by James Bierce
"Eerie, isn't it?" Larry says, his eyes wandering around the ruins the same as hers, not sure of whether to take in the destruction or look for infected people that might still be lurking behind the fog-shrouded walls.
"Have you ever seen anything like this?"
"Nobody has — except maybe this guy we're supposedly meeting."
"You don't trust him?"
"The only person in this world that I trust right now is you — and we both have to be careful not to put ourselves in any kind of vulnerable position."
"What if he wants us to put our guns down?" she asks.
"Then we put them down — the visible ones anyway."
He places his hand in front of her, motioning for her to stop — then he points down one of the side streets that leads up to the hills. She can see a dog on the next block, eating the cooked meat from the bones of one of the infected.
"You want a dog?" she asks.
"No, not the dog — look just past it."
On the corner of the intersection is a small sporting goods store, advertising guns for sale in large, red letters — along with camping supplies and clothing.
"It's probably burned out, like everything else," she replies.
"Still worth checking out later though, just in case."
Although the location of the hospital is clearly marked on the few undamaged signs along the highway, Larry decides to follow some of the smaller streets that parallel the bottom of the hill instead, mostly out of the concern of being ambushed on the more obvious path. Unfortunately, there's only one road that leads to the hospital itself, and can be seen from virtually every floor of the main building.
"The houses aren't that bad up ahead," Christine points out, nodding toward a neighborhood beside the medical district that appears to be entirely undamaged from the fire.
"That makes it even more dangerous then," he responds, gasping for breath and grabbing at his hip as he grimaces in pain. "If they survived the flames, that means the bastards living in them did too."
Moving slowly, they finally reach the entrance to the hospital, where Larry sits down on a bench that overlooks the nearly empty parking lot. It also has a partial view of both Aberdeen and Cosmopolis to the south — the latter of which has smoke rising from several spots.
"Are you hurt?" comes a voice from the radio.
Reaching into his pocket and pulling the radio out, Larry turns around and looks at the hospital behind him, but there's too many windows to tell where they're coming from. "I'm not sick, if that's what you're asking," he says into the handheld.
"Maybe I can take a look at it for you."
"Yeah, that'd be great. Where to now?"
"The neighborhood is relatively quiet, so I leave the main entrance unlocked during the day. Follow the stairs up to the sixth floor — I'll be waiting for you there."
"Okay, we'll see you in a few minutes."
"Oh, and don't get off on the second floor, no matter what you hear on the other side of the door. There's someone down there that you really don't want to mess with."
"Alright, got it." Larry looks up at the windows on the sixth floor, and can see someone looking out one of them, waving their hand at him. Giving a slight wave back, Larry stands up and grabs his bags again, then pushes his way through the glass doors and enters the cold, dark main lobby, which looks even creepier than either of them expected it to be.
"I suppose it looked better before," Christine says, careful not to step in the pools of dried blood on the floor.
"I would hope so…" He points across the room to the right, next to an information desk that's been trashed by either vandals or the infected. "That looks like the door to the staircase over there…"
He pulls a sanitation wipe from a container on the desk, and then uses it to open the door handle, which is also covered in blood, then holds it for Christine to enter after making sure the area is clear.
"He said he leaves the entrance open during the day, right?" Christine says.
"Yeah, why?"
"That implies that he closes it at night. Why is the handle still filthy?"
"That's a good question."
Once inside the narrow shaft, they both turn their flashlights on and start walking up the stairs, their steps echoing loudly in the otherwise complete silence of the place. When they reach the second floor, Larry points at the door, which has a window in it that shows nothing but darkness. He aims his light at the glass, seeing a long, empty hallway with rooms on both sides of it. Then he spots something about halfway down, a person coming out of a room and staring in his direction. In an instant, they begin running at full speed toward the door, screaming at the top of their lungs as they crash against the heavy steel. Larry jumps back and pulls his gun out, aiming it at the woman's face that's now pressed against the window. She has bruises covering her head, and her hands are bleeding at she slams them into the door.
"Larry, come on, she obviously can't get through…" Christine says from behind him, motioning for him to continue up the steps.
The sounds of her screams fade away as they climb further, until they finally disappear altogether as they reach the sixth floor landing. Larry holds onto his flashlight with one hand, but he keeps his other wrapped around a revolver inside of his coat pocket.
"Go ahead and open the door, then back away," he tells her.
"He'll know that you have a gun in there…"
"Good, I hope he does."
The door opens with a deafening creaking sound, and when it stops all Larry can hear is a subtle humming noise. It takes him a few seconds to realize that it's coming from a fan overhead, and from computers that are turned on and running on one side of the room. The sight of electricity, with bright lights and warm air, it all causes him to momentarily forget the potentially dangerous situation that they're in — and it's only when Christine pulls her gun out and aims it across the room that his mind comes back into focus again.
"Whoa, I'm not gonna hurt you, I just have it for protection!" a man says from across the room, holding a semi-automatic pistol in his hand. He looks to be in his late forties or maybe early fifties, and is wearing a pair of clean scrubs.
Larry pulls his own gun out of his pocket and keeps it aimed at the floor, then gestures for Christine to lower hers. "It's okay, Christine." He tenses up when he realizes that her finger is actually on the trigger, despite the fact that her hands are trembling uncontrollably — but then she holds it out for Larry to take. "No, you keep it — just stick it in your pocket for now." He glances back at the man in front of them, who looks even more relieved than Larry. "I assume you're Mike?"
"Yeah, you must be Larry — and Christina…"
"Christine," she answers back, correcting him.
"Right, sorry. Listen, I'm not really sure how we're supposed to do this — I don't think any of us are very trusting right now."
"That's probably an understatement," Larry says. "How about we just sit down and talk, and then see where that takes us…?"
From the signs hanging on the wall, this area appears to be the old ICU and CCU units, with multiple glass-faced rooms encircling a central area filled with desks. Mike points to some office chairs sitting next to a workstation, then sits down in one of them, placing his gun into his pocket as he spins the chair around and faces them.
"You were a nurse here?" Larry asks, as he takes a seat across from him. Christine stays back and leans against the wall in the hallway, her eyes still deeply suspicious.
"Yeah, thirty years this August. Born and raised here in the city."
"Neither one of us is from around here, I guess it must be…"
"Why did you lie about locking the doors at night?" Christine interrupts, causing Larry to squirm in his seat.
"I didn't lie, the doors are locked just before sunset every night," Mike answers calmly, with a slight smile on his face.
"Sorry, she's just really nervous," Larry tries to explain.
"It's alright, I ap
preciate bluntness — it can save a lot of time."
"The doorknobs downstairs are covered in blood… You didn't bother to clean them?" Christine asks, her tone bordering on rude.
"No, I rarely leave this floor. The door locks are all automatic, which I can control from up here. Before the fire, we used to get a lot of people wandering in after dark, so we started locking everything up to keep them from crowding the staircase."
"We? There were more of you?" Larry asks.
"There were eleven of us at first. We stayed behind after the evacuation to look after the patients."
"What happened to the others?"
"Five died from the virus, two were killed by the infected patients, and the other three took off when the fire started to get worse. I'm not sure if they're still alive or not."
"Are any of the patients still alive?" Christine asks, her tone softening.
"I think a few of them are still downstairs, including the woman on the second floor. She's been here since the beginning." He stands up and starts walking, flipping a light switch on as he passes by it, which illuminates the hallway in front of him. "Come on, I want to show you something…"
Grabbing onto the desk next to him for support, Larry stands up and slowly begins to hobble after him, but first he leans in close to Christine and whispers… "Is it me, or is he really fidgety all of the sudden?"
"It's not you, I noticed it too. He's sweating like crazy."
Larry tries to look into each room as he passes by them down the hall, but they're so dark that he can't really make out any details. "I take it you have a generator?"
"Yeah, but I have no idea how much fuel I have left, so I try to keep things to a minimum. It's been a lifesaver though."
The temperature begins to drop as they walk further down the corridor, and by the time they finally reach the waiting room at the end, the air feels cold and damp. The entire southern wall of the waiting area is filled with clear windows, overlooking the city below and harbor beyond. Once they get close enough, Larry looks down onto the rooftop of another part of the hospital and sees several bodies scattered across the flat roof.
"Who were they?" he asks, pointing down to the remains.
"I don't know, they just showed up one at a time — but that's not what I wanted to show you." He nods his head to the southeast, in the direction of the Highway 101 bridge that leads into the city from Westport and Cosmopolis. "That's where they're getting in from. Everything to the west, the entire city of Hoquiam, has been completely destroyed — including the bridges over the river."
"You mean the infected?" Larry asks.
"Or whatever you wanna call them — I guess infected works as well as anything. The area to the east doesn't seem to be very active, so I haven't seen much come over from there — but Cosmopolis must be crawling with them."
"Westport and Grayland too, and the peninsula."
"And everything south of there," Christine adds.
Larry sits down in one of the chairs to rest his sore hip, and discovers that the cushions on these seats are far more comfortable than the ones in the ICU. He also notices that Mike is still sweating, even in the frigid temperatures on this end of the building. "So you're proposing that we stay?"
"This place is ideal when you think about it. There's plenty of room, food, water, electricity," Mike argues.
"Until the fuel runs out…"
"We still have the other stuff — and the security."
"Yeah, and all of that will last longer if you're alone."
Mike sits down next to him and sighs, then takes a small syringe out of his pocket and holds it up. "This is why I need you."
"What is that?" Larry asks, feeling suddenly nervous.
"It's insulin. I'm on the last bottle."
"You're diabetic?"
"Yep, type one. I've been trying to stretch it out, but it's running pretty low."
"I'd think a hospital would have more of it on hand…"
"We did, there was an incident a few months back, and it ended up being destroyed."
"What kind of an incident?"
Looking suddenly pale, Mike stands up and puts the syringe back into his pocket. "I'm sorry, but I'm feeling a little off, I'm just gonna go check my glucose level real quick…"
"Yeah, no problem," Larry replies. "Do what you need to do."
Mike gets about halfway across the room, then stops and turns around to face them again. "Look, I'm not asking you to do much, I just need you to watch over things while I'm gone, and unlock the door to this level when I get back."
"How far do you have to go to find more?"
"Just down to the bottom of the hill, to a medical supply center in the city. Hopefully they'll have more of it."
Christine watches for him to leave the room, then she sits down next to Larry. "Is he infected? He's acting really manic or something…"
"No, I don't think he's infected. My mother-in-law was diabetic, and she had the same symptoms when her insulin would get out of control. He's probably scared to death."
"He said he still had some."
"That's not the problem. He could have gallons of it back there, and in a few months none of it will do him any good. It all expires eventually."
CHAPTER 5
Grayland: March 28th
"Curtis… wake up…"
Opening his eyes to an almost completely dark room, Curtis sees Sarah standing over him with the gun in her hand, offering it to him. Matt and Ben are right behind her. "What's wrong?" he asks her.
"Someone just broke into the house — they're still downstairs…"
Taking the gun from her, he stands up and walks to the closed bedroom door, then after listening for a moment he opens the door to the walk-in closet. "Everybody inside… Grab all of our bags too."
"There's no way out of there!" Sarah protests in a whisper.
"There's a hatchway into the attic in the ceiling. Come on, let's go before he comes up the stairs," he says, as he picks up his own bags and throws them into the back of the closet.
Curtis can hear the creaking of the wooden steps outside the bedroom door as they load the last of their supplies in, and just as the handle starts to turn, he reaches over and grabs the baseball bat that was leaned up in the corner of the room, then quietly shuts the closet door. They can hear what sounds like a man enter the bedroom and stumble around for a few minutes, knocking things over and mumbling random cuss words — but he never tries to open the closet. Instead, they hear the springs on the mattress squeaking as they climb onto the bed, then a loud snore as they quickly fall asleep.
"They sound like they're drunk…" Sarah whispers in his ear.
"You have duct tape in one of your bags don't you?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Find it, but be quiet — we don't want him waking up."
He can hear rustling behind him as she searches through the bag, and he hopes that the man's snoring provides enough noise to cover it up. Then he feels a tapping on his shoulder.
"Here… Now what are you going to do with it?"
"I'm gonna tie him up — shooting him would make too much noise."
With the gun in his pocket, he holds the baseball bat in one hand while he opens the closet door as slowly as he can, seeing a massive silhouette stretched out over the top of the bed. He tries to creep as silently as possible across the floor, but the solid hardwood planks groan with almost every step. When he gets to within striking distance, he looks back at the closet and sees only Matt's face staring back at him, and then Sarah pulls him back inside. He lifts the bat into the air, takes a deep breath, then swings it straight down against the man's skull, feeling the jarring impact in his forearms.
For a minute he just stands there, listening for any sign that the guy is still alive — and then after what seems like an eternity, he hears the raspy sound of congestion coming from him. "Sarah, give me the light…"
She comes out and hands him a flashlight, then turns her own on as well, s
eeing a trail of blood running from man's head. "Is he alive?"
"Yeah, but I'm not sure for how long. I hit him pretty hard." He takes the tape from her, then pulls his arms across his back to bring his wrists together, then begins wrapping tape around them. "Of course he had to be the biggest guy in town…"
"Do you want me to tie his feet together?"
"That's probably a good idea."
As she winds the tape around his ankles, she sees Matt and Ben approach the bed, both of them staring at the intruder. "What are you planning on doing with him?" she asks Curtis, who takes the tape back and places a piece of it onto his mouth.
"I'm gonna take him outside, then figure out how to patch the door downstairs." Confident that he can't get loose, Curtis grabs the man by his feet and pulls him off of the bed, hitting his head against the floor hard enough to hear a cracking sound.
"Curtis!" Sarah cries out. "At least pretend to be careful…"
"Then grab a pillow and put it under his head — the stairs aren't gonna be much better."
Struggling with the man's weight the entire way down the staircase, Curtis searches the first floor carefully when they get to the bottom, then tells the others to stay inside while he takes the guy outside.
"I might be several minutes, I'm gonna try to find where he got in."
"Don't wander out of earshot."
"I won't, I promise."
He drags the man across the yard, stopping in the corner where there's almost no grass — where it looks like the sand dunes below have worked their way up to the surface. Leaving him there, he runs over to the shed and picks up a shovel that's leaned up against the building, then returns to the corner and starts to dig a hole in the soft, wet soil — an act which requires almost no effort in what appears to be almost pure sand. When he's done, he starts to push the man toward the hole, then finally uses the shovel when he begins to struggle against him — confirming Curtis' fear that the man is still very much alive. As his body drops down into the shallow grave, Curtis walks around to the other side and begins to quickly pull the loose sand over the top of him, then looks up and sees Sarah staring back at him from across the yard. When she turns around and heads back to the house, he finishes the job and packs the ground down tightly with his feet, then throws the shovel down and follows her.