The two of them exchanged a look, then stepped through the broken glass. The ER was a disaster zone, furniture and supplies were strewn everywhere, and blood stains covered the floor and walls.
They stopped to listen, holding very still for a solid minute. When they heard no movement, Amanda lowered her weapon and began pointing. She knew this ER and had worked here for years. Leaning close to Allistor, she whispered, “Down this hall to the left is a portable X-ray we used to move from bay to bay. We need that. And a crash cart - if there’s one still intact. Also a few of these beds wouldn’t hurt. They’re on wheels. If you’ll do that, I’ll go raid the pharmacy.”
Allistor shook his head. “We’re not in a rush here. I don’t want you wandering off alone. Something or things might still be roaming the halls. Which is the priority?”
Amanda glanced fearfully over her shoulder, then gave him a look, and he could tell she was trying to decide if he was being sexist. He cut her off at the pass. “I know you can take care of yourself. I saw you handle that shotgun. You know how to shoot, right?”
She nodded her head. “My pop took us hunting as kids.”
“Right. So you’re just as capable as I am. Maybe more. But look around. See all the bloody prints? Some kind of pack of monsters must have done this. We need to stick together.”
With a sigh, she relaxed. “Sorry. Old habits.” She looked around. “The drugs are the priority. Antibiotics especially. Let’s hit the pharmacy first. We can grab this stuff on the way back.”
So he followed her as she crept down one hall, then another. He insisted on checking each room they passed, then closing the door as quietly as possible. The last thing he wanted was mobs sneaking up on them from behind. He realized his pulse was racing, and his shirt was soaked with sweat. There was a definite feeling of being prey, watched by a predator waiting for the right moment to strike.
Ten minutes later, Amanda was crawling through the broken service window of the pharmacy to unlock the door for him. He found a rolling laundry hamper out in the hall and dumped its bloody contents. Rolling it inside, he pushed it down the aisles behind Amanda as she cleared the shelves of useful drugs.
“I’m skipping all of the cancer drugs, that kind of thing. I think with this new system, those aren’t going to be a problem. I’m focusing on infections and pain reduction.”
Allistor asked. “What about poison cures? Do they have that kind of thing in here?”
She thought about it, searching the shelf in front of her. “Not exactly. There are emetics, charcoal treatments, that kind of thing. But I’ll grab whatever’s here.”
“Anybody have any chronic problems that you know of? Diabetes, arthritis?” he asked.
“No. But it wouldn’t hurt to grab some of those drugs as well. Straight insulin would have to be refrigerated, but we have electricity now. And it has a short shelf life. Still, we’ll throw some in. There should be a few small coolers in here somewhere.”
Allistor left the hamper with her and went in search of coolers. Naturally, he found them right next to the wall cooler that held the insulin. He took a cooler, removed some slightly cool gel packs from the bottom of the wall cooler, and then put them and a double handful of insulin vials into the little cooler. Closing it up, he returned to Amanda. The hamper was about half full when he set the insulin inside. “I grabbed a bunch of insulin. Anything else you want from the refrigerated section, dear?” he winked at her.
Snorting, she said, “Let me go look.”
Allistor stood there, reading labels on the boxes in front of him, not understanding what they meant at all. Two minutes later she returned with another cooler. “They had some common antivenoms in there. Rattlesnakes and such. Can’t hurt to have them. I’m guessing all the normal Earth beasties are still out there in the woods, too.”
When she’d taken what looked like enough drugs to serve an army, they left the pharmacy. Amanda led him to a huge linen closet where they grabbed more scrubs, a couple of white doctor’s coats, and filled the rest of the hamper with clean sheets and towels. There were two more hampers sitting in there, so they grabbed those as well. Allistor pushed one and pulled another as Amanda pushed the third. They cleaned out the linens, then moved to the surgical supplies. Amanda loaded armfuls of prepacked surgical kits, suture kits, and boxes of gloves and masks. She grabbed a couple one-gallon bottles of liquid soap as well. And a case of the sanitary paper sheets they put over patients during surgery.
Leaving that wing, Allistor continued to close each door as they passed. He wanted to preserve as much as possible, in case they ever needed to come back for more. Or expanded enough to claim this place as a stronghold. It would be nearly perfect with some walls around it. But they were far from that point right now.
They found a custodian’s closet with tons of cleaning supplies, so they loaded half a hamper with cleaning fluids, sponges, brushes, etc.
On the way out, Amanda stopped. “The cafeteria. They probably have a ton of food. They have these great Salisbury steaks…”
Allistor grimaced. “It won’t smell good in there. Has to be all rotten by now.”
Amanda rolled her eyes. “This place had a backup generator, dummy! Assuming the power went out when that giant took out the power lines, they still would have had a few days of juice here, powering critical systems. It would have come on automatically. And the kitchen counts as critical systems. Gotta feed the patients and staff, right?”
Getting excited now, Allistor followed her to the cafeteria, their little train of hampers rolling along. Again, he checked and secured each room they passed. It took a while, but after four turns and a long corridor of offices, they reached the cafeteria.
He was suddenly much less excited. Tables and chairs were scattered everywhere and covered in blood. The windows were smashed, the glass on the inside. Which meant something had come through them from outside.
Leaving the two full hampers where they were, he pulled one toward the buffet line and the swinging doors behind it. Amanda followed behind, shotgun ready.
Allistor peered through the small window in one of the doors. The kitchen hadn’t been spared whatever massacre happened here. Pots and pans and tableware were scattered everywhere. He watched for a while, seeing no movement. A loud rap on the door didn’t rouse anything either. He was about to step through and turned to make sure Amanda was ready when he saw movement.
Eyes wide, he tracked the movement as a huge cat emerged from behind a vending machine near the corner. It was easily two hundred pounds of teeth and muscle. It stared at him with red eyes, not blinking once as it crouched and watched them. Its long tail swished back and forth.
Lanx
Level 5
Health 1,200/1,200
Seeing the direction of his stare, Amanda turned and gasped. The sound seemed to trigger the feline, and its back legs began to twitch and a low growl emanated from its chest. Allistor knew that movement. He’d seen the family housecat do that hundreds of times, right before it attacked whatever toy they were dangling in front of it.
He raised his spear and whispered, “Get ready. It’s going to attack.”
The buffet line was between them and the lanx. So it was going to have to either charge around one side or leap over the top. The glass sneeze-protector thing mounted above the buffet topped out at about five and a half feet. An easy hop for a cat that size.
The lanx agreed. With a burst of speed, it crossed the room, pushing fallen chairs aside in its rush toward them. With a last bound, it soared up and over the buffet, jaws wide and front claws extended.
Allistor raised his spear, jabbing into the cat’s gut as it cleared the hurdle. He’d been aiming for its chest but misjudged the speed and height. As the spear penetrated the now screaming big cat’s belly and sank into its innards, its front paws struck Allistor in the chest and razor-sharp claws raked at him. The weight knocked him backward into the swinging doors, which gave way as he fell.
Th
e weight of the impact pushed the spear entirely through the cat’s body, the tip bursting through its back just above its hips. It scrabbled and thrashed, biting at Allistor and slashing at him with its claws. He was pinned beneath it, using both hands to try and grab its forelegs and stop the damage.
Amanda finished the thing. She jammed her shotgun barrel right against its head, pushing it clear of Allistor before pulling the trigger. The shotgun, being an ‘old Earth’ weapon, typically wouldn’t do catastrophic damage to one of these new monsters. Maybe two hundred points per shot at normal range. But this close, when she fired, physics won out and the head exploded, coating both of them in blood and brain bits. No matter how much health a monster had, losing its head meant death.
Cursing to himself, Allistor shoved the cat off and got to his feet. He immediately scanned the kitchen, then the cafeteria, looking for more lanxes. He wasn’t sure if they were solitary hunters like the lynx, or pack hunters like lions. When nothing else showed itself, he relaxed a bit.
Amanda bent down and looted the corpse. She received thirty klax, six pieces of lanx meat, a lanx pelt, claws, teeth, and six pieces of lanx leather.
Taking a look at him, she said, “Chloe’s right. You do seem to have this thing about letting stuff bite you.” She touched his shoulder gently.
He looked down at her hand and saw that the cat had managed to bite down on his shoulder at some point. He hadn’t even noticed as he struggled with it. But he definitely felt the tears in his chest and arms.
Amanda said, “Let’s get you cleaned up.” Then looking down at herself, covered in blood and brains, added, “And me too. There are some showers down the hall. Can you walk?”
“Yeah. My legs are fine. But I need to eat something. It’ll heal most of this.”
She nodded and looked around. First, she found a rag to clean off her hands, handing it to him when she was done. Opening a small glass cooler sitting atop the counter, she pulled out a slice of pecan pie. “This doesn’t need refrigerating, so it will still be good even if the power went out on day one.”
Allistor accepted the gift and munched on it as she led him toward the locker room. He took bites of the pie in between room clearings as he checked and secured each one along the way, finishing it as they walked across the locker room toward the showers in the back. Unabashed, she began to strip as they walked, stepping naked into the shower and turning the water to full hot. She didn’t bother to close the curtain behind her. Allistor stared until she turned and caught him at it. She smirked at him, still standing there covered in blood, and said, “Strip. I’m a PA; you’ve got nothin’ I haven’t seen before,” before resuming her shower.
Allistor did as he was told, leaving his bloody and shredded clothes on the floor. He stepped into the shower and turned the dial to hot before pulling it out. The water came out ice cold. He jumped and squeaked, glaring at Amanda. She burst out laughing.
“Apparently the water heater has been off for a while,” she managed to say.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he grumped at her, stepping back under the water with a clenched jaw.
“And miss out on seeing you squeal like a little girl?” She finished her shower and stepped over to a pile of towels. It took all his self-control to keep from staring again. He focused on cleaning himself quickly, making liberal use of the liquid soap dispenser on the wall. When he shut off the water and turned, a towel hit him in the face. “Nice butt! Now get dried off. There are scrubs that should fit you out here,” she said as she walked through the door into the locker room.
By the time he was dried and had retrieved his jeans and boots, she had set aside some scrubs for him. He dressed and slipped his boots back on. Folding his jeans, he wrapped them in the wet towel he’d just used. “I want to keep these,” he explained. She nodded and went back to gather her own clothes.
She found them a bag to carry their bloodied clothes in, and they returned to the kitchen. Allistor opened the walk-in refrigerator to find that it was indeed still cold. And the ice in the ice machine was only partially melted. “The power must have just gone out in the last few hours.” He bowed his head in her direction. “Good call!”
He was about to load a few hundred pounds of burgers and Salisbury steaks into the hamper when Amanda called out. “This one’s on wheels.”
He emerged from the walk-in to see her standing in front of a double-width stainless freezer. Inside were pre-made desserts like cheesecake, carrot cake, and key lime pie. Shelves of them.
With a sigh of regret, he said, “We need the meat more than these tasty treats. Let’s take them out and fill this thing with meat.”
Amanda began removing the pies, setting them on a long prep counter behind her. Allistor grabbed boxes of meat and began refilling the shelves. When it was full, he looked around again. Behind him, Amanda was filling the hamper with desserts. She grinned and said, “They’re still frozen enough to last until we get back. Then we can put them in cold storage. They’ll be good for a week or two.”
Allistor didn’t even want to argue. Cheesecake was one of his favorite things. Instead, he asked, “What about pots and pans and knives and stuff?”
She thought about it. “We can grab a few, I guess. I think Meg has the pots and pans pretty well covered from the diner. But let’s take as many of the knives as we can.”
They loaded those in with the desserts, and then Amanda said, “There’s a door back there that goes directly outside to a loading dock. Instead of pushing all this stuff back through the building, why not just go get the truck. We can load up some tables and chairs and stuff, too.”
Allistor agreed, hesitantly. “I’ll run and get the truck. Do me a favor? If you hear anything that’s not me, get inside the walk-in and hold it closed?”
“Deal. I’m gonna raid the spices, sugar, and flour and stuff while you’re doing that. Grab lots of coffee and tea, too.”
He gave her a brief hug, not sure why, then dashed out of the room. He got lost once on the way back to the truck but realized all he had to do was backtrack and follow the corridors with all the doors closed. He was back in the ER a few minutes later and took time to push two of the heavy gurneys outside and set them on their sides on the trailer. He pulled around the back of the building and found the sign that said “Food Service” with an arrow pointing to the loading dock. He pulled the trailer right up to the edge, then got out and knocked three times on the door.
Amanda had heard him coming and opened it immediately. They wheeled the three hampers up onto the trailer, then the refrigerator. Right away, Allistor noticed an issue.
“Shit. I forgot to bring rope. Gotta figure out a way to keep this stuff secure as we move.”
Amanda grinned at him. “The roof! Plenty of rope on the roof.”
He looked at her with one eyebrow raised questioningly.
“There’s a rig up there that they use to wash the windows. It’s basically a bench with ropes at either end hooked to an electric pulley system. We could actually probably make use of that, too.”
He snorted. “You just want to make me run up six floors of stairs and carry all that crap down.”
She shook her head. “First, I’m going with you. No telling what’s up there, and I’ve already had to save your ass once today.” A wink took the sting out of her words. “Second, you won’t have to carry it down. It’s mostly rope. Just lower it down.”
He did an exaggerated facepalm. “Another good call. What would I do without you?”
She poked him in the gut. “Well, in about three days you’d be getting shat out by that lanx.”
Rolling his eyes and shaking his head, he replied, “I’m assuming we’re gonna need some tools to disconnect that pulley?”
“Yup! There’s a maintenance shop on the lower level. Let’s go.”
She led him to the nearest stairwell and down one floor. They passed by the morgue, and he made VERY sure that door was secured. Beyond the visions of walking corpses,
he didn’t want any more critters getting in there and consuming whatever bodies might be inside. And very soon, with the power off, it was going to start to smell.
In the maintenance shop, they found at least two of every kind of tool Allistor could imagine. Metal wrenches, channel locks, sockets, power tools, hammers, and hacksaws. There was even a massive wooden workbench that made him drool, and two portable, folding workbenches next to two extendable ladders. They also found several large canvas duffle bags. He discovered a few spools of wire and thick twine that would help him secure stuff on the trailer if the rope didn’t do it. And one entire wall was stacked high with bags of salt for winter. After filling four bags, there were still more tools Allistor wanted. And in the corner, he found an actual anvil! Dreams of Weaponsmithing danced through his head.
“We need something to carry more of these things in. Something big, preferably with wheels. I want to take as much as we can. Hell, I’ll even take these metal shelves if I can.”
Amanda tapped her chin. “There are the steel autopsy tables in the morgue. They’re on wheels and have a shelf underneath. We could pile these bags on there. They’d make good rails on the trailer, too.”
He shook his head. “Bigger. Heavier.”
She shrugged. “We’ll have to look around.”
He grabbed a socket wrench, channel locks, a hammer, and some pliers and they made their way to the roof. With his improved strength and stamina, the walk up the seven levels from the basement to the roof was almost effortless.
Out on the roof, he immediately saw what Amanda had meant. There was a sort of mini-crane on a swivel bolted to the roof. Standing six feet high with an electric motor and two pulleys, it could be turned toward any of the four sides of the building and used to lower the ropes that supported the bench. The bench with the rope coiled atop it lay nearby.
One look at the base of the crane and Allistor said, “We’ll have to come back for this. The bolts are welded. And somebody with more knowledge than me is going to have to figure out how to disconnect the electrical wires in a way that lets us reconnect it later.” She stared at the bolts and didn’t disagree.
Shadow Sun Survival: Shadow Sun Book One Page 12
