by G. Benson
“One.”
The word was whispered, and Scott pushed the door open as silently as he could.
Joy nearly turned around and went back to the stairwell, the one place nothing bad had yet happened.
If the Vascular Ward was a horror show, this went beyond words. People had been stuck in their beds, too unwell to move. They lay there now, lifeless. So much blood, everywhere. Why were they unmoving? Why were they not all zombies, too? How did this whole thing work?
Some had stayed dead on the wards, too. Others not. None of this made sense.
Beeping from various observation machines sounded out from all around the room, yet still it was so strangely quiet.
There were bloody handprints on walls, a man draped over the central working station. Curtains half hung off their rails around beds. A basket of muffins now lay on the ground, muffins scattered over the floor.
Taren’s hand squeezed hers so tightly an ache set up in Joy’s wrist.
“Christ,” Natalie breathed out.
As a group, they slipped inside, keeping Raj and Xin behind them, standing and taking it in as Scott let the door shut behind them as quietly as he could. Joy wouldn’t let go of Taren’s hand.
Moving.
Fast. Silent.
That had been their plan.
But none of them were moving, just staring in mute horror.
Finally, Scott took the first step forward. One by one, they followed suit. A small, huddled group, making their way through the disconcertingly still, vastly open A&E. This space was normally bustling with people, movement, calls for help, codes being yelled out, instructions being given in clipped, cool tones. Nurses admitting patients, performing CPR, calming parents, making kids laugh. Doctors dashing in and out. Surgeons rushing in for consults. To the right, Joy saw Alan, a cardio surgeon she’d worked with since her own residency started fifteen years ago. He was sprawled on his back, vacant eyes on the ceiling. He’d been eviscerated. Her stomach rolled over.
He was a nice guy. Polite.
His eyes had been sad.
Joy tore her eyes away from him lying there, organs on display. It was crude. Shocking, to see something like that on the floor of a room. Organs should only be on display in the OR. Sterile. Fluorescent lights. A qualified team patching the person back together.
Not like this.
The beeps sounding out around them from various angry machines seemed to fall in time with their steps. Pulse oximeters fallen off, cardiac machines attached to someone with no heartbeat, IV pumps. So many machines, no life.
Joy brushed past a bed, headphones attached to a phone on a pillow, tinny music still playing out of it. Not needed anymore, since the body on the bed didn’t have a head. She looked away and focused ahead.
They were nearing the station of desks in the middle of the room, stepping over bodies, over muffins, one of which was lying in a pool of blood, turned red where it had soaked up some of it. To their right lay the doors to the waiting room. To their left, entrances to some equipment and procedure rooms. And all around them beds.
Beep beep.
The sounds of their breathing, too loud. An edge of panic in some. Taren clutched her hand too tightly. Xin’s breathing was ragged behind them. The poor woman needed time to recover. To lie down. Possibly a blood transfusion. A transfusion of fluids at least. Not a terrifying trip through this devastatingly quiet room surrounded by carnage and silence.
Movement.
Her eyes snapped back to Alan.
His face was tilted, dead eyes staring at them.
He had been facing up, hadn’t he?
And then his gaze flew to hers, and Alan stared right through her. His fingers, at the end of his splayed-out hand, twitched. Once. Twice.
Joy wanted to scream, but the hole of horror opening in her chest swallowed it.
“We need to run,” she rasped.
Everyone stopped, turned, and followed her line of sight.
It was wrong, to see this in the bright lights of A&E. Scenes like these unfolding now should only happen in dark hallways. Maybe a flickering, broken light. Not this well-lit scene of devastation.
But this scene did unfold in front of them.
They all saw him flop over onto his stomach. Push up, one arm that looked dislocated not very effective. However, when pain would normally stop the movement, that didn’t register with Alan.
Not-Alan.
Not-Alan started to stand as Scott hissed, “We move!”
Raj pushed into her, giving a sobbing pant that came from deep in his chest, the sound filled with fear and horror. Ahead of them, missed as they’d stared too long at Not-Alan, a woman stood, head cocking in a way that could be called curious. Scott tried to turn right, to go the other way around the station, as the woman started walking towards them.
Why were these things so damn fast?
A desperate glance behind showed Not-Alan was on his feet, a grin curling across his bloody lips and chin. Eyes a weird blue.
To their right, someone twitched on a bed. More movement to the left.
“Shit,” Natalie muttered.
Taren didn’t let go of Joy’s hand as they all raised their weapons.
They kept heading towards the other side of the room as bodies seemed to reanimate everywhere. Some of the bodies were moving, standing, groaning, gasping as they found their feet, pushing up from what they were draped over in pools of their own blood. Others lay still, motionless. Why didn’t they turn? Why weren’t they all one of the undead? Why were some so slow to change?
There was no time to think, to try to figure it out. Because that door was still so far away and one, two, three, four, five—six? At least five Not-Alans were coming towards them from all angles. Taren’s hand slipped from hers as they both grabbed their poles with both hands.
All of them stopped in the centre of this huge room. Glancing at each other, one by one, back and forth, they set their jaws, straightened their backs. Their hands clenched around their makeshift weapons, an understanding passing between them.
“There’s a lot of them,” Joy said.
“This is about to get bloody,” Natalie quipped.
“Sure is,” Raj murmured.
They didn’t need to make a plan; it happened naturally. Surrounding Xin in her wheelchair, forming a circle around her so she’d be safe: that happened without words needed.
There were seven, now, or more. But Joy focused on the ones she and Taren faced. The others in their group would have her back.
“Aim to get them on the ground, get us time to run,” Taren said.
Not-Alan stepped in too close, and Joy’s stomach twisted at the sight of him, not looking like Alan at all anymore.
He’d teared up when he’d mentioned his wife leaving. Right there, in the middle of the ward. Joy had shifted, uncomfortable at such a display. Had patted his arm, so awkward.
She wished now that she’d hugged him. There were bite marks on his arms, his neck. Even his cheek was bitten, a chunk gone and gaping.
He lunged at her.
Her stomach twisted again at the memory of the thing that had bitten Xin and what Joy had done to it for hurting her.
“Sorry, Alan.”
And she swung at his head as hard as she could.
Taren
What even is time?!
Letting go of Joy’s hand hurt. It slipped across Taren’s palm, her fingers grazing over the skin like sandpaper, a feeling of tearing.
She was left to this scene in front of her.
Joy struck out first, a hard hit, honed. Anguish twisted Joy’s face as the man she hit staggered backwards with a grunt, and Taren stepped in as Joy was trying to swing back around and lashed out with her own pole. Joy was left-handed, swinging from the left, and Taren from the right. They made a good team, and in Taren’s eyes, it probably appeared quite synchronised.
As Taren made contact, one of t
he spokes went straight through the guy’s eye. If she weren’t so pumped on adrenaline, she’d probably throw up. Where before he’d staggered back, now he dropped immediately, slumping to the floor.
Only it happened so fast that Taren, with her death grip on the pole, went with him, the pole stuck in his head. She was yanked to her knees in the same second another man in a hospital gown appeared to her right. She could hear the entire group swinging. The thuds of things hitting bodies. The strange growling, gasping sound the zombies made. The shouts of her friends as they swung out.
She tugged, desperation starting to crawl up her spine, making her gestures sharp and angry. The pole didn’t come loose. She tugged again and again, the head it was attached to hitting the floor repeatedly, and her stomach turned. Why wasn’t it coming loose? Gown Man was too close, a few steps away. The cold floor bit into her knees and she tried to push up, to pull the pole with her.
She was going to die, right here. Gown Man was going to fall on her and her only bloody weapon was stuck in some other guy’s skull.
All she could think was let Xin be safe, in the middle of their little circle. Let Joy escape. Let them all get out, even if Taren were to die right now.
“Get the fuck—” and a pole swung over Taren’s head, smacking hard into Gown Man’s head “—away from her.”
Gown Man’s head cracked to the side, the hit was so hard. He fell back several steps. Joy stood over Taren, panting, arms holding the pole like a baseball batter ready to go. He stepped forward again and Joy snapped the pole out, cracking it over his head, and this time he fell with a spray of blood. Crimson flew over Joy’s chest, which was heaving, and Taren was almost disappointed in herself for the fact that that was what she noticed when she was on her knees surrounded by zombies and had nearly died. But Joy had saved her life and, as noted, Taren had nearly died, so if she wanted to notice a heaving chest, she could.
Joy dropped her arm down, letting the pole hang to her left side, grabbed the pole Taren was still holding on to, planted her foot on the chest of the surgeon guy, and tugged. The pole came free, and Taren gaped up at her.
Joy held the pole out. After a beat, Taren grabbed it and was yanked to her feet. For the briefest of moments, they were pressed together, breathing hard. Joy was still panting, they were so close, and Taren didn’t think she had ever felt so alive. She hadn’t had Joy in her space like this since she’d left her house.
“For the love of God, not here! Let’s go!” And Natalie was poking at Taren with the end of the bloody axe.
Raj straightened, baton held up ready to swing, gaze darting everywhere. Swinging hard, Ro managed to swipe their pole along the ground, causing the last zombie standing near them to crash to the floor.
So they went, Taren grabbing her pole. They were all stumbling over the bodies on the floor the others had knocked down, some still moving, pushing to their feet. Taren grabbed the push handles of Xin’s wheelchair, the others in front.
“Come on!” Scott yelled, reaching the door.
They were going to make it to the stairwell that took them out of here, she could feel it. It was right there.
Joy was a step ahead of them, Natalie and Scott leading. Taren skidded to a stop, jostling Xin.
“Sorry, Xin. But time to get you up. We’re about to hit the stairs Scott told us about, and they’re too narrow for us to get you down there in the chair.”
Taren leaned, and not as gently as she’d have liked, heaved Xin’s arm over her shoulder, sliding an arm around her waist and pulling her up as quickly as she could. Xin groaned, loudly, but her feet held her up, weakly, and they started walking towards the others.
“No!”
The desperation in the call made all of them crane their necks in time to see Raj faceplant, hard, his head cracking on the floor as he had no chance of stopping himself going down. Bloody baton in one hand, bag of medicines slung over his shoulder. There was a spray of blood when his face hit the ground.
A hand was wrapped around his ankle. One of the zombies they hadn’t taken out properly was sprawled on the floor, face lit up in a mockery of life as it tried to pull Raj along the ground and closer.
If Taren moved, Xin would drop like a stone. She could feel it in the way Xin was gripping her, the heavy weight of her at Taren’s side.
“Raj!”
It could have been any of them that yelled his name.
Raj kicked out, free foot connecting with the woman clinging to his other leg. But he may as well have hit stone with how little she responded. Her hand gripped higher up his calf, the other one around his ankle, and he slid closer to her, fingers scrabbling on the floor, trying to push himself up and unable to get a grip as he slid in his own blood, leg desperately kicking.
From nowhere, Natalie was pushing past Taren, axe held up. She brought it down onehanded on the woman’s arms clinging to Raj’s leg. Again. And Raj was free, that arm on the ground, the woman still moving, grasping for him with that other hand. Able to break free, Raj slithered away. Ro ran in, hands gripping Raj’s forearms and pulling him up as Natalie hit down one more time.
“The fucker broke my nose!” Raj spat out, the sound garbled from the blood that wouldn’t stop flowing.
Behind them, Natalie was still hacking. The zombie had stopped moving. Joy grabbed her shirt, tugged her away, and Natalie still managed to get one weaker hit in as she was dragged off.
More were moving, standing from the floor.
Taren turned to the door, Scott opening it, in time to hear Joy say something to Raj. “Better a broken nose than a bitten foot.”
Xin turned in Taren’s arms, even as they were stumbling through the open door. “Want to trade?” she asked Raj weakly.
Raj shook his head, blood flying with how adamantly he did so, and then they were in the stairwell. Scott half-pushed them in as one of the zombies they hadn’t taken out was tripping over the one on the floor. Taren caught sight of it as she half-dragged Xin down the stairs to make room for the others. Then the sight through the doorway was out of her view and her heart was pounding. The door slammed shut, the light suddenly much more muted, and they were all on the staircase, sucking in air and blinking at one another.
“Well,” Natalie said. “Wasn’t that exhilarating, lads?”
Natalie
Shamrock says 2025
The sounds of scrabbling at the door weren’t stopping, and Natalie was just going to ignore it. The door was closed. Not their problem now.
She never wanted to think about that fight again. The swing of the axe. The sickening thwack of it against their heads. The terror of only having one good arm, the worry they couldn’t protect Xin. Having to use her foot to hold a body down at one point and lever out the axe. The sound of Raj smacking into the floor.
The way she’d kept swinging and swinging when she was terrified Raj wasn’t going to get free.
“Raj, I think your nose is broken,” she offered him.
He was a step up from her, bodies pressed close, and she craned her neck up to look at him. He squinted down, his shirt bunched up and neck bent to try and hold the material to his nose. His shirt was shiny with blood. He let it fall away, and she winced at the dark shadows already forming under his eyes, the slight crookedness to his nose, the blood all over his lips.
“You think?” he asked drily.
Down the steps somewhere, Ayton sucked in a breath at the sight of it. “It hurt?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “Weirdly it doesn’t. I think I’m too high on adrenaline.”
Xin tried to salute with her arm, but it was still over Taren’s shoulder, so it looked like she was saluting for Taren. “I hear that.”
God, how were they all still alive?
They shouldn’t be alive.
For a while there, she’d thought Raj wouldn’t be.
Bloody zombies.
There were probably no zombies in Ireland. Sure, Ireland had i
ts fair share of interesting things: stories of fairies—which was an idea they all made fun of until someone told you they were messing with a fairy ring or building something on top of one. What? Did they want bad luck for the rest of time?
But there wouldn’t be any zombies there.
She missed Ireland. She missed her family—only yesterday she’d said that didn’t mean she wanted to go back, though. But now? With zombies banging at the door behind them and poor Xin leaning into Taren looking like she was about to pass out, and so many dead people, she missed Ireland because even the humans here turned into killers, not just the wildlife.
It was probably predictable, really.
She wanted to go home. Let her mam take care of her with her bummed shoulder and lean against her dad as they watched TV in the evening. Go out with her sisters. Fight with them over something stupid, then start laughing the next minute, that fight forgotten. Hang out with her friends from school, all married now. They’d have coffee and cake or something rather than beer in a back field like they had done back in the day.
At least she didn’t have to dodge their questions about who she had the hots for at the moment.
But she’d dodge those questions happily if it meant she wasn’t in the outbreak of this zombie horde with a group of people about to be blown up.
Speaking of.
They were all staring at Raj, who shifted at the intense attention.
“We need to keep going, don’t we, Scott?” Maybe Natalie made that comment to make them stop staring at Raj. He threw her a grateful look.
Scott nodded. Thank God for Scott. They’d all be none the wiser. Thank God for Scott and his giant crush on Xin, the poor excuse for gossip she’d been going to offer Raj that morning in exchange for his gossip—all that seemed like a century ago.
“You doing okay?” Natalie directed at Xin.
The woman was wan, sweating. But she didn’t seem feverish, or like she was about to eat their brains. But what did someone about to start doing that look like, anyway? The patients on her ward hadn’t shown huge outward signs. They’d had a fever, from memory. One was cranky, yelling at them a lot. They’d simply assumed he was one of those patients. Besides, he hadn’t been Natalie’s patient, so she’d kind of just…skirted around him.
