The Last Alive

by H. L. Wampler

  "Don't do that again," he said, chasing after me.

  I shrugged my shoulders at him. "It was going to bite you."

  "You could have at least warned me, Emma."

  "Sorry."

  "You have issues." He yanked my arrow out of the undead's skull.

  "Don't we all?"

  "You have more than most people."

  "I promise I'll be better once we find Nathan. Okay?"

  "Yeah, sure."

  The rest of the hill was covered in various military vehicles, police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks. It was the government's brilliant attempt at keeping this thing under wraps and from spreading. Obviously, it didn't work. At all. It only took a few days for the virus to overtake Pittsburgh. It was out of the hospital within a matter of hours.

  I motioned for Meaghan to follow me and for the rest to head further up the hill. We crept along the hummers and other emergency vehicles just waiting for a horde to attack. I felt something crunch under my feet. Looking down, I saw I'd stepped on a skull. I jumped back and closed my eyes hoping nothing heard it. I peered over the hood of the ambulance we were next to and looked around. In the driveway of the hospital a group of them milled about. They didn't seem to move with any determination. They bumped into each other, moaned, and kept on doing what they were doing.

  "They're so thin and nastier than usual," Meaghan said quietly.

  "I think they might be starving." I watched the zombies with interest. They did move a lot slower than the ones we saw outside the city.

  "How?"

  "I guess not finding any meat."

  "Why don't they eat each other than?" she asked.

  "Perhaps it's because they're dead. The flesh is rotting and not appetizing to them."

  "Do you think they honestly care if their meat is fresh or not?" She rolled her eyes at me and shook her head as though it were a completely ridiculous thought.

  I shrugged my shoulders. "They might. I don't know how the mind of an undead works." "It doesn't. It's dead."

  "Then maybe they just don't like dead flesh. Do you like rotting meat?"

  "Well no, of course not."

  I pulled the arrow back and released it as I exhaled. Meaghan took aim and pulled the triggers before I could stop her. I spun on my heels and glared at her. Of all places to use a gun, this was not it.

  "Oh no," I groaned, backing up.

  We watched as zombies stumbled out from everywhere. They didn't leave, they were just not moving. I paused for a moment and watched in wonder. These zombies weren’t a coordinated group to begin with, but these ones bumped into one another a lot more. They seemed to take a longer time processing, if they could process things, the fact that they bumped into another zombie.

  “What’s wrong with them?” Liz asked, stepping up next to me.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. They’re different. There’s something wrong with them.”

  Taz walked past us and jammed his knife into one of their heads and pulled it out fast. Black liquid oozed from the wound as the undead sunk to the ground.

  “It smells awful!” He held his arm up to his nose and gagged.

  “They’re rotting.”

  “What?” Liz asked.

  “They’re rotting. The undead are, well, dying.” I knelt next to the decomposed body that Taz just put down.

  The smell was truly something awful.

  They’ll be easy to get through. Very easy.

  Meaghan stood next to me, holding onto my arm as we stared up at the hospital.

  “I’m sure they put her down.”

  I winced at the thought of such a horrible thing.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It would be the kindest thing if they did.”

  My heart still ached for my long dead sister. Her last words still haunted me.

  It’s a weapon. Not a virus. They lied to us.

  I still hadn’t figured out who they were or what weapon she spoke of.

  Taz elbowed me as he walked past, heading up the hill, drawing me from my daydream.

  “No place to stop, Em. Let’s go.”

  “Right.”

  An old military Humvee was overturned halfway up the hill, full of bullet holes and covered in blood. A low snarl came from somewhere within the armored vehicle.

  Poor bastard.

  I looked through the window and grimaced at the sight. A man, still in what was left of his uniform, lay pinned beneath a large crate of some sort. His flesh had almost completely fallen from his skull, revealing dark sockets of nothing. His hair clung to the few patches of skin left on his head and the rest was skull. For the first time in a very long while, I gagged. I reached for my knife, planning on climbing in and plunging into his head, or what was left of it when the loudest bang rang out beside my head. The sound reverberated through my head causing my ears to ring.

  “Meaghan!” Taz screamed, pulling me back.

  I couldn’t focus on anything. I couldn’t hear anything. I held my ears as the ringing slowly turned into a roaring moan. Zombies stumbled from everywhere. They’d never left the area, they just weren’t moving.

  My mind went to Nathan. How did he make it through such hell? I couldn’t help but think about when the outbreak happened. How we made it out of the hospital I was about to go back into.

  Chapter Eleven

  Temporary Safety…back to the beginning

  “What the hell do we do?” My body frozen in fear.

  “I have no idea. I didn’t think it would have spread down here so fast,” he said as loudly as he dared.

  “Well obviously its spread and fast. We need to figure something out and get out of here now!”

  I didn’t give him time to respond, I smacked the number two and hoped the elevator doors would close faster. I pushed myself against the back of the elevator wishing I could disappear into the steel paneling. A few of the undead heard and saw us. They stumbled toward the closing doors, but we were already heading up by time they reached us. I held my breath trying to mentally prepare for another hoard as we reached the second floor.

  “Oh thank God,” Nathan sighed.

  “Let’s not wait around for them to show up.” I grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the small compartment and turned down a hallway. “Um, how about you lead the way since I have no idea where I’m at.”

  He chuckled lightly and took the lead. It was the first time I’d heard him laugh since this chaos started. He let go of my hand and pushed a door open just a crack. I watched as he disappeared into the vast darkness that lay on the other side. The few minutes he left my side felt like an eternity. My heart pounded against my chest as I stood out there all alone. I looked up and down the halls hoping that I would stay alone. A hand slipped out a crack in the door and grasped mine. I screamed and tried to jump back but it just pulled me into the darkness.

  “Shh.” Nathan wrapped his arms around me in an attempt to calm me down.

  “You nearly gave me a heart attack!” I smacked his arm and walked away. “What is this place?”

  “Surgeons lounge. It’s where we all hang out and rest between surgeries. Or if we’re on call we can catch a quick nap in the back.”

  “I don’t plan on catching a quick nap.” The silence echoed.

  “We can at least hold up in here until someone can get to us,” he said, shoving a broom through the door handles on the double doors.

  “Is anyone coming?” I asked.

  “They’re going to have to if they don’t want this to spread.” He crossed the room and dead bolted the single door that lead to only he knew where.

  “Did you just trap us in here?”

  “I just blocked off anyway for one of those things to get in here and eat us.”

  “And trapped us in the meantime.”

  “Someone will come for us, Emma.” He paced the dark room.

  “Why can’t we go out that door?”

  “I don’t know what’s on the other side.
”

  “Seriously?” I unlocked the door and pulled it open slightly.

  A long, empty hallway greeted me. Again, nothing but silence.

  “Are they out there?”

  “No,” I whispered.

  “Okay.” He looked around me and slid his slender body out of the room.

  He took a few tentative steps down the hallway, his footsteps echoing off the barren walls, waiting and looking. I followed behind keeping my back pressed up against the wall of windows. My heart slammed against my chest with each door we passed. I nearly jumped out of my skin when the pounding behind me started. I screamed and fell over; staring at the smeared, bloody handprints left behind from the undead that were staggering around the small courtyard on the other side of the windows.

  “How did they get out there?” I watched as they wondered around aimlessly.

  “There’s a door on the other side.”

  “Is that hall connected to our hall?”

  “I don’t think so.” Nathan stared down the hall at nothing.

  “Where does that door lead?”

  “By the radiology department,” he whispered.

  “Why are you whispering?” I cried.

  “I don’t know what is on the other side of that door.” He slowly pushed down on the metal bar that was across the middle of it. “Just stay back in case we are overrun. At least you may have a chance to run back to the other room.”

  “Let’s go back. You were right; we can wait for help there. Risking it, it’s not worth it.”

  “We can’t go back. We have to get out of here.” He pushed on the door.

  “Why do you argue? I’m saying you were right, let’s go back.” Tears spilled down my cheeks. “Please.”

  “Come on, Emma. We have to get out of here. Do you want to wait around here for who knows how long? What happened to the brave girl that was out five minutes ago?”

  “It was your idea!”

  “And my idea has changed.” He squeezed my hand and smiled. He was faking his optimism. There was no way anyone could be so happy and positive in the middle of the zombiepocalypse.

  I held my breath as he pushed the door the rest of the way open. All was silent. Nathan grabbed my hand led me through the quiet reception area pausing near a corner. He peeked out one of the windows as a man in dark blue scrubs walked by staring at a stack of papers.

  “I don’t think he’s one of them,” I whispered watching the man walk down the hall. He didn’t seem to be affected by anything going on.

  “Stay here,” Nathan replied.

  I stood at the corner as he left the room and went after the other man. He hesitated at first before running up the guy and hugging him. I closed my eyes and let my head fall against the door. The breath I let out the breath I unknowingly held in. Relief flooded my mind. We weren’t the only survivors. At least one other person survived, which meant perhaps the virus had not spread throughout the entire hospital yet.

  Nathan and the other man ran back to our temporary safe haven.

  “What is going on?” tall, dark, and gorgeous asked.

  “Some virus is spreading like wild fire throughout the hospital,” Nathan told him.

  “What? How? Where?”

  “Everywhere.” He looked around nervously and returned to the door we’d just emerged from. “Look at this, Scott.”

  The man looked at Nathan incredulously, but went through the door.

  “Holy shit. Is this some kind of joke?” Scott yelled as I heard his papers fall to the floor and him stumble into the wall behind him.

  “No, this is all over the hospital. How have you not seen it?”

  “I’ve been in the on call room sleeping all morning,” he said. “What’s going on?”

  “A girl was brought in last night with flu-like symptoms. It wasn’t the flu.”

  “What was it?”

  “We don’t know. I called the CDC, but I don’t know if they believed me or not.”

  I heard glass shatter and the determined grunts of the undead trying to get to us. I sank to the floor behind the door and cried. Nathan and Scott ran back into the reception area with me and slammed the doors shut.

  “How do you lock these?” Nathan yelled, throwing his weight against the metal doors as the horde pushed against them.

  “I don’t know. How do we get out of here?” Scott yelled back.

  I had never seen two grown men freak out before.

  Chapter Twelve

  Back to Ground Zero and Back to Present Day

  I had to stop thinking about Nathan and when this all started. When all of our lives fell apart.

  “Do not fire that gun again.” I shook my head, regaining my senses. “We’re in some serious shit now.”

  Tears welled up and I glanced back at the hospital as we retreated down the hill. Once there was enough distance between us and the horde that was coming after us, I stopped and looked around.

  There has to be some place that we can go. Somewhere we can get in.

  “There! To the right! That building connects with the hospital,” I shouted.

  “The doors are blocked,” Liz said.

  “We have to get inside.”

  “Yeah, that’ll be a piece of cake, Em,” Meaghan grumbled.

  “It would have been easier if you weren’t an idiot,” Taz snapped at her.

  I stepped between the two of them as Meaghan ran at Taz. “Knock it off. This is not the place nor the time. We have to find Nathan and get back to the fort.”

  “How are we going to do that? How do we get in?” Liz asked.

  “I’ll figure that out.” I looked around for something that would help unblock the door.

  A statue had fallen in front of the door. The kitten that had been tucked safely in my jacket squirmed around and popped its little head out of the top, under my chin. I scratched his head and smiled as he purred against my chest. Muffin would love having a playmate and his purr really soothed me. The vibrations rumbling from his chest to mine created a sense of relaxation, which was miraculous considering where we were.

  “Stop playing with the kitten and let’s figure something out!”

  “I am, Meaghan. Shut up before one of those things notices us.”

  I stood there looking around desperately. The zombies were closing in on us, ambling slowly but surely toward us.

  “We have to find leverage.”

  “What?” Liz asked.

  “A pipe or bar or something that we can use to move that statue from in front of the doors. If we move it, we can get in.”

  “Where the hell are we going to find a pipe strong enough?” Taz questioned.

  “We’re in an apocalypse. I don’t think anyone will care if we break something to get a big pipe.” I rolled my eyes and tucked the kitten back into my jacket, securing the top button.

  “Before get pipes and stuff, maybe we should worry about them.” Meaghan pointed at the mass of Undead shuffling toward us.

  “I think you’re right.”

  Think, Emma. Think. What can get rid of Undead?

  I looked around trying to wrack my brain for anything that could help.

  The cars!

  I dug through the pockets of my jacket until my fingers brushed against a small lighter. I walked toward Meaghan and Liz, and snatched the bandana off Meaghan’s head. She protested a bit, but let it go when she realized I had a plan. I squatted near one of the abandoned police cruisers and opened the gas tank. The fumes that had been trapped for four years wafted out and smacked me in the face. I slid one end of the bandana into the tank.

  “Alright you light this and I release the brake. Or I light it and you release.” I stood back up, and looked at Taz.

  “I’ll light.” He quickly took the lighter off of me.

  “Okay. As soon as you do, run and get down.”

  He nodded and waited until I was able to pop the brake. The car squealed as it lurched forward. It was almost as though it had to remember how
to move. The bottom had rusted and the tires had gone flat, but gravity was doing its thing. I hopped out and began to run in the opposite direction hoping Taz had been successful at lighting the makeshift wick. I darted behind a concrete pillar and turned to watch. The flame burned through half of the bandana as it slammed into other emergency vehicles. Taz, Meaghan, and Liz were nowhere in sight.

  The massive zombie horde gathering in the emergency entrance way seemed drawn to the commotion caused by the crunching metal and shattering glass. They began to stagger in a zombie run toward the wrecked cars. The apparent urge to feed sent them into a hungered frenzy. Who knows when the last time they had flesh was. I crept around the pillar and kept as far back as I could; side-stepping over a few skeletons that lay in the middle of the street. The bones were weather worn, but there was no mistaking the tell-tale bullet hole in the forehead. They had been undead at one point; put down during the first wave.