I hear another noise, this time a crash from the other side of the ward. I flick off the flashlight and stuff it and the file into my backpack and sling it over my shoulders. I pick up the machete from the floor and creep back to the registration desk. I try as hard as I can to listen for the source of the crash, but I can’t hear anything except for a tiny groan behind me. My stomach leaps into my throat as I turn. All I can see is a shadow as a greyskin wearing the scrubs of a nurse stumbles forward. I accidentally let out a yelp as a fall backwards onto the chair next to me. As I pull myself up, I swing for the greyskin’s head but I miss.

I never miss!

The blade slams into the side of the filling cabinet and the handle breaks off in my hand. The greyskin is on top of me now and it’s all I can do to roll away as it grabs onto my foot. I pull the pistol from my belt, knowing that if I don’t I’ll be dead, even though the noise will bring every greyskin in the hospital to me. I let off a single shot into the nurses’ (greyskin’s) head and it slumps to the floor. I can still hear the ringing in my ears a moment later as I drag myself into the hallway. On my belly, gun in hand, I look both ways: once toward the door and then toward the rest of the maternity ward. I can’t help but freeze when I see what comes out of the room beyond. Doctors…nurses…patients. My stomach wrenches when I see a greyskin walking out in a large gown, her stomach protruding.

I pull myself up to my feet and charge out through the doors but I stop in my tracks when at least eight greyskins make their way toward me, walking as though they have all the time in the world. But I don’t. Either I go the familiar way I came and face more greyskins, or I go back through the maternity ward and hope I don’t run into more than three. I shake my head. It’s always better to know where you’re going.

With the machete broken and gone, I walk forward and lift my pistol in front of me, taking careful aim at the first greyskin’s head. It drops to the floor. The others start to come at me a little more quickly. I’ve got to be quick. I let off three more rounds, three more greyskins fall.