Lightning sped across the sky and for a second Collin and Leann both saw the outline of a large gothic like building up ahead.“There it is,”he said,“we’re close, but the ash is too thick. I’m gonna have to get closer. Maybe too close!”He paused for a second thinking about what to do. He looked back at his little van, it was nearly out of sight drifting in and out of view through the murkiness. Another lightning bolt ran across the sky, he span around just in time to catch the illuminated outline of the hospital again as it faded back in to the dirty snow, hidden.
Thunder rumbled, booming loudly from all directions bouncing off the dead trees on either side. He carried on trudging through the bizarre mix of ash and snow, and as he got closer, the basic outline came in to view and stayed there. A giant black silhouette appeared with dozens of chimney stacks along the roof that had what looked like turrets on some of the corners.
“Wow! Some hospital eh,”said Collin and Leann nodded as they heard another bang that was followed by a strange noise.
Leann sucked air between her teeth,“What was that?”she asked, and as if the guy filming the video heard her, he said,“That’s the strange gurgling kind of sound people keep making: the ones with the ash sickness. Things have calmed down from this morning, I couldn’t get near the place, I wouldn’t dare. I didn’t need to get too close to know what was happening. They were all fighting each other, fighting like maniacs. I could see patients and doctors through the windows, lots of them, probably all of them, and they were attacking each other! I know how that must sound. I still can’t get my head around it!”
“They were biting, kicking, punching and swiping at each other. There were screams coming from everywhere. I managed to use the zoom on the other camera and I caught a glimpse of a group of people around a hospital bed.”The reporter’s voice became very high pitched as he struggled to continue, and he blurted,“They were fucking attacking the person tied down on the bed!”
Leann looked at Collin with a raised eyebrow,“Really?”she said.
Collin shrugged his shoulders.
The reporter took a few deep breaths then cleared his throat before he continued.
“Then one of them must have seen me because they started to run after me, every last one, and some of them were even naked! They looked like they’d been playing in the damned snow. They were black and grey from head to toe. Discoloured like the trees.
Thank God I was far enough back to make it back to the van without being caught. I don’t know what they would have done if they’d caught me. I think they’ve gone insane!”
“Then all last night there were screams ringing out through town and that weird gurgle sound the discoloured people keep making, the ones with the ash sickness or whatever it is, and it sounded like people were being attacked. All around town. All night long. It was terrible. I felt completely helpless. I still do!”
“It was worse than reporting from Bosnia with mortar shells going off all around you, and bullets whizzing past your head. It really was. At least over there you knew what people were fighting for. The sick people are an unknown.”
Another thump sounded nearby and then a gut wrenching scream rang out!
The reporter flinched and hunched down low.
“Oh shit!” he said as glass smashed somewhere.
He scurried forwards still crouching and as he got closer, the hospital became clearer.
Broken windows littered the giant building and one of the heavy looking thick wooden front doors had split from the frame and hung at an awkward angle in the doorway.
“Jeez!” said Leann,“look at the place! It’s been wrecked!”
There was an ambulance sitting outside with the driver’s door open.
The camera zoomed in on the ambulance focusing on the driver’s door. They saw that the door glass was shattered. There was a spider web of cracks spreading from one side to the other and from top to the bottom. There was a bloody mark in the centre of the spider web with a mark that ran down the glass and over the white door until it finally dripped of the bottom of the door on to the ground. The camera panned down and the dirty snow under the door almost glistened.
“Blood!” said the reporter.
He panned along following what looked like a trail that led away from the open ambulance door and the bloody mark like a stain in the already dirty snow.
It looked like something had been dragged away from the ambulance.
The mark disappeared at the foot of the front steps. There was another loud bang much louder than any before.
“Shit!”said the reporter and the camera shot up to the row of windows on the second floor.
There was another bang, followed by a fast rattle. The camera shot across to another window on the next floor up, this one wasn’t broken, yet. The reporters’breathing was loud and uneven.
A deafening scream rang out making the reporter swear. Collin and Leann both jumped. Leann looked at Collin and chuckled nervously. The reporter lost sight of the window for a moment as he moved. The view on screen darted across the front of the hospital until it found that third floor window again and as he did something moved inside the room, in the darkness.
They all saw it.“Shit!”said the reporter,“Oh shit, shit, shit! It’s still going on!”
Leann looked at Collin puzzled.“What was, uh, did you see that?”she said.
“Yea,”said Collin answering slowly fixated the screen. It moved again.
“Oh Christ!”said the reporter. The camera was shaking in his hands. There was another bang and this time it repeated, then again, and again.
“What,”started Leann when a shrill scream suddenly drowned everything out.
The reporter ran over to the cover of the trees slipping and sliding, nearly falling a couple of times as he did. He crouched down beside the trees semi hidden still watching, focused on that window.
The screams continued, it sounded like two people were screaming not just one.
The banging continued over and over, frantic!
“OH God! I have no idea what’s happening in there, but I think that two people are in there and I think they’re trapped!”
“God help them if it’s anything like I saw earlier!”
“What the hell is going on?”said Leann.
There was a flurry of movement behind the window. Black silhouettes moved across the black room, the banging and rattling intensified and a strange guttural gurgling noise rose up joined by an almighty creaking cracking sound!
“That’s that sound again,”said Leann.
Suddenly a blonde woman was flung backwards against the window. Leann and Collin both flinched. The blonde woman was in a nurse’s uniform, she was pressed hard up against the window, something dark curled around her neck.
Then she was gone pulled in to the room, in to the darkness. High pitched frantic screaming poured from the iPad’s speakers joined by the gurgle, almost overpowered by it!
Someone started shouting.“NO! STOP! STOP IT! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WHATS WRONG WITH YOU?”
Another nurse appeared at the window. This one had dark hair, she banged at the window trying to break the glass, her forearms were bleeding badly, blood smeared across the glass as she bashed at it. She managed to crack and then break the window. It was old brittle single pane glass and it split in to two large shards, she was absolutely hysterical grabbing and pulling at the broken glass with her bare hands slicing herself to ribbons! Leann winced at the thought and balled her own hands in to fists. A darkened arm wrapped around her waist similar to what had happened to the other nurse.
It pulled her away violently. As she disappeared from view she dislodged a fragment of glass from the window and took it with her.
“They’re fighting for their lives up there,” said the reporter as the banging and crashing continued amongst the hysterical screams and strange guttural sounds.
“I don’t think I can watch this,”said Leann,“I thought it was real news you know, not some homemade horro
r film, shit! I don’t like horrors.”
“Yea, it’s gotta be a spoof,”said Collin still fixated on the screen.
The dark haired nurse reappeared in the window her hands in tatters, bright red with her own blood. The blonde one appeared by her side and seemed to be kneeling, it was clear her neck had been badly wounded, her head was cocked over to one side and blood ran down over her shoulder. They pushed and pulled at the window frame together trying to break the cross member.
“I wish I could help them,”said the reporter,“maybe if they could jump on to the ambulance’s roof, then down to the ground I might be able to get them to the van and get away.”
There was an almighty crash, both women spun around to look then spun back to the window and carried on trying to dislodge the cross member. The look on their faces as they turned back was of sheer terror! The dark haired woman jumped without hesitation. Leann gasped!
“Holy shit!” said the reporter as the woman took the plunge.
She landed with a bone crunching thump between the ambulance and the hospital’s mangled front doors. The reporter gasped and then kept whispering,“Please be alive, please be alive, oh God please be alive!”
She lifted her head.
“Oh yes,”he said,“thank you God. C’mon lady, crawl.Crawl!”
He panned up quickly and Leann snapped her head away.“Oh my God!”she said. The blonde haired nurse was drooping over the window ledge like a rag doll: she looked dead. But then her body jerked! Collin flinched. It jerked again then fell limp; it was like someone was trying to pull her back in to the room. Then she began to shake, only slightly at first but then building up until her body was shaking wildly. Collin thought she looked like she was having an epileptic seizure. Then he saw a river of blood appear, it ran along her back from a wound somewhere out of view. It ran between her shoulder blades along her neck and in to her hair where it found its way over her scalp to her forehead, then dripped to the ground with nowhere else to go.
The camera shot down to the nurse on the ground, she was trying to crawl.
“Shit woman hurry up!”said the reporter still whispering. He looked back up again at the other nurse and caught a greyish black arm reaching out from the room. It grabbed her shoulder!
Collin gasped with Leann this time.
“That’s an infected hand,”said the reporter.“That’s what they look like when they get the ash sickness!”
It paused on her shoulder for a second before reaching over to her neck wound.
The dark fingers picked at the torn flesh digging under the torn skin.
“Ugh! What the hell?”said Collin, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
The hand slid back to her shoulder again and grabbed on and started pulling her back in to the room. When the nurse was pulled so far back her torso was pulled upright and leaned against the inside of what was left of the window. She almost looked like she was looking out the window for a second. Then a dark figure appeared beside her, emerging from the darkness!
“Holy shit!” blurted the reporter.
The figure leaned in close against her, it almost looked like it was sniffing her.
The reporter let out a heavy breath,“Oh no!”he said.
The figure moved towards her bloody face leaning in close almost like leaning in for a kiss!
“It looks burnt,”said Collin transfixed.
“Charred,”Leann added stealing a glance.
The figure moved its body away from the nurse slightly but kept its head close, up against the side of her face. For a moment the two rocked back and forth together.
Leann said,“What’s going on? What are they meant to be doing?”
Collin shrugged his shoulders confused and then gasped as the burnt looking figure pulled its head away from the woman with her cheek clamped between its teeth!
“Oh my GOD!”gasped Leann.
The nurse’s skin stretched like a taught rubber band before tearing and ripping free as the figure tore her cheek off exposing her teeth and gums beneath! Her flesh quivered hanging in the figures mouth as it started to chew!
Collin had his hand over his mouth.
Leann turned away saying,“I’m not watching any more, it’s a hoax or something, this isn’t real, it’s stupid, I want real news!”
Collin could clearly see the things sinuous jaw muscles working trying to break up the flesh. It let the nurse go and she flopped back down over the window sill dangerously close to falling out and Collin could see where the river of blood that ran down her back had come from, there was a gaping wound that stretched to either side of her hips. Collin thought it looked like she’d actually been dug out. Then all of a sudden still chewing, the figure thrust a hand deep in to her side. Her limp body shook and the momentum carried her all the way over the side and she fell to the ground in a heap of entwined limbs leaving the blackened figure standing there for an instant with quivering flesh in its mouth and a clump of muscle tissue and body fat in its hand before it backed up and disappeared back in to the room!
Collin sat there stunned, it looked so real, he thought,but it can’t be, it just can’t be,he thought.
The reporter gagged. Leann heard and asked what had happened still looking away.
“You don’t want to know,”said Collin as she turned back and looked, curiosity getting the better of her. The camera zigzagged for a second until it found the crawling woman on the ground.
She’d stopped crawling and was curled up in the foetal position.“Shit!”said the reporter.”C’mon lady, please keep going, keep crawling,C’mon! C’mon! C’mon, don’t give up now!”
He looked back up, the window was empty, he looked back down again and zoomed in as far as he could before picture distortion became too much of an issue. The curled up woman was still breathing, her breaths were very shallow and weak but her chest was still rising and falling, but she was already becoming hard to see through the wafts of ash enveloping her as she lay there.
The reporter pleaded,“Oh no, c’mon, not another one, please God what did we do to deserve this, what’s happened to us? What’s happened to the human race?”
He willed her to move, to carry on crawling as he filmed her, begging for her to start moving again. There was a flurry of movement behind her. The reporter saw it and redirected the camera.
The movement was happening beyond the front door, inside the hospital. As the reporter worked the focus Collin made out a jostling movement in the darkness behind the hanging door.
“Is that more of the charred....”said Leann as the door slammed to the ground sending up a waft of dirty snow as a stream of darkened charred looking figures poured out!
“Oh!”said Leann flinching.
The camera shook wildly.“Oh shit!” said the reporter.
“What the hell,”said Collin,“there’s loads of them!”
A strange sound rose up coming from them; it was the gurgle like sound. The nurse on the ground heard them and tried to look, she suddenly stretched out wincing and yelping with pain as she forced her damaged body to move. She started crawling away desperately clawing at the ground in front of her, dragging herself forwards with tears running down her face.
‘She’s not moving anywhere near fast enough if she’s trying to outcrawl the shadow figures’thought Collin.
The reporter thought the same, he constantly willed her to move faster, to hurry up.“C’mon! C’mon! C’mon!” he repeated over and over.
The dark figures were almost camouflaged by the dirty snow, they moved closer. Collin was certain they were getting faster the closer they got to the woman.
“You’re not going to make it,”said the reporter,“Sorry!”
The view suddenly became erratic, the screen bounced around in all directions. Collin could hear the reporter panting heavily and cursing.
“He’s running,”said Collin. It was hard to watch as the screen darted all over the place, it did gradually settle in to one steady swinging movement as t
he reporter ran from the scene but it was still hard to watch, everything flashed passed, they caught glimpses of the van, then a blur of grey as the camera swung with the reporters arm swing and then they caught a glimpse of the hospital behind him before they saw the grey blur again as his arm swung back to his front as he ran for it. The reporter sped up to springing pace and the camera movement became too fast to make out any real details, but they could still hear that weird sound, that gurgle as it grew, getting louder getting closer. Then the screams started!
The reporter stopped to look back, he was panting uncontrollably, the dead black trees framed the scene like a picture frame from hell, a picture of dirty ashy snow, thick and impenetrable creeping like a polluted smog filling the void between the dead trees seeping in to all the nooks and crannies seeking out life. The view was of nothing but swirling whirlwinds of dirty snow, but then there was! There was a faint movement, a subtle movement just visible through the sweeping motion of the ashy snow in the centre of the scene, it was fast and frantic and uncoordinated. It was savage!
“They’ve got her! They’ve fucking got her, the poor woman!”said the reporter between breaths.
The screams were wrenching.“Poor woman,”he said again as he ran.“There was nothing I could have done.Nothing!”
He watched as he backed up a little further.“I think I’m ok,”he said,“I can hear the van,”
Collin and Leann heard it too.
“That strange noise they make is everywhere,”said the reporter.“I thought it was the infected people but I wasn’t completely sure until now. I knew I’d have to film this, no- one would ever believe me if not. God! I wouldn’t believe me if I didn’t see the film!”
“Why isn’t he still legging it?”asked Leann.
“He’s watching,”said Collin,“bagging the story or whatever they say.”
“Watchingwhatthough? It’s just snow and ash. Just because we can hear those screams doesn’t mean any things really happening. It’s definitely a spoof. They do things like this in cheap movies where a smoking helicopter disappears behind a hill before it explodes, and no one actually sees it crash you know.”
As the Light Dies Page 17
