---=Chapter 16: A Weapon of +1 Strength---=

Footsteps chased me around the corner, away from the elevators and my brief allies. I hadn't been this way yet, but I was pretty sure this hallway would lead me toward the ER. Ahead of me was a four-way intersection. At a glance, left was a room, maybe another surgery room. If I went straight, my pursuers would get a clear shot at me again. My arm burned and ached, throbbing with every step and heartbeat as I ran to the right. I held my wounded arm to my body and shouldered through the swinging double doors.

I ran past various pieces of medical equipment and a nurses' station. The letters "ICU" were painted on the wall. As I approached the intersection, I checked behind me. Nobody had followed me into the ICU yet, so I took a moment to peek through the window of the closed door. Taking this right would lead me back toward the rear lobby and the gunmen.

Unfortunately for me, one of the men was still there. Our eyes locked, and neither of us moved for a second. Then he started pointing my way and shouting down the hall to his left. Wincing, I clutched my arm and ran on. Ahead, through another set of double doors, was the ER. I used my left shoulder to knock the door open and make good my escape. Or such was the plan.

I made it about halfway down a hall full of curtained-off beds when my ears started picking up soft sounds of movement from behind me. My feet came to a stuttering halt as I realized the entire hallway ahead was filled with silent, unmoving crows that were all staring at me.

What the fuck is this?

When I was a kid, a bird got into one of my classes, and everyone panicked like it was some dangerous beast capable of anything. It was a memory that had always made me chuckle. This was less funny. As one, the crows erupted in a frenzy of caws and flapping wings. I'm not too ashamed to admit that it freaked me out.

I didn't know who had left the door open, but these crows apparently found a home they liked and didn't want me intruding. Dozens of the birds swooped and screeched at me. All I could do was cover my head with my good arm and run toward the exit trying not to jostle my injured arm. I felt beaks and talons tearing at my fur, but they couldn't do more than scrape the skin beneath. Still, the display was disorienting and panic-inducing. I ran on through the waiting room and out the automatic sliding doors.

Thankfully, the crows didn't seem too interested in chasing me, but I ran down a ramp and around a parked ambulance to be safe. I kept my head on a swivel as I ran past and peeked around the ambulance. There were a couple crows on top of the entrance roof.

Are those birds standing guard?

It was clear how the crows had gotten inside; the automatic doors had let them in. I could only guess why they'd decided to roost there; I knew corvids were clever and had different caws to signal danger, so it could be normal crow behavior to keep a lookout. I was pretty sure the green glow was new, however.

Like almost everything else, the crows had a green aura, but it was nearly as bright as Slender Hopper's. Not that I had any idea what that actually meant. It could mean they had memory crystals. I wasn't about to pick a fight to find out. If they were already inside, then they probably had at least some memories—from previous loops—of the mostly abandoned hospital. I wasn't about to spend the rest of my apocalypse being stalked by a flock of birds.

In truth, I was more worried about Hands and his goons than nightmare bugs or angry birds, my still wildly beating heart notwithstanding. The goons had shot me twice in cold blood without hesitation or remorse.

I was finally getting to a point where I could think past the next moment. Nia and Maebe were as safe as I could make them—assuming Hands's goons weren't a threat while I wasn't around. It seemed like a safe-ish bet. He was after the memory crystals and some "shadow." I didn't trust him but doubted he'd have any reason to target their group. In any case, I didn't have any better solutions for them.

"There's nothing for you in the hospital," Hands had said. It was definitely a threat, but maybe it was also a simple fact. Hands clearly knew the worth of the memory crystals, and he had goons to collect them for him. I would need memory crystals at some point—I hadn't even gotten to share a visualization with anyone. If I could safely return to Alice's group before time reset, I could enlist them to help me find Jon. A memory crystal would let me explain my situation better than a drawing. But I wasn't likely to be able to compete with Hands, especially since I didn't know where any of the creatures actually were. Speaking of which, I had left my backpack and clubs back in the hospital. Which was not ideal. I also had an injured arm that ached and burned in turns and screamed in agony when I tried to move it. I wasn't really in any condition to go monster hunting.

If I wasn't going back for my clubs and notebook, I'd need to find replacements. I might not be in any shape to fight monsters, but that didn't mean monsters would give me a choice. I also wouldn't mind finding a pair of pants. Freeballing was all well and good—even if my fur did keep me decent—but few things are more humanizing than clothing. If I wanted to avoid getting shot some more, it was a need.

Cars had been abandoned on the highway as people tried to get past the stand-still traffic to reach the vortex. There were a lot of potential supplies in those vehicles, but I didn't love how exposed I would be. The hospital had a parking garage next to the main entrance; I was sure there would also be abandoned cars in there, and I'd be less exposed. There was even a chance I'd run into Jon or someone from Alice's group if I stayed nearby. Of course, there was likewise a chance I'd run into goons or monsters hiding in the dark.

I was also all but sitting on the bumper of an ambulance that probably had some good stuff in it. Fairly sure the crows weren't going to chase after me, I tried the handles of the ambulance. Locked—not surprising. The ambulance probably had most of what I'd need, but, fog aside, I was pretty exposed. To some people, property damage is the same as a violent assault.

Fuck it, I decided as I smashed my good elbow into one of the windows. First of all, that really hurts. Second off, I almost immediately felt stupid. Opening the door, I realized I'd forgotten to consider something; cars, even ambulances, have alarms.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

My ears rang as the alarm went off, and I stood there holding the car door open, unsure what to do. Cursing inwardly, I slammed the ambulance door and loped off toward the parking garage. Getting caught ransacking an ambulance would definitely undermine my efforts to look safe. I'd just have to look for cars with open doors. There had to be a few.

I ran along the side of the building toward the road. The fog kept me from seeing much, but I could still see the shadows of cars on the road. So, when I rounded the corner to the front of the hospital, I wasn't surprised that the parking garage wasn't empty. People must have convinced themselves that the vortex would come down on the other side of them, or perhaps they just didn't notice until it was too late.

Either way, it looked like more than a few had tried to leave in a hurry at the last minute; half a dozen cars were abandoned at the entrance. Presumably, the evacuees hadn't been taking turns or playing nice in their hurry to leave. The exit was plugged by two cars that hadn't been willing to take turns. In their haste, it seemed people had abandoned anything that slowed them down, including scruples. The result was a mess of cars with no occupants, some with wide open doors.

I kept my eyes searching for movement as I crept up to the abandoned vehicles. I ducked down to look under cars and peeked inside the vehicles, but nothing creepy jumped out at me. As it turns out, people don't bother locking cars they're fleeing from in a panic.

Jon might have a knee-jerk reaction to "looting," but there really wasn't a chance of getting through the apocalypse without at least a little looting. Immediate needs trump social norms, especially in exceptional situations like this. Besides, was it stealing to eat food that would restock itself in a few hours?

I struck gold in the third car I checked. A nurse's bag in the back seat of one of the cars contained bandages and morphine. Looking through the bag, the only thing I found to clean my bullet wound was rubbing alcohol, which would hurt to even imagine. It wasn't like I had to worry about infection, and the blood had matted the fur near the wound and stopped the bleeding in a dark patch. I decided to just wrap it. It was mostly cosmetic, but it hurt too much to do more, and it would at least add more to my people-friendly appearance.

Next up was morphine. My arm did hurt, but I could get around. Was the end of the world a time to dull my senses? Also, can canines even have morphine? Shrugging, I decided I'd start with one, and we'd see how it went. After emptying some of the contents, I put the rest of the pills back in the nurse's bag. I honestly hesitated to get rid of anything, but if I ended up needing a catheter, I'd just have to come back for it.

I'd checked almost all the abandoned cars at the entrance before I found scrub pants that would fit. They were black and a bit short on me, but after tearing a hole for my tail, I used the drawstring to tighten them on my waist. Embarrassingly, I could see fur glowing dimly here and there on the black material. I hadn't realized how much I shed. Still, pants is pants.

+2 Charisma, I joked inwardly. Now I just need a weapon of +1 Strength.

I popped the trunk of the last car. If nothing else, there would probably be a tire iron I could use. Instead, I found baseball equipment, including gloves, a catcher's mask and chest protector, and a baseball bat. I considered putting on the chest protector. It was classic post-apocalypse attire after-all. Unfortunately, we were only mid-apocalypse, and it wouldn't do much against bullets. Besides, it didn't fit my superhero aesthetic, and I didn't want muddy the message of my harmlessness.

The bat, on the other hand, I took. Holding it in just my off-hand, I gave it a few test swings and felt confident I could use it to hit the broad side of a barn.

I was making plans to attack and kill creatures I knew little-to-nothing about for no other reason than they were a resource. They didn't seem like they were especially intelligent, and they did make it easier by being so violent. In some ways, it was kill or be killed. I could admit that their aggression was a bit justified, considering I was planning to hunt them. Still, I didn't think there was any actual reasoning going on. They did seem to feel pain, though, and the world had enough suffering in it that I wasn't eager to add more.

Then again, they didn't have that same hesitation toward people. I knew I was just looking for reasons to soothe my guilt, that curiosity and fear were my main motivations. The memory crystals were a magic that hadn't existed in the old world. Whatever this apocalypse was, whatever I'd become, I knew the memory crystals held insights. Still, ever since hands showed me it was possible, I did worry Jon was trapped somewhere, needing his spawn reset. It would explain why he wasn't with the car, and it was something I wanted to be prepared for.

Armed, I moved deeper into the parking garage. The first level was mostly empty of cars, and there weren't many places for the creatures to hide. The vortex had come down on top of the parking garage, cutting off the last few yards on the far side. I kept my distance; I wasn't sure how the barrier might have affected the structural integrity of the building. The second floor was more empty than the first, and the lack of hiding places made searching for monsters go quickly, but not successfully. There was one more floor, open to the sky, with cement half-walls enclosing another largely empty lot. I cleared it even quicker than the second floor, because there was nothing there.

If you can't find monsters in an abandoned parking garage, where can you find them?

There had been another reason to check here, apart from just getting out of the hospital, and that was the vantage. From up here, I could see what was happening on the highway. The fog started obscuring things too much to make out many details, though. I'd hoped to get an idea of how big an area was surrounded by the vortex barrier. Due to its sheer size, the glowing green wall was visible for quite a distance, but it too faded away in the haze. My best, albeit inexperienced, guess was that Forest Lake was surrounded.

The line of cars in gridlock trying to leave town was largely gone. I could see the outline of abandoned vehicles here and there in the middle of the road. The further from the vortex I looked, the fewer there were. Presumably, people had realized they couldn't get through and had taken their cars and gone home.

Finally, I spotted movement below me along the front of the hospital. I couldn't make it out clearly, but something small was dragging something else behind it and turning the corner toward the ER.

Bingo.

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