Murray's Journey: Finders Keepers

[Laraqua]

A man's voice, slightly buzzing as though he's speaking through a really bad connection: "You still at the hospital? Good. I need you to pick up the package from ICU and deliver it to me at the Indian Runner. We got a problem. Make sure nobody follows you."

He hangs up.

[Mr. Handy]

"That was interesting," says Murray, hanging up the phone. "I think the guy on the other end must have been trying to reach the director and assumed it was me. He said to pick up the package from ICU and bring it to the Indian Runner. Then he said they've got a problem, and to make sure nobody follows me...or, rather, him. Any idea what this might be about? I'm thinking it could have to do with the drugs in this town. We should find the ICU. There's a good chance there'll be medical supplies there anyway."

[Laraqua]

"Good point," mumbled Craig. "Though we should really just find ... Ash, Rochelle ... somebody."

[Mr. Handy]

"Yeah, I want to find them too," says Murray, though he is also driven to unravel this mystery, "but you do need more medical treatment. How about we check out the ICU and then leave for Annie's Bar? We can leave through the front door. Maybe my car is still out there where I left it. Any idea where the ICU is, or what floor it's on?"

[Laraqua]

Craig nods his head, though he grumbles, "If your car even works."

[Mr. Handy]

"Hell, I don't know if it's even still there," says Murray. "They might have towed it. But it's worth taking a look at least. So, where's the ICU? I didn't see it on the ground floor when I was here last time. Let's check upstairs."

[Laraqua]

Craig simply shrugs. "I really ... really don't know."

He sighs and looks around. "At least it's quieter in here."

[Mr. Handy]

"Well, let's start by looking around on the second floor," says Murray.

[Mr. Handy]

Murray leads the way up the stairs.

[Laraqua]

This stairwell is, thankfully, unblocked and its easy enough to walk up into the pitch darkness of the floor above. Where the ground floor received some flimsy light through the windows, the second floor is filled with a roiling darkness that seems to flinch away from the probing flashlight beams. Somewhere, in the distance, a clanking and mechanical sound can be heard, like fan blades struggling agaisnt a rusty turning pole, and something metal clatters against a grille. The walls themselves flake and peel their plaster in slow, staccato motions, and the odd droplet of drying blood seems to slowly slide across the floor and walls.

"This ain't right," whispers Craig.

[Mr. Handy]

"You're tellin' me," Murray whispers back. He peers around, trying to pierce the darkness with his flashlight and looking for any doors leading off the hall.

[Laraqua]

He stands on the edge of an L-Intersection. The beam of Murray's light plays over the symbols for the men's and women's toilets on the two doors to the right of the wall he is facing, though it can't penetrate any deeper in that direction. When he turns to his left, his light can reveal the edge of a wooden door against the right side wall and to the left is a door with Room 201 stencilled upon it.

[Mr. Handy]

"Well, it's not in the john," Murray whispers, "and I think the ICU would have something saying that, not a room number. Let's keep going." He leads the way quietly down the hall, examining the doors as he goes.

[Laraqua]

Murray can go either straight onward from the stairwell door past the toilet doors or left down the other corridor past that random room number.

[Mr. Handy]

Figuring that there will probably be more numbered rooms down the corridor to the left, Murray goes straight ahead.

[Laraqua]

His flashlight wavers across a door standing at the end of the walled off corridor. There is no sign or other marking on the door to indicate where it leads.

[Mr. Handy]

Murray proceeds to the end of the hall and listens at the door.

[Laraqua]

The other hallway seems to be quiet other than a vague schhk-schhhk noise which sounds like something rough scraping across linoleum, though in a regular pattern at around the same spot. Perhaps something hanging off something else?

[Mr. Handy]

OOC,I'm confused. Is that sound coming from the other side of the door, or from the hallway I didn't take?

[Laraqua]

Show,Sorry, there's a corridor around the other side of the door and I jumped the gun in saying as much.