Desolate The Complete Trilogy

Four



Howard dreamt of a time when he was young, probably no more than eight years old. It was one of those dreams where you hear a noise in your sleep that plays a supporting role in your dream.

One night, a June bug had managed to find its way through a hole in the window screen. As dawn broke, it flew around by the ceiling in his bedroom. It buzzed around all morning and bounced off the ceiling, it’s exoskeleton shell making a metallic tic tic tic every time it came in contact with the eggshell paint on Howie’s ceiling.

His subconscious mind registered the racket the June bug made and it entered his dream as his mother’s voice. He was sitting at the table trying to do his math homework but the numbers made no sense. Simple addition problems were as perplexing as Japanese trigonometry. His mother sat opposite, losing her temper and yelling at Howie for being so stupid. She was in no goddamned mood to be helping him with his homework, and he was making her miss the beginning of Knot’s Landing. Her voice was the buzzing of the June bug. The long fingernail of her index finger, tapping on the table as she spit angry, buzzing nonwords in a nonhuman voice, made the tic tic tic from the shell against the ceiling.

Howard dreamt the dream he’d had when he was eight because of the sounds he was currently hearing in the emergency room of Oswald Regional Hospital. Those sounds were like the sounds in his dream’s dream. This made perfect sense to Howard’s mind as he slept. As his unconscious and conscious worlds slowly mixed together while he woke that morning, he discovered the logical explanation for the dream.

Directly overhead was a flickering light fixture. The long fluorescent bulbs buzzed and stuttered, the glass tubes making the ticking sound from his dream, as the filament attempted to burn at full capacity before sputtering out again and again.

Howard blinked and frowned at the light before rubbing his eyes. Just as he was about to turn his head to take in his surroundings, the power to the bulbs finally died, plummeting the room into total darkness. The room was silent, the air thick and stifling. Howard couldn’t help but remember the last time he woke up confused and alone. He sat up and was relieved to find himself not restrained in any way this time. An old companion spoke up as he moved into a sitting position, his sore abdomen. In pain, he reached for the area and felt new bandages and dressings beneath yet another hospital gown.

“What the hell?” he muttered to himself.

His throat was dry and sore, his voice hoarse. Robbed of his vision, he reached out and groped with his hands. He brushed against something metallic and knocked it to the floor. Steel crashing onto tile echoed throughout the room. Howard took a deep breath and tried to keep the rising panic at bay. He reminded himself that he’d seen flickering lights overhead just moments ago, so he hadn’t gone blind. He was just in a dark room, presumably in a hospital.

He put his feet on the floor and carefully stood. He took a few steps forward but wasn’t sure which direction to go. As he stood with one hand on the bed, making sure his balance was steady, Howard noticed a break in the blackness. Now that his eyes had fully adjusted, he could make out a sliver of light and shuffled toward it. He moved slowly with his hands out in front, fully expecting to bang his bare toes or shins against something hard and unforgiving.

He broke out in a sweat and found his attempts to keep calm were quickly failing. The air in the room was too thick and hard to breath in. His abdomen was throbbing, reminding him of the attack he’d had in the back of the pickup truck, the worst pain he’d ever felt in his life. Was it happening again?

A foul odor attacked his sense of smell and his imagination started to run wild in the darkness. Was that a footstep behind him? He quickened his pace toward the light. Just as he was about to throw caution to the wind and break into a run, his foot hit something and he crashed to the floor. Both knees connected painfully with the tile floor and his palms slid in a wet, sticky mess before he came to a halt.

Howard sat back and tried to wipe his hands on the hospital gown, but it didn’t help much since the material soaked up some of the mess too. He allowed his fingertips to graze over the floor, back to where he’d tripped. He flinched when they met something. It was a hand, stiff and cold. Howard managed to scramble to his feet, away from the dead hand, no doubt connected to a dead body. He shuffled away from the mess that was most likely a sea of spilt blood, and made for the light.

It came from beneath a door. Howard put his palms on it and shoved, making a racket but accomplishing nothing else. The door didn’t give. He frantically felt around for a handle, found the metal release bar, and pushed it open to freedom. It led to a dimly lit hallway. Howard stood with his back to the door, trying to catch his breath. A sign nearby pointed to RECEPTION.

The others must have brought him here after he blacked out, but where were they? Where was anybody? And exactly how many times was he going to have to wake up with fresh bandages and new scars with no idea how they got there?

The reception sign led him to the lobby outside the emergency room area. Howard squinted and slowly walked toward brilliant sunlight spilling through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The body of a woman lay outside the door that was stained with her blood. He could make out the streaks of her handprints as she had slid down the door before dying.

The parking lot beyond was a disaster, littered with more bodies among a sea of disturbed campsites, supplies, and vehicles. It looked as if the people who had been out there were in a big hurry to escape, not all of them making it. He saw a young girl among the dead and thought of Emily, relieved when he realized the dead girl was too old to be her. Standing out among the rest of the carnage was the smoldering remains of what looked like a trailer or RV, and charred vehicles close to it.

Howard tried to open the front door but it was locked. He banged on the glass and shouted, scanning the exterior for any kind of movement but saw none. He had a few more options for interior doors leading out of the lobby area, but he wasn’t exactly eager to explore the rest of the hospital. The only light came through the windows, and judging by the growing shadows outside it wouldn’t last much longer.

He sat down in one of the chairs and absently rubbed his bloody hands on the upholstery, not sure what to do next. He thought of all the times he’d watched horror movies with Gina. She always had the same reaction to the pivotal scene where the protagonist came face-to-face with some horrible monster or alien, or dozens of enemies, where death was almost certain and definitely unpleasant. “Yeah, that’s when I would just say f*ck it and kill myself,” was Gina’s typical response to such situations. Howard was beginning to think she may have had a point. What use was it to keep going? How much longer would he have to endure before finding some kind of peace? He looked at the dead woman a few feet away outside and envied her. At least her suffering was over.

A noise beyond the lobby snapped Howard out of wallowing in self-pity and his heart raced. There is was again. A door slamming. Somebody or something was heading his way, and judging by the hospital’s current state of affairs it probably wouldn’t be an elderly volunteer handing out magazines.

He got to his feet and looked around the lobby for anything even remotely resembling a weapon. The best he could come up with was an umbrella leaning in the corner behind the reception desk. It wasn’t much, but if he was lucky he could at least try to poke out an eye or something. He couldn’t tell where the sound had come from so he wasn’t sure which of the three doors leading out of the lobby would get him to safety. Before he could decide, one of them slammed open and a girl emerged, holding a pistol aimed right at him. She lowered it as recognition flashed across her face.

“Holy shit,” she whispered. “Howard? Is that you?”

Howard nodded, still holding onto the umbrella like a baseball bat.

“It’s me. Ann. Remember?” She poked her head through the doorway behind her and raised her voice slightly. “I found him! Over here.”

Seconds later the sounds of footsteps filled the hallway beyond. Ann opened the door wide as Dave the marine entered with Emily and Tre, and an Asian woman he didn’t recognize, close at his heels. Emily’s face lit up and she ran to him, hugging his legs and beaming.

“Hey, buddy, good to see you up and about,” Dave whispered. “You okay to walk? We need to get the hell out of here. Pronto.”

Emily pulled him toward the door.

“Where is everybody?” he asked Dave.

“Minnie didn’t make it.” Dave’s gaze sank to the floor. “The doc who stitched you up too. ’Course, you didn’t get a chance meet him.”

“Wait a minute, didn’t make it from what? I meant everybody, not just Minnie. What the hell is happening?”

“We were hoping you could tell us,” the Asian woman said. “After all, you gave birth to the things that killed your friend. So to speak.”