I slid backward to the opening. My feet gave way to empty air as I could feel the metal bend under me. In an instant I was lowering myself down under the opening.
I dangled a good four feet from the hallway floor before dropping to a crouch. I looked around nervously to see the infected we baited away glaring back to me in a hungry rage and moving their way back.
Each one’s eyes grew large. It was the same look as a ravenous dog I had come across in an alley downtown years ago. I had just finished lunch and was making my way back to the office with my leftovers. At the sight of the food, the dog lurched forward out of a pile of garbage to me. Its eyes were large and wild for a satisfying meal. In this moment, I nearly forgot I was running for my life and that now I was the meal.
“The elevator, Nathan. Hit the button!” Frank broke my stunned silence.
I turned and pounded the button as I looked above to see the red LED number show it to be on the second level of the hospital. It needed to climb just three more stories.
“Come on, come on!” I urged through clenched teeth in panic.
Frank dropped down from the shaft. But his feet gave out from under him as he impacted with the slick floor in a pool of fluids leftover from the infected in their wake. I heard a sharp snap emanate from his foot.
“Oww!” He screamed in pain.
“I think I broke my ankle,” Frank lifted his limp foot up to survey the damage. He grimaced from the pain that seemed to shoot up his leg.
“It’s broke for sure,” he confirmed looking over the twisted foot.
The infected were drawing near in a serpentine line of moaning and maimed bodies.
I hoisted Frank up as he leaned against me as we waited for the elevator.
The elevator lights blinked to the third floor. Then the fourth floor. And then stopped.
“What?!” I looked up to see the light stop blinking as the elevator reached its destination, only a floor below.
I tapped the button again and again as I waited for it to move once more.
It was stuck on the fourth floor. No amount of pleading or praying would summon it to move. Someone must have been holding it.
We are going to die.
The infected now surrounded us to either side. Down the hall in front of us, another group of infected followed suit of the others in pursuit. Frank and I pressed our backs against the cold metal of the elevator’s door.
A shambling wave of a wall of infected bodies gained closer as time stood still. We would be covered too soon for the elevator to arrive and bring us to some sort of uncertainly down below.
Who knows what horrors we would face leaving this floor. If we would even make it off this damned floor. Or that if we would only be delaying our deaths if we somehow made it out of this alive.
I clinched my teeth so tight I could almost hear them crack as I pressed my cheek to the door and closed my eyes. If I was going to be bitten to death, I didn’t want to see it coming.
Frank pushed off of me and held his arms to either side of him as a sort of barrier between me and the infected.
“Go on Nathan, it won’t be here in time for us both to go down. At least I can hold them off for you to get to your wife and children,” Frank said looking back at me with the peace of a deadman soon to meet his fate.
My eyes, in-turn, misted over from a man that was attempting to save my life, again. His face, I read, accepted his decision.
“You don’t have to do this Frank—” I began.
“I’m no good like this. I’ll only slow you two down. Now get going!” Frank demanded walking toward his death from the horde of hungry infected.
Suddenly they were on top of him. He screamed in pain as the infected buried him down to the ground. I watched in horror as a man was eaten alive before me.
Ding!
Just then, as though the universe was expecting it, the elevator finally arrived.
I held my breath as the metal doors opened.
Nothing inside but scattered paperwork and bloody hand prints lined the interior.
I dashed in, turning to watch the life vanish from Frank’s eyes one last time before rolling up into his head as the doors closed and the uncaring infected consumed their prize as I made my escape.
At least Frank was able to view in his final moments that I was safe because of him, for now at least.
12
Employee Of The Month
I nearly collapsed into a heap as one of those annoying elevator songs played during my decent down to the hospital lobby. I was convinced a long time ago while working downtown that the company that created such irritating tunes had only ever produced a grand total of three of those irritating melodies.
But it wasn’t so much as the serene strumming that I found discomforting, it was the fact of my situation called for no such thing as peaceful music at a time like this.
Jazzy tunes clashed against screams from the floors I passed on my way down. I watched as fragments of movement and flickers of low fading sunlight passed through the crack of the door and shadowed against the inside of the elevator.
If it wasn’t for Frank, who knows whether I would even be in this elevator. The infected were on him so quickly. The tearing, that blood curtailing scream he let out as they bit and clawed at his body and his face.
He sacrificed himself, for me. A stranger. Some guy on the verge of being taken down by monsters. I thought as an acid taste radiated up my throat.
Swallowing down the emptiness of my stomach, I had finally arrived at the lobby. The elevator let out a chirp and I waited for the horrors of the lobby to reveal themselves. I clinched my fists and took a breath.
God I hope Hailey is ok…
My thoughts drifted for a moment, uncaring for this new reality. The stench of blood surrounding me in the elevator shot up into my brain alerting it to come back down to earth.
This is the world now. This is my new reality. I conceded to myself of this hell.
The door opened and the scene appeared exactly as I had left it a half-hour earlier. A few more dozen sick people crowded over chairs and leaned against the walls. The line still out the door.
A man yelling at a nurse saying his head hurt and demanded to be seen this instance was sweating drops over the counter between him and the overworked staff.
“Sir, can you tell me what is going on up there?” A young woman, easily twenty years old, stopped me as I made my exit from the elevator.
She had been crying with her makeup running down her swollen face that had collected on her once clean shirt. Makeup now staining the top portion in a sad painted display.
I grabbed her by the shoulders. She looked at me puzzled and a little more than afraid. And for good reason, I was caked in dust mixed with splatters of blood from the scuffle with Dr. Richards.
“You need to leave now. It isn’t safe. Go!” She put a hand to her chest and took a step back, seemingly pondering my words. Then she ran out of the hospital in a panic.
“Everyone leave!” I shouted to everyone else waiting in the lobby. Some looked confused, others worried as they scrambled out of their chairs, unsure of the context in which I was speaking.
I must have looked like a madman. My clothes were caked in grime from crawling through the ventilation system after all. Perhaps they took me as some kind of terrorist or drugged-up homeless man. Or that I was about to blow up the hospital.
“Go, now! It isn’t safe here! Everyone needs to leave now!” I barked.
Some people began to leave in a hurry. Others brushed me off and continued to sit or pace about. It was up to them to listen—I needed to get to Hailey.
I pushed past the others in search of my wife. She was still sitting where I left her earlier, only now with a nurse bent down by her side. I came up from behind and grabbed Hailey’s hand.
“She said she was exhausted and feeling faint. I gave her some ice for her forehead,” the nurse said to me. She was taking Hailey’s temperature while I pl
eaded for her to stand.
“Babe, we need to leave now.” I tugged her hand. She looked at me in a slow gaze.
“I’m feeling a little weak, Nate,” She tried to stand before falling back to into her seat. The nurse pointed to the entrance where a row of wheelchairs were parked.
I ran over grabbing the first one that didn’t appear to be stained in fluid. I stopped at a picture of Frank on the wall that read: Employee of the Month : Franklin M. Goodie
Frank was standing there in a hallway with this very slip of paper proudly held over his head and a mop beside him. His smiling face made me a little wispy eyed before a chill ran down my spine from the image of him being ripped apart.
Thank you Frank for allowing me to live. I stole the moment until looking back down to the wheelchair and getting myself back to the present.
The nurse and I helped Hailey into the chair as she struggled to lift her legs from her seat.
In the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of the man sitting next to her beginning to convulse. He appeared to have a bite mark on his arm from the looks of how he was using his other hand to mask it.
Blood started to pour out of his eyes as the others around him moved away. He hit the floor in a loud thump and started to seizure.
“Shit!” I yelled as the nurse gasped before tending to the man.
“Nate—the girls. We need to get to our girls,” Hailey said in a tired tone.
“Get us out of here,” she followed up as she noticed the man flailing on the ground beside her.
I wasn’t about to wait and see how this man was going to act. I rushed Hailey out the door. Several others ran out screaming as the sound of groaning could be heard emitting from the lobby now.
A bloody smear marked the glass door to the admissions rooms as I weaved Hailey through people tripping over one another.
Though the frosted glass I saw a shadowed figure hunched in a low menacing stance busy with its hands. The sight all too familiar now.
We burst through the emergency doors and rushed to the parking lot outside. It was getting dark out. The sun had lowered enough to allow the night to take over.
I hurried Hailey up the flights of parking lot ramps, dodging others that ran to their cars and peeled out in a rush.
It was a madhouse.
As we passed each ramp level, the distant sound of cries echoed off the concrete.
“This is a nightmare,” Hailey said nervously shifting and shaking in her seat.
She was afraid. My wife, the mother, planner, and strong one in our family, the one that looked after everyone was afraid. Her voice was low and unsure of itself. She only looked down to her feet as we climbed the ramps.
We finally arrived to our parking spot. I didn't see any movement from the girls inside. No glow of light from their cellphones. Just emptiness.
The girls. Where are they?! I thought in a panic at the empty backseat. I wheeled Hailey next to the driver’s side door and paced around in search of Ava and Emma not waiting to go any further than the relative safety of our truck.
“Ava! Emma!” I screamed into the parking lot as people from all around frantically jumped in their vehicles and drove away to either side of us.
I ran around the corner at the top to see Ava and Emma perched above a parking spot looking at the sun’s direction.
“Girls, in the truck, now!” I yelled. Ava was behind her sister holding reliable Pups for comfort as Emma hopped down from the ledge.
“What’s going on dad?” Emma asked as I grabbed her and Ava as she made her way off the ledge.
“Seriously? What the hell is going on?” She insisted, her face contorted in a confused configuration at me pulling her and her sister back toward the truck.
“Don't curse in front of your sister.” I scolded.
Emma protested again only now more calmly at the realization of frightening her sister, “What's going on dad?”
“It isn’t safe here. We need to get home so mom and I can talk things over. The hospital, it's s—” I started before realizing I didn’t want to frighten them. And especially Ava.
“You can be honest dad, I’m sixteen. I’m practically an adult now. You can cut the bullshit,” Emma pleaded. I shot her another scolding eye. She was like that, always defiant.
I guess it comes at that age. I thought not wanting to get angry for my sudden urgent timing of our escape. When I was her age, I would question everything of my parents too. And I wasn’t dealing with infected outbreak.
“Do as I say girls. Now get into the truck”
By the time we got back to the truck, darkness had taken over duties for the day. With Emma’s help, I was able to get Hailey into her seat.
As we made our way down the garage, looking intently at the hospital as we drove by I shook my head nervously.
Knowing the terror that was inside…
13
On The Road Again
We drove down the highway and as far away from the hospital as clouds overhead casted menacing shadows along our path. It was as though the world itself was changing around us. As though it was reflecting our changing world in a darkening greyed gloom.
Emma and Ava were busy on their phones. Hailey was silent. For the first time in my life I had to be the first to speak up in my family of girls.
I nudged Hailey for her attention.
“It was hell in there babe. I saw Dr. Richards eat a man. His eyes, the same as Jim’s were blood red. I went into his office and he attacked me. And then another group of those…infected…came at me before a man saved me. He sacrificed himself so I could get to you all. His name was Frank, he was a good man,” I spoke in a hushed tone.
There wouldn’t be any need to alert the girls to what had happened in there, not yet. I was only concerned with getting my family back home safely and then I could figure all this all out.
Hailey didn’t speak. I could see in the corner of my eye her staring at me in disbelief.
Her silence said enough.
“I watched them rip him apart,” I looked blindly out my window. The scene replayed over and over again in my mind. Had Frank not done that, I wouldn’t be here that’s for sure.
Could I have done something, anything really, to help him escape too? My thoughts raced.
Hailey began to fumble through her purse for her headache medication. I figured of all times to take them, today warranted it. Hell I might even pop a couple.
Our truck pulled from the frontage road on-ramp to the highway. I would get us home and what? Hunker-down? Until what, who was going to come? If the hospital could get overtaken like that, what hope would we have out in the middle of nowhere?
Shit, Jim is in the shed. I thought. He was as sick as the rest of them. I can’t let him out. At least our house was surrounded by the fence. Jim got himself wrapped up in the fence. Perhaps the rest would too. Which begged the question, just how many people are infected anyway?
I handed Hailey a near empty bottle of water we had purchased earlier in the day from our road trip and before arriving home.
She gulped down a handful of pills in a satisfying show of affection for them. Within a couple of minutes she was nearly melted in her seat.
I drove us toward the signs that would have us back at the ranch as cars zoomed past in the opposite lanes. People were driving erratically as they leap frogged their way in front of one another.
On the side of the road a brunt car lay barren. I couldn’t see if there were any occupants. But I drove by slowly in disbelief at the sight. I had the feeling we were already losing this fight. That the protective hands of the police and fire departments were somehow already a distant security blanket we needed to forget.
Everything that had happened at the hospital played in my mind like a nightmare now. All those sick people. All the screaming. The blood. My vision became blurry.
A flurry of trees passing out the window molded into one long streak of green and black as my mind drifted away. Blood, b
iting, screaming…
An on-coming car light beamed through the darkness and reawakened me back to the present.
I jolted back into my lane—Hailey tensed and clamped a hand on my leg. Her fingernails cutting deep into my jeans.
“Are you ok to drive Nate?” She asked sympathetically.
“I’m fine. I was just daydreaming is all,” I said as reassuringly as I could in the moment. I felt I couldn’t tell her the truth, that I was actually afraid.
From behind I could hear Ava stirring in her seat while she took her headphones off.
“Daddy, I’m hungry,” Ava said tapping the back of my seat softly.
I was hungry myself. The last thing I remember eating was a protein bar on the road trip home this morning.
We hadn’t even had the opportunity to feed the girls today. If I had any idea of what Emma was feeding her and her little sister, it was the diet of a teenager, delivery pizza and ice cream while we were away.
“Yeah, let’s get some dinner, how about hamburgers girls?” I said as normal as I could looking around for billboards with eateries to stop at.
Ava clapped but Emma was deeply invested in her phone. Hailey gave me a thumbs up.
I drove off the highway following a sign plastered with fast-food stops.
We pulled under a large neon light that dominated atop an old brick diner as it pulsed in the dampening dark of night—tempting anyone who would notice such a beacon to come chow down.
I imaged the local folks looking for a late meal coming here. Regaling over the day’s events perhaps. Or just to sober up before returning home was more likely for the looks of the surrounding neighborhoods we passed on the highway. This wasn’t god’s country this far out. This was getting drunk and trying to hide it from your spouse territory.
There were only but a few cars parked in the parking lot. All empty. Hopefully someone was here with the grills still fired up.
To my disappointment, the inside was dark. I got out of the truck on the side entrance of the restaurant and read a cardboard sign taped crooked to the window:
Dead Over Texas: Page 6
