Dead or Alive: Makes No Difference-Ch. 7

He stood in the shadows, waiting. The note had been received and the reaction he’d wanted had come. Now all he had to do was wait. A malevolent grin passed over his stubbled face. He knew who would come first, she always did. The girl hated the idea of hurting others and the project made her squirm, but she always felt drawn. He knew it wouldn’t be long until she showed.1

She’d taken Brian back to his room where he was now currently asleep. She loved him just as she loved all of the kids in the pediatric wing. Even when sick the kids were usually full of life, bringing energy into the depressing, dull air of the hospital. In her mind there was no other place to be than in that wing, however, there was one place she always found herself at, rather than that wing. The place was the room where the group worked on Frankie. According to Milo they were close to being done and she only hoped that was true. Once they were done with the thing she would be happy.2

Inside she knew she should find Luke, stay with him until this whole thing was over, but she didn’t want to, not yet. Part of her worried what Milo might say if he knew, but another part didn’t fully care.3

She stepped into the room and took a look around. The walls were all clear, leaving no evidence of the blood that had been on them earlier, the blood she knew nothing about. She walked over and pulled out the shelf that contained Frankie. If it really worked, they’d have to fix up his appearance. Part of her wanted to believe what they were doing was going to actually work, but another, more practical side of her, wasn’t so sure. She sighed as she pushed the body back in, when she turned around she was startled to see someone standing right in front of her.4

His hat cast a dark shadow over his eyes so she couldn’t see them. Stubble covered his face as his mouth curved into a grin.5

“Hello, Jess.” He said, his voice deep.6

“H-how do you know my name?” she asked nervously.7

“Oh, I know you pretty well, just like I know Caitlyn, Luke, and especially Milo.” He said, his grin becoming more malevolent. She stepped away from him in terror. This brought her back against a cabinet. She closed her eyes tight as she reached her hand into her pocket, typing as fast as she could on her cell phone.8

Luke’s pager beeped as he walked down the hall. Stopping for a quick second, he looked down at it and read the word HELP typed out on the screen. The page had come from Jess. There was nothing else, just help. He moved to the closest phone and quickly called her number. No one answered and after several attempts he gave up, but he was still worried. Something had happened and she needed help. Typing quickly, he typed in the numbers of Caitlyn’s pager and gave her the message to meet him in the lab.9

Caitlyn couldn’t hear her pager going off in the midst of trying to save the life of the coma patient her and Milo had been checking on earlier that morning. His heart had stopped and the two of them were now trying to start the heart up again. They were having no luck though.10

“He’s gone, Milo.” Caitlyn said after was seemed like the hundredth charge of the defibulator, didn’t work. Milo let out a curse as he stepped angrily away from the bed and ran a frustrated hand through his hair.11

“We should’ve done something sooner.” He said turning to face her.12

“Like what? I hate that we lost him too, but there wasn’t anything we could do. We just got his file this morning and that was for what, five minutes, and then we were off filing papers. There was nothing that could’ve been done.” She told him pointedly.13

“He was twenty-three years old. That’s five years younger than us, he hadn’t even lived his life.”14

“He went skydiving with his friends, you don’t think that’s living?” She knew what he meant though.15

“You know what I mean.” Before anyone could say anything else Milo’s pager went off. Looking down he read, ROOM NOW HELP.16

“I gotta go.” He said suddenly, quickly leaving the patient’s room and heading up to the one he’d been to a million times before. He didn’t know what to expect, all he knew was that Luke had said the words NOW and HELP in the same message; this was serious. When he got to the room he was shocked by what he saw.17