Chapter One

Texas Emergency Care Centre, Houston, Texas – 20:30, 23rd October 2015

Alastair took off his headphones he pressed his nurse call button for the thirteenth time in ten minutes and still no one came to see him. He couldn’t wait to get out of this dump of a hospital and not just because he hated them. Alistair couldn’t wait to complain to Blue Cross Blue Shield, top rated health insurance provider my ass thought Alistair to himself. 

The hospital he was staying in was the Texas Emergency Care Centre from now on he would check reviews on the internet before phoning for an ambulance. This shithole had been given 2.8 stars on Google and he wouldn’t have even given them that. He had been given terrible patient care, meals that ninety year olds with no taste buds would turn their noses up at and a nurse who he was sure was the Texas pie eating champion. 

Alistair knew he wasn’t in a hotel but the extortionate fees his insurance provider hit him with should ensure that he got his own private room with a television set at the very least. Instead he was stuck in a dingy hospital on ward 13. There was only one of patient but he was a raving geriatric lunatic who called himself Bob three beds down but thankfully he must be asleep as Alistair couldn’t hear his incoherent ramblings. 

Where the hell was the nurse? She was so fat; he thought that someone really ought to be treating her, he could normally hear her heavy breathing from a mile off. Alistair couldn’t decide which was more likely, that the porcine halfwit was ignoring him because she was asleep or troughing on patient’s meals. 

Alistair pressed the button for the fourteenth time, and then threw it to the ground with a grumble of frustration; it hit the tiled floor with a clatter and smashed into plastic shrapnel across the floor. He only wanted a drink of water, was that so much to ask? 

‘Fine I will fucking get it myself.’ Alistair muttered to himself, with great effort he swung his legs out of the hospital bed and gingerly got to his feet. ‘You have a fractured ankle they said. You have to keep off it as much as possible they said. Assholes!’

With crutch in hand Alistair set off to find some water, the ward was pitch black as he emerged from his curtained space, he looked to the exit and could see a single lamp light on at the nurses station beyond. Alistair winced as he headed towards the station, he noticed that the geriatric was missing from his bed, this made him titter even the looney hopping Bob knew the patient care was abysmal. 

Alistair emerged from the gloom of the ward and was greeted immediately with a set of fat stockinged legs splayed at ten and two protruding from beside the nurses desk. He knew instantly they were the nurses as he recognised the awful red flat shoes she wore. Alistair closed with the desk and was greeted with a bowel loosening sight, he could clearly see multiple stab wounds to her torso. As well as defensive cuts to her forearms, she was surrounded by an ever expanding pool of her lifeblood. 

The most horrific sight to behold was when he passed the desk and could see all of the nurse’s body. It was hard to tell at first if she felt pain when she was butchered as her face was missing it had been brutally sawn off. There were just ragged chunks of flesh at the edge of where her face should have been. Bloody musculature was visible and without lips she looked to have a permanent grin. Looking into her eyes he knew that she was awake and had experienced excruciating pain when she had been murdered, the look of terror was apparent even without a face to give her a true expression. 

The realisation that he was in the middle of a murder scene and that the lunatic geriatric probably did it and that he wasn’t anywhere to be seen hit him like a freight train –he kind of regretted calling Bob a looney now. A sudden spike of adrenaline washed over him, his fight or flight response kicked in he was getting the fuck out of here. Alistair turned to leave the nurses station but standing in the corridor just beyond the glow of the lamp light was a figure facing him, the figure might have been there the entire time for all he knew.

Alistair’s world slowed down to a crawl he could smell the bitter iron tang of the nurses blood mixed with her voided bowl and bladder. Alistair could feel his heart furiously pumping blood around his body preparing him for the inevitable confrontation. Strangely he could hear a slow dripping noise coming from the corridor like a leaking tap. Alistair brought his crutch up in as much of an en garde fighting position as he could manage ready to fend off the crazy old bastard.

Bob began to slowly walk towards Alistair and he in turn unconsciously began to back pedal wincing with every step. It was then that a gruesome figure emerged into the light, it wasn’t hopping Bob. It was a figure from his deepest darkest nightmares. Alistair had to think of the interloper as an it, as he couldn’t tell the gender of the person for it was wearing the severed face of the nurse. The killer wore a blood drenched a rubberised green apron like a surgeon might. In one hand it held a large serrated bowie knife and in the other it held the severed head of Bob, whose blood was slowly dripping to the tile floor leaving a snail trail behind the murderer. 

The killer dropped the severed head to the floor, it landed with a wet thump of blood splatter. The murderer then stopped in its tracks and stood still for a long moment, it cocked its head with sickening slowness to one side and asked. ‘Alistair Panacea?’

Alistair’s head darted back as if he had been punched in the face. How does he know my name? he thought. The voice was definitely that of a man, he could tell that much. ‘Who the fuck are you?’

The murderer seemed to growl then darted forward faster than Alistair could have anticipated, he attempted to evade but the killer was quicker, he grabbed Alistair by the throat. The murderer knocked Alistair’s crutch to the floor, he then slammed Alistair onto his back over the nurses desk. The murderer set down his knife reaching into his apron he then stabbed Alistair in his right side with whatever he had retrieved. 

The feeling of pain was intense but not as bad as he thought it was going to be, the killer pulled the implement out of Alistair’s side and then held it to the nurses face as if to examine it. The implement wasn’t a knife it looked to be a mechanical device with flashing light going through red, orange and green then after a moment the device settled on a solid red light. 

The murderer growled he set down the device on the table, Alistair saw the nurses face turned to look him it was then that Alistair wet himself. The murderer lowered himself so he was just above Alistair, the nurses fat face hovered there mocking him. Alistair could feel the killer’s hot breath prickle his skin as droplets of the nurses blood trickled onto his face. The killer then proceeded to slowly lick Alistair’s face from the right side of his chin to his ear then inhaled as if savouring the taste like some fine wine.

The killer then whispered two words into Alistair’s ear, as if it was a secret. ‘Wrong, Panacea.’

In a flash the killer grabbed the bowie knife raising it in the air sharply then plunged it into Alistair’s chest, he gasped as he felt it crunch through his ribcage. In his last moments of life Alistair experienced agonising pain as he felt the killer begin to methodically saw through his rib cage. 

The pain was so intense he couldn’t even bring himself to scream but he couldn’t have screamed even if he wanted to as the knife punctured his lung. Alistair’s eyes were streaming with tears, his vision began to swim in and out the last thing he ever saw was his murderer holding aloft Alistair’s still beating heart.