by Nancy Isaak
Listening to him hack away, all I could think was…oh, crap.
* * * *
The rain was lighter now—more like a mist—and the roads we traveled on less choked with rusted vehicles.
It didn’t take us long to reach the hospital.
Because of the direction we were traveling in, our team approached the hospital from the rear. I looked up at the cold, cement building as we hid our bikes behind a couple of commercial-sized garbage bins.
“It’s so weird, seeing this,” I murmured, softly. “The whole place just feels so…dead.”
There was ivy beginning its ascent along the corners of the walls, and a tall pine tree was leaning against one of the second-floor windows, its branches lancing through the broken glass.
I noticed a gurney pushed up against the back of an ambulance. There was a sheet-covered shape on it—collapsing in the middle—most likely, I suspected, due to decomposition.
“What do you think that is?” asked Andrei, staring wide-eyed at the shape on the gurney. “Do you think that’s a body—like, of a little kid? I mean, it wouldn’t be an adult because they’re all disappeared, so that means it would have to be a kid, right?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “And I don’t think I’m going over there to check.”
Instead, I turned to a nearby door and pulled on the handle. It opened slowly, creaking against rusty hinges.
“That’s good to hear,” whispered Jude, looking over my shoulder, her eyes narrowing as she peered into the shadows of the dark hallway in front of us. “If the door’s all creaky like that, at least we know that no one’s probably been through here in a while. And look at the dust on the floor…no footprints…even better.”
* * * *
There were no windows in the hallway; the only light was from a slight crack all around the door we had just come in through. As our eyes struggled against the dark, I undid two small hurricane lanterns that I had attached to my backpack. Lighting them, I handed one to Topher; the other one I took for myself.
“Jude, you’re with Cherry. Connor, you’re with me. Rhys, you take point with Topher,” I ordered.
“What about us?” asked Ian, trying not to cough and not succeeding very well.
“I want you and Andrei back outside, guarding the bikes and our back. If something happens in here, you guys need to be ready when we come running out of that door—cocked and locked.”
“Roger that.” Andrei immediately saluted and headed back toward the door.
Ian followed a little more slowly. I could tell that he didn’t believe me—suspecting that I just wanted him someplace where his coughing wouldn’t give us away.
Still—he did what he was told and didn’t complain.
* * * *
“So, how do we find our way to the pharmacy?” asked Cherry. “This is a big hospital.”
“We should head farther in,” I suggested. “There will be signs along the way. And probably a map near the stairwells and elevators.”
“I was at this hospital a couple of years ago,” Topher told us. “I think I remember the pharmacy being around the center of the building.”
“We also need to keep our eyes out for a good microscope,” added Connor. “And if we pass any rooms that say something like ‘Infectious Diseases’ or ‘Hematology Lab’, we absolutely have to go in and check if they have any reference books with pictures. Anything we can check blood samples against.”
* * * *
At the end of the hallway, we encountered a solid metal door. Rhys pushed it open slowly, peeking his head around the corner.
“It’s too dark to see anything,” he whispered, looking back at us. “Hand me the light.”
Topher pushed the lantern into Rhys’ hand. Leaning out into the hallway, my brother swung the lantern around, aiming the light into every corner. Meanwhile, Topher went down on one knee, half in the hallway, his gun hand following the lantern’s path.
“All clear,” said Rhys, softly.
Topher rose and held the door open. We passed through, assembling on the other side. It appeared that we were in some kind of back foyer. There was a staff elevator in front of us, its doors wide open, two purses lying abandoned on its floor tiles.
“That’s odd,” I said, looking around. “There are no signs anywhere. Usually there’s something next to the elevators.”
“Maybe it’s just because we’re at the back of the hospital,” suggested Jude. “Like this is only where the staff would go, so they didn’t need any signs.”
“That’s possible,” I acknowledged—although I didn’t believe it.
* * * *
Two turns later, I realized that I had been right not to believe.
Bending down, I held my lantern close to a pile of broken signs. There was a map of the hospital at the bottom—the metal kind that lists emergency exits. “Look at this, guys,” I urged, pointing at the map. “Someone has scratched out all the names and numbers of the rooms.”
Connor picked up a smaller sign, reading it out loud. “NICU…that’s the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.”
“What’s that?” asked Rhys.
“It’s where the babies are—the ones who are born too early.”
“Why would they take down the sign?” asked Cherry, confused. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Yes, it does,” said Jude. “It’s so that we won’t know where we’re going.”
“What are you talking about?”
Jude tapped the side of her head. “Think about it. The world goes wonky and you claim this hospital as your territory. Only it’s massive-big. So, how do you control it? Well, first you make it difficult for anybody else coming in. If they don’t know where they’re going, if they get lost—it will make it that much easier to take them out.”
“Or, perhaps, you’re being a little melodramatic,” suggested Cherry. “There could be a very simple reason why these signs were left here. Like maybe they’re old and had just been replaced.”
Jude turned and looked at me. “What do you think, Jacob?”
“I think we don’t take any chances,” I said, holding up my gun. “We move quietly, we get what we came for, and we get the hell out of here!”
* * * *
It was obvious that—in the dark and without signs leading the way—our team was fumbling, turning this way and that as we struggled to find our way through the hospital’s dark hallways. Eventually, Connor came to our rescue; at every turn he drew a little arrow with a felt pen at the bottom right corner of a wall—facing the direction we’d need to travel in order to escape the maze.
“This way, if we’re running,” he explained, “we just turn wherever the arrow’s aimed. We won’t even have to think about it. Only thing you’ll have to remember is to keep the lanterns low enough to see the arrow—and that it will always be on the bottom right side.”
“I think I’ve found something,” hissed Topher, suddenly. He was standing at an opened door, peering inside a room. “Isn’t that like the microscope you wanted, Connor?”
“You found a microscope?!” Before I could stop him, Connor raced through the open door.
I ran after, grabbing him by the arm a few feet into the room and holding him in place. “Don’t ever run away like that!” I growled at him. “We haven’t cleared the room, yet. There could be someone hiding in here!”
As I talked, Rhys and Topher moved around the space, looking in closets, checking behind desks.
“It’s fine,” Rhys finally said. “Just some guy’s office, looks like.”
I let Connor’s arm go. “So, where’s this microscope, then?”
Topher pointed to a small, black instrument on a top shelf, just to the right of the desk. The microscope was covered in dust and looked ancient.
“Pretty sure we can do better than that,” I sniffed.
“No,” said Connor, reaching up and pulling the microscope down. “I want this one!”
“Connor, we’re in a
major hospital,” I groaned, trying to reason with him. “That microscope is probably decades old, if from the last century. You know that they’ll have better ones in one of the labs. We just have to find them.”
Ignoring me, Connor reached up and pulled a small, cardboard box down from the same shelf. He opened it, looking in at the glass slides it contained. “Excellent!” he exclaimed. “These haven’t even been used.”
“Were you even listening to me, Connor?” I asked, irritated. “About finding a better microscope in the hospital labs?”
“Oh, sorry.” He looked up, finally focusing on me. “I guess I got distracted.” Unzipping his backpack, Connor tucked the microscope and glass slides into the big middle pocket. “We can certainly look for a better microscope,” he agreed, “but the good ones you’re talking about usually need electricity to work. It’s these little guys that we can use without having to plug anything in.”
“But will you be able to look at what you need to with it?”
He nodded. “I mean, it’s not perfect, but it will work. If we see something better, we’ll still get it. But it’s good to know that we’ve at least got this one.”
“Okay, then,” I said. “Let’s get back to figuring out where that dang pharmacy is.”
We turned to leave and—as everyone filed through the door—my eyes were caught by a small snow globe on a nearby shelf. It was tiny, no more than a couple of inches in height, with a perfect replica of the Eiffel Tower inside. Quickly, before anybody noticed, I reached out and scooped it up, tucking it into my pocket.
My girl lost out on her trip to France; this would be my way of giving her a little bit of it back.
* * * *
“You see them?”
I pointed to the marks on the floor. They were faint—as if someone had tried to get rid of them—but still visible enough that we could follow them. “They’re those painted footprints that hospitals put on the floor, to guide people to the right places.”
Connor bent down to study them. “But there are three different lines of footprints. Which ones do we take?”
“When I got stitched up in the San Fernando Valley after a football game, the hospital there…they used green footsteps for the emergency room. I remember that. And they used red for the ICU, and I’m pretty sure that yellow footsteps led to the pharmacy.”
“These look like they were the yellow ones.” Connor tapped a line of footprints leading off to the left.
“We’ll follow them,” I decided. “And cross our fingers.”
* * * *
The yellow footprints didn’t lead us to the pharmacy. Instead, they took us to a hallway of offices—rooms filled with desks and computers that stretched out on either side.
We had reached the ‘Administration’ wing.
“Time to turn around,” I said. “We’ll try the red footsteps next.”
“This is so random,” exclaimed Rhys, frustrated. “I still can’t believe that someone took down all the signs.”
Behind us, Cherry suddenly stopped at an open door. “Topher, bring your lantern over here. Shine your light on that poster on the wall there.”
While Rhys and I trained our weapons on the room, Topher entered and held the lantern next to a poster on the far wall. Meanwhile, Cherry motioned Connor over. “Do you see it?” she asked him, pointing.
The poster was covered with tiny squares—each one filled with a picture of blood cells, their shapes distorted or discolored, depending on the ailment that was affecting them.
“That’s perfect!” whispered Connor. He ran over to the wall and carefully removed the poster, rolling it up and securing it with an elastic band. “Wait until Porter and Jay see this!” Then, he picked up a box of pencils from a desk and tossed it to Cherry. “Art supplies,” he grinned. “For your troubles.”
* * * *
As Topher had suggested, the pharmacy wound up being in the center of the building. When we followed the red footsteps, the faint marks led us directly there. Even though there were still no signs on any of the walls, we recognized the shelves of drugs through the closed glass doors the moment we turned into the attached hallway.
“Finally!” grunted Rhys, moving forward.
But before he could even take two steps, Jude tackled him—pushing Rhys against the wall and physically restraining him there.
“What the hell, Jude?!” Rhys grunted.
“Don’t anyone move!” she called out. “The hallway’s booby-trapped! Look down at the floor!”
I don’t know how Jude had noticed it in the dark but—looking at where Rhys’ next step would have taken him—I finally saw the clear fishing line spanning the hallway at shin level. It was attached to the wall at either ends, running along through tiny metal eyelets.
The fishing line continued down the hallway, to a shotgun set upon a tripod in an open doorway—diagonal to the hallway—only the tip of its barrel sticking out. The line ran along the barrel of the gun, eventually disappearing into the shadows—no doubt, ending at the trigger mechanism.
If Rhys had taken another step—the shotgun would have killed him.
“We need to get out of here!” I whispered to the others. “Back up slowly and make sure you know exactly where you’re stepping. Anything seems off or weird, don’t take any chances. Step over it.”
“What about the medicines?” asked Connor. “We need them!”
“We need to stay alive more!” I insisted, pushing him back. “This is all too hinky—we need to get out of here now—get moving!”
* * * *
They started shooting the moment we turned the corner.
“Where are they?” yelled Rhys, as we stumbled down the hallway. “I don’t see anybody!”
The bullets whizzed and clanged, ricocheting all around us.
“Don’t stop!” I yelled. “Keep running!”
A shot winged past my head, lodging into the plaster wall a few inches away. I ducked down low, pushing Rhys ahead of me.
From the weak light of his lantern, I could just see Topher barreling down the hallway in front of us. He was pulling Connor along, practically dragging him to where the hall doglegged to the left.
Jude and Cherry, meanwhile, had already made the corner. I couldn’t see the two girls, but I could hear the thud of their footsteps, heading quickly back the way we came.
“Holy crap!” It was Rhys shouting; he had just felt the wind slice along his cheek as a bullet flew past. “That one almost got me!”
As he turned to give me a relieved grin, he stumbled on a piece of garbage and went down. Following too close behind, I fell over him, landing hard on my back. I rolled over and jumped to my feet as quick as I could—worried about getting a bullet up my ass. Rhys stayed where he was, though—shaking his head—looking like he might pass out at any moment.
“Rhys…get up!” I yelled.
He tried to rise to his feet—but couldn’t quite figure it out. As another bullet whizzed by, I grabbed Rhys by his jacket and tugged him around the corner. The moment we were clear of the shooters, I ran my hand over my brother’s body—checking for blood, for a bullet wound.
“Are you hurt, Rhys?!”
“Wha…what?”
Worried that whoever was shooting at us would soon come around the corner, I placed Rhys’ arm around my shoulders and began tugging him down the hallway.
“Did you get shot, Rhys?” I yelled at him, as we ran. “Did they get you?!”
“My head hurts,” was his only answer.
* * * *
By the time we reached the rear exit—following Connor’s ‘arrows’ the whole way—we couldn’t hear our pursuers anymore. Whether they had truly lost our trail or had simply given up the chase, we would never know. From the first bullet to the last—not once did we ever see who was shooting at us.
When I finally burst through the door to the outside, dragging Rhys with me, I came face-to-face with Topher and Jude—their rifles aimed directly at my midsec
tion. Meanwhile, Andrei and Ian were on either side of the door, their weapons trained at my head.
“Just us, guys!” I yelled. “Put your guns down!”
“How far behind you are they?” asked Jude, lowering her gun.
“Not sure,” I admitted. “We stopped hearing them about five turns back.”
The door shut behind Rhys and me and Cherry and Connor rushed forward, pushing a metal garbage bin. They maneuvered it directly in front of the door, to stop anybody from using the exit.
“Sit down here,” I told Rhys, helping him over to a nearby bench. “Andrei, I need you and Ian to get our bikes and bring them here.”
“What’s wrong with Rhys?” asked Connor, running over.
“Nothing…I’m fine,” Rhys insisted, trying to stand up.
I pushed him back down. “He says he wasn’t hit, but he’s acting confused. He went down hard, so I think that he might have hit his head.”
“Look at me,” Connor ordered Rhys. He moved his hand in front of Rhys’ right eye—up and down.
“What are you doing?” I asked, worried.
“Checking his pupil’s reactions.” He moved his hand to Rhys’ other eye. “Who’s the President of the United States?” he asked.
“Don’t be a dumbass,” growled Rhys.
Connor turned to me. “His pupils are equal and reacting the way they should. I think Rhys is probably okay, but we need to keep watch, just in case he’s had a concussion. And he shouldn’t move around too much for the next forty-eight hours.”
Andrei and Ian came up with our bikes.
“We’ll find someplace nearby to hole up until Rhys is better,” I told the others. “Now, let’s get out of here before the bad guys come out of another door and start shooting at us again!”
* * * *
What we hadn’t counted on, however, was that our pursuers had no intention of following us outside. Instead, they shot at us from the hospital’s second floor windows. There were at least two of them taking pot shots—their bullets raking the tarmac as we furiously biked away.
