Sanguinary

As he walked along the corridor, The Agent noticed that the cells on either side of him were empty, their occupants had either fled the asylum, or else were roaming about. He hoped the former was the case. On his left, he saw that in cell 30B three people were inside, each seemingly oblivious of the others around them. The first man was sitting on the floor, slowly stabbing himself in the chest with a shard of glass, weeping as he did so. On his left was a woman sitting on the bed, her clothes torn open, masturbating furiously. The second man was standing up, leaning against the wall behind him, talking softly to himself, occasionally twitching violently and shouting loudly, before returning to his mumbling monologue. The three were an odd spectacle, and as a precaution against one attacking him later, The Agent pulled out his gun and shot them all.

He picked up the shard of glass that the man had been stabbing himself with, and put it in his pocket. It could do a lot of damage, and was easily concealable, a feature the machete didn’t share. After he had taken a few steps, he heard scream. Piercing, pained screams which didn’t sound like they came from someone in the grip of insanity. He assumed that the screams came from a member of staff who had still been in the asylum when all the cell doors opened. He rushed back, following the screams. He came to the toilets, and the screams were definitely coming from within. He drew his gun from the holster, and slowly pushed open the door with his shoulder and walked in, careful not to make a sound. He could see the woman who had been screaming. She had hidden in a cubicle, but was standing on the toilet, so her head and shoulders were visible over the stall. There were two men in the room. Both were naked. One was running at the door and ramming it with his shoulder, trying to force it open. The other was standing by the door, stroking his penis and shouting expletives in the direction of the screaming woman.

The Agent cringed with disgust, then aimed the gun and shot both men twice in the face, making sure that they were no longer a threat. Once he had done so, he then called to the girl, telling her that she was safe. She opened the stall door and fell into The Agent’s arms. ‘Thank God,’ she said breathlessly, tears still running down her cheeks and smearing mascara down her face, ‘I thought everyone was dead.’ The Agent quickly fabricated a story about him being a new security guard, and she seemed to accept his story. ‘Where did you get the gun and the machete?’ She asked. He thought quickly, saying he took them from an inmate, though he had no idea how they had got hold of them in the first place.

Because of his professionalism, when The Agent had begun his chosen occupation, he had laid out a set of unwritten rules that he would follow to minimise the chance of him being caught or killed during an assignment or afterwards. One of these was to never fraternise with anyone while he was working, nor would he allow anyone to live if they had seen his face and could identify him to the police. Today however, was not the day for rules and restrictions. If the world would not retain some semblance of order and sanity, then he was not going to keep to his own code of conduct. He would protect the girl, and he would face the consequences when and if they came.

He told the girl (who had told him that she was the resident nurse at the asylum) that an alert had come from cell 47B shortly before all the inmates had been released, and he had to see what the problem was, and if he could stop him from escaping. If he could help it, The Agent wanted to before prepared and forewarned for every situation. He asked the nurse what she knew about the man or woman in cell 47B. She was new to the asylum staff, and didn’t know. She offered to show him the records, which would have all the information about everyone in the asylum. Her office wasn’t far, so he decided to go and see if there was anything of use. He didn’t think that there was such as thing as being too prepared.

Once they got to the office, the nurse began searching for the file, and after a moment, she found it and passed it to The Agent. The manila file was almost an inch thick, filled with vile atrocities. The inmate was male, forty years old. He had been a doctor before his incarceration, and had killed patients with a poison, so it would seem as though they had died of natural causes. He killed about fifteen people in each hospital he had worked, and then had moved on. He had worked in six hospitals. Once the police had investigated him and found what he had been doing, he had fled, killing tens, maybe hundreds of people in random attacks in people’s homes. He had murdered and raped strangers for the best part of five years. It was at this point that The Agent closed the file, even though he was only half of the way through it. He decided to go to 47B, and then would settle on a course of action. If the inmate had already left, then he would probably do nothing. If he hadn’t…The Agent and the nurse left her office and walked on to cell 47B.