by Jolly, Kirk
“Jesus.”
“When they tossed her head into the flames, I could see the pain in her eyes.”
Allen knew that look all too well. Since Alice had started training in the morgue, things had been relatively quiet. They’d removed a decent amount of brains but there hadn’t been any Thrashers. When a Thrasher came down, they made little noise until you touched the brain. When you cut it free and burned it, they screamed until it was completely destroyed. The worst part was that it was easy to think of them as not human, with their vacant stares and animalistic behavior. Easy until you heard the gut-wrenching screams of one of them dying, if that was even the right word for it.
They stood in awkward silence, Allen not knowing what to say and Alice mulling over the past. Suddenly the scanner chatter became panicked. Several of the teams were talking over each other about something. It took a moment for their scrambled words to resolve and make sense. One phrase came through clear.
They’re everywhere.
Chapter 7: Dinner Rush
Allen rushed over and flipped through the TV stations. There were only two national channels now and three local stations. The last showed a panicked-looking reporter standing in the middle of downtown with the camera jerking from her face to the middle of a commotion down the road, then back again. It was hard to tell what was going on, but from the reporter’s disjointed words it sounded like the Peacekeepers were battling against an outbreak on the east side of town.
“What do we do?” Alice asked trying to sound calm.
Allen realized that the TV was just scaring her and flipped it off. He walked over and turned the volume down on the radio as well.
“Won’t we need that?” she gasped.
“No,” he said turning to face her. Her pretty features were pulled tight with stress. “Look, I need you to calm down. We use the scanner during slow times to give us advanced warning if anything is coming in. Well, we know that there is going to be an influx both risen and not. Have you worked with a Thrasher before?”
She shook her head back and forth like a child refusing vegetables.
“Well that is what the straps are for. They won’t be able to bite you face down.”
He realized saying the word “bite” wasn’t the smartest move at that point. He tried a different tack.
“Did you work while you went to school?”
She nodded.
“Okay, what did you do?”
“I waited tables.”
Just what he wanted to hear. “Okay, think about a particularly busy weekend night. How did you get through it?”
“Well, you just focus on one task at a time. Get the drinks for table four, take table two’s order, serve table ten, then before you know it the night is over and the place has cleared out,” she said already looking calmer.
“Okay, that’s just how this is going to work. Everybody out there has a job right now and ours is an important piece. The Peacekeepers will subdue the Risen, the doctors upstairs will help those they can, and the EMTs and running teams will bring all the dead to us. There are other emergency burning centers they’ll use if they have to but most of them will be brought here. We just take it one customer at a time, and soon enough it will be over. Just like the dinner rush.”
“So what first?” she asked taking a deep breath.
“You stay here and get as much ready as you can. I’m going to run downstairs and make sure our cold storage is cleared out. Then I’ll go up and see if they can call Wilson or one of the others back to assist. If they can’t, I’ll see if they can spare any extra hands.”
“Okay; hurry,” she said, turning to set up more tool trays.
He could tell she didn’t like the idea of him leaving her but he would be right back. He pushed through the swinging doors and headed to the elevator.
When they’d moved the morgue upstairs to give them more room, they had been smart enough to pick a spot right above the old morgue in the basement. No one even had to go through the locking doors securing the wing to get to it. This meant that during emergencies, the morgue would be completely secure from what was going on outside. At least that was how Allen preferred to see it. He supposed it might be so those outside the morgue could keep the dead locked in should something happen.
Either way, it was a quick trip to check the basement. He knew he really didn’t need to. He kept it immaculate using any downtime to make sure it was clean and secure, but double checking it was part of his process. They had added as many refrigerated storage units as possible. They could house hundreds of bodies if they needed to. The only other thing in the basement was the maintenance rooms housing the boiler and other utilities. With everything in order, he rushed back to the elevator to go to the ER.
He walked through the locked doors expecting to see a rush of doctors and nurses hustling between patients. Instead, he found most of them standing around a TV watching the news. Obviously, the influx hadn’t hit yet which either meant that the outbreak wasn’t that bad or it was so bad it was taking longer than usual for the Peacekeepers to control it.
Allen paused to watch the news report but only caught snippets. The reporter could provide few details. A group of The Risen had attacked the residential district early in the morning, but nobody knew where they had come from, and a state of emergency had been declared until the Peacekeepers could get it under control. He forced himself to break away from the screen.
He scanned the crowd and spotted Adams. He grabbed him by the arm and pulled him aside.
“Phil, who can you spare up here?”
“I don’t know. How many are coming?” he answered distractedly.
“I have no idea. It sounds like a lot though. We’ll need hands. Can you spare anybody?”
“I don’t know yet. We’ll have to see how slammed we get,” he answered finally looking at Allen. “The nurses are trying to call all the off-duty staff.”
“Great. See if they can get Wilson back and even those two trainees if they can. If they can’t though, you’re going to have to send somebody down. It’s just me and Alice down there.”
“Where’s Simmons?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he’s gotten into some kind of trouble. Either way, he’s not here and I wouldn’t count on him showing either.”
“Okay, let me know when you need them and I’ll see what I can do.”
“I’d rather have them now so I can give them some instruction before it hits.”
“If I send somebody with you now it’s going to be one of the orderlies.”
“Fine. As long as they are strong. We’ll just need somebody who can run bodies and hold down the Thrashers.”
Adams looked around for a moment then yelled, “Hernandez, over here.”
A slender Hispanic kid that couldn’t be older than twenty made his way over.
“Jesus, I said strong, Phil.”
“He’s as tough as I got. Don’t worry.”
“Fine, I’ll take what I can get.”
“Hernandez,” Adams said addressing the young man, “You’re going to be on cleanup duty with Dr. Weathers down in the morgue. You okay with that?”
After a brief pause, Hernandez nodded.
“Good. Allen this is Xavier. Xavier this is Dr. Allen Weathers.”
Allen held out his hand, which Xavier shook. His grip was firm, an encouraging sign.
“I know who you are,” he said suddenly.
“I’m sorry. Have we met?” Allen responded.
“Sort of,” the man sighed deeply. “My mother was one of the first people you performed your new burial preparation on. I came in with my brother to pick up the body and you asked us what we thought.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said.
Xavier fell silent again after that.
“Good then. We all know each other,” Adams interrupted. “Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got to pull my staff away from the television and get this ER ready.”
As if summoned, three
ambulances came screaming into the back parking lot.
“Okay people,” Phil shouted. “It’s show time.”
“Let’s go, Xavier. We’re on deck.”
Chapter 8: Swamped
As they hurried back to the morgue, Allen quizzed his new recruit.
“So you say we worked on your mother?”
“Yes, I can’t thank you enough. You don’t know how much it meant to my family to have her back to bury,” he gushed awkwardly.
“Well, you’re welcome,” Allen was touched by the heartfelt proclamation. “You are going to get a chance to pay that kindness back. So you are familiar with what we do.”
Xavier nodded. “You remove the brain and burn it. You put them to rest.” Allen noted the word “them.” Most people resisted the urge to say the word “zombie.” They’d all seen the movies, dressed up as them at Halloween parties but now that it was actually happening, the word felt vulgar. Most referred to them as The Risen or avoided giving them a label altogether.
“Correct,” he continued. “A simple enough process on a normal body. Not so simple on a thrashing body. That’s where you come in. When we have a live one, or a Thrasher as you’ve probably heard them called, you will be helping hold them down so Alice and I can get the brain out. Otherwise, you’ll just be moving the bodies into storage and cleaning up. Easy enough?”
Xavier looked a little overwhelmed but he nodded.
Allen scanned his badge at the entrance to the doors. “Do you have a badge?”
Xavier nodded.
“Try it on this door just to make sure it works.”
He scanned his badge, and the door clicked open.
“Good, let’s go meet Alice.”
They walked down the short hallway passing the elevator to the basement. “That elevator leads to the original morgue in the basement. It is our overflow storage and you’ll probably have to take some bodies down there before this is over. It is only accessible from here and by some stairs that lead to the fire escape, so it’s secure.”
Xavier nodded as they walked past.
Allen burst through the swinging doors and into the morgue. Alice was busy laying out tool stations. She had several set up already. Xavier’s eyes went wide as Alice turned around and Allen stifled a chuckle. She was an attractive girl. Not what you would expect for the type of work she was doing.
“Xavier, meet Alice. Alice this is Xavier Hernandez, an orderly the ER has kindly lent to us for the day. At least until Wilson and the others come back.”
“Nice to meet you, Xavier,” she smiled at him.
“Nice to meet you,” he mumbled, visibly blushing. If Alice noticed, she didn’t react.
A soft ping sounded overhead signaling the outer doors had been opened.
“Okay, now that the small talk is taken care of, we’ve got incoming,” Allen announced. He peeked out the double doors and walked back grabbing a pair of gloves. “Not a Thrasher, but we will have some coming. This will be a good chance to show Xavier how things work.”
He tossed a pair of gloves to Xavier. Alice already had hers on. The swinging doors burst open. A young orderly that Allen recognized but couldn’t name wheeled the body in.
“What’s the clock?” Allen and Alice asked simultaneously.
The orderly glanced at the wrist.
“Just over an hour,” he announced.
“Thank you, son,” Allen said. “This should be the first thing you say when you go through those doors unless they are Thrashers; then the point is moot.”
The young man nodded. “It’s Chase, sir. Will Chase.”
“Thank you, Will. Anything else we need to know?”
“I heard over the radio that they got some Thrashers coming.”
“Thank you, but we’ll worry about that when they get here.” The kid stood there frozen. “You can go now. They’ll need you up there,” Allen said dismissing him.
With a nod, Will turned and left. Allen grabbed the gurney and wheeled it over to the first station Alice had set up. Out of habit, Allen glanced at the display on the body’s wrist. It read 1:03, which translated to one hour and three minutes since last heartbeat. Most thought it was the time since death, but that wasn’t exactly true. The heart stopping didn’t signal death necessarily and the point of death itself was highly debated by the medical community. Still, time from last heartbeat gave them a good estimate of how long they had before the body would rise.
On a normal day, a 1:03 wouldn’t warrant any kind of rush, but knowing what was coming down the chute made Allen work fast. He’d already made the incision in the scalp and begun to peel it back before he realized he should probably be explaining this to Xavier.
“We begin with the incision. Basically, you make a big H down the back of the head so the scalp can be peeled back in two big flaps exposing the skull,” he instructed as he worked.
“Why do they do it on the back of the head? Wouldn’t it be easier to get at the brain through the top of the skull?”
“Yes, and that is the traditional way to do it but this works better for two reasons. First, it is easier to hide the cuts in the back of the head for the funeral services. With a still corpse, it is easy to make clean cuts that stitch up well and not show but with a moving one, it is better that the cuts be out of view.”
He began to peel the large rectangular sections of skin back. Alice helped clean as he did. Still trying to work quickly, he grabbed the electric bone saw.
“Now then we just cut a large circular hole in the back,” he said thumbing the device on.
“What was the second reason?” Xavier interrupted. He turned off the blade to answer.
“Safety,” Alice jumped in. “They are much more secure in their straps face down. They can hardly move at all actually, although they try. Plus, you are a lot less likely to be bitten with the face buried in the gurney.”
“Oh,” he said. “I guess I should have guessed that. Seems pretty obvious now that you say it,” he said looking slightly embarrassed.
“Don’t worry,” Allen reassured. “Believe me, there are many doctors out there who had to learn that lesson the hard way.”
“Have either of you been bitten?”
“No,” Alice answered. They both looked at Allen.
“Yes,” he answered touching his arm absently. “But not by a patient that was strapped down, so don’t worry too much.”
With that, he resumed his instruction. “The bone saw is designed so that the blade only goes deep enough to cut through the skull and not damage the brain. This is important because you don’t want the brain getting broken up before you get to it. For whatever reason, the entire brain must be burned. If you leave bits behind, the body will still rise and not rest until you’ve cleaned the remainder out. Nothing worse than having to scrape the inside of somebody’s skull out like a Halloween Jack O’ Lantern to get the last tiny pieces,” he spoke loudly over the buzzing, grinding sound of the saw. Xavier’s face looked a little disgusted, but he never turned his eyes. A good sign.
“Now,” he said, turning off the saw, “we simply pull off the piece we cut. There are some blood vessels that attach the brain to the skull. You can either cut those or if you are in a big hurry, they pull away pretty easily.” He opened the head revealing the tissue beneath. “Basically now you just sever the brain stem as close to the spinal column as possible and that is the only thing holding it in.” He made the cut. “Then with two hands and some finesse you pull it free. It’s slippery and not exactly solid so it’s best if you hurry and plop it into the firing chamber.” He closed the door and flipped the switch. The tissue inside sizzled and smoked as it started to burn.
“Any questions?” he asked, turning around.
“I’m going to have to do that?” Xavier asked, looking a little pale.
“Oh sorry, no. You’ll just hold the Thrashers down for us while we do it and help us move the bodies into storage. We’ll need to stay as clean and organized as possible i
n here because if we get swamped, it can get pretty chaotic. If you are not holding or moving a body, make sure as many stations are clear as possible. Understand?”
“Okay,” he said visibly relieved.
“Now, let’s hurry and put this poor guy back together.”
But even before he got the flap completely closed, the ping announcing the next customer sounded overhead. Alice peeked down the hall.
“We’ve got a live one,” she announced.
“Okay, don’t panic,” Allen said trying to hold the group together. The ping sounded two more times.
“Make that three. Three Thrashers coming,” Alice announced.
“Shit,” Allen cursed.
Chapter 9: One at a Time
“Shit, it’s just the three of you?” the EMT that pushed the first Thrasher through the door asked. He didn’t even seem fazed by the body that convulsed and bucked below him.
“For now, Sam,” Allen answered glad to see who it was. Sam had been an EMT in the city even before The Rising and Allen knew him to be extremely reliable and competent. The hospital had even offered to train him to be an ER doctor but he’d refused. He liked the field work. “What the hell is going on out there?”
“Nobody is saying exactly, but my guess is another mass suicide,” he pointed to the bandaged wrist of the Thrasher. “See, no monitors. I’m guessing some lunatic convinced them to cut out their units and drink the Kool-Aid.”
“How many?”
“Hundreds. At first they thought only a dozen or so but the beacons started popping up all over the residential district. Every Peacekeeper is there battling it out with them. You’re going to get a lot of headless bodies I’m guessing, and they may have to start burning them in the streets again.”
“Jesus,” Xavier gasped.
