“How does the hospital figure in? You checking yourself in?”
“No, she’s here, Morty. Katie Vanders, queen of the top forty list, has checked herself into a mental hospital. I don’t know what that says about the sake of American music, but it is what it is.”
“You’re sure?” he asked, still not fully convinced.
“I got positive ID from the night nurse at the front desk, Morty. She got all bug-eyed when she saw the picture. Katie’s gotta be here.”
“I just worry about overconfidence, my friend,” he said. “It’s been said, a bird in a hand…”
“Morty, I think our relationship is past you giving me cheesy proverbs in a fatherly way. Yes, I know I shouldn’t be overconfident, but she's right here with no other detectives in sight. I’ve got this, everything is under contr-“
This is when I heard a deafening crash, kind of like an explosion.
I twisted my head to my left and looked out the window at the hospital, which was in the direction of the crash.
“John? John? Are you there? What was that I heard?” Morty’s voice might have well been a million miles away instead of pressed against my ear.
I stared at the hospital, not quite fathoming what I was seeing. I wasn’t even sure what it was, much less understand what type of sense it should make. All I knew was what I kept telling myself: This is bad. This is very bad.
Out of one of the west wings of the hospital erupted a pillar of bright white light. Accounting for distance and scale, the pillar must have been at least ten feet wide. It pulsed upwards and there was a high pitched whine that was audible even from where I was.
“This is bad,” I said out loud.
“What is it? John? What’s going on?”
I kept staring at that white pillar heading skywards, my mind freaking out with possibilities, my teeth grinding. In one quick second, I made a decision.
“Morty, I gotta go, I’ll call you back,” I said, not even waiting for an answer. I leaned over and grabbed my emergency bag from the glove box and jumped out of the car. I sprinted through the trees in the direction of the hospital. I wasn’t letting her get away. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but it was trouble. I needed to find her and make sure she was safe.
Halfway through the trees, I tripped and hit the ground hard. There was a sharp pain in my left ankle. I was winded too, revealing that I needed to do more exercise, more cardio at least. I cursed and gently moved my foot. The last thing I needed was a broken ankle. There was some pain, but it wasn’t strong enough for a broken bone. I probably just twisted it. I saw that an exposed root had tripped me. I slowly untangled my foot from it and stood up. I tentatively put weight on my left foot. It hurt, but I could work with it. I’d probably just be limping for an hour or two. Not ideal, but workable. The high pitched whine was more audible. I stared up again at the white pillar of light and cursed. I couldn’t run, but I limped quickly toward the hospital.
A few minutes later and I crouched at the stone wall that surrounded the hospital grounds. I carefully made my way through the brush along the wall to the gate. With a twisted ankle, I didn’t want to risk hurting myself more climbing over a wall while a gate should still be open. I didn’t know that time was running short. I didn’t know that I’d just barely make it.
I also didn’t know that being a minute or two slower probably saved my life.
Skulking through the bushes against the wall, I finally saw the gate. The brush grew in a ditch and the ground sloped upwards to where the road was as it passed through the gate. Seeing it gave me relief from both my scrambling through the brush and the scratches from that same brush. I moved toward the sloping ground, about to take a step up onto the road when I heard a different crash and laughter.
I’m not sure why the laughter affected me in such a strong way. The laughter of strangers generally doesn’t bother me. But this laughter was different. It came from deep inside its host: loud, shrill, and tinged with death. Something about this laughter touched my very basic fight-or-flight instinct, something inside me yelling, “Danger!” Without thinking I pulled back midstep and crouched in the brush, waiting.
At first, all I could hear was the beating of my heart and the rasp of my breath as I tried to calm down while my danger sense was screaming. I almost thought it was a false alarm, but then I heard footsteps and a faint chuckle. I could hear the footsteps of someone – no, someones walking across the parking lot. The next reasonable thought was that I shouldn’t be so scared. It was a night watchman, some nurses, orderlies getting off their shift, maybe some relatives of patients being turned away. It was still best I lay low, so I didn’t have to explain skulking or my curiosity about the white light. But reasonably, rationally, it was nothing to be so freaked out about. Luckily, those rational thoughts did not win out in my scared animal mind and my body tensed to run, scampering back into the trees if I needed to.
The footsteps grew louder. When I could hear breathing I knew that they were almost at the gate. My heart pounding, I held my breath to conceal as much of my presence as I could. It was just a moment later when they came into view. My eyes grew wide and I froze; I’m not sure if I could let go of my breath if I could. I’m glad I didn’t. Thankfully they walked right past me, intent on the road instead.
There were five of them. I hesitate to say that they were five people, for if I said that, I would be using the term “people” very loosely. The only one who would clearly qualify as a “person” was one who stood at the center of the pack. He walked with his back very straight, constantly lighting and relighting a Zippo lighter than he held at chest level with both hands as if it was a treasured possession. It was by the brief light cast by the appearing and disappearing flame that allowed me to see the strange smile on his face. It was by that same light that I caught brief glimpses of the other four, who I would have preferred to have stayed as silhouettes.
The largest was a goliath of a man, nearly seven feet tall when he stood straight; he never actually stood straight as he seemed permanently hunched forward. His massive arms hung down low, almost too long for a man, giving the impression of an ape. In a normal situation, this would have been the most striking characteristic of this man. However, crouched in the brush on that accursed night, what I noticed first were the spikes. From his shoulders, his arms, his back, and his bald head grew thick spikes, a foot or two in length. I couldn’t get a good look to see if these were metal pieces imbedded in his flesh or instead some type of porcupine-like spines. Frankly, I didn’t want to know. In the flash of Zippo-light, I saw rage carved into the giant’s face.
In contrast to the massive giant, there was a smaller figure that loped along on the ground. I could not tell the sex of this one, it was difficult enough to believe that they could be human. Though humanoid in structure, their slight and wiry form crawled along the ground as if a dog or beast of prey. It was not an awkward movement, like my niece when she imitated her dog at four years old, but instead the deliberate movement of a hunter. Rather than a parody of animal movement adapted to the limitations of the human form, it was instead as if their body were transformed to adapt their human form to the movements of a beast. In the brief flashes of the lighter, I saw tattered clothes and tangled hair on the feral form.
The next was an excruciatingly thin woman, almost an anorexic. Her hair was black and thick, cascading over her face and down her head. I could not see her face at all, looking more like Cousin It than anything. Her neck was sharply and permanently bent to the left, as if someone had broken it. Her hips and waist were also severely bent to the left. Somehow she could still walk in a strange lurching gait, probably to compensate for her problematic form. I could see her spine sticking out through her back and other strange angular proportions, bones sticking out where they should not.
The last seemed as ordinary as the first at a quick glance. She was just a little girl, probably not more than seven years old. She had bright red hair which grew past her waist
and was tied up with white string. She skipped along as if she were out with friends on the playground. At second glance, something was very wrong. As I looked at her, a fog rolled in on my mind, all my thoughts disconnecting in television static. The world grew darker and began to fall away, while the little girl seemed to grow bright red, almost a glowing crimson aura around her. I must have tensed up and tightened my hands in fists, because that’s the only thing that saved me. My fingers tightened on a prickly leaf, the pain distracting me and causing my attention to pull away from the girl. I must have made a sound when I pricked myself. I can’t be sure, but it did not go unnoticed.
Four of them continued walking, as if nothing had happened. It was the fifth one that worried me. The feral creature paused after my noise. Rather than follow the others, it stopped, turning back toward my direction near the gate. It padded back a few steps, slowly and carefully. It stopped, turning its head up to sniff the air.
After a moment, there was a strong smell in the air, and I knew it was from all of them, not just the feral creature that had stopped. It smelled like blood and ash, death and smoke. The scent filled my nose, so strong it felt like it burned the hair from my nostrils. The acrid odor settled into my mouth and I wanted to spit, I wanted to wretch. I wanted to cleanse myself of that smell. But I didn’t dare move. I didn’t even dare breathe, not while that feral creature was curious.
It seemed so much longer than mere moments as I held my breath, watching that creature sniff the air and look at the darkness. My heart raced, pounding in my ears. My every muscle was tense, ready to run if I needed to. The stench still stuck on my palate, saliva welling in my mouth to get rid of it. I wanted the feral thing to go, in my mind shooing it as if it were a mangy dog. But I dared not move. I knew if I revealed my presence, it would mean my death.
Thankfully, the feral thing lowered its head and shook it. It turned and trotted in a circle like a dog before galloping after its retreating compatriots. Once the sound of footsteps and occasional laughter receded into the distance, I finally breathed, gasping for air. My entire body relaxed, going slack, nearly causing me to fall back into the brush. My heart still raced, but it was slowing. Soon I could hear only my breathing and the high pitched whine of the pillar of light.
It was at this point I realized the high pitched whine from the pillar of light was changing. The whine was becoming louder and the pitch was changing. I can’t say how I knew it, whether it was an intuition or something insistent in the sound, but I knew this change to mean that bad stuff was about to happen. A smart man, a reasonable man, a very wise man would have had the sense to run away from what was making the bad sound. But I knew there was a half a million dollar girl inside that hospital and I needed to make sure she got through all this bad stuff unharmed. I ran across the parking lot for the main doors of the hospital, wincing every time I came down on my left ankle.
When I reached the doors, I saw that one of them had been removed from its hinges and left on the ground. It was also partially burned. I wanted to stop and check, but the whine was rapidly increasing in volume. I leapt over the fallen door and into the hospital. In the reception area the chairs were knocked over, magazines spilled onto the floor. I looked for the nurse behind the counter, but she was gone. The glass door to the left was shattered. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go through it. The right door was locked. Frantic, I limped up the stairs, finding a wooden door which I broke open by slamming it with my shoulder.
The whine was very loud and it sounded like it was reaching a boiling point. I was in a corridor stretching the length of the main building. I turned right and heard the loud whine from the far off wing. It was bad, but I could hear it was about to get worse. I slammed into the first door I saw, bursting into an office.
I barely got the door closed behind me before the world exploded. I was hammered by a shockwave and lost consciousness.
Four
I’ve never had a pleasant experience that started with me waking up on the floor in an unfamiliar room. Each and every one has ended badly, ranging from moderate discomfort to extreme unpleasantness. I’d like to say I had a pleasant experience, like one time back in college I was passed out after the party and when I woke up, the hot roommate who lived there took me back into her room and had her way with me, but such things have never happened to me. The best experience I’ve had waking up on the floor in an unfamiliar room involved having a splitting headache that wasn’t from a concussion and then not throwing up. Waking up in darkness on the floor of an office in a mental hospital doesn’t rank very high either.
It was dark, but in a few moments, my eyes adjusted. There was faint light coming through the windows: moonlight, starlight, something. I could see general shapes in the room, but nothing too detailed: there was the desk, there was the half-toppled bookcase, etc. My body ached and my head hurt. I remembered the blast that knocked me out. I turned my head to look at the door, turning too quickly, which made me nauseous for a moment. I was more than a few feet from the door, meaning I had been thrown across the room. I remember the whine growing louder, then everything exploded with white light, finally unconsciousness. My hurting head reminded me my consciousness was still a very new thing.
I pushed myself up against the desk. It hurt to move, but it was a dull ache. I flexed all my joints gently. No sharp, screaming pain, so nothing was broken. My ankle still hurt more than the rest of my body, but I could manage. I still carried the belief that it was not broken. Slumped up against the desk, I fumbled through my pockets. Wallet, phone, emergency bag, keys. I grabbed my phone. No signal, no power. Great, dead phone. What was that, an EMP? Or did it just get broken when I did my Superman impression across the room? I had hoped to reach Morty and call in the cavalry. No such luck.
I pulled out my emergency bag and fished around in it for the flashlight. Click-click. Yeah, that still worked. I panned the flashlight around the room and found a typical office: desk, bookcases, and papers thrown all over by the shockwave. I picked up a few papers. They seem to be patient cases, interviews, drawings. They were all scattered and confused, making them difficult to follow. The patients were documented using numbers, so patient #457 was now mixed in with interviews from patient #399. I picked up a few pages and read the interviews, using them as a way to get my mind going before moving my body and feeling all that soreness. I retained little and understood even less, but it was a comforting return to form that helped get my mind running.
I’ll admit it right now: I’m a nosy bastard. Some of it comes from my job. When you’re trying to get the dirt on a man suspected of cheating on his wife, you have to find what you can to piece together their life. Stray papers, candy wrappers, receipts – anything that paints a picture of who they are and where they spend their time. This gets you digging through office trashcans and dredging through the floor mats of the cars they “mysteriously” left unlocked. I like putting together the pieces of a puzzle to figure out who I’m dealing with. I found myself doing that in the hospital office, putting together stories about patients as well as the owner of the office. The nameplate on the desk said “Dr. Arthur Merril”, so it was a starting point.
I had a pile of discarded papers on my lap when I realized I had read everything within reach. It was time to get up and move around. I was dreading getting up, but there was no way to avoid it. I pushed off of the ground, my arms first wobbling, then holding steady. I pushed myself up then grabbed the desk to lean on. I groaned as a whole collection of muscles in my abdomen I didn’t realize I had alerted me to their displeasure. I decided to take a minute to rest, leaning on the desk. That’s about the time when the floodlights went on.
An intensely bright light switched on, streaming through all the windows, temporarily blinding me. My first instinct had me immediately crouching behind the desk, groaning as I did, but it’d save me from getting shot. Assuming someone was trying to shoot at me, which I had no reason to assume. Still, better to test my reflexes than be slow t
he one time someone was trying to shoot me. I scrambled across the floor to the wall beneath one of the windows.
Slowly I poked my head up, looking out the window. From the orientation, I could tell that this room was almost above the reception area, maybe a few offices down the hall from it. I looked out to the parking lot. I couldn’t see the trees at the moment. The light was coming from a long line of floodlights that were set up just inside the tree line. It was difficult to see due to the lights, but it appeared like there were some dark figures and maybe some cars. Cops? I couldn’t tell. With what happened to the hospital I’m not surprised that someone came to check it out. The ache in my muscles reminded me I would be very glad to see cops here. With the shockwave, there could be damage to the hospital, and therefore possible harm to Katie. I’d take the trespassing charge for her to be safe.
For a while, nothing happened. I expected them to send people in to the hospital to check for survivors, secure the area, look for structural problems, something. But they didn’t do anything. They simply waited there, watching. The longer they did nothing, the more I got a bad feeling. Why weren’t they doing anything? What happened to protect and serve? Were they really the police?
The silence was broken by the sound of something clattering to my right. The noise was outside, so I moved so I could get a good glance. As I pressed against the window, I could see that the noise came from the hospital entrance. I saw a nurse barely holding a very bloody patient up with her shoulder. The clatter came from the door they must have knocked off its hinges.
The nurse carried the patient a few steps, limping on her own wounded leg. She must have seen the line of floodlights, because she called out. “Please! We need help!”
The Lost and the Damned Page 6