Oh, crap.

            Johnny scrambled backwards, dragging his grandpa with him. The imposing man walked slowly towards him, as if he couldn’t be bothered to expend any unnecessary energy. His dark suit, grey complexion, and stony expression made him almost seem like a living tombstone as he approached. His wide mouth and clenched jaw made it look like he was in severe pain, even as he bored into Johnny with his black eye sockets.

            “Your eyes…” he rumbled again. “Give them to me.”

            Johnny looked around, searching for a weapon, not that he could have done much. Johnny was tall, but this guy had nearly a foot on him, not to mention how wide he was. He wished he hadn’t dropped the gun when he did. Too late now, though. He crawled back further, his back slamming against the far wall. The menacing man simply advanced closer and closer. He reached out a meaty hand towards Johnny’s face.

            The hand flew across the room, landing limp a good distance away. The man roared, holding the stump of his arm, stumbling backwards. He stared at his disembodied hand in shock before lumbering toward it, seemingly forgetting all about Johnny in the process. Despite the fact that he had lost an appendage, Johnny noticed, there was not a single drop of blood. It took a quick second of overcoming his panic to realize that hands do not generally become disembodied on their own. Right behind where the man had been stood Paul with a sword in his hand. Johnny’s sword, which he had dropped just moments earlier.

            “Johnny! You okay, man?” said Paul worriedly.

            “Well, I’m alive. You really showed at the last second there.”

            “Yeah. I found your sword and figured something must have happened to you. Listen, this thing is ruthless. It feels way more ticked off than the last time we were here,” Paul said.

            “You’re telling me,” Johnny said. “We need to find Ash before that thing gets her.”

            “Right,” Paul said. “How’s your grandpa doing?”

            Johnny looked over at his fallen grandfather. He seemed to be stirring more than he was before. “I think he’s going to be okay. We can’t rely on him anymore, though. It’s up to us to make a last stand. Where’s Ash?”

            “Last I checked, she was still in that room upstairs. Come on, I’ll grab gramps,” Paul said, hoisting the man over his shoulder. They ran from the room, leaving the menacing man behind. He had grabbed his severed hand and appeared to be trying to reattach it. He wouldn’t be out for much longer.

            “So, Paul,” Johnny said as they ran. “Have you been seeing things, too? Freaky things?”

            “Yeah, you don’t want to know. I think it’s trying to wear us out. First it separates us, then tries to drive us crazy with these hallucinations before it kills us.”

            “It doesn’t make any sense, though. Why go through all that trouble? They way Gramps talked about this thing, he made it sound ruthless, efficient. Why does it seem like it’s playing with us?”

            “I don’t know for sure. But I have a hunch, and I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

            “What’s that?” Johnny said nervously.

            “I think there’s more than one monster. I think there might be two… things in here with us, maybe even three.”

            Johnny gulped. As much as he hated the idea, Paul may have been right. The things they had seen so far definitely didn’t track with Grandpa Tuesday’s experiences. The man he had seen just now was definitely different from the woman that they had seen before. For all he knew, it could be some sort of shapeshifter, but that didn’t seem right. The two beings had felt different from each other, as though they wanted separate things. That meant even though they were leaving one monster behind, there was another ahead of them. And Ash was probably alone with it. He ran faster.

***

            Meg was running, too, alongside Agent King. The hole that Chief Jackson had been dragged through had given them a convenient entrance into the rest of the hospital, though Jackson himself was nowhere to be found. Her relief at being able to proceed was being quickly replaced by worry, however. Her friends were in far more danger than they had initially realized. This monster had killed two grown men with practically no effort. Although she had mostly overcome her shock of witnessing it, she knew it was mainly adrenaline that was keeping her going, and eventually it was going to run out.

            “Slow down, kid,” warned King. “We don’t know what we’re going to run in to here. I know you’re eager, but I can’t let anything happen to you.”

            “I know that,” huffed Meg. “But I need to find my friends quick. They’re in way over their heads.”

            “You got any idea where they would have gone?”

            “The big common room on the second floor. That’s where we saw the monster last, so they’d probably start there.” She skidded around a corner and headed for the staircase they had used before.

            And barreled right into someone, sending them both careening to the ground.

            “Meg?” said a voice from above her. Paul was looking down on her, looking equal parts shocked and concerned. She got to her feet and saw that the person she had ran into was her cousin Johnny, who also looked quite surprised to see her.

            “Meg, we thought you were long gone,” said Johnny. “Hey, you’re the guy from before!” he said, pointing at King.

            “Yeah, ‘the guy,’ that’s me,” said King. “Are you kids okay?” He noticed Tuesday slumped over Paul’s shoulder. “What about him?”

            Paul handed Tuesday over to King, who held his head up and checked his pulse. “He’s out cold, but he should be fine,” King confirmed. “Pretty tough for an old guy,” he said with a chuckle.

            “Meg, you shouldn’t have come here,” said Johnny. “Things are way more dangerous than last time.”

            “I don’t care,” said Meg. “We shouldn’t have split up. We’re going to face this together.” She looked around. “Wait a second, where’s Ash?”

            “We got separated. We think she’s still trapped upstairs,” said Paul.

            Immediately, Meg ran in that direction, the others trailing behind her. There was no way she was letting Ash be left alone. No one was getting left behind.

            The four of them crashed through the doors, filing into the room. Meg sprinted into the maze of curtains, looking every which way for a sign of movement.

            There, leaning against one of the hospital beds, was Ash. She was pinned down by something, and it was reaching for her face.

            “Hey!” yelled Meg. The thing started, turning towards the loud voice. It was the woman from before, the one that had chased them out. She had a needle and syringe in her hand, and it was dangerously close to Ash’s eyes.

            “Oh no you don’t,” growled Meg, sprinting towards them. The ghostly lady screeched, a high-pitched otherworldly shriek, before jumping backwards and crawling away on her hands and knees, resembling some uncanny humanoid arachnid. Ash was sweating and breathing heavily, but otherwise she looked unhurt.

            “You guys found me!” exclaimed Ash.

            “Everyone’s alive,” sighed Meg.

            “For now,” said King. “Those things are going to come back. I need to get you kids out of here, pronto.”

            “Wait a minute,” said Ash. “My dad’s still in here somewhere. Has anyone seen him?”

            The whole group glanced at each other, each shaking their heads in turn.

            “Then I have to find him. It’s my fault he got taken here, and I… I can’t just leave him.”

            “We’ll find him,” said Paul. “All of us, together.”

            Meg nodded. “That’s right. We all finally found each other, right? We’re not splitting up again.”

            King’s face was serious. “No, hey, listen, you kids have been through enough. I will do everything I can to find your father, I promise, but I can’t allow any of you to put yourselves in any more danger.”

            “But we can’t just stay here -” started Johnny.

            “This isn’t your responsibility. Now that Jackson’s gone, you can all get out. Run away until I can take care of the monster. It’s okay to leave things to the adults.”

            “King,” said Meg. “In that room back there when I was ready to give up, you told me to keep surviving, no matter what. Did you mean that?”

            “Of course, and the best way for you to survive is to get the hell out of here.”

            “But what am I surviving for? Until recently, I didn’t have an answer to that question. I was just going through the motions, day after day. I felt like all the humanity had been ripped out of me. I really had nothing to live for. Then I met you guys. You didn’t even know me, but you treated me like an old friend. You made me feel like I… belonged somewhere. It might not seem like anything special, but the way the three of you would look at me, not like a stranger or an inconvenience, but as a friend. It took me a while to realize it, but… I think that was what saved me. All of you saved me.”

            “Meg…,” said Ash.

            “It was when King showed up to take me away to safety that I realized. I wanted to stay here. I couldn’t stand the thought of abandoning you all, even if it meant I’d be in danger too. That’s why we have to stay. Because I won’t let anything take this newfound hope away from me. I can’t let any more families be torn apart. Even if we have to face death, I want us to do it together.”

            Johnny ran over to give his cousin a bear hug. “Damn, Meg, I’m so freaking proud of you,” he said.

            “Heh, glad we’re all on the same page. Glad we’re all in this together,” Paul laughed.

            “We’ve all been loners and outsiders, Meg,” said Ash, smiling. “We all knew the second we met you that you’d fit right in.”

            “Wha – now you guys are just embarrassing me,” Meg said, blushing.

            “This is nothing,” Johnny said. “You should see how flustered Ash gets when she realizes she’s been talking about the history of Italian architecture for thirty minutes straight.”

            “You stop that,” Ash said.

            “Well, it seems you kids have made up your mind,” King interrupted. “Don’t forget I still have to protect you while you’re all signing your death warrants. We need a plan, and to do that we need to know exactly what we’re dealing with.”

            “You’re right,” said Paul. “We should all share what we know. I’m starting to get an idea as to what this monster is.”

            “Then we can rescue Ash’s dad and kill this thing once and for all,” said Johnny

            “Then let’s get to work; we don’t have much time.”

***