When the Clouds Roll In by M. Chris Benner

Author:M. Chris Benner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: thriller, horror, suspense, adventure, mystery, action, comedy

Miguel pushes his brother’s gurney with one hand and wheels his IV with the other, wounded arm, calling out Portuguese warnings as he maneuvers down the crowded hallway. Feet are run over, toes squished, asses nudged or straight pushed out of the way. The emergency lights give an eerie glow to the corridors (like we’re in outer space, the high part of Miguel suggests) and it’s made everyone panic that much more. But he doesn’t care, and he pushes through them, and he makes it to the elevator and pushes the gurney in and follows behind it with the IV.

“Hey,” screams a doctor from down the hall, chasing after him.

(He’d just stolen his brother from the I.C.U.)

The hallway is chaotic and loud but Miguel can see the doctor running toward the elevator, closing in, and even though he hits the Door Close button repeatedly, it still takes an extra few seconds, and the doctor closes in, shimmying through the crowd, so close—

The elevator doors close.

Muzak plays.

Eduardo is in a deep, peaceful sleep.

“I’d have left you in there, bro,” confides Miguel (in Portuguese) to his unconscious brother, “but it was way too open and I gotta get you somewhere safe.”

The elevator doors open and Miguel shoots out, pushing the gurney with one hand and, with the other arm in a sling, clutching his brother’s IV close against him. Again, people are in the way; again, he shouts Portuguese warnings at people, ramming them out of the way and running over toes as he speedily steers through the labyrinthine hallways toward his hospital room from earlier that night (since it’s the only room he’s certain has weed in it). The door to his hospital room is open and Miguel worries that the old man in the weird outfit might have come back; instead, he looks in to discover something far worse – the small room is crammed with two nurses, a doctor, and eight or nine sickly people.

Too late to change my mind.

He pushes the hospital bed into the room and closes the door behind him. The people try to tell him there isn’t room even after he’s pushed the gurney against the far wall, between the window and his hospital bed from earlier. The doctor asks something but he doesn’t know what she’s saying. A nurse touches Miguel’s shoulder to get his attention, as he isn’t answering anyone—

“Spiders!” he yells.

Everyone quiets.

The doctor approaches Miguel and asks, slowly and clearly—some question he doesn’t understand. She points out the window to illustrate her question and then she points at the ground, asking a second time. He assumes she’s asking if the spiders are there, at the hospital, so Miguel points at the ground.

The people in the room, including the nurses, whimper at this news.

Miguel gets the doctor’s attention once more and points out the window. It’s dark outside but she can make out the same thing that had scared Miguel no more than ten minutes earlier. She squints out the window at a nearby house and can clearly see the roof moving, flowing like water.

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