LZR-1143: Infection

by Bryan James

  I sprinted, or did my best to sprint, down the hall, passing the rec room on the right, where Conan’s body still lay inert, but A-team’s had struggled slowly into a seated position, legs twitching. Vacant eyes tracked my stumbling, clumsy progress past the open door, and the sound of his struggling to get up reached my ears, even as I fled.

  I shook my head and sped up, now convinced that this whole thing was some sort of mind-fuck, but not willing to slow down and find out.

  The stairwell, my only option, was at the end of the hallway. I stumbled to a hasty walk as I reached it in order to navigate the narrow flight. The walls on either side of the narrow passageway were peeling, the bone-white top layer of paint revealing a light green underlayment the color of brackish ocean water. A chain link divider separated the stairwells from one another, and as I reached the bottom, two floors down, I met an iron door.

  I had struggled to reach the end of the hall, muscles unused to activity and shoes slick with blood, so I had failed to outdistance those things by much, despite their slow movement. Low-pitched groaning and a putrid smell announced their proximity, as they reached the door to the stairwell and shuffled through. As I reached for the handle to the door I realized I had dropped my fire extinguisher in my haste to leave the party upstairs.

  Not as much of a badass as you thought, eh McKnight?

  The handle moved easily but the hinges squeaked something terrible. The pursuit from above quickened, if that was possible, and through the chain link barrier, I saw the shuffling feet descending the flight directly above me. I flew into the open doorway, nearly splitting my head on the low-hanging door frame, and slammed the heavy iron door shut behind me. I felt for some sort of locking mechanism, and found a rusty latch that I threw into place just as the first body slammed against the thick metal.

  I was breathing harder than I thought possible. They let us exercise, but we got very little in the way of cardio training. The anti-psychotics constricted the lungs, and made any kind of excessive cardiovascular exercise painful. Those of us who were sane enough to do so got to do light weight training; enough at least to keep fit, if not maintain the muscle mass some of us started with. Exercise releases endorphins, endorphins make us happy, and when we’re happy, we don’t crap in the rec room. Good theory, and based on actual research done by the guy down the hall from me who would engage in the latter activity if not allowed the former.

  I couldn’t wait to write my memoirs.

  Once upon a time, I had been a muscular fellow. No Schwarzenegger or Stallone, but certainly larger than your average Gold’s Gym toolbox. I still had a decent amount of size to me, but nowhere near the imposing figure I cut in my last film.

  Either way, breathing was a happy place for me right now as my lack of aerobic exercise caught up to me.

  As the pounding on the door kept up, I pulled the still wet flashlight from my pocket and for the first time, thought to check to see if it worked. A glorious beam of light shot from the lens, and temporarily blinded me as I adjusted to my surroundings.

  I was in a narrow, low-hanging chamber, and large, corroded pipes led from my little room down a narrow passageway to a terminus unknown. The walls here were brick, probably the original stuff from the 1890’s. I moved slowly down the passageway, looking over my shoulder to check that the latch was holding strong against my pursuers. Water dripped slowly from the low ceiling, and as I moved further into the dark hallway, the dank, centuries old walls illuminated by the fluorescent glow of my flashlight, it took more and more effort to quell the sense of growing claustrophobia. Shadows created by the severe contrast between light and dark masqueraded as solid entities before me.

  I walked for what seemed like hours through the maze of subterranean passages. At times, I would pass side chambers, formerly devoted to storage or some other inane function. Several times, I passed more sinister looking rooms; even a morgue, complete with yawning stainless steel cavities and vacant examination tables. To say that, after my ordeal upstairs, I was less than excited about wandering these dark tunnels with such sights was an understatement.

  Eventually, the passageway terminated where a boiler room began, and I faced a grouping of massive furnaces and steaming pipes. I took in the room, checking it from floor to ceiling for potential weapons. No luck on that count, but I did take the opportunity to chuck my blood soaked scrubs and don a dark blue janitorial jumpsuit I found in a locker, being careful to avoid the blood and wipe as much off my skin with the discarded clothes as possible. I checked my hazy reflection in the stainless steel of a water heater, ran a hand through my hair, grabbed my flashlight, and started up the stairs to the only door in the room.

  I didn’t know where I was, where I was going, or what the hell I’d do when I got there. The most important thing to me was the sign over the door that promised simply: Exit.

  Chapter 4

  I opened the door slowly, not knowing what was waiting for me on the other side. It moved easily, making only a brushing, metallic sound as the steel hinges worked against the frame. Quietly, I listened for movement before slowly peering into the hallway. No shuffling, no moaning.

  I looked slowly around the corner of the door, ready to slam it shut in an instant. I was in another hallway, identical to the one I left in the last building. Moving cautiously out of the doorway, I made sure not to let it slam shut behind me. The sign on the door frame to my right read “Boiler Room”, surprisingly enough, but gave no further indication of my location. The corridor stretched out straight ahead of me, with closed doors lining the sides. I moved further down the hall, tiptoeing past seemingly empty rooms and abandoned nursing stations. No sounds of movement came from behind the doors, and if the state of my own building was any indication, this place was vacant too. Of life, that is.

  In the middle of that thought, a soft whisper of air against the back of my neck and the sudden, quiet presence of another body made me jerk upright. My neck cringed in anticipation of a sudden jarring bite, and I froze in terror.

  “Say something.” Then a loud click.

  Relief flooded washed over me like warm water; recognizing that I at least had a chance with a living human, my baser instincts took over. I had always been a smart ass. Family, friends, teachers-anyone that knew me growing up remembered me for that. Not a good heart, or a kind soul, but a smart-ass punk kid. In a situation like this, you go with that first, wise-ass instinct. You stick with your roots.

  “You got a spare pair of shorts?”

  A pregnant pause, and then a woman’s voice and a breath of air against my neck as she chuckled. I turned around and faced her. She wore a stylish pants suit, much the worse for wear, covered by a white lab coat with spots of red and gray sprinkling the chest. Her name tag read Katherine Whitmore, followed by “M.D. Psychiatry”, all in that same corny, loopy lettering they use to embroider hospital clothing.

  Crap. You gotta be fucking kidding me!

  Of all the psych wards in all zombie-invasions of the world, I get one that was still staffed by a damn doctor; a shrink no less. Why couldn’t I have come out from my hole into a strip club or a pole dancing academy. After putting in my time, was that too much to ask? And maybe a beer…I would kill for a beer.

  “Get many tourists this way, or am I your first?” I asked, snapping back to reality and hoping for another laugh while I searched the hallway for signs of more activity or people. She kept her eyes trained on my face, flicking her gaze once to my chest. Her look was curious and slightly confused. She was tall, almost my height, and very attractive. Her brown hair, disheveled by what must have been a day’s worth of running or fighting, fell around her shoulders. A pair of ratty sneakers, clearly not part of the original outfit, stuck out from the rest of the ensemble.

  “You’re my first…Joe,” she replied with a slight somehow knowing grin, tucking the small, snub-nosed revolver in her lab coat pocket. I started, suppressing the urge to look over my shoulder for Joe… until I looked down and rem
embered the nametag sewn proudly over my chest. Right, I was Joe. No problem.

  She looked past me. “You alone?”

  “Yeah, so far. What’s going on here?” I belatedly added, “Doctor.”

  “It’s Kate,” she said, walking past me.

  “And to be honest, you got me; I’m just trying to get through the next hour.” She turned around, gesturing forward for me to follow.

  “We’d better move back. There are more of those things in the next hall over, and the mops and brooms we stuck through the cafeteria door handle aren’t going to last long.”

  She nodded her head to the right, and I followed her down the hall and around the corner, where I could see at the end of the adjoining hall a waiting area, occupied by three other people: a young man, an older man, and a young woman, who sat in various states of disarray.

  “Where’d you come from?” she asked over her shoulder as we walked, “We thought we were on our own. We’ve been holed up in the cafeteria for the last three days, but we had to run when those things broke in through the kitchen. I was just looking for some food before we tried to get out of here.”

  Three days? Jesus! That must have been some fucking cocktail they served me last night. Rather, two nights ago.

  “I, uh, was doing maintenance in the halls below ground and got stuck in the halls below the boiler room. Lost my keys.” She had never been down there, how would she know what was or wasn’t possible, right?

  “Should have stayed down there, apparently,” I said, believing every word.

  “Do you know what’s going on here?” she asked with a touch of exhaustion in her voice.

  I nodded, not untruthfully. “When no one answered my radio calls, I found an FM radio. Heard about these wackos on the radio.”

  “Remember the company you keep when you’re throwing that word around,” she remarked quietly as we entered the waiting room. She smiled wryly, and turned to the waiting triplet.

  “Everyone,” she announced slightly louder than necessary, “this is Joe. He’s a friend and he’s going to be coming with us. Can everyone say hello?”

  Taking in the room and paying closer attention to the occupants, I sighed. Of course. My luck keeps getting better and better. No pole dancing school or strip joint for me. Instead, I found a shrink toting three inmates, each of whom looked wackier than the guys that just tried to have me for brunch. Three faces, displaying varying degrees of stupor, tuned in on me.

  “Pancake,” said the young man, nodding his head in greeting. The young woman grunted, and the older man stared at me, then at the floor.

  “That’s Fred, and that’s the only word he’ll say,” Kate explained before I could ask, gesturing to the young man with breakfast on the brain. She moved to the nurse’s station against the far wall, rifling through drawers and searching through the discarded personal belongings. “He was admitted a few months ago; apparently he saw his father brain his mother with a frying pan while she was making breakfast. Since then, that word has been the full extent of his conversation skills.”

  I nodded back at Fred, looking at the other two expectantly. Neither spoke.

  “That’s Erica,” she said, gesturing to the young woman.

  Erica mumbled something incomprehensible and promptly stuck her hand in her mouth, rocking slowly back and forth in her chair, staring past me into the hall. She was young, maybe twenty-five. Her round, simple face was frightened and her pants were stained with various fluids, her left foot missing a shoe. The older man at her side, long ratty hair framing a narrow, worn face, perched on the arm of a tattered sofa. He simply stared at me, as if daring me to talk.

  “I don’t know his name; Fred and Erica were in my group, but he must be new.” As if in response, No-Name grunted, rolled his eyes, and scratched his crotch vigorously. I suppressed the urge to laugh, instead turning back to Kate.

  “How’d you end up here? With your friends?” I asked. I looked out the window against the wall behind the nurses’ station. This was a low security ward, and had only the normal window frames, no glass bricks, no bars, no cloudy, unbreakable glass. In the courtyard below, I could see dozens, maybe even hundreds of those things wandering about. I wasn’t completely prepared to bandy about the “z” word, but they sure as hell weren’t human anymore.

  In the distance, several plumes of smoke rose to the sky, highlighting a sunset that was starting to light up the horizon. Under different circumstances, it might have been beautiful. Today, it simply marked a quiet end to a surreal day.

  “I’m a psychiatrist, and I was running a group a couple days ago. We were in the front courtyard,” she canted her head toward the window I was staring through while I listened, “and a guy wandered up real slow, arms twitchy, kind of drooling on himself, with a funny look in his eyes. Given the locale, I didn’t think twice, and the orderly that was out there helping me ride herd on my charges went to help him back inside.” She struggled with a desk drawer, which suddenly came open too quickly. She caught herself on the edge of the desk, and looked down into the drawer, still talking.

  “When the orderly, I can’t remember his name, got to our slow-motion visitor, he grabbed for the orderly’s throat. He tried to wrestle him down, but the crazy bastard bit him on the neck.” She grimaced.

  “It got serious at that point, and I called for help. A couple nurses from inside ran out as three or four more of those things came up the driveway from the street. We still didn’t know what was going on, but they all had that look about them, so we got most of our people inside and locked the front door, just in time for the Head to order an evacuation.” She picked through the contents of the drawer and abruptly pulled out a purse that was lodged in the back of the open drawer.

  “I was about to leave with the rest, but noticed we came up short on the low security head count; we were five down, but no one wanted to wait around and find the last ones.” She made an exasperated and resigned face.

  “But you did,” I filled in, impressed.

  “Those things were already surrounding the buses, and it was getting pretty hairy. The Head gave me a set of keys to the last bus in the yard, had the driver pull up next to a fire escape, and bid me good hunting.” She made a disdainful face.

  “Selfish ass. They sped off toward the expressway, and I found my five. Three of them were in the cafeteria. I found Fred here wandering around one floor up, and this guy,” gesturing to No-Name, “was actually two buildings over, between the max security ward and the gym.”

  “So you holed up in the cafeteria?”

  She shook her head slowly, agreeing and disgusted at the same time. “Yeah. Someone had left them there, unsupervised. The rest of them were eating their damn breakfast when I found ‘em.”

  “Pancake!” This from Fred, who hadn’t even looked up, but was focused intently on untying and retying his left shoe.

  She spared a glance in his direction, and dumped out the contents of the purse on the desk. With a gasp of success, she picked out a key ring and moved on to the wallet, flipping through various cards until she found an insurance card, which she stuck in her pocket. She discarded the rest.

  “So we just barred the exterior doors and hunkered down. They didn’t even realize we were in there until I made a loud noise this morning dropping a damn can of beanie wienies. That did it. They were all over the doors like white on rice. Took ‘em no time to get through the barrier. So now we’re here.” The sound of beating on a door filtered up from the hallway we had vacated. “For now.”

  “What are you looking for?” I asked, although I was fairly sure I knew the answer.

  “I lost the keys to the bus when we had to bolt from the cafeteria. We’ve got no other way to get out of this place, and those things are everywhere. They started streaming into the campus after everyone else took off.” She looked outside, seemingly unconsciously.

  “They’re attracted by at least sight and noise, and when our patients started screaming in terror, th
ey just started…well, not running, but they did some pretty speedy shuffling toward anything that moved. I lost two people in the cafeteria when they got in.” Her face was serious and her eyes widened. She gripped the edge of the desk tightly as she spoke.

  “They fucking tore into them with their teeth! I’ve been dealing with crazy people-clinically and criminally crazy, sick bastards-for years, and I’ve never seen anything like it. They didn’t just bite them, they were chewing and fucking swallowing!” She shuddered briefly. I remembered A-team and the blood. So much blood.

  She kept on. “There were ten or twelve of them that got in. I was lucky enough to pick this up,” she patted her lab coat pocket, “from a guard booth downstairs before we locked down, and got off a couple shots, but it was like they didn’t even feel it. I got these three out, but the other two didn’t know any better. What a cluster fuck it was down there. Those things moaning and groaning, my people screaming and falling down. When we left the cafeteria, two of us were down, and five or six of those… things… were on each of the unlucky bastards.”

  She smiled wanly, “You’ll have to excuse my language, but when I get excited, I tend to curse. Bad habit I suppose, but I think that the unique nature of the situation calls for it.”

  I looked at her and grinned. “Fuckin’ A,” I said.

  She shot me a quick smile, looked past me to her charges, and held up the keys she had found.

  “I got the plate number from the insurance card. All we need to do is find the car that matches these keys, and we’re in business.” Her ballsy claim was punctuated by the sound of crashing metal and tearing wood. No-Name sat bolt upright, staring down the hall. Erica continued to stare, spittle running from the corners of her mouth, where her lips failed to fully surround her hand, which was now in up to mid-palm.