by M. Van
Some of the infected jerked at my presence; one even stepped into my personal space. It stopped me in my tracks. I froze and didn’t move except for the involuntary shakes in my body. Strips of flesh hung from the zombie’s face. Thick layers of black blood had soaked its green scrubs and white doctor’s coat. A stethoscope hung around its neck. I could see its irises swim within the foggy white goo that had seized its eyes. It opened its mouth to let out a long, breathy hiss. Holding my own breath, I closed my eyes. When it moved on, I shook my head as if that would make it all disappear.
I followed some signs and skulked my way to a supply room. Thuds came from the other side of the door. I eased it open. Two figures stood in the room, and a woman lunged for me. I bolted out of the way, my back pressed against the wall. The woman in pink scrubs sniffed the air with a snarl. She curled her lips to reveal a mouth covered in dried blood. She shook her head and shuffled on.
“Well, you don’t smell that great either,” I said when the other figure stumbled out of the room, tripping over his pants that were hanging at his ankles. His arms flailed in the air. Glasses rested on the brim of his nose, and I noticed a bloodied crotch where his privates used to be. I lifted the back of my hand to my mouth in a struggle to keep down the energy bar I had eaten. Those television shows didn’t seem that far from the truth after all. I stepped over the flailing body into the room and closed the door behind me.
A sigh escaped me when I glanced into the mirror over the sink. I should have landed in Amsterdam by now, and I wondered if the same shit was happening at home. It seemed likely. It would have taken only one of them to get on a plane. Lowering the bandanna revealed a bruise that matched the green of my eyes. The dark rims underneath those eyes, combined with my gaunt face, made the image unappealing. The tall, statuesque features from my teens had long gone. An oversized sack of bones had taken its place. Being six feet tall and underweight was not a good look for me. Maybe the zombies mistook me for one of their own with my pale skin. I grimaced and shook my head to erase the thought. My left cheek looked filleted with a crust of dirt.
I stripped off my jacket and long-sleeved shirt and rinsed my body with water from the sink. The first aid class I had taken years ago didn’t spark some grand aspiration in medicine, but I tried to clean the wounds as best I could. It stung like hell when I peeled bits of gravel out of my skin. The bite mark had stopped bleeding, but it looked nasty. The imprint of teeth that had dug deeply into my shoulder wasn’t something to be appreciated, but the gash of missing flesh that ran from my neck down my collarbone made me wince. Biting through the pain, I cleaned both injuries before sealing them in gauze.
I cleaned my shirt with soap from the dispenser, wrung it out, and shoved it in my backpack. I put my jacket on over the black tank top I wore and filled the rest of the pack with supplies from the shelves without reading the labels.
Ready to leave, my stomach rumbled. This made me consider a trip to the cafeteria. It might be packed with zombies, but my stomach wouldn’t take no for an answer. I could use something substantial to eat.
Numbness settled over me as I walked the halls. The fact I hadn’t seen a single normal person inside this place started to wear me down. As long as I avoided sudden movement, I had no problem crossing hallways. The things seemed to keep their distance. Even though it was a blessing, it made me feel uneasy. What was wrong with me? Did I develop immunity to whatever had hit these people?
I’ve been a reader all my life, but the habit intensified when I was sick. I loved my zombie novels. It was weird how close to the truth some of them were. Although some of them dealt with a virus and some with parasites, they all ended with the walking dead and the end of the world as we knew it. Haven’t read a book about someone being immune, though, or was the girl from the Resident Evil movies immune? I couldn’t remember. It could have been what Mars had meant when he said my condition might save me, that I had become immune.
The hallway connected to an open space filled with toppled chairs and tables. Fluorescent lights illuminated little groups of zombies, huddled shoulder-to-shoulder, resembling football players deciding a game plan. Mimicking their movements, I shuffled by. I didn’t want to startle them.
I climbed over the counter that separated the cafeteria from the kitchen. The room had the basic layout of an industrial kitchen with miles of stainless steel tables and massive pans. I tightened one hand around the strap of my pack and the other firmly on the gun. One careful step at a time, I moved along the shiny tables. Guts and gore covered most of the workplaces, but some seemed untouched. Knives were neatly placed next to a cutting board covered with tomatoes and other vegetables. An enormous piece of dough rested on a table next to an oven that still radiated heat. I moved to a storage room. Inside, something clattered to the ground. There was something in there.
My backpack slid to the ground as I reached for the door. My hand shook as I tried to get a grip on the handle. I took another deep breath to ready myself.
“What’s up?” a voice exclaimed behind me. Without thinking, I whirled the gun around and fired. The shot echoed in the tiled room, but my eyes didn’t find anyone. For a second, the thought of killing a lone survivor stopped my heart. I took a breath when I saw a kid sitting in a wheelchair. The bullet must have whooshed over the child’s head. The kid kept a straight face, but the fingers digging into the armrest revealed the shock. The shot had woken up the zombies in the cafeteria, and they decided to mob the counter that separated our part of the kitchen from them. Their loud moans sent chills down my bones.
“Fuck!” I exclaimed and lowered the gun.
“Back at ya,” the kid said. I rested my hands on my knees to catch my breath and glanced over my shoulder at the door where a zombie was abusing the other side before my attention returned to the kid.
“You scared the shit out of me, kid,” I said. Taking a breath, I straightened up and edged to the chair.
“Well, you’ve given me agita, and I’m not a kid.”
My mouth opened to ask, ‘What?’ but stunned, I closed it. I hadn’t understood all she’d said, but it was the way she had said it. The kid, who I determined to be a teenage girl, sounded like a drill instructor. Her words were formed with a confidence I wished I had. I stopped in front of the wheelchair. Her hair had the same fuzzy millimeters mine had. Her neck craned while her blue eyes narrowed to take me in. They stopped for a second on the top of my head and then looked straight at me.
“Not a zombie,” she said with an indifference that made the corner of my mouth twitch, but I managed to contain a smile.
“Nope,” I replied. “You?”
She rolled her eyes at me.
“Had to check,” I said with a shrug. “You alone, besides the obvious company?” Her eyes trailed over to the counter where the mob of zombies started to settle down.
“Haven’t seen anyone alive in two days.” Her voice trailed off. Her gaze stuck for a moment as if hit by a bad memory. I had to swallow a lump at her revelation. She’d been on her own in this place for two days. A grimy hospital gown exposed bony arms and legs that hadn’t even grown to fully reach the footrests of her chair. She didn’t look a year over twelve. Her eyes revealed a hardship that was hard to digest.
“I’m Mags,” I said and stuck out a hand. She frowned at it.
“Is that short for maggot? And what’s with the accent?”
I tilted my head and glared at her. Was this kid for real? For all she knew, she was sitting in the middle of a zombie apocalypse in a hospital overrun by infected, and then she hits me with a comeback like that. Besides, she had an accent of her own, dropped Rs and elongated words, but different from what I had heard in Manhattan.
“It’s Dutch, and the reason I won’t bother you with my real name,” I replied. She hesitated, but I could tell she was repressing a grin when she took my hand.
“Ash,” she said.
“Like an ashtray?” I replied with a grin. She rolled her eyes at m
e again.
She squinted her eyes, pointed a finger at her own cheek, and said, “Your face looks like shit.”
“You should see what’s underneath the bandage,” I said. Her face shifted into a grimace.
“Does it hurt?”
“Not too bad,” I said while my stomach growled.
I glanced at the kid. She had made it this far bound to a wheelchair. It made me wonder whether she provoked a similar reaction to the zombies as I had. She probably wouldn’t have been alive if she hadn’t. I glanced over my shoulder to inspect the door behind me. We might as well get acquainted over dinner.
“You might want to roll your wheels out of the way,” I said. “I’m going to let our friend out.”
She contemplated me for a second with a confused expression until her eyes gleamed with defiance. With ease, she rolled her wheelchair out of the way between two tables. The lack of protest confirmed my suspicion. She didn’t seem that afraid of the infected. At the door, I nodded to Ash before I yanked it open. A zombie with a protruding belly tumbled out. I hid behind the door when I sensed it was irritable. Ash kept herself hidden behind the table. The zombie wore a chef’s hat that sat crookedly on its head. Confused, it stared around the room before it stumbled off. I observed it for a second before I emerged from behind the door and watched Ash set her wheelchair in motion to wheel over to me.
Chef had run through the storage room with the destructive power of a bulldozer, but there was potential.
“You hungry?” I asked when I turned to Ash.
“I’m okay.” She eyed me with suspicion. Raising an eyebrow, my eyes fell on a stack of frozen pizzas in a freezer box and grinned.
“Suit yourself, but I’m going for pizza.” I pulled two boxes out of the freezer and Ash’s eyes widened. I withheld a grin. I’d never been much of a cook, but I was the master of frozen pizza. I stepped out of the storage room toward the oven that had remained in full service.
With some extra cheese and bacon, the smell of pizza started to overpower the stench of death. With a frown, I watched the zombies stir at the counter. I stepped from the oven to find the wheelchair-bound kid, but instead found an empty aisle. My hand slid over the gun and lifted it off the worktable, and I started to move past the tables.
“Kid,” I called out. There was no response. I felt my heartbeat pick up speed. At the end of the aisle, I heard a sound and poked my head around the corner. Except for the hoard of zombies on the other side of the counter, it looked clear. Even though there weren’t any zombies on this side of the counter, an eerie feeling crept into the pit of my stomach. Ignoring it, I turned to look for the kid, and I stumbled into Chef.
Hands, beaten raw from pummeling the door, grabbed my jacket and sent me flying. I screamed before I hit the ground with a thud that knocked the air out of me. Desperate, I shoved at Chef’s chest to get it off me. Its overweight body didn’t budge. I struggled to keep Chef from sinking its teeth into me, of which I’d had enough of late. Chef’s body jerked with a bone-crunching sound. I blinked to see the kid hover over me with an axe. My eyes widened when she raised it, ready for another blow. For a second, I was afraid she’d take my head right off with the zombie’s. The axe hissed through the air and struck it in his back. The zombie released my jacket as his body went rigid for a moment, and I took my chance. I shoved Chef off, reached for the gun I had dropped, and pulled the trigger. Chef’s head flopped to the ground. I glared at the body with the red fire axe firmly in its back. Chef’s hat lay beside the expired zombie, covered in chunks of gray brain matter.
I sucked in air when my gaze moved to the kid. Her blue eyes were wide and stood out in contrast to her pale skin. Her hands gripped the wheelchair tightly before a sudden calmness fell over her. Then she shrugged and held a hand out to me.
“Thanks,” I said between gasps when I reached for her hand.
“No trouble,” she said and rolled her chair backward. “And I’m not a kid.”
I stood frozen for a moment to catch my breath. My eyes shifted between the dead zombie and the kid. She was definitely not a kid, and I decided never to call her that again.
“You shouldn’t let zombies run around,” she said. Her scrutinizing eyes turned on the fallen body. “That’s a bad idea.”
“I’ll remember that next time,” I said. I straightened and looked down to face her.
“Thank you, Ash,” I said, adding a grateful nod.
After I had taken a minute to compose myself, I moved the two pizzas onto plates and walked to the storage room. Ash followed without a word but stopped at the entrance. A couple of boxes blocked the entry. I kicked them out of the way as I walked back into the kitchen and grabbed a knife from a table. Like savages, zombies pressed against the counter. Fierce hands reached out in their need for blood. Several had made it up onto the counter. One tumbled over and fell flat on its face. A guttural growl came from behind the table.
“Crap,” I muttered. I stalked to the wheelchair and pushed Ash roughly inside the storage room.
“Hey, who died and made you the boss?” Ash exclaimed. Her voice caught the zombie’s attention. It hurtled toward us. I kept the door open to see whether it might stop. Bearing teeth, an animalistic growl escaped its throat as it kept coming. I closed the door before its nose. A loud thud on the other side accompanied the lock as I clicked the door shut. The zombie went berserk. When the growls and thuds on the door died down, I made a mental note: when they are in frenzy, don’t screw around with the zombies. It seemed I had no problem passing them when they were calm, but when agitated, they didn’t seem to distinguish between me and, from what I could tell, Ash or other people.
“Forget about it,” Ash said. “Even those shems don’t want me.”
I noticed the even comment and a word I couldn’t place, but decided to save that for later.
“Yeah,” I said, withdrawn. “I thought the same thing, but I don’t think it works when they’re worked up.”
The steaming pizzas sat on one of the shelves. The smell of melted cheese and bacon failed to dissipate Chef’s stench but wouldn’t stop me from eating. I cut the pizza in slices, handed Ash a plate, and slid to the ground against the freezer. I balanced the pizza on my legs. My head rested on the cold surface as I let out a long, shuddering breath. Chef had shaken me up more than I would have thought. When I closed my eyes, my mind started to process at a frantic pace. I had the feeling today would be a bitch to analyze. Chewing sounds broke me out of my thoughts, but I kept my eyes shut.
“Thought you weren’t hungry?” I said.
“I lied.”
With a grin, I opened my eyes. She had folded two slices of pizza and eaten it sandwich-style. It seemed an efficient way to eat pizza, and I followed her example.
We ate in silence. I had no idea what to say to this kid, except for the stupid, obvious questions. Where are your parents? How come you’re here alone? I mean, I knew the answers to those questions. The world had gone to shit; she might have had parents, although her previous even remark gave me the impression she hadn’t or couldn’t get along with them, but what’s the chance they were not out there moaning their asses off?
My eyes fell on the old wheelchair that might have come straight out of a fifties movie. The thing looked freakishly old. I glanced up to meet Ash’s eyes. She eyed me expectantly as if she knew what I was thinking. What was I supposed to do with a kid in a wheelchair? I could barely take care of myself. I shoved the thought out of my head. I would not leave a child to fend on her own. What kind of person would I be if I did; besides, she had saved my life. Ash didn’t say anything. So I didn’t either, and instead I inwardly cursed myself as I ate.
“Like your haircut,” Ash said with a mouth full of half-chewed pizza. Something mischievous twinkled in her eyes. Her bald head and the wheelchair screamed she was sick, and of course, I leaned toward the obvious, that she had cancer like me.
Mars’s words popped into my head. The zombies had ignored A
sh, so it seemed obvious that cancer might somehow be the reason why. From the limbs that stuck out of her hospital gown, she didn’t seem to have been bitten, which would support my previous assumption that a bite isn’t the reason zombies ignore us. Then what did he mean when he said my condition might save me? What did that bite do to me? Afraid of the spark of hope and the disappointment it would set me up for, I buried the thought.
Ash still stared at me. With a shimmer of a smile, I nodded my head.
“Back at ya.”
| 9
“Nice ride,” Ash said as I wheeled her to my recently inherited Ford Edge. On our way to the white SUV, she had kept her eyes straight ahead, avoiding the carnage in the parking lot. Either she had been trying to protect herself from the gruesome images, or perhaps she had seen it before.
We had stayed in the supply room for a couple of hours, as it seemed as good a place to hide out as any, and we managed to get some sleep. This morning, before she had puked her guts out and the sour stench had forced us to vacate the room, Ash had told me she’d been in the hospital for treatment but had remained vague about the details. She had kept herself hidden in a bathroom when soldiers had come to clear the cancer ward. Unable to explain why she had decided to hide, except that it hadn’t felt right, she had also ridden out the first wave of infection while in that bathtub.
I couldn’t imagine myself as a kid, hunkered down in a bathtub. Fright would have killed me the moment the screams started. Not to mention the fact she couldn’t move her legs. It hadn’t left her unfazed, but her composure made her seem detached, as if she’d shoved everything she cared about down a deep hole. I wondered what would happen if it all resurfaced.
I told Ash about my botched vacation and how I’d lost my friend, Emily. God, that happened only yesterday; it felt like ages. The thought of her brought tears to my eyes. A happier memory surfaced, and I told Ash about a soldier who had rescued me with his brilliant smile and pale jade eyes that blazed against his dark skin. I left out the white horse and knight in shining armor, but I still managed to bring a grin to Ash’s face.
