27 April, 2002 Session. Part 2
The people who accompany the injured patients are unsure what is going on, but seem fairly panicked. Many run down the hallway into a different wing or rush for the stairway. Some of the injured patients break away from the human wall. As one stumbles toward Michael, he snatches up a chair and topples the unfortunate man, doubling him over unnaturally.
Two doctors rush through the waiting room door and tend to the body. One of the doctors has a small tattoo on his hand, its edge barely slipping out from under the cuff of his sleeve. It drives its image into the minds of the compatriots who catch sight of it, twisting and distorting their thoughts.
Eventually, a nurse walks out of the waiting room door, again, to give the four friends the bad news. Rune didn’t make it.
The four decide that it is time to leave the hospital, in whatever manner is possible. They walk down the hallway, toward the main entrance of the hospital. Doctors are running frantically back and forth. One such doctor trips and tumbles prone, to the floor, the sound of metal instruments clattering to the tile beside him. They are surgical tools. In haste, he scoops them up, cutting himself in the process, and a thin trail of blood follows him down the hall for a few feet.
In the reception area, no soul can be seen. No one is in the pharmacy, nor is anyone in the gift shop. The great, glass doors are sealed and locked. The combined efforts of the friends do nothing to break the glass. Michael takes the opportunity to search the pharmacy and acquire some sedatives and mood-enhancing medicines. Kelly takes the opportunity to grab some stuffed animals, which, experience has taught him, are flammable.
A low moan is rising from the hallway. Help us. Help us..
The patients are crawling and clawing through the hallway, toward the four. Many of them, far more than were in the emergency room waiting area.
Michael manages to create a hole in the glass of one of the doors, but it appears to close rapidly around his hand, which is yanked free just before it can be severed. Surely that can’t happen. Is Michael losing his mind?
Anthony and Jude discover that there is, in fact, someone in the gift shop, cowering behind one of the racks. He holds a handgun.
And he is raving. "You can’t have me! I win, you see! You can’t eat me; I have one more bullet left!" With that, he shoves the barrel of the gun into his mouth and pulls the trigger. His front teeth fly across the room as his head jerks back; the corpse collapses to the floor.
Anthony grabs the gun. It is no longer loaded.
In moments, the army of patients is upon them, and they are swept up in a sea of cold, clammy flesh. Kelly lights a teddy bear and throws it into the crowd as the four friends make their way toward the nearest stairway.
They climb to the second floor. The door opens, but beyond it is a brick wall. Nothing else. The door leads to a wall. Strange.
The group decides to escape to the roof, so they pass the third floor and continue up. The door is dead-bolted, and a small sign explains to them, No admittance.
They go back to the third floor. It opens into a hallway that stretches to the left and the right farther, much farther, than the eye can follow. Unmarked doors line each wall in an unbroken pattern that stretches indefinitely in both directions.
A low chanting can be heard in the distance, though its direction is unclear.
The group tries to open a door. An ancient voice yells at them. "You can’t have us. Go away! We don’t need you!"
The group tries another door. The same voice yells at them. "You can’t have us. Go away! We don’t need you!"
The group crosses the hall and tries another door. The same voice yells at them. "You can’t have us. Go away! We don’t need you!"
And so on down the hallway, the party tries to open doors and is met, each time, with the same response.
But at one door, the response is different. They are allowed within.
