Overcast

3.7

After a long wait, the elevator arrives on the first floor. Rachel gets inside, pressing the number six button. The elevator starts up. Rachel stands in wait, arms folded, coffee in hand. The elevator keeps whirring. It seems to be taking an awfully long time. Rachel blinks twice, finding herself growing increasingly tense.

"...What the fuck?" she says to herself. She reaches for the panel, pressing six again. Nothing. She presses it over and over. The elevator just keeps humming. Minutes go by. Rachel looks up, finding nothing to indicate what floor she's on. She tries the other buttons. Nothing. She presses the emergency stop button. Nothing. She presses it again and again, now in a state of panic.

Just then, the overhead lights start to flicker. A grinding noise ensues, and the elevator begins to shake. Rachel gives a scream, dropping the coffee onto the ground. The walls rattle around her, knocking her back and forth like a rag doll. Thunder crashes loudly outside. Rachel shrieks. She's certain she's going to die. The lights continue flickering, the girl desperately struggling to stay on her feet. Eventually, the lights go off completely. Rachel cringes, getting tossed around in the dark. She goes back and forth, time and again feeling the metal walls bash against her arms and cheeks.

Soon, things go totally silent. Rachel trembles, now from her nerves rather than physical shaking. She stands alone in the darkness, shaft so quiet she can hear her ears ringing. The girl breathes heavily, heart pounding in her chest. She slowly raises an arm, adjusting her pigtails knocked loose by the quake.

Just then, the backup lights flip on.

Rachel looks around, suddenly giving a long pause. The girl goes pale. It takes her awhile to process exactly what she sees. Her surroundings have now changed, looking nothing like what she remembered. What once was a normal elevator has become something else.

Something hellish.

Gone are the stainless steel walls, replaced instead with dingy wooden planks and copper plating. The plain white floors are now checkered with random squares of black. Stains adorn the floors and walls, looking more like blood than Rachel would like. As the girl stands motionless, the elevator dings, sliding open.

At once, Rachel finds herself staring out at a pitch dark hallway. She warily leaves the elevator, dirt and debris crunching beneath her feet. She looks both ways, finding the halls barely lit up by backup generators. The corridors are in a similar state of chaos: dirty copper walls with filthy checkered floors splotched with blood and debris. A chill wind suddenly wisps through the windows. They're broken, shattered glass lining the frames. Each window looks like it's been broken with a bat, and nothing lies beyond them; just a black abyss stretching into darkness.

Rachel stands in silence. This has got to be a dream. Her palms begin to sweat, the smell of rust hanging thick in the air. Sure. Just take these donuts to grandpa and come right back. Great plan, grandma. You bitch.

Back at Lester's residence, he and his sister scramble around in the dark.

"What the hell was that? An earthquake?" Lester asks, fumbling through the hall.

"In Minnesota? Please. I'll bet it was a bomb!" Misty replies.

"Right. A bomb. That's the more likely culprit."

"Hey, you never know these days."

"Why's it pitch dark outside? What the hell's going on?"

"Just shut up and look for a flashlight, will ya?" Misty asks, rifling through a closet.

"...Wait. Here we go," Lester replies, suddenly striking a match. He lights a nearby candle, further illuminating the living room. "...Great. Now what?"

"I'll try the circuit breaker," Misty says, leaving the room. She emerges moments later. "No luck. Looks like we'll have to tough it out."

Misty takes a seat on the couch, lighting additional candles. Lester eyes the nearby window, peeking through the blinds. He spots sporadic activity coming from the neighbors, a few of them loitering around talking to each other.

"Looks like the neighbors were effected, too. Could be a countywide outage," Lester says.

"Damn...my phone's not even working," Misty says.

"No signal?" Lester asks.

"No...it literally won't turn on!" Misty says. "I knew it: I'll bet it's an EMP bomb!"

"EMP?"

"Yes. Electromagnetic pulse," Misty says. "It's been rumored for years that countries have been developing EMP bombs in secret to disrupt other countries' power grids. They're supposedly capable of destroying all kinds of electronics. I'll bet that's what fried my phone."

"As if. It's probably just not charged," Lester says.

"I charged it this morning!" Misty replies. The two go quiet, silence filling the air.

Meanwhile, Rachel continues through the ghoulish hospital. She traipses down the halls, their vast lengths seeming to go on forever. She passes one room after the next, each of them tightly sealed with rusted doors. A biting cold fills the air, occasional lights flashing off and on. Rachel hears faint sounds from afar; sounds that make her blood run cold. From a distance, vague whispers can be heard; sounds of children laughing. Or possibly screaming.

Rachel soldiers on, all but convinced this is a dream. It must be. She doesn't do drugs; a dream is the only solution. She eyes the room numbers on the walls, half of them illegible from rust and decay. She grows increasingly tense, realizing she's near her grandfather's room. 607. 606. 605...

...604. Rachel stops outside the door, feeling her nerves all but shot. She peers through the darkness, discovering that the door is ajar. Rachel grits her teeth, slowly reaching out a hand. She pushes the door open, its hinges making a dreadful creak.

As the rustic door opens, Rachel goes pale, heart sinking in her chest. She feels a scream coming, but suppresses it with all her might. There, lying on the bed near the door rests a headless man, bloody and mangled above the sheets. Next to him: his wife, also headless, body sitting upright against the wall. The heads both lie on the floor, Hank's near the bed, Margaret's sideways, facing Rachel's way.

Rachel stands trembling, feeling about ready to faint. She turns to the bed near the window, finding it obscured by a worn partition. Rachel slowly approaches, her grandfather's bed slowly coming into sight. As it fully enters view, Rachel pauses, stopping dead in her tracks. There, lying on the bed is old Dennis, arms and legs missing, eyes gaped toward the sky. A girl in white stands nearby, feasting on his flesh like a starved hyena. She slowly turns her head, eyes glowing in the darkness. She smiles, wiping blood from her lips.

"Oh, my...," Lilly says, stepping into the light. "You chose a bad time for a visit, little girl."