"The Center Pointe" Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Hal was taken through a back side door to the emergency room down a small corridor to what used to be the hospitals holding cell but had been converted into storage.  It took a few minutes for them to clear out the cell and place him in it.  Once he was locked up securely the two men just walked out and left him there alone.

It was several hours before anyone returned to the room making Hal wonder if he was going to be left there to die.  When the door did finally open again one of the men that had apprehended him came in with a plate of food and a small jug of water.  The man then handed the food and the water to Hal and left the room again.  Hal was amazed and confused.  He expected much harsher treatment.  The plate consisted of some canned ham mashed potatoes and canned vegetables.  He did not care if the food was laced with anything; he was hungry and wolfed down the food in a few minutes.  A few minutes after he was done eating the man that had delivered his food came back in and had a seat at the table adjacent to the cell.  The man was about 5’11, 200 pounds with short dark hair and a goatee on his chin.  He had dark green eyes that just gazed at Hal like a curious animal.

“My name is Rich, I am one of the leaders of this community.  I just wanted to come down here and introduce myself.”

“What are you going to do to me?” asked Hal becoming nervous about his predicament.

Rich looked at him for a moment sizing up Hal, trying to figure out what his purpose was.  “We’re gonna let you go.  I came down here to release you.  You can leave anytime you like.  All of your things will be returned to you.  But before you leave I urge you to spend some time with this community and see these people. There are good people here that don’t deserve to experience the horrors that exist beyond these walls.”

“Why are you just gonna let me go, that doesn’t make any sense.  I don’t believe you.”

Rich sat back in his chair thoughtful.  “Look it is obvious that someone sent you here to scope us out, I don’t know the reason.  But weather it is noble or insidious intentions there is no control we have over it.  You know we’re here and if you don’t return your friends are going to want to know what happened to you and they will come here.  Were a peaceful community and don’t want trouble from anyone but we can also defend ourselves if It’s necessary.  I only hope that when you go back to your friends that you tell them it is not worth it to come here.  I guess I’m just hoping that your humanity will shine through at the right moment and you will think about the innocent people here and try and protect them.”  With that short speech Rich got up and opened the cell and left the room once again leaving Hal alone.

This was not at all what Hal expected when they had captured him.  He thought there would be torture or at the very least some hard questions, but so far all they had done was to feed him and release him.  Maybe he should spend a bit of time among these people, but on the other side of the coin, he knew these people were no match for the brutal men that wanted this building for themselves.  The only other hospital in the area had been razed by the army when it had been overrun with the creatures.  The general wanted this building badly and he would not care about the people in it, he would order his men to enslave the women and children and either put the men to work or serve them for dinner.  Hal did not want to chance being on the receiving side of the general’s wrath.  He decided he would gather Intel to report back and maybe he would be rewarded for his efforts. 

He waited for a few minutes before carefully opening the door almost expecting to be accosted when he stepped through.  But there was no one there.  The door he walked through opened into the main waiting room of the hospital’s ER.  There were several people sitting in the chairs chatting and laughing.  They barely even noticed him as he came in.  Some smiled at him others just ignored him.  He kind of just stood there confused until a young attractive looking female with big hazel eyes and long black hair walked up to him and introduced herself.

“Hello my name is Karen, I’ve been asked to give you a tour of the hospital and introduce you to everyone, so if you’ll come with me well get started and be done just in time for lunch.”  Karen had a very kind and loving smile on her face as she gently reached her hand toward Hal’s.

Hal looked at her nervously then looked at the door, it was so close that he could reach out and touch it.  If he wanted he could just run.  He could run all the way back to the general and tell him of this place, but there was something in Karen’s eyes that kept him fixated almost in a trance like state.  His body could not move and eventually he gave in and slipped his hand into hers and allowed her to guide him.

Karen spent the next hour showing Hal around the hospital taking special care not to let him see anything sensitive that might give his friends an edge in taking the hospital.  Hal was amused by their secrecy.  They were trying to get him to stay but in case he didn’t they made sure he had nothing he could use against them.  Hal at one point had to admit to himself that he would rather stay here than go back to the general but he quickly dismissed the thought when he had to remind himself of the fate that waited for these people.  It had always been known to him even at a young age that the world was ruled by those willing to exploit others for their own success.  The good died young because the evil drove them to an early grave but as Hal had learned from his father the evil live forever because they hold on to life in a vise grip, the fear of dying is so much stronger in a bad person than in a good one, because in Hals experience the evil knew exactly where their deeds were going to land them.

Hal always felt atheism was an attempt to escape responsibility for ones actions.  If you believed there were no consequences for your actions then there was no need to feel guilty for the things you do to others.  Hal had spent most of his adult life excising guilt from himself but eventually you grow numb to the things you do and your guilt is buried enabling you to do things you never thought you were capable of.  Eventually you either wind up in prison for the remainder of your life or in a box.  Hal was spared death but after years in prison he had come to long for it.  Now it seemed as though he was given a second chance at life and although he desperately wanted to change he did not feel as though he had it in him to make that leap.

 Hal spent the next couple of hours being given the grand tour from Karen.   Hal could not help but feel that they were trying to play on his sympathies by showing him the emergency room and the sick or injured inhabitants. Karen took him to the makeshift school there the children were engaged in school lessons administered by an old man in a disheveled suit.  They all were split into groups sharing only a few tattered books while the teacher scribbled lessons on a dry erase board that had seen way to many lessons and not enough cleaning.  It was amazing that these people still tried to cling to the old world in hopes that it would someday return, Hal thought if these people were to see what was waiting for them only a few miles away a sobering reality would set in and they would not be even trying to educate the children, to Hal this all seemed like a futile effort.  Karen sensing his thoughts spoke softly while they watched the children learning their lessons.

“It may seem to you to be a futile effort but education is never futile and it helps keep the children’s minds off of the reality of the world for a little while. 

They have to be able to be children sometimes.”  As she said this to him she grabbed Hal’s hand and squeezed them gently looking into his eyes as if she were searching for a soul deep in his passive face.  Although Hal felt emotion he rarely showed it, and this was one of the times he felt it better to keep his feelings to himself.

After Karen had finished showing Hal around the hospital and introducing him to the people currently residing there she brought him to the cafeteria for a fresh meal before Rich and Brian were due to escort him back to the main road.  It was midway through dinner and the cafeteria was filled with people and children.  Conversations filled the air which was already heavy with cheer.  Hal thought to himself how different it was here from the generals camp and secretly he envied the joy these people felt and for a moment he all most broke down and decided to stay but he had to keep reminding himself that this was a fleeting situation and if he wanted to survive he would have to side with the general.

     After dinner Karen brought Hal to Rich and Brian who were busy in the corner by the door stuffing a bag with provisions.  For a moment Hal thought they were coming with him, an escort because they didn’t trust him but when Rich stood up and handed the pack to him while Brian opened the door it was hard for Hal to comprehend the behavior of these people.  This was a world now in the depth of hell and these people we acting as if the world were still spinning normally and they were just helping a fellow man down on his luck, what made him feel even worse was that he had a feeling that they knew his true intention but yet they still let him leave.

It had been a couple of hours since he had left the hospital and Hal was well on his way back to the Generals camp.  He had taken many pit stops to observe if he was being followed but found no tails.  These people obviously were relying on him to do the right thing.  So many times he almost turned around and headed back to the hospital to tell them the truth but had to stop himself and keep reminding himself those people were doomed and if he didn’t want to follow them then he needed to think about himself.  As he neared the location of the Generals camp images of the innocent men women and children kept flashing through his mind and for the first time since he could remember true guilt entered his heart and he could barely raise his feet to put one in front of the other.  He had never felt such a high level of guilt in his life and now he had come to the realization that the lives of so many people rested in his hands and in the end it would be him who chose weather they lived or died.  As far as Hal knew the General and his men had no idea of the existence of people at the hospital and if Hal were to keep his mouth shut and tell them that the area was crawling with the infected then he may be able to save the lives the people there, but on the other hand, if he did say that and later they were to go to the hospital they would find that Hal had lied to the General at which point Hal would join the dead that were there.  Hal had lived a harsh life and he had seen plenty of suffering but he was able to take it in stride because there was nothing he could have done to present it but now he was at a fork in the road, the nexus of a point in time that someday if he survived he might wish desperately he could return to and change, for the first time in his life Hal found himself thinking of other before himself.  It was a new sensation, not one he was used to and not one he particularly liked the experience of.  He wished he could just forget it and move forward but as the camp began to loom in the fog it became clear to Hal that in the next few minutes the weight of the world and the lives of so many rested on his shoulders.  Would he do what was right like Karen and Rich believed he would or would he just think of himself and that would be that.  So much stress could be relieved if he just submitted and told the General the truth about the hospital.