Stranger's Call

Part Five

The girls ran down the hall as the yell’s echo evaporated, hurrying through the dark hallway in panic. Meg turned back as the sound of things crashing behind them followed their escape. The sound was distant enough, but fear made the girls rush through the corridor anyway. Annie did not look back, one hand pulling Meg along as she reached the end of the hall. A glowing exit sign peered down at them, in front of a large door with a metal bar hung across the middle of it. She pushed it with some effort and pulled Meg through as well. 

They entered a staircase, a large one riddled with graffiti walls and peeling paint and piles of broken furniture packed high atop one another. Without a second thought, Annie descended the stairs, closely followed by Megan. They made no attempt at covering the sounds of their running. The kidnapper knew they had escaped the room he was already searching for them by the sounds of his cries. 

The girls ran down in hurried panic, two flights of stairs before the promising neon blue exit sign shown across a door with a large bold number one across it. Meg glanced behind her, shivering in fear. Thankfully she heard nothing that could increase her already rampant heart beat. The older girl pulled the door forward and they both walked through, quietly. They had no idea whether or not there was another set of stairs or some path in which the masked man might be able to use and reach them quicker. They also had no intention of running smack into anymore danger if they could help it. 

Annie placed a finger across her lips, to sign for quiet, though it wasn’t altogether needed. The seventeen year nodded and placed a hand on her shoulder, pushing her to lead the way forward. With that, Annie took a few tentative steps, crossing two separate rooms that appeared to be offices of some sort. They put their heads into each room only to check for something in which to reach out for help. Neither room was equipped with a telephone or any sort of computer that could see. Simply half a dozen emptied filing cabinets and a few desks littered with piles of trash and broken medical equipment.  Several chairs were upside down and seemed to have been thrown around the room carelessly.

They continued on, making sure to keep an ear out for any noises behind or before them as they walked. They tried to keep as quiet as possible, their bare feet helping in this. But unfortunately the socks did not protect them from the broken pieces of litter across the  dirty and remarkably dustied tiled floors.  Meg cringed and gasped audibly when she walked over a piece of metal on the floor. 

Annie turned at the sound and peered at her as she clutched her injured foot in hand and checked that the metal hadn’t pierced her skin. It hadn’t. But the implement had dug in enough to leave her foot a bit sore. Meg tried to ignore the pain, but she limped a little to avoid putting too much pressure on it. It slowed the pair down a little, but then again, the mess they had to cross and avoid didn’t help either. Again they walked slowly through dark empty corridors, closests and offices on either side of them. 

Until they reached another lobby, this one larger and empty of chairs. It was three times as filled with trash and horrendous attempts at art across its peeling walls. Cracks  ascended walls and the smell of possible mold and piss filled the air a little. The circular sign-in desk was empty of everything but an incomplete sign of the hospital’s name: Saint Regius’s Hospital for Disease and Viruses. The sign actually read: S__nt R_g__’s H_spit_l fo_ D_se_se and _iruses. But faint shadows of what the other letters could have been were noticeable if you looked hard enough. Even in the darkness.

 Annie glared at the name on the wall for a moment. It seemed familiar, but she couldn’t exactly place the hospital. They contined through, past the lobby to the right, instead of walking through into the other end of the hospital. They walked towards what appeared to be double doors made of bullet proof glass, bond by metal chains that were locked by a heavy padlock. The girls could see the dark night and trees surrounding the hospital at a distance. They each grabbed the chain and pulled, it did not budge. Meg stared at the lock in her hand, pulling at it, hoping for a small miracle that it would pop open before her. Of course, it didn’t though.