XXIII - Josh
Ceilings flashed by in shuttered frames. Dimly side lit, it was like watching a scene
in an old movie. Stained concrete,
rust, blood… darkness. It felt like
drowning, rising to the surface to breathe hot, stale air, then sinking back
down into the deep. Vibrations jolted
him awake, once, twice, he couldn’t remember.
Screeching wheels obscured the silence, shredding even unconscious
moments. Round and round and round
again in shutterbug strobe-lit dreams.
Click on, click off, click on, click off, click, click, click, click-
Shapes hovered in the air above him, pale, seeping –
faces wrapped in stained bandages with weeping wounds for eyes. Josh moaned as they came into focus. Each one had lost all of its humanity. Ravaged by disease and injury, they twitched
in pain as they pushed him along on a rusting metal trolley. Squeak, squeak, squeak.
Muscles ached.
His head was pounding. This
nightmarish world scrolled past him in staccato bursts. Fear washed over him in hot waves, ebbing
away with the pulses of his fever, but that was slowly fading and the horror
felt more and more real by the minute.
“Ugghhhh…” he managed, trying to vocalise his terror, his
dissent. A jittering head flashed
towards him, droplets of blood flying from red-eye cuts to stain the off-white
sheets which held him to the trolley. Fingers
covered in sores and ancient strips of soaked-through cotton fumbled for his
mouth. The smell of rotting flesh
violated his nostrils and then-
Pressure.
His lips were compressed against his teeth. He could feel tooth enamel bruising moist
skin, then pain as the fingers pinched at his nose. A ragged nail scratched down the left side, then suddenly his
airways were sealed and his used breath flushed back and forth in desperate
frustration.
He started to kick, but with so little energy left by the
fever and the tight sheets binding him in place all he could do was squirm pathetically. Heat was building in his lungs, his
throat. Every cell in his face felt
under pressure. He could see himself in
his mind, turning blue, then black, melting away as his arms stretched up to
grab the intangible air.
“Mmnnngh!” he screamed, “Mmnnnnmmgh!”
Spots appeared in his vision, like patches of burnt film,
spreading and eating into the faces of his ‘nurses’. His mind began to slip, everything was fading and-
The finger let go.
He sucked up all the rank-smelling air he could and choked,
taking several rough breaths afterward as the spots cleared and his mind came
floating back to the surface. An
eyeless face stared at him quizzically, a mouth twisted frantically beneath the
bandages to express some unfathomable emotion.
It let out a gasp similar to the noises of the monsters back at the
apartments. It seemed unsure of itself,
purposeless and lost.
The trolley turned a corner, the squeaking wheels
screeching louder for a second as it did so.
Something scampered across the ceiling above. Josh recognised the slimy skin and strange, lizard-like posture
of the monsters from before and watched as it twisted its head to an impossible
angle to watched him, before melting into the wall.
He started to struggle again. Finding strength from somewhere and wrenching at the tightly
wound sheets, desperate to free his limbs and escape the bleeding gaze of the
nurses. The fever was all but gone and
the desire to escape had never been stronger or clearer. Suddenly the cloth gave, his leg swung free,
hitting one of the creatures in its bandaged face so that the stained rags
turned crimson. A further swing and the
stunned creature fell even as the trolley began to topple. The others leapt backwards with a speed and
motion that was truly inhuman and Josh became tangled in the remains of his
restraints, pressed up against the wall and the trolley with the face of the
fallen ‘nurse’ pooling blood beside him.
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