"That girl is kinda cute. Chubby, yet still cute. She'll be fun. You know, I thought my whole plan had turned sour ... to be honest. When I think of it now it's actually all starting to iron out ... perfect really. I can do whatever I want to her and my patsy will still get the blame."

"Keep ... your hands ... off her!"

"Relax ... to tell the truth I was lying. I don't think she's cute at all. She's really quite ugly actually. Fat women are the worst kind of woman, but she's ugly beyond that. It wouldn't be fun. Spite is fun though. I'll do it for spite."

"You ... you won't find them ... now."

The doctor began strolling away in pursuit of Sierra and Henry. "You really think I'd waste this much time talking to you if they could get away? The doors in this place are locked. I know which doors are locked and which ones are open because I locked them and opened them." He dangled a set of keys. "They won't get out that way. This is my hospital. It is my maze. They are rats in my maze. Good bye, old bum."

Sierra fell against another double door, desperately banging it with her fist. "This one's locked too! We can't stay here, we have to go back."

Henry vied for another option. Raising the sledgehammer, he began beating into the wooden frame. It didn't crack on one hit, and wouldn't for a few more.

"He's coming!" Sierra cried.

Footfalls tapped from out of sight. The sound tapped faster and faster until the doctor's shadow loomed from beyond a corner. Its movement slowed, confident in victory.

Henry continued to hammer. With each heavy bang that shadow seemed to become slowly more aware of Henry's plan. It burst into a sudden fury of movement until the doctor stood out in full, away from his shadows. From a range of but twenty paces, the doctor stormed upon them.

The door broke before the doctor made it in time. Henry had cracked a hole big enough for Sierra to be pushed through first. Henry on the other hand found himself grabbed, ensnared within one of the doctor's hands.

Sierra, now through the door, did everything to pull her friend through. The effort proved futile. For all her pulling she found herself being dragged back through the opening. Amidst all the struggling she heard Henry cry for her too run. His voice strained chokingly. He was being choked.

Salvation came when Henry dropped the hammer. By accident or not Henry let it slip within arm reach of Sierra.

Snatching it up, she rammed it through the opening and into the doctor's knee cap. He crumbled without dropping the lad. That's why she did it again, and again, until he did.

Henry still kicking back at the doctor's face, Sierra pulled him through the opening. With no time to stop Henry gasped for breath before setting into another blind sprint. What little ground they'd hoped to gain shrank when without any struggle, those double doors opened on the click of a key. Then through them came the doctor to resume it all. He chased without show of injury. There was no pain in that man. And he came, seemingly faster than before.

Rum only managed to get off his back. Pressing up from the floor, he formed a crippled hunch to inspect the damage. One wipe of his palm over face left a hand awash in blood. Considering the beating he received it could have been coming from anywhere. It certainly wasn't coming from his mouth, which oozed a separate spill of blood. Even still, Rum walked pain stricken on the doctor's trail.

"Damn bastard," he uttered. "Can't take this old bum out so easy. He's strong though. How does a pencil neck doctor get so strong?"

Rum stopped limping to examine an item at his feet, an empty syringe.

"Damn litter bug ... so that's it ... the bastard's got drugs."

Two more syringe needles provided a clear enough trail to follow.

Chapter 34.

The doctor's nearing silhouette pursued Henry and Sierra with renewed resilience. For moments that darkness called a man would vanish then reappear for every corner they turned in this bland, familiar corridor. They continued till there were no more corners left to turn. One electronically locked double door blocked the way forward while nothing but a clear straight hall stood between the bums and the doctor.

Again they crashed straight into the door with nothing but a prayer. No such luck. Henry quickly turned to Sierra.

"Sierra, the hammer?"

"I-I dropped it."

"That you did, Sierra," the doctor yelled, in full view approaching with sledgehammer clutched in both hands.

Henry eyed back and forth between the doctor and a second door along the side wall. A notice labelled it as basement access. In those brief moments of contemplation he paid attention to the doctor's lack of regard for the door, and quickly concluded it to be another locked one. Even if he did make a run for it he'd likely be intercepted. Then he noticed a third option.

"The laundry shoot!"

"Henry?"

"There's an exit in the basement. Just go!"

He grabbed Sierra and pushed her down the laundry shoot. Sparing no time he dove in after, a large grabbing hand caught nothing but the air at the back of his neck.

Hurdling down the shoot, Henry's feet remained suspended above Sierra's head until crashing to a full laundry bin. Those feet of his suddenly became closer to that head of hers.

Wrapped in filth stained clothes they each fumbled about until recklessly falling out of the bin to a concrete floor. Amidst the silence of their resting gasps, pipes lining the roof burped and churned as if ready to burst open any moment. The sounds created an impression of total isolation, how the echoes reverberated against the concrete room like bats in an empty cavern.

Henry knelt by Sierra's side. "Are you okay, how's your leg?"

For a moment she held in pain, then released. "I'll be fine. I just need rest."

"We should go."

"He can't fit down the chute. Just let me rest a bit."

"More than likely he has the key for the basement access door. I'd give him a minuet to get here.

"And where will we go?"

"There's a fire escape in the boiler room down here, if we go now we can get out there in time. Come on, I'll carry you."

He lifted the girl into his arm.

"Do you know where it is?"

"I've an idea. That's how I got out of here the first time. I mean ... that's how he got me out of here."

"Who?"

"Him."

The doctor appeared in the only doorway to this room. His body dominated the doorframe. And his smile ... The way he smiled, a frozen smile. He didn't breathe through it. Though he'd clearly stormed down three flights of stairs to get to the basement so quickly, he didn't even gasp. He tossed an empty syringe to the floor as if to show the reason for it.

"Poor babies, you wanted to get downstairs yet you came too far. I've always said this basement feels like a tomb ... Fitting, I guess."

"You won't get away with this ... not here!" Henry yelled. "You think you can chase us around a hospital without someone noticing?"

"Yes. I've done it twice before on a full house, what's to stop me now? Of course, I'd already given those women their 'medication' and people seldom shake their heads when a clearly unstable patience is pulled kicking and screaming through a crowded corridor. The doctor's trying to kill me, she'll say ... mad woman, I'll say. It's a common sight around here actually ... even on our better days there's always one or two who scream bloody murder."

"We're not patients here. They won't fall for that."

"You could be right. Of course, the police do already have you, Henry, on record for stealing pills from this hospital. Why ... the very same medication as that darned serial killer, would you believe? Everyone does expect to return back here for more eventually ... after all you've stolen most of your drugs from here, so why wouldn't you come back for more?"

"I never robbed any pills!"

"Really? You did run from the police Henry, and guilty men don't run. They simply wanted to question you about robbing medication after a doctor at this hospital witnessed you stealing them. You ran away. Now you're a suspect. You can imagine how alarmed I was when I learned those pills you stole are the same as the serial killer's."

"I don't have your pills anymore! They're gone, you've nothing on me."

"I'll have a drug test on you once you're apprehended. Those pills, did you know they're also highly addictive and used as a powerful narcotic by those who need that little bit ... of a difference? The police tell me, and as doctor I agree, it seems likely the serial killer takes for recreational purposes as well as for the murders ... strange as that is. So ... how long has it been since you swallowed those pills I gave you? Little under a week? They'll need to swab you good but they'll find it. It's still in your system."

"Y-you planned all that?"

"Call it an extra benefit to a separate very good plan. Now, I'll do away with the girl, apprehend you and be treated as a hero."

"You were lying to me the whole time! You tricked me! No! There's no proof. A drug test can't prove I killed someone! The police won't believe your story."

"They will when they test those clothes I gave you, the clothes I gave you to replace the ones you damaged in the fire. The ones you're still wearing now. Maybe they'll find the DNA belonging to several of those women drenched into the seams. Maybe they'll do a background check and learn that those trousers you're wearing belonged to my second victim. She was about your size."

"You won't get away with this. I'm going to stop you."

"Henry ... you dressed up in woman's drag because I told you to. What could you even begin to try and do against me?"

Sierra stabilised herself by leaning on the laundry bin. "It's you ... I remember hearing about you."

"What's that?"

"We were at Annette Lucille's house. One of her neighbours told us a doctor kept visiting her shortly before the murder ... that was you wasn't it?"

No returning emotion told her all she needed to know.

"If you turn Henry over they'll piece it together. Police will know you were visiting her before the murder."

"That could be damning ... a caring doctor visiting one of his many gravely ill patients ... that's such very damming evidence. What an awful person they'll think I am. I'm sure your story might be of more interest to them ... the good for nothing pathetic bum who returned to the scene of the crime to see everything he'd done. You even brought your friends around to show them. That's sick Henry. You're sick."

"Annette deserves better."

"Don't tell me what that woman deserves. With her husband dead she had no one left to truly care for her. Think about it ... sure, I drugged her, tortured her, raped her, murdered her. But I was there for her. No one else came to visit. No one else stayed with her like I did. I was the nicest person she knew. That boring bitch had nothing better. I'm glad she's dead and so is she."

"She didn't want to die ... no matter how bad things were."

"She didn't want to give up. That's not bravery it's human arrogance. People are afraid of quitting. In truth people always want to die, every one of us ... even you. Death is easy like that. She was my first. If she didn't want it, I guarantee there wouldn't have been a second."

Henry stared the doctor down, shoulders slouched in rage. "It's because you're a coward. It's bad enough you target women, but you couldn't even start with a healthy woman."

"I had to see if I could go through with it. I did. It worked."

"Bullshit! Look at you! You can't even chase two stupid bums without your drugs to keep you going! You're weak! You didn't choose a sick woman to see if you could actually go through with it. You did it because you didn't want her to fight back. You were afraid ... you were afraid that a strong target might actually fight back ... then you'd be too damn scared to try again! You're a coward."

"Coward! Me? Careful what you point at others. Consider it ... why do you think I chose you as my patsy? Look at you, you weak, pathetic, loner. A man so gutless he ran blindly into a burning building just to regain some sense of self-worth."

Henry quietened.

"You see, I'm right. Fact is, I could have told you my intentions for you when we first met ... and you'd be in this same situation now. You would have strolled straight out the hospital doors with your head wedged deep in sand. So many people out there wouldn't be so gullible, but you ate it all up. I bet you didn't even tell anyone what happened because you were so afraid. Don't call me a coward, you wouldn't be standing here if you'd ever grown a back bone."

Henry flung his fist in blind rage. Too blind. He failed to connect with the target. The doctor had taken an effortless step back out into the hallway to dodge. For one instant he formed a cocky grin and seemed intent on continual gloating. All hint of confidence vanished when he began falling sideways, under force of an ominous silhouette bringing him tackling to the ground.

"Rum!" Sierra called.

The doctor reduced to the floor, Rum remained standing. The old man stood in the door frame, which he collapsed against.

Sierra leapt up to hug him, finding herself pulled cautiously back by Henry's arms. "Rum, you're okay!"

Gashed, bruised, panting and barely standing, the old bum stuck his thumb up. "Was ... there ... ever any ... doubt. This guy ... couldn't even-"

Sierra and Henry couldn't see it from the angle within the laundry room. It seemed a fist had jabbed him in the stomach. So the old bum slinked slowly to the floor, where the same hand lifted him back up. A second punched him in the face.

"What was that you said about gloating!?" the doctor roared.

Through the beating, Rum turned an eye to Sierra and Henry. No way they could get past with the two of them blocking the doorway. Drastic measures would be needed. Rum allowed himself to fall to the floor.

The doctor tried to pick him up, but Rum grabbed his hand and made effort to pull him down too. It didn't work as well as he'd hoped, but it would work enough.

Rum sent out a groan sounding similar to the word, 'run'.

So they did.

Henry squeezed round the doctor first with Sierra behind. The mad man freed an arm to snag the girl. So she struggled between Henry and the doctor, herself at the centre of a tug o' war she could never win. Trying to free Sierra proved futile so Henry quit, deciding instead on the more tactical option of bashing the doctor in the side of the head. He didn't dodge this time. He didn't feel them either for that matter. Though Henry slashed out like an ant biting a rhino, the man didn't have enough hands to deal with all three of their efforts combined, so he dropped Rum to deal with the nuisance known as Henry. That was a mistake.

Old Rum jumped on top the doctor's back, wrapping arms around his throat and pulling him backward to the ground. Sierra still squirmed without give.

With the doctor partially subdued Henry traded his pathetic little punches to pathetic little kicks aimed straight for that pathetic little face of his. That was enough to cause a snarl on his face and two vengeful eyes to glare wider, so Sierra jammed her fingers in them. His hands snapped open, he let her go.

Rum grabbed the doctor, holding him still. Henry stopped kicking. The way was clear and it was time to make a move again. This time they didn't need Rum bellowing orders for them to take the hint. Hand in hand, he and Sierra darted through the new opening almost immediately.

By time they left his sight, old Rum had been upturned. The beating started and ended with Rum left lying in a bloody puddle. He would not get up again.

The doctor's damning echo rolled down the stone corridor. "Stay dead!"