Silence should’ve penetrated the room, but it was interrupted by the cats and dogs milling about the room. The oblivious animals were finding places to lie down for the evening. Most of the dogs settled on the cushions of the couches, with a couple of them laying instead against the wall. The cats slept on the back of the couches and settled on the check-in desk instead, having completely alien ideas on what constitutes comfort.

The musician continued to suck air through his teeth in pain as he gingerly tried to hold his hands out so he didn’t touch anything, and Ally once again found herself needing to turn away so that she didn’t see the mangled hands, nausea croaking from the depths of her belly at the grisly sight.

“What do we?” Mellie asked into the open air at no one in particular, trying her best to help the musician by rubbing his arms in a pointless attempt to comfort him.

“We need to reach a hospital,” Brandon said, “and get out of here.” He furrowed his brow as he looked around. The headless hog farmer? Complete nonsense, he had heard of the decapitating serial killer, but there was no way that murderer was working in cahoots with Lamb. There was no benefit for them to do so, and they originally came from out of state. The serial killer had been active for years prior to their transfer here, the problem now was there was only one exit, the same the guard had left through.

The musician moaned, “I concur, now how do we get out of here?”

“There were no windows in the bedrooms, the only exit is where that security guard left,” Brandon said, the gears of his head turning rapidly as he went through possible plans of escape. He had been thinking about how he would break out since he arrived as a mental exercise, but he didn’t think for a second he was going to actually need to do so.

“You’re not proposing we try to go out through there?” asked Mellie, pointing at the hallway. The two started arguing, and Ally looked at them before staring intently at the door leading to the garage.

If the headless hog farmer was Philip Conway, then somehow, she suspected, what they were facing was way worse than any gun the security personnel had been armed with, plus why had the guard left in the first place? The answer was obvious, it wasn’t safe for him to be here either. “I don’t think the guard is still there.”

Brandon closed his eyes in thought, they had no basis for that conclusion per se, but they had already been acting strange by breaking the other man’s arms. They had to have a strategy for bringing the four of them in. Nobody did anything without a reason, and if the guard had left then that probably meant it was to get out of here. “Ally, was it?” She nodded. “I think she’s right. We should be safe to try and escape now. Then we can get ourselves over to a nearby hospital, if this is a medical facility, there should be an actual emergency room within walking distance.”

“I just told you we’re in Hazelwood!” Ally said with indignation.

“What’s your evidence?” Ally hesitated, it wasn’t like she could tell him she had a dream prophesizing she would meet the boar, and the lights in the night sky was weak evidence by itself, she knew. It didn’t help that they were supposed to be at a mental health clinic. They would just conclude she was completely crazy.

“I… I just know, okay.”

“If we want to get out of this, we need to use logic.”

The musician cried out, “Can we please just do something? My hands, we need to save my hands… please!”

“No way,” Mellie said, “If we go out through that door, we’re all going to get shot!” As she said that the black man started sobbing, moaning desperately about his hands.

Great, the musician was freaking out on top of everything, in that case Brandon was going to employ the democratic method, “Fine, we’ll take it to a vote. Who wants to leave and try the hospital?” The other two said aye. “Now who wants to wait here?” Mellie crossed her arms miserably, but didn’t bother responding, she had gotten the point. They were leaving, with or without her, and she was not going to let it be without her.

“Alright, we’re going to go through the hallway and grab a van. If they took the vans with them, we’re opening the garage door and make a break for it… shoot we don’t have any cellphones.”

“I do.”

Brandon looked down at the musician who was sitting next to a Dalmatian and had managed to set his wrists on his knees so that he wasn’t putting any pressure on his delicate hands. “Good! Pull up the directions for the hospital.”

“I don’t have service though.”

Brandon paused, that didn’t track… unless they were outside of Indianapolis, “That’s fine, open up your GPS, you don’t need cellphone service to bring up your location. I’m familiar enough with Indianapolis’s roads that I should be able to figure out where the closest hospital is and use your phone as a map.”

“I… I can’t,” he hissed and winced in pain.

The broken hands, that’s right, Brandon turned towards Mellie, “Grab his phone for him. Could you show her what pocket you have it in and give her your passcode…?”

“Apollo,” he answered the silent question, before leaning to the side and gesturing to his pocket for Mellie to pull it out. She brought it out, and he gave her the pin so that she could unlock and bring up the GPS.

The two chattered while they were coordinating pulling that up and Brandon took that moment to stare directly at one of the cameras. At whoever it was on the other side who was watching them.

“Looks like we have a smart one,” Randolph mused while looking into the test sample’s eyes through the monitor.

“Manifestation has occurred… Sir, we have a problem.”

“What?”

“Someone left one of the cars outside of the facility.”

“… How?”

“It must have been Susan.”

Randolph sighed, she had arrived and freaked out at them, screaming about the ethics of what they were doing, and had become violent. He had to have security arrive, escort her out, and arrange for her… termination. Without the knowledge of the other scientists. Even so, perhaps this would make things fairer for their survivors. Even he had reservations about sacrificing teenagers, even though he knew it was for the greater good, even if the majority of them hadn’t had a future in the first place. “Leave it then. She would want them to have a way out, and I don’t have the heart to take away their only hope.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Brandon?” Mellie’s voice quivered as she looked in shock at the phone.

“What?”

“We’re not in Indianapolis.”

“Well then where are we?” Brandon stared intensely at her, dreading her answer.

“…H-hazelwood…”

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Brandon turned towards Ally, who had her arms crossed and was pacing impatiently. How had this girl known and with such certainty? There was no reason to think that Lamb and the serial killer were working together, it was absurd. He wasn’t even entirely sure where Hazelwood was. Though he had heard about the killings from the rumors at school, he had never bothered looking up the story. She couldn’t have come up with that leap of logic from nothing. “Ally, how did you know we were in Hazelwood.”

Ally turned away and shrugged.

“Ally!”

“I don’t know, I just did!” She yelled in frustration, tightening her crossed arms and looking away. Brandon looked at her eyes, she was blinking a lot, and not to hold back tears. She was lying. Great, just great. This was all he needed right now. He sighed, he’d deal with that later, if ever. Now they had no way of knowing how to get out of there…

Unless… “Ally?”

“What!?” she lashed out.

Brandon remained calm, hoping his even tone would help ease her mind. “Do you know the Hazelwood area?”

“… Yes…”

“Mellie, show her the map.”

Mellie nodded and approached Ally, offering the phone. Ally picked it up and stared at the GPS, her eyes squinting and dancing to the different road names. She scrolled on it in each direction before saying, “I know where we are, and how to get out.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded slowly, “We’re a mile away from the firehouse. There should be someone on call there. Its weird though, we should be close enough for cellphone service from the tower.”

“Unless we’re being jammed somehow,” Brandon mused out loud. He looked at the disheveled musician, the jittery and scared cheerleader, and Ally who was pacing and looked angrier more than anything. Alright, they knew where they needed to go, they could get out of there. “Come on, time to go.” The others followed him to the door and held his breath as he went to pull the door to open, praying it wasn’t locked. It should be fine, the lock looked like it was on their side, but you never know if it had a deadbolt on the other side. He breathed out as the door slowly opened, and he stuck his head out and peered down the white hallway, with its glass displays showing the different artworks. He turned around to tell the others it was clear and froze as he looked beyond the other three.

Blue coals burned into his eyes as every animal in the room stared directly into his eyes. Their eyes were glowing the same azure fire, and he found himself stunned to silence as he looked at them before blinking. As soon as he did all their eyes returned to normal and his mouth fell open as he struggled to tell if what he just saw was an illusion or not.

Mellie looked scared as she turned around in a sudden panic, then back to Brandon. “What!?”

“N-nothing.”

“Are we clear?” asked Apollo.

“Yeah, we’re clear,” Brandon looked down the hallway, which was still empty, “Come on.” He was just panicking and seeing things. He took slow steady breaths as he walked down the hallway, doing his best to keep himself level-headed. That was the only way they were going to make it through this. Stay calm. Be smart. He knew this, but it didn’t make it any easier to be calm.

They got to the next door, and he opened it up which unlike the other this one creaked and he winced and stopped at the noise. If they were going to sneak out, they would have lost the element of surprise now. He paused and listened, but all that met him was the loud breathing of the other three around him, who were doing nothing to stay quiet at all.

He waited an adequate time, and then finished opening the door with a creak, revealing an empty garage. They had taken the vans. “Alright, let’s see if there’s a way to open the garage door.” He looked around for a button or switch but didn’t see anything.

Ally pointed and said, “There’s a handle on the garage door, I think you can just lift it up.”

“Assuming it isn’t locked,” Despite saying this Mellie ran quickly to the garage door and lifted it up, even as Brandon approached and got within arm’s length of her. She needed to calm down, she was opening the garage too fast, and they weren’t getting a chance to peek underneath to make sure the guard wasn’t waiting outside, ready to shoot.

That wasn’t what their concern needed to be. Mellie screamed in panic as the door cleared her line of sight and she stared right into the chest of a man and fell backwards. Brandon jumped both in surprise at her scream and at the thing in front of them, and Ally screamed as well as they all made their way back, before they all stopped and got a better look at the still figure before them.

It had no head, with blood dripping and occasionally squirting from its neck, wore a Carhartt jacket with cowhide gloves, one wrapped in barbed wire and had blood dripping from it. It wore jeans, and tan boots, but most importantly it didn’t move, still as death itself.

Mellie was the first to recover, “What is that!?”

Brandon sighed in frustration, it looked incredibly real, but it was clearly a prop, otherwise how else could it hold itself still. He glared at Ally and asked, “Is this some sort of joke?”

“Excuse me!?”

“What’s happening?” Mellie asked, looking at Ally, then Brandon, and back to the figure at the foot of the garage.

Brandon was thinking it could be a prank, that would explain how Ally knew that this was Hazelwood. Maybe this was some sort of scared straight crap? No… her defensive posture and the terrible anger she was feeling seemed too real. He looked back at the prop and thought, and finally at Mellie, and said, “Nothing… Its just a prop, let’s go.”

He started to walk towards the thing, and at that moment it took a step forward, earning another scream from Mellie who got off the ground and bolted for the hallway door and retreated into the facility, leaving the other three with it.

The thing was still again, but they had frozen in fear. Brandon barely even processed the dings of notifications from Apollo’s phone after the garage door had opened.

“Sir, it seems to be frozen somehow.”

“I can see that. What’s happening?”

“I’m not sure. I think Subject Alpha is responding to test sample three’s DMR readings. Should we do something, sir?”

“We can’t interfere, he isn’t vulnerable yet.”

The thing took another step, and as it did Brandon’s view was cleared so that he could see a small parking lot on the outside, with a yellow car parked under a blueish white light that illuminated the lot for night. He looked at the garage door, it was wide enough to get by. He took off in a sprint, causing Apollo to cry out, “Wait!”

No time, the thing swung one arm at him, but he ducked and took off towards the car. Luckily it was unlocked, and he jumped in the driver’s side and tried thinking about how to hotwire car, he had seen it done in the movies a lot, but he wasn’t about to rely on Hollywood for carjacking advice. He looked at the sun visor and opened it, causing the keys to drop onto his lap. Alright that was lucky, he turned back and saw that the other two were still in the garage, and the thing was now beginning to properly walk towards them. He started the car and swung it around before slamming on the gas, speeding towards the headless thing.

He rolled down the window and shouted, “Out of the way!” Ally’s eyes went wide before she dove to the side, tackling Apollo out of the way as Brandon ran over the thing which fell over the hood of the car and tumbled over his car to land on the ground, its limbs thrown in disarray and appearing to be broken before he crashed into the wall, causing his airbags to deploy and slam him back into his seat as his car lost and the paint crumbled away from the walls to reveal solid concrete.

He breathed out in shock, and looked out the shattered window at Ally who was helping Apollo back to his feet. She looked back at him; surprise suddenly being replaced by a slight laugh. Brandon started laughing as well, after all, what else were they supposed to do? He had just run over a decapitated man.

Snap! The wet crack caused them both to turn back towards the dead man, who’s arms were contorting and straightening with wet squelches and cracks as the bones reset themselves.

“My god…!” Apollo exclaimed.

Brandon wasn’t having any of it, and he put the vehicle into reverse to back over the monster. He slammed the gas and hoped to park the car directly over it, giving them time to run, when the car jumped, and he was met by the screeching of tires. The thing had managed to stand up and had jammed its barbed hand into the back of the car and was managing to hold the thing in place as Brandon tried to flatten it. He put it back in drive and tried to get out of its clutch, but as soon as he released pressure it picked the back of the car up giving him no leverage to accelerate.

Brandon opened the door and rolled out just in time as the monster jammed the back of the car into the ceiling and slammed it forward back into the wall, crushing where he would’ve been if he had stayed in the car.

He scrambled onto his feet and shouted, “Inside! Now!” Ally and Apollo didn’t need additional prompting, and as he ran through the door, he turned around to slam it shut, locking the door before turning to sprint down the hallway. Unfortunately, they were stopped by Mellie who had opened the other door and was staring through it silently, refusing to go through.

“Mellie! Move!”

She didn’t say anything, and the other two were also silent as they looked over her shoulder. Brandon shoved through and saw what it was that had brought them to a halt, the same sapphire eyes were glowing more intently than ever, and every cat and dog was standing and eerily silent as they observed them.

There was a bang on the door behind them, and Brandon realized that whatever was happening in front of them, it wasn’t nearly as bad as what was waiting behind. He pushed Mellie gently forward and whispered, “Mellie, we have to barricade the door.”

She gave, and they stepped inside before shutting the door behind them, softly locking it. There was another bang from the garage.