Infected

by Anthony Izzo

  Rob waited by the button for the roll-up door, Kayla at his side. Tim Orr knelt in front of the door, a two hand grip on his Glock, waiting to blast anything that got in sight. Mary stood next to him. She had kicked off her heels and was standing in her bare feet.

  Ryan waited for the door to open. He looked like a track sprinter ready to run a race.

  Rob called to Ramsey, who was watching the security camera in the office. “All clear out there?”

  “No sign of anyone.”

  Ryan nodded to Rob, and he pressed the button. The motor whirred to life and the steel door rose on the track. The security lights outside illuminated the loading ramp. Rob looked out and saw the van parked towards the end of the ramp, maybe seventy or eighty feet away.

  Ryan sprinted up the ramp, the car keys jingling. He reached the van and got in. Rob had a bad moment where he wondered if the engine wouldn't start. He'd seen too many horror movies as a kid. But the engine roared to life.

  Ryan swung the van around. That's when Rob saw the first zombie. It appeared in the van's headlights. Tim opened fire, hitting it twice and sending it to the ground. Ryan finished it off by running it over with the van.

  Rob looked down at Kayla, who was covering her ears.

  More of them appeared out of the darkness, leaping onto the van, throwing themselves at it in order to get at Ryan. He swerved back and forth, throwing some of them off. Three of them clutched the van and he began backing down the ramp.

  “He's going to bring them right to the door,” Rob said.

  “Not much choice. Get ready,” Tim said.

  One of the zombies smashed the driver's side window and started tearing at Ryan, which caused him to back into the concrete wall. The zombie began to pull Ryan from the van, but Rob sprang forward, leveled the shotgun, and blasted it in the face. He opened the door and pulled Ryan from the driver's seat.

  The other zombie rounded the van, this one dressed in a ripped tee shirt and jeans. Drool poured from its mouth. Rob shot it in the face, the lower half of its jaw gone. It kept coming and he blasted it again in the head.

  He pulled Ryan along, the two of them stepping over the thing's body. He heard a chorus of grunts and groans coming from the top of the ramp, and he glanced over his shoulder to see a crowd of zombies coming.

  He got inside and hit the button, the door lowering. The first creature reached the door and Rob fired at the bottom half of it, tearing away its leg. It fell forward and the roll-up door came down on its neck, severing the head, which rolled forward. The eyes, milky white, stared up at them. Mary scooted backward, muttering, “Holy shit” to herself. The lips continued moving and Rob smashed the head into a red pulp with the shotgun butt.

  A hollow bang echoed from the door as the creatures to get in from outside.

  Tim brushed past Rob. “Let me see something.”

  He entered the office, where Ramsey had been watching the camera. Rob followed and his heart sank when he saw the monitor. At least forty of the things were pounding on the door, crawling, scratching, biting at one another to get inside. “What brought them?” Rob asked.

  “Don't know,” Tim said. “Maybe the noise from the door and the van.”

  Ramsey, sitting in a swivel chair, said: “Doesn't matter how. We've got to go higher up.”

  “There's no other way out?” Tim asked.

  “Loading dock's it. I suggest we get moving. If they get through the front doors, we'll be trapped down here,” Ramsey said.

  They left the receiving office, where Mary was standing next to Ryan, stroking his hair.

  “Did you get scratched or bit?” Rob asked.

  “Naw. I'm fine,” Ryan said.

  Tim went over to Ryan, got up close, and started inspecting him. Ryan reared away from him and said, “Back off. Told you I didn't get bit.”

  “I suppose you're okay.”

  Ramsey came out of the office and adjusted his belt. One time during a meeting he actually undid his pants to tuck in his shirt. “I'll remind you all again. Those things break through the glass and we're like rats on a sinking ship down here.”

  “He's right,” Rob said. “We should move.”

  “How will we get out of here?” Kayla asked.

  “We'll find a way. Someone will come and help us,” Rob said.

  “I hope you're right Dad,” Kayla said.

  That was his little girl. Like her mother, you couldn't bullshit her. “C'mon people. Train's leaving.”

  Rob led the way to the elevator and once they were all up in the lobby, he paused to look at the swelling numbers of creatures at the front door. He saw a particularly big one, well over six feet, step up to the glass. The shirtless hulk looked as if he could lift a Cadillac. He headbutted the glass, causing a jagged crack to form. Then he smashed a baseball mitt fist against the glass and Rob watched in horror as the glass caved in.

  “Run,” Rob said.

  As the elevator rose, Maria felt panic start to swell within her. They had no weapons, no way to fight their way out. They would have to hope help came.

  Megan said, “We can lock ourselves in on the west side of the floor. Those double doors secure.”

  “We need weapons of some kind,” Maria said.

  “The construction in the operating suites. There's got to be something there,” Rebecca said.

  Christopher looked up at Maria. “What were those things?”

  “It has to do with the bug going around. It's changing people,” Maria said.

  “Whoa. Zombies,” Christopher said.

  “They're renovating one of the suites,” Maria said. “We can use the tools for weapons.”

  “It's on the opposite wing. What if those things come up here?” Megan asked.

  “We can't afford to be defenseless. I'll go look for weapons,” Maria said.

  “I'll go with,” Rebecca said.

  “Megan, get the patients behind locked doors. Watch for us to come back, okay?”

  “Don't worry. I'll stay behind the locked doors.”

  “This is absurd,” Mrs. Ross said.

  “All due respect, you didn't see what was around that corner.”

  The elevator left them off and Maria and Rebecca helped Megan wheel the patients into the West Wing. As Maria and Rebecca left the wing, she saw Megan close the doors and bolt them at the top.

  “Hope she opens those back up,” Maria said.

  “I guess we'll find out. Lead the way,” Rebecca said.

  Rebecca went ahead, an Amazon warrior in hospital scrubs. Maria pulled up close and they made a series of turns before coming to another set of double doors. A red-lettered sight warned, Authorized Personnel Only.

  They pushed through the doors and immediately inhaled the sweet, cloying scent of anesthetic. The surgical suite at the end of the hall bore construction tape over the entrance. Maria took the lead, ripping the tape loose. The floor was covered with paint-spotted drop cloths. In one corner were a the tools.

  Maria selected a cordless Sawzall and a hand-held sledgehammer. Rebecca found a cordless circular saw with extra battery pack, as well as a full-size sledgehammer. She also took a serrated drywall knife. It wasn't much, but it beat trying to fight the things with staplers and paperclips from the nurses' station.

  They left the surgical ward and Maria heard a heavy door slam. It was followed by the clop clop of several sets of footsteps. They wound through the hallways, the stairway door behind them. She could smell them as well as hear them, a stink she associated with the sick and dying.

  The doors to the west wing were straight ahead. Maria turned and saw their pursuers, a dozen strong, pushing and shoving along the corridor, pressed in wall-to-wall. Through the glass in the door, she saw Megan peering back at them.

  “Open the damn door!” Rebecca said.

  Maria saw Megan reach up and unbolt the door. She swung them inward and the two women slipped inside. Maria shut the door and bolted the top as the zombies slammed into the door. Mari
a saw their pale gray faces and drooling mouths as they pressed against the glass. One of them licked the glass, leaving a trail of yellow mucous. Maria wrinkled her nose.

  “What'd we get?” Megan asked.

  “Not much. Take your pick,” Maria said.

  “I'll take the hand sledge, I guess.”

  “How long will that door hold?” Rebecca asked.

  They let that question hang in the air.

  The things pounded at the doors and they started to buckle. One of them got a hand through the opening between the doors. Maria hefted the Sawzall, pulled the trigger, and the blade buzzed to life. She brought it in a downward arc, slicing into the things wrist. The blade bit through the skin and muscle, stopping at the bone. She pulled it up and swung it back down, taking two of the zombie's fingers. They plopped on the ground and wiggled. The creature yanked its hand back.

  They surged forward again, causing the doors to buckle. One of them stuck his face inside, a bearded freak with bits of gristle in the hairs. This time it was Rebecca who stepped up, swinging the sledgehammer like a baseball bat and obliterating the thing's face.

  “We need to shore up the door,” Maria said.

  “There's nothing heavy enough. Gurneys and supply carts aren't going to cut it,” Rebecca said.

  They came at the door again, this time an elderly woman with greasy white hair sticking her face in the space between the doors. Her mouth opened and closed reflexively, as if trying to chomp on something in mid-air. Maria took the drywall knife and jammed it all the way into the back of her mouth. It stuck and she made wet, gurgling noises before pulling her face from the opening. Maria felt sick. They were supposed to save lives, not mutilate people. Though she supposed they ceased to be people when the disease got a hold of them. Still not pleasant work.

  The zombies backed away from the door and Maria peered through the window, which was about four inches wide and a yard tall. They were retreating around the corner, perhaps coming up with some rudimentary new plan of attack. Either that or they had realized they would be mutilated with power tools. If they could even think.

  The old woman lay on her back, the drywall saw's wooden handle jutting from her mouth.

  “Who wants to watch the door and who wants to check on our patients?” Maria asked.

  “Go. I'll watch it,” Rebecca said. There was almost a gleam in her eye. Something that told Maria the tall nurse was the last person she'd want to fuck with in a bar fight.

  Maria went down the hallway and found Christopher in one of the empty rooms. He was sitting in the wheelchair.

  “What's happening out there?” he asked.

  “The things loose in the hospital were at the doors. We fought them back for now.”

  “Is help on the way?” he asked.

  “We've called the police. There might be a few cops in the building already,” Maria said.

  “I guess if the cancer doesn't get me, at least I can say I was eaten by zombies,” he said, smiling.

  “I'm pretty stringy,” Maria said. “Don't think they'd like me.”

  “You have blood on you,” Christopher said.

  “I just separated a zombie from its fingers,” she said.

  He gave her a look that was almost contemplative, then said, “You're pretty badass. For a nurse.”

  “Thanks. The badass nurse will see if she can get you out of here so you can get better.”

  “I'm almost done with this round of chemo,” he said. “My parents said if my health's good enough, we're going to Maine. See the ocean.”

  “That sounds wonderful,” Maria said.

  “It will be.”

  Emma reached the door for the eighth floor, her lungs heaving. She wasn't used to taking all these stairs, and she was wary about George (or what he'd become) chasing after her. Hopefully Dr. Gupta's corpse would keep George occupied. He'd been a good man and didn't deserve to be turned into a mindless killing machine. She dreaded the thought of having to put him down. Put him down. Like he was an old dog.

  She eased the door open and went to a junction in the hallway and turned left. A long corridor loomed ahead, and she took it to the end, where it again turned left. As she peered around the corner, she got a whiff of that spoiled-meat smell and saw the source. At the end of the hallway were no less than ten zombies. Some crouched, while others lay on the floor, watching something.

  They hadn't seen Emma and she wondered what they were looking at. The patient rooms – including her Mom's – were down there. If she wanted to get to her mother, she'd have to go through the zombies.

  She'd have to use the Glock. The shotgun didn't have the range, and she wanted to take as many down as she could before they got close. She took the Glock from her holster and jacked a round into the chamber. After double checking her pockets for George's extra clips, she stepped around the corner, the shotgun in her free hand.

  She moved to within fifty feet of them and set the shotgun at her feet. Then she dropped into a two-handed shooting stance. The first one turned its head and saw her. She fired, catching it in the head and dropping it.

  Two more lurched forward and she took them down with a combined total of four shots.

  Three of them came for her a top speed. She panicked a pit and backpedaled, winding up on her ass. She pushed herself backward, firing the Glock and catching them in the knees. The went to the ground and kept coming, dragging their bloodied legs behind them.

  She got to her feet and got ready to fire again.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Sam, I heard something.”

  Sam Ganther rolled over and looked at his wife. Trudy was leaning on one elbow, her long brown hair disheveled. He glanced at the clock on the nightstand. He'd been in bed for an hour. Ten o'clock and it felt late. Ever since he'd turned sixty, he'd spent his evenings dozing while Trudy read James Patterson novels. She'd kept encouraging him to put the farm up for sale, give up the fourteen hour days. He guessed he was just stubborn.

  “Where?”

  “Gracey. Going nuts.”

  He cocked his ear and listened. All he heard was the wind blowing through the eaves of the house. “Don't hear anything.”

  “It sounded like Gracey. Go check, will you? I've never heard her make that kind of noise.”

  In forty years of farming, he'd never lost an animal to a predator. They got the odd coyote from time-to-time, but nothing bigger. He supposed it wouldn't hurt to check on the horse.

  He got out of bed, slipped on his jeans, tee shirt, and a flannel. Then he went to the bedroom closet, where he kept a Remington shotgun. He took it from the closet, grabbed a box of shells from the shelf, and loaded it.

  “Be careful.”

  “Always am.”

  “It's probably nothing, don't you think?” Trudy asked.

  “We'll see.”

  He went downstairs, grabbed a flashlight from the kitchen drawer. He started the search by going to the farmhouse's front door and looking out onto the porch that wrapped around the house. They had a few rockers and a swing that hung by a chain from the porch roof. It swayed in the breeze, but there was no sign of anything.

  He went out the back door and observed the barn. His father had built it after the War. The shingles were curling and the red paint had faded to a near pink. Maybe it was time to think about selling it. Next to the barn were the stables, which housed their only remaining horse, Gracey.

  He walked out to the stable, which was about fifty yards from the house. As he walked, he swept the beam back and forth, watching for any sign of a coyote. Satisfied nothing was lurking between the house and stable, he proceeded to the low, white building. Something made him stop at the door, a tingling on the back of his neck, a signal telling him to stop.

  He listened at the door, where a low slurping noise came from inside the stable. His guess was that an animal was in there feeding on something, but that wouldn't make sense, because there wasn't an animal around big enough to take down a horse.
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br />   Steeling up his courage, he went inside and paused for a moment so his eyes could adjust to the darkness. There were three empty stables, with Gracey's being in the fourth one on the end. He shined the light on the empty stables and saw nothing. The munching noises continued and they were coming from Gracey's stable.

  He crept forward, recalling the time as a boy when he'd seen a black bear in their campsite at Allegany State Park. Palms moist and heart thudding, he'd frozen until the bear wandered off. This was worse.