by Rand, Thonas
“Goddamnit!” John barked.
He tried the door—locked—he looked up at the ceiling, it was intact. A moment later, Lauren got there.
“Shit! Where did he go?” she said.
“I don’t know, but we gotta find him!” John answered and they headed back to the main wing.
John and Lauren scanned their weapons everywhere for any sign of ‘Ceraulo’ as they descended from the second floor, but he was nowhere to be seen. At the bottom of the staircase, John decided to hang a left and go into the cafeteria. The place was deserted, no sign of Ceraulo. John walked over to the table with the stacks of patient files.
“Watch my back,” John said.
“Yeah.”
He slung his rifle over his back to free up his hands and went through the patient files, opening each one for a look at the file photo of the patient. He didn’t see anything that caught his eye, they were all disturbed strangers. He shot through them all and didn’t find anything of interest. John stood there thinking and then had an idea—he ran his hands under the table, feeling for anything and came across something that was taped to the bottom. He pulled it free and it was another patient file. Upon opening it, John and Lauren saw the photo and they recognized the face. It was the man calling himself Ceraulo.
John read his real name. “’Ben Cozine’.”
They left in a hurry.
John and Lauren appeared in the cafeteria of the main wing. “Hey! Get up! Everyone up!” John shouted.
Derek sprang up with his rifle already in his hands. “What? What the fuck!” he exclaimed.
“We have a serious problem,” John told him.
Ardent and the rest of them got up.
“What’s going on, John?” Ardent asked.
John handed Ardent the file. He looked at it and absorbed the information. “Okay, so we leave him here then,” Ardent said and handed the file to Bear.
“He got out of his cell somehow,” Lauren told them.
Reading from the file, Bear said, “He killed his own parents when his was nine, with a butcher knife. He—” Bear was disgusted by what he read. “He cut up their bodies and fed them to the family dog. He also killed a psychiatrist when he was seventeen.”
“What?” Derek said and grabbed the file from Bear and read it. “Fuck! I told you he was a sick bastard, didn’t I?”
“There’s more,” John said.
“What?” Ardent asked.
“He killed ten of the hospital staff, including the real Doctor Ceraulo,” John said. “The bodies are in the cellblock and he fed them to the patients.”
“He did what?” Milla said incredulously.
“The sick son of a bitch cut pieces out of the people that he killed and fed them to the locked up patients,” Lauren confirmed.
“Jesus,” Derek said. “We gotta find this fucker and waste him!”
“Derek, go wake up Tom and Anthony,” John asked.
“I’m on it,” Derek answered and gave the file back to John.
Derek left and Alan appeared from the basement machine shop, half-asleep. “What the heck is going on?” he asked.
“You tell us,” John said and tossed him Cozine’s file.
Barely catching it, he said, “What’s this?” he read the file, which woke him up right away. “I knew something wasn’t right about him, but I had no idea.”
“Really?” John said accusingly. “He killed several of the hospital staff, hid the bodies in the cells, and fed them to the other patients. Did you know anything about that?”
“What? No! Are you nuts! What do you think I am?”
“That’s just it, we don’t know who you are, Alan, you could be a patient here, too,” John shot at him.
Alan tossed the file back and reached for his pocket. John immediately aimed his weapon at him.
“Whoah! Go easy, I’m just reaching for my wallet,” Alan said cautiously.
“Nice and slow,” John said.
Alan took out his wallet and threw his ID to John, and they saw that he really was Alan.
“Satisfied?” Alan said defiantly.
John tossed the ID back, “Yeah, for now.”
In Joe and Maggie’s room, they were still asleep, but Joe slowly woke to the sound of everyone talking loud outside. “What’s going on?” his groggy voice asked.
He turned on a light, and sat up, rubbing his eyes and looking in the corner where Corina slept—she was gone.
“Maggie? Maggie, wake up!”
“What?” she said with closed eyes.
“Where’s Corina?”
“What!” Maggie shot out of bed and looked at her daughter’s empty bed. “Jesus!”
She got dressed and rushed outside with Joe following…
Derek walked through the front doors of the hospital with Tom and Anthony. By the looks on their faces it was obvious Derek had filled them in on the situation.
“Is it true what Derek told us about Ceraulo?” Tom asked John.
“Yeah, it is.”
“How did he do it?” Tom wanted to know.
“He must’ve done it after we left,” Anthony guessed. “That’s when the hospital staff was down to bare minimum. When we came back and they were all gone, we just assumed they had abandoned the hospital,” he concluded.
“Damn it, I gave that psycho a handgun,” Tom regretted.
“We have to find him, now,” Bear said.
“Find him and kill him, no questions asked,” Tom added.
“Then that’s the decision,” Ardent said. “We’ll split into teams. Bear and I will search the south wing, starting from the bottom. Derek and Milla, you two search from the top down and we’ll meet you somewhere in the middle.”
“Got it.” Milla said.
“Me and Anthony will take the main wing from the top,” Tom said.
“Where’s Donnie?” Anthony asked.
Before they could ponder that—Maggie and Joe stormed in—“Corina is missing! Has anyone seen her?” she demanded.
The group sounded off and told her they hadn’t seen Corina.
“When was the last time that you saw her?” Tom asked.
“Last night when I put her to bed,” Maggie told him.
“Okay, she can’t be very far, we’ll look for her as well,” Ardent said.
“Look for her as well? What do you mean?” Joe asked.
“Ceraulo isn’t Ceraulo. He’s actually one of the psycho guests here,” Derek informed them.
“Yeah, and he killed ten of the staff and fed them to the patients that he had locked up,” Anthony explained.
“Are you serious? Jesus Christ!” Joe said.
“Look, we have to find this guy. None of us are safe until we do,” John told the group.
“Maybe we should just leave now and forget about that nut job,” Derek suggested.
“No! I’m not leaving without Corina!” Maggie was set.
“We’re not leaving without her, don’t worry,” Ardent assured her. “I want you and Joe to start looking in the main building, start at the bottom floor and meet up with Tom and Anthony.”
“Okay,” Joe said.
“John, you and Lauren take the north wing. When we see Donnie, we’ll send him to help you two.”
“Alright,” John answered.
“Make sure that all of you are armed. This man, Ben Cozine, is a psychopath. You see him, shoot to kill,” Ardent told them.
“Please find Corina. She’s sick with the flu,” Maggie pleaded.
“We will,” Bear assured her.
“If you find the girl, let us know on the radios,” Ardent instructed them.
“Remember; if you find Cozine, don’t hesitate, kill him,” John said to everyone.
“I’m going with you two,” Alan said to Ardent and Bear.
“Okay, let’s go,” Ardent said.
They took off in their separate groups. Since it was still dark, flashlight beams led the way for them. Each group disappeared down a different corridor, up a
different stairwell. They went off to search for a lunatic . . . they had no idea he was watching them…
John and Lauren appeared on the first floor of the north wing, where they had been just a few minutes ago. They were quiet and rigid, with their weapons at the ready. Their flashlights scanned ahead of them, back and forth, but they illuminated no one. They continued and searched every room on the first floor before moving on to the second.
Joe and Maggie had just started searching the second floor of the main building, they were moving too fast because they weren’t professionals and they were more concerned about finding their daughter than looking for Ben Cozine. “Corina?” Maggie called out.
“Not so loud. That maniac might hear you,” Joe whispered.
“I don’t care about him. We need to find our daughter, damn you! Besides, I never did anything to Ceraulo, Cozine, whatever his name is,” Maggie said angrily as she led the way.
As they went through a string of cubicle offices, they didn’t see the dark figure behind the door they walked through. Ceraulo, aka Cozine, stood there as they walked right by him. All they had to do was check the corner behind the door. He watched them with queer curiosity. At one point, Maggie inadvertently passed her flashlight beam across Cozine’s face as she turned back to talk at Joe. She didn’t see him, even though the flashlight beam twinkled in his eyes like starlight. He stood there, perfectly still like a snake set to strike, as the flashlight glow faded from golden amber to darkness in his pupils. They moved on not ever knowing. It seemed Cozine agreed that Maggie never did anything to him.
Milla and Derek arrived at the top floor of the south wing as Derek led. Milla was very quiet; her concentration precise as she aimed her weapon at every dark corner. She knew any one of them could be hiding danger. Derek, on the other hand, moved with increasing adrenaline. He wanted to find Cozine badly. “Come on, fucker. I got something for ya,” he whispered intensely.
“Keep down the chatter. He could be anywhere,” Milla whispered.
And they kept on into the darkness…
Ardent and Bear had finished searching the first floor with Alan trailing behind them. They were headed to the stairwell to go when Ardent, who was leading, stopped abruptly at stairwell door. They all did because they heard something move somewhere behind them. A low muffled sound, as if someone shuffled papers on a desk. Ardent slowly turned and scanned the area from where he thought the sound had come. Alan was frozen in place from fear, but Bear was already on the move toward the office he thought the disturbance was at.
He moved stealthily to the office door. It was cracked open and he positioned himself to avoid being seen by coming at the door from the side. Ardent did the same and placed himself on the other side of the door. They both tried to get a look inside the office, but it was a black gash that hid everything. Ardent signaled Bear and he acknowledged his plan—they heard the movement again—just inside. Ardent kicked the door open and Bear stepped in with his rifle ready. Their flashlight beams saturated the room and scared the crap out of a large rat that was foraging on the desk. It jumped off and bolted through a hole in the wall. They eased up and saw that the rat was tearing pieces of paper off sheets on the desk, most likely for nest building material.
“You dirty rat!” Bear said startled. “Lucky little bastard, I almost blasted it.”
Ardent lowered his weapon. “Let’s get moving; we have a lot of ground to cover.”
Tom and Anthony conducted their search on the upper floors of the main building, Anthony was moving a little fast and almost right behind his brother. “Slow down a bit,” Tom whispered.
“I’m not moving that fast; you’re just moving too slow,” Anthony said back.
“Anthony, we’re looking for a maniac I gave a gun to. Slow down.”
“Yeah, okay. Good point.”
Outside, the night began its slow surrender to the approaching dawn; the horizon was golden tipped as the black night began to ease into dark blue. The sinkhole in the front courtyard continued to expand toward the outer wall, but it was still over forty feet from it. The wall would remain intact for the time being.
The street in front of the hospital gate was full of the lurching stenches, easily a couple thousand of them; bellowing and howling as they wandered aimlessly. On the next block, the remains of Hayward’s Black Hawk helicopter lay encrusted in ash and surrounded by scattered, burnt body parts. The fuselage was his tomb and the street his altar.
Directly in front of the hospital gate was what the survivors inside couldn’t see, unless they were up on the roof of the main building. Some had been up there but, even so, they didn’t notice this crucial change in the street—one of the missiles Hayward fired when he and John crashed had struck right on the manhole Ardent’s group had fled into. The explosion left behind a huge crater and exposed the sewer tunnel.
The edge of the crater was right at the hospital wall.
The blast hole was about twelve feet deep and was full of trapped corpses that had fallen into it. Almost a hundred of the beasts were in a frenzy to get out. Filled with many fast movers that were clawing their way out, they were actually expanding the hole and gaining no ground. Tons of dirt mixed in with hundreds of gallons of sewer water had created a cesspool of mud that all the fetid creatures were caked with. They dug the hole larger as they tried in vain to escape and they were already under the hospital wall.
Mindless machines that kept clawing and scratching…
Inches of dirt fell every few seconds…
They were digging into the courtyard…
On the third floor, John and Lauren had just finished searching as they headed to the stairwell to go up. John reached the stairwell door; he shone his flashlight in the landing—all clear—and walked in. Lauren was just a few feet behind him. As she got to the door and turned her back to the corridor—Cozine appeared out of nowhere and hit her on the back of the head with a handgun—then disappeared like a ghost. John heard the impact on Lauren’s skull and turned around quickly, just in time to see her hit the floor, unconscious.
John reacted; he rushed to the door, stopped, and looked around both corners for anyone waiting in ambush. Not seeing anything, he looked down at Lauren. She seemed fine, but he wasn’t sure without examining her. He slowly knelt down and checked her pulse—it was normal—she was okay, just knocked out by the blow to the back of her head where he saw bloody hair. He couldn’t help her though; he had to concentrate on the man who did this to her—Cozine was nearby—John knew that and he waited for him to make a mistake. He proceeded slowly down the corridor to where he thought Cozine might be.
He didn’t get three steps before a soft thud broke the silence behind him—John spun around with his assault rifle ready—his flashlight illuminated nothing and then he realized it was a distraction.
“Shit.”
John cut back to facing the other way, half-expecting to catch Cozine trying to sneak up on him. No one was there—the thud noise broke out again behind him—he spun back and his flashlight again, found nothing or no one.
John froze when he felt cold steel touch his neck—
There was a surgical scalpel at his throat. Even though there was little light, the stainless steel of the blade glimmered as it pressed against John’s vulnerable skin, directly on his jugular vein. Its wielder was revealed as he rose behind John like Moby Dick coming for the Captain.
It was Cozine and he slapped his other hand over John’s forehead, pulling his head back and fully exposing his neck.
“Hi, John,” his row of white teeth hissed.
John didn’t answer, his mind racing.
“Nothing to say, huh? You were such a chatty Charlie before.”
John only had Lauren on his mind because he needed to protect her. He wanted to get Cozine as far away from her as possible.
“Drop the big gun, if you will,” Cozine said.
John dropped his rifle to the floor and then stepped backward, forcing Cozine to mov
e with him, away from Lauren.
“What’re we doing, John? We dancing here?” Cozine said entertained. “I like this, we’re doing the tango!”
A couple steps later and Cozine stopped John from moving any further.
Cozine’s character changed in a heartbeat from a bubbly, happy man, to a dark psycho. “I hate the tango. Would you like to know why you’re not dead already, John? Hmm?”
“I’m dying with anticipation here,” John answered.
“Touché. I like that. Well, you’re still alive because I wanted you to know that I beat you. You tricked me to get in the cellblock, but I wanted you to know that I outsmarted you in the end.”
“You must be proud of yourself, huh, Ben?”
A shadow appeared behind Cozine; someone was there that he wasn’t aware of.
“Proud because I outsmarted you? Please, that’s a given. You’re pathetic, John. I just wanted you to know that before I cut your throat.”
“Fuck you,” John said spitefully.
“No, thank you, but I will give that a try with Lauren after we’re done here.”
Cozine tightened his arm muscles, he was about to cut John’s jugular wide open…
Until the unknown person appeared right behind Cozine—
It was Donnie, of all people; this weirdo was about to save John.
The janitor had a syringe in his hand that was filled with a clear liquid.
Donnie positioned the needle toward Cozine’s neck…
Who was still unaware of his presence because he was preoccupied with John…
Donnie stuck the needle—
In John’s neck…
DAY 24:
CERAULO and DONNIE
THE CITY OF LONG BEACH WAS COVERED IN DARK PATCHES from the festering storm clouds overhead, the sun hidden because it didn’t want to see the chaos below. Traffic was a disaster everywhere as was the city; gunfire ticked off constantly, accompanied by explosions from ongoing battles with the dead. Fires were everywhere and they gave the city a glow of perdition with smoke trailing away like numerous black threads.