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damned_lounge2008-10-30 06:26 am
kitty-nakoji.livejournal.com) wrote in damned_lounge2008-10-30 06:26 am
Entry tags:
Oktoberfest '08 Entry, Lights Out by Mary
Title: Lights Out
Author: Mary
Beta (if applicable): Rini, Jade, and Hannah. ;< <3
Word Count: 3,996
Rating: PG-14 for violence, language, and some creepy instance of being a slut? D:
Character(s): House, Wilson, Huang, Stegman, Maggie, and Washu. Special appearances by Landel, Nny, and GLaDOS.
Pairing(s) (if applicable): …lololololol no. Any mentions to a pairing are either done creepily or just as a joke.
Summary: Wilson’s determined to get behind these rumors the patients have been spreading and convinces the doctors to stay for a minute after-hours in order to talk. It went wrong.
Notes (if applicable): Here’s hoping I didn’t rape anyone’s characters. D:
"Where do you think the others are?"
"My guess? Dead on some floor or in something’s stomach."
"House, they’re our coworkers. That’s a little negative, don’t you think?"
"Something tells me it’s going to be one of those nights."
It was just Wilson and House now, cramped together in a bathroom stall like a pair of peas in an unhappy pod. Wilson peaked through the cracks of the stall door for any signs of danger while House’s only contribution to this mess (besides his cynicism and the cane pushing its way into Wilson’s left foot) was the blue illumination coming from his dying cell phone. They tried numerous times to call the police, ambulances, fire-department (it was still 911 and thus all the same number, but that didn’t stop Wilson), hell, even Cuddy, but nothing but static came through for anything. Muraki, Daedalus, Hatori, and Jizabel managed to slink out of the building the second it started getting dark, the lucky bastards. Stegman, Maggie, Washu, and Huang had gotten separated, lost, and, despite Wilson telling his friend not to talk like that, most likely had all been eaten. House claimed to have heard gunshots ("Five of them") coming from some direction, which wouldn’t be too far fetched considering Huang’s background. Did he use a gun back then? It had something to do with the FBI, of course he might have had a gun. Did he have one now? Could it have been an orderly? Did orderlies have guns?
Ugh. He should never have set up that meeting.
It was in House’s office, of course (otherwise the man would never make an appearance, and even with him there he interjected every attempt at a conversation with things along the line of "blah blah blah, out of my office"). Everyone had showed, not all had stayed, especially with House’s rudeness and the looming threat of being fired for staying after dark. Wilson had been determined to get everyone together, however. He knew everyone was hearing the same stories, knew all the doctors were getting the same impressions about their patients (he was wrong about that one, sadly), but no one would talk about it. None of the doctors ever got together to discuss this, to figure out why this shared delusion was coursing through the patient body.
Probably because none of the doctors could agree on any one thing. Washu wanted to talk about science. Stegman and House didn’t want to talk at all. Maggie was trying to be reasonable, but any mention of nightmares made her paranoid. Huang made the most sense, but even then couldn’t explain such prevalent delusions.
"Maybe it isn’t natural. Maybe something more is going on," Maggie suggested after fifteen minutes of everyone talking in circles and blatantly ignoring the Head Doctor’s intercom announcement as he wished the patients a good night’s rest.
"And that something more is what? Paranormal? Ghosts and goblins?" As Stegman interjected loudly again, Wilson was slowly beginning to understand why the man’s car was defaced on a regular basis. "You think they’re telling the truth? Oh, I know. The hospital was built over haunted land or psytanium or something like that, right Dr. Burroughs?"
"You know that’s not what I-"
Washu interrupted this time. "Chemicals in the water? I could analyze it for various toxins."
"It could just be extreme paranoia," Huang offered with a shrug of his shoulders. "After all, patients spend most of their time talking to one another; it isn’t completely out of the question."
Maggie and Washu shrugged in response, the former seeming more tired than usual.
"Well, now it’s solved. And hey," he added, "just in time for the announcements to end." House stood from his seat and gestured to the door for the sixth time. "Everyone get out of my office."
"Dr. House is right. I’ll be taking my leave now," Stegman grabbed at his suitcase and moved for the door. "I suggest the rest of you do the same instead of wasting time jabbering." His hand touched the door for only a second before the lights shut off and the intercom came back to life.
It was quiet at first, all the doctors standing together in their silence and listening for a sound to prove what they just heard wasn’t a mistake. The intercom didn’t come on at night, at least not that they knew of. Only in those delusio-…
Shit.
If Wilson felt any considerate consolation about the dread welling up in his chest, it was that he may had been right about a need to be concerned.
The first thing to be heard was not Mr. Landel, but some inhuman thing muttering just out of microphone rang. "What do you mean ‘they’re still here?’" Came the response in an offended whisper. They weren’t supposed to BE here. There was a long pause, only the occasional sound of papers ruffling. Then Martin cleared his throat after a minute, the rage bubbled over into mirth. "I was going to give my lovely patients their nightly berating and send them on their way, but suppose I can’t just turn away such willing test subjects, now can I? After all, if you’re so willing to spend extra time with your patients, I won’t stop you. You can ask them what to do.
"Good luck." And just like that, the room lapsed once again into silence. It most likely would have stayed that way if it weren’t for House’s considerate need to not care.
"Spooky." He obviously did not mean it. He had even grabbed his suitcase and moved to the door during the entire spiel.
Maggie’s mouth quivered in the slightest. "This is a dream."
Oh god, not this again. House rolled his eyes. "I’d ask what your obvious boner for dreams is about, but it’s dark and I’m tired. Stay here if you want, but I’m not cleaning up the mess if you party too hard." He opened the door and calmly departed into the hallway. After a beat, the rest of the doctors followed suit, at least until the second sign of something horribly wrong transpired.
It came in the form of a hiss and multiple eyes glaring at them from the dark. It was grotesque. An abomination to nature and all that was holy. Spiders were one thing, but a spider the size of a dog that was hissing and skittering towards them?
Needless to say, most solved this dilemma by screaming in horror and sprinting into various directions. The term "most" is used because one did not flee (and one did not scream. House elected to flee silently). Washu paid no mind to her screaming coworkers and even smiled widely at the creature.
"This is absolutely fascinating."
--
Maggie curled her jacket tighter around her, too rattled to say a word after what they just witnessed. Andrew wasn’t about to protest the silence (her speaking might lead to her sobbing or attracting attention, and that was counterproductive), leaving only the sound of their staggered breathing and heavy footsteps to accompany them. It went on like this for a while, their small party navigating the hallways, dodging into the shadows at every abrupt noise.
Since Maggie was more caring about who was around her, she noticed it first. The words got past her lips as little more than some mangled syllables.
"What?"
"George is gone," she whispered. "Shit, shit…!" Maggie closed her eyes shut, willing away the fear into something more functional. Like anger. She’d been through worse, goddamn it. She’d beaten the living hell out of her father, a demon who murdered hundreds, and relegated him to almost nothing. This had to have been a dream, some sick revenge. She wasn’t afraid of him. Not after she effectively made him her whore for the day and he went down easy. "I’m not afraid of you. You’re shit. I’m not afraid of you."
"Stop. Stop whispering that." He needed to be firm. Ms. Burroughs had stopped making sense the moment Landel started showing his Mr. Hyde routine. Andrew Stegman would not be handling an insane woman at a time like this, especially if she was going to start talking to herself. It was just his luck that Huang made off without him, leaving him stuck with her. "He probably just stumbled along the way or something. He’ll be fine."
--
House, on the other hand, remained unshaken. It was a spider. A big, man-eating spider. A problem that could frankly be taken care of by walking away from it, which was precisely what he did. Wilson, on the other hand…
"They’re in danger!"
"They’re DEAD. You want to join them? Be my guest." He kept limping forward, eyes set dead ahead. "It’s just as well Washu got it first. Don’t have a black guy, jump to ethnicity."
"You don’t care at all, do you? People are dying, this- this place is a death trap, and you literally don’t care!" The stare he was giving his friend proved ineffective for much of anything, so Wilson just sighed and hurried along as to not be left behind (which would be hard to do anyhow, considering). "God only knows I’d be next. The best friend always gets killed."
Ah, that was the spirit. "Could be worse. We could make out in that broom closet over there if you REALLY want to be next. Then again," it was as if the horror show back there didn’t faze him in the slightest and he continued to muse, "they like to off the promiscuous ones too. Maybe we should split up, just in case."
--
"I think we should split up."
"What?" The moment of shell-shocked weakness had passed by now, leaving Maggie only irritated and upset. She had been making FRIENDS with Washu, damn it. She should have know better, considering all her friends were doomed to meet violent demises. Why bother?
It was obvious that she wasn’t about to make friends with this guy, however.
"We should split up, Dr. Burroughs." What was she, dense?
… "I’m sorry, have you not seen or heard of any horror story ever?" What was he, stupid? "If we split up, we’ll get picked off one by one."
"Real life is not a horror movie." Stegman narrowed his eyes up at her, having leaned himself against a wall in order to rest his paining legs. It didn’t help that this woman was being incredibly ridiculous. "Besides, they’re nothing but fantasy and drivel."
"Last I checked, giant spiders weren’t real. MAYBE we should think outside the box because something REALLY NOT-NORMAL is happening here!"
"Will you stop that nonsense?! We need to go our separate ways to find a safe route to the exit!"
"There’s only one route from where we are!"
"I SAID we need to-"
Maggie’s wide mouth gape cut him off, leaving Stegman to only wonder WHY he had the nerve to turn around and check what she was staring at (you never turn to look what they’re looking at. Just run.). What it was seemed, quite frankly, worse than the spider.
Some lurching beast, half ape, half… something else. It came towards them with a looming menace, which resulted in the one thing Stegman was good at when it came to situations such as these: run in the opposite direction. The other doctor watched with disgust as he fled to leave her alone with that… thing.
Her angry, rushed attempt to attack it (she was kind of hoping it WAS a dream. Or that at least her head-demon gave her super strength) only proved how much stronger it was than her. A good smack to the face caused her to collide with a wall and knocked her clean out.
Once she slid to the floor and unconsciousness claimed her, the first thing to greet her was bright, rusty red. Well, red and her father’s image: disappointed, angered, and just as demonic as always (as far as she could tell. It was hard to see much of his face under the shadow his hat was casting). "Now I know I haven’t always been the greatest father in the world, Kathryn, but I," those claws went to rest on his chest like he was offended, "think I know what’s best for my little princess. And I can’t say I like this coworker of yours. Why don’t you let daddy talk to him, hmm?"
At this point? Maggie wasn’t about to argue with that suggestion. That bitch called for whatever daddy gave him.
--
One way or the other, they had split up. Stegman was thankful for this. Even more thankful for the fact that his gun was still in his office.
After dealing with those imbeciles at Kingdom and a certain obnoxious patient here (how dare the lunatic insult and threaten him. He was his doctor and damn it, he did NOT look like he had small dogs in his hair!), it felt necessary to keep a gun in his drawer. He laughed to himself, bringing it to his mouth and giving it a little kiss. Just what he needed now… Just enough to GET OUT.
He departed from his office in high spirits, even managing to make his way through the next hallway without panicking once.
"Steg."
He turned his head towards the noise, startled. It sounded like… "Brenda?" The voice was definitely hers, coming from… that door was never there before, was it? He wandered closer, which wasn’t very bright, he supposed. But what in the hell was Brenda doing here?
"Stegman." She called again. He noted too late, already in the room and so close, that it wasn’t Brenda. Fine then, what the hell was Ms. Burroughs doing--… undoing the buttons on her shirt and nearing him like some whore with an agenda?!
"Steg," she repeated, as if she needed clarification as to who she was speaking with. "I’ve been thinking. Despite what happened, I… We’ve been working together for a while now and I see how you look at me." Which would have been contempt, really. "You don’t see me as Maggie, Plain and Boring. And I’m betting," she chucked then, shaking her hair out of that mess she called a style to let it hang loose. She was actually attractive under that tragic fashion sense, "that you wouldn’t mind being proven right. I love that. I love a man like you, older, more experienced, taking note of a girl like me." She pressed herself against him, smiling, giggling like a teenager. Unhappy as he was with his coworker stripping down and presenting like a mandrill, it was hard to move in such a precarious situation (that being between the crazed woman and a wall).
"This is highly unprofessional of you. I warn you right now, Ms. Burroughs, I won’t have you trying to seduce me at such a time!" Why wasn’t she stopping?! He would have her job for this (why was that even a concern right now? He was stuck in this hell-hole)!
Maggie didn’t listen and the last button of her shirt was undone. "Steggy… Don’t you think I’m pretty?" she asked with a little laugh. Her hands went to touch the other doctor and—
Her eyes gleamed yellow.
Stegman fired the gun the instant he felt something rip into his chest (knives? No, those were… claws?). The kickback was enough to separate them, but not enough to calm him down, especially not when he felt blood splatter across his face. He shot in her direction four more times, screaming all the while, before pushing himself back into the hallway and took off running.
She was still laughing.
He sped down the hallway as fast as his feet could possibly take him (which, in retrospect, was not that fast), not looking back at the crazed woman- …no, her voice, that cackling screeching behind him didn’t sound anything like Maggie Burroughs anymore, at least not entirely. It sound like a demon, some murderous sociopath who was decidedly not a woman.
"What’s a matter, sugarplum?! Don’t like what you see?" She-… It howled after him. The sound of metal claws scraping against the walls was beginning to follow him, becoming more sporadic and maniacal as their owner twisted them up and down, backwards and forwards like a kid would with a stick to a gate. "Aww, come on! Running away again?! Come back and give a little sugar to Freddy, bitch!"
That was it. This was the worst place Stegman had ever worked at. Bar none.
--
The other two continued on their merry way, having to actually flee up the stairs once some burst of air decided to giggle at them and try to steal their oxygen. They had managed to circle back down to the other side of the institute (by the patient wing), talking all the way, before their discussion of horror tropes was interrupted.
Thunk.
Oh god. "House? Please tell me that was you."
He paused. "Okay, it was me."
"…it wasn’t you, was it?"
House shook his head. "Nope."
"Damn it!" In the blink of an eye, Wilson grabbed his friend by the crook of his elbow and dragged him into the nearest door and, finding it to be a bathroom, pushed the man into a random stall before joining him and slamming the door shut. House at least had the decency to only voice his complaints with a cane in Wilson’s foot.
Not a minute later, the bathroom door opened again. The doctors watched the sight over the stall doors, wary yet curious.
It was a woman and a man, both with dark hair, or at least it looked like that in the dim lighting (how did they get flashlights?) They were both covered in blood, though the woman didn’t seem to care much.
The man, thin and sickly-yellow, spoke with a pout. "I wasted all of my pens killing that thing."
"An unfortunate situation. It had to be done." There was the familiar squeak of a faucet being turned, the sound of rushing water following and echoing through the room.
"Yeah," the man nodded. "For the cake."
Wilson and House turned to each other with questioning glances before continuing to eavesdrop.
"You are correct. And bloody fingers would be detrimental to our consumption."
Considering the ongoing conversation none of his concern and really not wanting to hear it, House removed his cell phone from his coat pocket and examined it with help of the patients’ flashlights. "We have bars here," he whispered, pushing the phone into Wilson’s hands.
"We do? We do!" Wilson forgot to whisper in his excitement. The couple noticed.
They also didn’t care.
The woman rose an eyebrow at the men (who were too startled to hide their heads from view) and gave a small frown. "It is far from my business, but I suggest not kissing in the bathroom. You will be eaten." Having seen that both she and her companion’s hands were clean, she shut off the water and made her exit.
"It’s also really fucking disgusting," the man agreed, following his friend’s example. "People poop in there all the time."
…there really wasn’t anything to be said to that. The men climbed down from their toilet perch and tried the phone. Despite various attempts and House noting the sound of gunshots, no help was reached. After a while, the two just exited the stall and sighed.
"Should we just stay here or…-" The door burst open again, and this time it was Stegman to enter. Stegman--face and chest covered in blood, wielding a pistol, and panting for air. He made his way over to the mirror and placed both hands on either side of the sink (dropping the pistol in the process) to lean over it.
Wilson voiced his concern first (and last. House said nothing). "Oh my god, what happened? You’re bleeding!" He neared the other man cautiously, aiming for comforting. Still, he had to add, "…where did you find a gun?"
"Had one." Andrew gasped out after a minute. He looked pale and ragged (more than usual, anyway). "Can never… never be too careful."
House peered at the weapon laying in the sink. "Any more bullets?"
Stegman shook his head. "It only had five."
"Well damn." He shrugged, then cast a glance to Wilson. "It explains what we heard, though."
It did, which made Wilson’s eyebrows knot in confusion. "What were you shooting at?"
Stegman kept his eyes focused on the white of the sink and didn’t answer, only moving from his posistion to access his wound. It wasn’t that deep, nothing that couldn’t be stitched up and heal perfectly fine… "Listen, we’re close to the exit. I’d appreciate it if we could just get out to the parking lot, drive away, and live a Landel’s-Free life for the rest of our days, is that okay with you two?"
It was. Oh god, it was.
--
An empty parking lot was all that greeted them once they exited the Entry Room.
"That’s just it." Wilson’s head was in his hands. He could have sobbed, really, he could have. "That’s just great. We’re stuck here until morning."
"Or until something eats us." House was, again, unfazed. It wasn’t that he didn’t completely care, he was just genre savvy and knew he was too interesting to be killed. The funny, witty doctor never got killed. "Either way."
Stegman’s only contribution was an annoyed growl threatening to spring from his throat. This was precisely why he had disliked that damned Dr. Hook! Smarmy little…
The doors flew open with a resounding BANG, revealing none other than a wounded, bleeding, considerably pissed off Dr. Burroughs. Despite what looked like a bullet wound in her right shoulder, she pointed at Stegman with unadulterated hatred and… House had to raise an eyebrow. Was that a Freddy Krueger glove on her hand?
"You left me for dead! THEN you had the nerve to SHOOT ME!"
Stegman understandably sputtered and pointed his empty gun at her. "Don’t listen to her. Don’t listen to her! She attacked me!"
Really, all Wilson and House could do was watch as the two volleyed insults and accusations back and forth before another wheel crashed in on the party.
Literally.
In a rain of splinters and dust, the asylum doors shattered, everyone outside opening their eyes to find themselves sprawled on the ground and looking up to see the cause of this new disturbance.
It just so happened to be the missing Washu and Huang, the former riding the giant spider that they had thought killed her so many minutes earlier. Through the dust, the bright lights of some electronic device sticking out of the creature’s neck could be seen.
"Sorry about leaving you two," George apologized, one hand gone to rub the back of his head (either as a show of discomfort for abandoning Maggie and Stegman or because the sound of spider-breaking-door hurt)" "I noticed Dr. Washu plant something on the..." He didn’t really want to say ‘giant spider.’ "This. I wanted to make sure she was okay, so we decided to travel together and make notes on what was happening. …are you all okay?"
"It’s a device of my own creation," the redhead added, boasting proudly atop her steed, the sound of her voice and the sharp snapping of broken wood beneath the spider’s feet drowning out the intercom. "Tonight has been incredible! So much new information, so many new questions to be solved in the name of science!" She hadn’t stopped there, actually. Really, she went on for quite some time before the light of day cut her off.
--
"Do we have to make them forget this time?" Nurse Lydia frowned. Really, they’d know their place better if they’d just remember.
"Unfortunately." Still, a wry grin made its way over Landel’s face. "They’ll just have to do it all over again. And again. And again."
Author: Mary
Beta (if applicable): Rini, Jade, and Hannah. ;< <3
Word Count: 3,996
Rating: PG-14 for violence, language, and some creepy instance of being a slut? D:
Character(s): House, Wilson, Huang, Stegman, Maggie, and Washu. Special appearances by Landel, Nny, and GLaDOS.
Pairing(s) (if applicable): …lololololol no. Any mentions to a pairing are either done creepily or just as a joke.
Summary: Wilson’s determined to get behind these rumors the patients have been spreading and convinces the doctors to stay for a minute after-hours in order to talk. It went wrong.
Notes (if applicable): Here’s hoping I didn’t rape anyone’s characters. D:
"Where do you think the others are?"
"My guess? Dead on some floor or in something’s stomach."
"House, they’re our coworkers. That’s a little negative, don’t you think?"
"Something tells me it’s going to be one of those nights."
It was just Wilson and House now, cramped together in a bathroom stall like a pair of peas in an unhappy pod. Wilson peaked through the cracks of the stall door for any signs of danger while House’s only contribution to this mess (besides his cynicism and the cane pushing its way into Wilson’s left foot) was the blue illumination coming from his dying cell phone. They tried numerous times to call the police, ambulances, fire-department (it was still 911 and thus all the same number, but that didn’t stop Wilson), hell, even Cuddy, but nothing but static came through for anything. Muraki, Daedalus, Hatori, and Jizabel managed to slink out of the building the second it started getting dark, the lucky bastards. Stegman, Maggie, Washu, and Huang had gotten separated, lost, and, despite Wilson telling his friend not to talk like that, most likely had all been eaten. House claimed to have heard gunshots ("Five of them") coming from some direction, which wouldn’t be too far fetched considering Huang’s background. Did he use a gun back then? It had something to do with the FBI, of course he might have had a gun. Did he have one now? Could it have been an orderly? Did orderlies have guns?
Ugh. He should never have set up that meeting.
It was in House’s office, of course (otherwise the man would never make an appearance, and even with him there he interjected every attempt at a conversation with things along the line of "blah blah blah, out of my office"). Everyone had showed, not all had stayed, especially with House’s rudeness and the looming threat of being fired for staying after dark. Wilson had been determined to get everyone together, however. He knew everyone was hearing the same stories, knew all the doctors were getting the same impressions about their patients (he was wrong about that one, sadly), but no one would talk about it. None of the doctors ever got together to discuss this, to figure out why this shared delusion was coursing through the patient body.
Probably because none of the doctors could agree on any one thing. Washu wanted to talk about science. Stegman and House didn’t want to talk at all. Maggie was trying to be reasonable, but any mention of nightmares made her paranoid. Huang made the most sense, but even then couldn’t explain such prevalent delusions.
"Maybe it isn’t natural. Maybe something more is going on," Maggie suggested after fifteen minutes of everyone talking in circles and blatantly ignoring the Head Doctor’s intercom announcement as he wished the patients a good night’s rest.
"And that something more is what? Paranormal? Ghosts and goblins?" As Stegman interjected loudly again, Wilson was slowly beginning to understand why the man’s car was defaced on a regular basis. "You think they’re telling the truth? Oh, I know. The hospital was built over haunted land or psytanium or something like that, right Dr. Burroughs?"
"You know that’s not what I-"
Washu interrupted this time. "Chemicals in the water? I could analyze it for various toxins."
"It could just be extreme paranoia," Huang offered with a shrug of his shoulders. "After all, patients spend most of their time talking to one another; it isn’t completely out of the question."
Maggie and Washu shrugged in response, the former seeming more tired than usual.
"Well, now it’s solved. And hey," he added, "just in time for the announcements to end." House stood from his seat and gestured to the door for the sixth time. "Everyone get out of my office."
"Dr. House is right. I’ll be taking my leave now," Stegman grabbed at his suitcase and moved for the door. "I suggest the rest of you do the same instead of wasting time jabbering." His hand touched the door for only a second before the lights shut off and the intercom came back to life.
It was quiet at first, all the doctors standing together in their silence and listening for a sound to prove what they just heard wasn’t a mistake. The intercom didn’t come on at night, at least not that they knew of. Only in those delusio-…
Shit.
If Wilson felt any considerate consolation about the dread welling up in his chest, it was that he may had been right about a need to be concerned.
The first thing to be heard was not Mr. Landel, but some inhuman thing muttering just out of microphone rang. "What do you mean ‘they’re still here?’" Came the response in an offended whisper. They weren’t supposed to BE here. There was a long pause, only the occasional sound of papers ruffling. Then Martin cleared his throat after a minute, the rage bubbled over into mirth. "I was going to give my lovely patients their nightly berating and send them on their way, but suppose I can’t just turn away such willing test subjects, now can I? After all, if you’re so willing to spend extra time with your patients, I won’t stop you. You can ask them what to do.
"Good luck." And just like that, the room lapsed once again into silence. It most likely would have stayed that way if it weren’t for House’s considerate need to not care.
"Spooky." He obviously did not mean it. He had even grabbed his suitcase and moved to the door during the entire spiel.
Maggie’s mouth quivered in the slightest. "This is a dream."
Oh god, not this again. House rolled his eyes. "I’d ask what your obvious boner for dreams is about, but it’s dark and I’m tired. Stay here if you want, but I’m not cleaning up the mess if you party too hard." He opened the door and calmly departed into the hallway. After a beat, the rest of the doctors followed suit, at least until the second sign of something horribly wrong transpired.
It came in the form of a hiss and multiple eyes glaring at them from the dark. It was grotesque. An abomination to nature and all that was holy. Spiders were one thing, but a spider the size of a dog that was hissing and skittering towards them?
Needless to say, most solved this dilemma by screaming in horror and sprinting into various directions. The term "most" is used because one did not flee (and one did not scream. House elected to flee silently). Washu paid no mind to her screaming coworkers and even smiled widely at the creature.
"This is absolutely fascinating."
--
Maggie curled her jacket tighter around her, too rattled to say a word after what they just witnessed. Andrew wasn’t about to protest the silence (her speaking might lead to her sobbing or attracting attention, and that was counterproductive), leaving only the sound of their staggered breathing and heavy footsteps to accompany them. It went on like this for a while, their small party navigating the hallways, dodging into the shadows at every abrupt noise.
Since Maggie was more caring about who was around her, she noticed it first. The words got past her lips as little more than some mangled syllables.
"What?"
"George is gone," she whispered. "Shit, shit…!" Maggie closed her eyes shut, willing away the fear into something more functional. Like anger. She’d been through worse, goddamn it. She’d beaten the living hell out of her father, a demon who murdered hundreds, and relegated him to almost nothing. This had to have been a dream, some sick revenge. She wasn’t afraid of him. Not after she effectively made him her whore for the day and he went down easy. "I’m not afraid of you. You’re shit. I’m not afraid of you."
"Stop. Stop whispering that." He needed to be firm. Ms. Burroughs had stopped making sense the moment Landel started showing his Mr. Hyde routine. Andrew Stegman would not be handling an insane woman at a time like this, especially if she was going to start talking to herself. It was just his luck that Huang made off without him, leaving him stuck with her. "He probably just stumbled along the way or something. He’ll be fine."
--
House, on the other hand, remained unshaken. It was a spider. A big, man-eating spider. A problem that could frankly be taken care of by walking away from it, which was precisely what he did. Wilson, on the other hand…
"They’re in danger!"
"They’re DEAD. You want to join them? Be my guest." He kept limping forward, eyes set dead ahead. "It’s just as well Washu got it first. Don’t have a black guy, jump to ethnicity."
"You don’t care at all, do you? People are dying, this- this place is a death trap, and you literally don’t care!" The stare he was giving his friend proved ineffective for much of anything, so Wilson just sighed and hurried along as to not be left behind (which would be hard to do anyhow, considering). "God only knows I’d be next. The best friend always gets killed."
Ah, that was the spirit. "Could be worse. We could make out in that broom closet over there if you REALLY want to be next. Then again," it was as if the horror show back there didn’t faze him in the slightest and he continued to muse, "they like to off the promiscuous ones too. Maybe we should split up, just in case."
--
"I think we should split up."
"What?" The moment of shell-shocked weakness had passed by now, leaving Maggie only irritated and upset. She had been making FRIENDS with Washu, damn it. She should have know better, considering all her friends were doomed to meet violent demises. Why bother?
It was obvious that she wasn’t about to make friends with this guy, however.
"We should split up, Dr. Burroughs." What was she, dense?
… "I’m sorry, have you not seen or heard of any horror story ever?" What was he, stupid? "If we split up, we’ll get picked off one by one."
"Real life is not a horror movie." Stegman narrowed his eyes up at her, having leaned himself against a wall in order to rest his paining legs. It didn’t help that this woman was being incredibly ridiculous. "Besides, they’re nothing but fantasy and drivel."
"Last I checked, giant spiders weren’t real. MAYBE we should think outside the box because something REALLY NOT-NORMAL is happening here!"
"Will you stop that nonsense?! We need to go our separate ways to find a safe route to the exit!"
"There’s only one route from where we are!"
"I SAID we need to-"
Maggie’s wide mouth gape cut him off, leaving Stegman to only wonder WHY he had the nerve to turn around and check what she was staring at (you never turn to look what they’re looking at. Just run.). What it was seemed, quite frankly, worse than the spider.
Some lurching beast, half ape, half… something else. It came towards them with a looming menace, which resulted in the one thing Stegman was good at when it came to situations such as these: run in the opposite direction. The other doctor watched with disgust as he fled to leave her alone with that… thing.
Her angry, rushed attempt to attack it (she was kind of hoping it WAS a dream. Or that at least her head-demon gave her super strength) only proved how much stronger it was than her. A good smack to the face caused her to collide with a wall and knocked her clean out.
Once she slid to the floor and unconsciousness claimed her, the first thing to greet her was bright, rusty red. Well, red and her father’s image: disappointed, angered, and just as demonic as always (as far as she could tell. It was hard to see much of his face under the shadow his hat was casting). "Now I know I haven’t always been the greatest father in the world, Kathryn, but I," those claws went to rest on his chest like he was offended, "think I know what’s best for my little princess. And I can’t say I like this coworker of yours. Why don’t you let daddy talk to him, hmm?"
At this point? Maggie wasn’t about to argue with that suggestion. That bitch called for whatever daddy gave him.
--
One way or the other, they had split up. Stegman was thankful for this. Even more thankful for the fact that his gun was still in his office.
After dealing with those imbeciles at Kingdom and a certain obnoxious patient here (how dare the lunatic insult and threaten him. He was his doctor and damn it, he did NOT look like he had small dogs in his hair!), it felt necessary to keep a gun in his drawer. He laughed to himself, bringing it to his mouth and giving it a little kiss. Just what he needed now… Just enough to GET OUT.
He departed from his office in high spirits, even managing to make his way through the next hallway without panicking once.
"Steg."
He turned his head towards the noise, startled. It sounded like… "Brenda?" The voice was definitely hers, coming from… that door was never there before, was it? He wandered closer, which wasn’t very bright, he supposed. But what in the hell was Brenda doing here?
"Stegman." She called again. He noted too late, already in the room and so close, that it wasn’t Brenda. Fine then, what the hell was Ms. Burroughs doing--… undoing the buttons on her shirt and nearing him like some whore with an agenda?!
"Steg," she repeated, as if she needed clarification as to who she was speaking with. "I’ve been thinking. Despite what happened, I… We’ve been working together for a while now and I see how you look at me." Which would have been contempt, really. "You don’t see me as Maggie, Plain and Boring. And I’m betting," she chucked then, shaking her hair out of that mess she called a style to let it hang loose. She was actually attractive under that tragic fashion sense, "that you wouldn’t mind being proven right. I love that. I love a man like you, older, more experienced, taking note of a girl like me." She pressed herself against him, smiling, giggling like a teenager. Unhappy as he was with his coworker stripping down and presenting like a mandrill, it was hard to move in such a precarious situation (that being between the crazed woman and a wall).
"This is highly unprofessional of you. I warn you right now, Ms. Burroughs, I won’t have you trying to seduce me at such a time!" Why wasn’t she stopping?! He would have her job for this (why was that even a concern right now? He was stuck in this hell-hole)!
Maggie didn’t listen and the last button of her shirt was undone. "Steggy… Don’t you think I’m pretty?" she asked with a little laugh. Her hands went to touch the other doctor and—
Her eyes gleamed yellow.
Stegman fired the gun the instant he felt something rip into his chest (knives? No, those were… claws?). The kickback was enough to separate them, but not enough to calm him down, especially not when he felt blood splatter across his face. He shot in her direction four more times, screaming all the while, before pushing himself back into the hallway and took off running.
She was still laughing.
He sped down the hallway as fast as his feet could possibly take him (which, in retrospect, was not that fast), not looking back at the crazed woman- …no, her voice, that cackling screeching behind him didn’t sound anything like Maggie Burroughs anymore, at least not entirely. It sound like a demon, some murderous sociopath who was decidedly not a woman.
"What’s a matter, sugarplum?! Don’t like what you see?" She-… It howled after him. The sound of metal claws scraping against the walls was beginning to follow him, becoming more sporadic and maniacal as their owner twisted them up and down, backwards and forwards like a kid would with a stick to a gate. "Aww, come on! Running away again?! Come back and give a little sugar to Freddy, bitch!"
That was it. This was the worst place Stegman had ever worked at. Bar none.
--
The other two continued on their merry way, having to actually flee up the stairs once some burst of air decided to giggle at them and try to steal their oxygen. They had managed to circle back down to the other side of the institute (by the patient wing), talking all the way, before their discussion of horror tropes was interrupted.
Thunk.
Oh god. "House? Please tell me that was you."
He paused. "Okay, it was me."
"…it wasn’t you, was it?"
House shook his head. "Nope."
"Damn it!" In the blink of an eye, Wilson grabbed his friend by the crook of his elbow and dragged him into the nearest door and, finding it to be a bathroom, pushed the man into a random stall before joining him and slamming the door shut. House at least had the decency to only voice his complaints with a cane in Wilson’s foot.
Not a minute later, the bathroom door opened again. The doctors watched the sight over the stall doors, wary yet curious.
It was a woman and a man, both with dark hair, or at least it looked like that in the dim lighting (how did they get flashlights?) They were both covered in blood, though the woman didn’t seem to care much.
The man, thin and sickly-yellow, spoke with a pout. "I wasted all of my pens killing that thing."
"An unfortunate situation. It had to be done." There was the familiar squeak of a faucet being turned, the sound of rushing water following and echoing through the room.
"Yeah," the man nodded. "For the cake."
Wilson and House turned to each other with questioning glances before continuing to eavesdrop.
"You are correct. And bloody fingers would be detrimental to our consumption."
Considering the ongoing conversation none of his concern and really not wanting to hear it, House removed his cell phone from his coat pocket and examined it with help of the patients’ flashlights. "We have bars here," he whispered, pushing the phone into Wilson’s hands.
"We do? We do!" Wilson forgot to whisper in his excitement. The couple noticed.
They also didn’t care.
The woman rose an eyebrow at the men (who were too startled to hide their heads from view) and gave a small frown. "It is far from my business, but I suggest not kissing in the bathroom. You will be eaten." Having seen that both she and her companion’s hands were clean, she shut off the water and made her exit.
"It’s also really fucking disgusting," the man agreed, following his friend’s example. "People poop in there all the time."
…there really wasn’t anything to be said to that. The men climbed down from their toilet perch and tried the phone. Despite various attempts and House noting the sound of gunshots, no help was reached. After a while, the two just exited the stall and sighed.
"Should we just stay here or…-" The door burst open again, and this time it was Stegman to enter. Stegman--face and chest covered in blood, wielding a pistol, and panting for air. He made his way over to the mirror and placed both hands on either side of the sink (dropping the pistol in the process) to lean over it.
Wilson voiced his concern first (and last. House said nothing). "Oh my god, what happened? You’re bleeding!" He neared the other man cautiously, aiming for comforting. Still, he had to add, "…where did you find a gun?"
"Had one." Andrew gasped out after a minute. He looked pale and ragged (more than usual, anyway). "Can never… never be too careful."
House peered at the weapon laying in the sink. "Any more bullets?"
Stegman shook his head. "It only had five."
"Well damn." He shrugged, then cast a glance to Wilson. "It explains what we heard, though."
It did, which made Wilson’s eyebrows knot in confusion. "What were you shooting at?"
Stegman kept his eyes focused on the white of the sink and didn’t answer, only moving from his posistion to access his wound. It wasn’t that deep, nothing that couldn’t be stitched up and heal perfectly fine… "Listen, we’re close to the exit. I’d appreciate it if we could just get out to the parking lot, drive away, and live a Landel’s-Free life for the rest of our days, is that okay with you two?"
It was. Oh god, it was.
--
An empty parking lot was all that greeted them once they exited the Entry Room.
"That’s just it." Wilson’s head was in his hands. He could have sobbed, really, he could have. "That’s just great. We’re stuck here until morning."
"Or until something eats us." House was, again, unfazed. It wasn’t that he didn’t completely care, he was just genre savvy and knew he was too interesting to be killed. The funny, witty doctor never got killed. "Either way."
Stegman’s only contribution was an annoyed growl threatening to spring from his throat. This was precisely why he had disliked that damned Dr. Hook! Smarmy little…
The doors flew open with a resounding BANG, revealing none other than a wounded, bleeding, considerably pissed off Dr. Burroughs. Despite what looked like a bullet wound in her right shoulder, she pointed at Stegman with unadulterated hatred and… House had to raise an eyebrow. Was that a Freddy Krueger glove on her hand?
"You left me for dead! THEN you had the nerve to SHOOT ME!"
Stegman understandably sputtered and pointed his empty gun at her. "Don’t listen to her. Don’t listen to her! She attacked me!"
Really, all Wilson and House could do was watch as the two volleyed insults and accusations back and forth before another wheel crashed in on the party.
Literally.
In a rain of splinters and dust, the asylum doors shattered, everyone outside opening their eyes to find themselves sprawled on the ground and looking up to see the cause of this new disturbance.
It just so happened to be the missing Washu and Huang, the former riding the giant spider that they had thought killed her so many minutes earlier. Through the dust, the bright lights of some electronic device sticking out of the creature’s neck could be seen.
"Sorry about leaving you two," George apologized, one hand gone to rub the back of his head (either as a show of discomfort for abandoning Maggie and Stegman or because the sound of spider-breaking-door hurt)" "I noticed Dr. Washu plant something on the..." He didn’t really want to say ‘giant spider.’ "This. I wanted to make sure she was okay, so we decided to travel together and make notes on what was happening. …are you all okay?"
"It’s a device of my own creation," the redhead added, boasting proudly atop her steed, the sound of her voice and the sharp snapping of broken wood beneath the spider’s feet drowning out the intercom. "Tonight has been incredible! So much new information, so many new questions to be solved in the name of science!" She hadn’t stopped there, actually. Really, she went on for quite some time before the light of day cut her off.
--
"Do we have to make them forget this time?" Nurse Lydia frowned. Really, they’d know their place better if they’d just remember.
"Unfortunately." Still, a wry grin made its way over Landel’s face. "They’ll just have to do it all over again. And again. And again."