Punished GN
AtomicEmperor
FernStone
NoriWasHere
Arkitekt
Damycles
Fetzen
Atrocious
St. Mercer HospitalBilly’s dreams were normally vapid or incomprehensible, visions of buxom blondes turning into colors and noises turning into the color of noises, and it was infrequent that he remembered them. Perhaps that’s why he didn’t immediately bolt to an exit when the voice of the God Child awoke him but instead took a second in bed to parse through the memory he had experienced. He rubbed his temples, thankful that the doctors had left his glasses sitting on the stand next to him, and sat on the edge of his bed as he desperately tried to find some meaning, if any, to the vision of the past.
It was of one of his family vacations from a few years back, the one to a national park not too far outside of Farmer Hill. The last one. None of the Lawson siblings were particularly enthused to be out in the woods. Henry had wanted something less familiar—he had more than hinted that he wanted to visit another country, Japan judging by the only media that interested him. Penny, in her desperate attempt to seem cool and hip, was upset that they were going on a trip together at all, although she said that if they had gone to maybe Portland she would’ve been okay. Billy just didn’t like the idea of being away from his computer for a week.
The family had all crammed inside of a rental RV that Billy’s dad had gotten a good deal on from one of the guys who frequented the shop. It may have been a good deal, but it was too small for the Lawsons. Billy had flexed his older sibling privilege to get a bunk to himself and forced Henry and Penny to share a bed, an idea that mortified the two of them. It also united them against him, and for the week they had been a force of annoyance. Billy had found pinecones in his bed, rocks in his shoes, and, the turning point, poison ivy in his underwear. By the last day of the trip, he was ready for some revenge.
The plot was a simple one: he was going to get his little brother stoned. Billy crushed up the herb, rolled a joint, and found Henry putzing around by a stream. Penny had seemed to be beaten by nature and joined her mom on one last hike while Billy’s father was busy packing up their campsite. It was easy to convince Henry to take a hit; Billy only called the kid a bitch twice before his lips were around the end of the joint. Henry took one of the biggest drags a first timer had ever taken, and he coughed up a storm after the hit. Billy couldn’t hold back his laughter as his little brother kept coughing. The idiot had just blazed on some poison ivy.
Then he kept coughing.
And kept coughing.
Billy smiled as he looked around the room. He remembered the weird crack in the ceiling; it was the same one he had stared at while his parents chewed him out for his irresponsibility. They were such a drag. Could’ve died was different than had died; people could’ve died all of the time. What were the odds that he’d wake up in the same hospital room as his brother? It was funny.
The scream drew him out of the happy memory. Screams in hospitals were never good ones, like screams for ice cream. He decided now that the best idea for his survival was to beat feet. Billy crawled out of bed and took a few unsteady steps towards the door before he got balance back to his feet. How long had he been out for? With some uncertainty, he grabbed the door handle and pushed through into the hall.
Rita followed Tuyen to the door and held her breath when the girl peered through the window, even though she wasn’t the one faced with immediate danger. Rita didn’t feel any relief when Tuyen said that nobody was out there. In a way, that was even worse; a normal, bustling hospital would’ve been a nice thing to see. She also looked through the small window after Tuyen had stepped back. It wasn’t an exaggeration at all: they seemed to be alone.
“Okay,” said Rita, her breath released in one big sigh. “That’s...that’s not necessarily a bad thing, right? Let’s be quiet, just in case.”
Slowly, she pushed open the door, thankful that the hinges were well oiled and didn’t make any deafening creaks. She gave Tuyen an uncertain look that said ‘here goes nothing’ and stepped through the threshold, half-ready for something to jump out and grab her. However, there was no boogeyman waiting for the frightened girl, and she motioned for Tuyen to follow her. Rita hugged the wall as she walked step by step down the hall, making certain to duck below the windows leading into other rooms (even the ones with the privacy curtains pulled down). She made it halfway down the hall when she heard a door click open behind her; her hair stood up on the back of her neck.
“Oh hey man, funny seeing you here. What are the odds?” said the voice that had haunted her dreams. She couldn’t run. She couldn’t even turn to look at him. She was completely petrified. “I mean, I guess they’re pretty good. We only have one hospital, right?” The tall man noticed Tuyen and gave her a superficial smile. “Sup dude, I don’t think we every really talked before, have we? I’m Billy, you’re...uh…”
”...run…”
“Huh?” said Billy as he turned back to Rita just in time to catch a balled-up sheet with his face.
“Run!” screamed Rita as she bolted down the hall, hardly looking to see what was ahead of her at all.
Shit. Penny had knocked the man away, but it wasn’t enough. As the man grappled with Justin’s burning tiger—for a brief second, Penny felt a tinge of jealousy that her abstraction lacked such style—she pulled herself together and swept the broken shards of pipe into her hand. While the other girl went toe-to-toe with the possessed nurse, Penny turned her attention back to the bloodied man. He now had the flame tiger in a chokehold, an action that also seemed to be hurting Justin.
No longer so concerned about her abstraction lacking flair, and having caught Caelea dodge out of the way of the nurse and get some of her own licks in, Penny moved to help Justin. She hurried to get an angle on the man and moved so quick that she almost slipped on the linoleum. She went through with the motion and dropped to one knee, hard, as she unleashed the bits of pipe at the man’s face before she followed through with a salvo of the last of her pens.