by Dyrk Ashton
Kleron points at the one with both arms. “This is Wepwawet.” Wepwawet removes his sunglasses to reveal eyes of startling primary blue.
“And his brother, there, is Surma.” The one-armed man pushes his sunglasses up onto his head. His eyes are yellow, and not just any yellow, but the color of a bright canary.
* * *
Fi observes Peter with growing concern. It’s like he’s having a minor fit of some sort. She places a hand on his trembling knee, but he takes no notice.
She’s thinking maybe she should get a doctor, when Lisa leans down and whispers, “Joe wants to see you.”
“Me?” Fi replies, confused. “Okay.” She decides that she shouldn’t leave Peter, though, given the way he’s acting.
Zeke watches as she pulls Peter’s wheelchair back from the group. Billy, who’s leaning against the wall behind Zeke, gives her a questioning look. She shrugs, trying to hide her mounting anxiety, and wheels Peter toward the security booth.
* * *
Dr. Williams thanks Emily for informing her about Peter’s visitors, but as Emily leaves her office, panic sets in. She pushes herself up from the desk, turns to the mirror above the couch behind her. It’s got to be a coincidence, she assures her reflection. No one knows about last night--but her inner voice is not so confident. It makes no sense, what she did, and she reviles herself for it, but she just couldn’t help it!
She’s felt inexplicably, irresistibly drawn to Peter since he first arrived. An old man! A patient! But there’s something so intensely sensual about him--his smell, his warmth, his whole being! When it became clear the feeling wasn’t going to pass, she tried to stay away from him. She couldn’t shirk her medical duties entirely, though, she had to tend to him occasionally. She doesn’t know why she finally lost control last night, but she did, completely. She’d gone into his room to check his chart, and it just happened!
She silently repeats, as she has a thousand times today--It will never happen again! She fixes her hair, straightens her lab coat and name tag, then goes to her cabinet for Peter’s file.
* * *
Stan drags his eyes from the disturbing gaze of Wepwawet and Surma, and clears his throat. “Each of your family members needs to fill out a form as well,” he instructs Kleron, sliding more pens through the slot.
“More forms?“
“Yes sir, and I’ll need to see IDs.”
“IDs, you say?” Kleron considers. “Let’s see...”
* * *
Fi leaves Peter just outside the booth and waits in the doorway. Her brain, always overactive and today piqued by the events of the last 24 hours, feels like it’s pinging off the inside of her skull in a mad effort to escape. Do they know what happened in the pool? Is this about Dr. Williams and Peter? Maybe they did find out about my seizure! Is it Uncle Edgar? Has something happened?!
“Hey Fi,” Joe says, pointing at the monitor where the lobby is enlarged on the screen. “These guys are here to see Peter.”
That’s it? But still... “You’re kidding.”
“Nope. They say they’re family.”
She steps up next to Joe for a closer look. “Weird.”
Joe moves a volume slider on the screen. Now they hear Kleron, as well as see him.
“I have identification, of course,” he says to Stan, “for every occasion.”
Unnoticed by Fi or anyone else, Peter grips the arms of his chair and inhales sharply.
* * *
Kleron inspects the security booth through the glass, drumming his fingers again, then looks at Shane, who now has his hands on his hips near his mace and nightstick, before turning back to Stan.
“Your dedication to the safety of the patients here is admirable--” he peers at the name on Stan’s security badge, “Mr. Stan.” Kleron’s smile is suddenly gone and his eyes become deathly cold. “But we won’t be needing any identification.” He leans close to the window, his breath forming crystalline frost on the glass. “And we certainly won’t be filling out any fucking forms.” His lips curl menacingly and he emits a shrill, clicking squeak.
Shane is just reaching for his nightstick when Surma, the one-armed fur-coated twin, bolts across the room and slams him into the door with a resounding BANG!
* * *
Bob yelps and topples over backward in his chair. Sarah spins around at the commotion. “What the hell, Bob?”
* * *
Peter jerks in his wheelchair. Fi and Joe gasp, staring wide-eyed at the screen.
On the monitor, Surma catches Shane as he slumps and tosses him away from the door. The two bearded men, Henri and Didier, pounce on him, snarling like crazed animals.
* * *
Stan reaches for the alarm on the security booth counter, lifts the plastic cover that prevents accidental activation--but before he can flip the switch the security glass crumples inward with a booming CRUNCH, a hole punched right through it, and Kleron has him by the wrist.
* * *
Fi’s hands go to her mouth. Joe gapes at the monitor. They see Kleron make a quick twist of his hand. Stan’s arm snaps at the forearm and elbow and his shoulder dislocates. He shrieks.
Kleron yanks him and the entire crackled window out over the counter and tosses them both to the floor.
* * *
In the lobby, Derek, one of the dark-haired pale young men, rushes at Stan, lifts him and slams him into the security booth door--and goes straight for his neck with his teeth.
The other pale young man, Tod, dives over the counter into the booth. He reaches up under the counter, fishes around and rips out a bundle of cables. All the lights on the panel dim and the monitors go to static.
* * *
The screens in Joe’s booth remain in operation. “Jesus Christ,” he mutters under his breath. He flips the alarm guard and hits the switch on his control panel. Nothing happens. He flicks it back and forth, with the same result. He taps a different section of the monitor. “Station Two!”
Bob can be seen in the reception booth, Sarah trying to help him up from his fallen chair. He shoves the chair out of the way and scoots to the panel on his knees, headset askew in his tousled hair.
“Joe!” Bob yells. “What the--!”
“Bob, is your alarm operational?”
Bob fiddles with something below the camera, accompanied by the sound of ineffectual clicks. He shakes his head. “No! What do you--”
Joe taps the lobby screen again, cutting him off. He picks up the handset of a phone on the counter, jabs a few buttons on the receiver, waits... “Dead.” He slams it down, turns to Lisa. “Call 9-1-1,” he shouts. “Tell ‘em we need an ambulance and police, right now!”
Lisa rushes out of the security booth, cursing and stabbing a finger at her mobile phone.
Peter stares at the monitors, still gripping his wheelchair just outside the booth, lips trembling.
* * *
Tod bounds back out of the lobby booth. Derek releases Stan’s body, allowing it to flop to the floor. Blood drips from his face, the fine white-on-white embroidery of his designer shirt soaked in red. He wipes his mouth on his sleeve.
“Well done, gentlemen,” Kleron commends them, placing a hand on Derek’s shoulder. He suddenly squeezes and Derek squeals, dropping to his knees. Kleron leans close to his ear. “Even if I am very entertaining, Derek, never, ever, laugh again.”
“Yes, Master!”
Kleron helps him up by the arm, pats him on the shoulder. “Good boy.”
* * *
Joe and Fi watch in horror as Henri and Didier rise to their feet over Shane’s mauled carcass. Blood runs down their faces and dribbles from their hands. Gobbets of flesh cling to their beards. They raise their faces to the ceiling, and let loose an unearthly howl.
“I can’t get through, no signal!” Lisa calls out, hurrying back into the booth, holding up her useless phone. “Nobody else has one either.”
Fi pulls her phone out of her pocket and Joe retrieves his. She hits a one-button
call. Uncle Edgar appears on the screen, then she hears the telltale beep-beep-beep...
Joe drops his own useless cell on the counter, glances at the view of the lobby.
The men are just standing there, as if waiting for something. Then they see what. More pale men and bearded men filing into the lobby from the street. At least twenty of them pack the room and more are arriving by the minute.
Joe checks readouts on his computer. “The entry doors are disabled but the interior is locked down. That’s reinforced steel, three hinges, double bolted. They won’t get through.”
Lisa points to a different monitor. “What about them?”
Joe taps a view of one of the stairwells. It enlarges, showing two more pale young men coming down the stairs. Unlike Derek and Tod in the lobby, these two are blond.
“Must’ve come from the roof deck,” Joe remarks. “How the hell did they get up there?” Then he adds in reassurance, “Same kind of doors in the stairwells, all secured.”
The pale blond men descend beyond the camera and Joe is about to tap the next lower view of the stairwell when a small figure drops onto the landing, wearing three filthy coats and four pairs of sunglasses. He tosses something down next to him--a body.
“That’s John!” observes Lisa in despair.
Joe curses, “Shit.”
“That’s him,” Fi says, pointing at the little homeless man.
“Who?” Joe asks, then remembers the report Stan gave him earlier. “The guy who grabbed you outside?”
“Yeah. He said his name is Max.”
Peter stares hard at the monitor from behind them, quaking in his chair. His mouth moves silently, as if trying to say something, trying to remember how to speak, trying to recall what speaking is...
On the screen, Max disappears quick as a flash, outside the view of the camera--but he isn’t on the section of the monitor above, which shows a higher view of the stairs, or the one below.
“Where’d he go?” Lisa asks.
Fi, Lisa and Joe all jump as Max’s face appears right in front of the camera, which all of them know is placed in a high inaccessible corner of the stairwell. Max moves his head to inspect the camera through different lenses of his multiple pairs of sunglasses--then his face thrusts forward, mouth open, covering the lens. The stairwell monitor goes to static.
Joe rages in frustration, “God dammit!”
* * *
Kleron looks over the group in the lobby. He says something very calmly, in a language that Joe, Fi, and Lisa, who are listening upstairs, have never heard--because it hasn’t been spoken in a thousand years--not by human beings.
Wepwawet, the fur-coated twin with both arms, shoves past Henri and Didier to the door where Shane stood guard. Surma steps aside. Wepwawet jams one hand through the wire reinforced glass of the small window, grabs the handle with the other, and wrenches the massive steel door right out of the frame.
The others duck as he swings back around and flings it across the room at one of the security cameras in the corner.
* * *
In reception on the second floor, a section on the lobby monitor erupts in static.
“Fuck!” Bob is still on his knees, hands on the edge of the console. Behind him, Sarah stares at the monitor, one hand on his shoulder, the other to her mouth.
* * *
Joe glares at the screen. “Fuck!”
People are beginning to gather outside the booth. Zeke has stopped playing and come over to stand behind Peter’s wheelchair, trying to see the monitors.
Fi jumps as Billy knocks on the booth window. He holds his palms up and mouth’s, “What’s up?” He must have missed the action on the monitors. Fi shakes her head. He heads for the booth door.
Joe lunges from his chair and goes to the door, arriving before Billy. He spots a young nurse in running shoes, the same one who was talking to Billy earlier. “You! Go out the side emergency exit!”
She points to herself. “Me?”
“Yes you!” Joe commands. “If we’re lucky it’ll sound the alarm. You have a phone?”
She answers reluctantly, “Yeah.”
“See if you can get a signal outside and call the police. If not, find someone who has a phone that works. Flag down a car if you have to! Go!”
She runs to the door at the far end of the room.
“Everyone else, stay calm,” he says. “Get these people back to their rooms, now.” They just stand there. “Move!”
The staff hustles to their patients--except for Billy, who remains uncharacteristically silent near the door, one hand resting on Peter’s shoulder, the other fingering his necklace.
Joe comes striding back into the booth, snatching his keys from his belt. He opens a long panel on the back wall that looks like the cover of a breaker box, presses a series of numbers on a keypad on another door behind it, and tugs it open. It’s a gun safe. Lisa steps up next to him.
Joe pulls out a couple of 9mm pistols, hefts them, puts them back, then retrieves an M4 Carbine assault rifle and a Kel-Tec KSG bullpup-style shotgun. He hands the rifle to Lisa, who takes it with hesitation.
“Joe,” she says, “Who are those guys? What--”
“Don’t know. Don’t care,” he snaps back, checking the shotgun to make sure it’s loaded. “Get your soldier pants on, Corporal. They’re hostiles, that’s all that matters. We’ve got men down, no backup in sight, and civilians in danger. You’ve been here before.”
Lisa sets her jaw. “Yes sir.” She releases the clip on the assault rifle, checks it, slaps it back into place and actions the bolt.
Joe drags another screen up beside the image of the lobby. In one window they see the group of attackers funneling through the torn open door, on the other, the first of them are already moving past the elevator to the stairs to reception. Joe hits another section of the screen and Bob is there, sweating profusely.
“They’re on their way to you, Bob.”
“I can see that!”
“Secure that door, right now!”
“Okay, Okay!”
On screen, Bob scrambles to his feet and off camera. Joe turns to Fi. “I want you to take Peter down to the shelter, alright?”
Fi looks at Peter, trembling in his chair. “Why would they want Peter?” She asks the question of herself as much as Joe.
“No idea,” Joe answers. “Just get him to the shelter, and don’t open it for anybody you don’t know, got it?”
Fi nods, “Alright.”
Joe pats her on the arm and heads for the door. “Billy, go with her.”
Billy steps in front of him. “I’m going with you.”
“No, you’re not.”
Billy stands straight, squaring his shoulders. He makes Joe look small. “Yeah, I am.”
“Billy, don’t,” Fi protests. “You didn’t see what they--”
“If my people are getting hurt,” Billy cuts in, “I’m gonna hurt back. That’s how we do it where I come from.”
Joe regards Billy’s stern expression and massive physique. “Okay, but stay behind us, and if shots are fired, get the hell out.”
“Got it.” He steps aside for Joe to pass.
Zeke addresses Joe, his voice unsteady but resolute. “I’ll go with her.”
Joe puts a hand on his shoulder. “You’re a good man, Zeke. If I were you I’d run like hell.”
Zeke’s eyes find Fi and he swallows hard.
Lisa hands Billy her baton. “At least take this.”
Billy hefts it. “Thanks.”
Fi strides to him and takes him by the arm. “Billy, what are you doing?”
“Hey, remember?” He leans close. “The only thing I like better than suckin--”
“Yes!” she interrupts. “I remember, but--”
“I’ll be fine. You just get yourself and your old buddy to the shelter, okay?” He slaps the baton into his palm, smiles his ornery smile, and follows Lisa.
Fi watches through the glass as they round the booth and join J
oe. Billy holds the door for Joe and Lisa to enter the hall to the stairwell that leads down to reception. He waggles his fingers at Fi in a wave, and she offers a reluctant wave back. He gives her the thumbs up and enters the hall.
Zeke pushes Peter in next to Fi in the booth. They both watch the hallway door close.
* * *
On the other side of the door, Billy’s face goes flat. His buoyant charm is gone. He saw everything on the monitors. All of it.
* * *
Dr. Williams comes down the hall from her office carrying a clipboard and file folder. The door to Sarah’s booth bursts open behind her.
“Out of the way!” Bob shoves past, carrying a metal brace and pushes through the door to reception.
Lost in her own thoughts, Dr. Williams catches the door and follows him through. Sarah’s standing behind the counter.
“Are they here?” Dr. Williams asks, oblivious. “The people to see Peter?”
Sarah just stares at her.
* * *
Surma and Wepwawet have reached the landing outside of reception. The two pale blond men, Hedwig and Curt, whom were seen on the upper stairway cameras, are there as well. The door from the stairwell hangs broken open behind them.
Kleron joins them from the steps below. He glares at the blond men. “What took you?”
Max creeps through the stairway door, humming a carefree lullaby and dragging the body of John the security guard.
Hedwig jerks a thumb at him. “He stopped for a snack.”
“And you?” Kleron asks.
Hedwig shrugs. “He wouldn’t share.”
Kleron shifts his attention to the little homeless man. “Leave it, Max, will you please? There’s plenty where that came from.”
Max offers a little bow, says, “As you wish, Master,” then tosses the guard back into the stairwell, and grins.
* * *
Fi and Zeke watch the last of the staff and patients leave through the door at the opposite end of the recreation room. Peter shakes in his wheelchair below them.
Fi can’t resist turning back to the monitors. She reaches a trembling finger to the screen, raises the volume on two opposite views of the combined reception area and waiting room.