The lights flickered again.
Lucas’s fingers twitched on the bat in his hands. The old aluminum one, taped at the handle with duct tape and stained with more than just rust. He stood at the edge of Max’s hospital room, peering out into the dim hallway. The power had gone out twenty minutes ago, the backup generator barely keeping emergency lights on. But something else had come with the dark.
"Still nothing?" Vickie whispered behind him, clutching a fire axe she'd yanked from the emergency box down the hall.
She was dressed in her volunteering nurse uniform, her hair neatly pinned back.
Her freckles were washed pale in the red glow of the emergency lighting. She looked nothing like the nervous band geek from a year ago. This version of Vickie had seen things.
Lucas shook his head. “They’re close. You can feel it.”
Behind them, Max lay still. A faint hiss of her ventilator was the only sign she was even alive. Lucas’s eyes flicked to her. So fragile. So still.
He swallowed hard and stepped back into the room. “We have to protect her.”
“I still don’t get why they’re after her,” Vickie muttered. “She’s... she’s not even—”
“She’s tethered,” Lucas said sharply. “Vecna did something. She’s not all the way here, but she’s not gone either. He can still feel her. So can they.”
As if on cue, a guttural screech echoed down the corridor.
Vickie flinched. “That wasn’t one, that was—”
“Two,” Lucas said grimly.
They didn’t have time to board up the room. The hospital was too open. Too many glass windows. Too many vents. Too many damn ways in.
Vickie raised her axe. “Why are we alone? Where the hell is Dustin?”
“Trapped at the lab,” Lucas said. “Something about a breach. Said we had to hold out until morning.”
A snarl, then claws skittering across linoleum.
He kicked the crash cart across the floor and shoved the IV pole in front of the door.
The first Demodog burst through the wall—not the door—glass and drywall flying.
It was massive. Bigger than the ones from ‘84. Blacker. Its skin glistened like oil, eyes shining like headlights.
Lucas didn’t think. He swung.
The bat connected with a crunch that made his teeth rattle, but the Demodog just screamed and lunged. It pinned him to the ground, drool hot on his neck.
Vickie’s axe came down with a sickening wet sound, biting into its shoulder. The creature screeched and turned on her, tail whipping around.
Lucas rolled, grabbed a fallen syringe pump, and slammed it into its side. It shrieked, then dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.
Panting, Lucas stood up. His shoulder bled where the thing’s claw had grazed him. “That’s one.”
“No time to celebrate,” Vickie whispered.
The second one was already here.
It barreled into them from the hallway, knocking Lucas into the wall hard enough to make the lights above flicker.
It went straight for Max.
Lucas launched himself at it, grabbing its hind legs. It dragged him like dead weight. Clawed paws reached for Max’s still body.
Vickie screamed and hurled the fire axe.
The blade hit home — straight into the Demodog’s side — but it wasn’t enough. The creature staggered but didn’t fall.
Lucas saw it — her fingers.
Just barely. A reflex? A flinch?
The creature reared back to lunge—
And the heart monitor flatlined.
Max’s eyes shot open — blank, white, glowing.
And for half a second, reality fractured.
The Demodog stopped moving — mid-leap — as if caught in invisible chains. Its limbs shook, then snapped backward at impossible angles.
It fell like a broken marionette, blood steaming.
Her eyes fluttered. The glow faded. The line on the monitor spiked again—beep, beep, beep.
Then she was still. Comatose. Breathing.
Vickie grasped the Axe from the demodog’s shoulder and pulled. She’s going to need the weapon again, later.
Vickie moved back beside him, axe trembling in her hands. “What the hell just happened?”
Lucas didn’t have an answer.
But he knelt beside Max, took her cold hand in his, and whispered, “You’re still in there.”
The hospital was too quiet.
Lucas crouched behind a supply cart, every muscle tensed, bat clenched so tight his knuckles had gone white. A flickering fluorescent light buzzed above them. That was the only sound — until a low, wet sniff echoed down the hallway.
Behind him, Vickie was crouched with her back against the wall, cradling Max's fragile body in her arms. She had carried her down two flights of stairs when the Demodogs had overrun the upper floor.
Now they were in the basement, in the dark, with no way out.
And the Demodogs were hunting them.
Lucas pressed a finger to his lips and pointed: Don't move.
Max twitched slightly in her sleep. Her eyelids fluttered, like she was dreaming something bad. Her breathing was shallow — too fast.
Something had landed nearby.
Lucas peered around the corner.
A Demodog stalked the hallway. Its jaws opened, teeth glistening with saliva. It wasn’t just walking — it was searching. Sniffing the air. Listening.
The fire axe Vickie carried was slick with blood from earlier. She kept it close, but her hands were shaking.
Lucas breathed through his nose. Shallow. Controlled.
The Demodog passed the cart… paused… its head cocked. It heard something.
It started turning their way.
Max exhaled — a soft, rasping gasp — too loud.
The Demodog snapped toward them and charged.
Lucas didn’t think. He grabbed a discarded IV stand and threw it down the opposite hallway. The clatter echoed like a gunshot.
The creature swerved toward the sound — snarling, crashing into a wall.
Lucas turned and grabbed Vickie’s arm. “Go!”
They slipped through a maintenance door and down into a sub-hallway — used for laundry and morgue access. Pipes hissed above their heads. Steam clouded their path.
Behind them, the creature shrieked — no longer fooled.
“Third door on the left!” Lucas whispered, dragging Max’s gurney. Vickie yanked it open — a storage closet.
They shoved Max inside, pulled the door shut just as the Demodog skittered into the corridor.
Its sniffing was right outside the door now. Claws tapped on tile.
Lucas’s pulse was thunder in his ears.
Max made a small sound. Like a dream whimper.
Its claws scratched the door. Then again.
Vickie tightened her grip on the axe. Her lip quivered. If it broke in, they’d only have seconds.
A fire extinguisher clattered down the hall — followed by a flashlight beam.
A figure appeared at the corridor’s end.
The Demodog snarled — and ran toward him.
Dustin turned and ran the other way, screaming, “I HOPE THIS WAS WORTH IT!”
Lucas opened the door an inch. “Vickie. Now. Move.”
They pushed Max’s gurney into the open. The sound of pursuit echoed away — Dustin had drawn it off.
Lucas exhaled shakily, then looked at Max’s face.
Still no movement. But her mouth was twitching. Like she wanted to say something.
“We’re not losing you,” Lucas whispered. “Not tonight.”
He pressed a kiss upon Max’s cold pale forehead.
The hallway was still vibrating from the sound of the Demodog’s roar.
Lucas and Vickie pushed the gurney as fast as they could, Max’s unconscious form rattling slightly with each bump across cracked tiles. The emergency lights above them blinked in a slow red rhythm — like a countdown.
The air smelled like mold, old blood, and steam.
“We have to get to the service elevator,” Lucas said, panting. “That’s the only way up to the ER.”
“That’s assuming the power holds,” Vickie shot back. Her freckles were smeared with sweat and grime. “Assuming wehold.”
Behind them, the Demodog shrieked again — but farther away. Dustin’s distraction was working… for now.
Then, a voice on the radio crackled in Lucas’s pocket.
“Lucas? Lucas, come in—this is Robin—are you—crap—are you still alive?!”
Lucas fumbled the walkie from his belt. “Robin! We’re in the tunnels. Basement level. We’ve got Max. Two Demodogs are loose.”
“Make that three,” Robin’s voice rasped. “I lured one into a stairwell, but it ate the fire extinguisher. Ate it. Tore it to pieces?!”
Vickie’s eyes widened. “Please tell me she’s not alone.”
“She’s never alone,” Lucas said.
A door burst open ahead — and there she was.
Robin, hair in chaotic waves, holding a jury-rigged stun baton made from hospital parts and a car battery. “You guys look like death.”
Lucas grinned through the terror. “You’re a sight.”
Robin jogged over and looked at Max. “She still out?”
“Yeah,” Vickie said. “But she’s… twitching. Moving sometimes.”
“Vecna’s got a foot in the door,” Robin muttered. “Come on — elevator’s three doors down.”
The four of them — three walking, one unconscious — pushed forward.
But the moment they reached the elevator…
Something wet and hungry.
BANG! Something hit the wall next to them.
“Flashlight!” Robin shouted.
Lucas fumbled with his belt, clicked it on—light spilled into the hall—and revealed a Demodog crouched low at the far end.
Robin whispered: “Well. Shit.”
The Demodogs stalked forward.
Lucas grabbed the bat. Vickie raised the axe. Robin primed the stun baton.
But they weren’t going to win.
And then—Max’s monitor spiked again.
Max's mouth opened slightly. Her fingers moved.
And then her eyes opened.
Not fully — just a slit. But glowing faintly red, like backlight behind a curtain.
The Demodogs backed up a step.
Lucas dropped the bat and rushed to her. “Max. Max, if you can hear me—you’re not alone. You’re still here. We’ve been here the whole time.”
One of the Demodogs lunged.
But Max twitched—and everything shifted.
A pulse shot through the hallway — like a gravity wave — warping the air.
The Demodog stopped mid-leap. Crashed into the ceiling.
The others shrieked and twisted, suddenly slammed by an invisible force.
Lucas stepped back. “What the hell?”
Max’s mouth moved — her lips forming silent words.
Vickie leaned in. “She’s saying something…”
The ceiling above them cracked—emergency power flicked back on.
They shoved the gurney in. Robin slammed the panel. The doors began to close just as a Demodog flung itself toward them—
CLANG. The doors caught it and crushed it half-in.
Robin stabbed it with the stun baton, sparks flying. It screeched and dropped. Doors shut.
Then the elevator started to rise.
Lucas dropped to his knees beside Max.
Her eyes were closed again.
But on the monitor… her heartbeat was stronger.
“She's fighting,” Vickie whispered.
Lucas nodded. “And we’re not letting go.”
Robin leaned against the wall, hair wild, eyes wide.
“Okay,” she said, “I think I need to throw up.”
Vickie laughed ‘I love you.’
