by Bryan Smith
I kneel next to the dead man and work at getting the lab coat off him first. This involves a lot of heaving, turning, and twisting of the corpse. It’s gross. The corpse makes some gross noises to emphasize the grossness, including a belch from beyond the grave so miserably awful the stench of it briefly overwhelms my own stink. The tie knotted around the man’s neck makes for an effective leveraging tool. I’m able to wrap my hand around it and pull the dead fuck into a sitting position after finally getting the lab coat’s tail pulled up over his ass. After that, the job of getting the coat free of his arms and pulled away from his torso suddenly gets a lot easier.
There’s a solid weight in one of the coat’s pockets. I let go of the doc’s tie, allowing the torso to flop back to the floor as I check out what’s in that pocket. My hand dips into it and my fingers close around something slim and metallic. It’s a shape I instantly recognize. If my soul had a shape, it would be this one. I’m smiling as I extract the flask from the pocket. The top is screwed on tight. I give it a little shake. The flask feels almost full. I screw off the cap and bring the opening to my nose for a sniff.
Smells like bourbon.
The good stuff. Really expensive.
I lower the flask, frowning as I stare at it. It’s been a good while since I’ve tasted alcohol of any kind. Drinking booze used to be my favorite thing in the world. No, wait. Fucking Crazy Sue was my favorite thing in the world, back when I was still allowed to do the things normal humans do. I sigh and shiver at the memory of how good that was. She was crazy as fuck, but she brought me to heights of ecstasy no one else could ever match, and she did it countless times. The word “amazing” gets overused, but Crazy Sue really was amazing.
Booze, though.
Booze definitely ranks a close second.
Despite my recent encounter with her ghost, Crazy Sue is gone. She’s dead. I’ll never have what I used to have with her again. If I somehow get out of here and manage to survive for a while, maybe there’ll be another woman to fuck someday. But she won’t be Crazy Sue. I won’t ever know that carnal level of amazing again.
But this bourbon.
It’s right here. I can smell it. If I want, I can put it to my mouth and taste it. I can do it right fucking now. There’s no good reason I shouldn’t. The world is ending. Who the fuck cares if my long-dormant alcoholism kicks back into high gear the moment I have my first delicious taste of this divine nectar? And yet I hesitate. If I really want to survive beyond this day, getting drunk probably isn’t the best idea.
I give the flask another shake.
I laugh softly.
Shit, motherfucker. I used to drink several times this amount every night. Okay, yeah, I’m a diminished fucking version of what I once was, but I can still handle this. I think. If I’m wrong, so what? Probably gonna die soon, anyway.
I bring the flask to my mouth and take that first taste. It’s a sip. I groan in pleasure at the sweet, sweet fucking burn of it on my tongue. Just as I suspected, it’s the good stuff. Not just from the top shelf, but from the secret back room at the liquor store where they keep the shit that goes for several hundred dollars a bottle. This dead doc was a rich motherfucker. I feel like I can clearly taste every precious penny of it as the first nip sits there on my tongue. Raising the flask, I silently salute the dead bourgeois bastard whose expensive taste in booze made this beautiful fucking moment possible. It’s kind of too bad the guy is no longer among the living. I’d like to quiz him about the brand and maybe go on a liquor store raid once I’ve successfully made my way out of this place.
Then I bring the flask back to my mouth and take another taste of liquid gold. And another. Before I know it, I’ve downed half of its glorious fucking contents. I sit there for a while and allow the effect to slowly kick in as the liquor begins to circulate through my bloodstream. It doesn’t take long to realize my tolerance level is nowhere near what it was in my glory days. I start feeling pretty drunk within about twenty minutes. At that point, I close the flask and set the rest of it aside for later.
Time to get back to the business of shedding the dead doc of his clothes. The rest of it goes much faster and isn’t so much of a horrendous struggle. I feel strangely invigorated, as if the bourbon is a magical elixir that has restored a necessary balance within me. It’s like I’m Drunk Popeye and booze is my fucking spinach. In the midst of this feeling, I resolve to never again have a sober minute should I actually manage to make good my escape.
Once I’ve managed to remove the dead man’s pants from his body, I see they aren’t quite in pristine condition. The man voided his bowels at the moment of death. Fortunately, most of the mess was absorbed by his underwear. The stain at the seat of his pants is nothing compared to my horrendous, shit-encrusted jumpsuit. Still, might as well take the time to clean the pants while I can. This part of the hospital appears to be a zombie-free zone. Failing to take full advantage of that would be colossally stupid on a level even beyond the many other acts of colossal stupidity I’ve been guilty of during my time on this stupid fucking planet. It means I can take as long as necessary to ensure I’m as prepared as possible before venturing back into more dangerous territory.
I search the exam room and find a plastic bottle of rubbing alcohol in a cabinet. Some clean white cloths turn up in a drawer. Using these, I manage to almost entirely scrub away the shit stain from the newly liberated pants. The pants I hang over the top of the exam table to dry. I inspect the rest of the dead man’s clothes and judge them clean enough. I fold these items and set them aside.
And then the moment of truth is at hand. Well, not the whole truth. Like, on a universal, philosophical level. Instead, this is the latest in the endless succession of more mundane fucking truths we’re all forced to face on a soul-deadening daily fucking basis until the day we die. It is time to remove the jumpsuit and see exactly how filthy and disgusting I really am beneath it.
So, I remove the thing. And it isn’t easy. The part of it around my nether regions has to be carefully peeled away. Hairs come away from my body. A lot of hairs. Pubic hairs, many of them. I’m sorry, but there is no delicate or un-gross way of putting that. I feel sick. I struggle not to throw up, this despite the fact that my beleaguered fucking stomach must be absolutely devoid of anything of substance to expel at this point. That doesn’t stop my guts from knotting. It doesn’t keep the bile out of my throat. But this has to be done, so I grit my teeth and choke back the bile as I finish freeing myself of the horribly defiled garment. It so sickens me I can’t be in the same room with it even another moment longer.
But where to put the disgusting goddamn thing?
After thinking about it a moment, I take the jumpsuit out of the exam room and glance up and down the hallway. Multiple other doors are standing open to either side of it. I go to the closest one. Another exam room, only there are no dead people in this one. I toss the soiled jumpsuit in there and rejoin the dead guys in the other room. I test the water tap at the sink. A stream of cold, clean water hits the bottom of the sink. This doesn’t surprise me. The power was still on, after all. It makes sense the water is still there, too. I nonetheless heave a huge sigh of relief at the sight of it. I grab the rest of those clean white cloths and get to work scrubbing away the shit and urine from my groin, legs, and the crack of my ass. One by one, those clean cloths turn a sickening shade of deep, dark brown. I taste bile again multiple more times. But I force it down each time and stay focused on the disgusting but necessary task of cleaning myself. The cloths on hand are not nearly enough to finish the job. Big fucking surprise, right? I raid a couple of the other exam rooms for more. By the time I finally judge myself clean enough, more than forty-five minutes have passed. I know this thanks to the clock on the wall. Judging from the position of minute and hour hands, it’s mid-afternoon. I have no idea what time of year it is. Depending on the season, I could have anywhere from two to four hours of daylight remaining.
This presents a dilemma.
; I could try to head out now, or I could hole up in one of these rooms and wait for morning. On a cold, logical level, there’s a lot to be said for waiting. This is a safe place. Or so it appears. I can make a full circuit of this section of the hospital to confirm it really is sealed off from the undead, but I think it’s safe. If I stay here through the night, it’s not likely anything can get in and hurt me. Then in the morning I could head out with a whole day of daylight ahead of me. This would almost undoubtedly be smarter than trying to navigate a post-apocalyptic fucking landscape at night.
The flipside to this is gut, animal instinct. That primal place inside where logic doesn’t fucking exist. It’s this part of me that recoils from the notion of voluntarily staying in this hellhole even one second longer than absolutely goddamn necessary. It isn’t long before I understand that cold logic will hold no sway whatsoever over this powerful impulse. The idea of staying makes me want to crawl out of my fucking skin. I can’t imagine cowering in here and trying to sleep through the night while knowing how close at hand freedom is. In that moment, it doesn’t even matter how unlikely I am to find safe refuge before nightfall. More than anything else, I want to be gone from this place forever.
So, fuck it.
I’m heading out.
PART VII
COMPLICATIONS
I PUT ON THE DEAD man’s clothes and find the fit even worse than expected. I’m like a stick-man with a tent draped over his body. Or a small child trying on his father’s clothes. Still, it’s a monumental improvement over the alternative of continuing to marinate in my own waste. I feel almost human again. And at least I’ve got the belt to keep the pants from sliding down my narrow, bony hips. I’ll worry about finding better-fitting clothes after I’m out of here, assuming my attempt at escape is successful.
Which it better fucking well be, because I’m out of other options.
Before I go, I take the flask and the dead doc’s gun with me. Both go in the billowing pockets of the liberated jeans. My initial instinct is to tuck the gun in the waistband at the small of my back. You know, like people are always doing in movies, but when the gun slides into the seat of the pants I’ve commandeered, I rethink the idea. Tightening the belt even further to prevent this would require creating new notches in the leather and I have no interest in taking the time to do this. Another couple items are already in those pockets, the dead man’s wallet and the keys to his car. The wallet contains a few hundred dollars in cash. That would have been a lot of money to me in the good old days, almost like a fucking fortune. Now, though? It’s probably worthless. It’s the end of the world out there, which means there’s almost certainly nothing like a functioning economy anymore. Still, it can’t hurt to take the money with me. Just in case. Same goes for the car keys. I’ll need transportation if I want to put some serious distance between myself and this shithole. The electronic fob is embossed with a BMW logo. Finding the doc’s car won’t be easy, but at least that helps narrow things down.
When I’m sure I’m as prepared as I can be, I head back the way I came a little while ago. I return to the empty breakroom and crack open the door to the stairwell. As best I can tell, it’s still empty, at least on this level. Time to go. I let out a breath and slip out into the stairwell. As I start to ease the door shut, my hand freezes around the doorknob. The hesitation is another thing that occurs at the primal level. There’s no immediately obvious reason for it. My brow furrows as wheels start to spin in my head. Then my eyes widen as the conscious part of my brain catches up to the subconscious impulse that led to this moment.
I think about the idea taking shape in my head. It makes sense. I never did a full circuit of the section of the hospital I was on the verge of permanently vacating. So, the thing I’m envisioning is definitely possible. Hell, maybe even likely. There’s a keypad on the wall next to the door. The potted plant holding the door open had been kicked aside. By me, obviously. If I’d allowed the door to close, I never would have been able to get back in there. Which would be a shame, if what I’m thinking is right. Part of me is freaking out inside at this hesitation. It’s the paranoid part focused on the dwindling daylight. I shouldn’t be wasting time exploring every random goddamn notion that occurs to me. And there’s some pretty serious validity to this side of it, without a fucking doubt. Still, now that the idea is in my head, I can’t let it go without visual confirmation one way or the other.
Goddammit.
I pull the door open again and slip back inside, pulling the door all the way shut again. A zombie getting into this section seems unlikely at this point, and the door would shut of its own accord within a few seconds, anyway, but it doesn’t hurt anything to take the precaution. As soon as I’m sure the door can’t be opened again from the outside, I turn away from it and hurry back through the breakroom and down the hallway beyond at the fastest rate I can manage, which, let me fucking tell you, isn’t nearly as fast as I’d like. Beyond the far end of the corridor is a slightly larger area. When I get there, I sigh in relief as I immediately see what I was expecting to find.
Two sets of elevator doors.
A panel of up and down buttons on the wall between them.
I press the fucking down button.
Obviously.
This is what came to me in the last second out there in the stairwell. In a section of the facility frequented by high-level staff, there would have to be a goddamn elevator. A bunch of pampered doctors aren’t gonna stand for a situation in which they’re constantly having to go up and down a bunch of goddamn stairs. In the normal course of things, I’d have a sneering, self-righteous attitude about that shit, but right about now I’m thankful as hell for the entrenched, institutional laziness that made this moment possible. You see, a faint part of me knows the impression of reinvigoration is nothing but booze-induced delusion. The stark reality is I’m still a debilitated shell of my former fucking self. Maybe that stairwell was empty all the way to the ground floor, but I can’t know that, not without descending the stairs to find out. It’s possible there are zombies on the lower landings, and the prospect of fighting my way through them in my condition isn’t all that goddamn enticing, to say the fucking least.
So, given the option, I’ll take the elevator instead. I mean, yeah, I’ll have to tangle with zombies again soon enough, but at least this will increase my chances of safely getting out of the building first. This is what I’m thinking as an arrival chime sounds and a light above the door on the left flashes a bright yellow. I’m already stepping toward the elevator as the door begins to slide open.
But then I stop in my tracks.
“Oh, shit,” I say, reaching into my pocket for the gun.
The elevator is full of dead fuckers. My heart is hammering like a motherfucker as the sight of the gun snags on the inner lining of the pocket. There’s a sharp pain at the center of my chest that might be worrisome under other circumstances. That is, circumstances in which I am not in imminent danger of being eaten alive by a pack of starving, flesh-hungry ghouls. The elevator is packed with them. It’s wall-to-wall reanimated dead. My estimate is ten or more based on a quick visual scan. The local fire marshal would not be happy with this level of overcrowding. I’m not too crazy about it, either.
Ironically, the sheer number of them is part of what saves me. They’re all wedged in there too tightly to maneuver around effectively. Most of them aren’t even aware of me at first. A lot of them are tangled up with each other or facing the wall instead of looking out at my wide-eyed, terrified mug. And even by dead fucker standards, this gaggle of dead things is pretty fucking listless. An awful stench wafts out of the elevator. They’ve been in there a while, maybe since the start of this outbreak. One set of milky dead eyes at last turns in my direction and appears to semi-focus on me. A shaky hand reaches in my direction, grasping at the air. I keep desperately tugging at the gun, but the sight remains snagged on the fabric. Fortunately, it’s just that one dead thing that seems aware of me as I continue
fighting with the gun. He’s trying to writhe free of the tangle of undead bodies, but it’s proving difficult work. By then I’m thinking the time factor will wind up being my salvation here. Elevator doors don’t stay open long, unless someone in there is keeping their finger on the “door open” button, and that doesn’t seem likely. A few more seconds should be all it takes.
And, of course, as soon I have this thought, that’s when the struggling zombie abruptly slips free of the rest of the tangled horde and comes staggering toward the open door. It’s almost out of the elevator. I panic and take a reflexive step backward, still tugging at the gun, which at last comes loose with a sound of ripping fabric. The elevator doors at last begin to close. The doors briefly pin the zombie between them, then retract as the sensors detect its presence. But the zombie still isn’t all the way out of the fucking elevator. It stands there on the threshold, its head wobbling about on its shoulder, body swaying back and forth. This goes on for several more seconds, and I stand there, hoping the goddamn thing will tumble backward, rejoining its undead kin. Instead, the elevator doors begin to come together again. The zombie is pinned a second time, but this time when the doors retract, the creature tumbles forward, most of its body landing on the floor outside the elevator.
But its feet are still in there.
And now some of the other zombies are stirring, belatedly becoming aware of my presence. More sets of dead, milky eyes are turning in my direction.
“Fuck this shit,” is what I say at this point.
Because, really, fuck the holy hell out of this shit.
Right?
I rush forward and snag a handful of the zombie’s shirt collar. I grunt and tremble in exertion, sweat forming on my brow as I pull the goddamn thing clear of the elevator. The zombie tries clutching at me with a shaking hand. Fortunately, it seems as weak as me, having been deprived of warm human flesh for who knows how the fuck long. Brushing the hand aside, I step back, aim the gun at the crown of its skull, and squeeze the trigger. The volume of the gun’s report makes me flinch and the recoil makes me stagger backward several steps. It’s a miracle that I manage to hold on to it at all. There’s now a mess of zombie brains and blood on the floor, but the creature is no longer moving. That’s one threat neutralized.
