Chapter 600: No Time for Tears (2/2)

She saw three of them snap the straps that held their arms to the front of their torso and raise their arms to the sky as they roared.

To the Phrewicken on the 19th floor, the roars seemed to batter at them, a rolling pressure from each of the insane (and previously very violent) patients.

The nurse turned the psychic shielding up to max and told the other nurses to chew gum to keep the taste of strange berries out of their mouths.

Two of the doctors returned. Both stated that they had cared for the patients for over a year and they would not abandon them now in their time of need.

The nurses and the two doctors and a handful of janitorial staff kept working, kept ensuring their patients were as comfortable as possible even as doom closed in.

YOU BELONG TO US!

-------

Two days passed. The roar outside was audible as a whisper inside the ward.

The comatose patients had begun to writhe and twist in their beds, whispering constantly. The Phrewicken could feel an almost physical pressure emanating from them and the insane ones in waves. Patients constantly needed their eye covers replaced.

One doctor had noticed that their nutritional needs, based on cellular consumption levels, had doubled, then tripled, then tripled again. Trace nutrients that the patients needed, that would be poisonous to any other species, were rapidly absorbed by the patients.

In one case an insane patient reached up, tore out the light fixture, ripped apart the casing, and ate the tungsten/magnesium filament on the light.

Another ripped open a section of wall, tore out the emergency light's emergency power pack, and ate the capacitance gel like it was pudding. Two others attacked and the doctors and staff were unsure what to do to calm them, but all three stopped fighting when the gel fell to the floor. They knelt down, growling, and ate it straight off the floor, glaring at each other.

Eight security beings had joined the staff to protect them. Twelve Phrewicken had arrived to help protect their siblings, their mother, and their son. They learned to move slowly and carefully.

”You must never run, never hurry, it attracts their attention,” was ingrained into them.

A hurrying nurse would cause comatose patients in her wake to sit up, turn their heads to follow her progress, the pads falling from their eyes and the tape breaking lose to reveal burning red light. Once the movement was gone or ended they would lay back down, closing their eyes.

The two doctors were at a loss to explain it, but were excited by it all.

It helped them ignore the millions dead throughout the system and the massive ships orbiting the planet.

They had no idea why the cry of YOU BELONG TO US! agitated their patients, but it did.

They knew each roar meant thousands of more deaths.

But it still rang out.

YOU BELONG TO US!

--------

Two more days passed.

The insane ones would gather together, standing up, leaning against each other, mumbling and whispering. Sometimes groups would shuffle along behind the nurses, whispering to each other and to the comatose patients as the nurses made their rounds. Sometimes they stood, swaying back and forth, near one of the comatose ones, whispering constantly.

The doctors knew the insane ones never laid down, never fully slept. The closest they came was when they closed their eyes and stood, slightly swaying, a faint amber light leaking through where their eyelids touched.

It was behavior usually never seen before.

Usually they attacked one another and anything else they encountered. One doctor had seen one of the insane ones fight a truck.

And win.

Now they were gathering together.

Several computers had gone missing. The security beings searched and found the casings and the metal framework.

The complex circuitry was gone. The liquid crystal from the LCD's was gone. There were broken and shattered pieces of macroplas around, with teeth marks on them from bone crushing molars.

The nurses and security beings whispered to one another that the insane ones had stolen the computers and eaten them.

They began moving in groups of three or more for safety.

On the morning of the fourth day, one of the security beings was walking by an insane one when the patient suddenly moved, snatching the security being's pistol from the holster. Before the security officer could do much more than turn, the patient took apart the pistol and reassembled it.

It looked smooth, practiced, like the being had done it a million times before.

The being held out the pistol, staring off into space, its eyes glowing a faint amber.

The security being noted that her eyes, beneath the amber glow, were a beautiful pale grass green.

Late that night, the insane ones vanished. The security beings swept the floor nervously, but could not find them.

The elevator doors showed damage from someone using tools to spread them open.

The staff wondered if the insane ones had fled.

Three hours later they were back, carrying plas bins with the personal effects of the patients.

The insane ones moved in and began removing the equipment from the comatose ones, dressing them carefully, putting their possessions in their pockets, then moving to the next ones.

The insane ones were dressed in their clothing.

It was a strange looking clothing, the first time the staff on the ward had seen it. It seemed to be made of different sized little blocks scattered across the cloth like static, that constantly changed colors depending on what the being was standing near.

The nurses moved back in carefully, replacing the oxygen lines, the feeding tubes.

The insane ones just stood there, swaying, murmuring and whispering to themselves.

YOU BELONG TO US!

This time the insane ones didn't roar, just whispered.

The comatose ones eyes all opened at once, then slowly closed, hiding the crimson burning light.

Then came another roar. A different one that reverberated off of every flat surface. Off of metal, glass, plas, even ceramasteel.

The roar made the comatose ones open their eyes and sit up. Made the insane ones stop swaying and stand up straight. Made the whispering stop, the murmurs stop, as the patients, as one, looked to the sky.

And smiled, showing all the teeth.

STEAMBOAT WILLY IS HERE!