Life of the Dead (Book 1): Hell on Earth

by Tony Urban

  Yet another scream, this one high pitched and filled with pain.

  “Christ…”

  All of them watched the doors, transfixed. Solomon saw a middle-aged man in dark blue scrubs grab a scalpel.

  I’d go for something larger, doc.

  The doors burst open and a woman in Winnie the Pooh scrubs fell through them. Doused in blood, she had a ragged hole where her right cheek had once resided. She ran into a wheeled table, knocking a tray of instruments to the floor where they clattered and scattered.

  A woman and a man rushed to her side, kneeling out of Solomon’s view. He saw a jowly cop stagger through the doors, the bottom half of his face covered in blood. Not his own blood.

  Solomon tried to move and still couldn’t. All he could do was lay there and watch as the cop grabbed an anesthesiologist by the front of her uniform and pulled her into him. He was much taller than her and when he bit down, his teeth caught beneath her eye and above her eyebrow. There was a grating, scraping sound as his jaws closed.

  The woman squealed and flailed at the cop with her arms. One of the nurses slammed a metal clipboard over the cop’s head and when he pulled back to look at his assailant, the anesthetist’s eye came with.

  The room became chaos. Running and fighting and crying and screaming and bleeding. So much bleeding. Solomon saw a slender, dark haired man with jet black hair come through the doors. He was missing his nose and upper lip. That didn’t stop him from tearing out the throat of one of the surgical techs. In the struggle, Solomon saw a blood speckled name tag and was positive it read “Micklson.”

  Well, that’s just fantastic.

  He suspected there was no need to see what came next and let his eyes go shut.

  32

  Mina sat on the bed for a good, long while and waited. She was certain that, any minute now, the police would show up. Killing her father had caused a heck of a racket and some nurse or orderly must have called the cops to report the crazy black woman who had just committed homicide. And when they showed up, what was she going to say? The truth? That her dead father came back to life and tried to kill her, only she bashed in his skull with the bedpan before he could eat her, hardly seemed plausible. She was free of her father, only to end up in prison or, at best, a lunatic asylum. Either way, it would be bye, bye Birdie.

  Only, no one showed up. No police. No security guards. Not even a nosy candy striper or janitor. She realized that all she had to do was walk away and after cinching together her ripped blouse and trying her best to look like someone who hadn’t just committed murder; she did just that.

  Mina peeked out of the doorway and checked up and down the long corridor. All was clear, but not in the way she’d hoped. It wasn’t that everyone was preoccupied. Everyone was gone.

  Earlier, when she’d waited outside the room for the doctor and nurses to attempt their best heroic measures, the hall was bustling with hospital employees fluttering about like worker bees. Now, there was no one, as if everyone in the hospital had gone on a cigarette break at the exact same time.

  Who cares where they all went, Mina thought. Just go. So she did. She was halfway to the elevator when she heard someone moaning a few rooms down. As she got closer, she heard the steady tone of a hospital machine. Mina didn’t know what the machine was or its purpose, but she knew from the movies the sound was bad news.

  She again checked the hallway, but no one was rushing to the rescue. And when the person in the room moaned again, Mina decided it was up to her to see if they needed help.

  As she stepped into the room, a baby blue privacy curtain blocked her view. Mina reached up, started to pull it back, then paused.

  “Hello?” She waited. Another moan. “I don’t work here. I was here with--” She stopped herself. What did it matter to the person behind the curtain why she was here and why volunteer unnecessary information? Instead, she went with, “Do you need help?”

  What a stupid question, she thought even before the words stopped spilling from her mouth. The machine doesn’t make that sound if things are okay. And people don’t moan like that unless they’re in trouble.

  Mina pulled back the curtain and the first thing she saw was the nurse who’d instructed her to wait with her dead father. The beautiful woman was sprawled on the floor beside the empty hospital bed. Her once pristine pink scrubs now shredded and stained with blood. Most of her flesh was missing. Even the bones showed through in places. To Mina, the nurse looked like she’d taken a dip in a pool filled with piranhas.

  A wet, gasping noise from the bathroom at the other end of the room drew Mina’s attention away from the dead nurse. Mina approached the half-closed door.

  What are you doing, you ding dong? It was her father’s voice she heard echoing through her head. You ain’t got many brains but it’s time you used ‘em. Get your ass out of here before it’s too late.

  “Shut up!” she hissed and didn’t realize she’d said it aloud until a gagging, gurgle answered from the bathroom.

  “Hey,” she said to the half-closed door. “Do you want me to get someone?”

  When she didn’t get an answer, Mina gritted her teeth and pushed open the door. What she saw was even more of a shock than her dead father attacking her.

  The small, Indian doctor who had pronounced her father dead sat upright, his back against the blue tiled bathroom wall. His head hung limp and his chin rested on his chest. At the doctor’s midsection, Mina saw an old woman in a hospital gown on her hands and knees. The gown had ridden up and the split flapped open to reveal her saggy, wrinkled ass. The old woman’s face was buried in the doctor’s stomach, her head twisting back and forth as she burrowed into his bowels.

  The sour aroma of shit hit Mina as violently as her father’s fist and she couldn’t hold back a dry retch. That drew the attention of the old woman who pulled back and her face came free of the doctor’s innards with a sloppy sucking sound. Schwock!

  Blood and bits of intestines covered the woman, and when she saw Mina, the woman scrambled to her feet and loped toward her.

  Mina slammed the door into the woman. It bounced off her and the old zombie stumbled backwards and tripped over the doctor’s body. Mina dashed away from the bathroom but footsteps resumed behind her and they were coming faster than Mina could run.

  She spotted an aluminum cane propped against the nightstand by the bed and grabbed it. She spun around. The old woman was just a step away, blood and feces seeping from her open jaws as she growled.

  Mina’s instincts took over and, when the old woman got within arm’s reach, she slammed the butt end of the cane into the zombie’s face. She felt teeth break as the shaft smashed through them and for a brief moment the zombie stood there with the gray metal jutting from her mouth like the world’s biggest straw.

  Then, she snapped her head back and gave no indication that the shattered remains of her front teeth affected her in the slightest. She yanked the cane free of her mouth, tossed it aside, and dove toward Mina. The two collapsed in a heap and the thing that had once been human was on top.

  It growled and bared what remained of its teeth and red saliva hung in thick ropes which dripped onto Mina’s face. Mina turned her head just in time to prevent them from landing in her mouth.

  She’s like a rabid dog, Mina thought and then, as if to prove the point, the old woman snapped at her and came within half an inch of biting her face. So close Mina could smell the fetid aroma of intestines on the zombie’s breath.

  Mina pushed against the old woman’s throat, held her at bay and reached for the fallen cane with her free hand. The zombie kept biting and clawing at her until a shriek pierced the air and stole the monster’s attention.

  Mina wanted to look away, to look for the source of the scream, but the thing atop her was distracted and she knew this was her best chance. Maybe her only chance.

  Mina grabbed the cane. Pinned against the floor she knew she wouldn’t be able to build enough momentum to get any force behind a swin
g, but she had another idea and as soon as the old woman looked back down at her, Mina rammed the bottom of the cane up and into the woman’s left eye. It gave a muffled pop and then the shaft sunk deeper into the zombie’s skull. There was a small crunch as the eye socket broke and soon the old woman went limp.

  Mina squirmed out from underneath the dead weight, trying to avoid the muck and carnage but only half succeeding. Once she worked herself free, she fled the room.

  The hallway which had been empty just a few minutes earlier - minutes that felt like hours - now contained a dozen zombies all fighting to get a bite out of a chubby janitor. He tried to fight them off with his mop but they overwhelmed him. His wash bucket fell over in the struggle and soon his spilled blood mixed with the soapy water and pink foam ebbed out in shallow waves.

  Mina raced in the opposite direction, toward the elevator doors. As she ran she passed the nurse’s station where two zombie RN’s were fighting a young male orderly. One of the women pulled the man’s face toward her own and their mouths met. The nurse bit down on his lips and, in one hard bite, tore them clean off. Mina kept running and the nurse who wasn’t eating the man’s face gave chase.

  Mina couldn’t stop fast enough to avoid hitting the closed elevator doors and knocked the wind out of herself. The number 4 glowed above the elevator. Just one floor away. She smashed the down arrow which flickered yellow. She pressed it again and again as if that would make any difference.

  Footsteps, several sets of footsteps closed in on her. Mina refused to look back, even when they were so near that she could feel the floor vibrating under her feet. They growled and snarled and gasped and still she wouldn’t look.

  Then, with a cheerful ding, the elevator doors opened. Mina dove through as soon as the gap was wide enough to accept her slender frame. Her foot caught in the space between the hallway and the elevator floor and she tumbled to her knees.

  She turned around, fumbling to hit the “Door close” button. She missed on the first try but connected with the second and again, she waited. Only this time she looked at what was coming. More than 20 zombies now dashed down the hallway. Amongst them was the little, Indian doctor who she’d seen being eaten a short time ago. His open gut spilled intestines which trailed behind him like streamers on a “Just married” limo.

  The zombies were 15 feet away. Eight. Five.

  The doors groaned and started to close, but slowly.

  Three feet.

  The zombies were almost within arm’s length. She could hear their wet, hungry vocalizations. The horrible sounds drowned out everything else. They strained for the gap between the elevator doors.

  And the doors closed.

  Muzak played over the elevator speakers and Mina collapsed into the corner and tried to keep her composure. She recognized the tune as an off-key version of Blue Bayou.

  33

  After a day of killing, almost being killed, and a restless night’s sleep during which he suffered through nightmares of both, Wim woke up lacking any motivation. He considered abandoning his plan to exterminate the zombies which had replaced his onetime neighbors.

  Truth be told, he didn’t know any of them all that well when he was alive and he wondered why it was now his duty to clean up the mess. That internal debate lasted the better part of an hour before he accepted the fact that destroying the monsters wasn’t simply the moral thing to do, but the humane thing. Letting them go on would be no different than allowing a lame animal to suffer. And as hard as he liked to believe he could be when the situation necessitated it, one thing he was not was cruel.

  In the kitchen he grabbed a loaf of bread he’d been working on since before the zombies and found it covered with a light dusting of mold. He scraped off as much as he could, then slathered it in strawberry jam. He only got down two mouthfuls before he realized he had no appetite. After reloading all of his firearms, he was on the road.

  When he reached town, another two dozen or so zombies had made it into the streets. He killed them all, then dragged their bodies into the empty corner lot where the funeral home used to stand before a tornado knocked it down in the 90s.

  Once the streets were again clear, Wim moved from house to house. Like many small towns, most people left their doors unlocked and he was free to enter without much fuss. Each time he prayed he’d find someone alive, but those prayers went unanswered. A few homes were empty but most housed zombies.

  The worst was the Lohr residence. It was a pretty, yellow Victorian with a white picket fence in front and Wim always thought it looked like it belonged on a postcard. When he entered, he found Cathy and Stu Lohr roaming the downstairs. Stu looked normal enough for a zombie, but Cathy had several small chunks of flesh taken out of her arms and face which looked a little like over-sized chicken pox.

  When they saw him, they lurched in his direction, grumbling or growling or whatever the heck sounds these things made. Wim put them both down and when his ears stopped ringing after the gunshots he heard more movement upstairs. He climbed the carpeted stairs and when he got to the landing what he found horrified him.

  The Lohr’s were a fertile family and they had five children, four girls and one boy, all under the age of 10. The youngest was under a year old and wasn’t walking yet. He was the first one Wim saw.

  The baby was at the top of the steps, crawling on his hands and knees. He wore nothing but a saggy, stained cloth diaper. Blood was smeared all over his little face and mouth.

  He saw Wim and tried to maneuver down the stairs but when his torso dropped over the top step, he somersaulted forward and momentum carried him down to the landing. The baby landed on its back and it looked up and backwards at Wim and clawed at the air with its tiny hands. Wim couldn’t look as he raised his heavy, steel toed boot, the kind his Mama always called ‘shit stompers’, and brought it down on the tot’s skull. It crumpled like an empty soda can.

  He continued up the stairs and reached the second floor. There were four rooms. The first he checked was the parents’ bedroom and found it empty. The second was the nursery. It too was empty, but something had upended the crib.

  Wim was halfway down the hall and there was a doorway on each side of him. He checked the room to his right first and inside he discovered two of the girls sitting on the floor. It looked like there was a doll in front of them but as Wim moved closer, he saw it was one of their sisters, or rather, what remained of her.

  They had eaten the little girl’s arms and legs down to the bone. A cavernous hole where the organs had once been marred her torso. All the skin on her face was gone, revealing a jigsaw of muscle and tendon underneath. Her lidless eyes held nothing but empty black sockets. It reminded Wim of a video cover he’d seen in the rental store once for The Incredible Melting Man.

  Wim shot the first girl in the back of the head. As she tumbled forward like a rag doll, her sister lunged at Wim and caught hold of his right arm. He tried to shake her off, but the girl had a firm grip on his shirtsleeve.

  When he grabbed a fistful of her blonde hair with his left hand, she glared at him and snarled. He could see bits of flesh stuck between her baby teeth and she bit at him like a snapping turtle.

  Wim whipped her head back and forth until she let loose of his shirt, then threw her down on the floor. She tried to get up, but he held her down with his foot. She looked up at him as the bullet blew through her forehead.

  He didn’t have time to turn around before the last of the Lohr children was on him. The little monster jumped onto his back and scratched at his head and neck.

  Wim threw himself backwards into the wall and the girl lost her grip and fell off. As he turned to her, she ran at him and he saw small bites on her face and neck. He had no time to aim the pistol as she dashed toward him, so much quicker and more agile than the others, and his first shot caught her in the throat. Blood beaded up in the hollow between her collarbones. She stumbled backward a step then rushed toward him again.

  He fired again and this time the
bullet collided with the space between her nose and her left eye and blood exploded out the back of her skull and splattered against the wall behind her. She dropped in a heap. It was done.

  Wim took their bodies to the empty lot. The little ones were so small he could carry three on one trip and two on the other.

  He continued on until he’d checked every house in town. He found no one alive but plenty of the undead and by the time he’d dragged all the bodies to the pile it was nearly three feet high and forty feet from end to end. He hadn’t kept an accurate count but knew he’d killed over two hundred zombies.

  At the only gas station in town, the pumps were useless due to the electricity being out so Wim took a big 55-gallon drum of used motor oil and rolled it up the street. Once he got it to the edge of the pile, he stood the barrel upright, then rocked it until it fell onto the bodies.

  He pushed it as close to the center as he could, crawling over the men and women he’d killed, then popped the top. Thick, black muck seeped out and Wim grabbed some old rags he’d taken from the garage and plugged the opening before too much could escape.

  He then lit the clothing of some of the bodies nearest the drum on fire and scrambled off the pile as the flames caught hold. Wim trudged back to his truck, which he’d parked 100 yards away, and grabbed his Marlin. He waited until the flames had spread out, their yellow tips licking the air, then aimed the rifle at the barrel.

  The first shot sent a wave of fire to the right. The second splashed burning oil into the air and it rained down over the zombies like hail in a spring storm. Wim figured that was enough to do the job and by the time he’d finished loading the guns back into his truck, the entire mound was aflame.

  Black smoke billowed into the air as the pyre burned higher and hotter. Wim sat in his truck and stared at the flames through the windshield. It occurred to him that he’d killed just about everyone he’d ever known. He still had to check the homes and farms outside of town and there he’d most likely have to kill the rest.