“What the hell are you doing?” I asked.
“Shh,” he replied.
“Don’t shush me. What is wrong?”
“Nothing, I’m listening.”
“What are you listening for?”
“To see if there are any of the undead in the stairwell,” Taz whispered.
“What do you hear?”
“Something is groaning somewhere.”
“It was like that when I was coming up. I think it’s stuck.”
“Good. It can stay stuck.”
I turned around, hanging onto the beam, and lowered myself to the ground. The thud of my feet resonated throughout the narrow space. I closed my eyes and waited for something to pop out of somewhere to try and bite my face off. Nathan swung his legs around and landed next to me.
“Let’s go.” He reached for my hand. I laced my fingers through his and followed him down. On the first floor I slowly pushed open the door and looked around. It was as quiet as when I had climbed the stairs.
This is too easy.
“It’s too quiet.” Nathan emerged behind me.
“I know. It was like this when I came up looking for you.”
“You don’t find it odd?” he asked.
“I do. It is very odd, but I’m not going to wait around for them to come out of the wood work. Let’s get Meaghan and Liz and get home.”
The three of us crept past the decrepit Starbucks toward the side door. The PNC bank that was once the hub of the hospitals banking needs had been looted long ago. Not that it mattered now. The days of money were long gone. It was almost as though we partially went back to the 1800’s and were back on the barter system. Instead of money being used it was medicines, clothing, cigarettes, and alcohol.
The side hall was empty. Not moans, groans, or peeps. I couldn’t help but sigh with relief.
Could it be possible that we will make it out easy after all?
I felt so relieved when we came to the vestibule and saw Meaghan standing there. Her back was pressed against the door facing us. I watched as she sank to the floor and held the tiny kitten to her chest. My heart fell. Something had to be wrong. Of course something was wrong. There was no easy any more. There was no simple walk out of the hospital. I cursed myself for letting my hopes get up. I knocked on the Plexiglas and saw the tears. She pushed open the door and wrapped her arms around my neck, smashing the kitten between us.
“What’s wrong?” Nathan asked.
“We’re stuck. We are stuck here, and we’re never making our way out.”
“What are you talking about? I found Nathan, I got back to you in one piece, and now we can leave,” I said, trying to calm the hysterical girl.
“No, Emma, we can’t. We are stuck. We’re not leaving this hospital.”
“Why?”
“Um, it could be the fact that the entire front of the building is surrounded.”
“What? How!” Taz exclaimed as loudly as he dared.
“Apparently our little car bomb didn’t work.”
I looked out the narrow window and my heart sunk. There were hundreds of undead. They were everywhere. It was as though they had fresh flesh radar and it was pinging us.
Chapter Eighteen
Adios, Scott
“Scott! Help him!” I screamed, still beating on the glass.
“Not everyone is going to survive,” he grunted still trying to pull himself into the ceiling.
“Don’t let him die! You can’t let him die!”
Nathan looked back at me with sadness and terror in his eyes. He knew his fate. He knew he was a mere minutes, if not seconds, from death. I could only hope he wouldn’t give up without fighting. My heart sank to the pit of my stomach as I watched a man I’d just met, but had quickly grown attached to, slowly accept his terrible fate. Scott continued to kick and try to get up. I heard a cracking and watched as he crashed to the ground. The zombies dove on him. He kicked and screamed trying to fight them off, but there were just too many. I watched one dressed in tight jeans, black boots, and a ripped sweater tear at Scott’s arm. Blood ran down her mouth as the vacant, human-less eyes stared ahead as she chewed. I wanted to vomit. His blood curdling screams were quieted as another of the corpses tore at his neck. His lifeless eyes stared up at nothing as the zombie’s feasted. Nathan’s face turned a sickly shade of white, and he swayed back and forth.
“Nathan! Nathan, don’t pass out!” I pounded on the locked door again.
He looked at me, almost as though he had no idea who I was.
“Come on, Nathan. You have to move it! Get into that ceiling now!” I continued screaming at him.
He looked back toward the quickly disappearing Scott.
Oh God he’s in shock.
One of the undead stood and looked at us. It took a few unsteady steps toward him before Nathan finally moved. He snapped out of whatever trance he was in from watching Scott being torn to bits and launched himself toward the ceiling. He managed to hang onto a beam near the one that Scott had broken. He lifted his lower body just enough that he wasn’t grabbed. I closed my eyes sighing with relief. I tried not to look at Scott’s ripped and torn remains. He was right, not everyone was going to survive this. I had to come to terms with that very quickly or I’d end up like him.
Nathan landed next to me with a thud. I tried to swallow the knot forming in my throat as the tears continued to flow. He looked at me with deep regard.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
“I will never be okay again,” I whispered.
“Eventually things will go back to normal. They have to.”
“Not really, Nathan.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You don’t watch movies do you?”
“What do movies have to do with anything?” he asked.
“Nothing ever goes back to normal. Nobody ever survives for long.”
“Stop worrying about what happens in movies. That’s all Hollywood. There may be a way to survive. There could be a way to stop this.”
“You saw how fast it spread in here.” I motioned toward the increasing group of undead. “How fast do you think it’s going to spread out there? Where there are billions of people, not just a few thousand.”
“Stay positive.”
I looked at the bloodied hallway then back at Nathan. “Seriously? Stay positive? I just watched a man ripped apart and eaten alive. How exactly am I supposed to stay positive?”
He opened his mouth as though he were about to answer but quickly closed it again.
“Exactly,” I mumbled, looking out to the world outside. It was odd. Everything seemed so normal. Nobody knew of the horrors that lay inside the hospital.
Oh God, nobody knows yet!
My face dropped at the thought nobody beyond these doors knew except the CDC; if they were even taking Nathan’s call seriously.
“What’s wrong?”
“They don’t know.” I motioned toward the people outside.
It was like an entirely different world outside. People sat on the edge of the smoking area, others just walked by. I pushed the door open and was welcomed by a completely normal spring day. A warm wind blew through and had I not just been through hell, I would have enjoyed a walk down to Razzy Fresh.
“I think there isn’t enough time to warn people.” Nathan grabbed my hand and yanked me toward the street.
“Why not? We can’t leave them here without any warning.”
“The zombies are coming out of the hospital.” He pulled me toward a parking garage.
“We leave without saying anything,” I said, trying to get him to stop.
“Run!” he screamed as he pulled me onto the opposite sidewalk. “Run!”
The people who were nearby stared at us as though we were insane and at the moment I did feel insane.
A man in dark blue scrubs approached one of the zombies who were still in a hospital gown, dragging an IV pole behind him.
“Don’t go near that man!
Back up!” I shouted.
He looked at me briefly before continuing on.
“Please, get away from him!”
The man ignored my pleas and continued toward the undead. He picked up the IV pole, patted the man on the back, and had his face bitten off. People screamed and ran. More zombies emerged from the hospital entrance. And shit was hitting the fan.
“Can we go now?” Nathan asked.
“And this is how it starts,” I muttered.
“Right now we need to run.”
“Nathan, there is no out running it. We need to just give up.”
“Stop being so fucking negative and depressed. This sucks, I know. The world is probably going to end, that much you have right.”
“Geez thanks for the pep talk,” I grumbled.
“I’m serious, Emma. You can’t give up. If this does spread we’re going to have to stick together,” he said, grabbing my hand.
“I have to get to my family. They have to be worried sick by now.”
“I’ll take you there.” He led me through the parking garage.
“I have my car here.”
“I don’t care. I don’t want to leave you alone.” he squeezed my hand and looked down. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“What about your family?” I asked.
“They’re in Boston.”
“You should go to them.”
“I will, but for now I just want to be with you.” He smiled meekly.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t want to be alone.”
“Alright, then you are coming back to my family’s farm with me, but we’re taking my car.”
“Where is it?”
“Right over there.” I pointed to a sturdy black jeep that sat in a corner.
I turned around when I heard the groaning. I stopped when I saw another massive hoard of undead behind us.
“It’s never going to stop,” I shouted, running toward the car.
“Do you have your keys?” Nathan asked in a panic.
“Yeah, they’re in my pocket.” I pulled them out and unlocked the doors.
We somehow managed to jump in and slam the doors shut as the hoard closed in on us. I quickly turned on the car, put it in drive, and sped out of the parking garage running over as many of the zombies as I possibly could. Pulling out into traffic was odd. In my rear view mirror I could see the undead take over the living. People tried to run across the street, some making it while others were hit by cars and busses. Others were taken down on the sidewalk and chewed on. I pressed the gas as far to the floor as possible and somehow made it out of Oakland. I kept changing the stations trying to find something about the catastrophe that was occurring in Pittsburgh. Either it was being kept hushed up or nobody had received news of it yet.
“We have to tell someone.”
“Like who?” Nathan asked.
“Anybody. People need to know.”
“And who would believe us? It still sounds crazy to me, and I went through it.”
“Even if they don’t believe us we have to tell someone. Call a radio station or the newspaper.” I gripped the steering wheel and shook my head. Such awful things had happened and it was only the beginning.
He looked at me with a dumbfounded look.
I sighed and swerved around a car. “Use the search browser on my phone. Look up radio station numbers. The phone is in my glove compartment”
He grabbed it and began the search.
“Hello? Yes, this is Doctor Nathan Adesse I have some information about an infection that is spreading rapidly that you may be interested in. Zombies. Yes you heard me right. No, this is not a joke. I know because I was just at the hospital where it started. Yes I’ll hold.”
He rubbed his temples as he sat there.
“Well?”
“I’m on hold.”
“I heard that. Are they taking you seriously?”
“They have to look into it.”
“What? Look into what? People are turning into zombies how much do they need to look into it?” I asked exasperated.
“I don’t know.”
“I want to scream.”
He nodded his head. “Yes, like I said I just came from the hospital where it started. Yes, that is accurate. I know it sounds crazy but people are eating people. No, this isn’t a hoax. I wouldn’t go there if I were you. Just warn peop…fine. Try calling. I doubt anyone will answer. If they do get them help.”
He put the phone down and looked at me.
“What did they say?”
“They will look into it.”
“What? Unbelievable!” I yelled smacking the steering wheel.
“Do you want to call your family?” He held the phone out to me.
“Call yours first. Warn them. Tell them to board up their house.”
He dialed the number and muffled a few things into the phone. He smiled and handed it back to me.
“That was quick.” I side-eyed him as he put the phone down again.
“My family is of little words.”
“Are you going to them?”
“No, I’m staying here.”
“Why?”
“I’m a doctor. I should stay and help out as much as I can.”
“You don’t have a wife or kids?” I asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“The life didn’t allow for it. It’s demanding being a doctor nobody has ever been willing to stick with me long enough,” he told me, gazing out the window.
Chapter Nineteen
WTF!
“We have to go back through the hospital,” Nathan said.
“What?” Meaghan furrowed her brows and narrowed her eyes. She was definitely not keen on that idea.
“We have to go out one of the other ways.”
“What if the entire hospital is surrounded?” Liz asked.
“Do you want to walk out into that horde?”
Taz, Meaghan, and Liz shook the heads no.
“There has to be a way out. I’m not dying here,” I stated flatly, and I meant it. I survived that long nothing was going to take me out yet.
“Nobody said you were going to!” Nathan yelled at me. “We just need to stay calm and make it to the other side of the hospital. This back hallway is the only hallway that goes the length of it. Otherwise we’re going out into the hospital more to find one of the other ways.”
“Don’t yell at her, Doc. It’s you’re fault we’re even out here!” Taz hollered back.
“Stop fighting. That will not solve anything.” I shook my head at their immaturity.
I took the kitten from Meaghan and put her back in my jacket. She popped her head out the top and mewed lightly. I scratched her behind the ear as we went back into the hospital.
“Are you really taking that thing home with you?” Meaghan asked.
“I’m not leaving her out here. I don’t know how she hasn’t ended up as zombie chow yet.”
“What if she is a zombie?”
“A zombie cat? She would have bit me by now, or at least seemed mean. She’s a total sweetheart. I’m taking her home.”
“Alright.” She sighed heavily.
I held tight to my bow. The arrows in the quiver were dwindling which meant I would eventually be down to just my knife. I stayed close behind Nathan and Meaghan. She looked around wildly like a terrified animal. Her cheeks were wet and her eyes red rimmed. I watched the gun shaking in her hands; she would never be able to shoot right in her present state.
Why would she try to shoot?
“Put your gun away,” I whispered.
“What? Why?” Meaghan asked.
“You’re never going to be able to shoot straight the way you’re shaking. Not to mention why the hell would you try to shoot? Those things are attracted to noise as well as flesh. Put it away,” Liz told her.
“Then what do I use as a weapon?”
“A knife.”
“It’s so smal
l.” She frowned at the metal tucked in her boot.
“It is not small and it won’t draw a heard to us.” Taz looked around a corner. “It’s clear.”
We continued along until we came to locked doors.
“Now what?” Nathan asked.
“We have to break through them,” I told everyone.
“What if those things are over there?” Meaghan questioned.
“We fight our way through like we have before.”
“Um like you have before. I’ve never had to go through here.”
“There is a first for everything,” I muttered.
“This is a first I would like to not go through.”
Liz shook her head. Out of all of us Liz was the most experienced in shooting things. While I was a cop before all of this, I was a detective. We didn’t do much shooting. The problem with Liz was that she didn’t have much of that leadership quality in her.
“Suck it up, buttercup.” I stepped in front of her.
“I’m not taking up the rear. You’re the one with the big weapons. I have my dinky knife since I’m not allowed to use my gun.”
“Guns draw them out. Now stop all the fucking talking, or would you two like to become lunch?”
“I think it might be closer to dinner time,” I mumbled.
“Whatever.” Nathan turned left toward another set of locked doors.
“Where are you going?” I asked. “All the doors around here are locked.
“Pharmacy. I didn’t go through all of this to leave without my supplies.”
“Those doors are locked,” I repeated.
“I’m going to unlock them.”
He took a few steps back and ran full force toward the doors. They didn’t budge. They creaked a bit, but nothing more. Nathan rubbed his shoulder for a minute, stretched his back, and ran at it again. This time the doors did give just the tiniest bit. Taz joined him and after a few repeated ramming’s, the doors flew open.
“Why am I always stuck saving your asses?” I pulled an arrow from my quiver and let it fly.
“I didn’t think any would have been back here.” Nathan caught the large machete I tossed to him.
“Why wouldn’t they be, Nathan? If someone was bit, ran back there, shut the doors…it’s easy enough to reason that there would be undead stuck in pharmacy. And it looks like they made a huge mess.”
The Last Alive Page 12
