Out of the Black - Lee Doty [140]
It seemed to take forever to bring her head into the correct position. She used the seconds to steel herself for whatever tragedy she would see. But when the vista finally crept into view, she was still shocked.
It looked like a bomb had exploded where Anne was standing- but this bomb only affected flesh and bone. The floor was not cratered, the surrounding walls were intact except for one roughly torso-sized impact crater about two meters up. Yet littered around her were the bodies of her previous enemies, some thrown completely across the room. All were dead, many horribly broken, several in pieces. And at the center of the departed blast Anne stood, covered in blood, holding the disembodied arm of one of the demons before her. She was trembling, she was screaming.
Her eyes were darting about looking for help. They first settled on the other members of the hospital staff cowering together against the far wall of the OR. Presumably, they knew Anne from their time shared at work, but the stare that they returned was horror well beyond the panic end of the scale. Anne's eyes darted to the window with it's waiting guns, then quickly away, finally settling on Hawthorne.
Despite the pain and the hopeless situation, Hawthorne knew what was necessary. With great effort, she flashed Anne a smile, and gave her a thumbs-up sign with the hand that still responded to her will. She was tired, but this was almost over.
Across the room, the screaming stopped.
At the end of an oddly placed instant of harmony and mutual empathy, someone yelled "Freeze!" from above, but there was no pause before gunfire erupted.
***
As they passed the sixth floor, gunfire punctuated an all banjo and tambourine rendition of Metallica's classic One... what was it with modern elevator music? Screams and more gunfire greeted them as the elevator doors opened. Without an instant of uncertainty, Ping bolted into the hall. Rae ran after him, and Alex stumbled out last. It was going to take him a while to work the stiffness out of his muscles. Ironically, this was a much harder problem to solve with the Loom than a sucking chest wound. Not exactly an intuitive distinction.
Ping sprinted down the hallway with reckless speed. Rae was torn between trying to keep up with him and trying to avoid being ambushed. She hissed at him to slow down, but he wasn't listening, frustrating man that he was.
Ping was being driven forward by perhaps the most desperate series of shrieks he'd ever heard. He'd heard desperate before, even hopeless, but this screaming was bottom-of-the-eternal-lake-of-fire bad. It was the wail of the hopeless damned. Only feelings and other pre-thoughts filled his mind and heart... empathy for the screamer, rage for the cause, memories and the supposition of a little girl's scream- he had to get there... Right Now.
He approached the door of an operating theatre, with steps near the door leading up to an observation room. The sounds of gunfire came from the observation room above. He vaulted the railing and took the steps two at a time, but by the time he was halfway up, the gunfire stopped. The screaming continued, and new sounds emerged, the sounds of an intense physical conflict. Twice, the walls rattled with heavy impacts.
He continued his ascent. He reached the door, and paused to check his assault gun: Unlocked, safety off, plenty of rounds left... the shrieking came to an abrupt halt. Too late!
Empathy evaporated, leaving only fury behind. He kicked the already broken door inward. "Freze!" he shouted.
The room was small, perhaps four meters on a side, there were some chairs and a coffee table filled with quite a few empty drink containers and a lot of empty snack packages. Three people crouched near the shattered window into the operating room below. Two were wearing link goggles and holding their weapons over the lip of the window, using their gun cameras to target while remaining under full cover. The thought