The Knight Hawk

The Contagion Syndrome

 

Shortly after the Knight Hawk’s encounter with the Terror, Tony and Andrea took a trip to England.  Andrea had a conference she had planned to attend and Tony had a few things he wanted to attend to as well, so he decided to accompany her.  Andrea had decided to take the Terror under her own care.  She had developed a strong sense of compassion for Jacob.  Her mental stabilizer, she hoped, would allow her to survey and determine a means of permanently curing Jacob of his problem.  Right now, however, she had other things to deal with. 

            “Do you really have something to do over here or are you just following me?” Andrea delightfully asked Tony.

            “Really,” Tony laughed, “Do you really think I’d take a trip all the way over here to follow you?”

            “So what do you have to do?”

            “There’s a hospital that my company has decided to aid over here.  For some reason they are running short on funds and manpower.  So I’ve decided to come out and take a look and see what’s going on over here.”

            “I guess that’s fine.  I just thought you felt like chasing me.”  They both smiled at each other and rested for the rest of the trip.

            Andrea finished up her meeting and decided to join Tony at the hospital.  They could see that the hospital was an elaborately built facility.  It was a beautiful place, enormous in size and built in structure like the grand buildings of Europe.  As they walked through however, they did notice that there weren’t a vast number of people working there.  In a facility of its size, there should have been a vast number of people in the hospital. 

            “This is weird Tony,” Andrea commented, “There should be countless orderlies, nurses and doctors here.  Are they really that under funded.”

            “Actually yes.  The subsidized funding by the British government has been frozen here,” Tony started, “No one seems to understand why though.”

            “So are you going to help?”

            “I suppose it couldn’t hurt.  You can go ahead to the hotel if you like.  I’m going to stick around and see how they operate around here.”

            “Okay.  I’ll see you later tonight.”

            Tony stayed at the hospital as he planned.  He worked with some of the orderlies and assisted some of the doctors as they made their rounds.  He also worked with some of the maintenance men to see how the facility was maintained.  He stayed at the hospital for most of the night.  Late that evening he decided it was time for him to go.  He said his goodbyes to the workers at the hospital and left for the parking lot. 

            As he went to his car he noticed something in the shadows.  He ignored it and started to get into his car.  As he sat down, he heard screams coming from the area where he saw the shadows.  He decided that the Knight Hawk might need to check it out.  Tony quickly changed into his quick-jump suit and made his way towards the shadows.  As he approached the shadows, he saw a man running.  He looked closer and he saw what the man was running from.  He could see a strange figure hovering above the man. 

            Tony couldn’t believe what he was seeing.  The figure he saw in the air looked like it was composed of some form of gelatinous substance.  It was almost transparent, a light green.  It almost glowed.  It also had tentacle like appendages on its arms and back.  The Knight Hawk continued to watch as the strange creature continued to chase the man.  It descended down upon the man and slapped him down with one of his appendages.  The man lay there in terror as the thing floated down towards him.  The Knight Hawk’s observations were now over.