It took Willy an entire day to make it to the hospital; he got lost a few times. Madrid has changed a lot since he died. It was a long road, but entertaining. After so much time locked in the nursing home, being out was an improvement. Although he could not feel the wind, the sun's warmth, or anything for that matter, it was great to be able to look around. However, he would not spend too much time roaming; he had a plan and an objective. Getting out of the nursing home with the amount of stolen living energy he had now was a huge progress in his plans. He stood a few meters away from the hospital.
Was his creation working properly?
He didn't want to just disappear after entering the building and be trapped inside his own machine. He stood outside, watching from a relatively safe distance; there was no ghost in the doors or in the windows. It made sense; he designed it like that. Any soul that turned into a ghost in that hospital was drained in seconds and absorbed into the machine hidden inside its structure.
After watching for almost two days, he confirmed that there were no ghosts inside the hospital; he would have seen one of them by now. Willy steeled his resolve and walked forward. If his assumptions were wrong, the building would drain him and trap him like it did to others. The energy from the living stored in his soul was supposed to protect him from that. Luckily for him, his brain and talent were almost flawless; even at the door, nothing happened. However, he was not able to phase through the door.
"This is not good," Willy said to himself.
This was bad news; even if his design was working correctly, he would not be able to use it if he was locked outside. Almost nothing could disturb his cold and analytic mind, but this was making him get worried.
Willy waited a little bit, and as soon as someone opened the door, he slipped in. His attempt was a success; his worries dissipated; not only was he in the hospital, but his soul was still in one piece. This was great news, but his happiness was short-lived.
"Shit!"
The building was slowly sucking up his energy. He didn't have time to waste; he followed the signals and directions in the hallways. His objective was the ICU. The intensive care unit would have what he needed: a lot of patients in critical condition from which he could easily leech energy, and maybe a suitable body that he could claim as his own.
When Willy got to the ICU, almost half of the energy he stole from the living and stored in his soul was already gone. But the ICU was an all-you-can-eat buffet. He went straight for it; his years of experience and the state of the patients made it easy for him to steal a lot of energy from his comatose victims. Almost half of the patients had a low chance of surviving; the medical equipment was the only thing keeping them alive. Now that Willy was leeching them at a high speed, the patients died one after another, and in just one week, half of the beds in intensive care were emptied. Normally, stealing some energy from the living does no harm, but the contraption hidden in the hospital walls was made with a very specific purpose; basically, it facilitated the extraction of life force from others and absorbed the dead or the energy inside the dead. Willy restored two times the amount of energy he had when he got into the building; sometimes, right after death, some of the patients turned into ghosts themselves; they only had time to see Willy's creepy smile before banishing and being sucked up by the walls. However, the sudden increase in mortality among the patients created some alarm in the hospital.
A reunion was called, and the many doctors of the unit decided to address the situation.
"This is not normal. There have been too many deaths these last two weeks. We need to do an intense cleaning and disinfection of the unit. From now on, we have to increase our precautions against germs with more gloves, masks, and personal protection equipment." The head of the ICU decided.
"But sir, there is no evidence that we are dealing with an infection of any kind." Other doctors from the team signaled.
"Yes, I know, we will also take other measures, but the usual cause of death is the spread of some infection among the patients because of our procedures. So even if there is no evidence of that being the case, we should take measures anyway." The chief insisted.
The hospital personnel did everything in their power to try to find the reason for the increase in mortality in the unit. Willy continued to steal the energy from the comatose patients one after another. This was not the nursing home; the machine constructed into the hospital walls worked differently, and no one would do too much drama if two or three ICU patients died every now and then. Only when the death toll was so high that the hospital directive got involved and talked about changing the location of the ICU and taking some more drastic measures did Willy reduce his murder spree. He reduced his energy intake in a way that only killed two or three patients every week. His energy level was now three times what he had in the nursing home, and it kept increasing.
After four months in the hospital and fifty-two dead patients, finally a suitable body appeared; it was a twenty-five-year-old man, one hundred and seventy-two centimeters tall, white, black hair, brown eyes. It was not the body Willy had in mind, but it was good enough. He didn't want to wait anymore and went straight for it. Willy's ghostly finger made contact with the patient, but instead of leeching energy out of him, Willy was infusing the energy he had onto his target. Everything went well for the first minute or so; however, Willy started to feel a strong rejection from his target. The minds of both men connected in a blurry, semiconscious, distorted way; they both knew that someone else was there, and a battle of wills started. Willy pressured himself to inject more of his energy. The comatose man's mind and soul tried to hold onto his body and rejected Willy's energy. The confrontation turned painful for both of them. Willy was used to pain, so he endured. He started to gain some ground when he came to the realization that his energy was running low; if he ran out of energy without successfully taking over the body, the building would absorb his soul. Willy desisted and unwillingly backed away. After that, he went back to collecting energy from the other comatose patients.
One day the young man woke up, and Willy saw his future body escape from his reach. This time he failed; he expected some resistance from the living, but not that fierce; the energy consumption was too big; now he had to collect even more energy than before. That took a lot of time, but it didn't matter; he had all the time in the world.
Six months and a whole bunch of new corpses later, Willy's energy levels doubled what he had in his first attempt to possess a new body. The time had finally come; Willy had found a new recipient for his soul. This time it was a seventeen-year-old boy, a suicide attempt. The boy was skinny but good-looking, had blue eyes, was one hundred eighty centimeters tall, and had blond hair. Willy went into action, and surprisingly, he felt little to no rejection from the body; the mental connection was even less clear than with the other guy he tried first. There was no will or desire to live in his victim. Willy used the opportunity to pour all of his energy into one go to save energy, just in case; his advance was quick, then a strong backslash hit him like a ton of bricks, and the new body became unstable. Willy didn't like the reaction and withdrew. The young man started convulsing. The doctors tried to stop the attack, but all the drugs used were useless, and the patient died. Willy saw the young man's soul leave the body and be suctioned by the walls.
"Going too fast is not good, and a long confrontation consumes a lot of energy," said Willy to himself. "Also, it seems suicidal patients are easier to take over."
Willy tried a few more times; he even tried on women's bodies but got the strongest rejections. He confirmed that suicide victims were the weakest souls he could find.
After two years, Willy was finally ready; his soul was bloated with stolen energy, and he had a good profile on the most convenient victim for him. All he had to do now was wait for his next body. It was a Friday night, and young kids go out, get drunk, get high, and do stupid things. Maybe he would get lucky tonight... or so he thought. Something weird had been going on a few seconds ago. The walls started rumbling. He turned around, and if he had any blood on his body, he would be livid anyway. What was happening now made no sense to him.
"No way," Willy said, with a face of disbelief.
On the other side of the ICU hallway, a huge ghostly blob stood on its many legs. Several deformed arms, torsos, and faces with long tongues had their sight fixed on him. In the middle and front of this abomination, a peculiar torso seemed to lead; what was left of Elizabeth was staring at Willy. Her face was disfigured, part of her long hair was gone, her right eye was slightly protruding from her orbit, and her left cheek was torn and showed her teeth's. Even with that half-mutated face, he could see that she was angry. Elizabeth screamed, and the other ghosts who were part of the huge monster joined her. The screams resonated on the walls of the building, creating a small vibration.
"Fuck me!"
Willy Mind was working on overdrive; he only had two choices: fight it off or run. He knew no one could overrun a muncher; he created and manipulated them for years. Fighting was his best choice, but for how long could he fight? His energy would run out sooner or later, and the munchers never stopped unless the lights... The lights? The lights were on. How could the munchers be there?. Then he realized the contortion in Elizabeth's face was not only anger; it was pain. She was taking control of the munchers and forcing them to endure while running on pure hatred.
He didn't have time to think anything else; the blob dashed straight to him. He had no choice; he was bloated on the energy he stole from the living anyway. He used said energy to push the blob back, and the thing flew in the air and crashed against the wall.
"What was that?" one of the nurses said.
"What?" another nurse asked.
"I don't know; I think I heard something crash."
While they doubted what they just heard, the muncher blob got up and attacked Willy again. This time, he pushed in another direction. The muncher crashed against a patient bed; the bed shook and moved a bit.
"What's going on?" said the doctor, who was near the bed. He got closer, checking if the brakes on the bed were set properly. In that moment, the doctor felt something crash against him and fell. Out of reflex, he grabbed an intravenous saline solution that was connected to a central catheter on the patient. The catheter was yanked off, and blood started pouring out. The doctor got up, saw his accidental mistake, and tried to stop the hemorrhage. The nurses came to his aid.
Meanwhile, the battle of the dead raged on. Willy used his energy to push Elizabeth and the rest of the blob back every time they launched at them. Then Willy realized.
"It is getting smaller."
Willy looked around him. The building was absorbing the munchers. They didn't have the energy from the living needed to sustain themselves; they were being drained. Willy smiled; this was his victory.
The blob launched against him, and the result repeated once and again. A few moments later, the ICU was a mess; there were beds out of place, things on the floor, trails and tables flipping, and a computer screen was broken.
Meanwhile, the blob had reduced to four disfigured torsos, and Elizabeth's, although she was still deformed like before, seemed to have a shed of clarity in her eyes. Willy didn't like that, but still, there was nothing she could do; her time was running out, and Willy still had enough juice to outlast her.
Elizabeth looked at him, and now her face was pure rage. She screamed again. The walls resonated with her scream, trembling faintly. Even with her limited thinking capability at the moment she noticed, she looked at the walls in confusion. Willy also noticed. An idea came to his mind, and his face changed.
"Hey bitch!" He needed to distract her.
Elizabeth looked at Willy again, anger showing. Another torso disappeared from the muncher. Willy was winning. However, Elizabeth looked at the wall again.
"Come on! I am here! Don't you and that bunch of losers with you want me? Come get me; I am right here!" Willy taunted.
Elizabeth looked at him and then looked at the wall. Elizabeth tilted her head, smiled, stuck to the wall, and screamed.
"Fuck!" screamed Willy, and he lifted his hand.
The wall wobbled and swallowed Elizabeth and what was left of the original blob of munchers. The walls started screeching and rumbling so hard that they could even be felt by the living.
"What is going on today? Do we have an earthquake?" One of the nurses asked while trying to tidy up the mess.
"It looks like it's only here; everything is fine everywhere else," a nurse assistant answered.
The rumbling sound increased. Willy wasn't sure what was going on; this building was not built like the nursing home. The system was different; the building was supposed to swallow the dead souls to avoid other ghosts getting involved in his stuff and also facilitate the absorption of the energy of the living. But now a bunch of munchers were feasting upon the thousands of souls that the hospital had held within its walls for nearly fifty years. That was not good for Willy.
Willy looked around at the patients in the ICU. There were no good choices; most of the patients were over fifty years old and had a few health problems. Yet he didn't have the time to look for a better choice. He got close to a fifty-five-year-old obese patient who had a heart transplant two days ago and was in an induced coma. The doctors said that the surgery went well and he had high chances of recovering. Willy calculated he had enough energy left to take over this body; he started transferring his energy straight away; he met resistance and started the will thug of war. He was clearly winning and focused on the job at hand. He was half way through overtaking the body and double his effort and concentration. Maybe that was the reason why he didn't realize that the rumbling on the walls had stopped.
An intense cracking sound broke his concentration. Willy turned around, and the wall behind him broke in half. The hospital personnel only saw the wall that broke, opening a small crack, but they didn't see what happened later. From the inside of the wall, numerous tongues launched at Willy. He forgot about his plan to take over a new body and used his energy to repeal the tongues. More came his way. Thousands at the same time. After a while, Willy ran out of energy, and hundreds of tentacle-like tongues wrapped around his body. The suffering, regret, rage, pain, loneliness, and desperation of thousands of souls trapped and tortured for years flooded into Willy all at once, driving him into madness.
Elizabeth, on the other hand, regained some control over herself and what was going on. Still in her head, the thoughts of hundreds of other souls collided, making a confusing mess. However, she reigned over some of them and forced them to follow her will. It took her two years locked in the dark to learn to do something similar while in a state of borderline madness. It was helpful that many of the souls trapped inside the walls still retained some sanity, and the munchers didn't eat them all; they helped her control the creatures to some degree.
Elizabeth controlled some of the munchers invading Willy Soul; they ate the others while one torso grew out of Willy Soul, tearing a piece of it in the process. That soul escaped the new muncher blob and then disappeared in thin air. One by one, the monstrous blob started reducing its size; every time a tortured soul escaped, Willy Soul had a piece of it torn out. Elizabeth could feel his suffering and smiled. At the end, only Elizabeth remained, holding the shreds of Willy's soul; he still existed. Contrary to the munchers that regenerated while eating each other, Willy's soul was torn to pieces. Elizabeth let the few lasting pieces of Willy Soul fall to the floor; they turned into nothingness. She walked straight through the hospital walls; the mechanism that Willy constructed was already broken. Ironic, she was totally insane, but thanks to that she didn't care about anything, not her past, not the present, even less about the future anymore. Outside, under the moonlight and the glittering of the stars, she felt free for the first time ever. Elizabeth closed her eyes and vanished.