by David Whaley
Whilst still having to dodge the pockets of fires and abandoned cars, they arrived unscaved to be greeted by a dozen of the walking dead the other end of the long road within the hospital grounds leading up to the main entrance.
The Redbridge Hospital was fronted by a forecourt with trampled flowers and grass worn by the influx of visitors. To the side was an array of ambulance parking bays marked out with thick solid white lines and: Ambulances Only, written in the same paint on the ground.
The main entrance was in the left hand corner of the u-shaped building and used by the general public to access Accident and Emergency for anything from the sniffles to a fractured bone.
Directly ahead was another entrance secured by a numerical keypad that a four digit code would grant access to, this entrance being used by the ambulance crews and their patients.
Windows littered the building, a common theme of shattered glass on all of the buildings they had visited formed in Natalie’s mind, the hospital being none different.
Natalie, a frequent visitor often taking a probationer for a hospital guard posting or dealing with injured victims of crime that were required to attend, knew what to expect inside.
Beside the white walls and the once shiny polished tiled flooring, she would find the sick, their families, the staff being a combination of nurses and doctors, their managers and the orderlies roaming around in a fashion that although still scared her, had started to become a bore.
It was as she thought that, that the virus threw a spanner in the works and permitted a zombie to appear on their bonnet, looking at them through their windscreen as if having fallen from the heavens; a term not likely used when referring to the living dead.
“The fuck did he come from?” a stricken Devlin cried.
Natalie and Leon were breathing as heavily as Devlin was and it was a moment before they could respond. Meanwhile, the zombie had started to bang its head against the windscreen leaving maggots and a milky substance smeared across the glass.
“I’ve had enough of these fuckers,” said Leon regaining his momentarily loss of confidence.
Leon glanced around to ensure his passengers were wearing their seatbelts. They were.
He screeched the BMW into gear and accelerated hard, the engine still silenced from the sawdust but pointless owing to the hungry Zombie they had on their exterior drawing the attention of its kind.
As they approached, they felt their first Zombie kill as they ran one down not being able to see it, or the road, very well.
Leon steered tight around the forecourt area causing their unauthorised passenger to fall off at the side of their vehicle thus improving their view.
As seen at the other locations they visited, some of the undead were walking and some were running towards them.
The first few were easy to mow down with their Zombie proofed vehicle but then they saw something new.
The Zombie looked just like the others. His body was rotting, and in the latter stages, which suggested the question to be asked as to how he could keep anything down that he attempted to consume with the hole in the side of its face? It was this Zombie that stood out as it outran the others.
This wasn’t the new thing, albeit a faster Zombie that could pose a higher risk of danger. It was as they drew closer that it jumped clear of the X5, its feet dragging along the roof, to land on the other side.
Leon was as quick to shift into reverse and dispose of the undeads life just before it jumped again.”
“So now they can jump?” said Leon
He sped the car forward once more and ploughed through more of the flesh eaters and with only a few remaining they decamped. The passengers felt it necessary to test their neck muscles as a result of Leon’s handbrake turn to park.
They took one Zombie each and shot them dead whilst running to the paramedic entrance, Natalie punching in the code.
There were two Zombies at the far end of the corridor already heading for them, likely alerted from the commotion they had caused outside, but were walking.
They were each still dressed in the public order gear for protection and pulled the overalls back over their shoulders securely zipping it up; their guards firmly strapped to their bodies.
There was a sudden loud blast from the two Police Officers radios which they promptly turned down by twisting the volume dial in the hope they hadn’t alerted anymore Zombies of their presence, the two walkers still ahead and approaching.
“Natalie, are you there?” said the crackle belonging to Heather, not familiar with Police radio etiquette.
Natalie stood back pacing as she conversed with the researcher, Leon and Devlin stood facing forward towards the enemies with their firearms held at their side.
“Heather, go ahead.”
“I hope its not a bad time but I need something else.”
“What is it?”
“Live animation blood.”
“Does it make a difference? They’re dead either way.”
“Yes, it does make a difference. When the host dies we can hypothesise that the virus does too. Therefore, they need to be alive. Alive is such a sad word to use and seems somewhat redundant now.”
“We will do what we can.”
“Use any of the needles with a syringe. It shouldn’t matter where you put it in their body too much but if you can aim for the creases in either of the elbow joints, on the inside of the arm.”
Natalie turned back to her allies and appraised them of the new request. A quick glance around revealed a number of doors between them that could be storage rooms containing either the items they wanted, some not all, or belonging to the cleaners containing an array of chemicals to sterilise the hospital.
Leon, with one eye still focused ahead, pulled open the nearest door, all of which had no windows around them.
It was like the tardis, the room was massive and what he saw gave them no reason to enter. Paperwork was piled on shelves and scattered about. It was the archives room and a quick look at the name plate on the door confirmed it had not justified a reason to enter.
Devlin raised his firearm as Leon tried the door on the opposite wall of the corridor revealing a small and cramped cleaning cupboard.
A shot echoed through the corridor causing Leon to raise his Glock as a second shot was heard; the first coming from Devlin and the second from Natalie.
In response to these noises the Zombies that were out of sight could be heard moaning and shuffling along.
“There’s more coming. Quickly check the remaining doors,” instructed Natalie.
They pulled open the doors along to the nearest junction with no luck. The nearest cupboard to which they were looking contained gauzes and sterilised water, only items to clean wounds.
“She didn’t mention it but we should take some of them,” said Devlin.
This was agreed and Leon picked up a full box of gauzes, emptied half of them and refilled it with sterilised water containers forming a box with a 50/50 split. This box was left by the paramedic entrance for their return.
“So where to next?” asked Devlin.
“Well this is still part of A and E. Minors is there, majors is over there. All the equipment we are looking for should be around here somewhere,” said Leon.
They approached the crossroads in the corridor. They could either carry on ahead to the Acute Assessment Unit, turn left to Minors or right to Majors.
Natalie and Leon sidestepped into view of the direction of Minors, their firearms up and ready.
“Shit,” they both said.
“Guys? It’s the same this way,” Devlin said looking towards Majors.
Both corridors were filled with the undead visitors and workers of the hospital approaching their direction, but upon seeing them the majority started running. Their luck was that due to the vast amount of them, they tripped over each other and ended up in a heap on the floor that bided them valuable seconds.
The trio ran to the AAU, this looking like the clearest
route, and pushed open the double fire doors closing them fortunately finding a broom that they were able to put through the two handles just as their pursuers had reached it. There was a constant banging on the door as Zombies pressed against it. They knew that this had become a permanent system of alert to anymore that happened to be nearby.
The AAU was a ward with beds lining all four walls with curtains surrounding each of them. The Nurses station in the centre, where the living once worked, was covered in blood; it used to be white.
There was a metal trolley at one end of the ward that housed a machine with an LCD display and twelve leads coming from it. Natalie recognised it immediately.
“That’s the ECG,” she said.
They decided on a three pronged approach by Leon circling the left wing, Devlin to the right and Natalie through the centre.
The wingers pulled back curtain after curtain, clearing each cubicle without a single Zombie to be found, the herd of the undead still banging on the door and the broom holding firm as a barricade.
Other than the ECG, the trolley also held a blood pressure monitor and a pulse oximeter. These were also wired into the LCD screen to provide a visual reading.
On the shelf beneath were a handful of peripheral canulars.
“Not much more to find,” said Leon. “We had better take that as well.”
Natalie followed the point of Leon’s finger and saw a retractable drip stand that she shortened and placed on the shelf with the canulars.
There was only one other exit from the ward and they walked through it into another corridor. There were three Zombies present that Devlin and Natalie were able to deal with whilst Leon wheeled the trolley that emitted high pitched squeaks from the wheels. It had become pointless in trying to be stealthy.
They took the only turning available to them, being a left, and Natalie downed another two of the undead demons.
A nearby sign pointed to Minors as it became apparent after the next left turn that they were going around in a circle towards the mass of flesh eaters.
In Minors, they could hear the banging from the doors leading to AAU by the Zombies still distracted assuming the trio were still in the ward. Leon decided to leave the trolley still whilst they searched as it was time to be stealthy more than ever. If they were to alert the horde then they would be in serious trouble, he thought.
The survivors crept about the Minors Unit, laid out in a similar fashion to AAU, and found that there was a lot more equipment.
They quickly located many drips, mainly Morphine, but after more searching they soon had their hands on five packs of Saline Solution. A storage cupboard behind one of the beds that was out of place revealed hundreds of needles and syringes. The needles were of various gauge sizes and Natalie decided they didn’t have time to check the sizes so filled up an empty box with needles from all over the cupboard.
The equipment Heather had asked for had been gathered and it was time to make good an escape.
After a short conversation, they decided to run back to the paramedics’ entrance and collect the box that they had left knowing that they would be chased by the herd.
They assigned themselves tasks. Leon was to be in control of the trolley and to enter the code to exit, which Natalie had told him, Devlin was to carry the box of needles and syringes whilst Natalie was tasked with retrieving the box from the floor by the exit.
Each took a deep breath and listened. The banging had stopped but the Zombies hadn’t yet reappeared at the junction in the corridor.
“Don’t look back,” said Natalie and they ran.
They ran to the junction and turned right towards the exit, Natalie ignoring her own advice to look over her shoulder.
Natalie saw that the herd had become bored of the doors to AAU and were already facing their direction giving chase. The walkers were at the back of the pack as the runners advanced with one Zombie having jumped further ahead was gaining speed.
Natalie faced forward again and collected the box of gauzes whilst Leon entered the code opening the door. Outside, Leon turned around and waited for the jumper to approach knowing that it would interrupt the doors closing as the sensors would detect it and keep them open.
Its momentum didn’t falter or slow as it reached the door and Leon used this to his advantage. He raised his boot out to the side as he kicked it in the throat, the Zombies body continued past them before collapsing on the floor and its head remained airborne long enough for Leon to catch it.
As the door closed, and as the remaining Zombies ran into it causing it to crack, they turned around and Leon threw the Zombies head as far as he could.
However, as they looked around they saw hundreds of Zombies, all looking in their direction, dotted around the grounds. The nearest one was by their car which suddenly started walking towards them. At its feet a man lay clutching his own bicep.
“H….Help,” the injured man was barely able to mutter through fear.
They reacted quickly, Natalie with a one handed shot to the head of the Zombie whilst Leon unlocked the car and loaded everything into the boot.
Leon climbed into his usual seat and Devlin helped the injured person into the back with the assistance of Natalie.
They then set off for their return to Lakeford Police Station with one of the infected on board.
Chapter 19
“Heather, we have a man injured here. Heather?” Leon shouted out as they hurried with the limp casualty through the hall of the police station towards the station office; the last known location of the researcher.
“Down here,” Heather’s voice echoed from ahead in the PC’s writing room.
They entered and were met with the sight of a PC’s working office turned temporary lab that some could argue looked similar to a methamphetamine drugs hole. Beakers lined most of the tables and labelled glass twist cap containers held varying consistencies of liquid, powder and tablets along a single desk pushed against a wall. All but one computer terminal had been removed.
“He has been a bitten on his left bicep by a zombie. This is all of the equipment,” said Leon as he struggled with the new addition to their group. Meanwhile, Natalie placed the bag with most of the requested items on a desk. Devlin carried the ECG machine.
“No,” said the astonished researcher. “He requires a medical professional, if you could find one. Besides, the cure needs a final test. I wouldn’t feel comfortable testing on a human subject.”
“Listen love… Heather,” Devlin corrected. “This man will die either way. He needs help. A medical professional would treat the wound but not the virus.”
“Despite his choice of words,” added Natalie. “Devlin is right. Surely, we have to try?”
The infected person was profusely sweating and shivering as Leon laid him on a desk in the centre of the room, using it as a hospital bed, and he tore the sleeve from the injured arm exposing the wound that had developed a yellow sticky ooze around it fused with blood.
“I want it known that I am not comfortable with this,” Heather succumbed, agreeing and setting to work.
She cleaned the wound whilst communicating with the latest victim of the plague where she was able to ascertain his name that he muttered through shallow breathing. It was James Bullen.
With the wound dressed, Heather set about connecting the equipment the trio had worked hard to collect.
“James, I need you to try and be still for me, okay?” she asked in a pointless attempt as he appeared to be falling asleep. Regardless, she finished connecting the twelve pads for the ECG.
Heather then started speaking through a recording device as she made notes to monitor the progress.
“It is the 19th October 2014 and the time is 1906 hours. The subject has been presented to me with a bite wound, sustained from an animation, to his left bicep brachii. The wound is deep with a yellow substance formed around it. The subject is a Caucasian male, approximately 35 years of age and appears generally healthy in terms of lifestyle,�
� Heather said into the small device as she then paused it allowing her to make notes.
James coughed, and continued to do so in brief intervals, which caused a nervous Heather to look up from her pen.
“The subject is barely coherent, able to only communicate two words being his name; James Bullen.”
Heather was interrupted by another few coughs but this time in quick succession of each other, and she continued.
“The subject is displaying signs of a typical fever: shivering, sweating, coughing, shallow breathing. However, his blood pressure is presenting a low reading of eighty over fifty and his heart is beating at a pace in line with supraventricular tachycardia.”
Heather continued recording her voice as the three learnt more words than they were likely to ever use and left the writing room where it was decided that Leon and Devlin would go out for more food supplies before the stocks started running low.
The two left the police station to start their search and Natalie walked back to check on the researchers progress.
“… and observations to be checked and recorded at fifteen minute intervals,” concluded Heather.
“Is it done already?” asked Natalie.
“Basic obs are done and details recorded, but I am not introducing the cure for at least an hour whilst I confirm the rate at which the virus attacks its host exactly.”
“Leon and Devlin have gone out to search for some more food supplies, looks like it’s just us girls’ for a while.” said Natalie.
“Well, males have a subconscious primitive instinct to protect their female counterparts. It dates back to the earliest form of humanity and is an instinct shared with animals.”
I know she’s a scientist but this type of talk is really starting to annoy me, thought Natalie.
“True,” she said resigned.
“This… plague. It’s really got me thinking of every aspect of my life: childhood, career, home, possessions, love… love is an interesting word. I’m starting to wonder if it actually exists.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well I have dated guys, some real gentlemen, and never felt anything other than what I would describe as friendship. I have never before thought of having children. Now? I’m glad I haven’t got any. What do you think? Does love exist?”
