Hospital Car Park

[Laraqua]

The boy picks up the empty roll of tape. "No more," he says softly.

The only other medical tape in the ambulance is medical tape, used to tape down gauze and the like. The blanket, while somewhat thin, is far too heavy for that.

From the back of the ambulance, they can hear the sound of a chunk of glass snapping off and shattering.

[Mr. Handy]

Sarah's breath catches in her throat when she hears the glass break, but she cannot move because she has to keep the blanket held in place. "Geoff, the window," she whispers, jerking her chin towards it.

[Laraqua]

The tape across the ambulance door windows is still firmly in place. Now that Sarah thinks about it, the glass that had shattered seemed far louder than a small square of glass might suggest.

[Mr. Handy]

Sarah is relieved that the seals on the windows are intact, but the sound of the glass breaking still worries her. What could it have been? she wonders. Another vehicles window or windshield? One of the hospital windows? Just how far has the ambulance rolled?

[Laraqua]

Barely five seconds have passed since the ambulance stopped rolling back. It's cold. Geoff's hands have gone numb as they grip the door handles. Sarah's flesh is goosepimpled and she can't help but tremble. While Roger can hardly feel the cold, he is feeling the effects more strongly than the others and feels quite weary.

In the distance, a couple pairs of bare feet can be heard slapping against linoleum moving away from the ambulance. Then there's a twisted scream, vibrant and terrified, that is choked off almost before it begins.

[Mr. Handy]

Sarah swallows as she keeps the blanket pinned in place with both arms. She shivers, as much from fear as from the sensation of cold. The blanket's warmth is helping, but not much. That sounded like linoleum, she thinks. It has to be inside somewhere, probably the hospital itself. I think the parking lot slopes downwards to the ground floor. The breaking glass must have been a nearby window. She tries to remember which way the rear of the ambulance had been facing and which part of the hospital it might have hit.

[Laraqua]

There is a very good chance that the ambulance has broken through the Accident & Emergency entrance, either the glass double doors or the large glass windows that front it.

[Mr. Handy]

Sarah has a pretty good idea of where they are, but she doesn't dare even whisper to the others while there's anything within earshot. If she can hear them, chances are they can hear her. Anything walking around out there couldn't be human.

Then she recalls the announcement earlier telling everyone to go to Accident and Emergency. That must have been where they had all taken shelter. Oh God, she thinks, weeping silently. All those people...we've just exposed them...

[Wrl101]

As the cold bites into his hands, Geoff bites down on his lip, trying still to hold the doors shut. His teeth sink in, blue lips tinted red, a hint of warmth and bitterness hitting his tongue. Cursing silently, the old thoughts of impacting something sharp and menacing leave him now, soon replaced with fear of the doors been torn from his hands and to find himself pulled out, bent and broken in seconds and..
Can't think like that. Just.. don't.

He finally speaks again, his words quite but a little strained and tinted with fear.
"C-can someone else hold the door now..?"

[Laraqua]

The only others who might hold the door is the little boy or Roger, who is stilllying prostate on the floor, his head spinning from all that had happened.

A light, breathy whispering sound can be heard coming from inside the vehicle. It seems to center on the unconscious patient, who has been rolled onto his side from the force of the stop, though it doesn't appear like his lips are moving.

[Laraqua]

Geoff has the torch, currently held in the crook of his elbow as he holds the doors shut with both hands. The ambulance is quite gloomy, due to the torch light aiming at the door.

[Wrl101]

If someone will take the doors for Geoff, he will move as swift as his frozen joins will allow to check the unconscious man. He lost several good friends bringing these patients here and he isn't going to let them die without a fight.

[Laraqua]

Geoff finds everyone to be incredibly still. The boy sitting in an awkward position, maintaining a bizarre squat. Sarah, her back to him, holding the curtain up. It is as though time stood still but for him.

[Wrl101]

Geoff blink. And again, a moment longer.
What in the hell...
Everything seems frozen, snapped up in a photograph of the moment. He has to be sure though. He has to get a better look, make sure, know that this is happening and not that his mind is shattering. Pulling one hand from the handle, the cold tearing at his frozen flesh, he pulls the torch from under his arm and shines it upon the others, looking at each in turn.

[Laraqua]

They are each frighteningly still. There isn't the slightest tremor in their muscles, nor the merest rise and fall of their chests. In the quiet, there is only his breath, his heart beat, and the whispering that comes from the unconscious patient who lies on his side.

[Wrl101]

With one hand loath to leave the door, Geoff leans in, turning his ear to the patient, desperately curious to catch some of the whispered words.

[Laraqua]

Geoff manages to capture the words being muttered by the prostate patient but they sound different, distorted, as though he were speaking underwater. "Shhht! Don't wake up the others. What's your name? I haven't seen you here before." The tone changes, becoming deeper. "I'm worried about these figures, it's too dark to see it properly but, well, how old do you think this is?"

The voice drops and becomes a bare whisper, almost impossible to hear, and yet the tone, the pauses, they were all achingly familiar. "Why did I have to die, Geoff? Why was I the driver? Why did you get to be safe?" The torchlight reveals a silhouette moving behind the blanket, a silhouette that looks suspiciously like the ambulance driver, and yet a silhouette should only function when the light is behind it. It moves back behind the driver seat and out of view.

Then it becomes higher pitched. "You left me out there to die! Why didn't you come try and save me? Isn't that your job? Saving people?" Hands beat against the back door and he feels someone trying to open it.

[Wrl101]

"No.." Geoff wheezes the word out, remembering the eyes of the driver ."No, M-mark, you're.. you're dead.."
But is he? How did he drive us here?
His own delerius words echo in his head, screaming for some logical answer.
He didn't save Mark.
He didn't save Karlene.
He wouldn't save himself. He should have just studied Law, made Daddy proud and saved himself long before this could've happened.

He forces his hands upon the door handles, dropping the torch in an instant.

No. He couldn't. He never wanted to make his father happy. Never gave a damn about how Dad felt. He couldn't have saved Karlene from that.. that. Nobody could. Everything came so quickly and ended even faster. He couldn't save Mark.
There wasn't time! There's never time!

"What could I have done?"

[Laraqua]

The tape on the ambulance window bulges inward as though a hand were pressing against the other side, five fingers were distinct.

"Son?" the crackle of a familiar voice on the ambulance radio. "Son? Keep it together, boy. You can get through this."

The hand was reaching in further now, arching back as though to grasp at the inner door handles where his hands were clasped. The hand was delicate, the arm petite, like a woman's, as it bulged through the black tape.

[Wrl101]

"I.." Geoff closes his eyes tightly, muttering fiercely to himself. "I can! I can do this.. I.. I can save us.. just.. hold together."

With one frozen hand still clamped onto the handle, Geoff tries to grab something - anything - to strike with, trying to grope for the handle of a scalpel, the plastic grips of trauma shears, a syringe - anything with which he can strike at the hand with, if he needs to.

"It'll be ok.. just.. just.. keep it together."