by Dyrk Ashton
* * *
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 man 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 Joe. 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.
Bob is seen struggling to shove the heavy metal brace into brackets on either side of the door to the landing above the lobby. It finally slides into place and he leans on it in relief.
BANG!!! The door flies inward, flattening him. Dr. Williams drops her clipboard and her files. Sarah screams.
* * *
On the far side of the hospital, the nurse in running shoes bursts into the alley. She stops, breathing the fresh air, looking to the sky. The clouds are getting darker and it looks like rain.
She checks her phone for a signal, but has none. She runs to the front of the building and sees two white vans and a school bus parked along the street to the right. One looks like a news van, with a satellite dish and extendable microwave antennae on top. There are two men next to it—and one of them is a policeman, in helmet and sunglasses, leaning on his motorcycle.
The nurse sprints toward them. As she approaches, she hears them arguing, but in a language she doesn’t recognize. It sounds a little like French but also like German. “Officer!” she shouts.
The other man wears blue overalls with a telecommunication worker’s tool belt at his waist. He leers at her, blowing smoke from his cigarette. The embroidered patch on his overalls says Luc. He has a beard but no mustache.
“Is there a problem, ma’am?” the policeman asks.
“There are men, inside!” She points at the building. “We’re being attacked!”
“I know,” the policeman replies with a smile—a smile that flashes translucent white teeth and needle-sharp fangs.
The nurse screams, but the sliding door of the van whips open, a hand claps over her mouth and she’s dragged inside. The door slams shut, followed by sounds of a struggle, then silence.
The policeman grins at his bearded companion. “It was nice of them to send lunch, eh?”
* * *
Sarah cowers below the reception counter as Surma and Wepwawet enter the room. Kleron steps in between them and goes straight to Dr. Williams. Derek and Tod enter as well, followed by the reinforcements from the lobby, who disperse themselves throughout the waiting room. Max, Hedwig and Curt are nowhere to be seen.
Kleron comes very close to Dr. Williams, who’s trembling but stands her ground. He stares into her eyes. “Where is he?”
* * *
“Who are they?” Zeke asks, his voice unsteady.
Fi doesn’t know what to think, let alone say.
“I don’t know,” she answers, the words barely audible from her dry mouth. “They said they’re Peter’s family.”
“Really?”
She looks down at Peter, his gaze locked on the monitor, mouth hanging open, lips quivering. If only she could ask him. She places her hand on his cap. “Yeah... I need to get him to the shelter.” Still, she doesn’t move, other than to look with trepidation back to the monitors.
* * *
In reception, Dr. Williams gulps. “What do you want? Who are you?” She starts to back away but Kleron grabs her by the hair and pulls her to him.
His face is only an inch from hers, his mouth slack, their breath mingling. He tilts her head back and slowly moves his face down her neck, his lips brushing her skin, then reaches with his other hand and tears open her lab coat. Her blouse and bra come with it, leaving one breast exposed. He continues moving his face down. She takes a shaky breath, goose-bumps rising on her bared flesh.
Kleron moves back up to the other side of her face. “You stink of him,” he breathes.
Dr. Williams stutters, trying to speak.
“Tell me,” he hisses. “Where is this person you call Peter?”
* * *
Fi and Zeke watch in fright and fascination.
There’s movement on another monitor—a view of Joe, Lisa, and Billy cautiously descending the steps to the waiting room door, the one on this side of the room.
On the views of reception, Wepwawet whips his head to the door, listening. He flashes past Kleron and Dr. Williams without a word.
Fi and Zeke jump at the sound of both Joe and Lisa opening fire from their positions on the stairs.
* * *
The weapons don’t even slow Wepwawet down. He bounds up the steps, grabs Joe by the face, splatters his head against the wall and chucks his body over the railing. He reaches for Lisa—but Billy snatches her out of the way and front-kicks Wepwawet in the chest. Wepwawet soars back down the stairs to smash into the wall, cracking concrete with his back.
Billy shoves Lisa behind him and gives her the baton. “Get back upstairs.”
“But—”
“Now, Lisa.” Billy’s eyes flash red, actually flash. She backs up the steps.
Wepwawet pauses, observing Billy clearly for the first time. A wicked smile creeps over his face. His voice is gruff and deep. “You’ve cut your hair.”
