|
|
BALE HOME
Vincent Moore stands, hands shoved in cold, murky dishwater as he stares absent-mindedly out the kitchen window. The wreckage is no longer there, but the almost-rebuilt home next door looks nothing like Vince remembers his childhood home.
It never struck him more that the old saying about not being able to come home was true. Since Vince first left his home, embittered with his lot in life and ready to move in to the Hanley mansion, he'd seen everything he did appreciate about the early years of his life wither and die.
Even if he moved back home, nothing would ever be the same.
"Is this a first?"
Vince turns to find Robert Bale in the doorway, a weary look hung across his face. Though he doesn't particularly like the man, he at least appreciates him housing Vince's family in the wake of their drama with Michael.
"I've done the dishes before," Vince says. "I might have been twelve. Where's my mother?"
"She was at the hospital getting a check-up, she said she'd call when she's done," Robert says, sighing. "And I couldn't wait around there."
Robert sits down at the kitchen table, lowering his face to his hands.
"How...how's Alec?"
"I think he's okay. Thanks for asking."
"Everything's so different now, you know?" Vince says abruptly.
"Yeah. It is."
"Alec's going through all of this shit. My life is...well, it's generally a hot mess. I wish everything was like it was before. Simple."
"Well now even the simple things seem too complicated these days. Things will get better."
Vince frowns. "They have to."
As they enter a moment of silence, Vince and Robert form an uneasy bond between themselves. That is, until their silence is broken by a loud booming noise. The kitchen seems to rattle slightly, as if it were the onset of an earthquake.
But there is no quake.
"What in the hell was that?"
MARQUETTE COVE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
A dark, black mist hangs in the air with a dead silence that looms over the damage of the hospital. A large gaping exists where a wing once was, and there are large pieces of smoldering rock deep in the grooves of the pavement.
"Leslie..."
Sean Moore rises to his feet, coughing and gasping for air as he attempts to search for Leslie. He can barely see anything, the smoke is too thick for him to even see a couple inches in front of him.
"Sean!"
"Leslie, I can't see you!" Sean calls out, covering his eyes with his arm. "Keep talking to me so I can follow your voice!"
"I'm...I'm trying to..."
Sensing the urgency and panic in her voice, Sean tries calming her down. "Don't move! Just stay where you are and keep calm. You don't want to...you don't want to lose the baby."
"Trust me, I'm not moving," Leslie says. "There's a...there's a piece of debris or something on top of me. I'm scared, Sean...I'm scared for this baby."
As Sean continues to wander through the smoke, he accidentally trips over a large piece of fallen debris. Falling onto his chest, he sputters and spits as dirt flies into his mouth and nostrils.
"Sean!"
"Leslie, I told you to stop — wait...are you next to me?"
"Yes, you idiot," Leslie says, but her tone isn't angry. It's playful, almost. As playful as her voice can become in the midst of such a nightmare.
"Well, let me find my land legs..." Sean mutters, climbing to his knees and reaching out to touch Leslie's arm. "Don't worry. You're going to be fine."
Fighting back tears, Leslie shakes her head slightly. "I know."
MARQUETTE COVE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
The sound of her son crying throws Jessica Reyes into a state of panic. She struggles to catch her balance, navigating through the dilapidated hospital cafeteria. Or rather, what's left of the cafeteria.
Half of the room is caved in, the other half has seemingly merged with the first floor of the hospital which is now at a slant. She crouches down to the floor to avoid the swinging electrical chords and squints to find Phillip.
"Phillip!" Jessica screams, nearly tearing her lungs out. "Phillip! Mommy's coming!"
Hearing a loud groan nearby, Jessica assumes it's Darren, who was next to her when the explosion or whatever it was rocked the hospital. Jessica flips over a chair and looks at the wounded man, only surprised to discover that it's Eric Hanley.
"Eric," Jessica gasps. "I thought you were Darren!"
"No...I'm not...where is he? Is he..." Eric can barely speak. His mouth feels dry and scratchy, as if he'd only just emerged a desert or sauna. "...is he dead?"
"I don't know, but you have to help me find Phillip," Jessica says, still hearing her son wailing. "Please! Help me find my son!"
Billy bends over, removing a pair of sneakers from a hapless victim and sticking them onto his feet. The shoes are about half a size too small, but if he's going to make a speedy escape from the hospital amidst all of this chaos, he will definitely need shoes.
Part of him knows he should feel bad over leaving Alec's mother and that Simon idiot lying unconscious where the floor could give away at any moment. But the other part of him knows that they deserve everything that's coming to them.
As he takes a few steps forward, barely able to see in the smoky building, Billy cries out as he trips over a piece of debris and falls forward, sliding down a slanted floor.
He rolls into a large pile of rubble, his ears ringing with the sounds of a child crying nearby. Billy climbs to his feet and finally spots Phillip...Alec and Jessica's son...his son too, sitting amidst the wreckage in tears.
"Phil?" Billy picks up Phillip from the flower, wrapping him in his arms. "You okay, buddy? Everything's gonna be okay, all right?"
As Billy tries finding somewhere to escape from the area, the hospital begins to shake again. He crouches down, still clutching Phillip, and braces both of them for what's to come.
"I don't see him," Jessica says, gripping Eric's arm. "Are you looking?"
Eric swats Jessica away, attempting to look for Phillip by himself. But he's also attempting to scan the wreckage for any signs of Darren. As he looks off toward the distance where the first floor of the hospital has merged with the cafeteria, he notices someone familiar holding a child.
"Alec?"
"Huh? He's in the hospital, but..."
"No, that's Alec," Eric says, turning Jessica toward the dark figure. "I think he has Phillip!"
"Oh, thank God," Jessica says, a smile finally breaking through on her face. "Alec!"
The figure looks up at her, ready to move forward. But before she can take a step forward, the hospital begins to shake again. And within moments, the man she believes to be Alec is buried underneath an onslaught of debris with their son.
"No!" Jessica shrieks, clawing at Eric as he tries to hold her back. "Let me go! I have to get my son!"
"Jessica, you could die!" Eric insists, struggling to keep her out of harms way as more of the ceiling caves in.
TOM KING'S CAR
Tom King tosses back another gulp of Wild Turkey as he speeds down the highway, rapidly escaping the hospital damage. He glances at the open laptop in his car's passenger seat, where the last page of his Blackthornes script is visible.
In the moments before the asteroid struck the hospital, taking out an entire wing and damaging most of the building's structure…all he could think about was the initial deal he struck with Isoke years ago, where everything he wrote would come to pass.
He only had time to scribble out a few lines making the asteroid smaller than he intended, but it didn't do much to save the hospital from being destroyed. But at least the entire town was still on the map, and Tom was still alive.
"I've got to get the hell out of here, away from that crazy bitch," Tom says, swerving as he speeds past cars on the road.
As he drives, one of his tires blows out, causing his vehicle to skid into a tree. Bracing himself for the impact, Tom is surprised when his car isn't completely totaled. He breathes a deep sigh of relief and picks up a fallen DVD from the floor of his car.
The DVD with Blake Thomas' name on it. The one he'd had in his possession for years — it was the only ace left up his sleeve. The one thing he was going to use to back Michael Thomas into a corner when he betrayed him and decided to help his friends escape from the Highwind where they were being held captive.
"Please don't be ruined..." Tom mumbles, struggling to shove the DVD into his laptop to make sure it wasn't destroyed in his escape from the hospital.
Dark video footage pops up on the screen, footage from a surveillance camera. On the screen, it shows a young black man standing in front of Blake.
"So, you've come to pay me, huh? Well that's an interesting twist," the young man says. "Not that I expected Chris to come through. Honestly, I expected him to storm my house, guns-a-blazing."
"Yeah," Blake says. "Something like that…"
The young man turns away from Blake to open a drawer, removing a small recording device.
"I've got something to give you. It's a tape of my conversation with you and Chris. I was planning on using it to persuade you, but it seems I won't need it anymore."
"No, you certainly won't, Damon," Blake says, his voice barely audible. He steps forward and grabs Damon, the young man.
"What the hell are you doing? Get off of me!"
Blake presses a surgical knife to Damon's neck.
"Don't hurt me! I was just…I was just kidding about the tape. There is no tape. And I don't really need your money…I've got enough from Alec and —"
Blake swipes the sharp edge of the surgical knife across Damon's neck, slicing it open. After holding Damon's body for a few seconds, Blake finally lets his victim crash to the floor.
Tom shuts off the DVD, grinning. "It's all there."
"Yes, but not for long."
Tom turns, horrified to find Isoke now sitting in his car. "Isoke, please, just let me..."
"Escape with your life? Hmm...no."
MARQUETTE COVE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
"Blake! Wake up!" Aaron Maddock says, attempting in vain to give CPR to Blake Thomas.
Once Aaron recovered from hitting his head on his desk, he tried finding a way out of the wreckage. That's when he came across most of the set for the The Blackthornes, the goddamn show that had been disturbing him during quiet moments in his office.
At least now they'd have to find a new place to film, with all of their equipment destroyed.
But Blake...he must have been on the set today, filming. When Aaron found him lying bruised and bloody on the floor, it send him into a wave of panic. Lying next to Blake was that annoying girl Akilah Moore, the one who was always asking him questions about her dreams when she ran into him in the cafeteria.
Needless to say, his priority was saving Blake's life first. Then Akilah's. Maybe.
"Blake," Aaron whispers. "You can't die! I won't lose you!"
As Aaron watches Blake's life slip away from him, he's reminded of the many times they had sex together in Blake's dorm. When Aaron would awake and slip away in the night before Vince could return, he always found Blake to be amazingly beautiful when he slept.
But now, he doesn't look peaceful and innocent. He looks as if he'll never awake. Just like last year, when he got into a fight with Jack and ended up in the hospital in need of a blood transfusion. It was in the midst of all that when Blake decided he could no longer be with Aaron.
He said it was because he needed time to himself, but here he is, living with Darren again. Sparking the relationship they had years ago when Blake was only in high school. At least Aaron had waited until Blake was a senior. Darren had to pounce the moment he laid eyes on Blake.
"Wake the hell up!"
Almost as if in response to Aaron's cries, Blake begins to cough slightly. Ecstatic, Aaron pulls Blake to a sitting position, wrapping his arms around him.
"You're alive," Aaron says. "You're alive."
"Aaron...what happened?" Blake says, choking out his words. "Where's..."
"Don't worry about that now," Aaron insists. "Just stay with me."
He pulls Blake into a kiss. And Blake, still disoriented and groggy, doesn't resist. He finds something familiar about the kiss and in the heat of the moment, kisses Aaron back.
"Where am I..."
Neither men hear the soft whisper next to them at first. But once Akilah gains her bearings and sits up on the hospital floor, witnessing the kiss between Aaron and Blake, her louder exclamation of shock breaks them apart.
"Akilah," Aaron gasps, staring at the young girl in shock. "It's not what you...I was just..."
Coughing out her words, Akilah stares at Aaron in bewilderment. "What in the hell is going on?"
MARQUETTE COVE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
"You're going to marry Aaron Maddock."
The words echo in Rebecca Li's mind as she stares at Kyle Maddock, lying unconscious amidst the hospital wreckage. The humanity in her says that she should rescue him, but the survival instinct in her says that she should let him lie there and die.
If Kyle were dead, then she would no longer be under his thumb.
She had been controlled by men so much in her life, starting with her first husband and the horrible life he kept her hostage in when she lived in New Jersey. It was only when she fell in love with Kane, then her husband's personal assistant, that she was able to find the strength to break free.
Only now, here she was again.
Trapped between a rock and an even more jagged one.
"Rebecca..."
Rebecca turns to her right and sees Kane, awake on the floor, slumped against one of the few walls left standing in the hospital. She hurries to him, crouching next to the wall.
"Are you okay, honey?" Rebecca asks.
"I'm fine," Kane insists.
"Good," Rebecca says, kissing him. "I couldn't bear it if you died, Kane. I'd sooner kill myself."
"Don't talk like that," Kane says. "We need to...we need to get out of here. This place could come crashing down at any moment."
"You're right. But we need to...we need to get Kyle."
"That son of a bitch?" Kane demands. "There's not a chance in hell!"
"He could die, Kane. We're not murderers."
"No, you're not. But I am," Kane says softly.
Rebecca slaps him. "Stop it! You are not responsible for that man's death! It was an accident. It was just a horrible, horrible accident."
"Sure," Kane says, groaning as he climbs to his feet. "Well, if we're gonna grab the son of a bitch let's do it already."
Rebecca nods. "Great. You grab him from the arms, I'll get his legs."
Kane moves toward Kyle's body, noticing the absolutely fear on Rebecca's face. And in that moment, he knows what he has to do. He bends over, pressing his hand to Kyle's neck. He waits a few seconds, then looks up at Rebecca.
"He's dead," Kane lies. "There's no pulse."
"Are you...are you sure?"
"Yes. He's dead," Kane says, standing and moving toward Rebecca. He grabs her hand and pulls her away from Kyle. "And if we don't get out of here right now, we'll be just as dead as him."
MARQUETTE COVE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
Leslie breathes heavily as Sean tries once more in vain to remove the debris from Leslie's legs. Finally, he rises to his feet and shakes his head in defeat.
"Just don't move. I need to find someone who can help me get this off you."
"If there is anyone," Leslie says. "All of those people inside that hospital... Denise...she's in there with your baby."
Sean steels himself, thankful that Leslie can't see his face amidst the dark cloud of smoke. He wipes away a trickling set of tears. Shielding his eyes once more, he waves his hands through the air, attempting to clear away some of the smoke.
"I'm gonna check out what's left of the hospital," Sean says. "Are you going to be —"
"Oh Lord, where the hell is the ambulance?! We're at a damn hospital!"
Sean and Leslie immediately recognize the loud, abrasive voice in the distance as belonging to the soon-to-be mother of Sean's child — Denise Price.
"Speak of the devil," Leslie groans.
"Denise!" Sean calls out. "Is that you?"
"Sean!" Denise's voice echoes throughout the air. "Sean, you have to help me! My father passed out! We tried to get out of the hospital, but he hit his head and he...oh...oh God..."
"What's wrong?"
"Oh God, it's the baby!" Denise cries, her voice filled with horror. "Something...something's wrong!"
"Sean, go!" Leslie urges, pushing at his legs to hurry him along. "I'll be fine! Just go!"
Nodding, Sean hurries off into the smoke, hoping against hope that he'll be able to find Denise before the worst imaginable could happen.
MARQUETTE COVE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
Leslie recognized him.
The woman married to Michael Hanley was never friends with him, but she definitely knew who he was when he walked into the hospital. Just before the explosion, or whatever the hell happened.
The impact sent shockwaves throughout the hospital, causing him to nearly die falling down a flight of stairs. Luckily, the part of the hospital he'd been in was still standing.
It was damaged to all hell, but it was still standing.
Light fixtures hung from the ceiling. Electric sparks flew from holes in the wall, and he could barely see with all of the smoke in the building. If he used the gun he held in his hands, there was a slight chance that the entire hospital might go up in flames. Who knows if there was a fucking gas leak around.
But he needs the weapon.
This bitch is dangerous.
When he was first tipped off that his worst nightmare might have to chance to play out again — in broad daylight, as if nothing had even happened years ago — he was horrified. Then he was disgusted. Then...well, then he was pissed off.
Now, he is calm.
He knows what he has to do.
Which is why went the hospital went into chaos, breaking his nightmare free from the cage that had been holding it for years, he did the only thing sensible. He took her.
And he dragged her deep into the basement of the hospital, away from the damage, and handcuffed her to a door.
"Wake up."
"Where...where am I?"
"Staring down the barrel of all the shit you heaped on me and the people I care about," he says, aiming the gun at her.
"Wait a second...that voice...I..."
She glances up, only able to squint in the dark. But through his voice and the outline of his body, she definitely knows who she's speaking to.
"Ryan..."
"That's right," Ryan Phillips says, hovering his finger above the gun's trigger. "Now, tell me. Is there any reason I shouldn't just go ahead and kill you now... Alexis?"
