Run & Hide

by Brett Calhoun

  “Yeah,” I nodded, “Just make sure you get that door open.”

  I handed over my dollar bill and the documents I had collected since I had arrived. I also gave Sal my empty pistol. I pulled off my shirt and set it on a dry table and walked over to the entrance to the third level. I didn’t remember much of anything from my past, but I remembered hating timed events. Sal walked over to the pump station and began turning the valve. As the water began to drain I followed it knowing I might need every second I could get. The third level was well lit despite that it had been underwater for such a long period of time. The water stopped draining at my knees so I knew that it was as low as it was likely to go. The clock was ticking so I started moving as fast as possible. The stairwell led to a forked hallway. There were no signs of which way I needed to go so I took a right and kept moving.

  I found myself in a large laundry room where bed sheets and hospital uniforms were cleaned. Across the room was a closed blue metal door. I waded over and swung the door open. I nearly screamed in shock when a bloated corpse floated out to greet me. The body looked very old, but I couldn’t tell how old due to the amount of exposure to the water. I noticed several bite marks on it, similar to the corpse on the first basement floor. I didn’t have much time to examine it though, as the water was already rising and was lapping up against my thighs. I went on through the door and found myself in another long hallway. It was a straight shot and I hoped it was the right one otherwise I’d have to make a break for the stairs again and wait to pump the water again.

  At the end of the hallway it turned and led to a red metal door. The water was now up to my waist so I kept moving as fast as I could. The door was rusted shut, but after several hard yanks I managed to wrench it open. I now saw that I was in the generator room. Everything seemed to be functioning except for a generator off in the back corner that looked severely damaged. I didn’t understand how the other generators managed to keep working while fully submerged, but I didn’t really care at that moment. I waded over to the damaged generator and lifted the lever. Power hummed on and a few sparks popped out of the top of the generator briefly.

  With my mission complete I turned around and began to wade back. Just as I was nearing the door I noticed a chunk of debris floating near me that had been behind one of the generators. After a few seconds I realized the debris was actually an alligator of all things! I began moving as fast as possible, but found that I was moving slower now that the water was up to my stomach. The alligator seemed to understand that I wasn’t fooled by its trick as it began to actively swim in my direction. I opened the red door and threw it closed and began to half-run/half-swim down the long hall. I heard the red door behind me slam open and heard a resounding hiss behind me. Upon reaching the laundry room I once again slammed the blue metal door closed and began full on swim across to the other side of the laundry room. The floating corpse stared at me silently as I fled.

  Once again I heard a metal door behind me slam open and heard another angry hiss. I looked briefly and saw the alligator tear into the gnawed corpse. Upon reaching the hallway I the water was at my neck and rising rapidly. I swam as hard as I could, knowing the stairwell was near. Just before reaching the stairwell I became fully submerged underwater. I swam under the door way to the stairwell and swam up as quickly as possible. I wasn’t sure if the alligator was still after me, but I knew that I never wanted to return to that terrible floor again.

  I pulled myself out of the flooded stairwell and walked over to the maintenance locker room. I saw the door was hanging open and drops of blood leading into the room. I slowly edged toward the door and found Sal sitting in a corner cradling a bloody hand while a large group of scratch marks on his neck oozed blood.

  “Holy shit! What happened?” I exclaimed as I rushed over to help Sal with his wounds.

  “When the power came on, I opened the door to this place as soon as possible in case the power went out.” Sal explained through grit teeth as he used a torn towel from a locker to bandage his hand. “As soon as I opened the door something rammed into me and started biting and scratching at me. The cocksucker took a chunk outta my fuckin’ hand and then dashed off up the stairs to level one.”

  “Did you get a good look at him?” I asked as I inspected his neck.

  “Naw,” Sal replied, “The thing was fuckin’ fast.”

  “Well good news is that your neck seems to be okay.” I said as I took a step back, “Looks like the scratches were only superficial. Your hand though, that might need some actual medical attention.”

  “Good thing we’re in a hospital huh?” Sal said with a pained smile.

  “Yeah, I guess we’re all sorts of lucky.” I said as I helped him up, “Let’s check these lockers to see what we can find.”

  There were only around six lockers in the room. There was a small shower area in the back of the room along with a little green table with some folding chairs for the workers to lunch at. I wondered how the thing that attacked Sal had gotten itself locked in here. What was it doing and how had it survived stuck inside. The lockers turned out to be fairly empty for the most part. There were a couple of extra sets of clothes and towels, which I decided to change into as my old pants were drenched. I put back on my shirt and now wore a pair of gray sweat pants. It wasn’t exactly stylish, but I didn’t care. The last locker held what we had explored hell for: a shotgun.

  The shotgun was an old single barrel pump-action shotgun. It only had two shells of buckshot in it and I knew there wouldn’t be any extra ammunition lying around. On the top of the barrel of the shotgun was the word “Nihilist” written shakily in white chalk. Sal and I tore and tied some of the old towels together to make a sort of sling for the shotgun. It wasn’t exactly comfortable to carry as it would sometimes bump up against my leg when I was walking, but it was better to have my hands free than to be comfortable. Sal decided to let me hold the shotgun since his hand was torn up. It was more symbolic than anything, but I let him keep the empty pistol. Hopefully we would find rounds for that as well at some point.

  After putting back on my shirt Sal handed back my dollar bill and the old papers I had been collecting since I first woke up here. The power to the second level went out just as we began to make our way to the stairs. It was inevitable, but that didn’t stop us from jumping when the power went down.

  “What’s our next move?” Sal said as he peered at me through the darkness.

  “We should link back up with Selena and Barbara.” I said, “With any luck maybe they really found a safe haven. At the very least we now have a shot at taking down that freak lurking around the main floors. If we take him down we can use his keys to get out of here.”

  “Works for me,” Sal said as he pulled out the handgun, “You lead, and I’ll follow. Just remember, that thing we let loose is somewhere above us, and somethin’ tells me that it knows level one really well.”

  I nodded even though I doubted Sal would be able to see me and began to make my way up the stairs. I could hear Sal behind me. I thought it was peculiar on how Sal held the pistol I had given him. Even though it was empty he still preferred to have it in his hands. It must’ve made him feel safer at the very least, I thought. I didn’t know Sal very well, in fact I probably knew him about as much as I knew Lee, but I could tell that Sal was scared. Sal was no twenty year old kid; he was a man that seemed that he had known his way around the world at some point. For something to scare a man like that, I didn’t want to know what kind of horror we had unleashed.

  Chapter Four: Hide & Seek

  Our return to the first floor of the basement revealed that the temperature had remained icy cold. I almost thought that it might’ve gotten colder as I saw the puddles were now frozen over somewhat. As we began to make our way back to the stairwell to the first floor I suddenly heard quick footsteps running along another aisle of storage rooms. The sound made Sal and I stop in our tracks, but just as soon as we stopped the sound of running disappeared. Sal and
I exchanged glances and I pulled the shotgun from its sling and held it at the ready. Something was breathing heavily in the dark.

  Our pace slowed greatly now as we made our way back. I was glad that Sal had dropped his used matches in easy to spot areas as it was hard to remember where we had come from. At one point we got slightly confused as to where to go and I began to look around. Inside an open storage room I saw an old blue and white baseball cap sitting neatly in a puddle with a moldy notepad neatly leaned up next to it. I pointed this out to Sal and walked over to pick up the notepad.

  The notepad appeared to be quite old and had most of its pages ripped out. The only page left was soggy from water, but still legible:

  Name of Victim: Bradley Stenseth

  -Approximate Age: 40

  -Possible cause of death: blood loss due to large bite marks covering face, neck, arms, and chest.

  -Gathered information: unknown person living in vacant storage room. All vacant storage rooms found empty with no evidence left behind.

  -Possible motives: None available at this time.

  -Recommend further investigation and comparing MO’s to other similar crimes committed in the local area.

  “Looks like a cop’s notes.” Sal observed over my shoulder in the dim light, “Stenseth mean anything to you?”

  “Yeah,” I replied thinking back to the newspaper clipping, nurse’s journal, and corpse I had found earlier, “Whatever killed Stenseth years ago is still down here and it’s with us. We need to move.”

  I pocketed the police note and continued making my way through the labyrinthine halls. Just as we were approaching a corner the light bulb above us flickered and went out permanently. I instinctively grabbed Sal to make sure nothing had happened. There were no lights nearby for me to use to navigate and if we made a wrong turn or went too far we’d surely be lost.

  “Sal, do you have any matches left?” I asked him.

  “Y-Yeah, just a second.” Sal replied with a slightly wavered voice as he pulled the matchbook out of his hand and placed it in my hand, “I can’t light ‘em properly with my hand. You better hold onto ‘em.”

  I slung the shotgun over my back again and pulled out the match book. From what I could feel with my fingers there were around four or five left. The air felt heavy around me. I felt like an animal that had stepped into a hunter’s gun sights. I snapped the match to life and suddenly found myself face to face with the most horrific thing I had ever seen. A scarred face with nasty sharp teeth and a long hooked nose leapt at me attempting to chew my very face off. I screamed and my arms blindly reached out to protect me. I felt myself falling back as my attacker scrambled to scurry around my arms to get at my face. I could hear Sal shouting in a search to find out what was going on and what to do.

  I was so close to the monster that I could see it even in the dark. Mad eyes hungrily seeking to devour my soul floated in front of me with a snarl that would terrify a starving wolf. My shotgun was painfully pinned under my back and was essentially useless. I kicked out hard and felt my leg connect with something. The evil eyes left my view for a moment, but I could hear them scurrying back. I got back on my feet just in time to hear the mad animal charge at me again with a vile scream. Some type of animal awoke in my heart and instead of falling back I charged. The monster didn’t expect that. Suddenly I was on top of him. My eyes were becoming as mad as his and my hands found their mark around its neck. It bit hard into my hand and scratched at me and attempted to buck me off, but this only tightened my resolve. Just as I thought it was weakening it spat blood in my eyes and shoved me off it. As I attempted to wipe the grime from my face it was back on me and this time I knew its madness would overcome my own. Its teeth were mere hairs away from my neck when suddenly the creature was ripped off from me completely. I heard Sal grunt and heard a wet thumping sound again and again until there was only silence. I sat in silence for a few seconds unsure of what to do.

  “S-Sal? Are you there?” I cried out helplessly to the darkness.

  “Yeah,” I heard someone say from not far from me, “I got the son of a bitch.”

  I fumbled for the matchbook in my pockets, but then remembered that it had fallen when I had been attacked. Suddenly the light bulb above me came back to life and I was greeted with a gruesome scene. Sal was hunched over the corpse of the “thing” that had attacked me. It was definitely some version of a man, but nothing I could ever imagine seeing outside of this godforsaken hellhole. Its body was bony and twisted looking. Its flesh was deathly pale and its fingers were long and bony with sharp bloody nails poking out of each fingertip. An extremely grimy and dirty tank top covered its chest while tattered cargo pants loosely covered the bottom of the creature. Its feet were bare revealing disgusting yellow nails that were cracked and ingrown. There wasn’t much left of its face. Apparently Sal had stomped on it so many times that it was now just a blob of red paste with a few bits of skull and teeth mixed in.

  “What the fuck is this thing?” I asked Sal in disgust.

  “Probably the same thing that killed Stenseth, Wallace, and his friend.” Sal suggested as he examined the body, “He kept clawing at me even after I smashed his fuckin’ skull in.”

  Suddenly I heard a phone ring close by. Sal and I traded puzzled expressions and searched for where the phone would be coming from. It turned out to be hanging on a wall in an open storage room nearby. I picked up the phone and waited for the voice.

  “Good job…” The voice hissed, “Check his pockets…”

  The phone went dead again as usual and I hung up. Sal and I walked back to the corpse and patted down the thing’s pockets. A small cardboard box was felt in its left cargo pocket. I pulled my face as far from the creature as I could while I fished out the box from its pocket. The box was flimsy and made of white cardboard. I opened it up to reveal three nine millimeter bullets rolling loosely around inside.

  “Not sure why this thing had bullets, but it works for me.” Sal said as he took the rounds and loaded them into his pistol’s magazine.

  There was nothing left on the corpse for us to use. I was concerned about the others above in the main area of the hospital. Sal and I had to have been down below for many hours and there was no telling what had been going on while we’d been gone. I found it hard to believe the masked man with the baseball bat hadn’t found a victim by now, and I also felt that he wasn’t the only threat that lurked the hospital’s halls. The broken body in front of us was proof that whatever was going on was not a one-man show.

  Chapter five: The Chapel

  Without further delay Sal and I continued to make our way back to the first floor. The rest of our time on level one went by without incident, although I still felt that there was something more down there lurking in the dark. Upon reaching the stairwell to the first floor I knew that I would never willingly go back down there.

  As Sal and I were nearly at the first floor a low ringing noise blared throughout the building. The sound made my heart drop because I recognized it as the same ring that had gone off when Ricky had died. Someone else in the hospital had just met a gruesome end. I explained this to Sal quickly and we both hurried up the stairs. The air on the first floor abruptly became warmer. Sal and I quietly hurried over near the elevator to see who would be dragged out of it this time. Sure enough the elevators sprang to life shortly after we reached a nice hiding place to observe. The elevator appeared to have been activated on the eighth floor. This caused me to sigh with relief slightly as it meant that Selena or Barbara had likely not been killed. When the elevator doors opened the masked man, we had seen before we had entered the basement, lumbered out with no cargo behind him. This was different from last time. Where was the body?

  Before I knew it the masked man had gone through the front doors and I had missed my chance to shoot him and take his keys from him. I cursed my stupidity and knew another chance would come undoubtedly.

  “Let’s get to the thirteenth floor and see how Selena and Bar
bara are doing.” I whispered to Sal before making my way to stairwell C.

  Sal and I worked our way up the stairs as quickly as possible. It took a little longer than usual as Sal and I were both no longer in perfect health anymore after our trek into the basement. I noticed that my chest was bruised up and that I had scratches all over me just like Sal had. Sal’s bite wound occasionally dripped blood and, despite the fact that we had bandaged it as best as we could, it still hurt like hell. We might’ve killed the monster in the basement, but it had made sure that we’d remember it. We were also very tired. I wasn’t sure what time it was as there were no clocks in the hospital, but I knew I’d been awake for some time. It felt like days had gone by since I’d woken up in that small room on the twelfth floor. Thinking back, I wondered how Lee was doing. Was he still even alive, or had that death bell rang for him? I pushed the concerns to the back of my mind once again upon reaching the thirteenth floor.

  Immediately upon entering the thirteenth floor I knew that there was no way that it was safe. It couldn’t be. The air was just as icy and unforgiving as the first level of the basement had been and despite how well lit the floor was, it practically pulsated evil. It was so very quiet except for the children’s lullabies being played creepily in a constant loop over the loud speakers throughout the floor. A large blood spatter was visible along a nearby wall. Fortunately, from what I could see the thirteenth floor was not especially confusing. There were several large rooms with semi-transparent walls that held countless empty blue and pink basinets. Farther down the hall were rooms for women to rest after giving birth. The chapel had to be nearby.

  As Sal and I made our way past the observation rooms for the babies I noticed another journal neatly placed on the desk of a nurse’s station. I pointed it out to Sal and walked over to pick it up. The journal was very similar to the one I found on the twelfth floor except this one was pink and much older looking. The pages were yellowed and dry with age. The owner appeared to be someone named Nurse Melissa Bulin. While skimming through the first pages I saw that she was apparently the head nurse in charge of the night shift. There was no date on the journal and the entries only included the day and month, but I assumed that it was written in prior to the 1980’s at the very least just due to how old it felt. A few of the pages were illegible, but most of the writing discussed problems with some of the nurses smoking while on shift or regular day to day issues like bills and office politics. Once again, just like Nurse Rita’s journal, the last entry seemed the most intriguing.