Undead Flesh

by Dennis McDonald

  “What’s the plan?” Jack said.

  “When the doors open, we fight our way down the hall. The ICU unit will be to our right. We continue through there to the rooftop elevator, so everybody stick close together.”

  “Got it,” Jack said, cocking the Mossberg.

  The elevator door opened to reveal another hallway. Jack glanced down the corridor. Zombies shuffled in and out of the various patient rooms. They immediately detected the living flesh in their midst and turned their undead faces toward him.

  “Go!” Jack said.

  They ran from the elevator and fired as a group. Telia’s twin Glocks and Jack’s shotgun shredded the zombies blocking their path. The thunderous assault cleared a way through the undead in the hallway. Taking up the rear, Doug used his bat to break open heads while Kerri swung her machete to protect her younger brother. They reached the double sliding doors to the intensive-care unit and rushed inside.

  The ICU looked empty under the sterile fluorescent ceiling lights. Jack breathed a sigh of relief as they ran across the tiled floor for the elevator at the other end. His relief was short-lived. Undead patients dressed in hospital gowns staggered out of the intensive-care cubicles, some with IVs still connected to their arms. The group of emaciated horrors had gray skin and dead, glazed-over eyes. Their gaping mouths emitted a sickening wail.

  Jack and Telia had no time to reload. Their only hope was to get on the elevator before the undead patients blocked their way. More zombies staggered through the double ICU doors behind them.

  Jack reached the elevator first and started to panic when he saw no buttons. “How do I open it?”

  “Try the key.” Telia pointed to a metal key in a lock on the side of the door.

  He turned it, and the elevator door slid open to allow everyone to dive inside seconds before the undead patients could reach them. The door started to close again, but the clawing hands of the horrid undead blocked it. Sensors beeped, and the door reopened. Kerri screamed as the zombie ICU patients pushed their way into the elevator.

  Doug swung his bat hard against the mob, and bones cracked from his repeated swings. The relentless undead continued to hold the doors open. Screaming in rage, Doug threw himself against the zombies and pushed them back into the ICU with all his strength.

  “Go! Get to the copter!” Doug shouted over his shoulder a second before the doors closed, shutting him off from the group.

  “Doug!” Kerri screamed at the closed door. “Dad, stop the elevator!”

  “It’s too late, Kerri,” Jack said, sliding his last shotgun rounds into the Mossberg. “He did it to save us. There’s no turning back. We’ve got to continue to the roof.”

  Kerri erupted into tears and lowered her head.

  “He was a really brave guy,” Brett said, taking her hand. “He saved us all.”

  “I loved him,” Kerri sobbed.

  The elevator continued rising to the top floor. Jack glanced at Telia and returned her hard gaze. “What now?” he said.

  Telia dropped the magazines out of her Glocks and slapped in her last two reloads. “From here we run down a short access hallway and onto the landing pad.” She cocked both pistols. “Don’t stop until you reach the copter.”

  “You got it,” Jack said, working the slide on the Mossberg.

  With both guns raised, Telia took deep breaths as the elevator slowly came to a stop. She counted, “One, … two, … three.”

  The door opened to another hallway crammed with the living dead.

  “Go!” Telia shouted and opened fire with the Glocks. Jack joined in with the shotgun, and together they blasted holes through zombie faces while Kerri and Brett ran for the double access doors to the rooftop. Kerri reached the exit doors first and shoved them open to the night air. Fifty feet away waited the Medi-Flight helicopter in the flashing lights of the landing beacons. The pilot door was open.

  “Run, kids!” Jack said and used his last shotgun round to blow a zombie’s head apart.

  In a mad dash, Kerri and Brett sprinted across the landing pad and climbed into the aircraft. Jack ran half the distance before turning to check on Telia, who charged out the exit doors with a mass of zombies shambling their way down the access hallway behind her.

  “Get to the chopper!” Telia shouted and slammed the doors shut. “I got this.”

  She whipped out the handcuffs from her back pocket, threaded them through the door handles, and clicked the cuffs shut just as the walking dead slammed against the other side of the doors.

  “I knew those would come in handy. Should hold them for a couple of minutes,” she said and smiled. “Come on, Jack, let’s catch the last flight out of Watkins.”

  She sprinted to join him. When they were halfway across the roof, sounds of gunfire rang out. Telia gazed up at him with shock in her dark eyes. She staggered forward and slumped into Jack’s arms. The Glocks slipped from her weakening grip, and he felt warm blood oozing out of her back. Stunned and confused, he looked over her shoulder to where the shots had come from.

  Brody Cordell stood at the top of the fire escape. His face twisted into a sneer as he lowered his AR-15.

  “I guess I won’t be flying with you after all,” Telia said with a cough.

  “No!” Jack eased her down to the roof. “Please, God, don’t die on me, too.”

  He looked up to see Brody throw aside his rifle.

  “I’m sorry if that bitch was your ticket out of here, Jack, but me and you still got business to settle,” Brody said, pulling a large hunting knife from his cowboy boot. “I’m going to gut you like a pig for killing my brothers!”

  “Bastard!” Jack screamed with white-hot rage.

  He grabbed his empty Mossberg as Brody charged across the landing pad. Like a man possessed, Brody swung his hunting knife and Jack blocked the vicious attack with the shotgun. The blade clanged against the metal stock. Jack retaliated by shoving Brody hard against the helicopter fuselage in an attempt to knee him in the groin, but Brody delivered a head butt to his face before he could. Seeing stars, Jack staggered back as Brody slashed again with the knife. This time it opened a nasty cut in his shoulder. He kicked Jack hard in the stomach, which sent him slamming backward against the open copter door. With the air knocked out of him, he fell to the roof.

  “It’s too bad you won’t be around to see what I’m going to do to your precious children, Jack.” Brody stood over him with the flashing beacon lights highlighting the grim look of murder on his face. “Just know it’ll be ten times worse than what you did to my brothers.”

  “Fuck you,” Jack said.

  “I’ll take that as your last words.” He squatted next to Jack. “Time to die, Jack.”

  “Leave my dad alone, you sick fucker!” Kerri screamed behind him.

  She sprang out of the cockpit and stabbed the machete hilt-deep into Brody’s chest. The man looked down in shock at the blade jutting from his heart. He staggered a few steps, trying to remove the machete and causing a stream of blood to spew from the wound. A second later, he collapsed dead on the roof.

  Jack let out a long weary sigh as Kerri dropped to her knees and hugged him close.

  “Thanks for saving your old man,” he said.

  “I love you, Dad,” she said, her tears wetting his cheek.

  “I love you, baby girl.”

  “Are you all right?” Kerri pulled back and pointed to his shoulder. “You’re bleeding.”

  “I’ll live.”

  He glanced toward the rooftop doors where the undead pounded in a frenzy. At any moment the doors would break open.

  “Get your brother,” he said.

  With every muscle screaming in protest, Jack managed to stand. He staggered to Telia, who lay sprawled on the helicopter pad. She was breathing in short, ragged gasps, and a pool of blood was spreading beside her body.

  “Telia,” he said in a soft voice as he knelt beside her.

  Her eyes opened and gazed into his. “Jack,” she said in
a barely audible whisper. “I’m so sorry I failed you.”

  “Shhhh,” he said, putting a finger against her quivering lip. “Don’t say that.” Tears blurred his vision as he glanced over at the helicopter. “We almost made it, didn’t we?”

  “We did.” Her bloody hand reached into the front pocket of her flannel shirt and removed a 9mm bullet. “I saved this one for me.” She placed the round in his hand and feebly closed his fingers. “You know what to do.”

  “Oh, God, girl,” Jack said.

  Telia flashed a trembling smile. “You promised, remember?” Her fading dark eyes looked up at him one last time and she gently touched the side of his face, leaving a bloody smear. “Goodbye, Jack.” She shuddered and exhaled a last ragged breath.

  “No!” Jack shouted at the gray sky. “Not her!”

  Wiping away his tears, he staggered away from her body and picked up an empty Glock. He loaded the 9mm round and cocked the slide. The cuffed exit doors threatened to burst off their hinges at any second and release another horde of undead onto the roof. He glanced up to where Kerri and Brett stood outside the copter with tears flowing down their faces.

  “Turn your eyes,” he said, and they looked away.

  Jack stood over Telia’s body and aimed the pistol. He pulled the trigger and shot her through the forehead.

  “Rest in peace,” he whispered and tossed away the pistol. He fought back his tears and turned to his children.

  “What do we do now?” Kerri said.

  “Can you fly the helicopter, Dad?” Brett said.

  “Not part of your father’s skill set, champ.”

  “We have to do something,” Kerri said, pointing toward the doors. “The zombies—”

  “Dad, behind you!” Brett pointed.

  Jack spun around. A zombie Brody Cordell stood behind him with the machete sticking out from the center of his chest. With glazed white eyes, he lurched toward them, chomping his tobacco-stained teeth together.

  “Screw this!” Jack said, yanking the machete from the horrid thing’s body. He swung it with all his might against the zombie Cordell’s neck. Brody’s torso fell away as his head rolled onto the landing apron and came to rest face up. Its mouth chomped one last time. Jack kicked the head as hard as he could and sent it bouncing along the rooftop and over the side.

  “Come back from that, shithead,” Jack said and dropped the machete.

  The doors to the roof suddenly broke, releasing a horde of zombies onto the landing pad. The undead throng headed straight for Jack and his children.

  “We have to leave,” he said, grabbing his shotgun.

  “How?” Kerri said.

  He pointed at the fire escape Brody had used to get to the roof. “Follow me.”

  With Kerri and Brett at his side, he raced across the roof and reached the staircase twenty feet ahead of the relentless zombie mob. He looked down the long fire escape. Five stories below, more walking dead clogged the alleyway behind the hospital. They turned their faces toward the roof and started to ascend the stairs. Jack looked over his shoulder. The rooftop horde was seconds away from attacking.

  “Shit!” Jack said in desperation.

  He led the way down the stairs to the third-floor landing. Above and below, the nightmarish undead closed in to feed on their flesh. Jack spotted a broken window and looked through it. The room beyond was a two-stall bathroom. He kicked some of the remaining glass from the window.

  “Kerri?” he said.

  “What?” she said with fear in her eyes as well as her voice.

  “You’ve got to climb through this bathroom window and then I’ll hand your brother to you. Be careful of the glass.”

  “Okay, Dad.” She wiggled through the small pane and dropped onto the floor.

  “Champ, it’s your turn.”

  “Dad, I’m tired,” Brett pleaded.

  “Just a little bit longer. I promise.”

  Brett slipped through the broken window and Kerri helped him in. Using the butt of the Mossberg, Jack broke out more glass and jumped inside just before the zombies on the staircase could reach him. Once in the restroom, he ran forward and opened the door leading to the hall. The last of his hope evaporated when he saw the hall outside clogged with dozens of zombies. They turned their rotting faces toward him as he slammed the door and slid the bolt lock shut.

  Trapped.

  He turned to his children huddled in a corner of the room near the sinks. For the first time since the nightmare had begun, he saw total hopelessness in their eyes. There was no hope left inside him either, just an exhausted empty feeling in the center of his being. The zombies pounded against the door, and soon the lock would give way. The undead on the staircase hadn’t reached the broken window yet but would in a matter of minutes. Jack scanned the bathroom. It had two toilet stalls and two sinks with mirrors above them.

  This is the end of the road.

  A deep, cold realization filled his heart. He would have to kill his own children to spare them from the undead waiting to feast on them. His last duty as their father would be to save them from that nightmare.

  With trembling fingers, Jack slid the last two shotgun shells from his back pocket and loaded the Mossberg.

  “Kerri and Brett,” he said with tears running down his face, “I want you to close your eyes.”

  “What are you doing, Dad?” Kerri said.

  “It’ll be over soon and you’ll both be in heaven with your mother,” he said above the pounding against the door. “Just remember I love you more than anything in the world. Tell me you know that.”

  “I know that,” Kerri said. Her eyes showed that she understood what was about to happen. She turned to Brett and hugged him close. “Little brother, close your eyes.”

  “Okay, sis.”

  Jack glanced at his reflection in the mirrors over the sinks. His face was haggard and his eyes were soulless and lost. He looked once again at his two children—the most precious treasures in his life—and contemplated his final option. Outside, the dead continued to tear against the door in a frenzy to reach their living flesh.

  He cocked the shotgun.

  “It’s always darkest before dawn,” Puss Cobb’s raspy voice echoed in the small room.

  Jack glanced at the mirrors again. Puss Cobb’s image stared back at him with the dark void of his crow eyes.

  “Leave me the fuck alone!” Jack said.

  He looked at his crying children huddled in the corner and his finger slid against the trigger. Only two shots left. There would be none for him, but it didn’t matter. He would be dead inside after he killed his children. But could he do it? Kill his children?

  “Darkest before dawn,” Puss Cobb repeated.

  “Screw this!” Jack said and pulled the trigger twice.

  The shotgun blasts blew apart the two mirrors, sending Puss Cobb’s image shattering into a thousand pieces of glass.

  “You’re the fucking worst guardian angel ever,” Jack said, throwing away the shotgun.

  Kerri looked up at her father with teary eyes. “What happened?”

  “I’m sorry, baby, I couldn’t do it,” he said. “God, forgive me.”

  “It’s okay, Dad. We’ll face this together.”

  He swept them both into his arms and hugged them closer than he ever had in his life. They wept and clung together and waited for the hungry undead.

  The pounding against the door stopped.

  Perplexed, Jack pulled away from his children and stopped to listen.

  Silence.

  “What the hell?” Jack said.

  “What is it?” Kerri said, wiping away her tears. “Where did they go?”

  “I don’t know. Something’s happened.”

  He crossed to the locked bathroom door and listened. Only silence came from the other side. Jack slid open the bolt lock and a dozen corpses spilled into the room to lie still at his feet. Kerri and Brett screamed. Jack bent down and studied the bodies. Most were hospital workers i
n blue scrubs, and others were patients in hospital gowns. Their empty gazes stared up at him. None of them were moving.

  “Are they dead?” Brett said.

  “Yes,” Jack said. “They’re dead. I mean, they’re really dead and not zombies anymore.”

  He glanced out the door to the hall and found it littered with inert bodies. Returning to the broken bathroom window, he found others lying on the metal staircase in the gray light of dawn.

  “Stay here,” Jack said to Kerri and Brett.

  He crawled out the bathroom window and over the corpses covering the staircase. Five stories below him, more dead bodies choked the alleyway. None were moving. He continued up the staircase and onto the roof under a brightening sky. The strange twilight and the perpetual eclipse of the sun had ended.

  The world reset itself. The dead no longer walk.

  “Dad?” Kerri said from the top of the fire-escape stairs behind him. She had climbed up the steps with Brett.

  “Over here,” he said from the roof’s edge.

  They ran to his side and he put his arm around them. Together they watched the sunrise break over the horizon.

  “So, what happened to the zombies?” Brett asked.

  “Resurrection Day only lasted for one day.” Tears of joy filled Jack’s eyes. “It’s over.”

  As the sun rose in the eastern sky, he thought about the meaning of life and death. He now knew there was more to the world than the material body one is given at birth. The earthly bonds hold one for only a short time. The bonds of love last forever. A place does exist beyond death.

  “Are we the last people on earth?” Keri said, looking over the devastated town.

  “No.” Jack shook his head. “There have to be other survivors.” He smiled down at their faces glowing in the light of the new dawn. “We’ll find them,” he said, hugging his children close.

  THE END

  OTHER BOOKS BY DENNIS MCDONALD AVAILABLE ON AMAZON….

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  I hope you enjoyed Undead Flesh. Please feel free to write a review and post it on Amazon. Or you can email it to me. I’d love to hear from you. If you liked this novel, don’t hesitate to check out my other books. I’m sure you’ll enjoy them too. You can find me at the following online locations.