Chapter 2 Part2 (1/2)

A persistent haze clouded Harry’s thoughts. Despite

the justifications he’d made himself believe, killing the nurse had left a bad

taste in his mouth. It was just another monster, another obstacle in his way;

he had every reason to eliminate it. Still, the image of the nearly-human woman

bleeding out on the floor plagued him with unwarranted guilt. Was it really the

monster he made it out to be? Had he actually murdered someone he could have

saved? Had he made the right decision? Those questions replayed in his mind

over and over until even his devotion to finding Cheryl couldn’t justify his

actions. He wandered like a sleepwalker through the hospital’s winding

corridors.

Before he knew it, Harry ended up down in the

bas.e.m.e.nt. He pushed open the first door he saw, stepping into a cluttered

storeroom. The boxes stacked on the ground and the medical supplies lining the

rusty shelves were caked in what seemed to be several years’ worth of dust. Perhaps

because of his lightheaded daze, Harry’s eyes were drawn right to a point of

suspicion, a shelf in the very back of the storeroom. The room was packed with

so many boxes that there was hardly any room to walk, but the area around that

particular shelf was bare.

Making his way closer to investigate, he saw marks trailing

along the ground, as if something had been dragged across. Despite the aged

state of the room, it looked as if this shelf had been moved frequently, and

recently too. Harry pushed it to the side…and revealed a hidden door. It opened

into a gaping pa.s.sage deeper into the bas.e.m.e.nt. Harry should have

been elated; what better place for Cheryl to be hidden than a secret pa.s.sage?

But all he could do was stand and stare into the darkness. The encounter with

the nurse had shaken him; he felt gripped by the same fear as when he’d faced

the giant creature in the school bas.e.m.e.nt.

Harry slumped to the floor, leaning against the wall

and closing his eyes. It must be around noon by now. He hadn’t

really slept or even stopped to rest in well over twenty-four hours. The

wariness in his mind and the fatigue in his body weighed on him until he

finally escaped into the respite of sleep.

“Daddy?” Cheryl sat on Harry’s lap as he rested in an

armchair. She nestled closer. “Are you sleeping?” He had been sitting here with

his head in his hands for a long time, then suddenly closed his eyes. The three

year old looked up at her father, he face full of worry. Harry had lost himself

in grief after Jodie’s pa.s.sing. Memories of her occupied his every thought.

Even the wonderful memories of her gentle smile, something that should have

given him comfort, only tormented him further.

“Hey…dad?” Cheryl shook her father’s knee in alarm. “Daddy, please be okay!

I don’t want you to go away too! Please don’t leave me alone…”

Her pleas reached straight to the bottom of his broken heart. Harry slowly

opened his eyes. Cheryl…At only three years old she’d

been forced to know the sorrows of death, now she feared that it would take her

father, the only person she had left in the world. The shock hit him as if

Jodie had slapped him in the face. You’re

her father! You have to be here for her now! He lifted his daughter up and

held her tight in his arms.

“I’m so sorry Cheryl. Daddy’s been really careless

lately. I…I was so caught up in the past that I forgot that the most important

thing in the world was right in front of me.”

Cheryl was his treasure, the greatest gift he’d ever

been given in life. She deserved every ounce of devotion in his heart. With

that loving embrace, he swore that the two of them would live happy lives

together, no matter what.

Harry awoke to the sight of teardrops on the

dust-covered floor before him. For that one moment, he was able to hold Cheryl

in his arms again. Though sorrow still sat heavy in his chest, seeing her smiling

face in his dream was enough to fill him with renewed determination. Harry felt

as if he’d gotten a full-night’s sleep, despite his watch saying that only

thirty minutes had pa.s.sed. He was d.a.m.n lucky none of the monsters wandered down

here.

Harry pulled himself to his feet to confront the dark

pa.s.sage. Jodie must have been watching over him; in that moment he felt all the

doubt and fear melt away. He would keep that promise he made to Cheryl all

those years ago. No matter the cost, he’d bring her home safe.

Behind the hidden door was a smaller, narrow storage

room lined with bare shelves. The only feature in the room was a storage hatch

on the floor that lifted with a rusty creak to reveal a stairway leading deeper

underground.

The room at the bottom of those stairs was identical

to the one upstairs, enough to give Harry and odd sense of déjà vu. But it was

far from a feeling of familiar comfort. The darkness has solidified into a

thick wall that bore down on him from all sides, banished only by the paltry

light of his flashlight. An appalling chill snaked its was up Harry’s spine. It

was the same heavy, otherworldly darkness that he’d felt in the “other” school,

the twisted version of reality that lay beyond the clock tower.

A dull hiss sounded from the radio in his pocket,

steadily growing louder. Pounding footsteps rapidly approached from the

darkness until a sprinting nurse came into view. She was different from the one

Harry had faced before; she wore visible signs of age on her face and her dark

hair was flecked with grey. But she had the same hunched posture, the same

throbbing hump on her back, and the same murderous grin stretched across her

wrinkled face. The only other difference was a thick syringe she clutched in

her hand and raised above her head, ready to strike.

There was no way of knowing what kind of vile liquid

was slos.h.i.+ng around inside that syringe, but Harry wasn’t about to find out. He

couldn’t afford to hesitate. Do it for

Cheryl. He steeled himself and unloaded two bullets into the woman’s

stomach. She recoiled with a shriek, clutching her gus.h.i.+ng wound as she

collapsed into a b.l.o.o.d.y pile on the floor.

But it was far from over.

A newcomer was alerted by the commotion and let out a

savage roar as it stumbled over the nurse’s body and lunged at Harry. He dodged

just in time as a pair of scissors sliced past his head, firing another round

at the new monster in the process. The bullet just barely grazed the shoulder

of what was once a well-dressed young doctor, now a rabid monster just like the

nurses. He wasted no time grabbing Harry’s arm, forcing them into a

close-combat struggle. Before Harry could turn the muzzle to the doctor again,

he felt the cold steel scissors pierce his wrist, loosening his grip and

sending the gun to the floor. Harry fought for his life through the biting

pain, beating the doctor back with his bare hands as he tried to antic.i.p.ate

where those scissors would strike next. In a moment of pure desperation, he

grabbed the doctor by the chest and headb.u.t.t the monster in the head with all

his might.

The doctor stumbled backwards with a heavy groan.

Harry took advantage of his stunned opponent and brought smacked the scissors

from his hand with his flashlight. Now, if only for a moment, the two were

finally on equal footing.  Adrenaline

coursing through him, Harry let out a yell and hurled his body at the doctor,

tackling him to the ground. As the two fell into a heap of flailing limbs,

Harry’s flashlight slipped from his hand and rolled against the far wall.

Suddenly bathed in disorienting darkness, Harry felt a pair of hands grab him

by the neck. The doctor dug his fingers into his throat, squeezing with almost

supernatural strength. Gasping and choking, Harry struggled to push his

attacker away with his right hand while groping through the darkness for his

gun with the left. Come on…come on…He

should have dropped it around here; it had to be there. Or else…

His heart leapt as his hand closed around something

cold and metallic. It was too thin to be a gun, but a pair of scissors would

save his live all the same. Clenching it tight, he stabbed the Doctor. A wet,

gurgling scream pierced the darkness and the doctor’s grip went limp. Finally

taking in a lungful of precious air, Harry shoved the monster away and scrambled

for his flashlight to view the aftermath. The doctor was writhing in agony on

the floor, the pair of scissors buried deep in his neck.

Harry’s gun lay on the ground not too far away. He

picked it up, looking down upon the pathetic creature. One shot was all it took

to put it out of its misery. A monster is a monster after all. It would have

just as easily killed him. The sooner Harry could shake his unnecessary

sentimentality, the longer he’d survive in a place like this.

Harry continued on with a heavy gait. He had four

rounds left but…the harrowing encounter with the doctor left him shaken and

exhausted. If another nurse appeared, he didn’t feel too confident in his

chances.

Nonetheless, he

set about the task of checking each room in the long corridor. With every empty

room he felt both a wave of relief and disappointment. He wouldn’t have to

fight for his life again, but he wasn’t any closer to finding his daughter

either.

“What’s this…?”

The final room

Harry entered was identical to the others, but somehow the atmosphere felt

different. It was a simple hospital room with nothing but a neatly made bed and

a nightstand, but somehow it had avoided the corrupting force that had left the

rest of the ward in ruin. It was as pristine as a new hotel room and looked to

have been cleaned quite recently. Was someone being treated here? And where

were they now…?

Harry’s chest

tightened. Cheryl could have been here. His daughter could have stood in this

very room before being whisked off again to G.o.d knows where. Harry’s eyes were

drawn to a picture frame sitting atop the nightstand. He saw, to his surprise,

the face of a young girl. Her eyes seemed distant and her expression was tinged

with melancholy. Harry recognized her instantly as the mysterious girl he’d

spotted in the boiler room back at the elementary school. As he stared into