Legs worn to the strength of jelly, Henry stumbled into the wall. Sierra, no longer so tired having carried herself less, stopped to offer reassurance.

"Move it you bloody pussy! Get us to the boiler room."

Henry nodded with a replenishing gulp of his throat. "I-It's ... down here ... I think."

All this time they'd been running and now more than ever tiredness overwhelmed them. The basement layout caused it. How every corner rolled on with the same cavernous monotony, broken only by the odd fork on the end of another straight path. It looked as though this hospital had been built atop some ancient temple ground. Except this one came dotted with the occasional loosely stacked crates and odd slop bucket spilled along the side. As they ran these surroundings continued to repeat like the background reels of an old cartoon. It would take a creaking shriek to bring them to a startled halt. The noise pierced through the dull sound of silence. It came from the pipes above them. They were warping with sudden heat like the pipe system in a decrepit mansion.

"The power's back on!" Sierra said.

"It's just the heating system. See, the main lights haven't even come back on yet."

"What does that mean?"

"It means we need to find that boiler room."

"Sort of waiting on you for that."

Henry rested his hand on the wall, gasping for breath. "I know but ... I was barely conscious at the time. Memory's a little hazy." He let his eyes follow the sound of creaking pipes running along the roof above. "The heat's coming from the boiler room ... we can find it by following the pipes."

Sierra followed his eyes. "That sounds like a plan."

Another sound pierced the hallway. This time nothing mechanical but the sound of a man wailing in a running fit. Not a wail of pain, fatigue or even remorse. It was a call of rage, pure hate storming their way.

The path of pipes proved true. Reefing open the heavy bulk of the boiler room door, the pair hurried through, quickly barring it shut with a broom handle.

Sierra at once fell back against the door, sliding to the floor. She wheezed and panted in some hope of rest, like Henry who did the same by sitting atop a blanketed crate.

Henry gazed round the room in tired haze to remember the way. A small glow from the coal fuelled boiler tinted the room to some degree, though it still lay mostly shadowed. It was somewhere in that shadow, amidst the interwoven pipes running from along the ceiling down into the floor, where he'd woken from his drugged induced state before. Even without light to see, he was sure this was the same boiler room. The fire exit should be somewhere in that shadow. No sooner did he stand up to investigate did the boiler room door rattle on an awesome bang. A thump, that rattling turned to thumping. Each boom seemed powerful enough to fling the door open. The bangs increased as thumps and punches became replaced with kicks and knees. Then they changed for something else entirely, something heavier being slammed into the door. The broom handle jumped in tune with sounds of cracking wood.

Spurred by these sounds, Henry grabbed and pushed Sierra into the shadow, where he charged like a human battering ram. They hurdled, almost blind, through the darkness, bumping into pipes and continuing till touching what he assumed to be the fire door. He pushed the bar down and opened into a flurry of snow.

They entered outside, into a tight side alley lined with boxes. It was the same one Henry remembered from before, with the same high wall to the main street on his left. Except now snow filled the grounds. Crates he might have used to leverage his way over the high wall lay sheeted half to the brim in snow. Henry at once tried to claw them free.

Realising the small window of time, Sierra shook Henry's shoulder till he turned to her with desperate eyes lacking all common sense. It would take the thrashing bang emanating from the boiler room to really snap his senses awake.

"I got out this way before," he whimpered. "We need to stack the boxes so..."

"Not this time. Come on."

Sierra lead the way, limping instead to the right, out the alleyway and into the rear storage yard. In her haste she slipped on her dodgy leg, finding herself saved in Henry's arms. Once again Henry carried both of them.

There came a sudden boom of slamming steel, sounding even over the howling wind. It seemed the doctor had proved successful in his effort to open the boiler door. With their slow pace it would take him but moments to catch up. Knowing that did little to hasten their fatigued pace.

Still, they limped and gasped their way till their aimless escape brought them to rows of shipping containers. They enveloped the area in neat single file rows, forming laneways between each like mazes of steel with no centre to speak of.

On the threshold to one of these tight lanes, Sierra tripped. Henry attempted to catch her but instead fell under her weight.

"My leg!" Sierra shrieked.

Henry checked the problem. She had tripped on a plank of wood left carelessly tossed to the ground. By time Henry mustered strength enough to lift her, a grim shadow fell over them both. The doctor stood above, a foreboding grin on his bloodied lips. The width of his shoulder blocked the entrance to this narrow lane between the containers.

"Henry, get out of here! Leave me."

"I'm not leaving you."

"Please, Henry ... run."

Henry clenched his teeth as if to block out her words. Sneaking a glance to that plank of wood Sierra tripped over, he conjured thoughts of grabbing it. If only the opportunity were there he could smash it over that tormenting face up there. But it wouldn't hurt much anyway, he needed something harder. He needed the doctor's own weapon.

The doctor looked wryly at the sledgehammer in his hand. "Something got your eye? I don't think it'll do you any-"

He froze in his mocking on hearing a distant yelling smothered by the wind. It dimmed in and out from under the howling, appearing then disappearing. It sounded like a man's voice calling from high up above, a man named Alex.

It drew their attentions high up to one of the top windows of the hospital, where a distant shape of a man hung out over the window's edge to see down to this yard below. He seemed unaware of the lack of coherency granted by the noisy wind yet yelled at them all the same. And all the same, it did the trick.

"Alex!" Sierra cried.

Henry lunged for the sledge hammer, quickly prying it from the doctor's grip he held it aloft and thumped it into the man's face. Though it felt to Henry like a deadly blow, the doctor merely fell down, grunting curses as he rubbed the pain away.

At once Henry dropped the hammer to lighten their load. Grabbing Sierra by the hand, they rushed deeper into the corridor of storage containers. With Sierra in arm, Henry rounded corner after tightly weaving corner. Though they had no place to run to, they couldn't stop.

A damming roar signalled the doctor's recovery. The sudden, and quickly nearing, tempo of crunching snow under foot suggested they'd left a clear trail of footprints behind.

Perhaps it was the fear of the roaring that caused Sierra to slip. Henry caught her in time, pulling her back up. At that moment the girl's eyes widened with hope when one sign of salvation appeared straight ahead.

There was a single frame glass doorway on the end of this straight, all tucked down here like a lone portal forgotten amidst all these crates. At that moment their movement hastened despite fatigue. In that same moment the crunching footfalls of their pursuer switched to thumping charges, booming in the quiet of this corridor like the last gunfire on the eve of a great battle.

The doctor's sudden insistence triggered the pair into a greater sense of hope. If the door had been locked the man would have slowed, confidently taken his time, like he had for the basement access door. The door, they knew, would be unlocked.

With all hope they charged into it, and went straight through, tumbling into darkness until landing flat on a cold tiled floor. What light seeped through the window from the fog lights showed them enough of this cafeteria to get their bearings. At once they began barricading the door with tables and chairs.

With nothing but a sloppily formed pile holding it shut, Henry turned for the only other doorway in the room, a double door which should take them to the first floor of the main building. Henry grabbed the handle, and pulled, and pulled.

"It's locked!"

"What do we do?"

The barricaded door began to rattle. In just one push, and one great bang, the makeshift barricade jumped a whole yard back. Henry ran to hold it shut.

"Hide behind the counter. I'll ... hold him off."

"Henry?"

"You can't do anything here ... you have to-"

The barricade collapsed. The door swung open then that man burst in like an invader to his rival's throne room. How Henry fell to the floor and crawled away only stood to amplify such an image.

His eyes settled to Henry down there on the tiles, crawling away in terror. He grinned at the man's futile state, switching his attention to Sierra who at once took cover behind the cafeteria cash register.

She attempted to hide behind what distance the countertop provided between herself and those arms reaching for her. She ducked back and dodged the snatching grabs for as long as she could. It wasn't long. He snared her throat with one hand, and punched her with the other.

Henry, still reduced to the floor, lunged for the doctor's legs. Hands wrapped round tight, he held and squeezed.

In utter passiveness, the doctor dropped Sierra to the floor then leaned down to lift Henry by the scruff of the neck. Holding Henry in the air, he stared into the little man's eyes as if to contemplate delivering a worse thrashing as he had to the girl. The doctor smirked then merely tossed him away to the floor.

That trace amount of pity, for better or worse, wouldn't last long. When the doctor did return attention to Sierra, he saw her lying there unconscious. She would wait there for him. His patsy wouldn't.

Sensing an imminent change of heart, Henry crawled away desperately till his back pressed against those double doors. Shaken by this sudden contact Henry sprang up to tackle the doctor blindly.

Smack. The doctor walloped his face with something, something hard. Henry fell back against the door and for the briefest of moments flickered in and out of consciousness.

With his back again pressed against the only door between isolation and salvation, Henry watched as the doctor drew over him, standing but a foot in distance.

The doctor held that sledgehammer triumphantly in hand. "Remember this? You really should pick up after yourself, Henry. You'd leave less incriminating evidence behind, that's for sure."

Henry groaned a mindless defence.

"I have to admit it's been a pleasure. Certainly, I'd hoped for the police to catch a live suspect rogue out on the streets, far away from here. At least this way I won't have to listen to you cry about your innocence on the news day after day. The media won't get their live convict to boo and jeer, so I'll give them a hero instead - me. Sure this is inconvenient, but at least dead men can't cry innocent. Goodbye Henry."

The one some people called a dud craned his neck up without arm strength for defence. He watched as that mad man raised his shoulders on high, the top of that sledgehammer gleaming in darkness. The doctor inhaled for the final strike.

Henry prayed behind tightened eyes.

The room shook with a thunderous shriek. The shrieking charged greater and greater, reverberating throughout this room, throughout this floor, throughout this hospital until a great and powerful explosion of light stormed in throughout the room. All shrieking ceased into a slow fade until there was nothing, only light wrapped around the darkened silhouette of his tormentor.

Henry squinted against the ominous glow until he could see a figure walking toward him. Wrapped in the glow of pure light the figure stepped toward them with proud duress, confident ease and full understanding of this strange occurrence. The figure came closer, clothes hanging loosely, swaying robe like with his gentle walk. A beard waved in the light, gloriously swaying to right on an unknown wind.

The figure raised a hand, just one hand.

That was all Henry saw until the doctor's legs crumbled and blood spurted from his lips. The light vanished by the time he'd hit the ground.

Henry rubbed his eyes to focus then looked up to see the one who saved him. The light almost gone the figure came to full form, and that glorious beard of his stumbled quite promptly from its pedestal. No longer did that beard sway gloriously on the wind, it merely lay in tangles, gritted solid so it merely stuck out that way. The robe wasn't so much one, so much as it was a long grey coat reaching down to the knees. Then there was that face with nothing glorious to speak of, nothing unusual save the oddly familiar pattern of scabbed burn marks covering one side of his face, hiding somewhat behind that sickly blondish grey beard of his. Familiar indeed.

The frail, gracelessly postured man rubbed his eyes as if only woken. "It's you! Like you know, I mean it's you again! It is you? Or isn't it?" His voice came slow and slurred, like some poor evolution of an Irish accent.

A smile found its way creeping across Henry's scabbed lips. It quickly broke into a light fit of laughter. "I-It's you again. I can't believe it's you!" he returned.

It was him - that man. They'd met once before on a subway train. He was a senile old hobo who made them feel so uncomfortable as to force them to change carriage. The same senile old man Henry and Alex later found laying in a ditch and summoned an ambulance for.

"It's you!" Henry began to laugh. "They brought you here!?"

"Sure did!" the old man replied enthusiastically. "Say ... who's your friend here?" The ragged old hobo indicated the doctor plastered to the floor.

"Just some guy."

The old hobo cocked his eyes at Henry, who now sat hunched into himself in hysterical laughter. "Looks like you got some serious issues there, like you know." And with that the hobo too began laughing for no apparent reason. No apparent reason was needed to laugh.

From behind the countertop, the downed Sierra began to stir back to her feet. Leaning on the counter for leverage she peeped over to witness a far different scene from the one she'd left. The doctor downed to the floor ... Henry and some strangely familiar old man laughing, almost manically, over the unconscious body.

"Did ... we win?" Sierra muttered.

Henry stopped laughing, as the hobo did in kind.

"Why me?" Henry said. "Why does all this have to happen to me? God hates me."

"Probably," the hobo stated with little purpose.

"Where did that light come from anyway?" Henry asked.

"Fog lights outside. Power came back on y'know ... guess it must have overloaded the lights, like you know."

"Really?" Henry sighed peacefully. "Wait ... how did you get in here?"

"Fell asleep after eating ... guess they forgot about me."

"Lucky. Don't suppose you know another way out of here?"

"You're leaning on it."

"It's locked."

"No it isn't. Y'gotta push it."

The old hobo demonstrated by pushing the door in. It swung open and Henry fell back to the floor.

Laying flat on the cold tiles, Henry couldn't help but laugh. "A push door!"

Chapter 35.

Their tormentor subdued, the four tramps were gathered together and taken back to one private room set specially for them. The room certainly looked nicer than those they'd previously experienced. Unfortunately they had trouble reeling in the luxury of it all. They didn't know whether it was a gift for heroes, or the holding cell for criminals. For all they knew that mad man waited in a room just like this, with his friends of staff at bedside asking all the questions he wanted them to ask.

At least they felt safe knowing the police were on the scene. Even though they made no formal introduction they did show up briefly to snatch Henry away for questioning. Their choice in suspect could only mean they gave the doctor his say first. The lack of security on their room suggested they weren't taking it all as seriously as he might have hoped ... yet.

Sure they could have clicked the television over to a news channel for information, if the police hadn't taken Henry, the only person capable of standing under his own weight. They questioned the ethics of leaving three bed stricken patients in front of a TV with the remote on the other end of the room.

Sierra's leg hung suspended in a cast. It would strain her neck just to see half the television screen. Alex remained in the same state. Now he refused to admit his clear exhaustion after his relatively minor, yet pivotal, rescue attempt. Rum's wounds ran so deep they required little explanation.

In their waiting they spared little effort relishing that rarest of luxuries some people called a heating system. In this warmth they could hide under the soft bed sheets which these days felt so alien to them, and by all means to anyone forced into this hospital. The restored power, and therefore the television, set the cherry on the cake. Amidst it all, their came an all round feeling that jail mightn't be so bad for one day of this comfort. And in this frame of mind they began to miss the old novelties they used to have. And on that frame of mind the thought of jail became ever more worse.

All those comforts came for the most part in vain. It's difficult to make the most of anything when mummified stiff to a bed. To Sierra and Rum, thick sheets were no more than added strain. Television, with all its benefits, became nothing more than noise and irritating flashing lights. Alex enjoyed it all none the less. The mindless allure of the television screen provided a safe distraction from the less than positive chatter of a certain old bum.

"We're screwed," he'd say. "Cops ain't gonna listen to us." And so forth.