Aberdeen

by James Bierce

  With her flashlight in her hand, she moves down the steps quickly and silently, stopping only momentarily at the fifth floor to listen for any signs of activity from Christine. Hearing none, she continues all the way down to the second level, where she can already hear the sounds of scratching and pounding, as at least two people try to claw their way through the busted small window in the door.

  "Get back!" she yells at one of them, as she takes her knife and jabs into the back of their hand. That arm disappears from sight, but it takes her several more blows before they all retreat back into the dark cavern that used to be a hospital. She unlocks the door and then stands back, waiting for one of them to get curious enough to come back to the opening. The hunters in Grayland were still smart somehow, sensing when they were about to walk into a trap — but the infected of Aberdeen were just like all of the others, too dimwitted and gullible to understand even the most basic strategy.

  In only a few minutes, one of them finally appears in the doorway — a tall, older woman whose coordination is so shaky that Amanda isn't even certain she can make it up the flights of stairs. Right behind her is a woman that isn't much younger, but she's far more steady on her feet. Seeing no one else come through the doorway, she begins to back up the stairs slowly, waiting every few steps for the women to catch up. She really wanted three of them, and at first she was disappointed when only the two came out — but as she reaches the third floor landing, she hears yet another set of footsteps coming up the staircase. It takes the man only seconds to reach the other two, and as he pushes both of them to the side and hurries up the steps, Amanda grips her knife tightly and steadies her feet on the rough surface beneath them. The man doesn't hesitate at all before attacking her, but he makes the same fatal mistake that almost all of them do. As he grabs for her shoulders, intending to tackle her to the ground, she quickly ducks underneath his reach and spins around behind — pushing the knife into his back several times before he has a chance to react. By the time he turns around and faces her, his knees are already beginning to buckle — and as she calmly approaches him, ripping the large blade across his throat, she feels her hand begin to shake.

  Hearing the women getting closer, she places the knife in her other hand and makes a few quick stabbing motions with it to test her agility, hoping that she doesn't have to resort to using her less coordinated hand for protection. Instead, and much to her delight, the pair of them simply step over the man and continue following her — all the way to the sixth floor.

  CHAPTER 17

  Aberdeen: March 30th

  Christine slowly picks her foot up and moves it forward a few inches, breaking free of whatever is under the desk and holding onto it — then she spins around quickly when she hears them grasping for something else. She fully expected to see a hand when she turned on the flashlight, but she never expected it to be so thin and frail looking. Hearing fast-moving footsteps in the hallway again, she turns the flashlight off again for a moment and stays perfectly still until they pass by, and then carefully leans over the desk and catches just a glimpse of the person behind it — but then she quickly turns her head away and covers her mouth, trying not to get sick.

  Wearing a black sweat suit that's now several sizes too large, she can hear the person wheezing and struggling for every breath, and the upper portion of their face is buried beneath a stack of papers. It's impossible to tell for certain whether it's a man or a woman, but at this point it doesn't really matter — they'll be dead soon anyway. None of these people have been completely without food and water since the outbreak first began, far too much time has passed for that to be true — but this person is obviously starving to death, and their pathetic, labored breathing is almost more than Christine can handle. Her mother ultimately died of cancer, but she looked and sounded nearly identical to whoever this is. At first she prayed for a miracle, that her mother would spontaneously improve despite the lack of drugs to fight the cancer — but in those last couple of weeks, as her condition became worse and the drugs to comfort her began to dwindle, Christine started to hope for something she never thought possible. Since that horrible day, when her final wish was granted, and her mother drew her last breath, Christine has felt an overwhelming guilt that she somehow let her down.

  Being in the same room as this person, as they make the same sounds and give off the same smell of death, is bringing all of that heartache and anguish back. Covering her mouth to block the smell, she leans over the desk, hoping that by seeing the person, it will somehow convince her mind that it's not really her mother lying there. After convincing herself that they're incapable of putting up any kind of a fight, Christine takes her foot and carefully pushes the papers away from their face, revealing the emaciated face of a woman underneath, who's looking up at her with dark, sunken, bloodshot eyes. Christine just stands there and stares at the woman, wishing that she could help end her suffering somehow — but when she hears the tapping of shoes somewhere outside the room, the woman lets out a high-pitched scream and begins to frantically claw at the floor again.

  As soon as they start beating on the door from the outside, Christine knows that it's pointless to turn off her light and pretend that she isn't here — the fact that the woman on the floor continues to scream is more than enough reason to continue their assault. She glances around the room quickly, looking for something that might serve as a better weapon than her flashlight, and ends up grabbing a pair of scissors that are lying on the floor next to the woman's feet. The hinges that hold the door look strong, and are barely moving through the repeated hits that they're taking — but the door jam on the lock side isn't holding as well, and she can hear the splintering of wood as the sounds of slamming hands turns into kicks instead. She stands back, gripping the scissors tightly in her hand as the door finally begins to give way, and she sees a half naked man burst into the room and look around with a frenzied look in his eyes, first at Christine, and then at the other woman, who's still yelling at the top of her lungs. The man tries to climb over the desk at first, reaching desperately for the woman who's only slightly out of his grasp — then he drops to the floor and shoves his arms underneath, giving Christine an opportunity to either make a run for it, or to take him out with only a pair of scissors. Looking at the broken door, and hearing the agonizing cries coming from the woman as she fights for her life, Christine kneels down beside the man and shoves the blades of the scissors straight into the back of his head. She hears a loud moan as soon as they go in, and she sees him grabbing at his neck where the steel is still deeply buried.

  She waits for a few more seconds, thinking at any moment that the man in front of her will simply lie down and die — but when that doesn't happen, she lets go of the scissors and jumps back, listening to the woman continue to scream and draw attention to the room.

  Still backing away, Christine stands next to the open doorway and carefully looks down both directions of the hallway with the light, expecting to see Amanda standing there waiting for her. Seeing nothing though, she steps into the corridor again and turns to the right, where there's a waiting room and a small kitchenette off to the side. The sounds of screaming is still echoing down the hallway behind her as she turns off the flashlight and hides behind a small couch in the corner of the room — and then she hears something else, a small squeak, repeating itself every few seconds or so on the far side of the room where the kitchen area is. Exhausted, she leans back against the wall behind her and closes her eyes, finding herself drifting off despite the commotion throughout the rest of the floor.

  Existing halfway inside of a dreamworld, she remembers another night similar to this shortly after they left their home in Adna — a night in which all three of them, her father, David, and herself, nearly died at the hands of a psychopath. In their first real experience with that type of infected, they were followed for hours down the highway and across winding pathways through the thick forests of the Boistfort Hills, until they finally came across a farm that sat mi
les from anything else, tucked back into a small valley and overshadowed by the hills on either side of it. It was there, hiding in an old, deteriorating farmhouse with no supplies and little protection, that they were relentlessly tormented through the night. It wasn't until the early morning hours, when the glow of the approaching sun illuminated the land around the house, that David was able to fire several gunshots through a window as the man ran past it — killing him instantly.

  The man that was following them was clearly different from the others, although Christine has since seen several others just like him. The man and woman in the office down the hall frighten her, especially when she's more or less defenseless against their infrequent attacks — but they're also easily outwitted, and are oftentimes confused, but harmless. Amanda and Jake, however, and the others like them, are anything but harmless, and are never confused about anything surrounding them. Even now, with the area around her filled with screaming and loud footsteps in the distance, she can still hear something being dragged across the floor above her. She knows exactly what, and who, it is — the murderous young girl only has a few hours of darkness to prepare everything for the arrival of Larry and Curtis, and her singular focus will be aimed at killing both of them before they have a chance to escape her torment.

  Hearing a few drops of rain against the building, Christine opens her eyes again and sees a floor-to-ceiling window only a couple of feet ahead of her. Still hidden behind the couch, she scoots herself across the carpeting, her tired legs protesting against every movement, and finds that the window is looking east toward the cascade mountains in the distance — their silhouette barely visible from the rising sun behind them. The city itself is still mostly shrouded in darkness, although she can see what looks like fires burning on the east end of town, near the pharmacy where Larry and her found one another again. That part of town seemed deserted at the time, and they talked about it being a possible place to settle down and rest for a while — but she doesn't find herself discouraged or disappointed from the fact that it's obviously overrun, her mind has become far too calloused and desensitized for that to happen. One building at a time, the world that she once knew is being destroyed, and replaced with nothing but crumbling ruins that serve no purpose whatsoever.

  Watching the flickering lights of the fires a few miles away, she lets her mind briefly escape from the situation that she finds herself in — but then something suddenly draws her attention again, not a noise inside of the building, but a lack of one. The woman down the hallway has been screaming and crying almost non-stop — until now. Christine turns her head away from the window and listens closely to the sounds emanating from inside the hospital, but she only hears the slight squeaking coming from the kitchen, the faint footsteps from far away, and now the sound of someone struggling to crawl down the hallway, grunting painfully with each movement. As the noise becomes louder, and Christine realizes for certain that they're getting closer, she peeks her head around the edge of the couch and stares at the beginning of the hallway, which is just barely visible in the darkness of the room. In only a few moments she can tell that they've entered the waiting area, and are now crawling across the floor as she feels the couch being pushed toward her from the other side. They're moving at a regular pace, pulling themselves along as their legs drag across the floor behind them — but then they suddenly stop, and the only sound they make are the grunts and moans of somebody desperately struggling. She waits for what seems like forever, listening as they continue to grasp at anything within reach, and then she quietly climbs out from behind the couch and shines her flashlight onto the floor.

  There's a thick streak of blood across the carpet, leading back to the man that's scrambling around in front of the couch, and she can see the office scissors still sticking out of his neck where she shoved them in only a short while ago. Both of his legs look like they're paralyzed, and one foot is wedged underneath a table, which prevents him from going any further. As she approaches him, he turns his head slightly and then reaches one of his hands in her direction in a pathetic attempt to grab her. Stepping down on his elbow, she bends over and grabs onto the scissors, wishing more than anything for the strength to put the man out of his misery — but instead, she just pulls them out and then steps back, watching the blood pour out of his neck and onto the flooring in giant spurts. In a few minutes his body finally goes limp, and she wipes the scissors onto the couch cushion beside her and then shines the light back down the hallway.

  Relieved to see nobody else around, she turns the light off and feels her way to another chair — then hears the squeaking behind her stop as well, leaving the entire hospital suddenly quiet. Her body tenses up as footsteps make their way across the floor, then back again, followed by the squeaking noise starting up once again. With her fingers fumbling nervously for the power switch on the flashlight, she turns it on and slowly moves its beam toward the kitchen, where she sees the back of a woman standing at a small sink, attempting again and again to pour water into an empty glass. Each time she lifts the faucet handle, it makes a slight squeak before she pushes it back down and then tries again.

  The woman then stops, still facing away from Christine. As she reaches to her side for another glass, Christine gets up from her chair and starts to slowly back away to the corridor, keeping her light on the woman the entire time. Instead of reaching for the faucet again, which Christine was hoping she would do, the woman spins around quickly and throws the glass in her direction, nearly hitting her head as it smashes against the wall behind her. Christine stumbles backward, trying to regain her footing after ducking out of the way — but when she aims the light back in the woman's direction, she doesn't see her anywhere. Shining the light around the room frantically, she finally spots her back in the kitchen, where she was apparently bent over and hidden by the cabinets. This time though, her frail, gaunt frame that looks dangerously close to death, has a small revolver aimed directly at Christine.

  "I don't want to hurt anybody," Christine says softly, hoping not to arouse anymore attention than necessary. "I'll leave you alone, okay?"

  She starts walking backward again, noticing the usual purple blotches of skin all over the woman's face and arms. Then the woman takes a couple of steps forward and pulls the trigger just once, but nothing happens. With a completely blank expression, she then holds the gun up to her own head and pulls the trigger repeatedly, and on the fifth shot the gun fires a bullet into her head, dropping her body to the floor.

  At first Christine just stands there in shock, and she actually begins to back up further into the hallway before her mind begins to clear once again. From somewhere down the long corridor behind her, she can hear multiple sets of footsteps quickly approaching, along with incoherent yelling and someone beating against the walls as they make their way toward the gunshot. Christine looks around for someplace to hide, seeing another room on the other side of the waiting area that's marked 'Staff Only'. As she passes by the suicidal woman, she reaches down and grabs the gun off of the floor and then slips into the other room, not even bothering to look around inside first. The room, which appears to be another small office, is empty aside from a desk and a few metal file cabinets — but it also has a large window next to the door, which has a view of the entire waiting area as soon as she shuts the flashlight off. She locks the flimsy door, then hides behind the desk and watches through the window as the first people come barging into the waiting room. In only a few minutes, five of them are standing over the bodies of the man and woman, all of them looking confused as they begin searching around the rest of the area — including the window of the small office that Christine is hiding in.

  CHAPTER 18

  Aberdeen: March 31st

  Seeing the first rays of sunlight hitting the building across the street, Larry tries to rub the sleepiness from his eyes as he looks out at the clear morning sky — a rarity in this area, especially during this time of the year. He barely slept last night, with his mind racing in
circles over what might be going on inside the hospital. He could tell Christine was scared, but he can't think of a single reason why Mike would want to delay getting his medication — especially to wait for someone he's never even met. Every scenario that ran through his head last night came back around to the same conclusion — one that he prays isn't true.

  They saw Amanda Williams in front of the pharmacy not long before they left, and they both assumed that she'd followed them through the city, watching their movements for any signs of letting their guard down. For whatever reason though, neither one of them took the threat of her seriously after confining themselves in the locked sixth floor of the hospital, which is a mistake he's just now beginning to realize. He knows that the odds of finding Christine alive this morning are low, regardless or whether it's Mike or Amanda that they'll be facing — but he also keeps reminding himself that she kept Christine alive in Grayland, and never harmed her despite her threats to do so. Just like Ben, she seems to have a soft spot for the teenager, which might have something to do with their ages.

  At first light, he contacted Curtis and found out that he was leaving right after sunrise — Larry assumes with the rest of his family, but he can't even be certain that all of them are still alive. After discovering how violent and cruel the virus had made Jake, he wasn't holding out much hope that any of them survived his rampage. After that he tried radioing Christine to give her an update status, but the only thing he heard back was empty static.