Louie

[Piano man]

Louie closes the door behind him and takes off after Ronald.

"Here pass me the light I know where we need to go. The nurses station isn't to far from here. We'll have meds in you Brianna before you know it."

Hmmm....this flashlight is cool it feels almost like a kid's sized lightsabre. If I find another one I'll let Brianna have it. Ok Louie it's time. Down into the darkness of the ground floor........
"I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came, and went and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:"

Man Lord Byron must have been talking about this hospital when he wrote that.

Louie continues down the stairs with out talking. Peering carefully into the darkness looking for boogie men.

Man I should stop reading his poety. I'm more scared now than I was five minutes ago.

[DSIGFUSS]

"Is she feeling ok? Are you...really gonna just....... leave her there?"

Ronald sighs...

she's just a kid.

I don't think she's allowed to leave there kiddo. It's alot of work to be a doctor. You have to go to school for a long long time.

Ronald quickens his pace still carrying Brianna, his mind still racing.

Cover your ears sweetie.

Ronald waits for Brianna to cover her ears but continues to move quickly to the stairwell holding the pen light out in front of him and urging Louie to hurry.

What in jumping jahosaphat was she talking about Louie? What net? Did you hear the sound those tools made when she dumped em over. We gotta get outta here man.

[trixie]

Brianna looks down the dark staircase that Ronald is walking down, and shudders. "It got quiet." she remarks plainly, and wonders if Ronald and Louie had noticed as well. Will that thing come down here? Will it be able to get me??

Brianna covers her ears when Ronald asks her to, and starts humming so that she can't hear what they are saying. She has a funny feeling she doesn't really want to know. How did that lady know me? How did she know my name? How come Ronald and Louie left her there? Doesn't she need our help?? She was bleeding.....

[Piano man]

Louie slows up a bit when he hears Ronald talking to him. He's so lost in thought that it takes a moment for Ronald's question to register.

"I don't know man. Your guess is as good as mine. I'm just relieved that we are out of there and that we are leaving the same floor she is on. The nurses station is not to far from here. We need to take care of Brianna and try to forget about the other stuff. If I don't I'll be too scared to function."

Louies mind starts to wander back to poetry that he has read:

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars--on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.

Man I've got to stop reading poety it's really not helping. Ok relaxation exercise no. 19 a funny walk.

Louie starts to raise his legs really high in the air with each step while flapping his arms. It's hard to be scared when you look so silly. He looks over to Brianna and sees that she is watching him.

"I'm....uh....well acting silly helps me to concentrate. Come on Brianna walk with me it really helps."

For the first time in a while Louie smiles and alows himself a little laugh. He truely does feel less frightened.

[trixie]

Brianna watches Louie walking in a silly way and giggles. First quiet giggles, because she really didn't expect him to continue it, but then when he keeps going, she starts laughing harder and harder. Finally, she's clutching her sides. "Okay Ronald, I can walk. Do you know any funny walks too, Ronald?" She hops down to her feet and grins.

"Look at my rubber leg walk, Louie!" She walks along, knees flailing comically from side to side, feet staying planted underneath her. The longer she does it, the harder she laughs. Finally, she winces in pain at her cheeks, and tears well in her eyes. She puts a cold hand on her cheek, and walks normally, becoming quiet and solemn. Ow....

[Laraqua]

"I will not!" comes the vicious feminine scream from upstairs. Footsteps can be heard rushing across the floor above and a door is slammed open. "Briiiiiannnnaaa!" The name is screamed imploringly and tinged with a persuasive panic. There is something vibrantly maternal in the calling of that name like a mother robbed of her child.

[trixie]

Every hair on Brianna's head feels like it's standing on end, and she feels creepy shivers go down her back. She stops dead in her tracks, slowly turns around, wide eyed, at the voice carrying down the staircase. Shuddering at the sound and the abrupt, piercing cry, she looks like a lamb being led to the slaughter house, trusting and sure there is no real danger, and yet unknowing of the terrible fate that awaits her.

She slips her hand into Ronald's, who is standing next to her, and looks up at him. She is speechless for a moment, not knowing what to say, then says only, "I think she maybe knows me....." She shudders again, unable to shake the feeling of a cold finger tracing her spine. "I....I just......" Unable to draw a conclusion, she bursts into tears.

[Piano man]

Louie turns around at the sound of the woman's voice. He sees Brianna stopped and starts to panic.

"Ronald grab Brianna, and follow me. We need to get somewhere safe. I don't recognize that woman, and I know everyone who works here. Something is really wrong. I can just feel it.

Louie turns back around and heads the rest of the way down the stairs stopping at a door right near the bottom.

"I won't let anything happen to you Brianna. Ronald and I both will protect you. You trust us don't you?"

He waits for her answer before opening the door.

[Laraqua]

As Louie draws out the key to the room, the paramedic barrels down the stairs, something sharp grasped in her right hand. "Briiiiiannnaaaa, run!"

[Piano man]

Louie turns the key without waiting for Brianna to answer, and slams it open in a fit of distress.

"Get in!" he barks, panicked at the sight of this crazy paramedic. "Hurry!"

[Laraqua]

The SDR room is very different from the rest of the hospital. A small generator hums in an exposed closet to the right of the room as you enter and it keeps the temperature at a cozy level. There is a bed built into the upper right part of the wall, surrounded by cupboards and a counter containing a microwave which sits above a small refridgerator.

The left wall is covered in a red velvet cloth across the stepped shelving, upon which sits easily a hundred candles which keeps the room lit. Beneath the last shelf sits a ornate shrine that also looks somewhat like a doll's house. The tiled floor contains a large leaf-like symbol as does the ceiling and the back of the door. The windows show only the blackness of the outside world.

A doctor removes a cup of soup from the microwave and turns to regard the newcomers with a raised, quizzical eyebrow. A trio of nurses sit on cushions on the floor, playing a card game without bothering to look up. A man in a suit and a woman in a doctor's uniform look up from the clipboard he was holding.

"For all that is holy, shut the door, man," says the brunette woman doctor. She is a fifty-year-old woman with gentle smile lines, her salt-and-pepper hair coiled into a bun, her face touched with a minimum of make-up. Doctor Sutcliffe, head surgeon who sometimes also does the rounds in the Paediatrics section of Accident & Emergency.

[trixie]

Brianna turns and slams the door shut herself, now that Ronald and Louie are both inside with her, and flips the lock. She turns around slowly to the room, shuddering and wondering at this sudden turn in atmosphere.

"How in the world...." she begins to say, but stammers at the end of it, unsure of what words will do at this startling good luck. "You're all ok..." she says. "There's, like, CRAZY things out there!" She looks up at Ronald and Louie in a flood of relief.

"Of course I trust you, Louie." she says with a smile. "That lady.....she was......weird."

[Piano man]

Louie looks around the room at the nurses and Doctors and lets out a sigh of relief.

"Doctor Sutcliffe, Am I ever relieved to see you. I don't know if you know me. I'm Louie the janitor. This is Ronald, he's a children's entertainer, and of course you must know Brianna. She is a very special patient here. We were being chased by a crazy woman with a knife, and Brianna needs her pain meds. Could you please help, and while your at it. Could you look at my wounds and make sure I'm going to be ok."

Louie turns to Brianna and Ronald and says.

"It's ok, you can trust these people, they are obviously hiding as well."

[Laraqua]

Doctor Sutcliffe smiles briskly. "All right, get over to that bed and lie down. Nurse Foscarelli, Nurse Watts, see to him, will you?" She moves over to one of the cupboards and begins rummaging around. "Children's pain medication... Hmm... It doesn't appear that we have any here."

[Piano man]

Louie reaches into his pocket and pulls out the container of meds that he took.

"I know this is adult medication, but could you cut it up so that the dosage is low enough for Brianna. I wouldn't suggest going out in the hall right now with that crazy woman out there."

Louie tosses the medication to the doctor and lies down on the bed as instructed.

[Laraqua]

"What crazy woman?" asks Doctor Sutcliffe, opening two cupboard doors to reveal three handguns, a shotgun and a rifle. "This hospital isn't all that it appears, my new friends. My associates and I have been trying to keep such a terrible calamity from occuring for quite some time. I never thought it would come to this ... but then, perhaps it is merely coincidental." She smiles at Ronald and Brianna. "Yes, we are survivalists. Nothing more, nothing less."

[Piano man]

Louie's eyes bug out at the sight of the guns.

"Well I guess you don't need to worry too much about a woman with a knife. Brianna really needs her medication. There is some on the cart by the Nurses station. Please take good care of her, she's been through enough already."

Louie looks over at Brianna with tears in his eyes and a smile on his face.

"Don't worry Padawan. I think we found a place that we can finally relax. I told you I'd take care of you."

You're all I have. My purpose for being here. I won't let anything happen to you.

[trixie]

Brianna looks up at Louie and sees the tears starting to form in his eyes. Oh no...don't start crying...cuz then I'll cry too...

She turns to him and wraps her arms around his big waist to give him a hug. "Thank you, Louie." You're not going to leave now are you? She hugs him for a good minute, squeezing as tight as she can. Squeezy hugs are the best hugs.

She let's go of Louie and smiles at him, then walks over to Ronald. She tugs on his shirt. "I'm glad you got me away from that weird lady. Are you ok too?"

[DSIGFUSS]

Ronald takes a deep breath and listens carefully with buggy eyes to everything Doctor Sutcliffe has to say. He can't believe what he's hearing. He puts Brianna down and stares blankly at the doctor and all his accomplices.

My associates and I have been trying to keep such a terrible calamity from occuring for quite some time. I never thought it would come to this ... but then, perhaps it is merely coincidental." She smiles at Ronald and Brianna. "Yes, we are survivalists. Nothing more, nothing less."

Are you completely off your bird? Are you trying to tell us you started all this madness? What happened to the hospital? Where did you get all the sodding guns?

Ronald looks around the room for something he could use as a club or any sort of weapon. To the survivalists, he may look like a man on the brink of a mental breakdown. Ronald has never felt this kind of prolonged fear before. Being so close to Louie, he was reminded of another green long eared puppet with some sound philosophical observations. Something about fear leading to hate. And hate leading to something else entirely. Ronald was down with the hate though. That was one smart puppet.

Ronald points his finger at Doctor Sutcliffe and shouts.

Answer me... you dodgy little qwack!

[trixie]

Brianna looks from Ronald to the doctor, to Louie, eyes wide with astonishment. She looks back up at Ronald again. She's never seen him angry, and didn't know he could even get angry. She ducks behind Ronald, wanting to be out of the cross fire, and her mind is racing a mile a minute.

What's going on? Aren't we safe now? Or are these people nuts too? I hope Louie and Ronald don't leave me here alone with them! What if these people are crazy too??!!