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08.10.06 |
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One Night At St. Hopeless |
stories |
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a short story |
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She opened the door and peeped outside. Nothing. Everything was quiet and wrapped up with a greyish, fog-like darkness. She closed the door trying not to produce any noise. If they hear her, if they see her, if they sense her it will be over. They are superior in number, strength and absolute will to kill. The bright light of the hospital’s corridors seemed unreal to her when she glanced out of the window into the darkness of what once was a vibrant town somewhere in the west. It has been at least 36 hours since she had last met a living person and more than twenty since she last ran from dead ones finding shelter in this haven of sterility and filtered air. This building must have a standby set for cases of emergency like this one. She reconsidered. No, this was an emergency that no one would had expected, at least no one that anyone sane would have listened to. She had searched the whole building seeking the room where the generator did his work but without success. It would be a useful piece of information to know how long it will continue to produce electricity. In exchange she had found the kitchen with its refrigerators full of healthy food for the patients and less healthy but all the more tasty food for the employees. She had considered more than once to turn off some of the lights but there were too many good arguments against it. Maybe the sudden reduction of light would attract their attention. Maybe the light did even protect her to a certain extent. And if they come it might be an advantage to see clearly where you are running at. After all she didn’t even know if turning out a few light bulbs would help to extend the generator’s running time at all. So all she could do is waiting.
She tightened her grip around the iron bar that was her only weapon and stared into the darkness. Was there any hope at all? Shouldn’t she just surrender? She has been running away for days now and all she had found was total fucking Armageddon. Destruction, violence, murder and things far worse than these. She had seen things she hadn’t dreamt existing. She had done things that she still couldn’t imagine being capable of. She was down with her nerves. Right now her two biggest enemies were sleep and sleep deprivation. She could not risk falling asleep and being defenceless but the longer she was awake the more she felt how her senses played tricks on her, how she lost grip on the situation. She had no connection to the outside world and no one in the world knew that she was here or even that she existed. So why should anyone come to rescue her even if there was anyone who was still able to do so? If she would have believed in a god she might have prayed to him but in this world there was no possibility not to lose one’s faith. If God really existed this would be the proof of him being either a total asshole or absolutely unsuitable for his job. She didn’t really care but her extraordinary situation kept her thinking about existential questions. Did she have a soul? What comes after death…apart from becoming a monster searching for prey? Was her existence only an invention of her own mind? What would happen if she just decided to end it all, to throw the towel into the ring, to say “fuck you, I quit!”? Would it make any difference if she rose again? Was there any way to die and stay dead? She reflected the question until she came to a conclusion. Her only way out was to trench her body into so many pieces that each alone was not able to live on not even in an undead form.
Her eyes flickered. All fatigue had fallen off of her. She had made a plan and she would put it to action. With the anger of a stalemate cat of prey she began to prepare her end. The building was four storeys high and it had an elevator. She let it move up to the fourth floor and took the stairs to the third. It took her some time and a lot of energy but finally the stemmed the elevator’s doors open. She looked down into the dark hole. Including the basement this was four storeys or in other words about twelve meters of free fall. Not quite enough to smash a human body to smithereens but her installation had not been finished yet, either. With the help of some scalpels she had found she cut some windows that were not looking outside out of their frames. One by one she carried them into the basement and mounted them upright into the bottom of the elevator’s shaft until the formed a perfect chessboard with two levels. She wiped the sweat off her forehead. Everything was prepared. She made her way upstairs and after a last glance at the dawning sun she threw herself into the dark. Everything went as planned and nothing was left of her but a heap of glass and blood and human chunks. When they found her it took the authorities days to find out her identity.
[jan] |
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