SWNOVELS Chapter An Empty Welcome
The caravan crawled through the darkened streets of Bex at little more than a comfortable jogging pace. Something felt wrong here.
Despite the urgency of their need to reach the hospital, the nomads were exercising caution. Experience had taught them all that recklessness got people killed, and until they could discern just what was wrong, no-one wanted to risk blundering into more danger unprepared.
At the head of the column, the MRAP prowled up the road like an armoured predator. The 50 calibre swivelling from side to side. Its operator, Kurt, was alert for any new threat. There’d been no defensive perimeter around the town.
No hastily erected wall.
No road blocks of furniture and barrels.
Not even cars drawn up to form a perimeter.
That alone had warned the nomads that something wasn’t right here. Since the event, only communities that had been able to throw up some form of perimeter defence had survived. Between the monstrosities vomited out by the Other-Verse, which devoured whatever they caught, and the gangs of raiders who stole what they needed and killed anyone that stood in their way, undefended towns simply didn’t last long.
Nor had there been any sentries, no-one on the road to stop strangers entering the town and no-one on rooftops to observe them. In fact, there’d been no sign of life at all since the caravan rolled into the town.
Bex was a ghost town.
Mathias Forrell watched the street carefully from his vantage point at the front of the airport bus, which had been turned into an impromptu ambulance for the casualties. Behind him, doctor Allmendinger and her nurse, Cherubin, worked as best as they could. Madame Monnier had taken over driving the doctor’s car and had moved her children there. She was following the bus in the convoy, but it was the silent streets of Bex that held Mathias’s attention.
“The cars!” he said, snapping his fingers at the realisation.
“Pardon?” Father Mathias Businger, the namesake of his policeman colleague, asked from the driver’s seat.
“The cars are all gone” Forrell explained. “Whatever happened here, it seems the inhabitants took their cars with them when they left. Most of them, at least.” He pointed to one forlorn Volkswagon which sat outside a medium-sized, chalet-style home. The car looked as if it had already passed its best when the Pandora Event ripped the old world away.
“It means that whatever happened here, people got away. Almost everyone with a car of their own it would seem.”
“Evacuation? Or panic?” the priest asked.
Forrell thought about it for a moment before speaking again, “Evacuation I think, no signs of panic. The buildings look like they were locked up and left by people going away on holiday, no looting, no doors left banging in the wind. Also, panic leaves debris. Things people drop as they flee, evidence of accidents, like back on the road a few miles, maybe. Whatever happened here, I think it started as an orderly evacuation. I think the panic started on the road we came in by.” He chewed his lip. “I’ve been watching the windows of the buildings as we pass, no sign of anyone watching from behind there. There is something else as well,” he trailed off as the moan from one of the injured, and Cherubin’s low, hushed tones, offering comfort in a deep bass voice drifted through the bus.
“Well, what is it?” Father Businger asked his namesake, “Are you trying to build suspense, tell me!” There was an edge of tension in the priest’s voice.
“Sorry father, it’s the animals,”
The priest’s brows furrowed,
“I haven’t seen any anim... ah. Of course.” Realisation dawned on him, “Where have all the animals gone?”
“Exactly!” Forrell nodded, “Unless those monsters we encountered on the road have frightened them all away, but even then I would expect a few birds, something.”
“If it was an evacuation...” Father Mathias changed the subject, “won’t they have taken everything we need from the hospital with them when they left?” He and Forrell exchanged worried glances.
“Not necessarily,” doctor Allmendinger cut in. She was trying to clean the blood from her hands with the last of the antiseptic hand wash and some towels that could have been cleaner. “A hospital carries a lot of medications, it’s hard to transport it all. If we are lucky, they will have left enough of what I need behind when they left. If not...” she shrugged, her sullen expression said what she didn’t want to voice.
The caravan rolled to a stop in front of the three storey, modern building. The hospital had been finished not long before the Pandora Event and seemed slightly out of place with its glass frontage and steel frame. A wide forecourt where ambulances and buses once brought the patients to the emergency or outpatients departments stretched out before it.
The building seemed to have three distinct parts to it. The west wing, constructed primarily from concrete. It had a fire escape, but no main entrance could be seen from the road.
The east wing, which swept out and down the side of the forecourt, was mostly glass and steel and stood two storeys high. A set of wide glass doors led back into the darkened interior. These two buildings were connected by the central building, three storeys high and built with a glass and steel frontage, with wide double doors flanked by smaller, single ones. Again the doors were primarily glass and from here, like those of the east wing seemed to be automatic.
The entire building was in darkness. Not a single light shone from any of the glass panels or windows. Where the nomads could see inside, it was only by the light shed from the headlights of their own vehicles.
No vehicles but their own stood in the forecourt which must once have been busy with cars, buses and ambulances.
Nomads emerged, cautiously at first, from their vehicles. Each kept their weapons close at hand and eyed the hospital. The darkened edifice seemed somehow to look back at them.
“We need to get inside and start treating everyone!” doctor Allmendinger spoke to Knut in hushed tones, “The sooner we start, the better!”
“Yes,” Knut nodded, his eyes scanning the hospital, “but we need to make certain it is safe first. We could be heading into more danger. We still don’t know what happened here. Joanas!” He called to the big, uniformed man who was striding towards the small group, his weapon at low ready. The German broke into a jog,
“Ja?”
“How long to sweep the building for threats?” Knut asked.
Joanas blew out a long breath, “The whole building, thoroughly. An hour, all three surface storeys, plus the basement – that is if we have a single team and if we don’t find anything.”
“I’m not sure we have an hour!” doctor Allmendinger protested. “Some of the others are in a bad way Knut!”
Mathias Forrell cleared his throat,
“What if we just secure the emergency room for now? Get everyone inside, out of the cold and off this street. Barricade ourselves in there so the doctor can get started. Then we can send sweep and clear teams through the rest of the building and secure it one section at a time? A building like this will be full of choke points we can fortify as we go.”
He looked to Knut, who in turn looked to Joanas, who frowned and shook his head,
“It’s very risky, I can’t say I like this plan,” he paused, “but, I can’t say I like our other choices much either. It is your decision Knut.”
Pursing his lips Knut looked from Joanas to Mathias and then on to doctor Allmendinger. When his eyes alighted upon her, the doctor spoke again.
“I know it’s a risk, but everyone is sounding worse already, and we have other wounds that need treating now as well. I need to get a good look at Jacob’s wound, and Magda’s. “She looked around for support, saw only uncertainty and continued, “I say we take the risk!”
Knut nibbled at his lip a moment, an old habit that made him appear as if he was trying to eat his own beard.
“Alright. Do it, but I want two sweep teams to go in. Locate the emergency rooms and secure them at both ends. If they can’t be secured, I need to know quickly so we can come up with another plan, agreed?”
Doctor Allmendinger nodded, “Agreed!”
Mathias drew his police issue pistol and checked the ammunition load.
“Agreed, and I’ll go in with the teams to sweep and secure the building – I’m trained for it.”
Joanas sighed, “Agreed.” he said reluctantly, “But I go in too, and we take Kurt. I don’t like leaving the rest of you out here with no soldiers, but the biggest risk right now, I think, is from whatever might be hiding in there and like Mathias – we are trained for this.”
“Good.” Knut nodded, “Take Ronan with you, and pick three or four others.”
“I’d like to take Esther and Ashley. They were with us when we hit the spore balls, and might come in handy again. Also Ember. If we need to jury rig anything, nice to have someone who knows her way around a tool box.” Mathias slid his sidearm back into his holster, “What about you Joanas? Any thoughts on team members?”
“Ja, we will take the Irish man with the baseball bat – Shamus? The one that saved Ronan back at the road with the dog-things.”
“Okay.” Mathias nodded, “I’ll go get my shotgun, you round up the others, meet back here in 3 minutes.”
Ember heaved back on the crowbar,
“Automatic doors!” she muttered disdainfully under her breath. Eventually, her efforts paid off, easing the left-hand door back on its runners slightly. She threw all her weight into it, drawing the door backwards still more, although it seemed to resist.
“Some help here, ladies and gentlemen!” she said.
“Some sweep and clear team we are.” Ashley snorted “Defeated by the front door!” she grabbed the edge of the left-hand door panel, above where Ember’s crowbar was holding it and added her weight to Ember’s. The door groaned and moved open still further.
Silently Ronan grabbed the other door and heaved it back on its runners, his muscles knotting as he pulled. The door opened, slowly, an inch at a time. As soon as it was wide enough Kurt burst through, scanning the room beyond.
It proved to be a waiting area for the accident and emergency department. He peeled off to the right, his rifle at the ready position as he scanned down the corridor towards a lift and a flight of stairs at the far end. Behind him Mathias burst in and swept around to the left, covering the group from that direction. The waiting room was in darkness, but before him, he could see a passageway and several doors on the far wall. To his right was some sort of oval-shaped desk forming an enclosure that had several computers on it. Joanas moved in behind him and approached the reception desk, his rifle at the ready.
All three men turned on the torches they had fastened to their weapons and swept the room with the beams of light.
“Looks clear here,” Kurt called.
“Clear!” Mathis nodded, as Joanas approached the oval desk, aware anything or anyone could be lurking inside the waist high counter’s perimeter.
“Light us up!” he called over the radio. Instantly the waiting room was flooded with light from the two vehicles that had been drawn up outside. their headlights pointed through the floor length glass panels that formed the outer wall.
As Ashley, Ember and Esther entered, Joanas leant over the reception desk – his rifle pointed ahead of him and checked for concealed threats.
“Clear here!” he called.
Esther moved forward, past Mathias and signalled to him that she was about to check one of the doors. Nodding, he moved up with her, taking up position on the far side of the door and pointing his shotgun up the passage. A sign in both German and French, attached to the door marked it out as the triage room. A red line on the floor ran past it and up to the passage, presumably to the emergency treatment rooms. Mathias signalled Joanas, pointing at the other two doors, each bearing a stylised person on the sign, one male and one female. Joanas nodded and signalled for Ember to come with him. She nodded and loaded her crossbow as the two approached the public restrooms.
Ashley joined Kurt, watching the south end of the room, towards the lift and stairwell,
“Anything?” she whispered.
“Nein.” He didn’t look at her as he spoke, careful to be vigilant. “Move over there just in case, keep watching down this way. If anyone comes, I don’t want them to be able to get us both with one burst, Ja.”
Ashley swallowed hard,
“Ja... erm, yes.” She crab scuttled away to create some distance between herself and the German soldier. Her heart was hammering in her chest. From the corner of her eye, she thought she noticed movement, just briefly. Whipping her head around she saw only the plastic chairs that had served the waiting room. There was nothing and no one there.
“Get a grip!” she muttered under her breath.
“What is it?” Kurt half-whispered
“N... nothing. I thought. Nothing, I’m just spooking myself.”
“You sure?” Kurt asked, his eyes scanning between the stairs and the lift.
“Yes, I’m sure. Sorry.” Ashley flushed red. Determined not to embarrass herself in front of the others. Back in the forest, when the giant carnivores had attacked she had almost shot herself. Almost, but she had taken the decision not to, to face her fears. She didn’t want to be afraid anymore, or at least, she didn’t want it to cripple her. The others managed, she admonished herself silently. One day she would ask them how. For now, she knelt down, drew her pistol and took up position. She took three deep breaths to steady her nerves, but they felt a little heavy, difficult to draw, as if she was breathing through a mask. A twinge of pain shot through her lung.
Glancing around to make sure everyone was ready, Mathias held up one hand, his fingers spread. Each second he curled one finger down, counting down silently the seconds until all three doors would be breached at once. On zero he closed his fist and pulled it downwards suddenly. Right on cue, Esther, Joanas and Ember kicked in the doors in front of them, dashing inside, weapons at the ready and scanning left to right.
“Clear!” Joanas called from the gents after a few moments.
From the ladies the sound of Ember kicking open stalls continued a moment or two longer and then,
“Clear!”
Esther surveyed the room. A desk upon which sat a computer. An office chair and a filing cabinet. On the walls were various instruments needed by a triage nurse in assessing a patient. Attached to the wall nearby was a pump for hand sanitiser and a roll of disposable paper towels. She took an instant to check the far side of the filing cabinet, in the foot-well of the desk and behind the computer before adding her voice to the others,
“Clear!”
A faint sound drew Esther’s attention. It was difficult to discern at first, and she almost thought she was hearing things, but then it came again. A faint, distant, metallic scratching. Puzzled, she drew in a breath and held it, trying to silence her breathing so she could hear even the faintest sound. Whatever it was, had stopped now – if it had ever been anything more than her imagination. Slowly she backed out of the empty room and joined the others.
“Did anyone hear anything?” she asked.
“Yes!” Kurt called from the far end of the waiting room. “I heard the three of you making enough noise to alert anyone from here to Dusseldorf that we’re here!” he allowed himself a faint grin.
“Funny guy!” Ashley muttered, and then, louder “Like what? I... I thought I saw movement before, but there was nothing there.”
“I’m not sure. Scratching?”
“Like rats, you mean?” Joanas asked. Esther considered it for a second,
“Yes. A lot like rats. That’s probably all it was.” The room was silent for a moment before Mathias spoke,
“If it was rats – it’s the first sign of any kind of life we’ve had since we got into town.”
The others all glanced nervously at one another.
Something wasn’t right here.