Death Smith - Book 1 - Chapter 2

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Vacation and monsters

Seven months ago.

August, 13 AR.

United Kingdom, London, Ealing Hospital.

-Thump-

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“You know you can stop throwing the ball anytime you want to, right?” Lance commented, rubbing his eyes as he checked his smartphone again. He ignored the unread text message from his brother as he checked the time. ‘One hour left,’ Lance thought.

-Thump-

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Lance leaned to the side just far enough to catch the ball mid-air, depriving Thomas of another irritating ball toss against the wall.

“Come on, give it back. It helps with my nerves,” Thomas protested as he gave Lance a disapproving look of betrayal.

“Don’t be nervous. The uniform looks very slimming on you,” Lance said with a grin, followed by Thomas throwing a small packet of sugar towards Lance.

Thomas had even stepped up his tactics by trying diplomacy. A strategy that did not match his athletic build. “You know what I mean. I need a smoke and I still need to wait an hour because of that new rule.”

“Ah, well. New policy, new rules,” Lance replied, not feeling any sympathy for his friend’s unhealthy habits. He had tried to for years to get Thomas to quit smoking, but the man was as stubborn as an ox.

“They did not consult me,” Thomas said sourly, no doubt feeling the cigarette pack and lighter burn a hole in his pocket. He always had those things close at hand.

“You know those things are going to kill you one day, right?” Lance asked as he glanced at Thomas, showing genuine concern for a minute before Thomas threw another packet of sugar against Lance’s chest. Lance smiled at that as he mouthed the word ‘Baby’.

“Bite me,” Thomas said, his voice somewhat irritated.

“The uniform makes you look fat,” Lance finally said as he got up and went to finish his tasks for the remaining hour. A small yawn escaped his lips as he did so. Irregular working hours and picking up some extra shifts had exhausted Lance, making him yearn for his bed most of all.

‘Chicken would be good... perhaps a taco?’ He thought, deciding what to have for dinner. Not long after, he noticed that his colleagues from the late shift were arriving. He knew most of them rather well. With a few, he occasionally grabbed a drink with, or get invited to a social event.

Some were rather new or mere interns, so he couldn’t say he liked or disliked them. Still, he knew Thomas the longest, having been best friends since early childhood. Thomas looked and behaved like your typical jock and had a temper to match his fiery red hair, yet Lance knew Thomas had a big heart. Whining and complaining the man had down to an art, yet during a crisis, Thomas had steady hands and a calmness about him. Beyond that, there wasn’t a more loyal friend out there.

* * * * *

With his shift nearly over, Lance went to check on his VIP-Patient, Daniel Wells. Although nearly every hospital had its doors open for Rifters, few hospitals could handle the assortment of injuries Rifters could have gotten during a Rift. These brave men and women frequently got stabbed, cut, or even bitten by strange monsters. Beyond that, there could be strange acid or poisons involved. Sometimes they even ran into things that went beyond medical understanding.

Most healing would happen on the spot, through means of Rifters that were classed as clerics, healers, sages, or mages with an aptitude for the healing arts. Still, Rifters could not treat every injury right there and then, or it might have been beyond their capabilities.

“Can I come in?” Lance paused for a second before he heard Daniel inviting him in. Opening the door slowly, he noticed the man sitting there on a chair, making notes on a stack of paper he had asked Lance to bring him earlier.

“Hey there. I am just making some notes to clear my head. It is a lot harder, not being left-handed initially,” Daniel explained. His gaze was both reassuring and alarming at the same time. They projected experience and wisdom, yet you couldn’t help but feel like those brown eyes of his were far too observant.

It wasn’t that Lance felt pity for Daniel, more so a feeling of loss. Rifters, despite their popularity, their numbers were not so numerous that they could be everywhere. A Rift that was not cleared in a while could turn into an outbreak. This meant that whatever was waiting inside the Rift would suddenly come pouring out and form stable connections between earth and the Rift itself.

Seeing as more and more Rifts appeared, the threat of an outbreak would grow as well. Governments took great care in monitoring Rifts and deploying armed forces and the military where they deemed it necessary. Depending on where the Rift was located, it could mean an outbreak might occur in a heavily populated area. The world would feel the loss of even one Rifter such as Daniel, or so Lance believed.

“Are you all right for the rest of the day?” Lance asked, waiting for an answer from the Rifter as he stepped further into the room.

Daniel had already been in surgery a few times, at first to save the arm and later to improve the condition of what remained. His current reason for staying in the hospital was to have further tests and examine the scale of the nerve damage. Beyond that, he had received treatment for the infection in his arm. To make matters worse, it turned out that monsters such as a Skinner also carried nasty lingering infectious material in their saliva. Even a Rifter as durable as Daniel could still be susceptible to these types of things.

“Yeah, I am all right, lad. Thanks for checking up on me. Are you about done with your shift for the day?” Daniel asked as he placed his pen back on the table.

“Just about. Just need to grab my backpack and then update the late shift. I think Brendan or Sophia oversees your room this evening. Excellent nurses,” Lance said with a reassuring smile before pausing for a second. He had helped other Rifters in the past. Most of them were far more seriously wounded or had an air about them that made them hard to approach.

Daniel felt normal. It was hard to put into words, but Lance felt as if Daniel was still just a normal bloke despite him being a Rifter. Hell, ignoring his missing arm and the crystal-like object in the centre of his chest, Daniel looked like your average dad.

He had a sturdy build from years of working hard, but it was compact and functional. His once brown hair was now thick with grey patches and his brown eyes had a playfulness about them that mocked his crow’s feet.

“Sorry if this appears weird or inappropriate, but... do you think you are going to miss being a Rifter?” Lance asked as he watched Daniel’s reaction, curious to hear how he might react.

“Hmm. Yes and no, I suppose. I will not miss the pain, the hardships and the constant feeling of fear during or right before a Rift,” Daniel commented. He nodded when Lance appeared to be surprised at the fact that Daniel admitted Rifters felt fear just as anyone else.

“Don’t believe most of the lies you hear about us. Of the few that survive an initial Rift and get their shards, only a small percentage will want to become Rifters. And of those, only a few of them have what it takes to become a good Rifter. Entering and exiting a Rift is dangerous enough. Some people don’t even survive that initial entry. Then there is the lack of rest, dangerous flora and fauna, hell even the terrain itself is against you. Compare that to a comfy bed and a bottle of scotch… Simple choice, right?” He said with a smile before looking down at his left hand, as if gripping some invisible memory that he cherished.

“But... Finding people in a Rift and helping them survive? Clearing a Rift and bringing back hope to a city? Hell, even just being present and on the scene calms people down. That feeling... I’ll never miss that feeling,” Daniel explained as the tender smile widened.

“I think I understand. It makes sense,” Lance said respectfully before he nodded at the man and slowly made his way out of the room. The last look he had of Daniel was him still staring at his remaining hand, whispering something about ‘purpose’.

* * * * *

Lance stared at his phone once again, seeing the unread message from his brother staring back at him with that demanding icon next to it. It tempted him to open it. That temptation stopped when the door opened, and several colleagues entered the locker room.

Closing his phone, he shoved it in his backpack alongside his headphone. He then slung the backpack over his shoulders and went out into the large hallway and began making his way up to the break room. He stopped halfway when he felt weird suddenly. It only lasted a few seconds, but it was enough to unnerve Lance. Shrugging it off, he made his way over to the break room and grabbed a seat, noticing two nurses already waiting there.

“Just five more minutes”

“Say, when is your vacation?”

Lance overheard the two of them speak, smiling a bit at the idea of going on vacation himself. ‘If only,’ He thought, knowing full well his budget wouldn’t cover that this year, or next year. Lance had been swimming in bills ever since his mother had died. Still, a person could dream. He threw himself in one of the empty seats as he glanced at the stack of magazines and newspapers on the table.

The newspaper went on about a rising tension in France because of military spending, while the tabloid paper next to it was gossiping about a famous actor portraying a movie about a Rifter who single-handedly stopped an outbreak. ‘I have had enough of Rifts and Rifters for today. I’ll settle for a warm meal and catching up on reading,’ Lance thought, closing his eyes as he made himself a bit more comfortable. The worst part was that Lance knew Thomas would no doubt end up dragging him to see that action movie.

“What about you, Lance? Any plans thi-” The nurse had asked but stopped suddenly when a burst of nausea and discomfort hit her. Besides her, Lance and the other nurse were displaying the same symptoms.

“What the...?” Lance said, pointing at the coffeepot and seeing the black liquid swirl around upwards as if gravity did not apply to it anymore.

The others barely had time to register it when a loud screeching noise overwhelmed their senses, only to have the room suddenly tilted at a weird angle, forcing the people and much of the items within the room to fall sideways and crash into the wall. Chairs, tables, cups, and other items battered the nurses in a painful barrage.

“What the hell!?

“My leg! I think I broke my leg!

“What happened?”

They all shouted at one another. Two of them slowly getting up again and pushing chairs away from them. The other nurse, Rachel, was still on the floor, both hands on her left lower leg that was bent in a weird position, no doubt broken.

“Lance, you stay with her. I’ll get some help,” the other nurse said, his training quickly kicking in.

“OK. But be careful,” Lance commented, afterwards he was alone with Rachel. He tried to make her somewhat comfortable for now. He started clearing a decent amount of space and grabbed a blanket from one of the nearby shelves that had fallen over.

“Here. Slowly now,” He whispered as he placed the blanket underneath her head. “Help will be here soon. We’ll set the bones and have you in an ugly coloured cast at the end of the day, right?”

“Yeah… It is not that bad, right?” Rachel asked, her mind no doubt clinging to the prospect of normality.

“Yes. Just a minor fracture, I think,” Lance lied to her. He continued to chat with Rachel, to calm her nerves and most of his own that he was feeling. He had suggested to her it must have been an earthquake or something, yet even he knew that wasn’t true. Earthquakes did not make coffee defy the laws of gravity or suddenly give three people a feeling of nausea before it even started.

Now and again, they could hear another groaning or cracking sound, as if bits of the building were crumbling down and falling. In the background, Lance could hear people shouting and moaning, no doubt with many people that were injured, like Rachel.

The first instinct he felt was to go out there and to help the others, but that meant leaving Rachel with her broken leg in a room that had dozens of shelves and cabinets that could once again shift and fall on top of her. ‘No. Stabilize the scene and the patient, then look for others,’ He thought.

“I’ll... uh... I’ll get you some fresh air. Let me crack open the window, all right?” Lance said, desperate to do something.

“Hm,” Rachel nodded as Lance noticed her body tensing up.

‘No doubt the adrenaline is wearing off,’ Lance reasoned as he carefully placed a chair near the window.

Holding onto it, he climbed up and opened it. Normally, he’d be able to see out of the window from a seated position. The room was now tilted, forcing Lance to stand on his toes on a chair to look at the outside. The second he did so was the second he had wished he hadn’t done that.

‘What the hell is this!’ He thought as he looked at the carnage outside. He had expected to see a scene of chaos from an earthquake or a gas pipe explosion. As horrible as that might be, at least it would be in the realm of what he could have expected.

“Is everything all right? Why are you so quiet?” Rachel asked, glancing at Lance, and seeing him continue to stare outside as if seeing a ghost. “Lance, Is it bad? Lance?”

“Lance!” She finally screamed, forcing Lance to recover from his daze and face her again.

“It is... bad. But we’ll be okay.” He lied, not understanding what was going on. Instead of broken buildings and asphalt outside, all he could see was strange swamp like surrounding and pieces of a broken hospital. Large trees surrounded the area, and Lance could feel the blistering and pungent heat coming from outside instead of the air-conditioned climate that he was used to.

All of this was wrong, so terribly wrong. “We’ll be all right,” he told her, lying as much for her sake as for his own. He barely had enough time to convince himself when the moaning and the screaming outside suddenly intensified into something horrible.

Both Rachel and Lance had seen pain, blood, and discomfort. They had seen people howling out in pain and agony while they stayed calm and collected. What they heard right there and then wasn’t anything they had ever heard before.

They could hear patients and colleagues screaming in ways no human should ever scream. It felt as if it came from their very souls. What had accompanied those screams were sounds of movement, of things hitting walls or softer material. Lance and Rachel could hear roars followed by clicking sounds that sounded alien and not something from this world.

“Lance, what is happening?” Rachel whispered as she cried, her makeup-stained cheeks now covered in large black lines.

Both froze when they noticed a figure walking past the frosted glass door of the break room. It was hard to see much of the person on the other side, beyond the fact that he was large and was dragging something along the floor.

‘What was that!’ Lance screamed internally.

“What the hell was that?” Rachel hissed, giving voice to what Lance was thinking. Part of him wanted to believe it was just a large man dragging something along with him, but the more that Lance thought about it, the more he remembered how strange and large that figure had seemed.

“I don’t know. We need to keep quiet for now and wait for help. All right?” He whispered before he and Rachel froze as they heard sounds coming from the ceiling panels, as if something was scurrying around there.

‘Don’t move… don’t make a sound,’ Lance told himself as seconds turned into minutes with both Rachel and Lance simply frozen in fear before suddenly a panel crashed down on the floor between them, alongside a strange creature the likes of which Lance had never seen.

As the scaled monster slowly stood up, Lance froze in shock at the sudden intruder while Rachel screamed in fear.

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Author: Osirium

Copyright: 2021 OsiriumWrites

Released: 2021