The Other Side

You Reap What You Sow (Ch. 2)

"Did anyone hear any gunshots?" Frank asks, now at the back of the room with everyone else.

"No," Billy answers. "I would've recognized the sound. Although, the screams were too loud to know for sure."

Jake stressfully runs his hands through his hair, fear still in his eyes. It's been five minutes since the screams on the third floor have passed. Five long minutes.

"Well, what the hell was it?" Tom asks impatiently.

Frank thinks back to the irregular sound he heard. The sound of a blade slicing through something. However, he decides not to comment on it, due to not being able to rationally place what the sound of was.

"I don't know," Frank answers honestly. "But we should go find out."

Tom gives Frank a bewildered look as if he just said something completely incomprehensible.

"No we're not," he says defiantly. "Nope, fuck that."

"Oh, really, then what do you want to do, Tom?" Frank asks tiredly.

"Maybe not go towards the screaming! We need to stay put. If it is a shooter or... something, they don't know we're here. So let's stay here."

Tom looks around at everyone's face, waiting for someone to inevitably agree with him.

"Tom is right," Jake says. "We're safe in here! We need to stay hidden, stay silent, and call the police."

"Not happening," Frank says as he holds up his phone. "Battery's dead. Of all days I forgot to charge it. And phone hours was two hours ago, wasn't it?"

The silence of the patients confirms Frank's assumption.

"Listen, you guys can stay here," Frank offers. "But I'm going to see what's happening. If things are as bad as we think they are, I'm going to get help."

"I'm going too," Billy says. "I don't like sitting here, doing nothing."

"Alright. Remember to be quiet. We don't want to alert whatever's out there."

"This ain't my first stealth operation, son."

Frank and Billy quickly but quietly make their way to the door. Once they're there, Frank places a shaky, unsure hand on the knob. Before he has a chance to second guess himself, he silently opens it. The door stops halfway after being stopped by something on the floor.

One look and vomit comes pouring out of Frank's mouth and onto the floor. Billy backs up in terror, his eyes fully widen.

The blood is the first thing their mind registers. The large sums of blood plastered over what was once white walls. The door to the room stops at the stomach of a corpse that belongs to an orderly. Dark red blood oozes out of his lifeless mouth. His eyes are wide open in shock. The final expression he will ever make. And on his torso are four long parallel gashes, staining his orderly uniform with more blood. Claw marks.

As Frank recovers, Billy, unable to help himself, peers further down the hall. What has to be about twenty corpses are piled throughout the hallway. Blood flows through unoccupied spaces like a river. And all of them share the same fatal claw marks.

...

Montoya has her head resting on her hand, bored by yet another unproductive day. One attempted pickpocket and a suspected break-in that never went anywhere. Her elbow is on the dashboard of her car where what's left of her breakfast sits.

The sky is once again cloudy like most mornings. The bored police officer sits back in her seat, waiting to hear from dispatch as her partner orders from a Mcdonald's.