Werewolf Suspense (Book 4): Outage 4 (The Reckoning) (3 page)

"Why did I survive?" He buried his face in his hands again, sobbing. "Why did I live, and not them?" He shook his head back and forth, refusing to accept reality.

Abraham joined them, sitting on the other side, studying the man with a grim expression.
 

"What's your name?" Abraham asked.

"Louis. Louis Hartwell."

"I'm sorry to hear about your family, Louis," Abraham said.

"It'll get easier," Tom told him, though he wasn't sure. Lorena's death was fresh enough that it burned his eyes to think about. "I lost my family, too. My son from an accident, my wife from this," Tom confided. "So I know how painful it is."

Louis calmed down. He dried his face. "It doesn't matter anymore, anyway," he said, shaking his head sadly. "We won't have time to recover from it."

Tom frowned. "What do you mean?"

"It's almost over."

Tom looked at Louis, wondering if he was coherent. He exchanged a worried glance with Abraham. Perhaps the man had finally lost it, consumed by grief for his dead loved ones.

Louis raised a shaky finger to the window, pointing at the glass. Snow fell from the sky, softly rapping the pane.

Tom shot up from the bed. He took a shaky step.
 

When had it started to snow?
He hadn't noticed that before.

Dread filled his body.

He finished the short trek to the window, studying the landscape. Twin lights burned at the front of the building, illuminating the falling flakes. The cars were in the same position, glossed in white, motionless. He saw nothing alarming, but seeing the snow was almost as terrifying as seeing the beasts. He pressed his face to the windowpane, scanning the front of the hospital for signs of danger.
 

There's nothing out there
, he tried to tell himself.

And then he saw something. The moon crept from behind the clouds, shining light on the landscape.

The bodies of three gutted officers lay by the front entrance.

"Shit!" Tom hissed.

"What is it?" Abraham stood, his worry turning to panic. He sprang from the bed and took up next to Tom, scouring the landscape.

"Over there," Tom said, barely able to get the words out.

Abraham gasped when he saw what Tom had. The officers' weapons lay in the snow next to them, useless without hands to hold them. Red blood covered the landscape.

Tom spun to face Louis. The man stared at them with a sad, defeated expression.
 

"I told you," Louis said, shaking his head. "I told you they were coming."

"Why didn't you warn anyone?" Tom demanded. "Why didn't you tell a nurse?"

Before Louis could answer, footsteps pounded the hall and Kelsey appeared at the doorway. "Is everything all right? I heard yelling."

"No." Tom could barely choke out the words. "They're back. They're outside."

"They—?" Kelsey stopped short, dread creeping into her face. "Where's Officer Dickson?"

"He got on the elevator."

"He said he was going to check something out. He said he'd be back…"

"He's dead. So are the other officers. Look out the window. We need to lock this floor down. We need to find weapons." Tom's thoughts spit rapid-fire, and he fought back the panic that threatened to overtake his body.

Not again. Not again…

Moments earlier, he'd been trying to put the pieces back together, and now everything was unraveling.
This can't be real…

"I'll call the other officers on the road. I'll get them back here," Kelsey said, digging in her pocket. "They left me a cellphone. It should have service. At least, it did, when I last… Dammit." Kelsey fiddled with the screen.
 

"Even if you had service, by the time they got back here, it'd be too late. We need to prepare. We can keep trying to get ahold of them, but right now, we're on our own."

"What are we going to do?" Kelsey's calm broke as she lowered the phone.

"You said there are thirty people on this floor, right?"

"Yes, and three of us nurses."

"How many children?" Tom asked Kelsey.

"Only Silas and Katherine."

"We need to keep people in their rooms. Out from the open."

"People will panic," Abraham said. He cast a glance over his shoulder at the despondent, torn-up man. Louis stared at them with a hollow expression.

"We'll tell them it's a precaution," Kelsey suggested.
 

Tom nodded. "How many entrances are on this floor?"

"Two elevators and two stairwells. Only one of the elevators is working, on emergency power. The other is shut off. Officer Dickson took the working one to the lobby a few minutes ago. If it's not back, it's probably still down there."

"We should call it back up and block the sensors. I doubt those things can work the buttons, but we can't be too careful," Tom said.

Kelsey dug a set of keys from her pants. "I have the keys to lock the stairwells."

"Why don't you start shutting the patients in their rooms? I'll lock the east entrance, and you can have another nurse lock the west. The east is at the end of this hallway, right?"

Kelsey nodded. She watched him for a moment, unwilling to part with the keys. Seeing the urgency in his eyes, she handed them over.
 

"Hurry! We might not have much time," Tom said.

Without any more discussion, Tom, Abraham, and Kelsey fled the room.

"I told you they were coming!" Louis screamed after them.

Tom ignored the grief-stricken man. Right now, they had more pressing concerns.
 

Faces stared from open doorways. An old woman in a hospital gown frowned, rubbing her eyes, wrenched from sleep by the commotion. A couple stood holding hands. Tom flew past them, heading for the end of the hallway.

Behind him, he heard the patter of footsteps as Abraham veered toward the elevator. Tom's socked feet slapped the floor as he ran toward the east exit. He'd need his boots. But he could get them later. From somewhere in the distance, Kelsey gave instructions to one of the other nurses to lock the west entrance, then started corralling the disturbed, frightened people. Louis's screaming had alerted most of the patients in the vicinity.

So much for keeping calm,
Tom thought.

"They're coming!" Louis shouted. "They're coming!"

A ripple of panic spread through the survivors and conversation rose to a heightened pitch.
Tom's gown billowed behind him as he grabbed a nurse's cart, knocking some of the supplies to the ground. He clutched the keys as if they might fly from his hands, focused on the exit door a hundred feet away. In the middle of the door was a single, rectangular window. Tom envisioned a beast appearing behind the glass, staring at him with cold, vicious eyes.

The windowpane remained clear.
 

He still couldn't believe this was happening. To have gotten through it once… only to face it again…

But there was no time to dwell on it.

Soon he was at the exit door. Tom let go of his cart, allowing it to careen into the wall. He located the key and fumbled for the lock. He tested the door. To his relief, it opened inward. Thank God—that meant they could block it. He slammed the door shut and inserted the key, expecting resistance, a body pounding the other side. Neither of those things happened.
 

The creatures weren't here.

Not yet.

The door was thicker than some of the others he'd hidden behind.
Maybe it'll hold up better
, he thought.
 

After locking the door, Tom pressed his face to the glass. Red emergency lights illuminated a steep staircase. He stepped back from the window, reclaimed his abandoned nursing cart, and pushed it in place. Then he found a few others and lined them up behind the first. He knew the obstacles wouldn't them buy them more than time. But he had to make it to the elevator and ensure Abraham had blocked it. He had to make sure the other exit was secured. Behind him, the elevator car dinged. He spun to find Abraham a hundred feet away, propping a nurse's cart against the elevator sensors.

"Got it!" Abraham shouted to Tom.

"What about the other exit?"

"I'm not sure! We should check!"

Tom looked past Abraham, hoping for a confirmation from Kelsey. But she was in one of the rooms with a patient. Outside another room, the nurse with brown hair was arguing with a twenty-something couple, trying to convince them to remain inside.

"Come on, Abraham!" Tom shouted to his companion. "Let's get to the west exit!"

Tom clutched the keys and sprinted to meet Abraham. They darted through the tumultuous scene. The twenty-something couple glared at them as they ran past.

"What about those two?" the man protested, pointing at Tom and Abraham. "I don't see them in their rooms, waiting to die!"

"Please, sir…" the nurse pleaded.

Tom and Abraham flew past them. Several frightened people stood in the hallway, looking in all directions. A husband hugged his wife. A man with a baseball cap yelled at anyone who would listen. Tom and Abraham maneuvered through them, shouting apologies. Soon, they were running past the next wing, where Abraham's room was located, catching sight of Sally at the threshold.

"It's okay, Sally! We'll be right back!" Abraham yelled as they ran past.

Sally responded, but her voice was lost in the commotion. Tom and Abraham barreled through the corridor and rounded another identical-looking hallway. Where was the other exit? They'd have to find it. Unlike the wing they'd left, the doors in this wing were closed, indicating the rooms weren't in use. An uneasy quiet filled the floor. The noise of the frightened patients had faded.

For a moment, Tom wondered if he'd imagined the bodies outside. Either that, or he was dreaming. But he couldn't be. He felt his leg burning from overexertion, and his lungs filled with frantic breaths, proving he was awake. They took another few turns, heading for what Tom thought was the other end of the building.

Finally, he saw a harried nurse running in front of them. The sounds of her shoes echoed off the walls as she ran for what must be the other exit.

She glanced frantically over her shoulder at Tom and Abraham.

"We're here to help!" Tom shouted.

Relief washed over Tom as they followed the nurse. She took several turns, almost losing them in the maze, and then he spotted another glowing sign. The stairwell was halfway down the hallway, on the right. As precarious as things were, it didn't appear the beasts had gotten inside. Whether the things were outside, downstairs, or on the roof, he didn't know, but they weren't
here
.

They caught up to the nurse, her keys rattling in her shaky hands as she approached the door.

"Are they really back?" she sputtered, fumbling for the right one.
 

"Yes! Hurry!" Tom shouted.

The nurse located the correct key, speared the lock, and turned. The door clicked. Tom fell to the floor, gasping for breath, Abraham beside him.

The din of nurses and patients drifted from somewhere behind them.

"That's the most running I've done in years." Abraham forced a smile.

"Tell me about it." Turning to the nurse, Tom said, "We need to block this door."

The nurse, a pudgy woman in her fifties, was still shaking. Dyed blonde hair spiked out from the sides of her hat. Tom glanced at the nearest rooms, searching for something they could use.

"What's your name?" he asked, searching her uniform for a nametag.

"Tabatha." The keys rattled in her hands.

"Is there anything else we can use besides nurses' carts, Tabatha?"

"We can probably wheel the beds out," Tabatha suggested between thick breaths. "They're easy to maneuver. Then we can lock the wheels."

Without further prompting, Tom and Abraham got to their feet and followed Tabatha. They located several beds in empty rooms and wheeled them into the hallways, positioning them against the door, fortifying the barricade with some nurses' carts.
 

Tom spun. The hallway behind them suddenly made him claustrophobic. He glanced at the walls, as if they might come alive and compact him.

"We should get back to the others," he suggested.
 

"That's a good idea. We need to make sure all the patients are in their rooms," Tabatha agreed. "Kelsey filled me in on what's going on."

They hurried back through the corridors. As they ran, Tom contemplated their lack of weapons. They needed something to defend themselves with.

"Is there anything up here we can use as weapons? Preferably something made of silver?" he asked Tabatha.

Tabatha fell behind them, her eyes wide and manic. "Silver? Jeez, I-I don't think so. I mean, we have syringes and scalpels. Scissors. But they're not made of silver, I don't think."

"In that case, we'll need anything sharp we can get our hands on," Tom said. "And we'll need it quickly."

Most of the patients' doors were closed when they got back to the occupied wings, but a few patients still lingered in the hallways. The nurses coaxed them with varying degrees of success.