“Gigantic,” she said.
“Stop it, you’ve never been more beautiful.”
The water felt so good sliding down her throat, despite the micron-size portion.
“You just locked the door,” she said. “What’s that about?”
“Just hospital procedure when there’s a disturbance. Nurse Herrick came back. Do you need anything else?”
“I’m all right for now.”
Stacie thought he seemed distracted, and she was about to ask him what was wrong, but he was already up again, heading toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m thirsty now.” He smiled, but there was anxiety in his eyes. She’d seen this before—his strong face. Hiding pain with a smile. God forbid anyone ever think a minister could have a hard day, a sleepless night.
“They had some apple juice in the Fridge,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
Adam
ADAM came up behind Nurse Herrick at the entrance to the maternity ward. The double doors were closed, and she was kneeling, fighting to slide a lock into the floor.
He stepped up to one of the small, square windows at eye level and stared down the corridor on the other side of the door.
Empty.
Nothing moving.
Linoleum floor shining dully under the ceiling panels of fluorescent light.
“Please don’t mention this to my wife.”
“You haven’t told her anything?”
“Just that there was a disturbance and we’re on a mandatory lockdown. Have you informed the other patients on the wing?”
“Yes. Well, sort of. I told them there was an outbreak in the ER, and we all have to stay put until help arrives.”
“How many in this wing at the moment?”
“I have a single mother who’s alone in her room.”
“So it’s only the four of us?”
“Yes.”
Adam pushed the deadbolts up into the ceiling and glanced once more out the window before turning to Nurse Herrick.
“Can you deliver our baby?” he asked. “If the time comes and there’s no doctor?”
“Yes.” She wiped her eyes, crying again. “I’m sorry.” Her hands had begun to shake.
“What exactly did you see down there, Carla?”
“I can’t…”
“Do you want me to pray with you?”
She nodded, and Adam took her hands in his, had just opened his mouth when a scream came rushing up the corridor beyond the doors.
It didn’t sound human.
Felt like someone had run a cold finger down Adam’s spine and he took an involuntary step back.
“What’s out there, Carla?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can these doors stop it?”
“I don’t know.”
A thunderous succession of gunshots splintered the silence several floors below.
Adam stepped toward the window in the door.
The view through the single square foot of glass was of a long corridor that extended for a hundred and fifty feet to a sitting area.
One of the fluorescent lights halfway down had begun to flicker.
A figure appeared at the far end, turned the corner, and sprinted up the corridor toward the double doors—a woman in black scrubs and white tennis shoes, her curly brown hair pulled back in a scrunchie.
Adam could hear her crying and gasping, and she’d covered twenty strides when three others ripped around the corner in pursuit, chasing her, fast and low to the ground like pit bulls.
Carla whispered, “Oh God, that’s Pam from Radiology.”
Three seconds, and they were upon her, bringing her down in a violent tackle under that flickering light, the woman screaming, pleading for them to stop.
“We have to help her,” Adam said, reaching up to retract the top lock.
The nurse grabbed his arm.
“There’s nothing we can do.”
And they stood watching through the windows as two of the creatures held Pam from radiology down while a third swiped a bone-white talon through her jugular.
A stream of dark blood rushed out across the floor and they screeched and descended upon it, lapping it up off the linoleum with a ravenous intensity as their prey’s twitches became more sluggish.
“Dear God in heaven,” Adam said.
The creatures fastidiously sucked up every drop of blood, their long, black tongues digging into the crevices between linoleum tiles.
They had human hair and human clothes, but there the similarity ended, their faces literally exploding with prehistorically savage teeth and their hands deformed into talon-like claws.
The blood was gone, like someone had spit-shined the linoleum to a high-gloss sheen, and then one of the creatures looked up, down the length of the corridor toward the maternity wing.
Adam grabbed Carla’s arm, pulled her down.
Too late—footsteps already on the way, claws clicking across the floor.
Adam and Carla plastered themselves against the door as something bumped against the other side.
Adam craned his neck and looked up, saw a nightmare face peering through the window.
He whispered under his breath, The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not—
Something crashed into the door, set the bolts rattling in their housings.
Five seconds elapsed.
Adam’s heart slamming in his chest.
It came again—twice as hard, enough force to jar them both onto the floor.
Adam reached into his shirt, came suddenly to his feet, knees like jelly, but he spun around, despite the fear, and held up a small gold cross his father had given him on the day he’d graduated from seminary.
The monster running toward the door pulled up short two inches from the glass.
Its head tilted to the side—a fleeting moment of curiosity as its breath fogged the bloodied window.
Adam pressed the cross against the glass and spoke with as much authority as he could muster, “By the power of Jesus Christ—”
The talon that punched through came within a half-second of driving into Adam’s eye socket, but he parried out of the way, the thing screaming now, trying to climb through the square foot opening, jagged glass slicing into its head, but the moment the blood began to flow, the creature was sucked back out of the window.
The two others ripped it apart amid a chorus of screams, took less than a minute for them to fully exsanguinate the creature.
When they’d finished, they crouched motionless for a moment, as if briefly at peace with the glut of blood filling their stomachs.
One of them turned and looked at Adam and Carla. It stood, then ambled over, stopping ten feet away. It wore a knee-length, floral-print dress, its blond hair still pinned up with silver barrettes.
Adam realized its black eyes weren’t looking at them. They were studying the doors, the locking mechanisms.
At length, it turned away from them, cried out to its companion, and the two monsters loped back down the corridor.
Adam looked over at Carla when they had disappeared around the corner at the far end.
“We have to barricade this door.”
He turned to head back toward the nurses’ station, but stopped in his tracks.
Stacie stood twenty feet away in her hospital gown, hands cupped around her enormous belly, a look of pure horror on her face.
Clay
“SHERIFF, Lanz wasn’t kidding. There’s a bunch of monsters in the hospital.”
He stood by the open rear of his Suburban with his cell pressed against his ear. He’d thought a few moments before making the call. Decided not to say that formerly normal people were turning into those monsters. First he had to get the sheriff on board with the simple existence of the monsters.
“Okay, Clay,” the sheriff said. “I know it’s your weekend off, so it’s okay if you started drinking early, but—”