by G. Benson
He turned, heart racing. There was blood on the hallway floor.
He would never be able to explain why, but he followed it.
Shouting was coming from another room. And then a scream. There was drumming in his ears. His heartbeat?
Bloody footprints led away from him. Against every instinct, he followed them.
He paused outside one room. Empty. A gift basket lay on its side on the table, contents scattered on the floor. A small tube of Pringles rolled next to his foot. The security guard was behind him. They went to the second room, feet moving without thought. Another patient lay on the bed. His hand wasn’t twitching, but his arm was on the floor. That was probably why.
Backing out, Raj’s entire body was trembling.
The scream down the hall had turned into a gurgling noise. They reached the third room, and Raj thought he might be about to lose control of his bladder.
A person with a shock of bright red hair was chewing on the patient’s throat. The victim’s hands were feebly pushing, but blood was flowing from his abdomen and his chest. Eyes turned on them, pleading, before there was no expression at all. His arms fell lifelessly either side of him.
The person…the thing…buried in his neck didn’t even look up.
A scream came from down the hall.
Raj couldn’t take his eyes off the one he was staring at. Did that mean there were more? How? How was that possible? Stepping backwards, he thought desperately. What were these things? The word zombie floated in his mind, and he pushed it away. His back hit the softness of the security guard, who stumbled back.
Footsteps, behind him. A patient?
“Oh, God, no!”
Raj span around at the sound and his eyes widened. A woman, as pale as the man eating in the room behind him, eyes behind her huge glasses bloodshot, had wrapped herself around the security guard’s body.
Raj could only stare.
His name tag said Adrian.
The woman clung, arms crossed over the security guard’s chest. Adrian’s fingers dug into her wrist to try and pry her off. He pushed, hard. He stepped backwards and she stumbled with him, falling against him.
“Help me, man!”
Finally, Raj stepped forward, hand stretched out. He had no idea what to do. He grabbed Adrian’s shoulder, tried to wrench him free. Raj pushed back against her shoulder, trying to lever the two apart, and her teeth swung towards his hand and before Raj knew what had happened, his hand jerked away from her mouth, his body recoiling. His foot slipped on something and he fell backwards, barely managing to catch himself by throwing his hand behind him. It landed in something wet. Warm. Whatever he’d slipped in.
That second was all it took for the woman to bury her teeth into Adrian’s shoulder. Then higher. Neck craned, she bit into the soft underside of his jaw and blood flew out.
Raj blinked. Aortic blood. Bright red. Spurting in time to Adrian’s panicked heartbeat.
The scream was gurgled. As Adrian fell to his knees, he pried his baton free and tried to hit blindly over his shoulder. Only one aimed true with a sickening crunch, but the woman didn’t even flinch as she chewed. Adrian’s whole body shook as he finally fell down, face first. Blood pooled around him and the woman was frenzied, on his body and not stopping.
The baton rolled to Raj’s feet. It was wet with blood.
He picked it up and stepped forward, raising it over his head. Every impulse screamed at him to stay as far away from the woman as he could. She was making a kind of moan, pleasurable. The slurping, chewing sound made Raj’s skin crawl.
Her ID bracelet was on display on her wrist.
Laura Downes.
His arm stilled.
She was a person.
Someone grabbed at his shirt and he turned, heart pounding and eyes darting everywhere. Natalie was staring at him, blood on her cheek. Behind her, an oxygen bottle had been knocked over, the cylinder rolling around and around like the Pringles tube had.
“We have to hide.”
His arm lowered.
Raj nodded.
“Where?”
Joy
1200
Joy sat bolt upright as if pulled violently from sleep.
Which is exactly what had happened.
The room around her was still empty. Quiet. Thank God for that. She flopped back against the couch. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep. Guilt twinged at her gut, but she ignored it, hands rubbing at her tired eyes. Nothing had happened; her pager would have woken her up if she was needed.
Unless?
She sat back up and checked her watch.
Twelve.
Her next surgery wasn’t until three.
Home was twenty minutes away.
If she took her pager, she could very well get away with sleeping in her own bed.
She had rounds. But Raj and the team would probably be on it? And there was another consultant in today, Briggs. She could cover it too.
Mood thoroughly improved, Joy stood and stretched. Tired steps carried her to the staff exit, tingles running up and down her back in anticipation.
She was going to sleep.
In her bed.
She could forget all about icy Taren the wonder nurse and her own idiocy weeks ago.
Right as her hand reached for the door handle for a side door that exited the building, her pager made a short bleep noise.
Joy’s hand hovered for a minute.
That wasn’t its normal noise. Normally it beeped an annoying tune that was guaranteed to wake her up.
Sighing, she pulled up short and fished for the device in her pocket. Once in hand, she stared drowsily at it.
Low battery.
Well, that would explain the lack of proper noise.
Code brown?
What the fuck is a code brown?
She had no memory of what that could mean. Joy really needed to listen more attentively during her annual professional development and safety skills sessions. Brown was a level she was sure didn’t involve her; it was for orderlies or Security or…someone not her.
Yes, that was it.
Blue for medical emergency—very important. She was good at those. Yellow was…something. Orange was fire. Typical. Green was a terrorist threat?
Brown—maybe it was a poo emergency.
Snickering to herself at her lame joke, she pulled the door handle.
Nothing happened.
She pulled again, rattling it. It wouldn’t open. Joy glanced up to see the green sign over the door. It was an emergency exit; it should never be locked.
The PA crackled and then came to life.
“All personnel and patients, this is a code brown. Please stay calm. The hospital is on lockdown. There will be no movement in or out. Don’t be alarmed. Staff, please follow protocol. Thank you.”
Protocol?
Joy looked wildly around the empty corridor then rattled the door again, hoping desperately it would open this time.
Nothing happened.
She could have cried as she leaned her forehead against the cool door.
Joy just wanted to go and sleep.
A siren sounded outside, but there was no window to see through in the door. It wasn’t the sound of an ambulance. Police car?
Standing up, her brain started to properly engage. Maybe there was something bigger going on than her desperate want to sleep.
Codes. Protocols. Hospital shutting down. Locked doors. Alarms.
Seriously. What the fuck was happening?
She stormed down the hall and stopped when she remembered she had a guide to the different codes attached to her swipe access card. She rummaged in her pockets again and pulled out the heavy bundle of cards and keys. She flipped through the different cards on the holder. Everything from swipe access to different areas and parking to drug calculation charts. Finally, the last one in the pile: a code category and protocols.
Her eyes s
canned the list that took up the first side of the card, the usual codes first. Code blue: medical emergency. Code red: fire. Oops, not orange. Code yellow: chemical spill. Code purple: bomb threat. Code black: personal physical threat. Code green: external emergency. Not terrorism, then.
Code brown: internal emergency.
Okay, good. The hospital had an internal emergency.
Joy flipped the card over for protocol help.
The card informed her that if she needed information for protocols, she should dial 77 for immediate help and then sign up for the next safety skills day.
She almost threw the cards down the empty corridor.
They had been as much help as tits on a bull.
Her mobile! She pulled it out of her pocket.
No signal. One of the forsaken reasons they still had to carry antiquated pagers in this day and age and why they had a PA system: mobiles were in and out of service in these buildings.
Wasn’t it extremely dangerous to barricade everyone inside a hospital? What if they had a fire? How had they even managed to barricade the hospital? All doors opened outwards from inside. Had they just…blocked them?
Were the alarms she had heard outside multiple police cars? Or fire trucks?
Maybe it was a fire? No. Wrong code.
Joy gnawed her lip and started walking back down the hall towards A&E. If anyone would have answers, it would be them.
Her head was starting to hurt. Something very strange was happening.
All the corridors were empty.
Approaching the entrance, Joy heard shouting. A thud. She rolled her eyes. A&E would be a mess with this shut down and the new flu freak out.
Her hand reached out to pull open the staff access door right as it swung open and missed hitting her in the face by a hair. Bodies slammed into her and Joy reflexively grabbed hold of them to steady them, and herself. A cacophony of sound hit her ears, but quickly shut off as the fire door swung shut heavily behind whoever had launched themselves through it. Heart hammering in shock, she gave a short laugh that died on her lips before it could even really make it into the world.
Peering over the shoulder of the people she was clinging to, as she started to step back, her mouth dropped open. “Xin?” Wide-eyed, lovely Xin who was still pretty green in this whole hospital life. “Why are you covered in blood?”
Which she was. In a way that Joy had never been in over fifteen years working in this hospital as a surgeon. And her patients could bleed. A lot.
Xin shook her head, shaking like a leaf, and one of the people pressed against Joy groaned. Whoever was clinging to her shirt stepped back, holding up the other in her arms.
Eye to eye with Taren, Joy’s mouth dried up.
Whereas Xin had blood on the front of her shirt and her arms—still more than was usual—Taren was literally covered in blood. Her face was streaked, like someone had finger painted on her, forehead covered with what were probably finger marks and right cheek covered in red. Even her glasses were covered in droplets. Joy looked to the person Taren was supporting, some man she vaguely recognised from Psych. He was a sickly white, and bleeding profusely from a wound on his neck. The hand not clinging to Taren was weakly holding gauze against the wound. Gauze that didn’t seem to be doing anything.
“Xin, help me.” Taren craned her neck around to look at her.
Xin stepped up and pulled the bleeding man’s arm around her neck, reaching up with one hand to try to hold the useless gauze to his skin.
“Taren—what the hell—”
“Ayton.” Taren’s voice was robotic. Together, she and Xin started walking forward, forcing Joy to step back. Her deep brown eyes burned into Joy’s, so much blood on her face. “We really need to run.”
Hearing muffled shouts coming from the door behind the trio, Joy decided not to argue.
She turned and led the way down the hall, blindly leading them away from something Joy didn’t know if she wanted to understand.
Surely this was a nightmare.
Why was the hallway empty of people?
The hospital should be humming with hectic energy. People dashing from A&E to the wards. Patients being pushed in wheelchairs and beds to the other blocks. Harried staff with places to go. Names being called over the intercom. Phones ringing.
Not eerie silence ahead and horrible sounds behind and absolutely no one about but two blood-covered nurses, a man who was about to bleed out, and Joy, who had no idea just what the hell was happening.
Joy glanced down at her scrub top. The material was even darker than usual where the doctor from Psych had bled on her. A moaning noise reached her ears, but Joy didn’t turn to check. She halted in front of an elevator and pressed the up button. They needed to get away from A&E.
Arms crossed over her chest, Joy stared at the doors, willing them to open.
The heavy breathing behind her mingled with the slow, rattling breaths from the hurt man.
“C’mon,” Taren muttered.
Joy hit the button again repeatedly, even though she was usually the person who rolled her eyes at those who did that.
The door opened and Joy took a fast step back in surprise, back hitting the people behind her.
“Oh, no.” Taren sounded exhausted.
Someone was at the back of the elevator, a heavily bandaged leg the only sign of what could cause him to be slumped like that. He wasn’t moving. Joy took a step forward.
“Sir, are you al—”
“Ayton, shut up.”
Taren’s hand gripped her bicep and Joy tried to rip it away indignantly, turning her head. “It’s a patient, Taren.”
“You don’t know!”
Joy scoffed, glaring into the dark eyes that were glaring right back. “I do, he’s clearly a patient and not well—”
“Oi!”
Xin’s voice cut through the argument and they both looked back to the elevator.
The man was slowly rising, his movements uncoordinated. His head lifted up, bright red hair falling into his eyes.
“What the fuck?”
Taren’s grip on Joy’s arm tightened.
The man was deathly white, with a tinge to his skin that bordered on green. His eyes were bloodshot, the skin around them dark and bruised. His mouth was covered in blood, crimson handprints patterning the white of his hospital gown.
Something dangled from his closed hand.
“Is that…”
Joy couldn’t finish the sentence as her stomach turned.
“That’s an intestine.” Xin’s voice was high pitched, shaking.
The man brought his fist up to his mouth, which opened wide as he pushed the sausage-like tube inside and chewed. Joy flashed back to watching her nephew when he was one year old and just learning to eat. The man stepped forward, eyes glued to Joy, mouth moving mechanically as he slowly ate the entire organ in his hand. A step brought him closer, his other hand rising up, fingers grasping at the air.
“Taren.” Joy couldn’t control the near hysteria in her voice. “What the fuck is going on?”
“Kick him!”
Another step and he was far too close. His bloodshot eyes had widened and his nostrils were flaring as he breathed in deeply, sniffing the air. His body shuddered, as if overexcited.
“What?” She couldn’t turn her head away, couldn’t tear her eyes from what was in front of her.
“Fucking kick him! Don’t you dare let him leave that elevator.”
“He’s a patient. H—he’s injured!”
Xin hissed, “Kick him for the love of God, Joy.”
The man stumbled as he stepped closer, his tongue licking the blood off his hand, half of the entire appendage in his mouth as he sucked it. About to be level with the door, his hand pulled out of his mouth with a wet pop as he reached it forward.
Joy brought her leg up and laid a crescent kick on him. Arms and legs flew up as the force of the kick sent him flying
into the back wall. He slid slowly down it, a strange growling noise coming from his throat.
Eyes glued to the man, Joy’s hands were shaking. He didn’t even appear to be in any pain. When she had laid a kick like that in a competition two months ago, her opponent hadn’t got up in a hurry. Yet here he was, wet hand scrabbling at the wall to try and heave himself back off the floor.
The doors slowly closed.
Someone tugged on her arm, and Joy finally blinked. She let herself be pulled towards the stairwell, and Taren’s hand pushed her square in the middle of the back to keep her walking through the door.
The stairwell door eased shut and their heavy breathing echoed around them. Joy span on the spot, staring from gaunt-looking Xin to deathly paler-than-ever bitten man, then to blood-smeared Taren, the blood bright against the dark hue of her skin.
“What the fuck?” She hadn’t meant to shout.
Both the conscious people flinched, and Xin looked wildly around the empty staircase.
Taren shook her head. “We don’t know anything, Ayton.”
“You know more than me.”
“We need somewhere to go, first. A safer room. Anything. We—we tried to leave A&E through the entrance doors. Everybody did. Then more people appeared, maybe from the wards upstairs. We were crammed against the entrance.”
Xin made a whimpering noise, and pulled the now clearly unconscious man closer, adjusting the weight.
“Leave from what?”
“From—from things like that man in the elevator.”
Joy crossed her arms. “What was wrong with that man in the elevator?”
Taren and Xin made eye contact before they both looked back to Joy.
Xin cleared her throat.
“The virus.”
Scott
1225
“Are they gone?”
The woman’s voice was desperate.
“I don’t know.”
Scott’s eyes scanned the room. About twenty people were crammed in the treatment room. Many were covered in blood, wounded in some way. The room stank of sweat and fear. One old man groaned.
“Sh!”
The desperate whisper could have come from anyone. The woman at the old man’s side looked helpless. “He’s in pain. That, that person bit him hard.”
