by S. Ganley
Garrett glanced around the corner of the recovery room into the hallway and saw the security doors bouncing wildly from a brutal onslaught on the other side. Their presence had been detected and once again they were relying on the strength of a single door to hold back those demons from descending on them in force. The doors had been designed to section off the hospital into manageable sized compartments to help prevent the spread of fire. The engineers responsible for those doors had not taken into consideration a need to hold back enraged cannibalistic undead trying to break through and run down living humans on the opposite side.
"That makes the decision a little easier." Garrett exclaimed as he turned around back into the recovery room. "Everyone get to the stairs now. Doug, Cameron and Miranda. Help me carry Kyle's gurney. Emily and Kimberly, ladies I am afraid you are going to just have to make the best of it until we get behind a locked door upstairs."
"What can I do?" Olivia said as she stepped out to the center of the room, pistol in her hand poised and ready for action. Garrett noted that she seemed to automatically defer to his assumed leadership. He thought he liked that about her, instead of trying to assert her own military authority she was going with the flow in what she must have perceived was already a well-established and somewhat effective hierarchy. He also recognized just how terrified this young Lieutenant was. She had most likely expected that as a Navy fighter pilot she would have personal control of her own role in any fight based on her skills in the cockpit of her plane. On the ground, facing an enemy that was more brutal and terrifying than any soldier or terrorist, her natural tendency was to look for leadership in someone who already had some experience in those circumstances. Whatever her actual motivation was, Garrett didn't really care, he was just grateful for the extra set of hands and one more shooter to help cover their ass.
Pointing to a spot just inside a nearby doorway Garrett said, "Stand by right there until we get our injured into the stairwell. If they start coming through, shoot and move. Don't try and hold your ground, it’s useless. Remember. Head shots are the only thing that count."
Even though her efforts would be useless if the zombies on the other side of those doors broke through in mass. His hope was that if they only broken open a portion of the doors and came through single file, she could possibly slow them down for a few extra seconds. Moving into the spot he had indicated, she glanced back at Garrett and tried to appear confident and prepared. Garrett had seen enough to see through the feigned bravery, all of them were scared to death and she was no different.
By the time Garrett turned back to the recovery room he saw that Doug, Cameron and Miranda were already standing ready with Kyle's gurney released from its underlying frame. Kimberly, Emily and Shellie had already reached the stairwell entrance where Kimberly stood by holding the door open for them while Shellie continued on up the stairs making sure their way was clear. Emily had disappeared from view into the stairwell and Garrett was more than certain that Shellie was directing her movements, keeping her at least one stairwell behind her as she cautiously moved up and checked each landing. He had to admit a degree of pride in how fluid this group of civilians, with no specialized training and under constant threat, had been able to turn into such a disciplined and well-oiled mechanism. He knew of military units that could have learned a lot from this group of people.
Grasping one corner of Kyle's gurney he counted down from three and all of them lifted at the same time. It was an awkward and difficult maneuver trying to carry the large cop the few feet from the recovery room to the stairwell. As soon as they reached the door and lined up with the stairs, Doug and Cameron both dropped their end onto the third stair and began pulling the sides using the stairs as a ramp. A burst of gunfire resounding through the corridor behind them signaled that the security doors had been breached and Olivia was now doing all she could to buy them an extra handful of seconds. Throwing his full body weight into the base of the gurney Garrett pressed upward for all he was worth and gained the few inches needed to clear the door frame.
"CLEAR!" Garrett yelled at the top of his lungs hoping that Olivia could hear him over her own gunfire and the guttural moans and cries of dozens of zombies pounding their way through the open door and into their side of the corridor.
Continuing to push upward on the gurney, Garrett was unable to view the action in the hallway and had no idea how close to the stairwell Olivia might be. He started to feel a tremor of fear when he realized it had been a couple seconds since he heard Olivia's last gunshot. When Kimberly started swinging the door closed and Olivia had still not appeared, he almost stopped his efforts at pushing on the gurney to run back down after her when at the last possible second the aviator slid sideways through the closing door. Kimberly slammed the door the rest of the way shut and they all breathed a sigh of relief when they heard the lock click into place inside the metal door. An instant later the first of the zombies crashed into the outside of the door and immediately began a tortuous but futile pounding. Olivia had slammed into the wall on the far side of the landing and ended up flat on her ass where she stayed for several moments trying to compose herself. Garrett knew that she was most likely coming to terms with just how fragile her mortality was at that very moment.
"You need to get moving. We have trouble up here." Shouted Shellie from the landing above them.
The sound of a shotgun blast filled the stairwell, telling Garrett that Shellie was hard at work keeping the way clear for the rest of them. Coming up behind Garrett, Olivia grasped the edge of the gurney as they negotiated the next landing and raced up the stairs to a point just below Shellie. They could see Emily with her back against the damaged door pushing against it will all her strength to hold it closed. The mangled door was shaking and rattling behind her as the mass on zombies on the other side worked feverishly to break through. The gap near the top of the door and the frame was almost a foot wide and stopped bending outwards just inched above the door handle. From the rippled and chipped marks that will visible on the outside of the door it appeared as though someone had worked it over with a sledgehammer or other equally heavy instrument. They must have been trapped on that floor with only this stairwell as their last means of escape as more and more zombies awoke from the dead and began stalking the living. The frame around the lock was splintered indicating that it was possible the lock was also damaged. The opening above Emily's head was big enough for three zombies on the other side to reach their arms through all the way to their armpits. Another creature had stuck her head into the gap just under that tangle of arms and was snapping away with her teeth like a crocodile as her eyes locked in on the group of people working their way up the stairs just out of her reach. Shellie was standing several feet back from the door and off to one side. She had the shotgun poised and ready to fire. As Doug and Cameron backed their way up the stairs towards her with the gurney, Shellie waited until they reach the second step from the landing and then stepped forward and pressed the barrel of the gun into the open mouth of the female zombie. Without missing a beat she pulled back on the trigger and evaporated the back of the zombies head into a pasty goo that coated the reaching arms above it. One of the arms reaching into the damaged doorway was also caught in the blast as it exited the back of the woman's head. Severed from the elbow down, the arm dropped to the floor on the inside of the door and flopped on the ground for several seconds before finally laying still. During the time it took the woman's body to fall out of the way behind the door, Garrett and everyone else were able to negotiate that landing and start on their way up the next flight of stairs before then next zombie could stick its head into the gap and began snapping away with its teeth. The screeching protest of tortured metal announced that the door was starting to give way against the force of the weight pushing against it from the other side.
Reaching the top landing, Doug pulled the door open behind him and held it in place with his foot long enough for them to get the gurney past the threshold and then allowin
g the door to side along the metal frame of the bed while they carried Kyle the rest of the way inside. Once free of the stairwell, Kyle was placed gently on the ground off to the side of the door while Garrett, Miranda and Olivia stepped back through the door and poised themselves on the top of that final set of stairs waiting for Emily and Shellie to come running along from below. Emily and Shellie reached the bottom of the stairs side by side when Shellie suddenly turned back towards the landing below her and let loose with another booming blast from her shotgun at a target out of sight to everyone else. As Emily reached the top of the stairs, Shellie turned back and took the final few steps two at a time and raced through the door just as Garrett slammed it closed behind her. As soon as the door latch clicked into place, Miranda drove the wooden handle of a fire axe through the door handle and wedged it into place across the door frame. Everyone waited in silence, watching the door and preparing for the inevitable. It was on a few moments later when the first two zombies appeared in the small window near the top of the door. Pressing their bodies against the door they began banging into it repeatedly while slapping and pounding with their hands and fists. As more zombies filled the landing the pounding grew into a dull crescendo muted by the thick metal door and its rubberized seals. Every so often one or more zombies would press their bodies against the push bar on their side of the door and the door would move forward a fraction before pulling the axe tight against the handle and door frame. With less than a quarter inch of available movement there was insufficient force behind the opening door for it to break or even crack the thick wooden handle of the axe.
#
It had been dark for two hours when the lights started to flicker and dim. Shellie and Miranda were standing watch just out of sight of the stairwell door while everyone else found whatever piece of floor was most comfortable to grab some much needed rest. The flashing of the lights ripped Garrett from his sleep and he sat up with a start. It took him several seconds to recognize what had suddenly awoken him but when he noticed that the emergency lighting was barely penetrating the darkness it became evident what was going on.
"Generator is going out." Doug yawned from his spot on the carpeted floor several feet away.
Garrett knew that the emergency generator was most likely located in an electrical room and that room was probably in the basement of the building. Reaching it to refill the generator with fuel was not a worthwhile risk for any of them. The lack of electricity was something they had already grown accustomed to and it was not a life threatening situation.
"Garrett!" Miranda called from several doors down as she peeked out into the hallway and noticed him sitting up. "You might want to check this out."
Before collapsing on the floor from utter exhaustion, Garrett had peeked into each of the rooms in their new sanctuary and familiarized himself with their temporary new home. The communications room had been especially interesting and he had planned to spend more time in there after getting some rest. This was the room that Miranda was now standing in front of as she called out for him.
Stepping into the communications room, Garrett noted that the read outs on the equipment powered by the emergency generator had grown much dimmer than when he had first viewed the room several hours before. It was just one more indicator that they were quickly running out of power. The piece of equipment that Miranda wanted him to see was some type of frequency detector off to the side of the primary transmission unit. Garrett had seen similar devices in the military. They could scan multiple frequencies at once and lock in on any that were transmitting or fit within a predetermined level of electronic emissions. Garrett saw that the frequency detector had locked in on a tight range of frequencies and the dial was flicking rapidly back and forth as it tried to narrow down whatever it had been programmed to detect.
"That could be anything. A piece of radio or cellular equipment still operating." Garrett said as he realized how the sight of that dial could have excited Miranda with thoughts of communicating with the military or other survivors.
That type of gear would not be picking up military signals so he could easily rule out anything related to the task force that Olivia was operating with. Without knowing how that detector was configured there could be any number of explanations for it locking in on those frequencies. Garrett thought it possible that somewhere within its range of detection some type of transmitter was still powered on and sending out a signal. The chances of that equipment still being under the control of human hands was very remote.
Miranda saw Garrett focusing in on the frequency detector and then pointed towards the radio receiver on the other side of the work bench, "True, but that’s not what I brought you in here for. I just heard voices coming from there."
Garrett locked in on the receiver and his entire outlook on what she was saying changed, "That’s totally different. That's a receiver. Anything you heard from that had to be live and nonmilitary. Are you sure?"
"No doubt in my mind. I have been on guard duty for a couple hours now and for the last hour it has been pretty quiet. I thought it was my imagination or one of you back in the hallway talking when I heard voices. I did a walk through and found everyone still asleep but kept hearing it. When I walked in here the dial on the detector was dancing back and forth like it is now and there was definitely two voices talking back and forth coming over the speakers. I could only hear one clearly. It was a man telling someone they had located a gas tanker and were on their way back." Explained Miranda.
Garrett sat down in front of the radio and turned the detection unit from automatic to manual. With nimble fingers he moved the dial in the smallest possible increments from the highest range of selected frequencies towards the lowest. Stopping occasionally, he listened for several seconds for any sounds that would tell him he had found a transmission. After twenty minutes of painstakingly fiddling with the controls he had gone up and down the dial twice and heard nothing that would indicate another transmitter was operating within range of the equipment. Miranda was standing close by and started pacing directly behind him as the minutes ticked by.
"I swear I heard them. It wasn't my imagination." She exclaimed as he started to go through the same frequencies for the third time.
"I believe you, don't worry. They may have just stopped transmitting for the moment." Garrett replied with as much reassurance in his voice as possible.
The truth was that he did have his doubts. They were all tired and desperate. Miranda may have heard something but had mistaken the meaning and actual words. It was also possible she had picked up some kind of radio or television broadcast still bouncing around from a satellite that continued to transmit without knowing there was no one alive on the ground to pick up its signal.
The lights blinked again, this time shutting completely off for a count of ten. When power finally returned everything was noticeably dimmer as the remaining fuel in the generator began to dry up. As the radio receiver winked back on both Garrett and Miranda where stunned into silence when a voice weakly called out through the static.
"Jimmy! Make sure the doc is ready at the gate with a pair of stretchers. We are coming in with injured. Lisa's hurt bad, friendly fire. Markus might have a broken back from a fall and we have two with bites on board." The voice was growing weaker by the second and they both had to lean in close to the speakers and strain to hear the reply.
"Doc's on the way. Handle the bitten before arrival and dump them in the pit. Did you get the seed?"
A burst of static followed and the lights dimmed and blinked out one more time. After thirty seconds without the return of power they both realized that it was gone for good. From that point forward they were in the dark.
Garrett sat in the darkness and just stared at the speakers. Hearing that brief conversation had stirred something deep inside of him and he was sure that he was on the verge of having an epiphany about the course his life needed to take from that point on. There had never been a doubt in his mind that other survivors just
like them were out there. Hearing those voices on the radio and sensing the struggle in their words and tone he understood exactly how they felt. People were still out there fighting day by day and losing friends and loved ones along the way. Those same people probably dreamed and prayed for some form of salvation that may never come. Garrett understood that he wanted to be a part of helping people like that. He knew there was no way he could just sit on the sidelines while others faced unimaginable danger on a daily basis. His first priority would be delivering his own small band of survivors to safety, but he vowed that once that was accomplished, he would return and seek out other survivors.
#
By their second day of isolation on the top floor of the hospital, Kyle was well on his way to recovering from surgery. He had finally managed to take several steps on his own and there was no sign of infection from his wounds. Copious amounts of pain medication was ensuring that he was able to endure the lingering effects of the surgery with only minimal discomfort.
To everyone's continued disbelief, Emily exhibited absolutely no signs of the virus. Everything they had seen up to that point indicated that a bite victim would succumb to the virus well within the first twenty four hours only to return as one of the undead a short time later. After a full forty-eight hours following her attack it was clear that Doug’s desperate last minute move with a transfusion from Kimberly had truly worked. He had finally admitted to Garrett that he had his own doubts prior to giving that transfusion. He had half expected it to kill Emily because of her blood disorder, but he had to do something. Doug knew as well as all of them that if his wife got to the point where she was about to die from the virus that the only merciful thing to do would be to end her suffering quickly with a bullet to the head. He had weighed that option over and over but knew that when it came down to it he could never put a gun to the woman’s head and pull the trigger. His alternative was to gamble with the possibility that Kimberly’s blood really did carry the antigens that would save her life. It was an Eighteenth Century method of trial and error that would have seen him disbarred and probably imprisoned before the Apocalypse. Doug told Garrett that he had laid it all out to both women, the risks and the possible benefits to Emily. His plan was to set up a one way transfusion, Kimberly was never in any danger of fluid transfer from Emily that could possibly infect her. Both women had readily agreed to take the chance. Emily understood that the procedure could just as easily end up killing as saving her. But she also understood that alternatives.
