Judgment (11 page)

              From the condition of the room it was clear there had been a struggle. Several dust piles were scattered around, some with footprints in them that then trailed off out the door and down the hallway. A couple of large white feathers lay on the floor near the bed. In the far corner against the wall was a clear bassinette atop a stainless steel cabinet. I could see the movement within it, the baby inside calling out for the comfort of its mother.

              Margie approached the bassinet, clearly not ready for what she saw. I expected to see her crack a smile and reach into the bassinet to pull out an abandoned child. Instead, after pulling aside the blanket that had partially covered the infant, she quickly stepped back in horror. For a brief second she started to reach back in towards the baby, but quickly turned away again.

              “I can’t”.

              Steve stepped towards Margie, his feet kicking up ash as he moved. “What is it?”

              Margie shook her head. “It isn’t right.”

              Steve looked into the bassinet and just stood staring, as if unable to turn away. “Jesus. It’s dead.”

              Dead, yet crying like any other baby.

              Looking over Steve’s shoulder, I could see it now. The dim fluorescent light over the bed flickered sporadically, making the macabre scene even more horrifying. The baby was ashen grey, speckled with angry spider veins swollen and starved for oxygen trying to push through the skin. Its bloodshot eyes were rolled up halfway into its head. It seemed to be aware of our presence, causing the crying to intensify.

              It squirmed and writhed around in the bassinet, just like a living child does when it needs to feed or has spent too long in a wet diaper. But this child was clearly not alive. It had either been still-born or died from neglect after being left behind. Now it was one of the maledicted, cursed to be a living corpse until its judgment came. Not even innocent children were being spared the wrath of Heaven. Perhaps it’s true then, that we are all born as sinners.

              Margie spoke through tears. “Look at this room. Clearly they were here. Why did the angels just leave him?”

              How do I fucking know?

              “I don’t know. Maybe in the chaos and chasing down everyone else it just got forgotten or overlooked.”

              Steve tried to cover the baby with its blanket, jerking his hand back several times as if it would bite him. It was screaming incessantly now. Suddenly the lights in the room sputtered and flickered intensely as if they were going to go out.

              Shit. The generator.

             
For a few seconds we stood in near darkness with a screaming dead baby. The lights flickered a few more times, before lighting solidly again. The generator was running low on fuel. It wouldn’t last much longer.

              “What are we going to do with it?” Margie asked, looking back towards the infant while wiping snot from her nose.

              Steve was having none of it. “Do with it? We can’t do anything with it. It’s dead. What are you going to do, breast feed a dead baby? It’s
dead
. And its screaming is going to attract attention. It’s going to get us killed.”

              Before I had a chance to tell Steve to tone it down, we all heard the Judges coming. I heard the double doors in the hallway creak open. Everyone froze. The shuffling of feet and the ruffling of feathers followed the sounds of equipment being shoved around in the corridor. There were several Judges coming. Margie looked around at the rest of us holding a finger over her lips, telling us to be quiet.

              Really? There’s a fucking screaming dead baby in the room.

              I looked around for any place to hide, but there was none, especially for three people. The sounds were getting closer. I quickly moved towards the doorway and motioned for the rest to follow.

              At the door I nervously peered out into the hallway. The angels were still around the corner in the other corridor. I could see shadows moving on the wall, but our room was still out of their view. Almost directly across from us was a public restroom, and beyond that what looked like a couple of closets before the hall widened to a nurses’ station area. One quick look back the other way and I could see the shadows growing, the angels almost about to turn the corner. The baby screamed furiously behind us.

              We’ve got to move. Right now.

              “Let’s go. Quick,” I whispered as I moved out into the hallway. I was heading to the closets when Steve stopped at the restroom door.

              “In here!” he urged us.

              “No, it’s too open. Too close. We’ll be trapped. Come on!” I insisted, quickly moving further down the hallway to the closets. Margie followed close and Steve, after hesitating a moment longer, quickly ran after us. At the first closet door I yanked on a locked handle. Margie pointed to the sign above that read ‘Medical Supply’.

              “Meds,” she said, “we’re not getting in there.”

              Margie hurried to the next door with Steve beside her. She pulled open the door and motioned to us all to follow. Margie went in, followed by Steve but it seemed to be a struggle. When I got to the door I saw the two of them wedged into a small linen closet. There was no way another person was getting in there and shutting the door.

              Shit.

              “Just stay in here and don’t make a sound.”

              “Adam wait!” I heard Margie whisper as I quickly shut the door on her. I continued down to the nurses’ station and to the double doors just beyond. I ran to open the doors, my face smacking into them when they didn’t open.

              Locked!  God damn it!

              Frantically looking around for somewhere to hide, I saw nothing that felt safe. Even the underneath of the nurses’ desk was wide open. There was just nowhere to go. Down the hall the baby continued to wail. The sound of something loudly crashing to the floor echoed up the corridor, the fluttering of large wings following along with it. Beginning to panic now, I ran back in that direction and ducked into the restroom. I could think of nothing else to do.

              Inside, the bathroom was a single occupancy space, just a toilet and a sink. I shut the door and stood in the dark, leaning against the door trying to catch my breath without breathing too loudly. Outside the door the only sound was the baby screaming bloody murder.

              I waited for what seemed like an eternity, leaning up against the door, listening intently for clues as to what the angels were doing and where they were. I could hear the baby crying across the hall, the only other sounds were drops of water dripping into the sink behind me. I could feel my own heart pounding in my ears. It’s funny what the mind does under extreme circumstances. I found myself focusing on the different rhythm of my heartbeats compared to the water drips, as if my mind was blocking out the real situation outside the door in an act of mental self-preservation. After what I guessed was five minutes or so, I couldn’t take it any longer.

              Slowly and ever so slightly I cracked open the door, just barely enough to peek out through a razor thin gap. Squinting through the gap I could see two angels in the room with the baby. A female was standing over the bassinet, staring down at the screaming infant. I expected her to pick it up, embrace it, and perhaps judge it. But she did none of that. She simply stood over it, looking at it without emotion, making no effort to comfort it, nor end its suffering.

              The other Judge, a male, was in the center of the room, looking upwards with his head tilted at an odd angle. It was as if he was listening, or smelling; somehow searching for us. Then he suddenly turned and focused on the hallway, almost looking directly at me. It seemed as though he could sense me somehow, but I couldn’t tell how.

              For a moment I was afraid to even push the door back shut for fear he would see it move. I felt the hair stand up on my arms and my gut tighten with raw fear when the angel began walking directly towards the bathroom. I froze with panic and could only stare out through the tiny crack. The angel entered the hallway, still focused on the bathroom door. The female Judge had now turned to follow him, leaving the screaming infant alone in the bassinet. The angel took several more steps towards the door. I knew I would be trapped. My eyes closed tightly, involuntarily.

              Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Please no.

              Without thought I tightened my grip on the handle as if I would attempt to hold the door shut. I held my breath, and after several moments with nothing happening, I opened my eyes. Immediately I saw the golden eyeball staring at me through the gap. Sheer panic overcame me and I don’t even remember consciously thinking about my next move. I burst out through the door and into the hallway; the angel stepping back surprised at the sudden opening of the door.

              I barely slipped past him before he could grab me. The female also lunged towards me, but the adrenaline of pure panic drove me past them with unusual speed. I ran back the way we had originally come, around the corner and down the next hall. My heart was pounding in my chest and I couldn’t breathe, the raw fear choking the air out of me. I could hear the angels behind me; the fluttering of wings and the patter of bare feet on the cold hospital floor.

              Just ahead of me was the stairwell door we had first come up. Without any plan I ran through it, finding myself back on the same dimly lit landing. Down the steps I threw myself, jumping two and three steps at a time. I just had to get away and hide; I could go back and find Margie and Steve later. I found myself passing by the first floor lobby where we had entered the stairwell, continuing down into that dark basement area below; the place I didn’t want to go. Two flights above me I heard the stairwell door at the second floor bang open. The angels were coming, their feet slapping against each step.

              Please God give me somewhere to hide.

              Out through the only door at the bottom of the stairs, I found myself in the basement of the hospital. Dark, dirty and neglected, it was an area of maintenance supplies, janitor closets and storage rooms. It was dimly lit, just light enough for me to move around without tripping over everything.

              Wanting to get as far from the stairwell as I could, I ran across a large open room and into a small hallway with a single door at the end. Outside the door I hesitated, hearing noises on the other side. I could clearly hear thumping and banging, and the unnerving and unmistakable moaning of the maledicted. I feared opening the door, but I heard the angels coming through the basement now; I had to find a place to hide or die.

              Opening the door I rushed through into what felt like a refrigerator; the air cold enough to see my breath. Warmer air from the hallway behind me poured into the cold room, creating a thin layer of fog that slowly rolled across the ceiling. The metallic walls of the room were lined with little square doors with metal handles, like rows of old fashioned ice boxes.

              Oh my god it’s the morgue.

              All around me the dead and maledicted were moving inside the walls; kicking against their doors, moaning and groaning, protesting their predicament. There was nowhere for me to go except to hide in one of those drawers in the wall. I hesitated, but I could hear the angels moving around outside the door. Adrenaline burned my veins as the pressure to hide intensified by the second.

              I ran to the closest wall and pulled open one of the doors. A terrible stench spewed forth, stinging the inside of my nose. Two human feet were there in the opening, complete with a dangling toe tag. The tag immediately began moving, like a signal warning me to stay away as the body began sliding itself out of the wall.

              I ran to another drawer, but found only another animated corpse when I opened it. I couldn’t find any empty drawers to climb into, and now the maledicted were climbing out of the walls. I tried a third, and a forth, and another, but only found more bodies of the dead that were no longer truly dead.

              Two of the maledicted were now totally out of the drawers and in the room. One had fallen and was sitting on the floor, mumbling to himself. The other was standing, leaning against the wall for support, looking directly at me. He looked confused, his brain function having stopped long ago. His eyes were lifeless, but he stared at me like an animal does that doesn’t understand what it’s seeing. Seconds later it seemed as though he had an epiphany of self-awareness, and looking into his lifeless eyes I saw the insanity awake behind them.