When the night comes out presents the Hive Part seven. Q ran down the
hall, cursing under his breath. He could still see in his mind's eye
the zombies as they tore apart the guards all around him. Back in the
medical lab, every sound made him jump. He had to get himself under
control. He always maintained control. He focused pushing the images aside, literally
imagining him pushing the images out of the way of his sight and away into
the archives of his brain. Okay, he said to the ten guards who
had joined him, We just need to get this entire wing cleared as fast
as possible. Get the prisoners to the cafeteria. If any of them tries
anything, just shoot them. Got it. The guards nodded their heads.
They reached the far end and opened the cell. They saw blood and torn
clothing. They also saw that the vent set high and the ceiling was gone.
The cell was empty. Shit, Q said, this is hopeless.
Keep moving, move fast. They moved to the next cell. This time
they found what looked like body parts and intestines, with blood splattered across the
walls and ceiling, but nothing else. Another open air vent. The next
one was also empty. When they opened the third, they all froze.
The cell was packed with demons with red eyes and slobbering on themselves. One
of them held the arm of the prisoner, whose cell it was clenched between
its spiked teeth. The arm was not attached. Open fire, Q ordered,
aim for the heads. The cell filled with gunfire. The Ghules let
out a unified scream, and one after another fell. Two managed to get
back into the air shaft. Move to the next cell, fast, Hugh
said. The group ran to the next cell and opened the door. The
prisoner inside looked terrified these things at the walls. He yelped, give me
the fuck out of here. Get out, Q ordered, pointing with his
gun, get out now and head to the cafeteria. Move. The prisoner
leaped from the bed and bolted towards the guards. Just then, the air
vent covering exploded inward. The wall itself seemed to bulge. Q watched in
horror as the toothy faces of the Ghules filled the opening. Q opened fire
into those faces. More hideous screeches from the beasts filled his ears. Keep
going, Q yelled and waved frantically. Don't wait, just move, Get
as many out as you can. Shoot anything that comes through the air vents.
Q slammed the cell door shut just as more of the ghules fell through
the open air vent. He heard those screams from inside, and the door
rattled in its frame. Q wiped a hand across his forehead and moved on
to the next one. Let this be over soon, he muttered. Redge
ran with a crew of about thirty In his ear was Ketnenger telling him where
he needed to go. He huffed and puffed his lungs, working overtime in
the humid air. What he knew for sure was that the monsters were moving
fast. Roddy Redge said, pointing to the metal vent in the ceiling.
They were at a junction and it looked like a metallic cross set into the
ceiling overhead. Get up there and weld the metal plate into that shaft.
Move His men did as told. They were up there with a ladder through
the metal and welding the other metal sheet into place. In thirty seconds.
Reg broke out in a cold sweat. He could feel these creatures, whatever
the hell they actually were, up there, crawling through the vents, working
their way closer to them. All they had to move faster. Will it
hold, He yelled, I've no idea, Boss. The man holding the
welding torch said, I don't know how strong these things are. Reg had
to agree that this whole plan was a wild shot in the dark. They
had burst through the metal in the hospital, so there was nothing saying that
the new welds would hold. The metal they were welding was the same stuff
as the shaft itself, so who knew, Reg, You gotta move,
Buddy Kenninger said in his ear. We gotta go, guys, Reg ordered.
They ran off onto the next mission. Up ahead. One of the
guards screamed. Q turned his head and saw the demons pouring out of one
of the cells, jumping and leaping like wild animals into the group of guards.
Shoot, he screamed, everyone, shoot at them, Go for the
heads. Q raised his own rifle, aiming for the heads, and took
two hours. However, the stream of them kept pouring out from the cell.
They knew. Q thought he had no idea where the idea came from,
but it was suddenly a certainty in his own mind. Somehow they knew
that Reg and his crew were sealing off the air vents they were pouring out
of the cell in a flood. The guards fired, but they were so
close and there were so many of them that they were hitting the gulls in
the chest, stomach, legs, anywhere but the head. Hugh saw one
of the prisoners that they had rescued try to join the fight, but he
was quickly enveloped by arms and hands and pulled into the mass of creatures.
A piercing scream filled the air that quickly turned into a sickening, gurgling sound.
Hugh strode forward, firing and firing and firing into the mass of swirling,
undead bodies. He saw three of his guards dragged off into the cell
as the gules retreated. He eventually reached the cell from which they had emerged
and saw the remaining gules retreating into the air vent get to the next cell.
Q called out his jaw set in determination move. He had to keep
them going, keep them focused. They had just lost three more of their
own. The emotions would be hitting hard and that would cause them to lose
focus. Q was having enough trouble focusing on his own. They went to
the next cell, the sound of feet and bodies from the air shaft filling
the air inside the terrified prisoner ran out the moment they opened the door.
The same thing happened in the next cell. By the time they reached the
next cell, the sounds of the scrambling gules and the air shaft was silent.
The same was true in the next cell. Then they opened the next
cell and saw only belowdud and Organs again. What the hell, Q said,
out of breath from their scramble, I thought we got ahead of him.
There was a huge sound as something collapsed up ahead. It seemed to
come from all around them. Then came the high pitched screaming sound. Q
turned around and saw that the hall was filled with gules from the cells they
had cleaned out. He had forgotten to close the door behind them. Up
ahead, the guards were opening another door just ahead of them. It all
clicked and Q's head. The ghules had broken into two groups, and one
had moved ahead of the other. Those two groups were now merging in the
middle. Wait. Q yelled at the team getting set to open the next
cell door too late. The cell door open, the ghules poured out again,
only this time they numbered almost one hundred behind them. The ghules let
out their screech again, q turned back and saw above one hundred more behind
them, and these creatures were running. Reg could hear gunfire, and he
did his best to put it out of his mind. He had to focus
on what he was doing, and they were almost done. However, he
knew that Que and his men were trying to get prisoners out and was obvious
they had run into trouble. They reached another junction, Rege took up a
position with his rifle while the welding team got into the air shaft. The
bright welding tool lit up the hallway. For a few minutes, there were
screams now down the hall. Rege tensed on the trigger, sweat pouring down
his head. He wanted to help. His men were dying or worse.
Let's get this done and see if we can help. Reg said, as
the team emerged from the air shaft. We've got one more. Kennenger talked
in Regge's ear, guiding them to the last junction. This time it was
inside a prisoner's cell. Reg and his men went in. Reg guarded the
hall while another guard held the prisoner at gunpoint. The prisoner, meanwhile,
looked too terrified to put up much resistance. Don't try anything. The guard
holding the gun on the prisoner said, are you fucking kidding me? The
prisoner replied, why the hell would I want to go out there? The
welding team finished and backed out of the cell. Mike, I need to
go help Q and his people. Reg said, they're getting slaughtered over there.
There was a long pause. Reg knew that Kennenger was worried about losing
him to the battle and whatever these creatures were, but Kenninger also knew that
he was the best person for the job. Go, but be careful,
Kenninger said. The team formed up behind Rege and they moved toward the end
of the hall. The sounds of fighting and firing were coming from the left
branch of the junction. There was a small explosion, as if someone had
thrown a grenade, and debris scattered into the t junction ahead. Reg raised
his weapon. Then suddenly the end of the hall was filled with swarming bodies.
Some of them were the zombie things, but some of them were guards
and prisoners. All of them were fighting. The zombies were crying and grabbing
and gnashing the air with their teeth. The guards were firing into them as
best they could, but the close quarters were making it tough to get head
shots with their rifles. Reg saw that more of his guards were now ghouls.
They seemed to have dropped their rifles and commenced with the biting. The
prisoners were fighting with their bare hands or with shives that Reg knew they weren't
supposed to have right now, however, he was glad that prisoners were prisoners,
no matter where or what the prison was. Reg stopped, aimed,
fired, and took down one of the ghules with a shot to the head.
This allowed the guards to get his own rifle up and sent a burst
into the head of the nearest zombie thing in front of him. The thing's
head burst apart like rotten fruit. There were more hideous inhuman screams from behind
where Rege was. He whirled and gasped as one of the cells opened and
more of the zombies poured out into the hall. One of his former guards
led the way. The ghules turned left and right, and then charged down
the hall. Soon joining the battle, Redge fired into the oncoming group.
Three of them were head shots and they went down fast, causing more of
them to go sprawling. They were on Regge's group in minutes, and two
of his men were quickly overwhelmed, their screams filling the air as the teeth
found soft flesh and bit and tore. Reg forced himself to stay calm,
aiming and firing one shot. He had taken sniper training on the surface when
he was in the army and knew the one shot, one killed strategy that
they had. He hadn't quite had the skills to become a sniper, but
he tried to rely on the training, regulating his breath, taking aim,
squeezing the trigger. Where had they all come from? Reg wondered, there
were so many? Now how fast was the virus or whatever the hell it
was working? Now it was getting stronger. It was then Reg knew that
metal plates were not going to stop these things. They were too strong and
seemed to have gotten physically stronger once they turned into whatever the hell they were
now zombies. Rech thought, these fuckers are zombies. We need to get
out of here. Reg yelled, retreat and head back to admin. They
were going to have to shut down this entire wing of the prison. There
were thick iron doors that would prevent these things from getting elsewhere, and maybe
those metal plates would give them a little time to figure out how to more
properly block off the air shafts. Of course, his words had little effect.
They all knew the score, they knew they were being overwhelmed, but
there was nothing else they could do. They fought. Reg could not find.
He found more of his guards, and soon they had formed a rough
group that bristled with rifles. In the middle were the prisoners that they could
get out of their cells. Where the hell is Q? Reg asked?
He got shrugs in return. They moved as a group, heading for the
exit to where the doors could slam shut on this nightmare, firing and blasting
bullet casings littering the floor as they went. The ghoules just kept coming,
some of them bursting out of cells that should have been locked down. Redge
fired and fired, changed magazines and fired again, praying for the best.
Q had gotten separated when the charge happened. He had run back down the
hall, deeper into the prison. He was now almost back to the medical
wing, and he was running out of ammo. Q ducked down the now
empty halls. Inside the cells on either side of him were horror shows that
he hoped he would eventually be able to erase from his mind. Parts covered
the beds and floors, and blood was everywhere. Hugh had lived through prison
riots that had less gore and horror than the hive currently had. He ducked
down another hall and there were the doors into the hospital. He needed a
weapon. His gun was going to be useless soon, and he needed something
he could use to fight these bastards. It was a long shot that he
would be able to hold them off until help arrived, but he had to
try, provided help was ever going to arrive. He had lost his radio
and had no way to communicate to anyone that he was still alive and still
human. He might be able to get to a phone and call Mike,
but he would have to find a way to put some distance between him and
the creatures that pursued him. He heard their horrific screeching from behind him and
felt his blood turn to ice. He ran into the blood soaked hospital area
that had been the place where he started this nightmare. Had that only been
a few hours ago, It certainly had to have been last week right.
The place was even more of a horror show than he remembered. Blood chunks
of flesh, body parts, intestines, and organs lay everywhere. He had
never seen so much blood. He slid across the floor, skidding like when
he was a kid on the ice behind his Minnesota home. He could hear
feet running down the hall behind him, and some more up in the ceiling
from the air vents they were going to surround him. These things were planning
somehow. They had plans, and that terrified him more than the thought that
these things were just mindless, dead bodies. They may not have been the
swiftest thinking creatures around, but they were clever enough to outflank Q and his
people and get the upper hand. Q checked his weapon. The magazine was
half full at best. He wouldn't be able to take out more than a
few of these things. He switched to single shot instead of bursts and hoped
that he could aim. They had overwhelming numbers, though, and he knew
that it was tough to be calm and cool and aim when there were hundreds
of arms and legs and gnashing teeth. He looked around the medical area.
Sure he knew that there would be scalpels and things that he could use,
but they seemed so small. He really wished he had something like a machete
or sword, but such things were outlawed here in the Hive. Maybe residents
might have something like that in their Hive city homes, but this was a
prison. You didn't offer prisoners that kind of temptation. He ran over to
the IV pole that he had used earlier. There was still a base with
the feet at the bottom. Q quickly bent the pole, jamming one end
in a door. The metal bent easily, although some part of Qusbray knew
that this superhuman strength was likely due to a surge of adrenaline from sheer terror.
After several minutes of bending the metal back and forth, the bottom snapped
off. The end of the pole was now down to a point that was
good. He then went to work on the top, removing the loops that
were there for the IV bags to be hung. After another few moments,
that was gone too, and he had a long pole, maybe three feet
long, with sharp ends on either side. He didn't think it would help
for long. He would have to jab the sharp end into their heads,
and there was a risk it would get stuck or that he would be bitten
before he could remove it and use it on another of the ghouls. He
really wanted something to slash at them, maybe decapitate a few of them,
but he was out of time. It felt like crafting his weapon had taken
an hour, but only seconds had gone by. He stopped now raising his
gun the pole leaning against the wall not far from where he was, He
put himself into the doorway of the room behind him. If need be,
he could dive back into the room and try to barricade himself in there.
Again. It was an advantage of this being a prison hospital. The doors
to the rooms had to also act like cell doors, so although they appeared
to be made of simple wood, they were reinforced. He heard them.
Outside the hospital, the running feet suddenly stopped. There was no sound for
what seemed like a very long time. Sweat ran down into Q's eyes,
and he wiped it away impatiently, trying to ignore the stinging sensation there.
Then he heard rapid feet from the ceiling, the air vents bending under the
weight of dozens of running ghules. The open ceiling tiles and broken metal air
vent was just a few yards down the hall to his right. At the
same moment, the doors at the front burst open, and he heard dozens
and dozens of running feet scampering into the medical wing, headed for the nurse's
desk. They were definitely trying to surround him, and they were going to
succeed. The first of them came into view near the nurse's desk, bracing
himself against the doorway. Q aimed his rifle, using the sights, and
fired one shot. He caught the ghul a prisoner and the forehead and he
went down. Q aimed and fired another into the eye of a former nurse,
and she went down. Q aimed and fired again, hitting a guard
in the side of the head. Not bad, he thought. Three down.
However, the Ghules had now figured out where he was. One of
them raised a hand and pointed and let out a noise. Q shot him
through the mouth and he went down, but the rest of the mob charged.
Just then dozens more of them fell out of the broken air shaft and
landed in the hall. They were on him in seconds. You've been listening
to When the Night Comes Out the Hive. Tune in Next Time for the
Hive Part eight written by Brian w Elaspa, narrated and produced by Ali James.
Music by Vivek Abishek catch up on the first four seasons of When the
Night Comes Out. Now support us on Patreon for more terrifying content.