the flow of the advancing crowd straight to the front doors.
As they entered the main lobby, the first thing Tyler noticed was how empty it was. Glass windows lined the whole room, leaving few places to hide. The few people who remained did so huddled behind the pillars spaced in the room, leaning their heads out to get a better look.
The approaching group drew the attention of two soldiers standing outside the front door. Each of the men turned at the group, weapons drawn as if Tyler and the others were the threat instead of the armed group on the outside.
“What the hell are they doing?” Tyler asked Dan, who walked up on his side. “Don’t they see the threat out front?”
“Not sure they care,” Dan said. “It was like this yesterday too. We tried to get out during the attack, but these two goons held us up at the door.”
“Let me handle this,” Tyler said to the group.
Dan nodded, looked at his men, then took a few steps back away from the door. Tyler wondered why they weren’t willing to stand behind him while he checked with the guardsmen outside. Just moments ago they seemed gung ho about getting out of the hospital. Now, once someone had the nerve to at least ask the men why they were being held they didn’t want to stand close.
Tyler shrugged it off and opened the door. He’d worry about Dan and his men after he had his talk.
“Back inside,” the guardsman closest to the door demanded, pointing his rifle at Tyler’s chest.
“Easy,” Tyler said, holding his hands above his head. “I just need to get some fresh air. It’s stuffy as hell inside.”
“Can’t let you do that, sir. We are under orders to keep everyone inside.”
Tyler scanned the parking lot. On the northern edge of his vision he could make out a pair of people sneaking against the makeshift barricade. They are about to get ambushed and they are more worried about us. He wasn’t sure what was going on outside, but seeing what he saw he knew keeping everyone inside the hospital had to be important. Important enough to let their enemies get into perfect positions to attack just to keep them inside.
“I have every right to be out here,” Tyler demanded.
The other soldier moved in, placed the cold steel barrel of his gun against Tyler’s cheek. “And I have every right to shoot you in the head. So turn your happy ass back around and go inside like the lieutenant said.”
Before Tyler could comply the first round of gunfire erupted, the rapid pop of automatic weaponry filled the air. The two men who had been holding Tyler up turned their attention, and their weapons to the back of the parking lot allowing Tyler a chance to get free. He dropped to the ground and crawled behind a waist-high bush on the edge of the sidewalk to get some cover.
It wasn’t so much about avoiding the gunshots as it was a chance to get away as the bushes had about as much chance of stopping a bullet as a five year-old had of stopping a Yao Ming dunk. Leaving Marcy, Dan, and the others was a small price to pay for this chance at freedom. A chance that might never present itself again. The odds were against him getting away, but he still had to try.
The two guardsmen close to the door, moved into position to join the firefight. One took up a spot behind a tan and green camouflage Humvee parked in front of the hospital while the other got behind the good. Each man took turns unloading a few rounds into the fray while the other ducked back to avoid shots.
Tyler crawled on the ground, staying close to the building, hoping nobody noticed him getting away. He reached the edge of the building and peered around the corner and noticed things on the other side of the building weren’t any better. The attack on the hospital looked to be coming from all sides, leaving the better armed, yet cornered guardsmen in trouble.
“Brave men and women of the National Guard, I thank you for keeping so many souls in one spot. For saving me the trouble, I give you the chance to drop your weapons and walk away. If you do, none of you will be harmed. If you don’t, you will perish like the bags of meat and bones you’ve been protecting.”
Tyler looked around, trying to find the source of the voice that filled the air like music at a concert. The voice seemed to come from no specific direction, almost as if it had been piped into speakers placed all around the hospital lot.
A few of the guardsmen lowered their weapons and looked to the sky, confused about the voice as well.
The lieutenant hiding behind the Humvee moved to the passenger side of the truck, opened the door, and reached inside to pull out a hand mic. He pressed the button and held it up to his lips. “I appreciate the offer, asshole, but we’ll have to decline.”
The air filled with manic laughter, causing those in the parking lot to turn their attention to the sky. “Very well. Our truce wouldn’t have lasted long anyway.”
Crimson colored clouds rose from the north, blanketing the sky the color of blood in a matter of seconds. The lieutenant dropped the hand mic, took a few steps back and raised his rifle in the air aiming it at a target Tyler couldn’t see. Part of the cloud lowered to the ground like a tiny finger stretching to touch the earth. Flames leapt from the cloud as it dropped, setting anything it touched ablaze in an instant.
The cloud stopped feet above the lieutenant’s head, hovering ominously as everyone in the parking lot watched in horror.
“What the hell?” the lieutenant said as he stared at the cloud above his head.
“Not quite hell.” A man dropped from the flaming cloud, landing on the ground a few feet in front of the lieutenant. “You’ll know the difference soon enough.”
Before the lieutenant could raise his gun at the man, he was lifted in the air. Tendrils of flame leapt from the new man’s fingers, lighting the lieutenant’s clothes ablaze. The rest of his outfit was an inferno in moments, causing the lieutenant to scream out in horrible pain as he was burned alive.
The new man laughed as he allowed the burning body to drop to the ground, filling the air with the scent of burning flesh and hair. He looked around the parking lot with outstretched arms and asked, “who’s next?”
Continued in Episode Four
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The Demontouched Saga
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p; Demontouched - The Complete Saga
Demontouched - Book 1
Fallen - Book 2
Reaper - Book 3
Vessel - Book 4
Sacrifice - Book 5
Risen - Book 6
Echoes of Tomorrow
Season One
The Demontouched Saga
Demontouched - The Complete Saga
Demontouched - Book 1
Fallen - Book 2
Reaper - Book 3
Vessel - Book 4
Sacrifice - Book 5
Risen - Book 6
The Nephalem Files
Sparked
Vampire for Hire
Dead of Night
Astraea Renata Books
Far Too Young to Die
Echoes of Tomorrow
Season One
Echoes of Tomorrow Season One: Episode Three (Echoes of Tomorrow: Season One Book 3) Page 3