CODE Z: An Undead Hospital Anthology

by Brown, Eric S. ; Besser, Rebecca; Wraight, Anastasia; Rosamilia, Armand; Ibarra, Bowie V. ; Christie, Peggy; Mahan, Jeremy L. ; Sinclair, Pembroke; Snow, Rebecca

  The rhythmic hissing of Mr. James’s aspirator dominated his hearing. He averted his gaze upward. The dots on the ceiling tiles smeared into darkness, and soon, he was asleep.

  * * *

  Dillon jerked awake, sucking in a deep breath. He pushed himself back up in his chair and looked around. The aspirator still hissed, and Mr. James still wasn’t moving. Gray light illuminated the room. Dillon wondered what time it was. He glanced at his wrist, but he didn’t have his watch on. He looked at the chair where Jenny had been sitting. It was empty.

  “Jenny?” His voice croaked, his throat was dry. He coughed. “Jenny?”

  He heard a toilet flush, and orange light streamed briefly into the room from his right. He glanced over and watched Jenny exit the bathroom.

  “You all right?” She furrowed her brow with concern.

  Dillon felt relief wash over him. He wouldn’t have blamed her if she left, he actually expected her to, but he was glad she didn’t. “Yeah. I’m okay.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  He winced. “Not good. The pain’s back. It’s not as bad as it was before, but it’s not a tickle. Has the nurse been back?”

  Jenny shook her head.

  “How long have we been here?”

  She glanced at her watch. “Close to four hours.”

  “And no one’s been back in here? And you stayed this entire time?”

  She cocked her head to the side and folded her arms across her chest. “I had nothing better to do. I told you they probably wouldn’t be back. I told you they put you in here to forget about you.”

  “Still. I need to find someone.”

  He maneuvered over to Mr. James’s bed and pushed the nurse button. He waited a few minutes, and when he didn’t get a response, he pushed it again. Another few minutes passed, still no answer.

  “Let’s head back out to the admittance desk. See if anyone can give us any information.”

  Jenny positioned herself behind him and placed her hands on the handles. “I don’t think anyone’s going to help us,” she commented. “They were incredibly busy with that lab explosion.”

  “I know, but it won’t hurt to try.” He grabbed his IV pole and dragged it with him.

  They made their way to the elevator, then down to the waiting room. Dillon was still expecting to see nurses and doctors running everywhere and people bleeding, the room lined wall to wall with gurneys. But as they rounded the corner, they were met with silence. Jenny stopped before entering the room. There were gurneys everywhere, but no one was in them. Blood was smeared on the walls and floor, and the smell of decay and feces was overpowering. Dillon gagged. The pain returned tenfold to his stomach.

  “Hello?” he called. “Where is everyone?”

  “Maybe they went into emergency surgery.” Jenny’s voice was soft, shaky.

  “They wouldn’t have taken everyone into surgery. Head over to the desk.”

  Jenny turned the wheelchair in the direction he indicated. They stopped in front, like they were going to check in again.

  “Hello?” Dillon called again, louder.

  Something shuffled on the floor behind the desk. Both of them froze.

  “Take me around the side,” Dillon whispered.

  Jenny did as he instructed. As they came around the side, they noticed the body of the blonde nurse on the floor. Her hair had completely come out of the ponytail, her skin was ghostly white. Blood streamed from her neck, and she was gasping for breath. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. Her foot jerked, the shuffling sound they heard earlier, then all went silent. Her mouth stopped moving, her eyes went blank.

  “Oh, my god,” Jenny gasped. “What happened to her?”

  Dillon turned and noticed the tears forming in her eyes. He turned back to the nurse. Ignoring the pain in his stomach, he pushed himself out of the wheelchair. He knelt next to the body and placed his fingers on her neck, hoping to find a pulse. As he examined the wound, he pulled his hand back quickly, unable and unwilling to believe what he saw.

  “What? What’s wrong?” He could hear the panic and fear in Jenny’s voice.

  “It looks like someone bit her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He pointed to the nurse’s neck. “Right there. It looks like teeth marks.”

  Jenny sucked in a nervous breath. “Who would do that?”

  Footsteps resounded on the other side of the desk, and both Dillon and Jenny jerked their heads in that direction. Dillon jolted to his feet like electricity shot through his body. Their gaze fell upon a doctor. His white coat was stained with blood, and his right arm hung limply at his side. He walked slowly, jerky, as if in a daze.

  “Hey,” Dillon called. “You all right?”

  The doctor turned, and both of them noticed that the left side of his face was missing, his eyes were glazed white. He opened his mouth and hissed. Dillon’s stomach tightened, but it wasn’t from pain. Jenny let out a small squeak. The doctor raised his left arm, his fingers grasping the air. Dillon saw movement behind the doctor. He glanced over the man’s shoulder and noticed a patient in a hospital gown, the same glazed look to her eyes. She hissed also, her arms outstretched toward them. Behind her was a nurse and another patient. Each one of them was covered in blood. The patient in the hospital gown had a gash on the side of her head, bits of skull were exposed to the light. The nurse’s head hung at an unnatural angle, as if the neck had been broken. The final patient’s skin was black and red from a fire, and chunks of flesh fell off with every step.

  “We have to get out of here,” Jenny’s voice was barely over a whisper.

  “Go. Find the stairs.”

  A squeak sounded next to him, and he turned. He noticed the nurse’s foot twitching on the floor. Her eyes were focused on him, and she was attempting to sit up. Dillon sucked in a sharp breath.

  “Go! Now!”

  The pair headed toward the hall, when Dillon was jerked to a stop. With a swift movement, he grabbed the medical tape on his hand and tore it off. It felt like sandpaper as the hairs were pulled from their pores. He grit his teeth. He grabbed the tube and pulled the line out, taking a little more care than he did with the tape. He could feel the plastic as it inched its way out of his vein, and the small pop as it left his skin. He tossed the tubing aside and followed after Jenny. She didn’t know where she was going. She stutter-stepped down the hall, constantly glancing over her shoulder.

  “The stairs! To the right. The right!”

  Jenny followed his instructions, although he could see the caution in her every step, and when she made it to the door, she hesitated opening it. Dillon signaled at her with his hand, trying to urge her on. She shook her head.

  “I wanna go back to the room.”

  Dillon could see the tears glistening in her eyes. Without responding, he pushed her through the doorway, slamming it shut behind them. He could see the horde of zombies just rounding the corner. They were still a good distance away, but he wasn’t going to wait for them. Jenny grabbed his arm.

  “What are we doing in here?” Her voice shook with panic and echoed through the cement stairs.

  Dillon took a breath and glanced around. Fluorescent lights hung at each landing, casting their fragile white light halfway down each set of steps. Dillon felt a pressure on his chest, it overwhelmed the pain in his stomach. He wiped his hand over his mouth and down his chin. This wasn’t exactly what he had in mind when he said he wanted to protect her, but what could he do? He was stuck, and he couldn’t back out. It was his chance, his moment, to be her knight. He couldn’t fail again. Still, why did it have to be zombies? Why couldn’t the universe have given him an easier task?

  “What are we doing in here?” Jenny shook him. “Why didn’t we go back to the room?”

  Dillon placed his hand on her cheek and spoke softly. “We would have been sitting ducks in the room. There was nowhere for us to go.”

  “And where are we going to go in here?”


  Dillon opened his mouth to answer when a scraping sound, like metal on concrete, followed by a clink and a hiss, echoed through the stairwell. Jenny’s nails dug into his bicep. Dillon took two cautious steps to the left. At the top of the stairs was a guy, his skin was gray, his eyes glazed over. His jaw was broken, it hung crooked on his face, and Dillon could see the bone protruding through his skin on his right side. His left arm hung limply at his side, and his right was bent at a 90-degree angle the wrong way. His IV tube was wrapped around his arm and still connected to the pole, which was hooked around the rail. He hissed again, trying to move forward. With every movement, the pole hit the rail and cement wall of the stairs. The clinging was rhythmic through the stairwell.

  Dillon sucked in a sharp breath when he realized it was Mr. James. He turned to Jenny, trying to block her view. He knew that with the panic she felt at the moment, it would only heighten her fear when she recognized the creature. Jenny was sensitive and nurturing like that. Those were the qualities Dillon loved so much about her, the ones he seemed to be lacking.

  “He’s blocking the way!” Jenny couldn’t hold the tears back any longer. “How are we going to get by him?”

  Dillon turned and grabbed her face between his hands, squeezing enough to pooch her lips but not hurt her. “First of all, Jenny, we’re not going up, we’re going down. Secondly, please try to get a hold of yourself.”

  Jenny was never very good in stressful situations. She usually handled them by becoming overemotional and bursting into tears. It was a quality that drove Dillon nuts. That and her clinginess. When she was overly stressed, she couldn’t make her own decisions. She constantly asked Dillon for advice and needed to be right next to him, always in physical contact. It bothered him, not because she needed him, but because he couldn’t be there for her. He didn’t know how to fix her problems, how to make everything all right, and that made him feel like a failure. Instead of telling her how he felt, instead of having her help him, he just left. But that move didn’t solve his issues or make him feel better.

  “Down?” she squealed. “It’s safer to go up!”

  “And what are we going to find up there? If we’re lucky, a helicopter. Do you know how to fly a helicopter?”

  Jenny shook her head, her eyes going wide.

  He took a deep breath, trying to control his frustration. He couldn’t fix this situation either, but he could figure out how to get them out alive. That was just going to have to suffice.

  “There is nowhere to go if they follow us up to the roof. Unless you want to jump off the side. Down, we’ll find the ambulance bay and probably the security room. There’s a way out if they follow us down there.”

  The clanging increased, followed by a slick pulling sound. Dillon glanced back up the stairs. Mr. James made it a few steps lower, his arm pulled behind him, the tubes stretched to their breaking point, and the skin around his shoulder started to separate. Dillon knew Mr. James was going to keep pulling until either the tubing gave out or his shoulder did. He removed his hands from around Jenny’s face and placed them on her shoulders.

  “We have to move now.”

  He directed her to the stairs, and they quickly and cautiously made their way down. When they reached the bottom, there was a set of swinging doors. They pushed their way through into a long hall, lit with the same sick white lights as the staircase. Signs hung at various intervals, two on the left and one on the right. The first one on the left read “Security,” while the second read “Cleaning Services.” The sign on the right read “Morgue.” Dillon felt the tug on his arm as Jenny stopped in her tracks.

  “Morgue!” She dug her nails even deeper into his flesh. “I’m not going down there. What if there’s more of those things?”

  “I’m sure they would have heard us by now. Plus, look, the door’s locked. I think they’re trapped inside.”

  As if on cue, the creatures on the other side pounded on the metal door. Dillon took a step down the hall, Jenny right behind him. She was so close, he could feel her knees in the back of his. Cautiously, they walked to the security door. With his back pressed against the wall, he peered through the window. Instinctively, he flinched and jerked when he saw an eye staring back at him. Jenny screamed. The pounding on the morgue door increased. Taking a deep breath and covering his chest, Dillon looked through the window again. The door clicked and slowly opened. Dillon and Jenny dove into the room.

  As soon as the door closed behind them, Dillon sunk to the floor. The pain in his stomach was overbearing. He was able to ignore it while running for his life, but once he knew he was safe, it took over. Jenny knelt next to him, as well as a man dressed in green scrubs and a white doctor’s coat. Dillon also noticed a security guard and another male dressed in scrubs, who he assumed was a nurse.

  “Just take it easy,” the doctor said softly, soothingly. “What seems to be the problem?”

  Dillon could feel the sweat beading on his forehead. “It’s my stomach.”

  The doctor didn’t say a word or perform an exam. Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a patch. After removing the wrapping, he placed it next to Dillon’s belly button.

  “That should help for a few hours. Let me know when it wears off.”

  It took a few minutes, but the pain lessened and Dillon was able to sit up. He stared at the doctor. He kind of hoped he would have performed a more extensive examination, but in the scheme of things, it wouldn’t have done any good. What if he did find something wrong? What was he going to do? They were trapped in the basement of the hospital.

  He glanced around the room. The west wall was dominated with TV screens, while the south and east walls held file cabinets. The others stared down at him.

  “Does anyone know what’s going on?” He winced as he picked himself off the floor.

  The security guard and nurse shook their heads. The doctor took a deep breath, averting his gaze to the floor.

  “All I know is that it has something to do with the explosion at Star Labs.” He met Dillon’s gaze. “There were a lot of chemicals. It’s possible they combined to cause all this.” He waved his hand through the air.

  Dillon gestured toward the phone. “Have you tried to call anyone?”

  The security guard nodded. “The line’s dead.”

  “What about your walkie-talkie? Can you raise anyone on it?”

  The man pulled it off his belt. “Yeah, if they’re in the hospital or parking lot. It’s a short-range radio.”

  A slapping sound, followed by a dragging sound, resounded through the hall and everyone turned to the monitors. Jenny and Dillon stepped forward to get a better view. Their eyes fell on the screen that held a view of the hallway. Mr. James freed himself from the stairway and was making his way down the hall. Dillon was a little disappointed to see the tubing had given away before his arm, but it was bent toward his back, completely useless.

  Dillon’s eyes drifted to another screen. A group of nurses, patients, and doctors were crouched on the floor, hovering over something. Dillon didn’t have to see it. The blood stains on the zombies’ hands and chins told him all he needed to know. He glanced at another screen. A patient, who was missing her legs, was shoving the intestines of another person into her mouth. Her cheeks bulged while blood and ichor pooled around her chest. He shuddered and averted his gaze to the floor.

  How was he going to get them out of this? How was he going to keep her safe? He couldn’t handle it when she had a bad day at work. He balled his hands into fists. He’d have to figure it out. She always figured out how to help him, he could do the same. He had to. In the end, it might just be the two of them left.

  “You can bet he’s just the first of many,” the security guard said. He pointed to the stairwell door Jenny and Dillon had gone through. The group that had been chasing them opened it and was coming down.

  Jenny collapsed onto the floor. Dillon went to her side and wrapped his arms around her shoulders.

  “Wha
t are we going to do? There’s no way we can fight them off.”

  Dillon looked at the others. “Is there access to the ambulance bay from here?”

  “The ambulance bay is on the ground level,” the security guard said. “But the garage for the coroner is right over there.” He pointed toward the door.

  “It has access to the outside, right?”

  He nodded.

  “We need to get out of here. Warn others about what’s happening.”

  They all nodded.

  He turned back to Jenny. “We’re going to head back to my house and get some weapons. None of these things are going to hurt you. I will keep you safe.”

  She nodded weakly, and he helped her to her feet.

  “Is there any way we can contain them? Keep them in the hospital so they don’t get out?”

  The nurse chuckled, a loud, nervous sound. “You’ve got to be kidding! The entire front of this place is glass! Not to mention the ones that never even made it into the hospital. Those on the ambulance. I’m sure they’re-”

  Dillon cut him off before he could finish. “But we’re going to take care of it. Everything is going to be just fine.” He stood. “How do we get into the garage?”

  The doctor gestured toward the ceiling. “There’s a vent that runs from this room to the garage.”

  Dillon looked up. Jenny began to cry again.

  “Oh, Dillon. Oh, Dillon, no. I can’t do it. I can’t go through there.”

  “Isn’t there another way?” Dillon asked.

  “Sure,” the nurse responded. “If you want to go through the morgue.” He raised his eyebrows. Dillon wasn’t sure if the gesture was in question or challenge.

  “Why haven’t you guys headed out then?”

  They all cleared their throats and turned away.

  “We’re, uh, unsure about whether or not it will support our weight. We didn’t want to get half way across and plummet into the morgue.” The security guard spoke quietly and wouldn’t look him in the eye.