We Are Monsters (27 page)

Chapter Fifty-Three

The hallway was empty. Alex couldn't hear a sound. That was wrong. The corridors of Sugar Hill were never silent. They were always buzzing with people bustling about, the babble of conversations, the occasional shout or incoherent rant. Even at night, with the skeleton staff, and the patients all asleep, there was more noise than this.

The whole hospital must be stuck in the same state of hypnosis,
Alex thought.

Alex started forward, more slowly than he'd intended. He couldn't help it. He was shaken by his experience and spooked by the silent emptiness of the hallway. And, now, as he tread forward, he was confronted with a new sensation, one more disturbing than anything before.

It felt as though nothing beyond his peripheral field of vision existed. Like the hallway behind him had ceased to exist as soon as he had taken a step forward.

He turned, mentally reprimanding himself for giving in to such a ridiculous fantasy. Still, he exhaled in relief to find the hallway still there, along with the door leading back to the boardroom.

But now he felt certain that the hallway behind him had disappeared. That the material world had been reduced to what lay in his immediate field of vision. He was sure that right now there was nothing behind him or beyond the boardroom door. Not now, anyway. If he were to open the door it would all return, but that would be because he
saw
it into existence. Manifest reality had become limited to what he could see, and he was the only one in it.

You're losing it,
he thought, turning back around and continuing down the hallway, feeling like the only thing holding the world together was the power of his sight.
Fuck losing it. Whatever there was to lose, it's already gone.

He came to the intersecting hallway at this corridor's dead end. He looked both left and right. Each direction was empty.

The main nursing station was to the left so he went that way, expecting at any moment to hear voices, footsteps, anything. But all he heard was the squeaky shuffle of his rubber-soled shoes sliding across the linoleum floor.

No one was attending the nursing station. He stood still and cocked his head, but didn't hear a sound.

“Hello?” he said in a voice just above a whisper. It sounded shockingly loud. He still felt like the world just beyond his field of vision was nothing but empty space. Like his ass was facing infinity and if he farted it would be into a black hole.

If you fart into a black hole, does it smell?

Hold it together, now.

“He-llo-o,” he said musically, turning it into a three-syllable song. He felt silly. He felt like he was being pranked. But he felt like acting immature was somehow better than being afraid.

He rapped his knuckles on the laminate countertop and the hollow knocking seemed to be the only sound left in the universe. He now felt sure that the absence of people somehow extended beyond the hospital walls.

He stood up on his toes and leaned over the countertop to see the workstation beyond it. It looked like it had just been vacated. The computers were still on, cycling through pictures of cute kittens. He saw cans of soda scattered about and a half-finished cup of coffee. Alex walked around the counter and picked it up. It was still warm. Almost hot, in fact. It hadn't been abandoned for long.

Something was seriously wrong. No, that was an understatement. Something catastrophic was happening. And it was unfolding at this very moment.

Whenever you think things can't get any worse,
Alex thought,
the world around you disappears.

Alex heard something. It sounded like the rattling of a patient's bed, coming from one of the rooms farther down the hallway. Then he heard it again—the metallic clank of bedside braces being shaken. It sounded like it was just three doors down.

He flew forward, was at the door without feeling like he had taken a step. He turned the knob and entered.

The patient in the bed was pale and gaunt, yet beautiful, but Alex couldn't recall having ever seen her before. She was struggling with a nurse who was standing bedside, trying to restrain her arms. The patient turned her head when she saw Alex walk in and cried out, “No! I need to get out of here! I can't do this again!”

Alex could only see the back of the nurse struggling to restrain her. He couldn't tell who it was.

He approached the bed. The patient bowed her back and bucked her legs, the bed jerking across the floor, but she couldn't break free of the nurse's grasp. She stopped struggling for a moment to recoup her strength.

The nurse turned towards Alex. The sight of her stole his breath. She was covered in scar tissue, the stretched and ravaged sinew of burned skin. Her pale face lacked pigment, giving it a ghostly appearance; she didn't have lips. Her nose was nothing but two breathing holes, and she had nubs for ears.

He now saw that she was bald under her nurse's cap. And her skin, every inch of it, was a tortured map of gleaming texture, as though she had been turned inside out. He looked into her eyes and saw that they had the same vacant, distant stare as the people back in the boardroom. Then he realized they were fake.

Her voice was a charred rasp. “Help me with her.”

“No!” the patient screamed. “I can't go through this again!”

Alex couldn't move. He felt like he had been paralyzed, his body numb from the neck down. The face staring at him with those sightless marble eyes was a nightmare. A mouthless amoeba in human form. He felt less threatened by the patient than the disfigured thing before him.

“Step back. Let her go,” he said.

Was her skin oozing?
Oh God. It looked like it was.

The nurse was facing him, but her eyes peered up and to the left—one more aslant than the other. “She's just in shock. It will pass soon,” she rasped.

“I'll handle it,” Alex said, and stepped in between the burned nurse and her patient. His arms touched her skin and it felt rubbery.

She stepped back and out of the way.

The patient stopped resisting as soon as Alex took hold of her arms. They were cold, unnaturally cold—
corpse cold
—despite the room being warm. He frowned, and looked over his shoulder at the nurse. His frown grew more severe.
How can she see?

“What's going on here?” Alex asked.

The patient's eyes were roaming wildly. “Don't listen to her, she's not a real nurse. I need to get out of here.”

Alex ignored her. He slid his hands down her icy arms towards her hands, maintaining a firm grip. He suspected that the patient was telling the truth, but didn't want to spook the probable imposter while his back was turned. “I've got the situation in hand now,” he told the nurse. “I have something else I need your help with. I need you to go get the head nurse.”

His hands kept sliding down until he reached the patient's wrists. He cupped them and turned them over, feeling the soft underside with his fingers. He couldn't find a pulse. He shifted his grip and waited.

“There is no one else,” the nurse said. It was as though her lungs were clogged with smoke. He was surprised she wasn't coughing.

Alex sighed in frustration. “I mean it. We have a situation that I need help with. Now, go get me someone senior on staff. I don't care who it is.”

Alex dug his fingers deeper into the spot on the patient's wrist where the radial artery runs. He couldn't feel a thing. He looked at the patient closely for the first time, now noticing the extreme paleness of her face, the bluish tint to her lips, the fine network of purple veins that blemished her temples and spidered down her neck. He looked into her eyes. They were milky with cataracts.

“Please don't hurt me,” she said. She didn't appear to be breathing. Her chest never rose. Alex let go of her wrists and began backing away.

The nurse followed him with her head. Her marble eyes searched the ceiling. “We need to find Eli,” she whispered in her scorched voice. The skin at the corner of her mouth split slightly and clear fluid dribbled out.

The patient sat up in bed. “Eli's here?”

“What do you want with Dr. Alpert?”

The patient turned to the nurse, her opaque eyes opening wide, her blue lips expanding into a delighted smile. “Oh thank God. Eli. I get it now.” She turned back towards Alex, “Can you take us to him?”

“I, uh…” Alex stammered, backstepping towards the door.

The lights dimmed, and a low hum began as if the electrical power was being drained. A tortured howling came from down the hallway—guttural and inhuman. It was nothing like the caterwauling so common among the patients. This was the sound of an animal—some beast—either angry or in pain.

“Please. You must help us,” the nurse said, walking towards him. He couldn't tell whether or not she looked scared. Her face was incapable of expression. Shadows writhed across the indentations in her skin.

“I'll go check it out,” he said, scrabbling backwards, feeling exposed as he turned to open the door.

Alex stumbled out into the hallway. The door shut behind him. He was breathing hard as he watched it, waiting for it to open, but it never did.

Yes, something was seriously wrong.

It's like a dream within a dream,
he thought. He heard the guttural howl again, closer and coming his way.
But I think I prefer the other one. At least my brother was there.

He saw a long shadow emerge at the far end of the hall, preceding whatever form it was cast from. It had long, ropy arms and a hunched back with a thin neck stretched forward. Its disfigured head grew up the wall, appearing to turn and look his way, as if of its own accord.

Alex turned and shuffled forward in a facsimile of a run. It was like his legs had been frostbitten. They were stiff and moved at odd angles. The walls reverberated with the guttural growl of the beast behind him.

The turn was over ten feet away. There was no way he would make it there in time. His shoes were slapping and squeaking against the floor, his legs pistoning as fast as he could pick them up and put them down, but his pace was painfully slow.

Then he heard its voice. But it wasn't at all what he'd expected to hear. It was a woman's voice, soft and somewhat scratchy. “Hey!” she cried. “Wait! Stop. Wait for me!”

He slowed and peered over his shoulder. A woman had emerged at the far end of the hallway, in the spot where the long shadow had appeared. The distance was too great for Alex to see her clearly. The lights were too dim, and growing dimmer still, so he could no longer see her shadow.

Her shadow? It couldn't have been hers.

But she appeared to be slender and young, somewhere in her mid thirties. Despite not being able to clearly discern her features, he could somehow make out the color of her eyes—a pale and penetrating blue—the color of a frozen pool. Her eyes seemed to precede her face somehow, like cold candle flames held out to see through the fading light.

Alex turned, walking backwards. The woman was walking at a regular pace but appeared to be gaining ground at an impossible rate. It was like she was on a moving sidewalk, while he was standing still.

“Are you a doctor?” she yelled. “I need your help.” The lights flickered and faltered. Her eyes flashed like sun on ice. She was halfway up the hallway now, moving much faster than her gait should allow.

He was not going to make it. She was going to be upon him in just a few more of her exponential steps. He saw her more clearly as she grew closer. She was ravishing, but also severe. Her face honed into sharp angles with a pinched, needy expression. It was like she was fighting to stay composed, resisting the urge to launch forward.

Alex spun around. He slipped and almost fell, saving himself by bracing his hand on the floor. There was a patient's door just up ahead on the right.
Safety,
his mind was screaming.
I need to get somewhere safe.

The woman did not make a sound. He couldn't tell how fast she was approaching. He knew she had to be just a step or two behind him.

Alex lunged forward and grabbed the doorknob, swinging it open and spinning inside. He slammed it shut and leaned his weight against it, hoping to keep it closed.

A woman screamed. Then, still excited, said, “What's wrong?” The voice came from behind him, from within the room.

He didn't think his heart could take another shock. It was already past its maximum RPM.
Fine, kill me. I'll take a heart attack over this.

He squeezed his eyes shut, hoping that whoever was in the room with him would simply go away.

Then, he heard a man's voice. This one easier to recognize. “What the hell's gotten into you, son?”

The woman with the icy-blue eyes had not attempted to open the door. He couldn't tell if she was on the other side of it or not. He turned his head, keeping his body pressed against the door, to look within the room.

It was impossible. He was back in the conference room. There's no way this door could have brought him here. Angela was next to Eli. It looked like she was trying to wake him. Bearman was pacing along the right side of the room by the wall. His shirt was so sweaty now it was see-through, revealing a matted pelt of curly, black hair. At least he now had his sleeves rolled up.

Alex staggered, his legs nearly giving out. “How did I get here?”

Angela and Bearman exchanged the same confused stare before directing it back his way.

“Come again?” Bearman said, looking annoyed.

Angela looked afraid. “Who's out there? What are you running from?”

The others in the room all remained catatonic.

“Whatever's going on,” Alex said, and swallowed, trying to catch his breath, “it's going on out there as well.”

Alex pointed back towards the door. “Something's taken over Sugar Hill.”