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Part XII: 1988- End of Innocence
Quinn mustered a smile. "Start by pissing in that cup and we'll take it from there. I'll be back soon." He tapped the door a couple of times to bid Fitz farewell before jogging down to where the vending machines were.
Jamie swallowed as she sat next to Laura. It was awful, what happened to her.
"How long did they say they're going to keep you?"
Laura shifted upright in bed, wincing less than she had been since coming to in this place. It had come as some surprise that Kirk's petite houseguest ("associate", whatever it was they were calling it) had been her first visit but, on further examination, there weren't exactly many other candidates.
"Nobody said anything," she sighed, which was a bad idea; she had a broken rib, and there was something going on hip-adjacent, "Except that they're putting me on Percocet which...small mercies."
It was cruel, really. All these months, she'd been going out of her mind without her pills, and all she had to do to get back on them was suffer a potentially life-changing series of injuries.
"It better not be overnight, though. I can't..." she cleared her throat, "I mean, I have things to look after."
Which opened up a whole other slew of problems she wasn't enthused to explore.
-Laura
"Your kid," Jamie said quietly. "Do you...have someone to look after her? Someone I can call for you?"
"Oh, no, um...she's with the neighbor. She watches her when I'm at work. Except last night but those were..." she recalled Kirk's odd urgency, "...unusual circumstances."
There were some concerns. If she wasn't discharged in time, she'd need to make some arrangements for Annie's care. That old bitch Mrs. McGinnis was just waited for a chance to call CPS.
"It'll be fine," said Laura at length, "I have her number, I'll...let her know it might be a while and then...I'll make plans."
-Laura
"I'll help if you need it. I promise."
She looked to her feet and said, "You shouldn't have to deal with it alone."
And she was tired of dealing with this alone.
"Oh," Laura hesitated, "Thank you. That's, um...that's very kind."
Maybe it was the happy juice in the IV, but she got sort of giggly, working to suppress a little smile, "Funny in, like, an ugly, perverted way. Family isn't gonna come help with this mess...they haven't before. Forget about my..." the word 'husband' curdled on her lips, "Annie's father. That's not happening anytime soon."
She looked back at Jamie, "I hope this isn't all to make up for that little bitchfit when we met the other day. I was in a cunty mood. It mostly had nothing to do with you."
-Laura
"I deserved it and a lot more. It's fine." She couldn't do this anymore. She had to tell someone. And Laura was no friend of Kirk's. "Can I...get some things off my chest?"
"Hm?" Laura cocked an eyebrow, "Oh."
Well, that explained the impromptu visit at least.
"Yeah, sure...what things?"
Let it never be said she didn't like a good story. And she could do with the distraction.
-Laura
Jamie sighed, before glancing at the door. She didn't know how much time they had, so she had to be fast.
"I haven't been telling the truth. Kirk isn't the father. And until I took that test, I didn't even know I was pregnant."
Her hands were shaking. But she couldn't stop. Not now.
"I...I couldn't think of anything else. I needed to get close to him."
Laura blinked vacantly. She remembered overhearing Jamie and that older woman who'd visited last night talking about her being pregnant, but she was pretty sure this wasn't something she was, er, supposed to know, so she hastily assumed an expression of great surprise, which wasn't that hard since the second half of the sentiment was pretty damn surprising.
"Wait, wait..." she leaned forward, "You're faking a pregnancy?" she narrowed her eyes, "Why the hell would you want to do that? Child support? Because those Devlins are tight-fisted. Most rich people are, but I think it's worse if you work with money."
-Laura
"No...I am pregnant. I just...I didn't know it. And it wasn't about the money."
Jamie was now looking Laura in the eyes, "I couldn't give a flying fuck to the moon about his money."
She had to be careful. It was 1988. There was a real possibility that Laura was still alive in 2016. The time-line had to be protected...
"I can't tell you everything, but something terrible is either going to happen, or already has happened. And if it's the latter, I'm screwed. And...I believed that it had something to do with Kirk, or one of his friends."
"Huh," Laura was quiet for a short while, turning this over in her mind "Well...that's weird."
Maybe it was the drugs again. Laura had never had as good a tolerance as she'd pretended. Well, for a while early on in her first regimen, but then things had snowballed as the rest of her body's rhythms struggled to get back into order.
"Well, if you're looking for something Kirk's gonna do..." she spread her arms wide to indicate her surroundings, "Not that anybody's asked if I want to press charges. I probably should, though. Worker's comp's as good as Disney dollars these days, thanks to Reagan," she looked off into the middle distance, "And, um...whether or not I am 'something terrible'...which, depending who you ask, is a real possibility...why are you telling me this?"
-Laura
"It's supposed to be a death, I'm pretty sure. Not...your accident."
Jamie sighed, and said, "Because I need an ally. Because the one other person I could have made an ally with is furious with me, with good reason. And I don't know what else to do..."
Then it hit her. There hadn't been a name, but "The Gypsy" had been mentioned repeatedly in the tape that Jason Murray had made.
"Wait...what do you know know about a kid named Leo?"
"Wait, wait..." Laura said again, "No, no, of course I don't know somebody named Leo. The fewer high school kids I have to deal with on a daily basis, the better off I am. What the hell kind of question even is..."
She stopped herself, another stabbing pain in the side forcing her to swallow her words.
"I'm sorry," she began, "I'm trying to wrap my head around this. Maybe I'm just going loopy...it wouldn't be the first time!" she laughed unevenly, "But I'm trying to get past the whole...the whole premise here that you 'need an ally', and that ally has to be me because...I'm here? I'm not Kirk? I'm not 'furious' with you yet? I don't know. Maybe I should be. I mean, I wasn't, but I can work my way there, can't I? I'm a capable woman when I want to be."
She leaned forward, "Why the hell should you have an ally? Someone to...what? Help you figure your way out of some mess you made? Nobody's entitled to allies. I sure as hell never had any. And now...what? Because I'm in the hospital and I'm vulnerable, I'm supposed to listen to this fake nice girl act where you pretend to be concerned about me and my daughter so you can have a fucking sounding board? Now I really wish I'd looked both ways on the way to the damn house!
"I didn't get hit by a goddamn car so I could listen to you mouth off about how badly you need help. You think anybody showed up for me when I fucked up? When my girl was born and I got so fucking sick I got hooked on my own painkillers? When my husband went trooping off to save the world and I had to raise the girl myself? When every one of my fake friends dumped me the second I got a little too grown up? No. I was alone. And nobody came along to be my merry little ally and shovel me out of my shit. So whatever this is...whatever you know about Kirk, whatever lies you are telling to that boy and his sister and whoever the hell else, you can find your own way to fix them. I have my own problems to take care of."
She picked at her IV, realizing she'd begun hyperventilating, "And it's about damn time I try solving them."
-Laura
"What the hell is going on here?!" Kirk closed the door behind him as he came in at the tail end of what look like a verbal assault delivered without care from Laura to Janey.
"Oh, well, if it isn't Speed Racer himself!" Laura greeted, "Your 'associate' and I were just having some Girl Talk. Barbra Walters was about to show up to moderate."
-Laura
Jamie turned around to face Kirk. The man responsible for all the bullshit in 2016. The man who had killed Leo...
"I know what you've done."
Kirk narrowed his eyes at Janey's cryptic statement. "Excuse me?" He approached her, towering over her with ease.
***
Quinn finally reached the vending machine, which unfortunately was so poorly stocked that it only had three options:
- New Coke
- RC Cola
- Water
No Sunny-D. "Motherfuck..." RC Cola it was then. It cost a charitable fifty cents. He just needed to dig into his wallet...and dig...and dig.
"Oh, bite me..." Quinn Maddox: had lots of cash; no change for half a dollar.
You know what, screw it. He looked to his left and then to his right. Not a witness to be found. Place was practically abandoned. So by that logic, who would mind if Quinn (sneakily) snuck his arm through the slot, and reach for a can of RC cola perched on the bottom-most row...
His fingers came to the refreshing touch of cold metal, coated with that holy condensation. "Ay! Bitchin'!" Quinn just needed to force the can out of there and...
CLUNK!
Oh no. This wasn't like the last vending machine he robbed. His arm was stuck...
CLUNK!
...and it wasn't giving.
CLUNK!
"Oh, this is so blar!" He cursed in 80's before cursing quite loudly in English. "FUUUUU..."
CLUNK!
The fluorescent lights flickered above him as he tried desperately to withdraw his arm.
flik flik flik flik
He was going to be here a while.
-Kirk and Quinn
Curse his stubborn urethra! All this waiting, all this clutching of his urinary meatus, and still not a trickle. Even the sink had given up running, as if the waters itself were mocking him. Fitz's other hand was beginning to numb on the sample cup.
The knock on the door startled him, but not enough to provoke a pee.
"Quinn?" he turned his head, his hair swishing out of his eyes in a way that might have looked quite dashing in different circumstances, "Quinn, is that you?"
"Er…no," a woman's voice, unfamiliar, "I'm a nurse."
"I am sorry about my urine!"
"So are the six appointments we had to cancel, honey. This is our only testing bathroom."
"Oh, I'm such a failure!"
"No, that's alright. You wouldn't be the first person whose choker choked him at the big moment. You want some juices? That might help."
"Juices," Fitz repeated the word like a psalm, "Oh…but my friend promised me some Sunny-D!"
"Well, that's mostly juice."
"I wouldn't want him to waste his nickels!"
"Look, if it gets you out of there, I'll comp him the damages. You sit tight here and I'll get you something. Apple or orange?"
"Oh, I'm not sure! What is the difference?"
"Between apples and oranges?"
"Oh, whatever you think is best! And, don't worry, I won't tell my friend when he brings the Sunny-D. That way, everyone will feel served!"
There was a silence, and then a belabored sigh, "That's some good thinking, honey."
***
"...real good thinking," Nurse Maxine Miller stepped away from the bathroom door, rolling her eyes at the eccentric dope fiend, if dope fiend he was. 75% of Lakewood General's patient intake was drug addicts and, while the young candy prince seemed hopped up on something, he couldn't be said to fit the bill.
Then again, you never knew these days.
"Ms. Sawyers," she tuned into the walkie-talkie floor nurses used to communicate away from the nurses' station, "You got me?"
"Miss Maxie," her charge nurse responded brusquely, "Fancyboy strike gold yet?"
"I've seen more continent corpses working the morgue."
"This place, I'm telling you. We get all kinds. Still time for you to switch to that rehab place out in Briarcliff."
"Sawyers!" Maxie whispered, "What if management's listening?"
"Let them. Then they'll know to pay ya to stay, putting up with kids who can't piss when you could be making real money somewhere."
"Oh, but we have so much fun here," said Maxie lightly.
"Pfft."
Which was as good as 'Over' in these parts. Maxine tuned the radio out and continued toward the nurses' station.
-Fitz and Maxine
Jamie didn't back down, and stared him in the eyes, "I said I know what you've done."
"Yeah. I heard you, parrot," Kirk stepped even closer, trapping her against the wall right next to a diagram of the human anatomy. "I've done a lot of things. Why don't you specify?"
***
"Just gotta twist it likeOw fuck no. Not that." Quinn winced as he continued to find a way to wrench the can free and drop it into the hallowed pickup slot of the vending machine. He was beginning to lose track of just how long he'd been here. It didn't help that the hospital's cheapass lights couldn't stay bright for more than ten seconds.
flik flik flik flik flik flik
And they kept making that damn sound! It was getting really hard to focus here!
"What kinda…stupid…dip…makes it so hard to steal… RC…friggin'...cola?!" Quinn punched the machine in frustration, promptly regretting it as he howled in pain.
"Oh my gosh…"
Quinn paled like a ghost. That sounded like…women.
He turned his head, paling even paler. Attractive women.
Nurses to be precise. Giggling at his misfortune.
"Oh…" Keeping one hand in the vending machine, Quinn waved at the three young women. "Yo. How's it…" He tried to inconspicuously free his trapped hand from the machine, to no avail. "...hanging?"
"Whatsa matter?" The tallest of the trio asked. "Spaz lost a nickel?"
"Whoa!" Quinn couldn't hide his offense. "I am not a spaz!"
"He isn't a spaz, Bren," the redhead with the overbite joined in on the mockery. "He's just a prep too cheap to buy…" She squinted and looked at the machine's selection. "...New Coke."
Now Quinn was really offended. "I am NOT buying New Coke!"
"He's right," the bubblegum-chewing chick with the raven black hair said in a baritone. "He's stealing New Coke."
"I…" Quinn stopped himself, realizing that whether or not he was stealing New Coke was not the issue here. "Coulda ya just, like, help me outta here? I can, y'know…" He raised his eyebrows suggestively. "...make it worth your while."
Bren gagged at that. "Ugh! How mung can you get?"
"Tell me about it," Bubbles chimed in, popping a sizable gum bubble to do so. "Let's go."
They turned to leave, prompting Quinn to call after them, "B-but what about me?! Isn't it, like, your job to help the sick and…" He tried to free his hand again, with no luck. "...injured?"
Redhead tossed her hair over her shoulder as she turned to join Bubbles. "Yeah. Nothing about the 'mildly inconvenienced'. Sorry. You're on your own." They began to strut away towards the elevator.
"No!" Quinn called after them, begging, "Don't leave me here!"
"Relax," Bren waved him off as she entered the elevator with her friends. "We'll be here after our break. Which is only, like, an hour."
Quinn's eyes nearly bugged out of his skull. "An hour?! I can't stay stuck here for an hour! W-w-what about the circulation?! W-w-what if I lose feeling in my arm?!"
They waved casually as the elevator doors closed.
"WHAT IF THEY HAVE TO AMPUTATE IT?!" Quinn cried out.
Too late. They were gone.
"THAT IS NOT COOL!" Quinn whined, just as the lights dimmed yet again, things becoming dark…and staying dark…
Quinn gulped, his lower lip trembling like a baby's.
The lights came back on again.
"Oh, fuck this…" Quinn returned to trying to free the can from its prison.
CLUNK!
"Creepy hospital…"
CLUNK!
"Bitchy nurses…"
CLUNK!
"Fuckin' stupid-ass RC Cola…"
CLUNK!
And so Quinn continued at it, albeit a bit more nervous than he was before.
-Kirk and Quinn
"Yeah," Laura cut in, "What did he do?"
Surely, Janey had been getting onto something before. Like it as not, it looked like Laura was about to be ringside in this crusade of her anyway, so she might as well get the benefit of context.
***
"Oh, come on!" Maxine slammed the nurses' station fridge shut, "No juice? At all?"
"It's that Carol," Sawyers didn't look up from the paperback she'd been reading on the sly for the last week, "She never keeps up ordering from the kitchen. Long as the day shift gets their things in order, overnight can hang."
"If that boy doesn't pee…" Maxine crossed to the desk, grabbing the phone.
"Who're you calling?" asked Alyson, the third and last of the overnight nurses on the floor, "Carol? Someone ought to read her the riot act. I don't know how she gets away with it."
"I tell ya how," said Sawyers, "She gets the attendings off."
Maxine's seniors dissolved into a chorus of barking laughter which Maxine entertained with a smile before reminding herself she was a feminist and supposed to be an ally for her fellow women in this male-dominated industry.
Anyway, Carol was a real slut.
She dialed the number for the kitchen.
"Dietary, good evening."
"Yes, hi, Dietary, we've got no juices up on 4D."
"Order some in the morning."
"I need juices now."
"Orders are made in the morning, honey. We have no transport down here."
"You can't find someone to bring up a bottle of apple juice?"
"Look, I'm just telling you how it is. Your clerk should've ordered in the morning."
"Yeah, well, she didn't, so…"
"Well, then you have to take it up with your clerk. I…" a screech of static, "...15 years, and I'm not gonna take lip from some…" louder screech of static, "...take it up with my manager if you want, I know my rights, little girl, and…"
"Hello?" Maxine tried, "Hello?" she slammed the phone back down onto the carriage, "Bitch."
"She hung up on you?" asked Alyson.
"Maybe, or…" she picked the phone up again only to find it was dead silent, "Huh. The line's dead."
"What d'ya expect?" prompted Sawyers casually, "This place, I'm telling ya…"
-Laura and Maxine
"Leo Lakotos," Jamie said with steel in her voice, "I know what you did. And I'm going to stop until I see justice."
Justice for him...and redemption for her inaction, of not doing her damndest to stop it.
The name sent shivers down Kirk's spine. "Leo Lakotos?" He repeated in disbelief that Janey even knew the name or what she was referring to begin with.
She knows. I don't know how but...she knows.
Kirk couldn't help but let out a humorless but nevertheless impressed chuckle. "You know...you really are a headcase. You come into my house out of nowhere, accusing me of fucking you but not only that--leaving you with child. Then you use this to freeload off me for a couple of days, tellin' tales to my house-girl..." He pointed to Laura. "...that you're my girlfriend. But still, I give you money to shop for clothes with my sister, who just so happens to be attacked by Leo Lakotos on your little field trip to the GAP. And now, a day later, you're tellin' me you know what I did...with Leo Lakotos."
Suddenly, he punched the wall next to Janey's head, leaning in closer. "Listen here, you fucking, no-good skank. Ever since you came into my life, you've been keen on messing everything up. I don't know what mental hospital you came from, but I have been remarkably patient with you, you little, sniveling snake. With your lies and your moralizing and your punk attitude. But joke's on you, bitch." Kirk leaned in even closer, entrapping her further. "I know what I did, too. And I'm gonna pay for it. Gonna fuck my life over and my friends too but I'm starting to realize there are bigger things than me at play."
He closed his eyes, letting out a slow, shaky exhale, thinking what Vicki would say at this scene. If she'd even recognize Kirk...
"As for you," Kirk wagged his finger right in her face. "Your meal ticket ends now. I'm making sure you get checked in to the closest mental hospital and by God, I hope they fix whatever the fuck is wrong with you. Because God help whoever has to deal with your bullshit..." He glanced at her stomach. "...and God help the poor kid who's gonna have to call you his mother." Kirk spat at her feet, finally punctuating his tirade.
***
It wasn't looking good.
CLUNK!
Quinn was losing feeling in his arm.
CLUNK!
Maybe they would have to amputate…
CLUNK!
"Aw, man…" Quinn sat against the vending machine, a defeated and entrapped young man. "What am I doing?"
Helping a friend was the generous answer but perhaps that wasn't what Quinn meant when he asked the question to nobody in particular. Maybe it was his current situation, trapped in the jaws of death, practically all alone on a dirty hospital floor with questionable visibility. Something about it provoked thoughts that veered towards existential.
What was Quinn doing? Before yesterday, he would have answered right away: partying, macking girls, living life to the fullest. But now…after what he'd taken part in last night, after the fiasco at the debate today, and after Kirk declared he was going to narc on them and blow the whole thing up…it seemed like things were gonna be over for him. And what had Quinn's life been up to now, really? And what did he really want it to be?
…
Oh, great. Now he had to piss.
flik flik flik flik flik flik flik flik flik flik flik flik
Quinn looked up at the light fixtures above and around him, which were flickering more than they ever had before until finally…
FLIK
The whole floor was shrouded in darkness.
-Kirk and Quinn
"Oh!" Fitz exclaimed as the already tomb-like bathroom was plunged into darkness, "Well, that's pretty gaff of you!"
Nobody responded to this outraged exclamation, which made him feel even worse.
"I mean it!" he tried again, "If you think sealing me in darkness will make my juices flow faster, you've another thing coming! I'd be tempted to hold it in out of spite but…" he sighed, "There is nothing to hold."
Who was he kidding? He deserved this humiliation. Not just because of his urinary delays, but because of his failure to act, to stand up, to have any part to play in the drama of the last day outside of mere spectating.
If he couldn't be expected to take an active role in the events of his own life, why should his urinary meatus?
***
"The lights too?" Maxine asked nobody in particular as the nurses' station was illuminated by the sparse (and not all functional, apparently) dark blue emergency lights.
"This place is the ghetto," Sawyers muttered derisively, putting her novel aside as she got to her feet, "Aly, you remember that blackout in '79?"
"We were on reserve power for six hours," said Aly, "Three nurses on the floor, four crit-care patients, no admin support…"
"The Wild West," Sawyers snorted, "But no Clint Eastwood."
"Hell, it's desperate enough around here I'd take Gene Kelly."
"What does Gene Kelly have to do with it?"
"He's that cowboy that sang those songs? With the guitar?" Aly frowned, "What I mean is, he wasn't tough like Clint Eastwood…"
"That was Gene Autry!"
"Ooh, sorry, Grandma…"
"Guys, I'm gonna check the crash cart," said Maxie, "Just in case someone codes, right?"
"Good girl," Sawyers nodded, "We'll make rounds of the patients."
"Oh, and Maxie…" Aly began, but Maxine preempted her, holding her walkie up.
"I'll be in touch."
"Right on."
Walkie in hand, Maxine headed away from the station toward the supply room. She could hear Sawyers and Aly cracking wise as they began their circuit of the patient rooms. Just about everybody on this floor was bedbound, and most of those were in no fit state to be spooked by a sudden blackout.
The crash cart was kept in a utility room to the back of the floor. Access to it was regulated by a (battery operated, mercifully) combination lock whose code was painstakingly maintained by the unit's tireless administrative overseers.
"1…2…3…" Maxine muttered as she entered the digits one by one. The door clicked open, allowing her entrance to the fusty, windowless supply closet.
In the dark, the whole place had an eerie, foreboding quality. Maxine didn't scare easily, but she resolved to get this tiresome task over with as soon as possible.
The crash cart was a generously sized red box, containing everything a nurse would need in the event of a cardiac arrest. Maxine bent over to peer inside, using the penlight she kept in the pocket of her scrubs to assess everything was in order.
Straightening back up to the lumpy monitor loosely positioned to the top of the cart, Maxine tuned into her walkie, wincing at the sudden surge of static.
"Yo, Aly?"
More static. Maxine sighed, "Aly, it's Maxie. I have a crash question."
Finally, a voice hissed through the receiver, "Aly is dead…this is Michael Myers."
She rolled her eyes, "Aly, Michael Myers doesn't talk. He's retarded."
"Still gave Jamie Lee a hell of a runaround. Don't count him out."
"Look, the crash cart's all stocked. But the monitor…"
"Oh yeah, just slap it."
"You're kidding."
"City hospital, girl."
"Right."
"Hey, tune into Channel 6 on that thing. The girls in Labor and Delivery are taking advantage of the blackout. We're in block party mode 'till this place lights up again."
"I'm sure the babies appreciate that," Maxine smiled, giving the monitor a slap and nodding in satisfaction as the hideously brilliant blue screen lit up, and the built-in printer spat out a reel of EKG tape.
"All good here," she told her, "On my way back."
"Don't rush. We're not getting crisis pay for pioneering it up over here."
This done, Maxine contemplated the walkie briefly before, with a sly smile, tuning to Channel 6. There was some static, but eventually the noise cleared away enough for a blast of upbeat, synth heavy pop.
"Block party it is, then," Maxine decided, making her way back to the nurses' station, nodding along with the up-tempo beat.
"Well, you didn't wake up this morning 'cause you didn't go to bed…"
***
"You were watching the white of your eyes turn red…"
The tension of the moment was interrupted as a huge, hulking figure leaped through Laura's window, completely shattering it.
Laura screamed at once, lifting her hands instinctively to shield against the sudden spray of glass across the floor and the coverlet. Through the gaps in her fingers, she could make out the intruder, crudely lit in the murky blue light.
He…it?…was huge. Six feet at least, and maybe more, standing upright, on two legs. It was lean though, too, emaciated and angular. Definitely, it had to be some kind of animal…covered in dark fur, with a snout and a swishing tail. It didn't seem at all disturbed by the glass it had pounced through, breathing deeply through its canine nose, bright amber eyes surveying the room before it.
Laura had only a few seconds to take this all in before the creature made its next move, lunging faster than sight could comprehend. Laura cried out, reeling back preemptively…
"The calendar on your wall was ticking the days off…"
The monster leaped right over the bed, faster than sight, coming between Kirk and Jamie with titanic force. It grabbed Kirk in one hand-like paw, lifting him by the neck, snarling as if in appraisal of its catch.
Kirk was big and strong for his age, yet none of this mattered to the monster, who lifted its own other paw and raked its claws over his neck, tearing it open as easily as butter.
"You've been reading some old letters/You smile and think how much you've changed…"
Blood sprayed over Laura's sheets, her gown, her face. She wanted to scream, but between drugs and shock, nothing more than a hollow wail escaped her. She scrambled back on her hands, falling roughly from the bed and onto the floor, where more blood was dripping, warm and sticky.
There was a thud on the mattress…she'd pulled her IV stand down. If the hospital was at full power, there'd be some alarm going off now to warn the nurses she was out of bed. Now, nothing.
Laura struggled to sit upright, picking desperately at the IV in her arm. There was another thud, forcing her to look up to see Kirk's body dropped like a stone onto the floor. His head sprawled out just beyond the foot of the bed, eyes wide and staring. His neck had been reduced to a sinewy channel, almost entirely emptied of blood.
She lifted a bloodstained hand to her bloodstained lips, trying to look away from the accused teenaged murderer and failing.
"All the money in the world couldn't buy back those days…"
The terrible uncertainty lingered for only a moment, Laura hunkered down, terrified to make a sound for fear of being spotted.
It wasn't her the creature went for next.
Janey, Audrey, whatever the hell her name was…she had fallen against the opposite wall when the beast had grabbed Kirk. It rounded on her with the same furious determination, taking her, not by the neck, but by the hair, and roughly pulling her head back.
She might be screaming. They might even be honest screams, a good change for her.
But it was too late for honesty.
"You pull back the curtains/And the sun burns into your eyes…"
The beast didn't lift Janey the way it lifted Kirk. Instead, it brought her face down, hard, against the linoleum floor. Not once, but twice, three times. Laura got a glimpse once, and saw a bloody ruin, the puckish face distorted nearly beyond recognition. Nose and teeth shattered, lesions and welts beyond counting obscuring anything that could be classified as a face.
In the course of this, the beast had held one of her arms behind her back, so hard that it was wrenched from its socket. There must have been a moan here, but Laura was beyond noticing.
It was almost…human. A man holding a woman down, deliberately keeping her in place until she could no longer struggle.
"You watch a plane flying/Across a clear blue sky…"
The beast lifted Jamie more definitely this time, yanking so hard that a huge hock of hair was yanked up by the roots. Jamie swayed about like a rag doll, her ruined arm hanging limply at her side.
The other paw moved down to Jamie's navel, bloodstained but still intact. Some impulse, some latent motherly instinct told Laura she must intervene here.
Then again, she must credit that same impulse with her decision to stay still and silent as possible.
"This is the day your life will surely change…"
The creature clawed Janey's stomach open. Blood and viscera poured down in a merciless torrent, splashing on the floor in heavy, messy gobbets. Janey's legs spasmed wildly like a man on a noose before, finally stilling, one last defeated croak escaping what was left of her mouth.
Laura watched through a thin veil of tears as the girl's body was dropped into the mess of her own insides, lifeless and dull. A sob escaped her…
…and was enough to catch the monster's attention. It turned to her, blood still dripping from its claws.
She found her strength, ripping the IV out of her arm. Blood spurted out from the raw wound, but she had bigger concerns.
With a desperate wail, she grabbed the metal shaft of the IV stand from the bed above her and swung it wildly, like a baseball bat. The effort took all of her strength, but she connected, striking the thing about the middle. It staggered, but was only momentarily halted.
She grabbed onto the doorframe, forcing herself upright as she staggered out into the corridor, a long, low moan for help escaping her drugged lungs.
She didn't know what to expect: the world just didn't hand out allies to people like her. Still, she was still alive and the users were dead. There had to be something in that.
"This is the day when things fall into place…"
-Fitz, Maxine, and Laura
The emergency lights were pitiful but at least they were something. Quinn could have tolerated being trapped in a vending machine in the light, but the dark? That aesthetic was no good.
He had little time to feel at peace, though, when he heard the sounds of thrashing and banging and clattering from way down the hallway.
"What the hell…" Quinn muttered as he squinted down the hall to find the source of the calamity.
SLAM!
In a flash, Kirk's maid lady—Laurel or Laurie or whoever the hell she was–burst through the room's door and ran towards him like she'd just met the devil, blood squirting out of her arm.
"Whoa whoa whoa!" Quinn used his one free hand to try to signal her to slow down. "What the fuck is going on?! Where the hell do you think you're going?"
SLAAAAAAAAAM!
A gaunt furry monster coated with human blood tore the door off its hinges and chased after her at frightening speed.
"OH WHAT THE FUCK?!?!" Quinn cried out hysterically at the sight, eyes wide as saucers at the horrific, unnatural sight. "WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK…"
Oh, he had to get out of there…
CLUNK!
His arm was still stuck. Shit…
CLUNK!
What the hell was he going to do?
CLUNK!
He was gonna die…
Then, it dawned on him. "Why the fuck am I still holding onto the can?!" Quinn let go of his once prized RC Cola and scampered to his feet, nearly slipping as he tried to break into a full sprint.
"HELP!" Quinn shrieked, desperate for somebody, anybody to hear him. "HELP! THERE'S A FUCKING GORILLA OR SOME SHIT AND HE'S FUCKING CHASIN' ME! HELLLLLLLLLP!!!!!!" He conveniently forgot to mention Kirk's maid but she was probably dead meat anyway.
"You could have done anything, if you wanted…"
Laura tried to call after the kid…one of Kirk's dipshit friends, from the look of it, but to no avail. Her legs had given way from the strain, still wobbly from drugs and blood loss for all she knew.
On hands and knees, she dragged herself along the hall, aware of the monster pursuing her and taking its sweet time about it too, relishing her helplessness.
"Sh-shit," she croaked out the swear, pulling up against the vending machine the kid had abandoned to look over her shoulder at her bestial pursuer.
"And all your friends and family think you're lucky…"
She was trickling blood from the IV puncture on her arm, a perfect trail, winding its way down the passage. The monster was on all fours now, snout over the blood on the floor, eyes ever on her at the end.
She didn't have the strength to keep on. At any moment, the hairy bastard could pick up the pace. She'd seen firsthand how strong it was.
"Fuck…" Laura tried to prop herself upright against the vending machine, but stumbled again.
There was a clattering sound from inside. Something had been jarred loose, dropping into the slot at the bottom. Laura reached inside with a shaking hand and felt something cold and smooth.
Better than nothing.
"But the side of you they'll never see…"
With an angry cry, she hurled the RC Cola through the air. It struck the monster flat on the snout, bursting open and spraying indiscriminately. The beast made a strangulated yowling noise, knocked off balance.
Laura took advantage, continuing down the hallway, the only thing on her mind getting as far from that thing as she possibly could.
"Is when you're left alone with your memories/That hold your life together like glue…"
-Laura
Quinn didn't bother to turn over his shoulder to look back at the monster, focused on putting as much distance between him and it as possible. It was as if seeing it again would make it realer and with the realer it got, Quinn felt deader and deader. He needed a place to hide, lock himself away and out of sight…
The testing bathroom! He could hide there with Fitz!
Skidding as he made a sharp stop to the door, almost overshooting it, Quinn regained his footing and slammed against the door desperately. "FITZ! FITZ, OPEN UP! HURRY!!! HURRY!!!!!"
"Quinn!" Fitz exclaimed, "Quinn, you can't come here! They'll suspect you of tampering with the…"
He opened the door a crack to peer out, "Oh, and not to sound like a narbo, but where is that Sunny-D? I really feel like that will…"
He got a quick peek at the thing coming up the hallway over Quinn's shoulder.
"COME IN! COME IN! COME IN! GET INSIDE!" he snatched Quinn by the arm, dragging him into the bathroom with him and slamming the door shut behind him.
-Fitz