The Ferryman by Christopher Golden

but now had become even paler, with the webbing of blue veins beneath the surface clearly visible.
    Like marble, Stefanie thought.
    Mr. Haupt’s right hand darted up, snakelike, and locked in a vise around her wrist. His eyes opened wide and stared up at her.The irises were huge and almost completely black, ringed with burning halos. It was as though the dead man’s eyes were a window, and something was peering through from the other side.
    Stefanie screamed.
    Mr. Haupt sat up and tore the tube from his throat with a gagging noise and the sound of tearing as the tape came away from his face.
    â€œJanine,” the dead man rasped in a heavily accented voice. It sounded as though he were speaking on a bad telephone line, tinny and far away. “Where is Janine?”
    Out of reflex, she reached out a hand to try to stop him from standing. Those black eyes like dying planets bore down upon her, and Stefanie fell backward and sat heavily upon the floor. A chill raced through her that seemed to come both from without and within.
    Her breath fogged the air in front of her face.
    In her peripheral vision, she saw the cardiac monitor. It still showed nothing but a flatline.
    With a single thrust of his outstretched hand, he propelled her face into the monitor, shattering both glass and bone.
    Â 
“Come on, come on.”
    Shane Dowling bounced a little on the balls of his feet as the elevator creaked slowly upward. At six-foot-seven and two hundred and sixty pounds, he made the ancient contraption sway unsteadily with just that motion.
    â€œShoulda taken the goddamn stairs,” Shane grumbled. He ran an enormous hand over the black, gleaming skin of his shaven scalp. “Told you, Noah.”
    Beside him, Noah Levine was the picture of calm. He was more than half a foot shorter than Shane, and thin, but he was strong and quick. The only similarity between the two men was the dark blue security uniform each of them wore.
    â€œFourth floor, Shane. Stairs wouldn’t be much faster, and we’d be winded, then. Got to conserve energy in a crisis.”
    â€œ You’d be winded,” Shane retorted, a wry grin on his face. “Crisis, my ass. We don’t even know what we’re dealing with yet.”
    â€œMy point,” Noah replied.
    Their conversation ended abruptly when the elevator dinged and the doors slid open on the fourth floor.Without a word, the two guards hustled out into the corridor and sprinted toward the ICU. Shane held a hand on the billy club attached to his belt as he ran.
    The scene in the corridor ahead of them was not one of chaos, but of aftermath. Nurses and orderlies darted into the ICU, though some milled about in the hall, attempting to get a look at what was going on inside. No one seemed frightened, however, which meant that whatever had happened, it was probably already over.
    Shane was disappointed.
    Noah took the lead slightly, and Shane let him. Though he loved his job, loved being associated with the hospital, he relished the few times when they were actually called in to do more than intimidate some poor sap who wanted to visit a patient outside visiting hours.
    His huge rubber soles squeaked on the linoleum as he slowed down. An aging, withered nurse stood in the hall outside the ICU, her eyes wide with voracious fascination as she tried to get a better view. The arrival of the security guards seemed to excite her even more.
    Noah pushed past those lingering around the door and into the ICU. Staff members pressed themselves against the walls like spectators at a marathon. Shane followed without enthusiasm, his gaze drifting toward the old nurse; she reminded him of a vulture, circling for prey.
    â€œIn there!” she told him.
    No shit, lady. I’m not blind, he wanted to say. Instead he offered a thin smile and followed his partner.
    The ICU was a shambles. Most of the units had curtains drawn around them, though Shane could clearly see figures moving