by T. A. Sorsby
He locked up on the way out, while I got Morgan’s attention with the musical knock. Back once more in the safety of our operating theatre, Neville told Anita we had the goods. She was sat up on the table with her top off, getting her wounds re-dressed.
‘That’s great news.’ She said, showing no sign that Lucile’s needlework was bothering her. They’d finished with Damian, who seemed more comfortable in his new wheelchair.
‘We should be done here in two shakes,’ Lucile chimed in, ‘what’s our exit plan?’
‘As we thought, that ghoul-thing brought zeds to reception,’ Neville answered, ‘not sure how many. We fought it again to get the keys, but it got away. Not before calling for backup again.’
‘Took out a lone runner, so I think it’s just shamblers we’ve got to worry about. Not sure how many are between us and the exit though. Could be a handful, could be a hundred.’ I said.
‘Worth finding out?’ Neville suggested.
I shook my head. ‘Ghoul might have done us a favour with that second scream. Dragged them away from reception, but there’s more than one way to get there. We could loop around through the Fracture Clinic, come at our exit from a different angle.’
‘That’ll work.’ Laurel said. She was watching Lucile stitch Anita’s shoulder back up. Unlike the improvised kit we’d been using, the surgical room had tongs, grips and all kinds of sinister little hooky things. Guess there was room for that in the bag too, once it’d been wiped down.
‘Bring that kit with us when you’re done, Doc.’ I said to Lucile through the intercom, ‘Got room for it in the antibiotics bag.’
True to her word, it didn’t take long for her to finish Anita’s stitches. Her service training, forgotten upon seeing Damian shot, must have been coming back to her. She set about cleaning down the instruments and wrapping them in clean paper towels.
‘We know the dosages for those?’ Morgan asked, pointing to the bag over my shoulder.
‘It’s printed on the boxes for the pills. The bags…’ I shrugged. ‘Hoping Lucile does.’
Suddenly, all the lights went out.
‘Shit.’ Neville cursed.
‘Language.’ His daughter checked him.
The large free-standing surgical light came back on, but it was the only light in the room. Somebody angled it towards the door, though I couldn’t tell who. Damn thing was blinding after a few seconds in the pitch black.
‘Seems like their power’s going out. Lights must have run off solar panels or something.’ Lucile said, ‘Could be switching over to a gas generator, or…maybe that’s it for power now.’
‘Either way, we need to be making tracks.’ Neville nodded, moving for the door. ‘If that Ghoul’s half as smart as it seems to be, it’ll make the most of this.’
‘Wonder if it can see in the dark?’ I asked.
‘I know I can’t.’ Laurel said, leading the way back through the glass partition. She recovered her rifle, and flicked the flashlight on. The rest of us soon followed suit.
‘More duct tape when we get home.’ Laurel muttered to Morgan, as she struggled to find a comfortable way to hold both her spear-stick and flashlight.
Neville opened the doors, checking right as I went left. Between the storm outside and the lost power, the hallways of the hospital were black, lit only by the white beams of our torchlight. My side was clear, but I heard Neville swear again. We weren’t alone.
Our barricade was doing its job, holding back a group of pale faced, blood-mouthed shamblers. They reached over the pastel blue furniture with arms red with death up to their elbows. The mixture of hopeless wailing and wordless snarls took on a disturbingly eager note upon seeing us.
‘It’s leading them after us.’ Neville said.
That gave me a chill – but the last thing we needed right now was a panic. I needed Neville’s best to see us through.
‘Nothing we can’t handle. We’ve beat it twice now – it knows it won’t survive a third.’ I told him, putting conviction in my voice though I wasn’t sure I bought it myself. ‘Back it up, this way, we’re further into the hospital but the ghoul should already have cleared the way for us.’
Unless it was leading a flanking wave up our other side. I didn’t voice that thought. It was bad enough I’d had it, without putting it in other heads too.
I led from the front, Neville right behind me as I cleared the next set of doors, going left again as he went right. This time we were clear, but had to wait a moment for the rest of them to catch up with us.
Anita was pushing Damian’s chair, the big man holding his shotgun with a firm grip. The local anaesthetic they’d given him had numbed his wounds, but obviously hadn’t sent him out of it. Morgan was standing by them, with Laurel and Lucile bringing up the rear this time.
‘Hear any noises from above, move, quickly.’ I advised the group, ‘Rotting bastard tried getting us from above.’
‘He get a face full of buckshot if he tries anything.’ Damian said, ‘I not going through all this just to get done like that.’
‘Too bloody right.’ Laurel said.
Every now and then the lights would flicker, exposing the things we couldn’t see in the beams of our lights like the flash from a camera. These halls were just as bad as the rest we’d seen, toppled gurneys and pools of blood, smears of ichor and bullet-holes peppering the walls.
We were moving beyond what I was certain of with the hospital layout and had to stop at the next junction to check the signs on the walls. While I plotted a route, racking my nervous brain, everybody else kept their eyes on a corridor, or in Neville’s case, the ceiling. Meanwhile, the rumble of thunder was constant, and seemed to be getting closer, with the flashes of lightning through distant windows generally not helping ease the mood.
On top of all that, the Ghoul was out there. A corpse that could walk like the living, and seemingly, think like a predator. It was more dangerous than even the runners, but was it smart enough to know where we’d go next? It’d found us in the surgery, and I can only assume it’d led that mob straight for us.
That meant is was tracking us, even now. It knew we wouldn’t go through the zeds to get back to the entrance, leaving us with only the one way out of that corridor. It couldn’t have predicted our moves from there, surely. However…it did seem to know where we ultimately wanted to be.
‘This way.’ I decided after a moment’s hesitation, trying not to let my sweating palms get the better of me.
‘You sure?’ Anita asked, ‘We could go straight ahead, be at reception inside of ten minutes.’
‘It knows that.’ I said, forcing my voice down to keep it calm. ‘It herded us out of surgery, expects us to make the next quickest run for the exit.’
‘Bullshit, how do ya know that?’ Lucile asked.
‘Strike and retreat.’ Neville said, his eyebrows climbing higher as realisation took him, ‘It’s been whipping us up, trying to make us panic so we break and run.’
I hadn’t thought of that, but it was close enough. I nodded.
‘It expects us to go straight for the exit. But we can outfox this corpse. There main exit puts us out overlooking the car park. Head left around the building, down the run to A&E and we can be in our vehicles before it even knows we’re gone.’
‘Slip right between its fingers.’ Anita said. ‘Alright, lead on.’
I did as I was told, taking us further into the hospital, and wondering how long our shy friend would wait in ambush before he realised we weren’t coming. Maybe he had another trick up his sleeve for just such an emergency. I tried not to dwell on it, as I listened at every corner and checked the signs at every intersection.
The scream had done a good job of clearing out the main corridors, but zeds trapped in rooms or locked into larger wards harassed us constantly, trying to break down the doors of their prisons as we walked – and rolled – on by.
Up ahead, a large window had been smashed out, someone probably making their escape throug
h it. Now the broken window let the storm in, curtains soaked, rain dripping into a puddle on the floor, diluting the blood into pale red swirls.
I checked the window out as a viable escape option, wouldn’t save us a whole lot of time, but could have been useful if it wasn’t directly overlooking the body of the last person who tried. He’d got tangled in the bushes and a zed must have lent through and munched on him. Though his legs were skeletal from the knees down, he was still trying to pull himself free.
We weren’t far away now though, heading along the final corridor, making quick progress. Here and there were the remains of broken barricades and discarded weapons, broken furniture and a fire extinguisher left by the ruins of a patient’s skull.
The main hospital reception was a huge, sweeping thing, with staircases on either side of a circular double-height space. Large, ceiling-height glass offered some weak light on the front of the building, with shielded reception desks on the ground floor and offices above. The disabled access lift was the scene of a poor wheelchair-user’s last stand. Looks like they’d taken a few with them before taking their own life with a pistol. I considered heading over to loot it, but I wasn’t putting my hand into that bloody mess for an empty gun of an unknown calibre.
We weren’t there to stand around gawping. The doors were mostly automatic, but with the power out we just used the normal ones, holding them open for Anita to push Damian out. We used the stairs while they had to snake down a short access ramp, all the while keeping an eye on the building, looking for something watching us from within. Seemed we’d gotten out alright.
‘There it is.’ Morgan said, breaking formation to come up beside me at the bottom of the stairs. She was pointing to a parking space near just up ahead, but I’d already seen it. Katy’s bike. Her helmet was still on one of the handlebars.
Part of me was in denial. It wasn’t her bike. People can have the same bike. The same helmet even. But in my heart, I felt it, knew it was her ride.
I wiped an errant drop of rain from between my eyes, blinking hard so it wasn’t joined by anything. ‘Help me with something.’
I called the group to stop for a moment, and vaulted over the low railing between the path and the car park, not bothering to find a gap. In one of her saddlebags she’d kept a cover. I unfurled it, thick tarpaulin, and with Morgan’s help, I secured it over the bike, fastening it beneath.
It was purely symbolic, but entirely necessary. I may not have had a clue if she was alive, or where she was, but I knew her pride and joy was safe. It was like a promise for me. That I’d never give up hope. If we could survive the shit the last week had thrown at us, then I was sure as hell she could too.
‘Sorry to hold us up.’ I apologised, stepping back over the railing with Morgan, re-joining the group.
‘That was worth a minute’s pause.’ Anita said, though she didn’t look happy to be in the rain, ‘We need to keep the memories of those we’ve lost…or just those we can’t find.’ She added.
I looked back over my shoulder at the covered bike, and nodded. I think…just finding one last trace of her…it gave me some closure. A knot in my stomach unwound, but there was a burden that hadn’t yet lifted from my shoulders. I’d done all I could to find Katy – now I just had six other people to make sure survived, and I was determined to succeed.
We turned the corner at the end of the building, descending down another set of stairs and a wheelchair ramp at the mouth of the A&E bay. That’s when things went wrong again.
*
Forty Five
Though they were far from us as we turned the corner, it was hard to miss the wall of zeds pressed up against the A&E doors. They’d opened automatically when we came in, but with the power out they were just glass walls now. There were other doors of course, but they pushed inwards rather than out, meant for shoving gurneys into the building.
The stained remains of hospital gowns were in fashion with the zeds pressed up against the doors, most of them must have been patients of one department or another – there were zeds wearing casts or trailing IVs from their arms. Standing between the taller figures though, were zombies we’d been lucky enough not to see yet. Colourful pyjamas torn and bloodied.
I glanced at Neville, the only father in the group. His jaw was set, eyes blankly staring ahead. Anita must have abandoned Damian for a moment, as she came up beside him, putting an arm around his shoulder.
‘They’re not children, Nev.’ she quietly said. ‘I had to do for my sister what needed to be done. If their parents were around, they’d want the same. If they come for us, we cannot hesitate. Not even for a second.’
‘This disease, this infection, it’s evil.’ I said, turning around to face the rest of the group, ‘It takes away, destroys, all of what a person is, all of what they’d ever be. It takes control of them, makes them walk around, spreading the virus, hiding behind the faces of the victims it claims. It uses our humanity against us. It wants us to be afraid. It wants us to hesitate. We just have to remember – that they aren’t people anymore. They had that taken from them.’
‘Most humane thing we can do for them would be to put them down.’ Lucile agreed, ‘But that’d put us at too much risk. If we had the bullets I’d say we should shoot them, send every one of those poor bastards to a peaceful rest. But we can’t spare the rounds – or them.’
‘So we run to the vehicles, and get the hell out of there. Works for me.’ Morgan said, taking her dad’s hand, reminding him that he hasn’t lost her. I set off moving towards our two trucks, leading by example I think you call it.
We couldn’t really hear the zeds on the other side of that glass, save for the occasional pounding of fists, but in my head I was playing their usual soundtrack. The moan. That rasping breathing. I tried to ignore it, and listen to the rain pounding down on the shelter instead.
That’s when the Ghoul threw the fire extinguisher
They shouldn’t have been allowed to do that.
It pitched the damn thing over the heads of the waiting mob like it was nothing - the glass shattered outwards as the press of zombies took the rest of the pane with it, stepping over the shards of broken glass in bare feet. They’d reach the trucks long before we would, even if we didn’t have to be pretty careful with Damian. There was only one thing for it then. We had to fight.
‘Go loud!’ I shouted over the rising moan of the dead all too real now, ‘Keep calm, pick your targets!’
‘Firing line, we shoot from left to right!’ Anita ordered, ‘Nobody shoots the same target. Form up, now!’
A good manager, so they say, knows how to delegate. As the group’s sort-of leader I like to think I understood the strengths of those around me. Anita was a good shot, well trained and disciplined. She’d suffered devastating personal tragedy on a scale that I couldn’t even comprehend, and was still up and fighting.
‘You heard her, line up!’ I yelled.
We formed a firing squad to either side of Damian, lining up like riflemen in a colonial era battle. If only we had another rank in front and behind, to back us up while we reloaded our muskets.
‘Shirt and tie, on the left.’ Laurel called out, punctuated by the almighty crack of her rifle, louder than the thunder overhead.
‘Soldier, far right.’ Lucile said next, needing two shots to drop the mercenary – I guess all soldiers don’t become Ghouls.
She didn’t panic after the first miss, taking her time and aiming again. Laurel’s rifle was at a comfortable range with its scope, but our handguns would struggle until the conflict came in closer. If we hadn’t thinned the herd by then, we’d be in trouble.
‘Nurse.’ Damian said, raising his shotgun to his shoulder, fortunately the one furthest from his injuries. He still grunted in discomfort as the buck of recoil punched back – one shot had been enough though.
‘Mostly naked patient, right side.’ I called out, bringing the heavy Cobra to bear, gripped just how Anita had shown me.
I slowly
squeezed the trigger, concentrating so much about just keeping the sights lined up with the zed’s head that the kick of the weapon took me by surprise. The side of its head disappeared, but it slumped sideways before dropping down, taking another with it.
Following the pattern, sticking to the plan, Morgan had already dropped her spear and lined up a shot, calling it and firing only once, taking out the leading zed that’d broken from the herd. She knew she lacked the skill for a long range shot, so took the easiest she could, leaving those further away for her father and Anita.
I learned from that, and as the next few shots rang out, Neville and Anita firing off one or two rounds a piece, we started from the end of the line again – call a target, shoot it.
Laurel never missed a shot, but the rest of us weren’t so skilled. Damian fudged a blast from his shotgun, but the pellets were enough to rip through sternum and spine, putting a zed on it back, even though it wasn’t truly dead.
Morgan let her nerves get the better of her, firing four shots to bring down one particularly elusive target, but I was little better, taking two rounds to hit a zed wearing a damn neck-brace. Its head was practically a stationary target.
We’d been down the line maybe three or four times, it was hard to remember, but the zeds were gaining ground slowly but surely. After his last shot, Neville called he was empty, Anita passing him her spare pistol as the line fired again, already having been using the one Neville had given her.
‘Cease fire, move back!’ I called out, grabbing Damian’s chair and dragging him backwards. You should always ask permission before assisting a wheelchair user – unless there are zombies involved. Just take it as an open invitation.
We gave ground, then repeated the process. Zeds have no instinct for self-preservation, save for the Ghoul, I guess. No head for strategy, the average shambler will keep coming until one of you is dead. That’s what I was playing on. Keep them in good pistol range until we either ran out of bullets or they ran out of bodies.
