“But—” David started.
It was all he got out before the screaming started.
Nicole had read a lot of books and watched a lot of movies that used the term “blood-curdling scream,” and she thought she knew what it meant. Now she knew she had no idea what it meant until that scream coming from inside the medical-centre reached her ears.
It was blood-curdling.
The three kids stood perfectly still, frozen in the moment.
The second scream, quickly followed by a loud crash, brought them out of it.
“What was—” David started to ask, no longer caring to whisper.
Nicole slapped her hand over her brother’s mouth. “Shhh!” she hissed, then, after some consideration, slowly whispered “I’m going to look.”
David, still frozen, only nodded.
On the other side of the door, she saw a short hallway with double doors facing her at the end. A group of people, some standing with confused looks, others running around, blocked most of her view, but clearly the room behind the double doors was their focus. Another smash echoed from inside the room, followed by a series of screams. Some were quick and short, others more drawn out and gurgling, almost like someone was drowning. An orderly moved quickly toward the scream, away from the door. He must have been the guard on this side, Nicole thought. She turned the handle and started to pull.
Suddenly, a hand grabbed her and spun her around. “You can’t go in there!” David squeaked.
“Yes,” Nicole said, shrugging his hand away, “I can. I need to know what is going on. You stay here with Ryan.” She said the last sentence very slowly and loudly, as if she were speaking to a dog.
David glared at her.
She shoved his head down and did the same with Ryan, though he showed no interest in seeing, and was also much too short to even try.
When she looked back through, she saw a group of people—two doctors, the guard/orderly, and a soldier—about twenty feet away, talking, clearly upset and confused. They had their backs to her, looking cautiously at a set of doors opposite to the one she was looking through.
A loud crash made everyone jump.
Suddenly the double doors flung open and four panicked people ran through. Two were covered in blood. She couldn’t tell whose it was; it looked like it was just splashed on them, like a bad Halloween costume. Another had a nasty cut on his hand, and the fourth, a doctor, looked uninjured though he screamed, clearly horrified. They ran to the group gathered in the hall; two of them fell and the doctors tended to them, while the orderly and soldier stood to the side.
Now that the double doors were open, Nicole had a clear though narrow view of what was happening in the room where all the screams had come from.
More sounds of chaos followed. A few beds were visible from the door, but from the way they were positioned, Nicole guessed that there were more. A make-shift med-bay, she thought. An over-crowded one.
On the bed nearest the door lay a sheet, covered in blood, right where a person’s chest would be; like something had clawed its way out. Or in. From the bed next to that, a hand, covered in dripping blood, hung limp just inches from the floor. Nicole thought she saw it twitch.
Two people, also covered in blood—what the hell is happening in there?—cowered past the door. The soldier tried to grab them, to pull them out, but they seemed oblivious and kept going. The orderly ran in after them. After a moment of near silence, the soldier ran to his right and out of sight.
Then three more figures staggered into view—the attackers, she guessed. The blood covering them was not the same bright red. This was dark, almost black, and thick. It soaked their clothes, their hands, their faces. One of them was mostly naked—a hospital gown trailing off one arm—giving a view of a very large stomach wound with something sticking out.
Hoses? Nicole squinted. No ... those are intestines. She swallowed, unable to take her eyes off what she was seeing.
More screaming and crashing followed as they passed.
Two new attackers came into view. They halted at the open doorway; thick blood dripping from their hands and mouths. One of them turned and faced the door opposite. Faced Nicole. Through the blood that almost masked its face entirely, Nicole recognized the person it had once been.
Aunt Carol.
A painful lump grew in Nicole’s throat and another in her gut. She would have retched, but before she could, the two escaped into the hall, heading straight for her. More followed from the room of unseen horrors. They were headed right for her—Aunt Carol now led an assault against her niece and nephew, and the whole building full of people behind them. Nicole was unable to move. Her eyes locked on those of her aunt.
The connection was broken when the soldier returned with a massive, echoing gun shot.
Gasping for air, eyes filled with tears, Nicole fell away from the door.
“What did you see? What’s happening?” David asked her after a few seconds of watching her cry, his voice the quietest he had ever made it.
“We have to go,” she managed to let out between sobs.
“What’s happening in there? I need to—”
Two shots rang out. Then, more screams, more crashes.
“David ...” Nicole started, her eyes now raised back to the window.
“Okay ...” her brother responded, now standing, his eyes also stuck on the door.
“Just, get ...”
She never finished her thought. At that moment, the bloody face of one of the attackers slammed into the window. Nicole and David screamed and bolted back to the Colby end of the tunnel, dragging Ryan behind them. Their feet slipped and slid on the plastic floor of the hastily thrown together tunnel. Half way through, they heard another gun shot.
And more screaming.
And the door bursting open.
And feet quickly coming up behind them.
They reached the Colby door, darted through, slammed it, and ran away as fast as they could.
They emerged into a large group that had gathered to watch what had become a full-on brawl between orderly Will and the mob. Now they all stood looking at the door and the noise that grew behind it.
They could have blocked the door, or run away. But no one moved.
Nicole looked to David; he was shaking, and looked as pale as she did with her powder. She looked to her other side to see how Ryan was handling it, but he wasn’t there. She panicked briefly until she saw him sitting on the stairs leading to the sleeping areas, in the same position he had been in when she first met him, only now with no blanket to protect him. Nicole grabbed David’s arm and started toward Ryan, but her brother didn’t move. His eyes were frozen, staring at the closed door, just like everyone else. She knew it wasn’t his choice: he was paralyzed with fear.
“Come on, David!” she yelled. “Snap out of it!” She tugged at him until he slowly spun toward her, and she dragged him, stumbling, to the stairs. Something made her look back.
She would come to regret it.
As the doors flung open, four people ran through, panicked.
Nicole noticed, thankfully, that they were doctors and volunteers. They were ... normal.
“Get out of here!” one of them yelled.
People started screaming, running, trampling over other people.
Everyone yelled, cried, pushed, shoved.
Within seconds, the attackers started pouring through; horrible, twisted, evil faces painted in blood. Aunt Carol was with them. Nicole locked eyes with her once again—no, she thought Aunt Carol wasn’t connecting. Her eyes were different. They were dead, glossy eyes. Still, Nicole knew that they had seen her down the hall, had followed her, and saw her now. She could feel a scream rising in her throat when someone ran into her, knocking her onto Ryan.
He was crying.
People ran up and down the stairs around them.
She felt a hand in hers. She had forgotten that she had been holding David’s hand the whole time. He was frozen, just as she
had been, beyond pale and drenched in sweat.
“David,” she said, amazed that she could get the word out. She swallowed. “Help me up!”
David looked at her. Then he simply started screaming. Tears streamed down his face.
Nicole fought back her own screams. She got to her feet and tried to pull Ryan up before he got trampled by the stampede. He slipped from her grasp and he fell into the whirlwind of panicked people. She clutched his shirt and yanked him up. Steadying herself, with David’s hand in her right, and a wad of Ryan’s shirt in her left, she did not dare look back. The sounds of fighting, bones breaking, and wet chewing told her that down was not the best choice. She struggled up the stairs as quickly as she could, dragging both boys. “Don’t look back!” she yelled at them, though she could barely hear the words herself.
David was a dead-weight as he stared into the madness behind them.
She doubled her effort—from what reserve she had no idea—when a sound like thunder blasted through the lobby. A gunshot, not ten feet away. She didn’t look back.
Before she made it to the top of the stairs she heard five more shots.
Someone yelled, “It’s not working!”
She topped the stairs into an almost-empty hallway. Where is everyone? Then she saw the stragglers ahead of her slamming doors shut behind them, barricading themselves in classrooms.
All of the doors were closed.
She ran into one, throwing her weight into it, but it didn’t budge.
“Let us in!” she screamed. She could see people in the room. Two of them argued, but most backed themselves into the corners, or hid behind book shelves. “Please!”
A man moved to open the door, but was grabbed roughly by another. They struggled. Nicole saw one of the men who had come through the door of the makeshift hospital when it opened; the one with the bad cut on his hand. He sat in the corner, his head rolling back and forth.
They had to find another room, but at each one they met the same situation.
They know we went down the hall, was her only thought as her eyes darted from locked door to locked door. They know we led those ... things here. It’s our fault. It’s my fault.
“Hey!” someone shouted, “over here!” She looked down the hall and saw a young woman she recognized, though she wasn’t sure why. She had ducked out from a room and stood with the door open. “Come on!”
Nicole ran, still dragging the two boys with her, though now they moved on their own, at least.
The woman slammed the door behind them and Nicole fell to her knees, taking Ryan and David with her. The woman dropped to the floor, consoling them. When she started talking to David, Nicole realized it was Ms. MacNeil who had taught them both fourth grade. She knew that David had liked her, though she had never really gotten along with her. At that moment, she loved her.
Assured that the three were all right, Ms. MacNeil got to her feet. “There,” she said, glaring at a man with a bloody nose. “Now you can cover the door.” As she moved the kids farther into the room she muttered to herself, “Imagine, locking anyone out when they needed help.” From her tone, and bloodied knuckles, Nicole guessed at how the man had gotten the bloody nose.
The others dragged a bookshelf to the door, books spilling out of it as they went. Nicole felt sick realizing how lucky they were to have gotten there when they did.
“We’re safe in here,” Ms. MacNeil told them. “David? David, can you hear me?” When he didn’t respond, she looked to Nicole. “Is he all right?”
Nicole wasn’t sure if she was all right, let alone her panic-stricken brother. However, at that moment all she could say was, “Yeah.”
“Okay, good,” said Ms. MacNeil with a forced smile. She put her hands on either side of Nicole’s face and looked straight into her eyes. “You’re a hero, you know that? You saved these two boys.”
Nicole felt better, feeling the warm hands on her face, and the reassuring voice of her former teacher. And her eyes. They were much better than the ones that looked at her from Aunt Carol’s face. Maybe things would be okay.
She looked around and realized that it was the same room where they had spent the night. It all looked familiar but she noticed a lot of the blankets were strewn about, including a pile covering something up on one of the cots.
The room now had eight occupants: herself, David, Ryan, Ms. MacNeil, the man with the bloody nose, a young couple, and another familiar man. It took Nicole a moment to recognize the doctor, the uninjured one, who had run out of the medical centre when she first walked into St. Joseph’s. He sat on the floor against a counter full of textbooks, his head in his hands as he wept. Nicole could not imagine the things that he had seen that morning. She wondered if he had seen her face at St. Joseph’s; if he knew what she had done to cause what had just happened.
“So, now what?” asked the bloody-nosed man. He had an aggressive tone that made Nicole think that he’d get another punch soon. He seemed to be asking Ms. MacNeil—their assumed leader.
Ms. MacNeil thought for a second, looking out into the hall through the bookshelf. The mayhem below resounded off the cinderblock walls like a war zone. “We have two options,” she started. “One is that we wait here.”
“Fat chance there,” said the man. The rest of the room agreed with him through silent nods. Even Nicole, regretfully, agreed with him, though she showed no sign of it.
“Or,” Ms. MacNeil continued, “we can try to get out those windows.”
The young woman from the couple stood and opened the curtains. The challenge was clear: even though the windows were almost seven feet tall, only the tops opened and were far too narrow for most adults to fit through.
“Nice plan,” the bloody-nosed man said.
At least she’s trying, Nicole thought, hoping that someone would punch him again.
But no one moved or said a word. They would just wait and hope for the best. Maybe things would clear up. Things looked bad, but they could turn better.
The doctor started moaning. As his hands dropped from his face, Nicole saw pain in his bloodshot eyes. Bloody sweat dripped from his face. His hands were covered in darker blood.
Nicole was confused. He was fine ...
Suddenly his eyes rolled back, and he slumped to the floor, convulsing violently. Ms. MacNeil and the young woman who had opened the curtains ran to him.
“What’s wrong with him?” the young man asked his girlfriend.
“I don’t know!”
“He’s having a seizure,” Ms. MacNeil said, touching his forehead. “He’s on fire!” She reached down to loosen the doctor’s shirt from his collar and pulled her hand quickly back. Her fingers were covered with thick blood.
“Oh my God!” said the young woman, going pale as she fell back on her heels.
“It’s okay,” Ms. MacNeil said. “Everything’s all right.” Nicole was familiar with that phrase and tone from teachers. The last time she heard it was Grade 4, when a kid fell off a swing-set and had to be rushed to the hospital. He was in a coma for about a month. Things hadn’t been all right then.
Things were not all right now.
Pink foam sprayed from between the doctor’s gritted teeth as he shook, chewing on his tongue.
After a long, silent period, the seizure stopped. Everyone in the room stared at the man who now lay very still. It didn’t even look like he was breathing.
Ms. MacNeil put her hand on his forehead again, then turned back to the room. “Someone get me a blanket, he’s freezing!”
No one else moved, so, still staring at the doctor, Nicole pulled a blanket from a cot. She brought it to the teacher who laid it over the doctor. “Thank you, Nicole.”
Nicole nodded and backed away, back to her brother.
Ms. MacNeil tucked the man in, making sure that he was completely covered, and placed her hand on his head again, then to his throat to check his pulse. A look of shock went across her face. She pulled the man’s hand out of the blanket and held it.
More shock. She looked up and smiled weirdly at the kids on the bed, then looked toward the couple who were now both on the floor with her. She made a gesture for them to come closer. They apprehensively crawled over and the teacher whispered something to them, keeping an eye on the others in the room.
The young woman jerked back. “Oh my God!”
“What?” shouted the bloody-nosed man.
“He’s dead,” exclaimed the young woman, scrambling away from the body.
“What the hell is going on here?!” bellowed the bloody-nosed man.
“We have to stay calm!” Ms. MacNeil called out over the others.
“I don’t think we have time to stay calm!” said the bloody-nosed man.
“Why don’t you—”
“Daddy?”
Everyone stopped. The voice had come from Ryan, who knelt next to the cot from which Nicole had taken the blanket. When she saw the hand dangling from the remaining blankets, Nicole realized too late that they had been covering Ryan’s father’s body.
Ryan inched closer, taking his father’s dead hand. “Daddy?”
Nicole started toward the small, confused boy. She could feel tears welling up. “Ryan, you should—” She stopped when she saw the hand move. She jumped when the hand grabbed Ryan’s arm.
Clearly in pain, Ryan pulled against his father’s grip. As he did so, the rest of the blankets covering the man fell away. His face was soaked—partially with sweat, but mostly from blood that looked like it had been cried out. He growled, just like the people downstairs had. Like Carol. Nicole saw the same dead, white eyes. Only he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at Ryan. He gave a wet, slimy growl as he pulled Ryan’s small hand toward his mouth.
Nicole rushed over to yank him away, but his father had a death-grip on the boy’s arm. Ryan screamed. Nicole yelled, “Let him go!” and kicked the man’s arm. She felt his elbow bend the wrong way at a gruesome angle. He should have screamed in pain, but it didn’t faze him. He kept growling and pulling himself toward his son, eyeing him with a dark look of hunger.
Rise of the Mudmen Page 8
