Cambridge exit, one kilometre.
The signs were made of a reflective material that glowed like a neon sign in the beam of my headlights, even after ten years of wear. Did I want that turn-off? I didn’t think so, but I grabbed my GPS off the dashboard and consulted it anyway. No, I needed to keep on going. There was nothing in Cambridge I wanted right now. The supplies I needed might have been there, but I didn’t have time to risk it.
I was headed straight for the biggest hospital in the area, the one located on the southern fringe of Hamilton city. I wanted to spend as little time as possible within the city itself, and since I was coming from the south that hospital was the one that made the most sense.
The dread in my gut turned my stomach like I’d eaten rotten eggs.
***
I had no idea what time it was when I hit the outskirts of the city, but I guessed it was almost midnight. The sun set later in the summertime and it had taken me far longer than I estimated to negotiate the overgrown roads. Fatigue was starting to catch up to me, and I found myself struggling to keep my eyes open.
As I eased the Hilux into the city proper, I noticed that there were signs of devastation everywhere; the riots had hit this place hard. Road signs had been torn down or defaced, and the cracked white paint flashed by like old bones when my headlights caught them.
Real bones lit up as I passed by as well, some full skeletons still dressed in the clothes they died in, some just random limbs or skulls bleached bare by the scorching heat of the long summer days. Many people had died here, and not all of them from the sickness or there wouldn’t be so many bones left behind. I wondered how many were suicides and how many were murders; how many innocent people died in the riots that the police were unable to contain?
I slowed to a crawl as I negotiated the city streets, scanning the shadows for any signs of life, death, or anything in between. I saw nothing, but I didn’t trust my own limited vision in the darkness. The street lights in this part of the city appeared to be out, or the power grid was having a fit. Aside from the occasional flash of a crumpled street sign when my lights grazed it and the distant glow from other parts of the city, it was too dark to make much sense of anything I saw.
It made me feel so exposed. If anyone was looking, they would see me long before I saw them unless they were stupid enough to walk right in front of the truck.
I checked my GPS, and found myself close to one of the old entrances to the hospital grounds, so I pulled over and stared into the darkness. I couldn’t see anything, so I fished my torch from its pocket and clicked it on, then shone it out the window at the roadside. A high metal fence topped with spikes barred the gap between the footpath and the car park beyond. There was no way I was getting past that in my current condition – at least, not without a blow torch.
I drove forward slowly, searching for a break in the fence or some kind of entrance that I stood a chance of negotiating. A few metres further on, I caught sight of something that looked a little like a guardhouse coming up on the right, so I inched the truck closer to get a better look.
Suddenly, light flared up, blinding me momentarily. I shielded my eyes with my hands, cursing softly beneath my breath. When the initial glare faded and my vision adjusted, I found the area lit up nicely. The street lamps were back on, along with spotlights around the car park and hospital grounds; I just happened to be unfortunate enough to have one of those spotlights pointed straight at me.
Just a blackout, I concluded with relief. Maybe things weren’t as bad as I thought. With the lights on, the place seemed less scary all of a sudden. I could even see light shining through a couple of the windows of the hospital itself. Maybe things would be alright after all.
Yes, there were skeletons all over the place, but there were skeletons everywhere in this day and age. I could handle skeletons… in small doses. I’d gotten used to them over the years. Many people had chosen to die by their own hand rather than let nature take its course, and just as many died of the infection before it reached the point it would devour them whole. Human remains were impossible to avoid.
They were still gross, though.
I took the time to look around my newly-lit world in more detail. The grounds surrounding the hospital were a mess, littered with all manner of refuse – everything from old newspapers to the decomposed remains of human beings. A banner flapped in the breeze amid a forest of road cones flung about like skittles; the plastic hazard tape that stretched between them was limp and faded with age.
Hey, road cones – they might be useful someday. My mental inventory updated, but aside from sarcastic jokes and witch hunting, I was unable to imagine any real use for the things. But, who knew? Maybe something would come up.
A strong gust of wind caught the banner and pulled it straight for a moment, long enough for me to read the biohazard quarantine warning. The words were marred by brown-black stains that were most likely blood, or perhaps paint. I suspected as much – the hospitals were the first places the infection broke out, for the obvious reasons. Where else would you go when you were sick and terrified? You went to hospital, hoping for salvation and a miracle, like you saw on all those TV medical dramas.
Unfortunately, there was no miracle for the infected. Most of those poor people had gone to hospital to die.
Of course, that fact also meant that the hospitals usually had the highest concentrations of undead loitering within. Although most of them used to be hospital staff and tried to be helpful, a zombie with a syringe was still a zombie with a syringe. I would keep my taser close at hand.
As I turned into the car park, the fallen barrier arm crunched beneath my tyres; I wondered briefly what happened to it, but there was no way to be sure. Perhaps it had been smashed in the riots, or torn down in the storms, but for whatever reason the arm that once held back unauthorised traffic now lay shattered on the ground. The car park was edged with small, powerful spotlights that lit the area well enough for me to see, so I switched off my headlights and nudged the Hilux forward carefully.
A doorway loomed before me, its doors hanging open like a gaping, toothless maw. The hallway beyond was pitch black aside the distant flickering of a fluorescent light bulb well past its prime. Deeper within, I could see a steadier glow, but this entrance was dark and foreboding. I pulled the Hilux to a halt directly in front of the door and stared as far down the hallway as I could see.
Nothing moved as far as I could tell, but the flickering light bulb made it hard to be sure. I considered my options, pondering whether it was worth driving around looking for another entrance or whether I should go with what I had.
I decided to just roll with it and move as fast as possible.
I put the truck in park, and fetched my pack from the back seat. From within, I drew out the box that contained my gun, feeling its unhappy weight in my hand. I hated this thing, but it was a necessary evil. With careful fingers, I slid out the magazine and checked the contents, then slid it back into place with a solid click. I was ready.
Setting the gun on the dashboard, I checked the shadows one more time before I struggled my way out of the cab, my foot stiff and swollen. As I put my backpack on and slipped the gun into the pocket closest to my hand, I hoped that it wasn’t the first stage of infection setting in.
Another reason to move my ass, just in case.
I locked the truck and took the keys with me when I left it this time. The truck was my best means of a quick escape, so there was no way I was risking its security. Even though I couldn’t see anyone, there might be any number of people watching from one of the dozens of dark windows all around me and I would never know. Biding their time. Watching, waiting.
Creepy.
Feeling horribly exposed, I moved as swiftly and carefully as I could to the entrance of the hospital, tolerating terrible pain in an effort to hide my limp. Show no weakness, lest the wolves decide you’re dinner. I turned and stared behind me, searching the deepest dark recesses all around, befo
re finally turning to confront the terrible shadows within.
I drew my torch from one pocket and clicked it on, my other hand fumbling to fetch my gun as I stepped forward into the darkness.
And promptly tripped, almost falling on my face before I could even get inside. That was a promising start.
Nice one, Sandy.
I swung the torch down and dropped a mental curse or two as I spotted an old black pushchair blocking the doorway at a level just below the line of my torch. It was rusted and dirty but small, so I gave it a gentle nudge with my shin to push it out of the way. Its rusted wheels gave way and it tumbled sideways, scattering the tiny bones of its former occupant across the floor.
A baby. There had been a baby in there.
Bile rose in my throat and I fought down the urge to cry. Poor little baby. I didn’t know. I didn’t mean to do that, to send its little corpse flying. Silently whispering apologies and prayers, I stepped around the scattered bones and forced myself to look away. I must keep moving, find the medicine, get somewhere safe again. If I let myself break down every time I saw a dead child, I would never achieve any of that.
The hospital was deathly silent. Not even the drone of the wind reached this far inside. It was creepy, like an old horror movie. A weird, chemical smell overlaid the ever-present stench of decay.
I never did much care for hospitals. Too many movies as a kid, I guess. They both gave me nightmares, and now I had to live the nightmare. Great fun.
I shone my torch side to side, and finally spotted a sign that hadn’t been completely defaced during the riots: Maternity Ward.
I’m in Maternity? Oh Christ, that’s just what I need.
I swore beneath my breath. If I found a zombie baby, I was going to turn myself right back around and go die of tetanus in my truck. On the scale of horrification, zombie baby beat death by tetanus any day.
As I snuck further inside, I spotted doorways flanking the hall, each of them just as dark and ominous as the hallway itself.
I wondered if the power was still out to this part of the building, or if a surge a some point in the past burst all the bulbs. There seemed to be light further up, so it was reasonable to assume that it must just be this part. Ten years was a long time to leave the lights on.
Sweeping my torch from side to side, I checked the first room for hostiles, then the second, and moved methodically down the hall. No bad guys. No zombie babies either. I chalked one up for the ‘Thank Christ For That’ brigade.
Sorry, Mum.
I was wound up tighter than a starlet’s Spanx as I approached the T-intersection ahead, my brain set to a hair-trigger. I moved under the flickering light, half-expecting to be attacked the moment I stepped into the light, but nothing happened.
The closer I got to the corner, the brighter the light grew, though ‘bright’ was a relative term. The hallway was lit only by old, dull emergency lights that bathed the corridor in a dirty, artificial glow.
I raised my gun as I slowly approached the junction, keeping close to the left wall. Although I moved with the natural stealth of a survivalist, my uneven footsteps sounded loud enough to wake the dead, and my breath was deafening to my own ears. I was almost afraid to breathe at all. In truth, they were barely audible, but in the silence with my ears tuned in for the slightest sound, I felt like a rampaging elephant.
Keeping near the left wall meant I could scan down the right arm of the junction before exposing myself on the left. I saw nothing. As smoothly as I could, I slid around the corner to stare along the left arm, again seeing nothing.
Instinct made me stop to assess the distances between myself and the next junction in either direction, to take stock of the rooms I needed to risk passing in order to continue. The hallways were short in both directions, branching after a half-dozen metres into more corners, more risk, more places for enemies to hide.
I made a snap decision. I didn’t want to stay exposed for too long, so I chose the left hallway and hobbled around the corner with my gun tucked in close in front of me. There was a room just down the passageway, and I limped towards it to see what was inside. The lights were on, so I clicked off my torch and held the gun carefully with both hands.
My foot was starting to really hurt as the painkillers wore off, and my heart was hammering in my chest at a mile a minute. The sense of urgency I felt was growing more and more overpowering, leaving me feeling increasingly panicked and vulnerable.
This is a terrible idea. Why didn’t I wait until morning? I mentally cursed myself for being such an idiot.
Of course, it didn't occur to me until much later that with my shuffling gait, my gaunt frame, my tatty clothes and my tangled hair, I probably looked more undead than alive from behind.
I limped into the side room, looking for supplies, any kind of supplies that might help with my injury. There was a locked cabinet on the far side that contained a promising array of little bottles, jars and prescription boxes. I shuffled towards it and stared at the contents, trying to make out what was inside before I decided whether it was worth the risk of breaking the glass.
Something shattered beneath a heavy boot right behind me, and I froze. Reflected in the glass cabinet, a dark shadow loomed in the doorway. A second later, my self-defence instincts kicked in and I spun to face the incoming threat. Or at least I tried to, but my damn foot gave out in the process and I ended up in a heap on the floor.
That fall saved my life.
The shotgun blast shattered the window right above my head as I fell, showering me in shards of glass and hot shrapnel. I screamed and covered my eyes with my forearm to protect myself, fully expecting a second shot to tear me apart at any second. I would say that my life flashed before my eyes, but it didn’t; I just found myself wondering if it would hurt to die.
Would I see Mum again? Dad? Skylar? Were they waiting for me? Or would I just… cease to exist?
The second shot never came
"My god, you're alive!" A deep voice gasped, a voice that was male and strangely hoarse, then a strong hand latched around my forearm and hauled me to my feet before I could react. "Are you crazy? What are you doing here at this time of night? I almost shot you – you could have been killed!"
The survivor was tall, dressed in worn, dark blue combat armour, the upper half of his face concealed by a helmet and night vision goggles that gave him a terrifying, alien look.
I didn't even stop to think. I just reacted.
Now, I was a scrawny thing. While I was pretty tall for a girl, malnutrition had robbed my frame of any body fat that I once possessed; I was maybe 50 kilograms soaking wet, so I didn’t look like much. However, every gram that I had left on me was muscle, driven by a mind that long ago learned the only good defence was a swift and brutal offense.
Long story short, I did not hit like a girl.
I clocked him square in the jaw with every bit of my physical strength, and the man's head snapped back. He stumbled away from me, tripping over an old chair and almost falling. Weighed down by his armour and the combat shotgun, it took him a second to right himself.
That was enough for me.
I snatched my gun and my torch from where they’d fallen, and then I was off like a... slow-moving, half-gimped shot. It wasn't very fast, but it was as fast as I could go.
I was terrified, my heart pounding in my chest and adrenaline tingling through my extremities. Every time I tried to pick up to a run, my foot sent a stab of pain all the way up my leg that was so bad the limb almost gave out on me, so I was forced to be satisfied with a shambling trot.
I was out the door before the man could recover, and headed deeper into the hospital, frantically searching for someplace to hide. I needed to get away from him – him and his terrible shotgun. Every moment of my past experience told me the only thing that could come from an armed man was pain, humiliation and death.
Sweat beaded on my brow. It felt like I was moving in slow motion, swimming through treacle, except that instead o
f treacle it was pain and a gammy bloody foot. I was never going to make it in time, I realised with painful clarity. I had hit him hard, but not hard enough. I could hear him stumble out into the hall just as I was about to round the nearest corner, and heard him scream at me.
"No, don't go that way, they'll kill you – get back! Get back!"
I shot a look behind me and found that he wasn't even aiming at me, just frantically running after me with a panic-stricken look on what little I could see of his face. My fear turned to confusion.
Then, I heard the growl.
It was a deep, low rumble from a dark doorway not far from where I was. The fear surged back up again. I wasn’t his target, I realised with dreadful certainty. There was something else here, something terrible.
And now it was after me.
The thing emerged from the shadows with a disturbingly sinuous grace, moving on all fours with its head held low, its bloodshot eyes fixed on me. Its frame looked human, like any other one of the infected – but the infected did not move like that.
I was frozen, like a deer in the headlights. This thing, it was outside any of my experiences, something I’d never seen before. Every ounce of my being screamed at me to flee, and yet I couldn’t get my muscles to obey.
The creature squatted, regarding me. It seemed to be considering me, its horrible eyes roaming up and down my body – the stare was almost sexual in its intensity. I felt nauseated, but too terrified to move. There was blood all over it, from head to toe, and its clothing was shredded and almost unidentifiable. Then suddenly, it straightened up, and I recognised the deep blue scrubs of a nurse.
Christ, I was going to get killed and eaten by an undead nurse. Not quite how I pictured my death.
At the same moment the armed man caught up with me, the creature sprang. The stranger’s bulk struck me hard and shoved me clear. A fraction of a second later, he swung his shotgun around to bear. The muzzle flash blinded me as I fell, my torch and gun once more clattering away. When my vision cleared, I saw the creature lying in a crumpled heap not two feet away from me.
The Survivors (Book 1): Summer Page 10
