Deadlocked 8

by A. R. Wise

  I couldn’t close the door behind us. It opened outward, and the horde had already massed there. I continued to fire, and the bodies piled up, choking the entrance and giving us a momentary relief.

  “It’s a dead end,” said Hero as he looked down the first hall.

  I glanced down there and saw red light reflecting on what looked like glass. “There’s a window there. We can break through it.”

  The noise of the horde pushing their way through the entrance echoed down these thin, grey halls. We made our way to the glass and I aimed the rifle, intending to shatter it. I fired, but the glass didn’t break. Instead, the bullet passed through, leaving just a small hole and a flower of cracks.

  “Oh great,” said Hero.

  “We’ve got to break it,” I said as I started to bash at the glass with the butt of my rifle.

  “Really? I woulda never guessed that,” said Hero as he started to push at the glass, causing the cracks the spread.

  “Stop being a smart ass and get to work.”

  A zombie turned the corner and staggered our way, issuing forth a characteristic moan as its mouth drooped. I fired at it, and my gun clicked uselessly.

  “Oh shit, I’m empty.” I had another full cartridge in my pocket, but not enough time to load it. The zombie was already only a few feet away. I swung the rifle butt out to smash it into the creature’s face. It connected, but not hard enough to silence the zombie for good. The force knocked it back, and then I shoved it down to the ground. I placed my boot on its head and stomped as I started to reload. The head crunched under my foot, and fetid liquid sloshed up all the way to my chin as if I’d smashed a water balloon instead of a human head.

  “Here, come on,” said Hero. He’d broken open a sizeable hole in the glass.

  “You first,” I said as I aimed down the hall, ready for my next victim to climb over the mound of dead.

  “No, you,” said Hero.

  “Damn it, stop arguing with me. Get in there.”

  “No, man, you first. Give me the gun and go.”

  “Hero, for fuck’s sake, get in there.” Another zombie came into view, and then a second. They turned the corner that led to this short hall and rushed at us. Two quick shots took them both out, and I prepared for more.

  Hero grabbed the gun from me.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I’m dead anyways,” he said as he wrestled the rifle out of my hands. “You get in there first.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Would you shut up and get in there already?” Hero pushed at me, and then focused on the zombies that continued to make their way in here.

  I didn’t know what else to do other than crawl in through the hole in the mirror. I moved as fast as my back would allow, and my arms were quickly sliced open by the shards of glass all around me. Hero continued to kill the Greys as I climbed over the counter that was mounted under this two-way mirror.

  “Hero, come on. Give me the gun.”

  He obliged, and I held the rifle with one hand as I tried to help him through the gap with the other. The horde was right on his back, and I had to rest the rifle on him as I fired out at them. He screamed a curse at me about how I was burning the shit out of him, but I told him to shut up and hurry. Finally, he climbed through and we both tumbled to the floor. The dead were surging in through the mirror as well, and I fired up at them, spraying rotten flesh and blood all across the ceiling, which then promptly fell back down on us.

  We crawled out of the room and into a hallway that was lined with similar doors. The horde was pushing through the mirror, and I was sure the rifle would be emptied any second.

  “Through here,” said Hero as he staggered across the hall to the nearest door. I followed behind while firing back at the zombies, but for every one I killed there seemed to be two more coming at us.

  All the while the red lights flashed, and I heard a woman’s voice saying, “Please return to your rooms. You’re not in any danger. Please return to your rooms. You’re not in any danger.”

  “Fuck you, bitch,” said Hero. “There’s all sorts of danger.”

  We made it into the room, and then closed the door just as a creature slammed against it, forcing us back. I thudded my shoulder and the door slammed shut.

  “How do we lock it?” asked Hero as he looked at the nearly featureless door.

  Again, a creature bashed into it from the other side, causing the door to open again before I pushed it closed. Hero came to help, and pressed his back to the door.

  “I don’t know how to lock it,” I said as we were hit again.

  “This sure is a hell of a way for us to go out,” said Hero. “Stuck in some girl’s bathroom, with a horde at our back and a lunatic planning to burn us to death. Only us, man. Only us.”

  The horde was massing now, and they were pushing so hard that we could barely keep the door shut anymore. My boots squeaked on the tile floor as I sat beside Hero and pressed my back as hard against the door as I could. The brace was digging into my side, and I could feel its sharp edge cutting into me, but that pain was nothing compared to how my back felt.

  I grimaced as I held the door shut, and I forced out a question, “What did you mean back there about you being dead already?”

  Hero was in similar agony as he struggled to press himself against the door. “I’m not going to make it much longer. They were keeping me alive with some chemical shit. They said I’ve only got a day or two off that stuff.”

  “That might not be true,” I said, hoping it might be the case. “These fuckers were all liars.”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s true, man. But that’s okay. If you get me to my son, it’ll all be worth it.”

  “Please return to your rooms. You’re not in any danger. Please return to your…”

  That’s when the purge began. The fire that immolated the facility burned through the halls in a flash. The fire followed the air flow, devouring everything in its path, and made its way through the hall and into the Dawn’s area. It surged past the broken mirror, and all the way to the door at our backs.

  All of the air was sucked out of our room, and the flames licked in through the gap that the zombies had forced open. Grey fingers that had been poking into the room burst into flames, and I watched the hair on my arm melt away just before the blisters began to form.

  No one could survive this.

  38 – I Like to Think Both

  Laura Conrad

  “No one should’ve survived that,” said Billy as he recounted the story to us. He lifted his bandaged arm and said, “I saw my flesh blistering right in front of my eyes.”

  It had been a long time since I’d seen him this happy. Even though he was confined to his wheelchair, which he normally hated, he was smiling wider than I’d seen in years.

  “All the air got sucked out of the room, and I couldn’t breathe. I was sure we were dead. There was no doubt in my mind.”

  His reunion with Hero had brought back a youthful vigor that Billy had recently lost. The past couple days he’d been regaling anyone that listened about what happened at the airport facility.

  Annie and I had been found on the road by the Rollers, and then met back up with Zack and the rest of the refugees of Vineyard. We’d decided it would be best to return to the rehab center to wait until we were certain that New Vineyard was safe. It was shortly after arriving back here that Abe showed up with a car filled with girls that had come up from the underground facility.

  “He’s not kidding,” said Abe with an ebullient grin. “We were all the way outside when it happened, and even we almost got burned alive. Ask Celeste.”

  The pretty young woman nodded in agreement and said, “It’s true. We thought you two were dead.”

  “I was sure of it,” said Abe. “Otherwise we would’ve stuck around to drive you back here.”

  “No worries,” said Billy. “We lucked out that you had to come back for the rest of the girls, otherwise
we would’ve been walking our crippled asses all the way back here.”

  When Abe and the Dawns had escaped the facility, he was only able to bring back a single car full, and had left Celeste and several of the other Dawns there to wait for someone to come back and pick them up. It had been on that return trip that Hero and Billy shocked everyone by staggering out, their hair singed and their skin raw, looking like fresh corpses that had bounded up with their arms wrapped around each other’s shoulder, laughing and screaming about how nothing could kill them.

  I’d already heard Billy tell this story a few times, and it seemed to get more unbelievable each time. Truth be told, I liked the embellishments he added, because each time he told the story it seemed like Hero’s legend grew.

  Hero was the reason we’d gathered here. All of us were eager to see him, because he’d requested to be quarantined after arriving, and many of us hadn’t had the chance to see him yet.

  The rehab was currently packed tighter than it ever had been before, but we were all just thankful to be alive, and there were few complaints. This morning Clyde had asked me to get a few people together that wanted to see Hero, but he didn’t say much else. I did as he asked, and the rumor quickly spread that Hero was better and that he would be coming out today. A crowd had gathered, and many of them were eager to listen to Billy’s story about their escape.

  Over the past couple of days, Clyde had been reporting back to us that Hero’s infection was fading, and that it seemed to be true that his body was fighting the virus off. This had been all Billy needed to hear for him to regain the zeal that he’d been missing since Hero’s disappearance. The two of them were as close as friends could be, and I understood when they referred to each other as ‘brother.’

  Clyde walked out of the room where Hero was being kept, and down the hall to the waiting room where we were all gathered. He was surprised by the amount of people here, and was about to say something before Billy quickly piped in.

  “How’s Hero doing?” asked Billy. “Is it okay for him to see his son yet?” Because of the quarantine, Hero still hadn’t gotten to meet Mark, and Billy was anxious for him to get the chance.

  Everyone was waiting for an answer, but Clyde was reticent to provide one.

  “Clyde?” asked Billy. “What’s up?”

  Clyde’s solemn expression said far more than he did. “It looks like he was right. The infection is almost out of him, at least if you go by the boils. They’re shrinking down to almost nothing.”

  “That’s good, right?” asked Billy.

  Clyde nodded, but his tone sounded far from cheery. “It’s good, yes.”

  “Great,” said Billy. “Then let’s get him in to see that baby.”

  “Billy,” Clyde knelt down beside his friend.

  Zack and I walked closer, and so did Annie. The entire waiting room of the facility was filled with our friends, but the silence among them was telling. We’d all been certain that this would be a joyous occasion, but now doubt crept in.

  “What?” asked Billy in concern as he picked up on Clyde’s somber tone.

  “Hero’s…” Clyde looked down. “He’s sick.”

  “Well then fix him,” said Billy as he looked up at the rest of us and offered a shallow chuckle. “That’s what you do, right? You’re the best doctor I know.” He stammered a little as he said again, “Fix him.”

  Clyde could only shake his head.

  “What are you saying?” asked Billy, his voice quavering.

  “I don’t think he’s going to pull through.”

  “No,” said Billy, and I could hear his heart breaking as he repeated it over and over. “No, no, no.” He was desperate for Clyde to be wrong. “Hero’s a fighter, man. He’s not going down like this. Not a chance in hell.”

  “He’s having a hard time even breathing now,” said Clyde.

  Billy pushed Clyde’s arm away from him and said, “Bullshit! He was doing fine when we got here.”

  “I know, but his condition has been getting…”

  Billy screamed out, “What did you do to him?”

  Clyde calmly said again, “His condition has been getting worse. I’ve tried everything I can.” I know that Clyde had suffered through this sort of reaction from patients’ families a hundred times, but it never got any easier. I could hear Clyde’s sadness even as he tried to stay strong.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Billy. “Hero’s not going to die. Not a chance. Get the fuck out of here.”

  “Billy…”

  “No, screw you, Clyde. Get back in there and fix him.”

  “Billy, listen to me.”

  Billy struck out at his old friend, and I stepped forward to intercede. Clyde fell back, and Billy was screaming at the doctor as I wrapped my arms around him, pinning him back to his chair and saying, “Calm down,” in an attempt to still his rage.

  “Get back in there and do your job, Clyde,” said Billy, his voice trembling even as he yelled. “Do your fucking job”

  To his credit, Clyde never lost his temper. I’d watched Billy and Clyde fight one another for the past twenty years over a thousand different things, and this was the first time I’d ever seen Clyde take abuse like this.

  “I talked to Jill,” said Clyde, but his voice was nearly drowned out by Billy’s berating.

  “Calm down,” I said as I pinned Billy back. Then I wrapped my arms around him and felt him begin to sob. I pressed his head to me, wishing for nothing more than to steal away the anguish I knew was building inside of him. “It’s okay.”

  Clyde tried to speak again, and his voice cracked from the sorrow that he was trying to hide, “I talked to Jill. I think Hero’s safe to be around. She’s in there with him now.”

  Every time Clyde paused, I heard the grief all around me as the crowd suffered the same as us.

  “She wants him to meet Mark,” said Clyde, and I didn’t need to see him to know that he was crying. We all were. “And he wants you to be there when he meets him.”

  “What?” asked Billy, and I could feel his woe in the way his body shook. I held him tighter, aching for him as well as for Hero.

  “He wants you to be there the first time he meets his son.”

  Billy lost it. He wrapped his arms around me and wept, pressing his face to my shoulder as I rubbed his back.

  Clyde continued, “He asked for you, and Laura, and Annie. That’s who he wants in there.”

  “Jesus Christ,” said Billy as he held me even tighter. “Laura, he’s not supposed to die. Not Hero. Not him.”

  “I know,” I said, and was shocked by how hard it was to get any words out. It seemed like the only thing my body wanted to do was grieve. It would’ve been easier to curl up into a ball on the floor and scream than to find the strength to go in and see our friend for what might be the last time.

  Clyde put his hand on my shoulder and said, “We should go in there.” When I didn’t respond immediately, he said, “It’s time. We should hurry.”

  I got up and went around to push Billy. I felt Annie’s tight grip on my arm. I looked over at her, and saw that her cheeks were bright red, as were her eyes. She was suffering as much as I was, and I stole a moment to embrace her. Billy was rolling himself along now, determined to get into Hero’s room as soon as he could.

  Annie and I followed, and I whispered to her, “It’s okay. He’s going to meet his baby. Let’s be happy for him.”

  She tried to say something, but her words were lost as she sobbed. I wiped away her tears with my thumb, and then kissed her cheek.

  We entered Hero’s room, and saw him lying alone on one of the two beds. A thick cover was pulled up over him, but he still looked fragile and thin. His face was gaunt, and his skin pale. His eyes had bags beneath them, and his lips were so chapped that they looked nearly white. Jill was standing beside the bed, and wordlessly waved to us as we entered. Her face was puffy and her eyes were weary. She had the look of a person that had run out of tear
s.

  Billy rolled up alongside the bed, and Hero turned to look at him.

  “Hey there,” said Billy, trying his best to sound chipper, although he clearly wasn’t. “Clyde never said anything to me about this. He said you were doing better. If I’d known, man, no one could’ve kept me from being in here with you.”

  “I know,” said Hero, and his voice was scratchy and distant. “That’s why I told him to shut his trap.”

  “That’s not fair,” said Billy, allowing himself to be amused by his friend. “I want to be right here with you, bro.”

  “But then I wouldn’t have gotten to hear you out there yelling and carrying on about how badass our escape was.”

  “It was badass,” said Billy as he gingerly set his arm on his friend. “You were badass, like always.”

  “Damn straight I was,” said Hero, retaining the sense of humor that we’d all come to adore.

  Jill turned away to face the window, and I heard her soft sobs. I walked over to her, and wrapped my arms around her as the gentle white light reflected off the snow outside and in through the window onto us.

  “Annie,” said Hero. “Damn it’s good to see you.”

  “It’s good to see you too, buddy.”

  “You fucked up your hair,” he said, and Annie laughed in response. “Nah, I’m kidding. You look as good as ever.”

  “Thank you,” she said as she knelt at his side and kissed his cheek.

  “Laura,” said Hero, and I looked back at him with tears blurring my sight. “Come here.”

  Annie and I traded places, and I knelt down as Hero reached out to put his icy cold hand against my cheek. He wiped away my tears, just as I had done for Annie moments ago. “Damn Laura, you’re pretty even when you cry.”

  I laughed, and it felt good to be happy beside him again. He cupped the back of my head with his huge hand and brought me closer so that our foreheads touched. I muttered sloppily through tears, “I love you.”

  “I know,” said Hero. Then he added, “Straight up Star Wars shit right there.” Billy and I chuckled, but then Hero pressed his hand harder against the back of my head and whispered, “Kim…” Now it was Hero that was having trouble speaking through his grief. “It should’ve been me, Laura.”