moment.
In Gramma’s ward a janitor with a pail and mop stared at him with hollow eyes. Dan nodded but the man just stared blankly. At the nurses’ station, three nurses stood silently watching him, then one spoke.
“Excuse me? Can I help you?”
Dan kept walking. “No, thank you.”
“Sir, visiting hours are over. You’ll have to leave.”
He ignored her and moved briskly to Gramma’s door. The room was dark, the only light coming from the various medical apparatus.
“Robin?”
"I’m here.”
She emerged from a corner as Gramma and Mrs. Hafu spoke in unison. “Hi Danny.”
Immediately there was shuffling in the hallway. Two men in blue scrubs appeared at the door. One said, “Sir, you’ll have to come with us.” Dan saw their blank expressions, dead eyes, and the fresh puncture wounds on their necks.
“Can’t do that,” he said and stepped backwards. The closest one stepped forward and grabbed his arm. Dan wrenched away and backed further into the room, then put his shoulders down and plowed into them. Taken by surprise, they went down like bowling pins. He turned to Robin. “C’mon!”
They tried to jump over the two, but one was able to clutch Robin’s leg and pull her down. Dan yanked on her arm. After a brief tug-of-war, he won the struggle; he and Robin got to their feet and ran off past the nurses’ station where the same nurses watched with vacant eyes.
At the bend in the corridor, two more men in scrubs yelled “Stop!” and moved toward them. They headed off into another corridor. With footsteps pursuing them, they found an elevator going down and jumped in as the doors were closing.
They went down one floor, ran to the opposite end of the building, took another elevator back to Gramma’s floor and snuck back to her room. They expected to find opposition but amazingly saw no one. Quickly they unfastened Gramma’s restraints and Dan scooped her out of bed and into a wheelchair. Hastily they pushed her into the hallway and went the opposite direction from the nurses’ station to a back elevator and pushed the ground floor button. As they waited, they were sure someone would approach but no one did.
On the ground floor they stepped cautiously into the corridor. Off in the distance they saw more dead-eyed staff in scrubs. They moved silently in the opposite direction and around a corner out of sight. Pushing Gramma’s wheelchair, they