White Walls

Chapter 5:

Luke strode the short length to the double doors that led to the Research and Development facility in the abandoned hospital. The long rectangles on both doors gleamed at him, willing his hands to push the doors open. They glinted in the artificial lights of the bulbs above that stretched the length of the ceiling, inviting him – the way his eyes did to women. Luke swallowed the fear that rose from his stomach and settled in his throat waiting for the right time to pounce and make an explosive exit from his dry mouth.

Footsteps from the corridor he had just been in kick-started Luke back into action, and before he had time to think about what was on the other side of the doors his shoulder lead him through, barging them open. Again, white corridors stretched away from him, as though the doors were a portal that had brought him back to where he had started. The only difference in this part was the huge windows that sat in the wall to his left.

Fearing someone would see him through the glass – or was it plastic? – Luke dived to his knees and slid over to the glass, tucking himself as tight as he could, covering the whole of his body under the bottom rim of the window. Slowly, he edged along, not wanting to risk that the footsteps he had heard only a few seconds prior would walk in on an escaped patient (that was the only thing he could think he was in this place), crouched beneath a window and dressed as a doctor.

The pat on the tiled floor grew louder and Luke froze. He was too far along the wall to race back and hide behind the door and use the same tactic as he did with the previous doctor, but he was too far from the corner to risk sprinting and being caught by whatever was working behind the glass. That bile in his throat threatened to make an immediate impact. One of the doors opened half an inch. Luke clenched his jaw, and his fists instantly copied. His brain was in overdrive and would not let him think. He felt his eyes sting as though tears were also going to make an appearance before he heard a distant voice.

"We need help, here! Outbreak. I repeat: outbreak!" Another scream followed, but this time Luke was sure that it could not be human. What kind of human-made that sound? A sound like their throat was filled with razors and the scream caught on every one of them. It was more like an animal's shriek. The door swung shut and through the tiniest of gaps, Luke saw a coat billowing in the wake of a doctor running in the opposite direction. Luke sighed, not realizing he had held his breath.

The hall fell silent. Too silent. A pin drop would have sounded like an explosion, reverberating off the walls. It made him feel uneasy. The silence always did. It usually meant he had been caught. Luke could feel the beads of sweat that began to trickle from his pores. He moved along the wall and came to a stop at a door leading into the room beyond. The door cut the corridor in half and at the other end, a red blinking light caught Luke's attention. He narrowed his eyes, trying to see the sign in the light of the intermittent blinks. It was a sign mounted on some form of a yellow square. Bold marks were etched upon it, the shape of which Luke couldn't make out, but he was sure there were words written underneath the strange, circular-like sign.

Luke shifted his body and eased past the door and edged closer to the blinking light. The bold letters hit him like a disease spreading through his body and paralyzed him, only his eyes allowed to blink, insistent upon seeing the words he thought he had read. The light blinked again.

QUARANTINE.

HEAVILY INFECTED.

The ice that had rendered him frozen moments before seemed to have melted and Luke scrambled backward, not bothering with the sound his footsteps were making. All he wanted was the get to the door and get inside. He slid the rest of the way in his rush and clumsily peered through the window. He could see no movement and headed inside.