He awoke to screams again. A woman this time? At least he was able to open his eyes on the first try, though soon he wished he hadn’t. The walls in front of him were red. Like a firework of paint. Everything in his room was splattered. Except for him. A thin strip of the bed leading up to him was still pristine and untouched. As if something had cast a shadow of cleanliness over him. At the base of the explosion sat what he could only call a bloom of flesh. He didn’t even realize it was human until he could see the knees below the dripping strips. Blood seemed to still be pumping or rather seeping from the top of the corpse. Like a weak fountain or some strange art installation blood flowed along each strip before dropping to the floor. Perhaps it was shock but at first it didn't bother him, but then he noticed the hands. Something so human, sitting limply on the ground as if they were bowing or pleading. Bile rose in the back of his throat and he turned, throwing up off the side of his bed, trying desperately to project past his cast.
He groaned and turned to see a nurse clutching at the door frame. She had been the one who woke him with her screaming. Stuck in a circle of gore he didn’t move and tried his best not to look at the remains of whoever had been in his room.
His vision began to dim, he feared he was passing out. Instead like a strange gradient he began to see something in the dimness. Wet and red. Tall spires, taller than any structure he had seen in his life, thin and spiked like spinal cords reaching into the sky. The dripping. The strange place was becoming brighter, replacing more of his vision and he began to panic. The Dripping. Blinking against the oncoming monstrosities. He sat there nearly in the feedle position or as much as he could in his cast covered form until he heard a loud voice. "Sir, hello, SIR!" His body re-engaged and he jumped with a start. A tall man in a blue puff coat covering a well pressed tan policeman's uniform stood next to him.
He had a thick mustache, in that classic midwest highway patrolman style. A deep widows peak cut into greying brown hair. A badge sat on his chest proclaiming him the sheriff. A crumpled medical mask hung under his chin. "Um hello, sorry I...I got a little overwhelmed. By the blood, and..." Mathias's eyes flicked to the ruined human corpse. The sheriff turned slightly as if acknowledging its existence. "Well that is understandable. My name is Sheriff Schroeder and as I am sure you can guess I am here about the goings on in your room last night." Mathias looked around at the gore, and at the cops in plastic booties taking notes and leaving little yellow cards all around the scene. The dripping. He thought they probably really only needed one note that just said BLOOD in big bold letters.
"I don't know... honestly I woke up and this... was just everywhere." He knew that sounded pretty unlikely even in his own head but that was all he had. "Look son, I don't really believe you did.. that. Especially with both arms in plaster but I find it hard you wouldn't have heard or seen something?" Sighing and laying back in his bed, right in the clean section of course he noticed the shiny black dome in the corner of his room. "Didn't that camera catch anything? I mean I know they run them all the time." The sheriff got a sour look on his face, with the mustache he looked a bit like an angry cat. "Unfortunately for whatever reason, the cameras in the hall and in your room only recorded an odd static after sundown, the dripping, and the security guard that should have recognized this issue is missing. Obviously he is a suspect as well but until we find him your technically our only witness."
Mathias groaned inwardly, injured and probably on his way to jail, what a fantastic week. "Then your really going to hate the fact that I totally slept through whatever happened to that man." Sheriff Schroeder glared at him his eyes becoming suspicious slits. "Look... Mr. Masters, the man who passed here in this room last night was the same one you had nearly bitten the thumb off of earlier that same day. Its not much but it does connect you to him. Right now I have absolutely no clue about his cause of death, unless he swallowed a firework or something I don't know how anyone would be able to do this. But we will cart it off to the lab and find out, and if I think it even has a little to do with you... Anyway there was clearly at least 1 more person in the room or you would have found yourself painted similarly." That thought made Mathias shiver, pulling his body in tighter.
"Sheriff, your going to give the poor man a heart attack which in his condition I don't know if he would survive." A short woman with bright red hair stood at the door. She was holding a clipboard up in front of her face blocking her from having to look at the corpse. "Sami what are you doing here?" The sheriff looked surprised, his mustache drooping slightly. She pushed her round glasses up with one hand, "I am here for Mr. Masters, he was scheduled for a meeting with me this morning. I assume you wouldn't mind?" Her eyes were sharp and clear, Mathias was baffled with the courage this woman had too talk to the sheriff like that. "As long as he doesn't leave the hospital... I suppose it wouldn't be a bad idea to get him out of this room anyway." Turning back to Mathias, "You'll be seeing me again you can be sure. Try not to let anyone explode around you in the meantime." He handed Mathias his card, which Mathias just held onto awkwardly having no pockets in his current situation.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
The sheriff walked out and the Sami woman waved in 2 nurses. They helped unhook everything from his bed and lifted him onto a new rolling gurney. They rolled him out of the room, carefully lifting some police tape in the hall over him. He saw that the blood had made an almost perfect rectangle against the wall opposite the door. The dripping. Masked nurses and slowly hobbling patients blurred past as they headed down the hall. Eventually they reached the elevator and of course Dr. Salles appeared. His beautiful face framing that disconcerting smile appearing between the metallic doors almost made Mathias jump out of the bed.
"Hello Mathias, I wanted to meet you on the way to your new accommodations. Unfortunately due to the pandemic we are short on space. Rather than stack you up with an infected patient we thought we would, for now, put you in the new wing. It is mostly finished, you know heat and running water etc but will be basically empty otherwise. You'll have plenty of peace and quiet. In fact the only face you'll probably see for the next week will be mine." His teeth gleamed, feeling more like blades than bone when a voice called from behind the gurney, "And mine Dr. Salles, I will be working with Mathias all week as well most likely. Salles expression darkened, his smile disappearing for only a moment. So quickly Mathias thought he imagined it. "Of course Miss Cora I would never forget your important work, we wouldn't want Mathias to come to harm again afterall."
They squeezed in alongside the gurney and nurses. The doors slowly closed gently bumping the end of his gurney. The elevator took them down, for the first time he found he had been on the 4th floor, not that it mattered. The door dinged and revealed another floor filled with nurses and patients all making their way to and fro. His gurney launched forward into the busy space, everyone around him masked, eyes turning his way as he rolled through.
He began to notice odd things, the patients he would pass would sometimes just stare at him. He could still hear it. Even from a distance they would suddenly stop moving. Stand stock still, if they were hunched over a walker or sitting in a wheelchair they would straighten up and their eyes would follow him. Blank stares, no expression. The dripping. A man on a similar gurney to him even sat up to watch him, all the while the nurses around him tried to force him down again, his oxygen tube pulling loose with a pop. Their eyes were odd, blank but... something different, like their pupils were not quite round. And as suddenly as he had noticed they rolled him through a double door and they were gone. The halls was empty except for the nurses, Dr. Salles, and his social worker.
Dry wall was stacked on one side of the hall and the ceiling had yet to been tiled so all the ventilation and electrical was in clear view. They rolled him to a room that had bright light spilling from it, "This will be your new home for the next week Mr. Masters." Dr. Salles stated with a smile. It was mostly finished, all the tiles except 1 in the corner were placed. It had power outlets and the walls while not painted (they clearly still had their dry wall seams showing) were covered. A tv sat on a small rolling table near what would be his new bed as none hung in the corner.
A strange noise though came from down the hall, like distant terror. "Dr. Salles noticed his look. "Don't worry Mathias its just the new pipes, they can make a lot of noise, they're always screaming. But we will shut your door and they won't be a bother." He patted Mathias shoulder gently. Flinching, Mathias tried to calm down, for a doctor Salles had extremely cold hands, like being touched by an icicle.
The nurses helped usher him into his new bed. While his legs seemed to function fine they ached terribly and he appreciated the help. Sami turned to watch the wall as he realized his hospital gown was flapping in the air. He focused on getting into bed and trying not to be too embarrassed. The two men nodded to Salles and then headed out, back towards the old wing of the hospital. "Then I will leave you to get acquainted with Samantha here. I will stop in tonight to make sure your doing ok. Oh.. also since this wing hasn't been set up properly yet there is no buzzer for the nurse, don't worry we found an old hospital pager and all you have to do is press the button and I will come running!" He carefully placed a small white plastic device on Mathias's lap. It looked very 90s with its curved dirty plastic and green digital screen. The doctor smiled and walked toward the door, only slowing to look disapprovingly at the social worker.
Sami turned to him now that he was settled into the bed. "So Mr. Masters, my name is Samantha Cora. I'm here to talk to you about the issues that led to you being in this bed." The dripping stopped.