2a.m. in Pine Air

By: Jeffrey Lyons

2:00a.m.

That’s what the clock said at least. I was initially not very trusting of that however, as my room does not have a clock. Do you ever have those experiences where you think you’ve woken up, but something just seems ‘off’? Like your wallpaper is subtly the wrong pattern, or you’re missing a lamp or there’s and extra chair in your room? Then the illusion breaks once you figure it out, and you wake up for real.

For me, that night, it was that clock on the opposite wall to my bed. I knew my room had clear walls to help me relax, so this clock was a clear interloper in my room. This must have been the ‘off’ element that made me feel so far away from my comfortable room in reality. I closed my eyes and waited for me to wake up for real. Then I opened them again.

2:05a.m.

Well, perhaps this was one of those dreams where you just have to wait it out until your primal processes decide you have to stop slacking off and eat a full bag of Cheetos (or whatever you have for breakfast). I decided if I was going to be here a while I might as well do something productive, so I got up and tried to find my dream laptop.

That’s when I noticed a few other odd things about this version of my room. For one, my desk to the right of my bed was gone, and there was just another bed exactly the same as mine. On that point, my bed was no longer my Queen from home with deep crimson comforters, but a sterile looking metal and white contraption.

I also noticed that instead of my dresser and drawers there was just an array of different medical-looking implements, as well as the kind of swivel chair that you would find in a doctor’s office. The entire room was painted beige, and there was a sign that read “No Smoking in the Hospital” plastered on the wall above the door.

It was now that I began to suspect that I may actually not be in a weird version of my room, and might just have woken up in a hospital.

This raised some troubling questions. For one, I had gone to bed at 11:34 in my own bed earlier in what I suspected to have been this evening. That meant that in the span of about 3 hours I had been transported from my house to this hospital.

In itself, this is not fantastically unlikely at least. People could wake up in a hospital for a number of valid reasons. Maybe they suffered a condition while sleeping and someone noticed and called for help, or they run into trouble sleepwalking about town.

The issue that seemed strange to me however was the fact I was alone. No doctor, no nurse, no other patient. The lights were off in my room, and even more strangely they appeared to be off outside my room. I had suffered some kind of condition that within the span of two hours put me in the hospital unconscious, and then the staff had decide that the best course of action was bed rest on an abandoned floor.

I had been to hospitals before. They happen to be 24 hour institutions, even in towns as small as mine. The lights don’t go off, and patients don’t get left unmonitored unless something had happened. And if something did happen there would be commotion all over the place, staff moving around trying to fix the problem, patients getting angry. However, here the silence was deafening.

I began to feel very awake. Which was bad, because I was also starting to feel like this was just as bad as a dream.

I composed myself. As eerie as this was, I was in a hospital that may have suffered some kind of serious electrical issue at the very least. My responsibility would be to investigate and figure out what went wrong. If my hypothesis was even close to correct there would probably be need of me somewhere in this building. The first step however, was to investigate all the evidence I could to make sure that I was safe enough to start helping others. I thought how proud those airline stewardesses would be of me for remembering their advice in a crisis situation.

My humble hospital room didn’t look full of clues or anything, but there were a few leads to start investigating, the window on the left wall being a useful place to start. I figured if there was some big emergency, there would some more cars than usual, and even maybe the fire truck from next door parked outside. It was currently obstructed by shutters, which I proceeded to peek through.

The sight that greeted me was less than uplifting. From my window I had a solid view of the visitor’s parking lot out front as well as the roundabout in front of the entrance. There were zero cars present.

Though entirely possible, this seemed significant to me. I knew the staff parking was around back, but this meant that no one was actively using the hospital. This perturbed me since I knew there were a few regulars at the hospital who had relatives staying with them through most nights. Also, whoever brought me here had apparently decided I wasn’t worth sticking around for.

The other thing that gave me a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach was the fog. I don’t know quite how to describe it, but it looked like the kind of fog that if you drove into it one way you come out of it at the same spot facing the other direction. Though the rational part of my brain knew it was just water vapour, I couldn’t help but regard it as a physical barrier.

I couldn’t see any of the rest of the town through the fog, which also worried me. Even at 2 in the morning, people should still be out winding their way home from the common pubs in our town. The fact none of the light was penetrating the fog meant it was either thicker than possible, or that the electrical problem here was more widespread.

The latter theory became unlikely as I looked around and adjusted my view to realize that there was some light emanating from the hospital itself. The first good sign I’d seen so far, though it looked like the floors were primarily dark at the moment.

I turned back from the window. Things were looking up, at least for now. I had a goal, and that was to find a floor with some light. Maybe someone there could tell me what was going on. Before I left, however, I wanted to gather any evidence that I could from my room.

I got up from my bed and scoured the area, but it looked like normal hospital proceedings. With the covers off though, I realized that I was wearing my regular street clothes, just jeans and a bland green t-shirt. I first thought it strange they hadn’t given me any new clothes upon admittance, but that seemed

the least of my worries. On second thought, why wasn’t I in my pyjamas? Had I indeed been sleepwalking? It seemed the most likely theory, but I had a feeling the treatment for sleepwalking wasn’t to leave them alone on the floor of a hospital with no lights on.

As I was vigourously debating this in my head, I took note of the patient chart at the bottom of my bed. All the normal info was there.

Name: Hubert Jones

Address: 1457 Henkempt Avenue

Ailment: Infected wound on leg – Amputation required

This made me feel very sad for poor Hubert Jones, but it made me slightly afraid that I was in someone else’s hospital bed. A quick check told me I indeed had a fully-functioning non-wounded leg, so I was now deeply concerned about how I had arrived here in the first place.

There was no immediate sign of Hubert having been here, until I noticed that the giant red line on the floor. I had figured this was some kind of easy directional system to find your way around the hospital with, but it could also have been the trail of a man dragging a bloody stump along the ground. In fact, yeah, that was almost definitely the trail of a bloody stump.

I won’t lie that my boundless optimism took a slight hit there.

That said, maybe Hubert had been in the same position as me. You don’t get anywhere in life without trying to take away something positive from everything, so I figured that if a man with an amputated bleeding leg had been driven enough to escape this bedroom, then I’m sure I could be too. And the trail he would leave would at least give me a fighting chance at an escape route.

I also now kind of knew what I was up against? I was thinking some kind of crazy surgeon at this point, who just hadn’t got around to mutilating my extremities yet and still roamed the halls. If so, that would at least be an academic foe who I could feasibly stand a chance overpowering, being a fellow with considerable mass myself. There weren’t many weapon-like objects that I could find in the room, so I selected the largest reflex hammer I could find and took a few practice swings.

Then I steeled myself for the task ahead. The main question was still to find out what was going on and where everyone was. Once I found more people I could get answers. But the way things were going, I needed to be wary of anyone else, as they might be murderous psychopaths. Situations like this are what makes it tough for me to be a people person.

I opened the door.

The sight that awaited me was much like the room I had started in: creepily mundane. It didn’t look like a riot had taken place, or that an earthquake had hit. It just looked like there was no one around. It was an ordinary hallway with a few more rooms on either side that looked similar to mine. At the end of the hallway there was a hanging sign that said “Pine Air Hospital Recovery Ward”, and beyond that was actually a bit of light.

Luckily the blood trail went towards the light, so I followed it along down the hall. Most of the rooms did turn out to look exactly like mine; a few beds, maybe a curtain, medical implements. One good feature was that mine was the only one with a blood trail leading out of it. Maybe Hubert was just a really motivated guy who wanted to get to physiotherapy way too quickly.

I reached the end of the hall and found a bit of a reception like area, with chairs and old magazines as well as a little desk with a lamp on, which had provided the light. No one was around obviously, and it looked like Hubert hadn’t stayed around to do a thorough check as the trail went straight through the area and off to the right down another similarly marked hallway.

I paused to do a bit more investigating however. The reception area also had stairs and an elevator in front of it which was good to know if I wanted to get off this floor in a hurry. However, they were also probably one of the main arteries of the hospital that would be under watch if some malevolent activity was going on here, so I advised myself to figure out what was going on as much as I could before risking a floor change.

The magazines weren’t terribly interesting, which was a comfort as it was exactly what you would expect. I sat down on one of the chairs to gather my thoughts for a few seconds just to soak in the normalcy of the area before moving on. As much as my brain was entertaining some pretty dour possibilities, it was always good to ground yourself in reality.

After a minute or two, I set off down the hall. To my luck, there was a floor plan of sort near the elevator which I studied quickly. It looked like this floor was composed of two U-shaped hallways that connected to form a Z-like shape. They met up right at reception, meaning I had come from one of them, but the trail led into the other. I continued to move along.

The other hallway was much the same as the first, though at the turn of the U it looked like there might be some more light which was heartening. I wasn’t turning on any lights as I went as to not arouse suspicion, but if others already had then turning it off would be even more conspicuous.

The trail led around the corner and then around the next corner where it went down 3 rooms and turned into it. It didn’t appear to come back out though, which suggested that Hubert might still be in the room.

Or, a dark thought crossed my mind, whatever had dragged Hubert in there could still be around.

This was it. I had to take a risk at some point and this was my best lead so far. I had enough faith in my running and layout knowledge to attempt an escape if things got hairy, so I built myself up and swung into the room.

Nothing was there. The room only had no bed and no equipment, as if someone had raided the place for supplies. I checked the trail. It went forward into the room, right up to the wall…

And out the window.

There was no good way of figuring out what had happened here without taking a peak out the window. I knew what I was going to find before I looked, but I did it anyway.

At the bottom of the building, next to the window, was Hubert. From what I assumed was about the 6 th or 7th floor he was obscured by the fog, but the shape was unmistakably a one-legged man, unmoving and quite obviously dead.

I reviewed the facts:

Hubert had a leg amputated. He then crawled out of his bed and threw himself from a window. Perhaps more unsettlingly was the fact that the blood trail was dry meaning this took place at least an hour ago and no one had removed the body from the hospital grounds.

What had been going through Hubert’s mind? Was he high on painkillers and made a bad decision? Was he being pursued by something so terrible he took his chances with a drop from the 6 th story of building? Hubert had clearly been crawling or else his leg would not have left a stain. What could possibly chase him so slowly? And if nothing was chasing him, why jump from a building?

And why did this hospital seem to be so out of order? No one around, nothing working and no response when the patients throw themselves out windows. I was deep in thought about how I could possibly fit into this when I was hit in the chest from behind.

Though it hurt, it was a halfhearted blow. Perhaps the surgeon theory was correct and this man just had no combat experience. I didn’t have much, but I got bullied a lot as a kid and I know the key to winning a fight is willpower. You have to be willing to seriously hurt the opponent, and that gives you the advantage.

I whirled around and landed a haymaker straight to the jaw. In my mind, I was ready to fully commit to a chokehold while trying to force him towards the open window to dispose of him like he had his victim. Poetic justice. However, he crumpled like a paper bag after the first blow and I realized I just punched some random high school kid in the face.

“Whoops,” I said, and realized it was the first thing I’d said aloud all night. I think it fairly summed up how my guesses were coming along so far.

“Ahhhhh, what the fuck, ahhhhhh!” said the kid as he thrashed around on the floor grabbing his (now quite bloody) nose and cradling his face.

I felt bad for the guy. I’m a big guy compared to most people at around 6’3’’, and as what looked to be a freshman he probably wasn’t used to dealing with people my size. It had actually been awful brave of him to attack me in the first place.

Assuming he was innocent.

It was with a heavy heart that I got down on floor with him, gagged him with a sock and forced him against the wall. Even if he was on my side, his yelling would already be causing a disturbance around the building and I had to minimize that. It wasn’t a fun ordeal.

Once I had him subdued and gazing daggers at me, I spoke.

“Listen carefully. I’m going to take the gag out and ask you some questions. I don’t want to hurt you, but I don’t know what’s going on here and I want to figure it out.”

He glared at me, but he nodded.

“Oh, also, I’m sorry for punching you. And the gag.”

He didn’t seem to accept my apology, but it’s hard to tell with only body language. That said, as I studied his face, I could see his eyes tracking something moving up behind me. Perhaps an accomplice? Now I was outnumbered and looking at a tough escape. Best let him think I didn’t notice and carry on.

I removed the gag and asked him “Okay. So what do you know?”

He looked me straight in the eye, smiling, and said “That true love conquers all!”

It looked like a pretty logical time for his accomplice to engage, so I took the opportunity to duck. The frying pan whooshed right over my head and connected with the boy’s face with a sickening “thwock”. He dropped like a sack of potatoes, as I backed up towards the room entrance to try an escape.

The accomplice was what appeared to be a high school girl. As soon as she hit him, she immediately dropped her weapon and rushed to his side.

“Brace!” she squealed, clearly enamored by the intrepid assaulter. She rushed to his side, and knelt down, cradling his head in her arms. “I’m so sorry! I’m so-so-so-so sorry!”

Brace said something along the lines of “gtgehaga”, and she started crying. It was becoming clear that these two weren’t necessarily a threat (to me at least), so maybe I should try playing softball to gain their trust. That sounded like a good plan, so I went with it.

Poor Brace was dazed, but I had seen far worse injuries inflicted with frying pans. He was going to be fine and already was getting back his sentence structure as the girl wept over him. I knelt down on their level so that I didn’t appear as intimidating.

“Hey, you two have some guts coming after me like that. I find those admirable qualities,” I lied.

“Admirable qualities? Who are you, our fucking English teacher?” the girl blasted back with.

Not the best start. I hadn’t been a high schooler in a while and even when I had, communication was not my strong point. I didn’t know what kids were into nowadays, having been in the working world for almost 5 years myself out of university. I figured that they hopefully still had names.

“Why don’t we start with names?”

“We’re not telling you shit! You’ll never get anything out of us!” said Brace, regaining his speech rather well after two blows to the head.

“Well I know your name is Brace because Layla said it multiple times. And I know her name is Layla because her purse has it embroidered in three separate locations, one of which explicitly states ‘Layla’s Purse’. I was kind of just asking for politeness’s sake. My name’s Nick by the way, and I think we actually might be on the same side here.”

Brace looked angry that they had given up such information so easily, but Layla began to calm down and try to also calm Brace down.

“What do you mean?” she said, “The same side of what? Do you know what’s going on here?”

“I was hoping you could tell me that,” I responded. “Right now all I know is that I went to sleep in my home and woke up in a hospital. Also, the bed that I was contained in used to be for an amputee who jumped out that window.” I gestured to the window behind them.

Layla and Brace shared a glance, then Layla looked back at me. “Can you give us a second?” she said.

“What? Why?” I responded.

“We need to figure out how much we want to tell you. Just a few seconds.”

It was dumb, but maybe they needed some semblance of control. That’s what teens want, right? That feeling of being in charge, at least of something? So I stepped outside the room and closed the door behind me.

As I heard hushed whispers from the two behind me, I took a few seconds to reflect on what they represented. There were other people in the hospital who weren’t insane. They were also scared. They didn’t understand fully what was going on. And some had prior connections, as I doubted the two had met tonight.

I was still mulling this when I realized the hushed whispers had turned into passionate kissing, so I knocked and asked if I could come back in. There was some shuffling about and Layla opened the door.

“Okay, come in, we’ll tell you what we know,” said Layla, “But not here. We took all the supplies we could find to a safe room, close by.”

The two led me down two rooms to a lit room filled with beds, benches and some meager rations they must have stolen from a different floor. Hmm. They each took a seat on a bed, and I did as well. We settled into an awkward silence. I wanted them to speak first so they felt comfortable.

Layla finally worked up the courage to say “I guess… First off… Have you ever seen someone get murdered by a living chair?”

“No.” I replied. I also noted the now conspicuous absence of chairs in the room, which was beginning to tell me a lot about the mental state of my new companions.

Brace spoke up. “I know it sounds crazy, and we would have said so too. But we saw it, man. We SAW it!”

“Brace, honey, calm down. We need to explain it calmly or he won’t believe us,” said Layla.

“Before you continue, I’m going to come up with a counter-explanation to whatever you’re about to tell me,” I interjected. “You think you saw a chair kill someone. I’ve seen evidence of a man with a missing leg jump out a window. And I have no memory of how I got to this hospital. I’m going to guess that there were some drugs involved in whatever happened to all of us, and that whatever you were about to tell me was a hallucination. Sound reasonable?”

“Yeah it sounds reasonable, and I wish we were just here on a bad pot trip,” said Layla, “but there’s more to our story than just our word. Brace, show him the pictures.”

Brace reluctantly took out his camera phone. “We were just messing around. We had no idea how we got here either, but we figured it was just another one of life’s mysteries, you know?” he said.

I nodded, and was impressed at my ability to fake such a ridiculous position. Life had no mysteries.

“So we just started taking some photos. An abandoned hospital at 2 in the morning? Who wouldn’t want to see that?” he continued, and began to show me some of the pictures. I immediately realized there was a person in them that wasn’t presently here.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

Silence. Then, “Sammie” from both of them simultaneously.

Sammie looked kind of peppy in the photos, but the delayed dour response from Brace and Layla seemed to preclude that attitude wasn’t going to help him with what was coming up.

“Who was Sammie?” I asked.

“He was our friend from school,” Brace started.

“A fellow freshman?” I wondered aloud.

“Hey man, we’re obviously all seniors,” Brace replied, haughtily.

Dear lord, Brace was one of the smallest high school seniors I had ever seen. He wouldn’t have been out of place at an elementary school graduation. But that wasn’t important now, and I could see I had wounded his pride. Time to push forward.

“Oh, sorry,” I said. “What else about Sammie?”

“Well, he was a friend we always used to hang out with when we wanted a laugh. His family was pretty poor, so we identified with him.”

After looking at the wardrobes of Brace and Layla, I found this hard to believe. Their outfits alone must have cost more than most people make in a week. But I wanted to hear more about Sammie, so I shelved that concern for now.

“Anyway, we all showed up here after crashing at Sammie’s place. We thought it was funny, so we wandered around. We actually woke up in this room, but on the floor above, and then checked out all the rooms on the way. It was kind of spooky, but we’re not kids so we were okay,” said Brace, desperately trying to come off as independent.

“But then we came by a big room with an out of place s-ss-swivel chair,” said Layla, clearly disturbed by this point, “and Sammie wanted to go sit down and look like a big shot doctor. We thought it was funny because he couldn’t figure out a good way to actually sit on it, he kept falling off…”

Brace had stopped on the photo where Sammie had finally gotten a good seat on the chair. It looked like a normal chair, though a bit out of place in a patient’s room. Someone must have wheeled it in for some reason. I impatiently swiped forward myself since Brace was hesitating.

I don’t often throw up when I’m not sick, but I have to say that next picture gave me a solid run for my money. The framing was far worse than the last few, even for their low standards, but the scene was identifiable. Sammie’s brisk smile still remained, the only problem was it was part of a head that was no longer attached to a body. To be fair though, neither were the rest of his limbs and they were also spread around the room generously. It looked like someone had attacked him with a lawnmower from 4 sides at the same time, throwing the body parts off in random directions. The chair remained in the same position as it had been in the last photograph.

“Hurgh,” I said, as I stifled my gag reflex in what I hoped was a pretty dignified way.

We sat there in silence for a few minutes as I took in the picture and they regained their composure. Then I asked “What happened next?”

“We booked it,” said Brace, “We ran down the hall, took the stairs, found the most defensible room to hold out in then stayed put. Then you walked by and we thought since you were so old you might have had something to do with why we were here.”

For the record, I look pretty good for 27, thank you very much. I assume they were factoring in my mature demeanour when they said that.

“Did you see what actually happened?” I said.

“Brace just took the picture by accident when he was throwing the camera back into his pocket,” said Layla, explaining the poor framing. “Neither of us can seem to remember what happened very clearly. It was all kind of a blur.”

“Well that makes sense, it’s hard to remember traumatizing events.”

“No, she’s being literal,” said Brace, “The chair just kind of blurred to life, and eviscerated him. We couldn’t tell you how, we just know that it did.”

“Then it was just the same old chair, like nothing had happened.”

I took a second to process this concept. A murderous chair seemed extremely unlikely. But unless Brace and Layla had been planted here to fool me, it was pretty likely that their friend had been gruesomely murdered on the floor above. That was going to be a worrying point.

It was becoming increasingly clear that escaping this hospital was going to be a priority. The facts didn’t seem to be lining up for me, and the fact the body count was up to two meant that it was time to let the survival instinct have more of a say in what we were doing. And that instinct was saying that regardless of what murdered Sammie, it wasn’t something I wanted to be in a hospital with.

“Why haven’t you two tried to escape yet? You made it down one floor, why stop there?”

“Well, we figured something was going on with the hospital, right? People don’t get abducted and murdered for fun,” said Layla.

“So we figured we should wait it out until we knew more. Maybe the perpetrators were in the lobby or other common ground,” finished Brace.

So these two may have had more smarts then I was giving them credit for.

“That’s a good point. However, we’ve got two dead people on our hands now. I think we’re getting into the realm where we need to take a risk and get out before more bad stuff happens. Even if they are waiting for us, there seems to be increasing evidence that all the floors are dangerous. So perhaps we start heading down?”

“Maybe. We don’t know if we can trust you yet though,” said Layla.

I didn’t bring up the fact they missed where I could have effortlessly killed them after the frying pan incident if I had been so inclined as to not draw more of their suspicion. “Fine. Ask whatever you want.”

“What have you done since you got here?”

“I woke up in a bed the same way I assume you two did,” I said, “Then I followed a trail of blood out the window to see a corpse on the ground. After that you two found me. That’s literally it so far.”

“What do you do for a living? Are you part of any government department that does experiments on alien life or robotics?” said Brace.

Ugh. “No, I’m a freelance web developer. I help small businesses make usable web sites for companies. I don’t even work in an office or anything.”

“But here’s the kicker: Do you participate in any online discussions about the truth behind the government obscuring alien cover-ups?” said Layla, hopefully.

“No,” I replied flatly.

This seemed to take a bit of the wind out of their sails, and I was kind of sorry for that.

Brace said “We just kind of… that was our best guess at why we were here. That the government had brought us in to silence our dissenting voices.”

“Well, I don’t think that has any weight. But it’s not a bad idea to think of the things we have in common to see if there’s any reason why we were picked. That can wait until we’ve escaped though, I think. Let’s head for the stairs?”

Brace and Layla shared a look. Then a closer look. Then a kiss. Very noble-looking. Then they turned to me and nodded.

We set out, now a group of three, towards the waiting area at the meeting of the two U’s. I was cognizant of what had happened to the last third wheel graced by the presence of Brace and Layla, so I remained as alert as I could.

We were heading down the hallway with the elevator in sight, when suddenly the ding of the elevator arriving broke through the air.

We all froze. Layla hefted her frying pan, and I raised my reflex hammer. Brace readied his fists of not-so-fury in the manner of, what I assume, was a boxer from 1835. Slowly the whirr of the doors opening could be heard until they were fully open.

Then, almost nonchalantly, a swivel chair rolled out of the doors, and stopped against the reception desk.

There was silence for a while. Then I whispered “Is that the exact chair from upstairs?”

“Yep,” said one of them, in a voice so high-pitched it sounded like a parakeet.

While the chair was illuminated by the lamp on at reception, I knew we were fairly well hidden in the darkness of the hallway. There were a few possibilities that could be going on her because of that. For one, someone could have put a chair on an elevator and leaned it up against the doors so it rolled out when they opened. Or, another person could have rolled it out to test the waters before emerging, as the doors hadn’t yet closed. And finally, a murderous sentient chair-beast could have just appeared out of the aether.

The light at reception flicked off suddenly. I debated running immediately, but I couldn’t picture the chair being that fast or it would have hunted down the two kids as soon as it killed Sammie. Hopefully I could see it coming and put Brace in front of me before it got there.

My plan was unnecessary though, as the light at reception flickered back on in a few seconds. The chair, however, was gone.

I heard some whimpering behind me, and was about to chastise Layla when I saw it was Brace. I didn’t think the little guy’s spirit could take it so I let it slide with a simple shushing.

“Maybe we’ll take the stairs. Might be slower, but I can’t picture chairs having a fun time trying to traverse them. Sound good?” I whispered.

I got nods of assent from my young wards, so we set off as quietly as possible down to the reception area. I made sure quickly that the chair hadn’t just moved out of site before we gingerly opened the stairs door and went inside.

Luckily it turned out that the stairs seemed to be lit. Unluckily, they looked just as you would expect hospital staircases to look like. I’m sure everyone is familiar with staircases that don’t see much use but have to be consistently maintained; they all look the exact same. Chipped paint on every single surface, bland ugly colouring, and a sense that you shouldn’t be there for long or you might succumb to bleach fumes.

The staircase had a non-existent middle, meaning we could see partly down and above us. There seemed to be no chairs, which calmed me a bit. In fact, the whole staircase below us looked relatively free of obstruction. It might be worth trying the ground floor just to see if a greedy solution was feasible, knowing that the escape route is relatively clear as well.

My optimism took a hit as I heard a sickening sound from below us, like anteater vomiting. Brace and Layla froze up.

“What is it?” I whispered, “Was that a sound that the chair made?”

They exchanged glances and Layla said “No… I think we know who it is though.”

“Who?”

“Hello?” a female voice from below rang out “I can hear you up there! Are you trying to get out as well?”

“Fuck! Don’t answer it!” whispered Brace, “We should just run!”

I looked at Brace and tried to figure out what was going on. He clearly was somewhat afraid of the source of the voice, but from past experience I knew he actually ran from credible threats. So while the source of this was something unpleasant to him, it wasn’t enough to get him on his feet, just make him talk about it. From Layla’s reaction it seemed they both knew the source and that it perturbed them both.

I put two and two together and hollered down.

“Do you teach at Pine Air high?”

“What? I mean, yes, how did you know that?” the voice said.

Brace and Layla gave me that dagger-filled stare again, and I reflected that though I could congratulate myself on my sleuthing ability, I had turned them angry and creeped out their teacher. Perhaps withholding my solutions might be wise in some cases.

I poked my head over the railing and saw her flinch back from doing the same a floor below me.

“We’ll be down in a second. My name is Nick, and I’ve got two of your students with me and I think we’ll need to swap stories and figure out what to do next,” I said.

She was obviously not my biggest fan, but the mention of her students put some brightness in her face. “Oh, really? That’s good we could use some bright young minds. I gather you’re not in a great place either.”

“No we certainly aren’t. We’ll be right down.”

I got Brace and Layla down the stairs to see their teacher. The brightness in her face instantly vanished as she recognized the two of them.

“Hey Mrs. Wilmington. Ready to receive aid from our ‘bright young minds’?” said Layla, with more snark than I thought could fit in her relatively petite frame.

Mrs. Wilmington just buried her face in one of her hands for a second.

“Nick, was it?” she said.

“Yes,” I replied.

“I want you to know that I consider myself a better teacher than what will be reflected upon me tonight. Just know that,” she said.

“Okay,” I said. I needed this group to work together, so I figured these three should air out their issues before we proceeded.

“I think you three should air out you issues before we proceed. I’ll keep watch of the lower floors. When you’re done we can swap our stories and move on.”

I feigned like I was doing something useful, as I let them talk.

“Okay, look you two. I’m sorry that we’re in this mess for some reason. But I can assure you I want to get out of this as much as you do. Are you willing to put aside our differences for now?” said Mrs. Wilmington.

“I don’t know Mrs., are you willing to admit that Brace’s Magnum Opus poetry compilation project Breaking Free (or Trying to) deserved national recognition?” said Layla, with venom.

“And I don’t know if I can work with someone who thinks Layla’s writing is ‘boring’, ‘over-indulgent’ or ‘grammatically incorrect’. Grammar is just a construct Mrs.! You have to let your students be free!” said Brace.

“Look, I’ll give you both A’s if we just can work together and get out of-“

“That’s not enough Mrs. Wilmington! Grades mean nothing if you don’t mean it!”

“But your writing is OBJECTIVELY TERRIBLE!” yelled Mrs. Wilmington, such that I immediately began to worry about being heard. Luckily it seemed the stairway didn’t carry sound that well.

“Listen you two, I just go by the rubric,” said Mrs. Wilmington, regaining some composure. “Brace, when I asked you for a paragraph on symbolism in King Lear, you gave me a 3 volume guide to your own mythical version of Britain, in poem form. You two clearly have passion, but you refuse to take criticism or adhere to any rules or guidelines.”

This actually caused both of the duo to grin like the rebels they thought they were and Layla said “Well if you think that’s a problem then it looks like we’re done here. Let’s just get out of here so we don’t have to be stuck in the same building for longer than necessary.”

“Fine by me,” said Mrs. Wilmington. She looked as though this was a storm she was used to weathering and almost disappointed that she had to spend time with these two on her time, even if she was getting hunted by murderous furniture. “What do you three know about what’s going on here?”

“You first,” I said, returning to the conversation, “We’ll scale some of the more disturbing parts back based on what you’ve been up against so far.”

“Alright,” she said, “Well I assume you guys are heading for the lobby, right? That’s where I came from and I can tell you that you don’t want to be anywhere near it. I don’t know what the heck happened down there, but everyone is just on the floor and appears to be dead.”

“Wait, everyone?” I said, “As in multiple people? You’re the first one other than us who we’ve run across the entire time we’ve been in here. How many people are down on the first floor?”

“At a rough guess? Probably about 50, and eerie as hell. Someone must have left a door open as well because the fog from outside is all around and makes it hard to see clearly,” she said.

“Did you try to go in the fog?”

“Well no,” she answered, “I woke up in the empty reception area of the ER on the second floor. My first thought was to check the lobby to see what happened to me, but 50 bodies turn you around. I’m guessing you guys don’t know how you got here either?”

“No we don’t,” I said, “But is that all you’ve seen so far?”

“So far, yeah. The rest of the hospital seems abandoned. I’ve been working my way up floor-by-floor until I found someone.”

“Well that’s all well and good. Our tale is a bit… gorier.”

I relayed the information of Sammie’s and Hubert’s demises to the teacher, and she was noticeably unshaken. Sure, she took it hard and noticed the gravity of the situation, but she didn’t break down or go into a fear-state like Brace and Layla had been in when I met them. She could prove reliably in keeping the group with a level head.

“So what do we do now?” said Brace.

“We go downstairs. Foggy dead bodies is bad, but there’s no downside to taking a longer look at the situation down there and trying some things. I might have some ideas about what’s going on around here once I see the fog up close. It might be part of the reason the rest of the town isn’t here to help.”

“Well the town wouldn’t help her,” Layla said, “She lives in Brixton, and drives an hour to work each day.”

As detestable as Brixton was compared to our scenic Pine Air, it raised a very interesting point.

“Mrs. Wilmington-

“Carol. Please.”

“Carol. What was your last memory before waking up in the ER?”

Carol looked back and forth for a second. Then she shamefully squeaked out “The Observer”

Rats. Not only was drinking at the town bar a perfect explanation for what we had in common (location), but it probably meant she was about to catch a ton of flak from the dynamic duo.

“Solid role-model right there.”

“Guess you must be drunk to grade that poorly.”

“Graduated with a bachelors in Jack Daniels, eh?”

And so on. I admired the restraint which Carol showed, observing the resigned attitude and composure (Though it did mean that she must really hate their writing to completely lose her cool over it earlier. Given their current skill in comedy, I was inclined to give her some credit). Luckily, we were interrupted before they could get too far with the degradation.

We were specifically interrupted by a rattling thump, as a chair fell down the stairs and stopped on the landing above us.

This one looked patently different from the one we had seen earlier. Where it had had wheels and a comfy leather exterior, this one was simple plastic, like a lawn chair. I wondered how it had gotten here in the first place.

We obviously were all frozen as we waited to see if it was going to move, but nothing happened for a few beats. Then, it slowly started to roll along the wall where the top was propped against it. It could easily just be the allure of gravity pulling it naturally down the stairs some more.

Or…

All of us broke at about the same moment, and ran off the landing onto what it said was the 6 th floor beside it, slamming the stairwell door behind us. We readied our weapons, and Carol grabbed a fire axe from the glass cabinet next to the stairwell. We stood and braced ourselves.

Through the slit glass window, we could see the chair lazily tumble down the stairs, gently bounce off of the door and continue rolling down the stairs.

There was silence for a moment.

“Do you think that was… one?” said Carol.

“It wasn’t the same as the one upstairs. It didn’t blur or anything. And it fell just like a normal chair would…” said Brace.

“I think the real question is, if it is a normal lawn chair, why someone decided to put it in a stairwell. I think we made a good call.”

“So where are we now?” said Layla, “The signs say ‘Alfred Coyne Wing’. Maybe the mental health ward?”

Alfred Coyne was one of our town’s founders and donated much of his fortune to our infrastructure. He also went off the deep end at the end of his days, which Layla was crudely alluding to now. He kept ranting about otherworldly beings and a doom he had brought onto mankind. Though his ominous manner had flickered through my mind a few times regarding our situation, I still figured that learning more about our foes was necessary, and the tales of Old Coyne were exceptionally devoid of stable facts.

The most insistent mystery that needed solving was what the heck these chairs were and why they were after us. It probably wouldn’t get us out of the mess, but it might let us live long enough to do so. And to do that, we need to study them and find out how they worked. The chairs seemed to be unable to move of their own volition in the presence of humans, aside from murdering us. So that meant we needed to see them with their knickers down. We needed to find a security room.

“Listen, Brace. You got that chair on picture, right?” I said.

“Yeah, but I don’t want to see it again,” he said.

“Well it doesn’t matter, it proves something really important: we can catch them on film,” I said, gesturing to the security camera pointed towards the door. “If we can find some records of how they move around, we’ll have a way better idea of how to avoid or defeat them.”

“Have we tried, you know, hitting them?”

We all kind of looked at Carol. The thought hadn’t really crossed any of our minds, apparently.

“Like, you haven’t tried to fight them at all, they just killed one of you and now it’s only flight? Where’s the fight? Next one we see, I’m at least hucking this axe at it.”

Though I was skeptical of the use of physical force against murderous furniture, it was an intriguing idea, and as long as I wasn’t the one being disarmed I figured it was useful.

“Sounds good, Carol. We’ll make sure to stand out of the way. Now let’s find that security room.”

Carol looked scared like the rest of us, but there was fire hidden behind her eyes that would cause even the most steadfast recliner to second guess itself before an assault. I made a note to keep her around as long as possible.

We never did find out what the heck the Alfred Coyne wing was for (Art maybe? There was plenty of that), but it was strangely inviting as we wandered through. I got the feeling this might have been the

floor that the doctors who don’t want to do any real work go to in order to take a break without going off-duty.

There weren’t that many chairs on this floor, but we stayed clear of them as much as we could. They didn’t appear to be very fast regardless, so we figured as long as we kept our wits about us we should be fine.

In our first stroke of luck of the evening, we managed to find a cramped room with some video equipment that had a bunch of tapes, and connections labelled to each of the floors and their respective cameras.

“Shoot, none of us could know how this works. I guess we could still steal the tapes for evidence though,” said Brace.

I turned on the computer at the desk and selected the application called ‘Security Monitor Pro’, and up on the screen came representation of every camera in the entire hospital.

“I think the tapes are just backups,” I said. “These are the live feeds. I think if we just wait, our culprit might just reveal itself.”

And so we waited. It took about 10 minutes of Brace and Layla fidgeting before our first sign showed up. The monitor in question showed an empty hallway that was apparently on the first floor. The visibility was very poor as the floor was still flooded with fog, and the camera could only reasonably see a few yards either way.

However, slowly but surely a dark spot began to appear on the monitor on the left side of the hallway. It was impossible to make out the shape, just a pure dark shadow slowly growing. Then right as it was about to cross the field of vision and materialize, it disappeared.

Then a gurney slowly rolled across the middle of the monitor. When the gurney rolled out of sight, the foreboding shadow immediately re-appeared on the other side of the hallway moving away.

“Well, what does that tell us?” I asked myself, rhetorically. I was therefore surprised by the bounty of responses.

“Shit! It means they could be anything! Beds, chairs, couches! We’re not safe anywhere!” said Brace.

“And they block out light when they travel through fog! They must leech it out of the air!” said Layla.

“Well it does mean they vary in size, right? A gurney is bigger than that lawn chair,” finished Carol.

Unfortunately they were 0 for 3. But I debated not telling them my revelation. Being hunted by scary furniture is one thing. But it’s manageable. Furniture is something that we control in our daily lives, and is the familiar. In a way, it is almost as comfortable to fight against as it is to sit in.

But the footage revealed that was not at all what we were up against. The likely explanation wasn’t that the furniture had some weird light absorption power like Layla had said. The truth was they probably were in reality, more of the shadow that we had seen approaching and leaving the scene. They had the ability somehow to change shape into familiar forms when they knew they might be observed.

This was a much darker problem. It meant that they were conscious of our routines and patterns, and were actively trying to destroy us. Or possibly study us? The chair hadn’t attacked Sammie until provoked. But still, it demonstrated our well-being was not their concern.

I decided that though the situation had changed, I wasn’t going to alert the others to the development. They were scared enough as it was, and I didn’t want to complicate things for them. Maybe I would inform Carol later if we had a moment alone, but I would have to see. For now, the main goal was to escape by any means necessary from this building.

My thoughts immediately went to Hubert. Had he somehow known what was going on here and attempted escape in the only way he had known would work? It was worth a shot on one of the lower floors. Find a window, maybe use some hospital linens to make a mini rope, and jump. It was as good a plan as any.

“Alright, all good points,” I blatantly lied, “but we still need to get out of here. I think we go down a few floors and try our luck with going out the window to safety.”

The group nodded assent. “But how will we get down? We know they use the stairs and the elevator.”

“We use the fire escape,” I said, quickly catching and fixing my mistake. “There’s no way one of them could make it out there without us being aware, and it gives us a solid shot of getting down in general if it’s unblocked.”

“That hasn’t been safe for years though. They say so in school every year, they haven’t been approved since the 50’s.” said Layla.

“Well if you think rusty stairs trumps death then you’re welcome to stay. Otherwise, move out,” I said, hopefully with an air of authority.

“Those two would know though. The kids from the school get caught playing on that thing all the time, and most of the time they’re caught because they seriously injure themselves. I mean, at least they’re close to the hospital, but still. It can be actually dangerous,” said Carol.

Well apparently my authority was still a bit lacking. She had a point, but getting out of the building was a huge boon for us right now. I decided to play to my crowd’s fondness for superiority over other students.

“Well Carol, I’m heading up there. If you think you’re in the same boat as your students you’re welcome to stay here. Brace and Layla would be ready to prove they can do it, I’m sure.”

Brace and Layla looked fired up and vigourously nodded at the opportunity to prove themselves over their teacher. Carol sighed, but went along with it. She clearly had a high opinion of herself, and she looked fit for a teacher as well. Maybe she had a few gym classes under her belt as well.

We knew the fire exit was at the rear of the building, so we walked the rest of the way through the Coyne ward, and found ourselves at a nice room with the escape lounging on the other side.

It did look incredibly dangerous, but more of a tetanus factory than a house of cards. And even if one of us contracted tetanus, we were in a pretty good place to deal with it anyway. I climbed out onto the landing first so I could get a solid observation.

The fire escape unfortunately didn’t go all the way down, stopping at about the third floor, 3 below us. It cut off abruptly, and it was obvious where the weight had strained the structure too much to bear before it broke. It wouldn’t be the best for dropping down a line because of the jagged edges, but it should be good enough to get down to a manageable jumping height. The third floor even had an unlocked window hanging open for use to go through easily.

The escape also extended up towards the roof, going all the way up, though the only noticeable feature were some garbage bags on the 8th floor landing. I briefly considered heading up to roof to take a look, but was skeptical about being cornered if there was no way back in. Down was definitely the way to go.

The fog obscured most of what was beneath the 2nd floor and down, so it looked like the stairs were a dock next a river of clouds that you could just jump in. Despite that, I had a pretty good view of the employee parking from here, and looked as if no one was there as well. This served to enhance my suspicion that something seriously bad was happening.

I turned back to the others, catching Brace muttering something about ‘Why does he keep murmuring to himself and standing there’ (Oops), and I beckoned them outside. They all stepped out onto the landing.

“Alright, the stairs only go down to the third floor, but we should be able to sneak in there and find some material to make a rope and get down. We’re going to have to be quiet though, these things might be able to hear us, and these stairs look like they could make a lot of noise if we don’t respect that fact.”

The group gave me some nods of ascent. Carol said “If one of them does come after us though, at least we can try knocking it off the edge, right? I mean, chairs are made of wood. They can’t stand a 3 story fall.”

Carol’s headstrong fighting spirit was a useful asset, but perhaps keeping knowledge from her was going to be a miss, as she was apparently more excited about dealing out some pain than I had thought. I didn’t want her going off the deep end and ending up outmatched.

“We could try it, but it will be tough in such close quarters. Your axe would be tough to swing without hurting yourself,” I said, trying to pass myself off as some kind of medieval weapons expert.

“Ah, you’re probably right,” she conceded, but she certainly didn’t lower that axe. I noticed Brace and Layla were kind of sneaking surprised glances at their teacher. I couldn’t tell for sure, but it looked like there might even be a trace of respect there? Perhaps this was going to a productive behaviour to let go anyway.

We started off down the stairs with everyone in the front and myself behind. I figured if an attack was going to come, it would probably be from a lower floor coming out to check the windows. The adversaries seemed to have some kind of knowledge of the stairs and elevators and I was hoping that they had no idea about this particular avenue.

We were about one floor down and doing fine when Layla started complaining about the increasingly strong smell. “Man, that is gross,” she whispered sarcastically, “You’d think that whoever is running this stupid thing would at least take out the garbage first.”

She managed to draw a little laugh out of everyone in the group, myself included. However, it was an odd point, why would anyone leave the garbage out on the fire escape in the first place. For that matter,

what was in the bags that it could be smelt 3 floors down? The smell was hard to place specifically, it just smelled… garbage-y.

I looked up to see if I could figure it out, and was puzzled to find the bags only 2 floors up, on the 7 th floor landing. I shook my head to clear it as we started down to the 4th floor, and looked back up to see if my eyes had been playing tricks.

6th floor landing. Ah. I saw where this was going.

We were in a very tricky spot at this point. This one was being careful, and seemed to not be moving when I had eyes on it. This gave it the advantage of being able to move what seemed to be far faster than normal, descending a flight of stairs in a fraction of a second, without having to worry about looking natural. But it also limited it to moving only when I wasn’t looking. Theoretically, if I kept my eyes trained on it we could make it all the way down. I wondered how it planned to strike if I just kept looking at it.

I found out its gambit pretty quickly as I missed the next step completely and fell flat on my face, tumbling down to the next landing on the 4th floor. Apparently it’s tough to make it down a set of rickety stairs when you’ve got your eyes locked on something nowhere near where you’re going.

The others rushed down, shushing me as best they could to try and minimize the frankly impressive amount of noise that I had created on my trip. Layla and Carol tried to get me up as I thrashed wildly about, trying to get a line of sight on where the bag was.

They got the general hint that I was either frothing mad or trying to do something, so they stepped back leaving me looking straight up to the landing halfway between the 4th and 5th floor directly above us. And on that landing was perched a group of three precariously placed garbage bags.

The rest of the group followed my gaze, and clued in pretty quickly. They stared straight at them, Carol hefting her axe, and the other two just shaking in their shoes. The bags, however, held their position.

“Hey guys, don’t worry about my fall. I just tripped over those garbage bags that have been there the whole time,” I said, as loudly and obviously as I could. “Let’s just keep going down, I don’t think there’s anything around here. Maybe one of us could keep looking at the bags though, just so they don’t fall down from us rattling the stairs.”

I was hoping to give the adversary the idea that it was still unknown to us. Perhaps it didn’t know much about human nature, and could be fooled into thinking there was still and advantage to staying hidden from us.

“I will do that because I don’t want the garbage to fall, because that would be sad,” said Brace, apparently trying to butter up the garbage.

It was good he volunteered though. I picked myself up, and we started walking slowly down the stairs with Brace keeping an eye on it. Layla was holding his hand and guiding his steps on the way down. They might be annoying, but their sincere bond they shared came in handy.

Carol was in front with me, and whispered “They work very well as a team for a couple that met two weeks ago.”

Okay, so maybe not sincere. But still, it was an admirable amount of trust to place in someone you’d only known for two weeks, so that was something at least.

The garbage, for its part, stayed perfectly still. I couldn’t think of the reason why it would do something like that, but maybe it had actually fallen for what we had put on and wanted to remain hidden. It didn’t even try to fall down the stairs after us, which gave me a sense of the temperament of these things. They might all still want to kill us, but secrecy was extremely important to them. Perhaps an exploitable weakness?

We made it to the third floor landing, and crept right around to the open window, which I realized with a scared fascination, had been clearly ripped open from a locked state. This probably explained how the adversary had gotten out onto the fire escape in the first place, but confirmed the sickening strength one would need to de-limb a human.

“All right we’re here,” I said, “We’ll go through one at a time, Brace make sure to keep an eye on-“

A loud creak cut me off. The stairs seemed to be sagging under the weight of the garbage, and it looked suspiciously like if they fell through their landing they would bounce right onto us.

Apparently I wasn’t alone in that feeling, because Brace and Layla immediately bolted through the window. There was a louder, insistent creak and I grabbed an axe-hefting Mrs. Wilmington and dove through the window myself as Layla slammed it behind me.

Almost as soon as it closed, the garbage bag splattered against the heavy hospital window. It happened so fast, I was almost certain the stairs hadn’t even given out, it had just moved so fast. We were lucky Layla was as quick as she was on the draw or else we would have been toast.

The garbage bag slowly slid down the window, and though I may have been imagining it, I thought I could see the same type of shadow as from the tapes for a split second behind it. Then the bag slipped from sight, and fell down into the fog.

We all stood there for a moment breathing heavily.

“Well, I guess I don’t have to explain that the garbage was not really garbage.”

“Yeah, we got that Einstein,” said Brace, “What do we do now? I don’t want to go back outside when that thing knows where we are.”

“We could go over to the other side of the building maybe? We’d be able to see if there was a ton of unclaimed furniture lying about the grounds,” said Layla.

“Well, they could be anything at this point,” I replied, “Cars, dumpsters, heck maybe even bushes and trees. But going to the other side should let the attention die down as we travel, then we can try our luck on the other side. First everyone should grab a sheet though.”

“Good idea, they might be afraid of ghosts just like us,” said Brace.

I noted the insubordination and rolled with it, in an attempt to appear like an accommodating leader. “Well, psychological warfare can be useful. But I was thinking for materials to climb down with on the other side of the floor.”

We all gathered our sheets and Brace put his on like a ghost costume. I was debating giving him a lecture on taking a joke too far, when he went out to check the hall and was immediately smacked in the face by a backpack. I feel like a backpack was selling it short though, or Brace was playing it up, because for the nth time that evening he fell to the ground writhing in pain.

I guess he proved me wrong. There are some things that just keep getting funnier.

But luckily for Brace, he had multiple allies this time. Layla was through the door immediately on full alert. From our angle it didn’t look like the backpack had an owner so we were assuming the worst. Carol got into a hunch and ran through the door, tackling whatever was on the other side. When I finally rounded the corner, there was a pile of women writhing on the floor that in other situations may have been relatively attractive.

There was one additional lady which gave me some good news. Not only had we found another survivor, but it was unlikely that there was much adversarial activity on this floor. As she started to recover from our assault on her, I rushed up and shoved a sheet in her mouth to stop her from making too much noise. Surprisingly, she rebelled against this, but it was 3 against one and she seemed to give up eventually.

Brace composed himself (albeit wobblingly) and came over to give her a sulking glare to boot.

“Hey,” I said, “We’re the good guys. How are you doing today?”

She stared daggers back at me in response.

“So a little bit about us. We’re effectively a contingent from the local school, plus a techie. We were looking for a way out of this place, and was wondering if you wanted to join us on our little quest to stay alive. But we have one rule on team human: No yelling for no reason and drawing unnecessary attention to yourself. Do we have an agreement?” I said as I removed her gag.

She still looked angry as hell, but seemed relieved that we weren’t here to kill her. “We have an agreement. Are you always this annoying?”

“Yes.”

“Yup.”

“Pretty much.”

I needed to work on my troops’ morale. “I don’t think so,” I said, “but your mileage may vary. Any reason you were out ghost hunting this evening?”

“Well around here I’ve learned when you see a sheet start coming through the door, you start running or hitting. You’ve met the beds I assume?”

“For us it’s been mainly chairs, but yeah. They claimed one of our number back on one of the upper floors.”

“My condolences,” she said, looking genuinely hurt. “I’ve been on my own the whole time so far, thought I was on some kind of reality show or something.”

Now that was an interesting theory that would have held a lot more sway if we hadn’t visited one of the nerve centers and seen that the cameras didn’t appear to be broadcasting anywhere. Still though, it showed some promising reasoning skills.

“Where have you explored? We started up near the 7th and 8th floors, and we’ve been moving down as the night progressed. They seem to watch the arteries of movement like stairs and elevators, so it’s been tough. We were thinking of trying to get out a window on this floor.”

“Out a window? Are you crazy?” she said, “Did you guys not realize the squirrels?”

“Squirrels?” Layla said, “We haven’t seen any of those.”

“Are they out on the grounds?” said Carol, “We might have been too high up. I couldn’t see anything through the fog when we got out on that landing, and the last few floors were a bit… rushed.”

“Yeah, you probably wouldn’t have seen them,” said the girl, “but there’s usually hundreds of squirrels on the grounds here, right? I heard about them the time I came here when one of my friends got too drunk.”

“You’ve only been to the hospital once? Are you from out of town?” said Brace.

Most everyone in Pine Air use the clinics on the first floor as their doctor’s office, as there wasn’t much demand in such a small town. However, there was quite a contingent of weekend partiers from the nearby University that our town depended on for income. It looked like Sarah might have gotten unlucky and ended up here like Mrs. Wilmington.

“Yeah, I go to the University,” she confirmed, “But it’s true right? The trees around here are crawling with squirrels normally. Well tonight, there’s none to be seen in the trees, but there must be hundreds strewn across the ground. Even take a look back out the window you came in.”

We peered back, and though it was easy to miss, the ground was peppered with a bunch of small grey lumps, each one unmoving except for a minor pulse.

“They’re all knocked out, or something similar. I ran a sample on some of that fog, and it’s nothing I could identify, including water vapour. There’s something in it that knocks out squirrels. I don’t fancy trying it out while being stalked by killers.”

“How did you test it?” said Carol, “It’s just fog?”

The girl whipped out a corked test tube from her backpack. “We’re in a hospital, I just used some of the labs. I’m studying chemistry so I have the supplies already.”

“Is that why you’re backpack is so full, crazy-lady?” muttered Brace.

“No, sorry. I stocked it full of the heaviest things I could find so it would function as a solid weapon. Staplers, some leftover bricks I found, dish soap, the works. It doesn’t beat an axe,” she said, gesturing to Carol with a nod, “but it gets the job done. My name is Sarah by the way, if we’re getting introductions out of the way any time soon.”

We all went around the circle introducing ourselves. I spent it trying to figure out a new way around this. The fog was a problem I didn’t want to have to deal with until I was out of the hospital, but necessity

may have forced my hand. We were going to have to find a different way out of the tunnels, and doing so may require some tricky thinking.

“Alright”, I said, “What do you guys know about Alfred Coyne?”

“What?” said Layla.

“Is that the guy who donated the wing from the 6th floor?” said Brace, “The guy from all the pictures?”

“The very same,” I replied, “But there’s a bit more about him than just his philanthropy.”

“I know the stories at least,” said Sarah, “They tell them all the time around the table at the Surly Observer all the time. He was some bigshot, right?”

“Yeah, the barkeep was telling me all about it through the night before I passed out. He was some kind of local legend who was obsessed with the occult. Supposedly he went insane and thought that the town was being overrun by aliens or something, right?”

“Those are the stories everyone hears, yes. But the actual locals know of a few more. Mainly that the whole town is connected by tunnels underground that were built by Coyne unbeknownst to the townspeople of the time. It was a big tiff when they found them after his death, and they’ve generally fallen into disrepair by now. That said, the hospital was around when the first tunnels were dug, so there’s a good shot that this one might be connected.”

“It’s worth a shot,” said Carol, “They probably won’t be watching something that they expect no one to use, and we can probably get through most of the debris easily enough. Do you think we’d be able to make progress?”

“Yeah, kids say they go down in the ones near the school all the time. There’s a few major blocks, but it’s worth a try at least. No one has really explored farther than you can get before a teacher notices you’re gone,” said Layla.

“No one’s ever gone down further? I would think high school kids would be all over that. Classes can be skipped, can they not? I would think that students would be pretty inquisitive.” said Sarah.

“Well we’re a small town,” Brace said defensively, “People notice when you’re missing. They get the truant officer and everything, I’ve seen it happen.”

“Brace, the school doesn’t even have a truant officer,” said Carol, “You can’t tell me you two have never hid out down there to avoid classes?”

“Nope, but glad you think the world of us Mrs.” said Layla.

“Regardless, we still need to get past the fog,” said Carol, “It’s covering the first floor like a blanket. We wouldn’t make it five feet before we most likely drop like the squirrels outside. Have you thought a way around that?”

“Yes, we’ll have to take the elevator down to the basement. I don’t even know if the stairs would go there,” I said.

“What?” said Brace, “You said those were like the veins of the building and that the chairs would be watching them like a hawk!”

“Well no, I said arteries. But the chances aren’t bad for a one-time trip down. They can’t be on every elevator all the time, and we’re only using it for a single try. Once we’re down there it’s going to be a while spent searching for the tunnel, and hopefully we won’t even have to resort to coming back up.”

“Well, I like the plan,” said Sarah, “There’s risk, but I just want to get the hell out of here if everything is as bad as you guys say it is. Is everyone on board?”

Everyone nodded in ascent to my plan, which left us to start crossing the floor. I deliberately left out that the rumours were that Coyne had used the tunnels for demonic worship, and there were probably going to be some kind of other-wordly creepy statues down there because I didn’t want to upset the group.

The truth is that I didn’t even know the true contents of the tunnels myself though. The town had been angry to find them there, but nothing had really been done about it and no one in the town seemed to ever have the idea or will to go down and explore them. This meant we were walking into a bit of an informational black hole.

Something about the tunnels tugged at my mind though, and even though I saw everyone was desperate enough to go along with me, I was unsure that it was the right call. I’d have to shelve that for later however, as there was work to be done.

“Alright, Sarah you’ve been on this floor the longest. Do you know the general layout?” I said.

“Yeah, it is a bit different than the other ones I’ve been on,” she said, “It is set up like a window instead of a Z, so there’s four spokes that extend out from the elevators at the middle. We just need to follow the hallway outside until we come to a turn, and then take that.”

“Have you seen anything weird that we should be wary of? I know you mentioned beds earlier.”

“Yeah, there are two of them around here. There’s one generic looking hospital gurney, and one who looks like a master bed on wheels. You’ll see it coming a mile away,” Sarah said.

“Have you seen them move?” said Carol, “Every one I’ve seen seems to move almost by accident, like it’s a natural flow or something. How would a bed move naturally?”

“I’m not sure what you’re getting at,” said Sarah.

“Well for example we were chased down the stairs by one. But it didn’t hop along like a bunny, it looked like it was just falling down due to gravity. Same with a garbage bag that chased us on the fire escape.”

“Oh, that makes sense. Whenever they were after me they were going downhill. But they have wheels so it looked natural I guess.”

“Downhill?” said Brace, “We’re in a building.”

“The halls are slanted towards the center,” said Sarah firmly, “At first I thought someone was rolling beds at me. But once the master came rolling by, I realized it wasn’t normal.”

“So we have to be extremely careful then. Are you saying there are two on this floor?” I said.

“I think they must have left. I outran them and hid for a bit, and I haven’t seen them for, oh,” she said checking her watch, “20 minutes?”

I noted that the time was already nearing 3am. We had accomplished a lot in only an hour. A startling amount really. Perhaps my watch was broken? I’d have to investigate later.

“That should be good enough to risk it. Let’s roll out.”

We packed up, ready for battle. The good thing about numbers is that they instantly make you feel safer even if you’re not. When you have four people around you, even if you run into a walking nightmare disguised as a chair, there’s a solid chance that they’ll get picked off first. There’s even a good chance that by all falling down on it at the same time by accident that you would have enough mass to kill it.

But we weren’t relying on luck. Brace was still stubbornly weaponless, but Sarah and Carol were well armed with their axe and bag-o-tricks respectively, while Layla and I followed up with the precision weaponry of my reflex hammer and her frying pan. We didn’t take the sheets, instead leaving them for other hapless travelers.

The hallway was surprisingly dark, after getting lucky with lighting on the 7th floor up above. Apparently whatever patients the Coyne wing treated were substantially better than whatever this floor was. I looked up and observed a sign that said “Open heart surgery -> Left”.

I reminded myself not to get sick in this town.

We rounded the corner at the edge of the floor, and we could see the turnoff to the middle ahead in the distance, illuminated by a surprisingly functional EXIT sign flickering on and off in the darkness. We approached it slowly, drawing up on the wall instinctively like police from a TV show. Carol was our point woman, and took it upon herself to take a peek around the corner to make sure everything was kosher by the elevator. A quick nod affirmed it was, and all of us rounded the corner.

It didn’t really feel like the ground was that slanted, but upon closer observation I couldn’t believe I had missed the obvious gradient towards the middle of the cross. At the middle, the elevator was clearly visible, along with a reception and waiting area that seemed to be the norm across the floors. Our eyes were luckily well-adjusted enough to the dark that I at least was able to make out the general shape of everything there, and there appeared to be nothing out of place.

I was conscious that we were walking through one of the only sources of light on the floor at the moment though, so if I had missed anything it would be able to see us, so I mentally prepared for the fear of the unknown that would course through my veins if I saw one.

We proceeded. We were about halfway down the hallway when we saw it. It rolled into the elevator with some force, and just stopped there. A giant black mass. It looked kind of like a chair, but at the same time formless. Perhaps it was dark enough that it didn’t think the camouflage was necessary? This could be such a good opportunity to nail down what it-

“Shit, that’s him!” yelled Sarah, interrupting my thoughts with the reality of our situation. I had to admit that sneaking around was actually something that didn’t become easier by adding more people, especially when they are deliberately misinformed. I resolved to tell the group about how these things most likely worked after whatever happened here.

Suddenly, the amorphous form wasn’t hard to distinguish at all. It was a master bed, the kind you would see in someone’s home if they were really middle class but wanted to appear really rich. It had a full headboard and wooden frame of what looked like mahogany, easily king-sized and filling the entire hallway. It had what looked like preposterously comfortable sheets, and a full complement of actual and throw pillows.

I could see this detail because it came equipped with a lamp that snapped on. It was mounted above the headboard, illuminating it in a preposterously un-creepy glow that nonetheless terrified me. We all readied our weapons when suddenly the P.A. system crackled to life.

“Roight then,” said a hideous disembodied voice from the speakers that sounded like steel going through a meat grinder. “Youse pesky ‘Oomies are getting’ annoyin’. Die.”

It was a bizarre thing to say at the very least, but it was punctuated by a weirder sensation of the slant of the floor reversing. It was impossible to think a moment earlier we had been going downhill because now we were climbing uphill while a quite frankly startlingly fast bed hurtled towards us. Even stranger was how the slant disappeared entirely as it neared us turning into a flat hallway.

Somehow it was messing with reality to make its approach seem easy to digest. I noticed that the group was having some trouble dealing with this, as evidenced by the fact they all fell to the ground disoriented. Well, that left me against a murderous bed who didn’t even have a regard for his own rules of engagement, directly addressing us and revealing their methods publicly before the attack. I’d love to say I ran then, looped my way around in the ensuing chaos and took the lift to the basement. But I had gotten them into this mess by not warning them fully for what these things could do. I had to help in some way.

The bed got here faster than possible and the Sarah was in the air dangling in front of us screaming. With three out of the four of us writhing on the ground, her backpack dropped as she was lifted. The whole bed and the air around it began to blur. I knew what came next, and I didn’t particularly want to witness it.

I had to act quickly. The thing was big, I knew that. It probably wasn’t using magic to become a bed, as actual quantum shape-shifting seemed a bit above the intelligence level of these adversaries. So it was probably disguising itself, meaning it just looked like a bed. But Sarah was levitating unattached to the physical body. I chanced that she wasn’t in fact levitating, it seemed more likely she was being held by an unseen appendage that connected to whatever was being disguised.

I ran forward, dropping my hammer and grabbing Sarah’s pack, and took as heavy a swing as I could at the spot about 2 feet off the bed above the center. I reasoned this would probably be the center of mass, and whatever Sarah was going to be up against would probably not appreciate her pack to its gut.

To my surprise and relief I actually hit something. Hard, actually. I immediately found empathy for Brace as what seemed like a bag of black-hole level density smashed against the unseen core.

Sarah dropped out of the air to the floor with a thud, and for a second the bed disappeared into a blur, and our ears were assaulted with just absolute gibberish. No PA system to send a serious threat this time which I guessed meant that we were hearing the thing’s undecipherable native tongue.

I had no desire to learn it though, linguistics was never really one of my high points in school. Sarah had taken the fall well and was getting to her feet. But after I had provided some impetus, the real star was Carol, who charged the blurring apparition with an axe and started hacking randomly.

It kept shrieking in agony, and it retreated back a few paces. The chances of driving it all the way to the elevator seemed hard though. It was shocked and surprised, but given the size of whatever took up an entire hallway and could effortlessly lift and de-limb humans, it would probably beat us in physical combat eventually.

I had a plan though. I slid Sarah’s backpack back to her and gestured for the stunned Brace and Layla to move forward. Just as the blurring began to stabilize and the bed reappeared, I grabbed my dropped reflex hammer and whacked it against the footboard as hard as I could.

I figured that shocking it was still probably our best goal, and the impact from earlier suggested this thing had a physical form like a normal vertebrate. So I was hoping it had reflexes.

As soon as I hit it, the bed flipped backwards on its headboard, and that cursing gibberish started again.

“Run! Now!” I yelled over the cacophony and the group charged past and over the bed to the elevator. We made it to the elevator slipping and sliding on the floor until we finally found footing and pressed the button. The light was on, and now we had to hop against hop that the service was fast.

The bed blurred heavily, and suddenly righted itself looking directly at us. Right as it did, the doors opened and we jumped in, immediately spamming the ‘close door’ button. We heard movement coming down the hallway, and just as the doors closed there was a sickening thud of wood on metal.

Then we began our descent.

It was an awkward ride, but the funny thing about elevators is it wasn’t even close to my worst. None of us farted for one. That has to be worth something. None of us said anything though so it was still pretty unpleasant.

We got to the basement, and the doors opened. We were looking into pure darkness, which was nice as it suggested that nothing of note was lurking around down here. I stepped out and flicked on a light switch which put us in an empty hallway with only the elevator on one end and a door at the other. We filed out of the elevator. Mostly everyone was just catching their breath. I surveyed my troops.

Carol was still breathing heavily, though it looked she was actually trying to stifle a smile. I figured that she might have been enjoying this a bit too much, but at the same time she had been invaluable in the fight. Full marks from me.

Sarah was shaken. It’s tough to comprehend death, and she knew exactly what fate she had been saved from thanks to our chat about Sammie. That said, she had made it through with an admirable head on her shoulders and hadn’t suffered a breakdown.

Speaking of breakdowns, I couldn’t actually tell if Brace was wearing his ghost costume or if he and Layla were just white as sheets. Obviously this had brought back damaging memories of watching their friend dismembered, but I had hoped our victory might have buoyed their spirits a bit. It didn’t look good though. Perhaps I could try and help them recover.

“Hey, this’ll make a hell of an epic when we make it out, won’t it? I’m sure Sammie couldn’t have two better scribes to make the world remember him,” I said.

“Wha- I guess I hadn’t thought of that…” said Brace.

“That’s true,” sniffed Layla, “I think Brace would do an amazing job bringing his sacrifice to life. He did help us right?”

“Invaluable knowledge of the enemy is what let us make it out of there,” I said as solemnly as I could. Sarah and Carol seemed to know exactly what I was going for so they chimed in.

“Sammie did always say he was a fan of your work, Brace. He always picked it during peer editing,” said Carol, avoiding any actual comments to either of them.

“I’m just glad your quick thinking left you alive to tell us about it,” said Sarah, “We would’ve been goners without that knowledge.”

“Alright, we get it,” Brace said confidently now, “We’ll make sure to immortalize our story. Did you guys really think we wouldn’t? I know our generation is perceived as dangerous genius but –“

“But we were afraid to ask before it looked like we might not make it, yes,” I said, hurrying along so that hopefully Carol didn’t murder him. “But now the next chapter begins.”

“Epic sagas don’t have chapters, dummy,” snarked Layla.

“Well the point is we need to keep going. We’ve actually made it to the basement and I think it’s worth finding our way out of here. It looks like the adversaries haven’t been down here, so it should take them a while to even realize where we went. Everyone ready to get through that door?” I said.

The group nodded ascent. We readied ourselves and crept through the sterile hospital lighting to the end of the hallway.

“Whatever is over there,” I said, “can’t be as bad as what we just faced. We’re a good team and we know what to do if there happens to be some kind of terrifying ottoman on the other side of this door. We stay cool, we force it back and we keep on trying to find a way out.”

“If there is one though, where do we force it? We don’t have any idea about the layout down here. It could be dead ends, or a deathtrap,” said Carol.

“Well given as the Master tried to stop us getting into it, I’m guessing they don’t have as great a handle on the main methods of transportation as we thought. I don’t think there is anything to worry about down here.”

“We should be prepared anyway. Weapons up everyone,” said Sarah, readying her backpack. I wasn’t a fan of her leadership skills coming into effect, but I was okay with the idea of having a lieutenant to keep the troops in fighting form, so I let it slide for now.

We approached the door slowly, with me in the front and all weapons ready. Brace was now holding a baseball cap in his hand that he must have figured would hurt more than his fists, though both were so dainty and lightweight I doubted it would make much of a difference. I gingerly grabbed the handle and prepared to pull. A swift motion would be best for surprising any interloper on the other side and

allowed me to jump back with momentum in case it was hostile. With that in mind, I gave the door a massive yank.

And pulled myself straight into the locked door, headfirst.

It wasn’t my most graceful moment of the night, but I thought it probably beat falling down the stairs headfirst. I debated trying to pass it off as a gesture of my anger towards the door being locked, but figured I didn’t have the acting chops to pull it off. I settled with “Ow.”

Brace snickered and Layla snarked. Sarah and Carol actually helped me up though, which I appreciated and helped show who the true leader of the group was. (Me, of course. I was so important that my wellbeing was paramount to all the senior leadership of the group)

“That door is locked,” I said, decisively.

“You think?” said Layla.

“Do you think there is a key we need? It doesn’t look like it could even be locked if someone tried, there’s no hole,” said Carol.

“There’s no hole, but there is a handle,” said Sarah, “I’m guess it uses some sort of FOB access.”

“What?” said Brace.

“Ah, good thinking,” I said, cementing Sarah’s status as my second in command, “I remember some of the staff carrying around cards and FOBs when I was here last for a sore throat. But how do we get through then? I doubt we could find a living member of the staff at this point.”

It was certainly an unpleasant thought to raise as well. We had known the hospital staff had been missing for a while, but now it was confirmed that there were murderous otherworldly automatons wandering the hallways. What had happened to the staff?

There hadn’t been any signs of struggle that we could see thus far, barring Hubert’s descent into madness (no pun intended). Was there some kind of roundup that we had missed when we were sleeping? The adversaries didn’t seem particularly clean if the aftermath of Sammy could be trusted. It seemed unlikely they had killed the staff while no one was looking. Perhaps they had barricaded themselves down here? Well, hopefully we would find out if we got past this door.

“I think I might actually have a trick to get through here,” said Sarah.

She whipped out a purse from her backpack with a nice floral pattern in a light brown colour.

“Ooh, are you going to use some chemistry to make the nail polish eat straight through the sensor?” said Layla excitedly.

“Nope,” said Sarah, “I’m going to use a fob from this nurse’s purse.”

She rummaged through a few more seconds and pulled out one of the hospital fobs, attached to a card that said ‘Natalie Wood’.

“Whew,” said Sarah, “Wasn’t sure that would work. I found it in a room that looked like a change-room so I was just going on a whim here.”

She stepped up to the door and it gave a small beep and swung open.

The hospital inventory room was big, but smaller than you would expect for a hospital of the size it was, though it did have a high ceiling that made it look like a warehouse. There was some industrial lighting on that gave the room a grey glow. There were lots of shelves and some weirdly arranged clothing racks strewn about the floor. It also looked like there was some sort of break room near the entrance off to the left with some chairs stacked up against the wall and a table. There were also plenty of spare gurneys.

Under normal circumstances this would have been a very boring room. But knowing our foes, this looked like it could get ugly fast.

We were kind of frozen in that special way that everyone knows. That moment when something happens that could be a sign of something terrifying, but is still unlikely. Like when a random noise in your house could either be a burglar coming to strangle you or a pipe expanding. Or how catching a shadowy figure out of the corner of your eye could be a tiger about to pounce or a trick of light.

Or how a room full of furniture could be an inhuman mob of mass-murderers, or a room full of furniture.

Luckily, our silence made me realize that at least we were all on the same page. That gave us predictability. If it turned out there were any of the things in here, it looked like they were more like the garbage bags than the Master. They at least wanted to make it look like they weren’t there.

I spotted a small, out of place door on the far wall that looked run down and unused. I hoped that it was the one to the tunnels, and I slowly reached out and closed the door to brief the team.

“Alright, here’s the plan. I don’t think there is anything in there. But if there is we need to be prepared. Agreed?” I said.

“Yup,” said Sarah, and the rest nodded in agreement.

“So here’s my plan. The ones in there aren’t like our last opponent. They care if we can perceive them, if there are any there at all. So this is what we do. The four of you stand back to back so that we have eyes on every area of the room at once. You have to keep their eyes open, as the ones that care tend to move far faster than the ones that don’t. No blinking allowed. If you need to, then you tell me and I’ll rotate from the middle to cover you. Try to space them out so we don’t get into a pattern.”

Brace and Layla nodded vigourously, even looking a bit excited.

“Just like the Angels of old,” said Brace, and Layla actually tittered excitedly. Kids these days confound me somewhat, but at least ‘overexcited’ beats ‘sullen’.

Carol and Sarah looked resigned to the plan and gave a heavy nod.

“You saw the other door I’m assuming?” said Sarah.

“The one on the far wall?” I said, “Yeah, I saw it. I wasn’t able to get a solid path towards it though, so it will be a bit of trial and error to get there.”

“Where’s the door? If stuff goes wrong I think we should all have an idea of where to break for,” said Carol.

We noted the position of the door on the right side of the opposite wall.

“So we’ll be going right past the break area with like, 50 chairs, right?” said Layla, “I’m not sure if that is a good idea…”

I had forgotten that I hadn’t briefed the team yet on the fact that the monsters weren’t in all likelihood physically chairs, so 50 chairs occupying the same space as one because of stacking wasn’t a big deal. But we had wasted a lot of time preparing, so I just said “Yeah, it will be tricky. But they won’t move as long as we stay vigilant.”

We all got into formation. Sarah was looking forward as she had the best idea of where the goal was. Layla and Brace were on opposite sides for right and left, leaving Carol to take the rear.

“We blink in clockwise order, understood? Don’t say ‘Cover’ unless you’re next in line, and don’t blink either. Try to space the blinks normally, it’s not a staring contest.” I said, though in a sense a staring contest was exactly what it was. We were just going to blatantly cheat.

I got my chorus of nods, and moved forward. “Sarah, would you kindly open the door?”

Sarah snickered, definitely lieutenant material. Then she swung open the door.

The exact same scene greeted us. Good to know that nothing had decided to better position itself well we weren’t looking. I began to expect that nothing was in here, but the results were too dire to risk. That garbage had still been the scariest opponent I had faced all night.

“Cover,” said Sarah.

We began walking forward, Sarah guiding us. Under normal circumstances the 50 meters across the warehouse-like basement would have been easy, but in our current state it was significantly more difficult and keeping everyone together was tough.

“Cover,” said Brace.

I had the worst of both worlds in terms of navigating because I was going to have to continually switch between walking sideways, forwards and backwards and I had to keep my eyes ready at any time.

“Cover,” said Carol.

I was now walking backwards and had a view of the area we had come in through. The wall was curiously unadorned, but admittedly I hadn’t been in too many break rooms before anyway. It was hard to walk, but at least I knew any obstacles would have to be first negotiated by Sarah.

“Cover,” said Layla.

We were about halfway there now, and well past the break room. I was beginning to feel optimistic, but were moving into some shelves. I prodded Sarah to stop and the group took a break.

“Cover?” said Sarah.

“These shelves are going to be tricky,” I said, “They’re lined up in two rows and we have to go right through the middle of the aisles. Anything hiding in them will be able to take us out by surprise if we’re not being careful.”

“Cover,” said Layla, “So what do we do?”

I was beginning to get a bit dizzy, but I soldiered on. “We knock them down. I know it’s a tad destructive, but there are only three rows on either side. Sarah, if you give either side a big kick, they should fall like dominoes.”

“Alright,” said Sarah.

“Cover,” said Carol.

Then Sarah lurched forward with a big kick. The left side shelf set fell over with gusto, taking the other two with it and giving us at least a barrier that nothing could get through without revealing itself.

“Cover, dust in my eyes,” said Brace.

I turned to cover him as Sarah gave the other side what I ascertained to be an even more intense kick that carried us all forward a little bit. The second set fell down and we were set for moving forward.

That’s when Carol shrieked out a curse.

“Holy Crap!” she profaned loudly. Despite the training the rest of the group abandoned formation and turned to look straight at Carol.

In front of Carol, not doing anything, was an oddly shaped coatrack with a lab coat hanging off the edge. I think we could all gather that it hadn’t been there originally.

“Everyone keep your eyes right on it,” I said, “If there was anything else in here we’d be dead already after breaking formation. This thing is it.”

“Where did it come from?” asked Sarah.

“I don’t know,” said Carol, breathlessly. “When you lurched forward on that kick for a second, I just blinked. Once, that was it. I think this thing was at the very beginning gate when we came in near the break area? It must have crossed 20 meters in a heartbeat.”

That was a disturbing thought, but in line with what we had seen with the bag. However it was completely out of place when compared to the Master, suggesting that there were at least two classes of foe that we were up against. It was even possible that one was non-violent.

Ha. Yeah, right.

“Do we fight it?” said Layla, pan in hand.

“Not a chance. I’m going to turn around and guide you guys to the door. You just link up by hands and keep blinking in the same order and keep it frozen. Got it?”

Four nods. Good enough for me.

I grabbed Sarah’s hand, turned around and began to guide them off. It was a lot easier for me to navigate when I wasn’t effectively riding a tilt-a-whirl, so we actually made it past the shelves and around some linen carts in not bad time, for what it was worth. I chanced a look back at the coat rack as we neared the door. It still was perfectly, almost impossibly still, just waiting there without moving.

“Alright, we’ve made it to the door,” I said, as I made sure this handle actually turned. It did, so I opened it, stepped aside and guided the group backwards through the portal. Then I turned around myself and went backwards through the door.

My eyes were most likely playing tricks on me, but it almost looked like the lab coat waved goodbye.

I slammed the door and locked it before I could think too much about that. I was tempted to reopen it to check, but I had the feeling the rack was already standing directly in front of the door. At least it didn’t sound like it was trying to get in which confirmed that it didn’t want us thinking it was able to move. Though beating a coatrack in a mental duel wasn’t my definition of a massive victory, I had confidence it wouldn’t try opening the door, since the bag didn’t try getting through the window.

I took a deep breath and centered myself as I turned around to face my pals. They looked confused now, and I took a moment to join them in that feeling as I assessed the room.

We were no longer in anything that vaguely resembled the aging, built-and-rebuilt hospital. This room was so modern it looked like it had walked straight out of a science fiction movie. The walls were a muted silver and immaculately clean, yet unreflective. The room was perfectly lit by fluorescent lights on the ceiling, while the floor was tiled and spotless. It was adorned by a simple little set of lockers on the left side, and two canisters hooked up to some piping on the right. All said, the room was substantially smaller than the storage area we had come from.

There was one imperfection, however, that all of our eyes had fallen on. The two canisters looked designed to hook up to the pipes, which seemed like they went up into the hospital. One was fully hooked up with the pipe and screwed in, while the other was on the floor as if something had knocked it over.

“Must be oxygen tanks, right? That’s why they don’t let you smoke in hospitals, because the risk of fire is too large with the increased oxygen content,” I said.

“No way two tanks would be sufficient for an increase to all the floors though,” said Sarah, “Maybe they pump relaxants into the mental health wards?”

“I doubt it. I can’t picture the town letting them away with that, and the hospital is so low tech they can’t use iPads, much less figure out how to set up some gas dispersal system in secret,” said Layla.

I looked at the fallen canister. It was labelled in a bunch of complex symbols that I couldn’t make sense out of. The harder I looked though, the more I was certain it was probably some sort of ancient script, though regardless it was not something that belonged in a hospital.

“We agree that was being pumped into the hospital most likely, correct?” said Sarah, “Then it apparently doesn’t affect humans that noticeably. Do you think it’s worth trying a bit to test out the effects?”

It wasn’t a bad idea. The only thing was, it was possible that the trial could take out a member of my team. We were operating at almost peak effectiveness now and losing one of my brood would be a loss that would be felt hard for the rest of the night, even if we just had to care for them. I was faced with an impossible decision.

Of course, the above was sarcasm. Obviously I was picking Brace.

“Brace, are you up for it? You seem like you may have the most experience with illicit substances from that Marijuana leaf embroidered on your sweater,” I said.

“Uh… I mean of course, yeah, I will. My body is probably the most resilient out of everyone here,” he said with the manner of someone whose dumb choices were finally being validated.

Sarah picked up the canister, and adjusted the controls. “Looks like it will spray a bit from this nozzle after I turn the valve. Are you ready for this, Brace? It could be really dangerous. It might end up having steeper effects at higher concentrations.”

“Well… I mean you guys aren’t going to leave me here to die, right?” he said, with a nervous chuckle.

For the first time that evening I realized it was true. Usually I wasn’t great at developing relationships with others, but I actually would miss Brace if I left him to die in an abandoned hospital basement. I might even feel guilty about it. So I nodded along with everyone else.

Layla stepped up and gave him a big kiss, whispering “You’re so brave” in his ear, and he stepped forward. Sarah put the nozzle up to his nose and sprayed.

A brief puff of grey fog-like gas fumed out and dissipated before Brace. He dropped to the floor faster than I would have thought, but he did it in a weird way. It wasn’t like he fell unconscious, as I would have noticed that. I had seen Brace crumple multiple times tonight. He just really quickly went to lie down on the floor. It would have been almost certainly a painless experience, so I hoped he was also still alive.

Layla was down immediately, shrieking, but Carol pulled her off and checked Brace’s pulse.

“You know first aid?” said Sarah.

“I’m a teacher, of course I know first aid. He’s fine by the way. It actually just looks like he’s… asleep? He actually has some REM going on if you look close.”

Carol was right. Brace’s eyes were clearly going double time behind the lids and though the rest of his body was remaining motionless, it looked like he may be in a fair bit of stress.

“Should we help him? I think interrupting sleeping people is usually a bad idea, right?” said Sarah.

“Let’s give him a few minutes before we try anything,” I said, “the symptoms might change to a state we don’t want to be shaking him in.”

It was only about 10 seconds past that, when Brace slowly and deliberately got up from the floor. His eyes were still shut and frenzied behind his eyelids but other than that he looked exactly like normal Brace. Then he started shuffling towards the side of the room we came in through.

“Uhh… We should stop him,” I said, moving towards him.

“What happened to not disturbing him?” said Layla, grabbing me back. Brace was almost at the door. “We don’t want to cause a breakdown.”

“Well, I think I just figured out how we ended up in the hospital,” I said, trying to remain calm as I wrenched my arm free and dashed to the door catching him just in time as he unlocked the door, but right before he opened it.

He seemed puzzled behind his eyes, but not angry. He just kind of tried to push forward to get at the door. Everyone realized what was happening and dashed forward to help hold him in place. Once they did however, he just kind of gave up and stood there. Then, slowly, a semblance of normalcy returned to his face.

“Wh- What just happened?” said Brace.

“You were trying to get back to the coatrack, for some god-forsaken reason,” said Carol.

“What? No, that would be insane. We just came through into this room. This is a weird room though…”

“You haven’t seen it before, have you?” I said.

“No, why?”

“Well we just had you inhale some experimental gas. Apparently it makes you sleepwalk and lose a bit of short-term memory.”

“Oh. Why did I agree to that?” said Brace.

“We buttered you up,” I said impatiently, “The more important thing is where Brace tried to go while he was out.”

“He was just sleepwalking. He tried to go through a door we didn’t want him to,” said Sarah.

“You could see it that way,” I said.

My next memory was waking up standing surrounded by the group, who were attempting to hold me back from the door.

“I assume I proved my point then,” I said.

“Yeah, I’m willing to buy in now,” said Sarah.

I rationalized that the gas almost perfectly explained how we had gotten here in the first place. It knocked you out and wiped you memory of how you were knocked out, and then made you attempt to get to the hospital, as if it was a beacon of some sort. It also looked suspiciously like the fog circulating through the rest of the town that had paralyzed the squirrels. Apparently it was custom made for humans.

My plan had been to test it on myself and anyone else to make sure the result was the same. I figured that the plan had already taken effect and that my memory had been suitably wiped. It was a mental victory for sure, but on the scale of creepy it was also fairly high.

“So that gas is to keep us docile, and take us here. And the whole hospital was supposed to be flooded with it? So someone wanted everyone in the town here and immobilized,” said Sarah. “God, that’s scary. I guess whoever knocked this over did it by accident and the flow got cut off before all of us could be dealt with?”

It made sense, so I was inclined to believe it regardless of the dread that it filled me with.

“Classic government docile-induction technique. This are must have been visited by aliens, and the government is trying to wipe everyone’s minds,” said Brace.

Stupider, but at this point it was sadly in the realm of possibility. At least the government would have the connections to install the system while the town was unaware. But it still felt wrong to me, as my state representative wasn’t a murderous chair.

“I think at this point, frankly anything could be valid,” I said, “but I think you guys might be missing the bigger question.”

“And what’s that?” said Carol.

“I think the bigger question is what the hell are we currently breathing if that other canister is still being piped in?”

We all took a second to look at the still functioning hooked up canister of gas, marked in entirely different foreign symbols, pumping away it’s payload through the vents and into our lungs.

“Well I’m even less willing to say that’s oxygen now,” said Sarah.

“Shit,” said Carol.

We stared at it for a while. It was a problem that admittedly didn’t seem to be effecting us, but who knows how it was warping our awareness? Maybe we were hallucinating all the monsters as a way to keep us scared in our rooms. Maybe Brace and Layla had just butchered Sammie themselves? He was as yet our only casualty.

I topped myself from going down those avenues, as even if they were true they were still outnumbered. And we needed a way around that gas. I decided to try a Sarah.

“Lockers in a room with dangerous gas?” I said, “I’m going to take a stab in the dark that these have…” I pulled open the door. “Gas masks!”

I was right. There were two in the lockers hanging on the wall and literally nothing else. It was greatly confusing, but fortuitous at the same time.

“Should we try them on?” said Sarah.

“I don’t know… We may have grown dependent on whatever is in the air,” I replied.

Carol stepped forward and put one on without a second thought. She took a deep breath and looked around.

“I don’t feel any different. None of my senses feel out of the ordinary. I think it’s benign, whatever it is,” she said.

“Alright, well that’s good to know. At least we can use the masks though, I’m sure they could come in handy. We might even be able to navigate a bit outside if we need to get through another pocket of the knockout stuff. Let’s grab them and get out of here.”

“Uh… Where’s out?” said Layla.

It was a fair question. All of use looked around the room, until we realized there was actually another door on the far side of the wall. It was strange that we had completely missed it earlier.

“Hu,” said Sarah, “I didn’t even see that there at all. Has it been there the whole time?”

“Well now that you mention it, I can definitely remember it being there,” said Carol.

“Yeah, I actually bumped into the handle when Brace took the gas,” said Layla.

Now that I saw it I could remember it. Ordinarily, I would chalk that up to stress, or the fact we had just escaped a predator and had a lot on our minds. But with the potency of manipulation we were up against, and the fact that we were still possibly under the influence of one of the gasses, it gave me pause.

I made a note to consider it later, and then realized that my mental notebook was getting too full to ignore. That was actually something to note as well. I tended towards thinking before I acted, not the other way around. But tonight I had been particularly decisive and a leader of sorts. Sure, I was acting in the supposed best interest of my troops, but… Was I really?

It was a troubling line of reasoning. I was beginning to get the sense that the foe was less of a physical menace and more of a mental one. I was going to have be sharper if I expected to survive, and that meant taking things slower and analyzing the correct choice of action before moving forward.

Of course, in this case the only two options were forwards or death, so I decided on forwards.

“Well I guess we move on. Be careful of adversaries, but I don’t think there will be any down here. The biggest thing to worry about is probably going to be unsafe debris,” I said.

“What do you mean when you say adversary?” said Layla.

“The group that either is or controls the sentient imposter objects and is in charge of pumping the gas through the town. I group them together as a faction that opposes our interests of living and also those of escaping this hospital. Good question though, sometimes I forget to explain myself,” I said.

“What she means, is why don’t you just call them what they are,” said Brace, “namely aliens?”

It elicited a groan from Sarah and Carol, but at this point I was open to possible explanations.

“All right Brace, you have 10 seconds to make me believe it’s aliens. If what I hear sounds in any way plausible, I’ll let you continue,” I said.

“Alright, well ‘Brace’ for the truth,” he said smugly.

I opened the door and walked through it. Sarah, Carol and even Layla followed me straight through. Brace looked crestfallen, as if he had tried it before, but even he went along with us afterwards.

Of course by went along, we only got about 3 feet before we erupted in a chorus of curses and shrieks as a gigantic horned nightmare beast rose out of the darkness to meet us.

Sarah and I acted quickly, but Carol was faster. Her axe struck it square in the face, and for a second I though she had elicited a groan from its horrible visage, until I realized it was more of a clang. Also, that the blow hadn’t caused it to shift an inch. Also, that it hadn’t moved at all since we saw it. And finally that its skin was made of metal, and it was mounted in the wall.

It was a statue, is what I’m saying.

Carol was about to take another swing so I blasted out “Carol, wait! It’s a statue!”

She looked bewildered for a moment and was almost going to protest, when she looked back and dumbly nodded. “I guess I may have gotten a bit carried away there,” she said.

“That’s fine, I think all of us are fine with your avid defense. You sure know how to keep people safe,” said Sarah. I was beginning to appreciate Sarah’s manipulations as well as my own. They kept the group in high spirits, especially Carol who was effectively the Boxer of our Animal Farm. Though the analogy doesn’t go that deep, I wouldn’t call myself a pig, I’m a human (but is there a difference?).

“I think the bigger question this time is why the heck this is here, and so close to the hospital? I get the sense no one has been down here in a very, very long time,” I said, observing the statue. The tunnels weren’t very well lit, but there was an ember like glow coming from the statue’s mouth, and it seemed like there may be more down either way that the tunnel extended.

“Well the stories say that the tunnels were used for demonic worship, right?” said Brace, “I don’t know about you guys, but that looks like a demon to me.”

“But those are supposed to be just stories, right?” said Layla, “If there was actually bad stuff going on down here some should have investigated it, and put a stop to it. Right?”

“Not necessarily,” said Carol catching her breath, “I was always surprised at how few of the locals ever thought to explore these tunnels when I started teaching here. It seems like such an obvious thing to do as soon as they would have been found. The mystery kind of faded the longer I stayed, but I never did get an answer.”

“Well what was the supposed purpose of these tunnels? You’d think they would have been mapped for structural reasons right? To guard against a sinkhole opening up or something along those lines?” said Sarah.

“Not to my knowledge,” I said, “I can’t even think of someone who proposed the idea. I think that the aura of ugliness around the whole affair was enough to prevent anyone from unearthing any actually bad secrets. Our town would lose everything if it was found out that Old Coyne was performing human sacrifice underground or something like it, instead of being a loveable old coot.”

Brace and Layla nodded in agreement, and the explanation seemed to placate the out-of-towners as well.

“But what are the stories then, if they were bad enough to keep out everyone for such a long time?” said Sarah, “Actual human sacrifice?”

“Well the stories about Alfred Coyne are played up for visitors as they bring in more tourists. But the simple fact is there are so many stories about him that there’s no consensus on what he really was

doing. The stories range from demon worship, to vampirism, to creating Frankenstein-like monsters out of woodland animals. There are only 3 confirmed instances of him being crazy though, and all of them were light enough that no one wanted to figure out how these tunnels were tied to more.”

“Well what are the three confirmed stories then?” said Sarah.

“Well the most famous is his goodbye, where he gave a bog speech to the town in delirium saying he had doomed them all, which was obviously baloney as they stuck around. Then there was one incident when he burned down the town library because he thought he saw something weird, but it was at like 3 in the morning, so he probably just had a bad dream.”

“Are they all explainable then?” said Sarah.

“Pretty much,” said Brace, “The only other one is the one they tell at the Companion, or any of the bars, but the companion is where most people think it actually happened.”

“Oh, I’ve heard that one all over the place,” said Carol joining in, “He shows up at the bar at the stroke of midnight and then asks if anyone has seen anything strange. He looks relieved when the bartender says the towns been nice and quiet, and then a big grandfather clock rings in the corner, and he runs out terrified, raving like a lunatic.”

“So he had night terrors, and suffered from dementia,” said Sarah, “That doesn’t sound too scary to be honest. Maybe someone else built these in after him because they knew no one would go looking?”

I had a huge sinking feeling in my stomach unrelated to Sarah’ comment.

“Carol, you frequent the Companion often, correct?” I said.

“Well, not usually like tonight… If you’re trying to get at how reliable my testimony is I am usually sober,” she replied testily.

“That’s not what I’m implying at all. I go there a fair amount myself. Sarah, I’m sure you’ve been there as well? Between the three of us we probably have a fairly good idea of the bar’s layout, in fact all of the bars in this town, correct?”

Sarah and Carol reluctantly nodded.

“Can you think of any single one of those bars that has a grandfather clock?”

“Definitely not, that would stand out,” said Sarah.

“I don’t think so myself,” said Carol, “Who puts a grandfather clock in a bar anyway?”

“Oh, shit,” said Brace, “Do you mean…”

“All I’m saying,” I said, “Is that maybe that clock put itself there.”

We paused for a second. I hadn’t even thought about bringing the old Coyne legends into my analysis in any serious capacity for a while now. The main reason for this was that they were just so easily explained away by bad dreams and being old.

But this particular piece of evidence was disturbing in the new light of our evening’s adventures. Could it be that the things had been here for far longer than we thought? Could they actually have something to do with old Coyne’s crazy ramblings? It was seeming like it was more likely by the second.

“Well, I guess maybe it isn’t aliens after all,” said Brace. It lightened my mood at least, so I appreciated the levity.

“Isn’t it more likely that one of the owners’ just used to own a clock and removed it?” said Sarah, logical as always.

“It’s possible, I’ll admit,” I said, “But think. The grandfather clock that terrified our town’s founder? That would give you permanent bragging rights that the story actually happened in your bar, not to mention how great it would look in an old time-y setting like Pine Air. And it’s one of those things where if I search my mind, I can’t think of a single instance of anyone explaining what happened to the grandfather clock, and I never thought to ask. Doesn’t that seem strange?”

“It does seem odd for a tourist town,” said Carol, “And I can’t think of myself ever asking what happened either.”

“I sadly think it makes more sense in the context of what we’re seeing tonight. It does mean we have to adjust our perception of the adversary though. These aren’t bad things that have roamed into town to take out our citizens. They are a controlled, disciplined faction that has managed to remain undetected for close to a hundred years.”

“Well, they do blend in don’t they?” said Layla, “I mean I could have been sitting on one in Mrs. Wilmington’s class for the whole semester and I wouldn’t have noticed anything.”

“Actually you probably would have noticed it fairly quickly. You said Sammie had trouble trying to sit on it right? I think that there disguise is really only visual. They true forms aren’t chairs, they just look like that,” I said, bringing the group up to speed with what I already guessed.

“How would you know that for sure?” said Sarah, “He might have just been confused.”

“Well when I made the Master drop you, I didn’t hit any part of the bed. I aimed for the center of mass above the bed, and connected with something completely invisible above it. I think I hit its body.”

“That makes sense actually,” Brace said softly, “Unless they happened to be psychic, I don’t think it could have pulled off his… Sammie’s…l-limbs in the way it did as a chair.”

“Then I think we need to know more about Coyne then,” said Sarah, “because he was able to recognize these things.”

“What makes you think that?” I said.

“Well he somehow surmised that the clock was one of them. We know it didn’t follow him, or else someone would have seen it come into the bar, or noticed something was odd. So it must have been there for some time, enough to gain the patrons trust.”

“So Coyne must have figured out some method of seeing them…” I said, “Good thinking Sarah. Well, if we want to find out more about Coyne, searching these tunnels is probably a good way to go. I have a hard time believing anyone else built them. They were discovered relatively shortly after his death and

there certainly wasn’t anyone with the resources to build an extensive tunnel system other than him. So I say we make it our goal to research Coyne, or escape, whichever comes first.”

“Well we have a bigger choice to make first: left or right?” said Sarah.

It was an intriguing decision, and a good reminder that we still had to keep moving or else the enemy could find us. If they had been around as long as we thought, they must at least know of the tunnels existence, and I couldn’t expect that the Master would let a door stop him from following us.

Both sides looked similar when we came in, and even after letting our eyes adjust to the darkness they were still virtually the same. The tunnels themselves were very smoothly hewn from the rock, and led me to believe we were farther down than I had originally thought these tunnels were. The fiery glow flickered down each of the passages.

“What do you guys think that light is for?” said Layla, “Do you think it means there are still some people down here?”

I tried looking in the mouth of the closest statue, but it looked like the glow was coming from very deep down. There was no indication of if it was a fire, a lamp or a miniature sun of some sort. Just a vague orangey light.

“I don’t really know. It depends whether these things are electric powered or not, and even then they could just be running really low voltage from somewhere all the time. I think we should be prepared for anything though, there might be more adversaries down here for all we know,” I said.

“Have you guys looked at the ceiling yet?” said Sarah, “I think I might have figured out how they gassed us.”

We looked up at the ceiling and saw a multitude of pipes the same type as the ones that came from the canisters in the hospital. They ran along the ceiling in both directions.

“Aren’t these supposed to go under every building in the whole town?” said Carol.

“Yup.” I said.

“Well, that sucks,” said Brace.

“That’s actually excellent for us,” I said to some bemused expression. “Think, if these tunnels are how they got the gas to everyone then chances are there should be a way to almost any place in the city down here, even if it is just a pipe. There’s no way the only way in is the hospital, so I’d wager we might actually have a legitimate way out in here.”

“But what if the hospital is the only way in?” said Layla, “Then we’re just wandering around aimlessly, meters below safety, but hopelessly out of reach until they kill us.” She seemed scared.

“If the only way out is through the hospital, we’re dead anyway. But the important thing is too remember that Coyne didn’t build the hospital, he donated to a wing of it. If he built the tunnels, then the chances are he didn’t set it up to be entered from here. I’d wager we’ll be able to make it all the way out to his estate.”

Though that thought made me shudder even more than the tunnels.

It was an unspoken rule that no one frequented the Coyne establishment. Even his descendants only visited when it was absolutely necessary, and from what they said most of it was just old furniture and sheets. But you could tell they didn’t look very hard for anything out of the ordinary.

Less savoury versions of the tales about Old Coyne painted the house in a bad light. He was said to break bread with witches and demons who would sneak into his house in the dead of night with children they kidnapped from the village. These tales were spooky, but hardly provable; there was never any epidemic of abducted children or anything with which to pin him on. But his house was something he was bizarrely guarded about, in contrast to his relatively open character.

I was afraid of what we were going to find almost in spite of myself. The scary tales about Coyne’s abode had been drummed into my head throughout growing up in Pine Air, so they managed to bypass my rationality and scare the little child within me. I resolved not to let the understandable fear stop me though, and moved forward.

“I agree,” said Sarah, “I think following the tunnels is the best option. I’m right handed, so why don’t we go with the old take-every-right approach? That way if we get lost, we can easily get back to here.”

“I like it,” I said, “Everyone ready?”

“Have we considered splitting up to cover more ground?” said Brace.

We all stared at him.

“Guys, it was a joke. Seriously. I’m not that dumb.”

I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Lt. Carol took the lead while we traversed the tunnels, and I was glad because after the third or fourth curve I was beginning to get kind of dizzy. The walls were smooth and the dim fiery glow reflecting off them combined with the wandering path of the tunnels was enough to make you feel like you were constantly falling down.

“This is weird,” said Brace, “It feels like a dream almost. Like when you reach out and touch the walls-“ Brace reached out and touched the wall, “It’s like they’re not even there. It’s like they aren’t real, but they totally are.”

I hesitated to agree with Brace, but the walls were truly disorienting.

“I know,” said Sarah, “It’s like the walls are actually trying to repel us, almost? I can understand why no one was particularly motivated to explore them. Just taking a bend is like falling down stairs in slow motion.”

“It might be easier at the front of the party,” said Carol, “I think it’s easier when you can decide where you want to go. Does someone else want to try?”

Layla moved forward and took a few steps, “Yeah, it definitely is easier. It’s almost like the walls accommodate you? I don’t know. We should rotate though.”

So we did as we went through. We probably walked for about 20 minutes like that, and I was beginning to get worried about not finding a way out when we stumbled upon a stairway hewn into the side of the tunnel leading upwards.

“So, who votes we go up?” said Sarah.

We all let out a few congratulatory whoops, and for a few seconds at least it made me feel like the end was in sight. Even if it turned out that we were still trapped somewhere else, the adversaries didn’t seem to have followed us, so there was really only one defensible position to fortify. I didn’t want to be premature with celebration though, so I brought the group back to reality with a warning.

“Okay everyone. It’s obviously great that we have found a way back to the surface, but remember: There still is a lot that we’ve left unaccounted during our journey. We still don’t know how these tunnels work and who built them, most likely to gas the entire town. And we don’t know why our enemies want us dead in the first place. So even though we win this round, we have to be careful.”

“Well, we’re still going in guns-a-blazing, don’t worry Nick. That’s been our strategy facing down beds and statues all night, and we won’t disappoint now,” said Sarah.

I felt truly blessed to have such a capable lieutenant. The rest of the group grinned at that, and we began to move up the stairs.

The staircase was rough stone, and a lot less disorienting than the, dare I say, impossible geometry of the tunnels below. This gave me hope that we were actually heading for something real and some semblance of normalcy as opposed to the waking nightmare we had been through so far.

After about 10 steps we began to see some moonlight from above, so we slowed and took it one step at a time. There was no door on the staircase itself, so the opening slowly revealed a gigantic hallway parlour draped in moonlight and full of various antique furniture and artifacts covered in blankets and sheets.

It would appear that we had finally made it to the manor of Alfred Coyne.

“Well,” said Sarah, “Are we going to restart our back to back policy here? There are way too many possible adversaries to take the chance. And we can’t even know that the normal furniture and things aren’t evil because we know they can hide in plain sight.”

It was a disturbing proposition. The sentry-based intelligences that had plagued us on our way out were indeed tough to spot and definitely could be here. But were they?

“Honestly?” I said, “I don’t think there are any. But I don’t want to die because of that oversight. But I have an idea.” The idea was literally crazy to me, but I felt it was the right thing to do. It was bizarre of me to have a conscience, but not unheard of and tonight was one of those times. “I’ll go first and close my eyes regularly. The rest of you stay back far enough that nothing could realize you were watching me. Then if it tries to strike, I would hope you aid me in fighting it off?”

The group looked at me like I had lost my mind, and I could understand why. In an abstract sense I could understand why this seemed rational. It was buying me a fair amount of goodwill and would make me able to more easily use leverage when manipulating the others. But it was suicide if there was anything and the others decided they didn’t like me.

Was I actually willing to risk my life on that? Apparently.

“I like the plan,” said Sarah, “As long as you’re okay with it. We did defeat the master after all, but there are no guarantees.”

“I like the idea, maybe we can rotate as we go through the house? You saved my ass a few times,” said Brace, “I’m not going to let you do it on your own.”

“I think that’s a much better plan. I’m up for being the first one on the scene this time,” said Carol with a grin.

“I’ll do it too,” said Layla.

Sarah looked at me. “What was it those ads always said in school? Say ‘something’ to peer pressure? Probably yes, right? I guess I’m in.”

It’s hard to say when you are actually more proud than you’ve ever been in your life, but even though my list of accomplishments was still at my house, I was sure that it was right now.

“Alright, I like the enthusiasm I’m seeing, but I’ll go first. If I get attacked it probably won’t be from the front in this room, as we’ve gotten a good look at most of it. When they come, it will be from the sides. I’ll try and move them between us and we can fall on them fighting. Sound good?”

Nods were becoming my favourite thing to see this evening. I closed my eyes, memorizing the few steps in front of me as to avoid falling down, and moved forward.

I came to the top of the steps without incident and walked out. Admittedly I didn’t think anything was here. But I was still quite scared nonetheless and I won’t say I wasn’t shuddering at the thought of what I was dealing with.

I waited until I had made it into the middle of the room before I opened my eyes. Nothing seemed to have changed position, and I was still alive. Things were going well relative to tonight’s standards.

I motioned the rest of the group forward.

“So what do we do now?” said Sarah, “Does anyone have anything close to a knowledge of how this house is laid out?”

“My family has driven past it a few times just to see how big it is compared to where we live,” said Brace, “but it doesn’t seem to have anything particularly surprising about it. Maybe we could look for a garage?”

“I’d say there’s some value in just exploring a bit first,” I said, “The tunnels have to do with the gas and they lead here. And we know that Coyne could have known a bit about our adversaries before us. Escape is a good option too, but I suggest we pay a lot of attention to everything we see. Anything could help us understand our foe.”

“I’ll go next,” said Carol, and moved to the front of the group.

We had a few options from the parlour. There was a large set of mahogany doors directly in front of us and two staircases that led up a floor and to two doors on the left and right sides of the room.

“I say we just go straight forward,” said Brace, “Let’s figure out exactly what the layout of the house is.”

I saw no problem with that, so we went ahead with it. Carol practically ran into the next run and stopped in the middle. She stood there blind for a few seconds, then opened her eyes.

“We’re good,” she said, “But there isn’t particularly anything interesting in here. Just some desks and a few bookcases.”

We went through and found her assessment to be fairly accurate in terms of physicality, but not necessarily in terms of description. A room full of desks was of course very interesting to me. This was probably some sort of study that Coyne used that just happened to open onto a tunnel entrance. Hopefully some of his things might be recorded here.

The group shuffled in and took a look around. “So where next?” said Layla, “I guess there is only the door that leads out of here.”

“Sounds good to me. I’ll go next as the bait on a hook,” said Sarah.

“Hold on a second,” I said, “I think that there could be a lot of cool things in here. Do you guys mind if I check some of these books while you look around? You can come back and get me when it’s my next turn out front. With the amount of paper strewn about here I think I could probably find something.”

“Sure,” said Brace, “I don’t really think that there is anything around here anyway, so we should be fine.”

“Good luck,” said Layla.

They shuffled out as Sarah ran out on her own into the next room that looked kind of like a dining area or a lounge, while I flicked on a desk lamp which looked like it ran on batteries and began perusing the material.

The first stack of papers I tackled wasn’t inherently very interesting. They seemed very tax-like and concerned with financial statements and the holdings of the Coyne estate, along with his many, many investments. I searched for any anomalies like government contracts or weapons research, or even chemical companies, but he seemed to be much more centered in labour and factories.

Onto stack two. I had to dredge up this one from the desk itself, but it seemed mildly more promising off the start. The first document was labeled Boring Techniques, which was very exciting to me as it entailed some basic research on tunneling techniques. In fact the entire stack dealt with how to create tunnels. Though there were a few references to mining and such, it suggested that there was some credence in the theory that Coyne built these. But nowhere did the papers suggest he could have attained the technology needed to create what he had done under the town. Next.

The jumbled papers were now moved from the desk and I looked around to figure out new things. A stack of papers partially obscured on a bookshelf caught my eye, as they were in a handwriting which seemed similar to Coyne’s. Samples of Coyne’s handwriting could be found all over the town and had a very distinctive set of curves to it.

The papers were very old and yellowed, printed on something that must have been more personal stock. The first one was labeled Extra-dimensional Communication: A Study in Sending Messages via the Astral Planes of Theta, Argon and Epsilon. That seemed crazy enough to investigate.

Reading through it, it certainly made me less confident in Coyne’s sanity. It involved setting up large devices and witching circles and then intense meditation followed by a specific application of chemicals to cause an explosion within one of the circles. It didn’t even see like you could accomplish useful things by accident, and there were also some crumpled up papers regarding their rejection from the local University’s review board.

I did begin to understand why tensions between Coyne and the University resulted in only a meal hall and not, say, a school of business or something. He had a strange insistence of getting work publicly recognized.

However, as he went along, the insistence narrowed abruptly and the efforts were focused on only one thing. One specific experiment came up again and again, titled simply Observing Extra-dimensional Interlopers.

What these interlopers were was never made clear, only that they were real, dangerous and too dumb to realize that the title of the study was referring to them. It detailed an extensive procedure using vapours and fumes to counteract what he said was their ‘natural pheromones’. He recommended using fire, specifically that which had been fed with books and knowledge to destroy them, and also advised the use of tricky words with less common usages to confuse their ears.

While it would be nice to jump on this as evidence of what we were dealing with, it wasn’t necessarily truthful or sane. Regardless of the few similarities, there was just as much absolute nonsense (One par about greasing your inner thigh after a bowel movement to avoid detection being a standout). I decided to take the papers for further analysis.

Right about then was when Sarah popped her head through the door. “Find anything?” she said.

“I actually might have. But it’s too early to tell. Find anything?” I said.

“Not much, but we’re about to go into one of what looks to be a storage room on the upper floor. A lot of junk around here, so even though we haven’t seen anything, probably stay careful.”

“I will, of course, I’m ready for my turn” I said, beginning the walk and stashing the papers.

“It’s actually Layla’s. But it looks like some fog has gotten in through the roof, so we figured we would send her in with the mask on.”

We went through the few rooms that the group had explored and up a flight of stairs to an open door with a bunch of storage material inside. It occurred to me that we probably hadn’t even explore half of the mansion yet.

We trundled up the stairs to find the group, and I took out the mask to give to Layla.

“Alright, just keep this on and you should be fine. If you go down, you’ll walk back through the entrance anyway to try and get to the hospital, so it won’t be hard to stop you.”

“Okay. All right. I’m going to be fine,” she said worriedly.

Brace gave her a big hug and said, “You’ll do fine. You’re the bravest girl I know to live with that mother of yours. What’s this compared to her and your family?”

“Thanks Brace. You always know what to say,” she replied, and gave a quick kiss back.

“Her mother is the head of the town charity commission and also pulls down a 7 figure salary as a CTO for a major company while working from home to spend time with her kids. I guess that’s not enough for some people,” whispered Carol to Sarah and I.

Layla closed her eyes and took a tentative step into the room, the gas mask bringing her head down and drooping it slightly. She took a step, then another. Then another, and she walked out to the middle of the room, straight into a stand-up lamp and fell onto the floor.

“Layla!” screamed Brace and moved forward to help her, but I pulled him back.

“We don’t know if she made it that far because of the mask, you shouldn’t go in there without one. I’ll go fetch her,” I said, putting on the mask. Brace looked anxious, but I got through to him and he stepped aside.

I took a few steps into the room before I realized something a bit odd. I couldn’t actually see the lamp that Layla had run into. However, I could see something else that was inhabiting the same space.

I don’t want to say it looked like a robotic velociraptor, because that would be silly. But it was obviously some kind of metal apparation that closely resembled the velociraptors I had seen in movies. It was standing stock still over the limp form of Layla, with its foot claw on her mouth preventing her from moving (though it looked like she was unconscious anyway).

I wheeled quickly to back out of the room and join the team to fight it together, and was surprised to see that the only quizzical expressions were at me for turning around too quickly.

“What was that about?” said Carol, “Did you notice something?”

I turned back. Apparently it was not obvious to the others that there was a robot standing in the middle of the room. What set me apart from them? Ah. Right.

I looked straight at the roboraptor and slowly slid off the mask. As soon as the unfiltered air hit my nostrils and was processed by my brain, the roboraptor blurred. After a second the blurring cleared and all I saw was a stationary lamp. I put the mask back on and he was back in a blur again with no lamp to be seen.

“Everyone, look at the lamp,” I said, “And make note of the three most identifiable characteristics about it. Everyone got it?”

A chorus of ‘yeps’ answered me. “Okay, now go one by one and say the most unique one you thought off.”

“Well I would say the distinctive curling pattern going up the side,” said Carol.

“Did anyone else observe that?” I said, keeping an eye on old clever girl.

“Well I can see it now,” said Sarah, “Though I can’t believe I missed it earlier.”

“I can’t see it at all, but that’s because it’s not there,” said Brace, “All I see is a straight line pattern going up the side, engraved with ancient hieroglyphics.”

“Curved ones at least?” said Sarah.

“Nope, mostly triangles and diamonds, definitely no curving I can see.”

“Well what do you see, Nick?” asked Sarah.

“None of the above, but when I saw the lamp it was metal, so no carvings at all.”

“So we all see a different lamp?” said Brace, “Do you think we’re just hallucinating?”

“Nah,” I said, “I think that’s the effect of gas #2.”

“Gas #2 makes us really ineffective at describing lamps?” said Carol, dryly.

“Gas #2 makes us concoct reasonable explanations for unreasonable things and fool us into thinking that the actual thing isn’t there. For example, you all see a different lamp than me. However, I no longer see a lamp at all.”

“What do you see then?” said Brace anxiously.

“Not to worry, Brace,” I said, “It’s just a robotic velociraptor, about 6 feet tall off the ground, and it looks like knives for hands. It also seems to have Layla’s face under its claw. That said, otherwise she seems all right.”

“What? Give me that!” said Brace, ripping off the mask and shoving it on his own face. After a second he continued, “Holy shit, he’s right.”

He passed the mask back to Sarah and Carol. They looked a bit shaken, but were trying to maintain a bit of a cool.

“Was he looking at you when you passed the mask on?” said Sarah, giving me back the mask.

As I put it on I realized that the beast was no longer looking at Layla, but seemed to be quizzically observing us.

“Everybody, just start looking around the room not at the lamp,” I said hurriedly.

“Why?” said Brace, “I don’t want it to get Layla while we can’t see it!”

“Fair point,” I said, “But we have to try to not be obvious. These things make every effort not to be noticed, right? What do you think they’ll do if they realize we can see them perfectly fine?”

“Well I for one say we split up to all corners of the room to look around while Layla recuperates,” said Sarah loudly, as she began to start moving to the far left corner without looking at the best. Its gaze followed her for a second and then snapped back to us. A good plan, and a good bluff in case it was starting to understand our English. Lure its attention away and converge so that when we fought it we’d already have it surrounded.

“Good idea, Sarah,” I said equally obviously and began to move towards the near right corner, “We can cover more ground this way. I glanced back quickly and saw the beast was now only staring at Brace and Carol.

“That’s a terrible idea!” said Brace, “There’s a killer robot in the middle of the room right next to Layla!”

It happened faster than I would have thought possible. What the drone’s brain must have been calculating slowly while we were going through conflict finally came to a conclusion with Brace’s remark. I could tell by the looks on Brace and Carol’s faces that the thing had dropped its cover and must have been visible as either a blur or its true form. I only got a fraction of a second to observe that though, as then it was on them.

It crossed about 20 feet in a blink and before I knew it Brace’s left leg was bouncing off the ceiling separated from the rest of his body. This was before the sound of what happened hit me, but once it did I could clearly pick out a human scream and a robotic shriek, as well as a sickening tearing noise as claw separated flesh.

In that split second of before the fight began in earnest, I heard the robotic shriek answered by what I figured was at least two more like voices throughout the house. I had enough time to process that this had to be finished quickly.

Then I was running towards the thing. My mask dropped as I did, and I realized it was indeed perfectly visible, the strength of the gas’s sensory magic unable to hold up against instinct and the blatantly obvious.

Carol was the first to react being right beside it. She had been moving to block the first blow and by a stroke of luck the movement managed to get in the way of the second one going for Brace’s other leg. Apparently these things were programmed to go for the limbs first? Either that or we were facing some pretty sadistic robots.

Carol’s axe collided with the thing’s claw foot making it miss, and it immediately lashed out with its knives, scratching her across the face. She stumbled backwards, and the thing did a full turn to bash her with its tail, throwing her full across the room by the time her first scream made it past her lips.

Sarah was bearing down on it at full speed, but at this point I thought that we were toast if we actually tried fighting this thing. It was way faster than the Master and seemed a lot more intent on lethality as well. I decided to try a gambit.

“Woah, what happened to you guys?” I said, “I leave you alone for a minute and your legs are everywhere!”

The thing whipped around to stare at me and froze. You could see the (possibly literal) gears turning in its mind as it assessed if I actually didn’t know it was there. It had bought it when I wandered off to the corner, but could I possibly be dumb enough to not realize what had happened 15 feet behind me?

“Oh my Gosh, he got hit by a cross beam from the ceiling! Nick, help him, I’ll handle Carol” said Sarah, attempting to join in.

But it apparently wasn’t our day, as once Sarah said her line, the thing decided we were either fooling it or were at least killable easily enough we wouldn’t pass on knowledge of it, and it ran her.

Sarah was the only one still in the fight other than me, so her dying would be a problem even if she wasn’t an invaluable lieutenant. The only thing I could think of was to try and hit it mid stride with my reflex hammer and give Sarah a chance to get a good swing in with her backpack.

It was a tough shot. I had to judge how fast the creature was going and make sure to put enough force in to actually hinder it before it reached her. I factored in all the variables in a millisecond and threw.

Unfortunately I don’t play sports much for a reason, and the shot flew well wide of the target landing in the pile of furniture across from me. The Drone collided with Sarah before I could do anything. She saw it coming and raised her pack in defense to try and catch one of its claws, but it just jumped at her using its momentum to pin her to the ground. Then it took a raking swipe at her left arm and took it off at the shoulder.

A lot of emotions went through my mind at that point, surprisingly more than I would have thought, even given the circumstances. Looking back I still struggle to understand why.

Brace had been de-limbed mere moments before, and though it had put me into a protective and alert state, it hadn’t prepared me for the incredible sadness that washed over me now. Was it because I found her to be a potential mate? Hardly, I was about 10 years her elder. Could it be because of her knowledge and problem-solving abilities? Perhaps, though I had to admit any of the other group had helped me in that respect as well tonight. I don’t even think that it was because of her exceptional leadership characteristics as my lieutenant.

I think it was because she put her faith in me.

When someone like Brace or Layla decides to follow you around, even if you run into trouble it probably isn’t as bad as they would have encountered on their own. But Sarah was clearly a capable woman. Who’s to say if I didn’t show up she wouldn’t have escaped the hospital on her own without losing an arm to a mechatronic velociraptor? It was because of me that she was lying there, and for that second, and forever since, I’ve owned that fact.

In that second, and acting out of that feeling, I bull-rushed it screaming.

The thing was smart and incredibly combat aware from what I saw thus far. I expected it to at least consider my threat, and it did fully, evaluating and turning to eviscerate me. I knew I was probably toast, but I figured the others would have a better chance of getting out this way. If any were still conscious, they would be able to shuffle away, and Carol stood a good chance of tending to their injuries. I embraced my fate, and continued running.

Carol, of course, had other ideas than tending the wounded as I had planned. She had been waiting for an opportunity to strike, and the second the thing about faced to fight me she emerged from the debris near the wall and hurtled towards it.

The roboraptor figured out what was happening easily enough and prioritized the threats, batting me off into a wall with its tail as it turned to face Carol. I hated feeling as powerful as a fly, but that was about my actual power level when it came to physical confrontations with murder-bots.

Unfortunately for the roboraptor it had grossly underestimated the power of humans, possibly off of a biased sample (me). It had about a second to try and slash with its knives before Carol was on it, and it did, raking the front of her blouse. Then it was Carol’s turn and she swung her weapon right at the midsection.

I guess at this point I should point out that Carol had dropped her axe when she was flung against the wall. It was probably a good thing, as a fire axe was designed to get through wood or drywall, not really whatever crazy alloy this thing was composed of. Carol had decided to re-arm herself with a piece of Old Coyne’s family regalia, hearkening back to his British roots.

An almost comically oversized morning star.

“EAT SHIT YOU FUCKING PSYCHO!” she screamed far louder than I would have believed she could. The word choice seemed out of place coming from the teacher, but as I had come to learn that evening, the primal destructive energy did not.

The weapon hit hard, and with a heavy thunk the midsection of the roboraptor caved in and it lost balance, falling down flailing its claws. It was a good defense strategy, as by waving its knife hands wildly anyone attacking it while it was down would be sliced, giving it time to repair or gather itself.

Carol decided to exploit an obvious weakness of the ‘Any closer and I’ll cut your face off!’ strategy, which was the classic “not if I drop a fucking piano on you!” gambit. She viciously yanked one of the draped pieces of furniture over, revealing a sizeable piano, and toppled it on the flailing raptor. It must not have regained full motion control yet as it was unable to escape the drop and the sickening crash resonated through the room.

Carol then went to town on it like a bear who has just realized that when you take away a hunter’s scary gun, they suddenly begin to look quite tasty. The raptor was unable to defend itself through the piano, but it wasn’t enough of a barrier to prevent the morning star getting through. I counted about 8 strikes down before the thing stopped moving under the piano, and about 12 more before Carol stopped hitting it.

She then paused breathing heavily. I shook myself out of complacency, shouting “Carol, help Sarah, I’ll get Brace!”

It looked like she woke up out of a daze, the furious satisfaction dropping away in an instant as she realized that she was needed. She nodded through the bloody wounds on her face and began tending to Sarah with the medical supplies in her pack.

I rushed over to Brace, despite a massive pain in my own legs from hitting the wall at a bizarre angle. However at least I still had a full pair, which was more than I could say for Brace. The poor guy was white as a sheet, but had at least managed to ball up his sweater and put it on the stump that now was all that was left of his leg. He looked like he was on the edge of consciousness.

“Hey, how’s it going?” said Brace in a daze, “Do you want to help me out? I can’t seem to figure out whose leg that is over on the ground next to me, and I really want to know. It seems so familiar.”

“Not sure,” I said, “Maybe mine? I’ll ask around. You just stay with me here in awake-land, alright?”

Brace’s head lolled back. “How did we even get in here if those lamps are in front of the doorway?”

I looked up and froze. There were indeed two more lamps in front of the doorway, but they hadn’t decided to come in yet. They could have been in here the whole time though, no one was looking at them. Why had they stopped?

I inched on my mask and saw two of the roboraptors standing at the door, but they weren’t in any way focused on me. Both were staring right at Carol.

“Carol, heads-up!” I shouted. She looked up at me from across the room.

I thought the roboraptors were going to charge us right then and there, and I knew we were dead. Then they ran away from the doorway off into the house.

“What happened to those lamps?” said Carol, “Were they evil ones?”

“Yeah,” I said, “But I think they were watching what you did. It actually looks like they might be… scared?”

I contemplated it. These were logical, efficient killers. It made sense that once they saw one of their own go down, they would be far more cautious than they used to be. We were a credible threat now, and one that deserved respect. We had forced the enemy’s retreat. For now.

“How is Sarah coming?” I said, securing Brace’s makeshift sweater-tourniquet with a piece of wood the broken piano had strewn about. “I don’t know much about tending severed limbs.”

“Same here, but I think Sarah will be fine, as far as living armless goes. Whatever it uses to slice through the bones seems to cauterize the wounds a bit as it goes through. Unfortunately the school first-aid rarely prepares you for de-limbing.”

“Is she conscious?” I said.

“Not, I actually think she whipped out some painkillers from her pack before she went under, so she’s out like a light.”

“Do you think it’s worth going back to the hospital to tend to them? I’d figure that with two wounded we wouldn’t stand a chance against the Master or someone similar to it.”

“Well these tunnels go all around the city, right?” said Carol, “Is there a chance they might hit another place with medical supplies?”

“What about the school? We know there must be an entrance there. Do you think there would be enough supplies? Could you get in?” I said.

“Good idea,” she said as she finished her own makeshift bandaging on Sarah’s arm,” But we’ll have to cross a field of fog first.”

“That’s all right, we have two masks and two conscious people. The math works. Only question is carrying them.”

“I’ll take the kids, you take Sarah?” Carol said.

“Listen Carol, I know you’re super at fighting, but they do actually weigh regular-people weight. Are you sure you can handle it?”

“Also, I’m still conscious,” said Brace.

“Well for the next five minutes before I give you some of Sarah’s painkillers.”

“I can do it,” said Carol, hefting Layla’s unconscious form overtop her shoulder. “I lift weights in my spare time. And, you know, no child left behind and all that.” She gave me a slight grin.

“Well, if you say so, I believe it. Let’s go. Make sure to look extra scary so the others keep their distances, and let’s make our way back to the tunnels.”

I hefted Sarah (with substantially more difficulty than Carol had hefted Layla and Brace), and we began our progress towards the tunnels. I put on Carol’s mask for her since both hands were full and picked up her mace so we still had it with us. I also put on Sarah’s pack for good luck and supplies.

It was a relatively uneventful trip back, there weren’t any major roadblocks along the way and we could move at regular speed since we were masked and we knew that there was no chance for anything to be lying in wait. That is, we could have moved at regular speed aside from the three people we were carrying.

I don’t know how many of you have actually carried another human being before, but oh my god they’re heavy. Sarah was even in relatively good shape, and had an average body-frame, but it still felt like she was made of rocks.

We made it to the tunnels entrance and I looked back to see the empty front room, just as we had left it. I hoped that the information I had obtained from the study was useful, because it had cost us an arm and a leg.

I felt bad for brace, as he was being carried under arm, and his sleeping head hit a fair number of the stairs on the way down even with Carol’s greatest efforts to help him out. But at least he would manage to get a bit of medical attention if this panned out.

I was beginning to like the idea that we had come up with even more. If we could get out into the fog with only the two gas masks between us, then we could get into the school, but maybe also into a car and just drive off. It was a solid plan for now at least.

“If this is Coyne’s place, do you know what direction the school should be?” said Carol.

“Yep, we should just effectively keep going right. The school should be an end to the tunnel system on the north side of town, opposite to the hospital.”

We navigated mainly in silence, though I would have liked conversation to draw us out of our despair. The tunnels seemed to close in a bit and made us focus on our companions in danger and how it was partially our fault. Or at least I did. Maybe Carol was thinking of how much leverage she would have in their next English class because of this. Who knows.

We walked for about 20 minutes in the tunnel, and though it was tough, we were lucky in that our makeshift blockages seemed to be working well enough. Perhaps the murder-bots were not meant to be killers, they just tried to incapacitate their prey? In any case it wasn’t too difficult to keep our wounded in good condition which was a blessing.

We almost walked right past the opening, which was surprising because it was about the size of a large garage door. It was just dark enough outside that it looked like another section of wall.

“Ready?” I said.

Carol nodded, and we stepped out into the fog.

The gas masks seemed to work fine, and we made progress out of the alcove onto a field, which we both recognized as the far end of the school soccer field. The building itself was visible about 50 meters past the end of the field on the other side.

As we were walking across, I was struck by a strange thought. Was it possible that the fog could affect someone even when they were unconscious? It seemed to induce a sleep-like state anyway. Was it possible that it could have an effect even if you weren’t awake?

I was then struck by a literal elbow, as Sarah thrust it into my midsection and I dropped her onto the ground. I groaned, as I saw Carol fighting against an onslaught from Layla and Brace crawling over her and hitting.

“Drop them!” I said, “They’re under the gas even though they’re unconscious!”

Carol let them go, and the three of them started crawling on the field.

“It’s alright, they’ll head back to the tunnels, and the gas will wear off. They just want to go back to the hospital,” I said.

“How would they know the way though? They were out for the journey.” said Carol.

It was a good point. Did the gas imprint knowledge itself? Or did it leech off the spatial mapping already present in the host’s mind? Carol’s version seemed to make far more sense than mine which was unfortunate, as it was true.

The three weren’t crawling back to the gass-less tunnels, they were heading right for the blacktop in the direction of the hospital, which would require crawling over gravel roads for a few miles. I doubt they were going to hail a cab.

I now had a fairly good idea of what had happened to Hubert, though I still didn’t understand why he jumped out a window since he was already in the hospital. Perhaps there was more to the basement than I had thought? More likely the exact waypoint was on a different floor closer to the ground. I could however surmise that under the influence of the gas, self-preservation was not apparently a priority.

It was admittedly a comical site in a sort of macabre way. Though Layla had managed to stand up and was purposefully striding towards the blacktop, Brace and Sarah had been unable to right themselves and were proceeding at a crawl. Neither were experienced with their new disabilities, and they kept bumping into each other and tripping up as they went.

But it was our job to stop them from doing anything too dangerous. It meant giving up the masks, but that meant we’d have to hold our breath entirely until we hit the school. Layla was the obvious one left out, but we would just have to catch her later. As I slid down the mask off my eyes and prepared to tell the plan to Carol, I froze.

After the blacktop was a little grassy knoll before the parking lot. Normally there was nothing there unless spectators had come to watch the game. Today there was a great big, King-sized bed, complete with ornate frame and accoutrements. I had seen this particular model before, however, and I knew it was unsafe for sleeping in.

The school PA system blared to life as we heard a distinctive voice.

“Listen op you lot. Dis is da las’ straw. You ‘oomiez have broke our toys and now you get da boot!” the voice blared over the field.

I was scared to see what was in store, but figured I had to know if I was to combat this threat and save the gassed members of our group. I slid the mask back on and saw the Master in his truest form.

I was at least right in thinking that the Master and the roboraptors were very different kinds of adversary. The roboraptors were pretty self-explanatory in how I had named them; they looked like robotic raptors, big slicing claws on each of their long powerful legs, a tail, and razor sharp knives for hands. The Master was quite different.

For one, he wasn’t a robot, and by his proclamation that we had broken his toys it seemed likely that the robots belonged to his faction. He was a big brute, probably about 8 feet tall and muscular. He appeared as an all-black mass with purple highlights where you could discern muscular ripples. His lower body was similar to that of a gorilla, with large, presumably limb-rending arms, though he also had strong legs. IT appeared slimy and hairless.

The head was more nightmare fuel than amazon evolution however. The thing had a long face, like that of a horse, but it ended in the curling lips of a weepinbell, or sucker fish. Dangling from that oversized jaw (which was about the size of my torso), was a lolling tongue with strange barbs emerging from it. The head had some form of wavering hair or feathers of some sort that ran down its back like a horse’s mane. The feature that scared the most, though were the glowing red eyes.

This wasn’t because they were alien, but because on such an unfamiliar body it was strange to see a look that was so familiar. Behind the otherworldy orbs was an emotion seen in humanity all the time, throughout life.

It was the expression of someone with power about to take pleasure in hurting those without.

I readied myself to attempt at least a half-hearted defense so maybe Carol could escape when she whispered harshly in my ear.

“Go. Take my mask and get them inside. Let Layla keep walking, save the others and come back for her.”

I was going to protest, but before I could she grabbed the morning start out of my hand, shoved the mask and what looked like keys into my arms, and ran.

I could see that she had a small hankerchief tied in front of her face, but it was clear she was also holding her breath. She knew she wouldn’t last more than a few minutes at most and was laying down her life to save her students. Some teachers suck, but this was not one of them.

I knew timing was paramount, and I had to do the same thing. I whisked off my own mask, and quickly threw them on Sarah and Brace, who immediately stopped crawling. I paused to think maybe the masks were more than they seemed as the absolute reversal was quite impressive, but I more picked them up and ran than considered it.

I wanted to see how Carol was doing, I really did. But her sacrifice would be in vain if I didn’t get the students to the school, so I wasn’t able to properly recount her sacrifice. I just hope she found peace, wherever she is.

Carol

I always knew those kids would be the death of me one day. Ha. It was a funny joke that I would tell myself drinking alone on my Fridays off at whatever bar had been close enough when I left the school. I always wanted to just go home and start something beautiful, a work of art, maybe some dance or a book. But I always ended in the bar.

I didn’t have anyone in my life but those students. They hated me with a fiery passion, almost every one, but they were my everything. I had never had a fairytale relationship, or even one that couldn’t be described as a waking nightmare. Those kids had been all I had.

And at first it wasn’t too bad. When I was a new graduate fresh out of teacher’s college and I landed a cushy English teaching position at practically a resort town, I was thrilled. My life was looking up, and had nowhere to go but there. The students (especially males) loved me, their hip teacher who was just as much a source of knowledge as she was a surrogate big sister or crush. I had reveled in their attention for me and enjoyed every second.

But it wasn’t to last. I had always been attractive, but age changes things. I had complained about rap music one day, and I didn’t get a laugh or anything. Instead I got silence and pitying looks. I tried and tried to not get those looks, to put on a face where people still thought I was cool, but it wasn’t something you can get back, I realized. Once you’re out, you’re out.

As I started to lose touch with the kids, the parade of men in my life started to lose touch with me. I stopped going on dates, I stopped trying to meet people because if they were all going to be like Jeremy, or Stefan, or Craig, then what was the point? I had retreated into myself far too much before I realized that I had no one anymore.

Then my parents had passed. They weren’t young, but they were not old enough to see it coming. It crushed me, and I struggled to soldier on, making it through my lonely weekends with drink and sleeping. I needed something to latch onto, something with which I could keep my life on track. I decided it was going to be my students.

It was by no means the same dynamic as when I was young, I could no longer help them by being their friend. But I could help them by being an iron bitch, and making sure they damn-well knew their stuff. I became the most feared teacher of the entire department, but no one could deny that the kids in my class learned the most. Sure I was hated, but dammit, I was the best.

That had been all I lived for in my poor shell of an existence. That is, until tonight.

I had always been fit. Call it vanity or responsible living, but I took care of my body like it was a temple. If there was one thing I could take solace in it was my few trips to the gym every week or on the weekend where I actually had something to do. Tonight that had paid off.

When I saw that mace in the founder’s mansion, I hadn’t even giving trying to use it a second thought. My student, my life, was in danger. So I took up the mantle of protector and beat the ever-loving crap out of that alien.

But this wasn’t going to work. The thing across the field was bigger, tougher and I couldn’t even see it. All I saw was a bed rolling gently down the hill towards me. I wouldn’t last more than a few seconds anyway, even if I didn’t inhale and knock myself out well before then. It was a last stand, and I knew it.

Right before I engaged it though, I heard a sound that made everything worth it. The familiar side door entrance opening. I knew I had done my duty. Know I could die in peace.

But I was still going to go down fighting.

By the time the giant bed was near me, it was clearly no longer a bed, but a big blurry mass. I was surprised to realize I could see some hints of its true form within the whirling mass of shadows, probably because I knew what I was looking for. I picked out its center of mass and charged forward for a swing.

It dodged by stopping abruptly, making my attack miss by a good yard. A loose appendage swiped out and entangled my legs, bringing me to the ground. I was disgusted to realize that this must have been the thing’s tongue.

I struggled to get back on my feet, when I suddenly found myself high in the air, apparently thrown there by my tormentor. He actually threw me past what seemed to be the fog barrier, and for a moment I could see clearly over the entire town. It was actually quite beautiful with the tops of buildings gradually peeking through. I took this opportunity to breathe, as my lungs were almost collapsing at this point. I knew this breath was probably my last, and I hurtled down through the fog again.

The thing had evidently found my mace, as whatever it used to break my spine when it hit me like a baseball was certainly harder than organic matter. I sailed across the soccer field about 10 yards, and hit the ground with a sickening thump. Then I took a breath out of pure shock, and can remember no more.

Nick

We managed to make it to the school right about as Carol and the thing collided. I hurriedly got my wards inside and dashed to the nurse’s office. Luckily after a spell of learning how to fake sick back in 6 th grade, I remembered well how to reach there without hazard.

There admittedly wasn’t much past what you’d expect but there were painkillers and good bandages, so I set about fixing up the makeshift ones we had. There also seemed to be a pair of crutches for Brace, which would help a bit. Within a few moments, Brace actually began to wake up, possibly a side effect from the gas.

“Ow, everywhere hurts so much,” he said, “Did something happen to my leg? It feels really weird.”

“Uh, yes,” I said, “We may have had to leave it behind. But have no fear, both you and Layla are alive.”

“Anyone else make it? Also what do you mean by left beh-OH MY GOD! MY LEG IS GONE!” said Brace, with his usual flair for the dramatic.

“huuh?” said Sarah, slowly coming around, “Your leg is gone? Well at least you’re alive, right? Where are we by the way?”

“WHO CARES? MY LEG IS GONE!” said Brace.

“But I did get you a nice pair of crutches, so there’s that. You need to be quiet, as I still have to go find Layla,” I said.

“I thought you said she was okay!” said Brace,

“Alive and okay are two different things, as I’m sure you’ll attest. She’s under the effect of the gas and will be wandering to the hospital as we speak. I need to go intercept her and bring her back here.”

“I’ll help,” said Sarah, getting up, “I’m sure Brace can stay by himself.”

“You uh… You may want to get some rest as well,” I said.

“What? Oh. Shit,” she said looking at her left arm, or lack thereof, “I guess we at least are alive. Any reason why they went for limbs?”

“I was thinking that myself. I think they might just be programmed sadistically to be honest.”

There was a heavy silence.

“I’m going to go get Layla,” I said, “You two stay here and don’t attract attention. The Master was outside and probably killed Carol, so it might figure out you’re in here. Just outmaneuver it like you did at the hospital.”

“It got Mrs. Wilmington?” said Brace.

“It appeared right as we got here and she led it off by attacking it. I don’t think she made it or she would be here by now. She did save everyone’s bacon in the mansion though, she killed the raptor that took off both of your appendages.”

“Well at least we have less surface area to hide now, right Brace?” said Sarah.

“I hate you guys. I want Layla back safe, and if you don’t bring her back I’m going out there with one leg,” said Brace.

“Justifiable hatred at this point. But If I bring her back, let’s try and all get along.”

“Just go,” said Brace, sullenly. It was the face of someone furious with their lack of potency. I resolved to get him his Layla back.

“We’ll be okay, the Master isn’t very creative from what I remember and Brace knows the school. Go get Layla.”

And with that I left. I went out the front door, because I figured it would be the least likely place for the Master to be waiting. I was, unfortunately, completely incorrect.

I was masked, so I could see the Master in his full glory as he effortlessly held back the walking Layla in place as she struggled to get to the hospital. His eyes were sick with victory, and he wore a gigantic smile across his circular lips (somehow).

As he stared at my frozen form, Layla suddenly stopped walking and turned around to face me. She then said “Hey. Fuckface.”

“Hey,” I replied.

“I really don’t like you, you know that? We’ve got a good thing going on here, and quite frankly I’m not too excited to let you away so you can spread the rumours of our little racket,” said Layla.

“I’m going to go ahead and assume I’m speaking with the adversary here. That reasonable?”

“You’re an idiot. Of course,” said Layla, the thing behind her looking exasperated by my insolence, apparently.

“Well then. I’m here and I’m ready to bargain. What do you want in exchange for Layla back?” I said.

“You humans think so small. Your very existence is at stake and you bargain for the life of some random girl you met tonight? Pathetic. You have much bigger things to worry about,” said Layla.

“I really don’t. At the end of this unholy night, you’ll be dead and I can take whatever I want. I’d just rather my chattel be alive.”

It may seem like a big boast, but I needed some kind of leverage. Coming off as brash and arrogant as possible gave me a chance he might spare us because he thought it funny, or actually get suspicious I was bluffing something and get worried. Either would give us something to work with. Better than begging at any rate.

“You think you could kill us? We are not our toys, human. We are gods amongst sheep. You will not kill a single one of our number, and we will destroy you,” said Layla, the thing grinning hungrily from behind her. “If you want her back, you’ll have to beg.”

Well so much for being above begging. Maybe I could distract him with questions.

“Where did your accent go? You sounded very different over the PA system compared to through her. Have you modified her in any way?”

“Rest assured she is fine for now. I do not speak your language of sheep, but the gas allows you to understand our intent when we speak. It also allows us to pass our thoughts along directly, and the host here interprets them while under the influence.”

Ah. So this was Layla’s interpretation of how the adversaries conversed. She had a higher opinion of psychopaths than I did apparently.

“Why are you talking to me at all though? Why not just wait off to the side and kill me when I leave? You look like a big bloke, you could even drop from the roof if you wanted,” I said.

“We have been here quite some time, human. After a while we just decided it would be more fun to fuck with you than to just be as efficient as possible. It’s the same reason our defense drones go for the limbs.”

“So you enjoy this?”

“I enjoy the part where you all die after I hunt you through the evening. I dislike the part where you escape the holding pens and run wild throughout the town,” it said through Layla. “But it is of no matter,

as I found you again. Using our tunnels was a new trick, but they are our tunnels after all. I know them like the back of my hand.”

“You built those tunnels? I thought they were put there by Coyne? That’s why they have all the funny statues in them.”

“Hahaha, Old Coyne? Now that was a fun one to mess with. He is the one responsible for us finding this wonderful little village in the first place, but the tunnels are just part of our larger home that we brought with us when we arrived here.”

“How did you find this place then?”

“Alright, you’re beginning to get annoying. I’m not here to have a chat about my past conquests, I’m here to watch you beg for your life and those of your friends. On your knees, human, and let’s see if I have the mercy that you must hope for,” Layla said, while the Master’s face widened into a giant smile.

I had some pretty solid odds that he did not in fact possess the mercy that I was looking for and was planning on killing Layla in pretty much every outcome of this begging charade. I was running out of options pretty fast.

“What happened to Carol?” I said solemnly, trying to buy some time to think.

This seemed to make him a bit happier, and that absolute evil look returned to his eyes. “We just played a nice game of pickup baseball, 1v1. It didn’t go very well for her, which was a pity as the stakes were quite high. Perhaps this one will fare better? At least she still has an arm, which is more than her boyfriend can say.”

I could see a tear roll down Layla’s cheek at that, and I realized that it was possible she was aware of what she was saying, even on a subconscious level. Man, this thing was an ass. It was time to go for the only way out of unresolvable conflict with something you hate.

“Alright, you’ve had your fun. Let’s fight,” I said.

“Hehehehe!” said Layla, and the thing itself even rumbled with some kind of laugh that sounded like a mix between thunder and a wounded dog howling. “What makes you think you’ll stand a chance when your group’s foremost warrior was cut down in an instant?”

“Well I’m 1-0 against you tonight, so there’s that. Maybe it’s just a reflex of mine to accept challenges.”

He didn’t like that, being reminded of his failure. “I slipped, okay? It was a wet floor and you got lucky, it had nothing to do with the hammer.”

“You want to test that out again? I’m all out of hammers, but I’m fully stocked on backpacks full of bricks.”

“’NUFF!” it roared in its own voice now, letting Layla carry on her way, “Oy’m gunna make youze pay fur dat!”

I knew that he only spoke in his own voice before attempting murder, so I braced for his inevitable attack. I had succeeded in making it personal, and letting Layla go on her way but I only had so long before he killed me. Back into the school was my only hope. I wished for luck and prepared to bolt.