by Jeff Olah
“Only fire your weapon if it’s absolutely necessary,” David said. “We may need to fight our way back out of here.”
“Okay, so we’re starting now, after you just sprayed Franklin’s head all over the back half of the hospital?”
“You’d rather we fought him hand to hand?”
Ethan didn’t respond. Taking the lead, he moved with a purpose and in a straight line through the two rows of cots. Pulling the sixteen-inch, expandable steel baton from his belt, he swung hard on whatever was attempting to rise from the third cot on the left. Adrenaline pushed him forward.
Not looking back to check his handiwork, he stepped to the opposite row, twisted right, and brought the tempered steel down again. As the second shrouded body dropped back into place, Ethan increased his speed and cleared the transitory gauntlet in time to see his friend eliminate the third and final threat.
Reaching the corner, Ethan motioned to another set of double doors thirty feet ahead. “Through there, or you want to take the long way?”
“How’s your shoulder.”
“What?”
“Your shoulder,” David said. “How’s it holding up?”
“I think we have a decision to make here, and it has nothing to do with how you or I feel. I really don’t think we have the time for this small talk.”
“If we’re going through that door, we’ll need to fight. And if I have to do it alone, we’re both dead. So, how’s your shoulder?”
“You didn’t just see me swing on those two back there? I’d say the only thing you need to worry about is yourself.”
“We’ll see about that, just try to keep up.”
Ethan jumped first and was in a dead sprint before David had time to react. Reaching the set of doors, the pair moved to opposite sides of the corridor and leaned into the wall. Ethan rested his elbow against the panic bar and slowly pushed it in.
With the door opposite him parting only an inch, David bent forward and peered into the next hall. He nodded, looked back to Ethan, and held up both hands, five fingers from one and three on the other.
His back now against the door, Ethan gripped the baton. He waited as David slid to the right and mirrored his position. Pushing through the threshold first, Ethan stayed along the wall and side-stepped the first attacker.
Drawing his right arm back, he came around with the baton at full extension, striking the second walking corpse just below the temple. As he followed through and the metal rod skipped off the wall, Ethan lost his balance and fell forward into his next target.
Only a step behind, David continued his slow jog and used the blunt end of his weapon to push back the beast clawing at his friend. Reaching in before the situation escalated any further, he pulled Ethan back and stepping forward, kicked the feet out from under the man with half an arm.
Onto his feet, Ethan looked past David and quickly assessed the remaining twenty feet to the open cafeteria area. “Five more.”
“Stay close,” David said. “Were almost there.”
Shoulder to shoulder, they slowed to a walk as the infected tourists moved to within fifteen feet. Ethan turned to his friend and spoke quietly. “How you wanna do this?”
“Two for you and three for—”
“Wait,” Ethan said. Over his right shoulder, a single sliver of light filtered out into the hall from the cracked door to the hospital’s main laundry room. He turned and before David could answer, disappeared behind the door.
As the crowd continued to close the gap, David let out a long whisper-shout. “EEEETTHHAANN!” Unfortunately, his voice carried through the extended hallway and into the cafeteria, gaining the attention of a second group of would-be aggressors.
Not more than a five feet away, David pulled his weapon and took two steps back. As the small horde continued forward, Ethan exploded through the swinging door, pushing a large laundry cart. “Let’s go.”
Out into the hall, Ethan plowed sideways into the small group of Feeders, instantly taking the first four to the ground. And as the momentum carried him into the opposite wall, the oversized plastic bin struck the last one just below the waist and flipped her into the bin. Struggling to stay upright himself, Ethan turned and headed for the cafeteria. “David, let’s go.”
The stout female, now flailing at the bottom of the cart, clawed at the slick plastic as Ethan continued pushing through the narrow hallway. Attempting to free herself, she managed to flip onto her back and was now face up, as David fell in alongside his friend.
The badly disfigured woman tore at the air and flailed against the momentum of the cart as the men looked down on her. “Do it,” Ethan said.
David left one hand on the cart and with the other he reached into his belt and withdrew a six-inch folding knife. He quickly leaned in, drove the blade into the right side of her head, and pulled it back, her body motionless before he looked back at Ethan. “She was already gone.”
Ethan stopped pushing and upon reaching the perimeter of the cafeteria, turned to his friend. “Was it hard?”
“No, it’s them or us.”
“I know you’re right, but it still couldn’t be easy to—”
“No,” David said. “It was easy. It was easy because my fiancée is on the other side of that cafeteria and I’m not letting anyone or anything stop me from getting to her. These things, whatever they’ve become, drew the short stick today. For whatever reason, they’re gone and from what I saw in those videos, they aren’t coming after us to ask for help. It’s too late for them, but not for us. Keep that in mind.”
“Alright, let’s go.”
Pushing into the cafeteria, Ethan gripped the rounded handles and guided the sky blue cart toward the left wall. Scanning the room, he looked for the path of least resistance through the maze of upturned tables, discarded bodies, and the massive traffic jam of square-backed, stackable chairs. This is where the battle was lost.
From beyond the cash registers and alongside the destroyed breakfast buffet, another six Feeders stood and turned their way. Moving more quickly than the others they’d encountered thus far, the first pair to step out into the open were nearly running. Their unnatural, almost animalistic gait sent an icy tremor down the middle of Ethan’s back.
Motioning toward the darkened hall at the opposite end of the room, and across twenty feet of stained white linoleum, Ethan looked back at David. “Is that where we’re going, in there, through that mess?”
Again on the move, David turned and walked quickly backward as Ethan drove. “No other choice. But keep this bin between us and anything that comes our way.”
Exiting the hall and converging with the group from the cafeteria, the growing horde of Feeders now numbered just over a dozen. As they turned their attention to Ethan and David, the pair bolted for the tangled web of tables at the center of the room.
Ethan stayed with the cart as David flanked right, attempting a shortcut. Keeping his friend in his periphery, he leapt a downed trash bin, dug in, and sprinted toward the opposite hall. Sidestepping an overturned display case and avoiding the bottles of water that had jumped from their home, he planted his left foot and leapt onto the first table.
His attention laser focused on the three offices just beyond the room, David’s right foot came down atop a wayward serving tray, plastic on plastic. Sliding off the opposite end of the table, he found himself on his back, between a refrigerated soda machine and a decorative potted sago palm.
Pushing into a seated position, David flinched as he attempted to free himself. His right ankle had dropped between the table’s legs and its vertical braces. And the awkward forward slant of the table made extracting himself impossible without help. His hand on his hip, he withdrew his weapon and pushed up under the table as far as the restricted space would allow.
With his friend rolling toward the scene, a small pack of Feeders had broken off from the main horde and started for him. They crossed the open space and had begun climbing the mountain of tables before Ethan s
lowed the bin and came in from the opposite end.
They would reach him well before Ethan; this was obvious. David could empty what was left in his weapon in an attempt to give himself a few extra seconds, although the next, much larger crowd would arrive just as Ethan did. He couldn’t see any other way out of this. He and his best friend would end up dead, less than twenty feet from the woman he hoped to marry.
This new reality altered the game plan, but Carly was still his priority, no matter the cost. He wasn’t willing to die at the hands and mouths of those things. He would fix this. “Ethan, go. Get the hell out of here. Find Carly and tell her I loved her.”
David closed his eyes and placed the weapon to his head.
29
“On three we go, you ready?”
She wasn’t. But the alternative, dying on this mountain, wasn’t currently on her to-do list and she wasn’t willing to make time for anything else. Trying to wiggle her toes, the pins and needles had moved from her forefoot up into her ankle and although she knew it wasn’t a good sign, both feet had already gone numb.
“I’m good, I’ll try to keep up.” Peeking her head above the snowpack, Cora felt for the ridge of his shoulder and the pair stood in unison. She stayed close to his right arm as Griffin stepped heavily through the knee deep snow, both unwilling to focus on the threat at their backs.
The sounds of the forest had died down in the last five minutes, and although Griffin promised her he’d get her to the highway, Cora wasn’t counting on it. They’d both watched as those hunting them weaved in and out of the frosted juniper, multiple times coming within feet of their miniature snow cave. Holding her breath became a ritual.
Glancing right as he kept moving, Griffin lowered his head and spoke quietly. “There’s one behind those trees. She knows we’re here, but can’t get to us until we break the treeline ahead.”
Her breath rose from her mouth and crystalized as it lifted into the sky. “So, we’re good, we’ll make it to the road?”
Increasing his pace, Griffin moved out ahead and guided Cora left as he drifted right. “Yes, just keep moving toward the road. Once you reach the highway, point yourself downhill and keep going. I’ll catch up.”
Past the next clearing and not quite twenty-five yards from where the landscape bled into the roadway, something reflected what little sunlight fled the driving storm. Squinting, Cora was able to make out the color blue and a large swatch of chrome. Another ten paces and she realized what she was looking at. “Griffin.”
He’d reached the treeline and had begun tearing free a branch nearly the size of a hockey stick when her voice reached him. Without turning, Griffin waved her off and moved to a tree more comparable in size to his own body.
Catching his breath, Griffin leaned into the narrow trail, checking the progress of their pursuer. As he brought the four foot limb overhead, his left shoulder hesitated. Bringing it back and to the side relieved the pressure from the decade-old injury as he counted down. “Five… four…”
Again Cora shouted his name, however, as she moved out away from the clearing, her voice was mostly lost to the trees. Continuing on, she began the descent and had disappeared from sight completely by the time Griffin finished counting down.
“Three… two… one…” Planting his trailing foot against the aging pine, Griffin twisted right and began to swing on the lonely Feeder. In the fraction of a second before making contact, the silence that befell the frozen utopia was extinguished.
Through the trees, across the expansive glade, and echoing from one valley to the next, a distant horn begged for attention. Following through, but with his focus being pulled away, Griffin struck the former prison guard just below the waist, snapping the branch in two.
Releasing the stick as his momentum carried him out onto the trail, Griffin continued forward and skidded face-first into the snow. Scurrying to his feet, he lunged for the broken branch and as his aggressor lay flailing on her back, he moved in. Dropping his knee onto her chest, he drove the larger of the two pieces into her right eye.
Back through the trees, he followed Cora’s trail and the belligerent wailing, until he finally reached the edge of the glade. His lungs burned and his legs felt like two overcooked strands of linguini. Attempting to pinpoint the origin, he watched as thirty yards downslope, Cora stepped out of the forest and into the roadway.
Ten seconds behind her, Griffin navigated the rocky descent, focused entirely on staying upright and the placement of each labored step. He quickly traversed the rocky terrain and moved away from the trees. Reaching the asphalt, and stomping free the solidified ice and mud, he was again able to see the worn leather covering his frozen feet.
Following the hollowed footprints out across the four lane road, he spied Cora standing twenty feet from the source of the grating broadcast. The deep blue, late model pickup truck gathered snow along its roofline as it sat motionless, near the opposite side of the road. With no visible damage, it rested easily with its front bumper kissing the end post of the Walter Hamilton Bridge.
He stepped quickly through the slush and standing at Cora’s side, shouted over the horn. “You see it hit?”
“No, it was sitting here before I walked out. But the horn… that just started.”
Nodding, Griffin started for the driver’s door as Cora followed. With his open palm against the window, he stepped back and wiped away the building frost. “Cora, get back.” Stepping behind the cab, Griffin pulled his weapon and motioned for her to join him.
“What’s wrong?”
“The driver’s dead,” Griffin said.
Turning to the sign at the side of the road, Cora said, “Let’s go for help. It looks like the next town—Summer Mill—is only two miles up the road. My feet are already numb, so there’s that.”
“We’re definitely going to Summer Mill, but we’re not walking. I’m done with this freakin’ weather. We’re taking this truck and driving out of this hellhole. Right now. We need to get you to the hospital, and get your side looked at.”
“What about the driver?”
“He’s gone.”
“Are you sure?”
“Look,” Griffin said. He again cleared the glass and motioned for Cora to come in close.
The driver, a balding forty-something male, was slumped forward, his forehead resting hard on the steering wheel—the apparent cause of the torturous horn assaulting their eardrums. Blood ran from his mouth, and his eyes were pinned in the open position. There were obvious signs of attack, as his throat and most of his neck were torn away, exposing the sinewy fibers securing his skull to his clavicle.
Bent at the waist, Cora peered through the driver’s window and came to the same conclusion, although looking past the driver, she held her hand over her mouth and slowly backed away. “You’re right, he is dead. But you missed something.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He’s not alone in there.”
30
Allowing the plastic bin to drift into the hall, Ethan ran to the mountain of overturned tables. As he rushed past the first few, he could see David. The glass case near the wall reflected the image of his best friend, now raising the gun to his own head. Beyond that, a growing horde pushed into the small space alongside the vacant checkout lines.
As David’s index finger slid down and met the trigger, Ethan rushed in behind the end of the slanted table. Gripping the left corner, he shouted. “David, no!” Without waiting for an answer, he lifted his end of the table up over his head, and started pushing toward the wall, the resistance much greater than he expected.
With the gritty sound of a joint being dislodged and the resistance falling quickly away, Ethan struggled to stay on his feet as David cried out, dropped the weapon, and grabbed at his right ankle.
The length of the table now vertical, and with it leaned into the refrigerated case, Ethan looked down on his friend. Positioned up against the wall, in the tightly spaced pocket created by a trio
of upturned tables, David writhed in agony. “My foot, you idiot. What the hell was that?”
Ethan didn’t answer. His friend was about to take his own life. Anything short of that was progress.
David’s right foot was bent at an unfortunate angle and still attached to the table’s vertical bracing, however he was now hidden on three sides by the makeshift barrier. And with little chance of the horde getting to him, Ethan stepped back, secured the upturned table, and withdrew his weapon.
Leaning in, Ethan bent down and looked through the one-inch void between the two tables. “I’m going for Carly, and taking these guys with me. I don’t care what you have to do. Get free from that table and be ready to go in five. I’ll carry you out myself if I have to. And I shouldn’t have to say this, but that weapon is for them, not us.”
Pushing away, Ethan stared at the crowd as he backpedaled. Finding an errant chair, he lifted it overhead and tossed it at them. “Let’s go boys, come get it.”
As the horde turned their attention away from the tables surrounding his friend, Ethan sprinted to the hall at the opposite end of the room. Passing the bin, he moved into the darkened corridor and started with the first office.
Locked door.
Coming to the second office, Ethan took a deep breath and turned the handle. The door slid open, but only a few inches. Lowering his shoulder, Ethan pushed against the obstruction and whispered into the blacked out office. “Carly?”
Nothing.
With both hands on the handle, Ethan leaned in and forced the door another eight inches. Glancing into the office, two lifeless bodies lay back to back. A brilliant white lab coat, painted in swatches of burgundy, was draped over the woman lying facedown. Her torso resting flush against the backside of the door prevented Ethan from entering.
Turning to door number three, time had run out. The horde from the cafeteria had entered the hall and two of the more agile Feeders had broken away from the pack. Ethan estimated he had five seconds to make a decision.
