Z Ward

by Jay Mouton

  At first, Susann thought it sounded too farfetched. Then, for a few seconds, she thought it sounded too simple to possibly work. Then, she, too, must have decided that Robey’s idea was, indeed, both genius and should count as an epiphany, as Buddy had so, proudly, pointed out.

  Robey, wished he could have been as enthusiastic as Buddy was, and that Susann seemed to become. He wanted to join them, and add to their renewed sense of hope. After all, he thought, they were soon going to be leaving the confines of the morgue, as Buddy had dubbed it. And they had been able to contact other people that seemed, at least for the time being, healthy and not an immediate threat to any of them.

  As his stomach let out an audible growl, he realized he had another reason to be thankful. Another reason to be hopeful. If his little plan worked, they might all soon be able to get something to eat. After all that had had been going on throughout the morning, he’d not given a second’s thought to food. But, now, with his stomach churning in the center of his insides, he had to admit that he was famished.

  Still, the boy just couldn’t shake his blues from not being able to reach his mother. Yeah, he figured, at least I left her a message and let her know I’m okay. But another thought kept trying to push everything else out of the way. And it kept trying to take up most of the space inside his head. Robey feared for his mother’s safety most of all. He still felt, somehow, he just had to find a way to get to her. That was once he knew his friends were safe.

  Well, he thought, at least safer.

  Then he needed to do to try to make his way home. He needed to find out about his mom, and see if she was waiting for him.

  In the meantime, he agreed with Buddy and Susann Beckett. It was his idea that had the best chance of, successfully, getting the three of from point A to point B.

  As plans go, it really could not have been simpler.

  It wasn’t going to be, necessarily, easy. They would, more than likely, be put through some physical exertion to say the least. But, they were all young and healthy.

  For a fraction of a second, Robey thought about the medical tests that he was to have been given. He chuckled, under his breath, and whispered, “concussion, my foot—Doctor Huddleston!”

  It turned out, that the very weapons that Robey and Buddy had thrown together served as handy tools that they were able to utilize to open the airduct cover near the bathroom door of the morgue. The head of Buddy’s spear, once he wiped away the dried blood that had caked over the edges of the working end, served as a handy, dandy screwdriver. They, quickly, removed the dozen metal screws that held the metal frame over the duct opening to the room.

  They set the frame off to the side, and leaned it against the wall. Then they removed an old AC filter that looked like it hadn’t been changed out in years. Ever watchful for such gross negligence concerning getting things done, Buddy caught sight of a date scribbled on the carboard edge of the dirty, matted, filter. Sure enough, Buddy announced, “this baby ain’t been changed out since last June!”

  Even Susann, still aware of what she suspected lay in her immediate future but trying to push it to the back of her mind as well, chuckled at Buddy pointing out the oversight of the hospital janitorial crew.

  Robey leaned a hand up against the wall, and lowered himself down to his knees. Then, carefully, he stuck his head inside the sizable entryway into the bowels of the hospital airduct system.

  It was dark. But there would be more than ample light for them to make their way through the system without crawling around in a pitch-black environment. And, should they hit a few darker areas, they could feel their way from corner to corner through the vast tunnels above each floor.

  The duct system was more than big enough for them to crawl through it with little effort to fit. Again, they were all small in frame. And not one of them weighed anywhere close to even 150 pounds. Robey thought, grown men can make it through these ducts to make repairs and such. He figured the three of them could make it, too.

  Before going further, the boy suggested that both Susann and Buddy take a quick peek inside the entrance to the system. He wanted to know if his instincts were sound enough to work for them. As well, he wanted to get their feelings about the initial height up to the main system. How high they would have to reach to make it to the inside ceiling level of the ducts above. Susann said that she was certain that the ceilings in most of the patient rooms were right at eight feet in height. Robey figured that the duct system edge would not be more than an inch or two above the ceiling height, if that.

  Then they figured out how to use Susann’s weapon, the hospital table top that had relieved Doctor Huddleston of the working end of his jawbone, along with the room chair, to piece together a solid little ladder from which to climb just high enough inside the duct work opening to reach the top end with ease. From there, it would be a piece of cake for each of them to shimmy into the duct work, proper. And then, hopefully from there, they were off to the races.

  Sometimes, if something seems too good to be true it is.

  Luckily, not this time.

  Their little chair and table top ladder worked liked nobody’s business. Buddy scampered up the makeshift ladder, like a monkey swinging from branch to branch. Then, before Susann made her way up into the bowels of the system, she and Robey, carefully, handed the boys’ weapons up to Buddy.

  Robey was apprehensive about being without his battle ax, even for a few seconds. They had further secured the bed up against the door, but those things out there were strong.

  Things, my foot, Robey muttered. Tilde said they were zombies.

  At that moment, an image of Doctor Huddleston, rising from his final resting place on the other side of the room, darted to the center of his mind’s eye. He could almost feel the icy touch of the man’s cold, dead fingers clutching his throat from behind him, just as Robey was stepping up on the chair. And he was only inches away from the stark prison morgue the room had become. He shook his head. Then the image was gone.

  Still, he thought he heard the faint sound of the good doctor’s fingernails softly clicking against the cold tiles of the floor his torn body lay on.

  Robey held out a hand for Susann Beckett. She took hold to get more balance as she, now, stepped up on the chair. Then she reached up with her free hand. She grasped Buddy’s hand as he presented it for her. Between Robey stabilizing the chair and Buddy helping pull the small nurse upwards, she almost flew from the floor of the room and up into the shadow filled opening of the duct. Like Buddy had, just before her, she, quickly, shimmed onto the opposite side of the opening of the long, grey corridor.

  It wasn’t a moment too soon for Robey’s sense of wellbeing. He scooted up the chair and table top ladder and into the hazy, semi-darkness of the maze they were about to navigate.

  Right on schedule, just like in one of the campy horror movies that Robey and Buddy liked to pirate off the ‘net sometimes, they all heard another scream from just outside the door of the room they’d just escaped.

  Only the scream didn’t stay in the hallway, on the other side of the room’s door.

  It echoed, magnified tenfold it seemed, throughout the closeness of the long, and winding air system.

  They would hear more screams. As the sounds would follow them for the rest of their journey through the intricate maze.

  *****

  Susann suggested that she take the lead.

  The woman was confident that she could, at the very least, be able to get their small group close to the cafeteria where Tilde and her group were holing up. She admitted that she didn’t really have a clue about the duct system itself, but she’d been working at Baptist long enough to know that the place was well ventilated. She knew that there were air duct openings in almost all the rooms. Yes, some of the older rooms still had floor units in them, but most of them were out of commission and, simply, hadn’t been removed over the course of time.

  Susann Beckett was voted down.

  “I don’t think that
’s the best idea, Miss,” Robey, by force of habit being raised, for the most part, in the South, almost called her Miss Beckett, again.

  “Susann, I think one of us should go first,” he finished, referring to himself and Buddy.

  “Why on earth should that make a difference, Robey,” she asked, not irritated, but not understanding his logic.

  “We’ve both used these weapons before,” he said, and offered further “and, well, your weapon is still back at the morgue.” He added, for effect “not that that table top would be of much use in here, right?”

  “Robey, do you really think we’re going to run into one of those things in here?”

  “No,” he said. He drew in a deep breath. Like every other sound inside the enclosure, the sound of his breathing bounced off the duct walls. It seemed to come from everywhere all at once.

  “No, I doubt it,” he said. “But, Buddy has his spear, just in case. And, I have my battle ax, just in case. And, right now, you don’t have a weapon at all.”

  She whispered okay. Then she suggested that they would make better time with her in the lead to make sure that they were, hopefully, heading in the right direction.

  “I understand, that,” Robey countered. “But, all you have to do is direct us. And you can do that from any spot.”

  “True,” she sighed.

  Then it occurred to her. The boy was worried that she might become one of those things they were trying to get away from.

  She felt a flush of anger. But then, just as swiftly as it surged through her, it was gone. Another feeling took its place. And that feeling was worse than anger. It was the looming despair that kept tugging at her heart ever since she heard the information from the CDC that morning. That knowledge that she, too, was probably destined to succumb to the virus as it spread.

  The boy was right, and she knew it.

  Even now, she knew that the virus could be inside her body. Multiplying, growing. Eating away at the center of her brain, or wherever it did its dirty work. Even now, she thought, she could become one of those things they killed. One of those things, still and cold on the floor of the morgue.

  Zombie!

  Again, the word took shape for her.

  She sighed, resigned that Robey Paquette was, absolutely, right.

  Even before the echo from her sigh began its acoustic acrobats inside the metal maze, she told Robey, “lead on, my young friend.”

  After a short squirming session, to shift the order they were positioned within the maze, Buddy Whetherby took the lead.

  Although he wasn’t happy about it, Robey had won his short debate with Susann.

  Thoughts of his mother, continually, kept running across his mind. Trying to strategize on their escape helped him to keep those thoughts at bay. The growing number of scenarios brewing in the cauldron of his brain were not pleasant ones.

  One thing was for sure. He wanted Susann wedged right between him and Buddy. His reason, two-fold. First, he wanted to try to protect the nurse as best they could. Buddy in front of her, and Robey behind. After all, she was his angel, and his crush on her, even under the dire straits they’d already encountered, hadn’t diminished an iota. Second, and it was Susann, herself, that forced Robey to even consider it. The second reason was that Susann, as repellent the very thought was, could end up turning into a zombie.

  And, from what they’d viewed on the flat screen earlier, it could happen at any time.

  Susann’s calculations concerning their whereabouts in the hospital, and where they were trying to get to, were, at best, educated guesses. Still, she understood the basic layout of the corridors beneath them better than most. And she knew that the air ducts, for the whole collection of buildings on the Baptist Health compound, ran main arteries all along those very corridors that connected the compound’s buildings.

  She knew she could get them closer to the cafeteria by following the main duct through to the front area of the building they were already in. She knew that the Emergency Room entrance was a straight line back from the front of the building. As well, she knew that one of those main ductways ran right through the center of if all. She just had to make sure they hit that centralized artery. She rationalized that it would be larger in dimension than the ducts they were, currently, crawling through.

  She was right.

  “Wow! This is cool!” Buddy said, forgetting they were trying to be clandestine. His voice boomed within the enclosure, and echoed back at them as they traveled through the maze.

  The boy shimmied the rest of the way through the duct he was moving along. He entered what was, according to Susann, the building’s central air duct. Susann followed him into the comfortably wide and high duct. Robey slid a couple more feet and he, too, joined them.

  They were now able to sit up, cross-legged, and not have to keep their heads bowed down to avoid bumping against the top of the duct. They all stretched their arms and legs.

  Susann pulled Doctor Huddleston’s cell phone from her scrubs. She hit the recall for Tilde’s cell, and waited.

  “Susann!” the woman said, sounding surprised. Perhaps, Susann thought, the woman was wondering if they were going to be able to make it to her?

  “Tilde! I think we’ve just made it to the central duct of the hospital,” Susann said into the receiver. She reminded herself to whisper.

  “The airduct?” Tilde said. Susann heard the question in her friend’s voice.

  “One of my companions, Robey, came up with a brilliant way for us to make it to y’all. Hopefully, we won’t encounter any more of those monsters,” the young nurse said.

  “Zombies, girl,” Tilde corrected her, “Zombies.”

  “Right. Zombies,” Susann said. At the same time, she felt herself forcing down the implications of that knowledge once more. Perhaps, somehow, by not acknowledging them as monsters, she could avoid sharing their fate.

  “Are y’all okay? Is everybody,” Susann heard the hesitation in her voice, as if it were an omen of coming attractions, “still, okay?”

  “We’re all fine,” Tilde said. She was, obviously, more than aware of Susann’s apprehensions. The woman, softly, added “still.”

  “Alright, then,” Susann sighed, “I guess we’ll get back on it.”

  “If you’re up in that duct system, just where do you think you are at this moment?” Tilde asked.

  “I’m pretty sure that we’re on the other end of the building. Robey’s room was on the third floor, and we’re still up there, but once I know we’re close, we’ll figure a way to make out way down to the first floor,” she whispered into the cell.

  “Okay, girl,” Tilde said, “and, y’all be super careful.”

  This time, Buddy shot a question into the cell phone just before Susann ended the call.

  “Miss Tilde, this is Buddy Whetherby. Robey’s my best friend. I’m, I’m a friend of Miss Susann,” he said, trying to get his question through before the call ended.

  “Hello there, Buddy,” Tilde said, her voice well practiced at kindness to others. “It sounds like you’ve got some good company up there. I believe y’all are gonna be just fine, Buddy.”

  “Thank you, Miss Tilde,” he answered, then quickly added “tell me that you are going to feed us when we get there?”

  For the first time in a little while, the balm of laughter, subdued as it was, touched all of them for a few moments.

  *****

  Susann’s instincts paid off.

  Within a matter of minutes, the trio had traversed the hospital. And Susann was positive they were somewhere close to the vicinity of the cafeteria. That meant they were closer to Tilde. And closer to something to eat.

  “Okay, fellas, I think we’re not too far from the cafeteria,” Susann said to them. Again, they huddled close together in a small circle. Again, sitting cross-legged for comfort, they rested a few minutes. It was good to take the strain of crawling through the duct system off their knees for a little.

  “I’m so hungry,
” Buddy whispered. As if to prove it, he, dramatically, clutched his stomach as if experiencing the pain of hunger.

  “I’m with you there, Buddy,” Susann agreed. Her own hunger pangs, silently, but forcefully, constantly berating her for skipping a meal before coming into work that morning. Her stomach churned away. It seemed to further admonish her, a nurse, for forgetting the most important meal of her day.

  “You told Miss Tilde that we had to find a way to get to the first floor, right?” Robey asked, reminding her that they still had to figure out a way to make their way down to the first floor. Then they would have to navigate through whatever lay between them and the cafeteria.

  “Right you are, Mr. Paquette,” she said, sighing, again. Robey sensed that she wished that they were, of course, already in the cafeteria. Safe. And stuffing their faces.

  Susann thought for a minute. Again, trying to reassess the best approach they might take in order to avoid as much of the unknown as possible.

  When they’d first entered the air system, they’d still been hearing random yells and screams. Even now, those sounds were following them from just outside the ducts. Sounds that, continually, filtered in from the hallways. And they echoed, hauntingly, as they traveled along their path. The noise that made its way into the dark cavern they traveled, kept supplying the background soundtrack of the catastrophe movie they got caught in. They were living through the script, as it was being written for them, minute by minute. Thankfully, the acoustics that seemed to amplify their voices and sounds within the duct, also served to keep most of the outside noise muted to some degree. Making their way through the maze would have been even more difficult if they’d had to cope with the cacophony of the dying and the dead on the other side of every duct opening along their way.

  Susann wondered out loud. “Boys? How confident are you that your weapons can stand up to any more of those things?” She paused, as if considering what she’d just asked was crazy. Then she finished her question, “the zombies?”