Alissa laid the floor plan on the top of the desk. The blood bank was located at the opposite end of the hospital outside the ER. To get there, they would have to go to the Women’s Health center, go right, and, at the end of the hospital, go left toward the ER. Only five hundred feet on paper, but how easy it would be depended on what lie beyond the double doors behind them. She folded the map and slid it into her jacket pocket.
“Let’s go.”
“If the power’s out, how are we going to buzz ourselves in?” Nathan asked.
“The security locks are disengaged during a power outage.”
“Which also means there’s nothing keeping the deaders locked in their rooms.”
Alissa picked up the machete and held it in front of her. “It’ll make it interesting.”
“They’re still behind us.” Kiera shifted in her seat, facing front.
“Are you okay?”
“If you mean am I scared, no. Well, not anymore. These things are so slow I could outwalk them if I had to.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” Chris shifted into neutral and revved the engine. The pack behind him surged forward, grasping for them.
Alissa pushed open the lobby door enough to stick her head through. A small corridor stretched for fifty feet before ending on another one. On the right were male and female bathrooms. The doors pushed inward, so any deaders inside the bathrooms could not get out. The two moved down the corridor, Nathan quietly closing the door after him. The stench of the dead lingered here as well, although not as bad as in the lobby.
At the intersection of the corridors, Alissa and Nathan paused and cautiously peered around the corners. It ran the length of the main building. Four deaders roamed it, three to the right and one to the left, each at varying intervals, stumbling around in the limited lighting provided by the emergency system.
Alissa mouthed, “Do you think we can take them?”
Nathan nodded.
They stepped out into the center. Alissa tapped the top of her machete against the wall. The four deaders were unable at first to determine the source of the noise. Nathan whistled. The living dead focused on the two humans and moved toward them.
Alissa rushed the lone deader, a male nurse whose blue scrubs were discolored by dried blood. She held the machete over her right shoulder like a bat, slowed as she drew near, and swung. The blade sliced through the deader’s neck. It collapsed. Its head lopped to the side, bouncing off the wall and coming to rest alongside the body.
Nathan stepped up to the closest of his three targets, a woman in civilian clothes with a bite wound on its lower arm. Nathan planned his move carefully. When it drew close enough, he clutched the front of its shirt, holding it in place, and plunged his hunting knife through the side of its neck below the right ear and twisted. The deader stiffened for a moment before dropping to the floor, sliding off the blade.
The second deader was partially naked, the remains of a hospital gown dangling from its right arm, leaving Nathan nothing to hold on to. Its lower jaw had been torn off. Nathan allowed it to get closer, waiting for the right opportunity. When it lunged, Nathan stepped forward, wrapped his left hand around its arm, and drove the hunting knife through its mouth into the primordial brain. He tried to pull it out, but the hilt caught on the jaw.
The last deader, a motorcycle State Trooper that still wore its helmet, took advantage of the opportunity and attacked. Nathan let go of the knife and moved back. The naked deader slid to the floor, tripping the trooper which stumbled into Nathan. Both fell against the wall. Nathan felt its teeth gnawing at his leather jacket. He unsuccessfully tried to force his hands between himself and the dead thing to push it away. Something moved on his right. Panic welled up inside of him as he expected another deader to join in the frenzy. Instead, Alissa body checked the trooper, knocking it off Nathan and sending it sprawling on its back. She passed by and raised the machete over her head. When the deader growled, Alissa brought down the weapon with as much force as possible. The blade drove through its face, slicing past its nose and gouging out its left eye. The deader went into seizures. Placing her left foot on its chest, she yanked the weapon from its face, repositioned it, and slammed the blade down on the neck. The severed head rolled a few inches away.
“Thanks.” Nathan picked himself off the floor. “That—”
Alissa brought her index finger to her lips as she listened. She heard agitated deaders in the distance, but the sounds were muffled, indicating they were trapped in rooms. A few moments passed and nothing came after them.
“You’re welcome,” she whispered.
“Which way?”
Alissa led them to the ER. Occasionally, as they passed a patient’s room, something moaned and scratched against the door on the other side. Since the deaders were trapped they posed no threat, and no loose ones roamed the building. Three quarters of the way down the corridor, they reached a pair of coded double doors to the hall that led to the Emergency Room, pathology, and the blood bank. Two deaders in civilian attire stumbled around the hall and a third in a nurse’s uniform lay face down, its legs broken, motionless. Alissa gently pushed against the doors and they opened.
Nathan clutched the grip of his hunting knife tighter. “Let’s get them.”
Alissa stopped him. “If we do it there, it’ll create too much noise and draw the others from the ER, then we’re screwed. Let’s lure them out her.”
Nathan moved to the right of the doorway. Alissa pushed the left door with her hand hard enough for it to bump into the wall. The two deaders spun around, searching for the noise, and noticed the door swinging back into place. They made their way forward, bumped into the twin doors, and continued through into the corridor. Nathan attacked the one on the right, plunging the hunting knife into its ear and through the canal, twisting the blade several times. As its knees gave way, he clutched the deader under the left shoulder and quietly lowered it to the floor. Alissa swung her machete like a bat but misjudged, slamming the blade between its jaws. The deader bit down, its snarl becoming a gurgle as congealed blood flowed down its decayed throat. Alissa held it in place while Nathan stepped over, moved behind the deader, and jabbed the knife into the base of its skull. When the deader went limp, they lowered it to the floor.
Leading the way down the hall, Alissa hugged the wall to go around the nurse deader and not be seen through the door windows to the ER. She peered in. Five bodies lay on the floor in various levels of being eaten. Seven deaders stood amongst them, though it was impossible to tell how many more may be lurking in the rooms or around the nurses’ station.
Nathan tapped her shoulder and mouthed the words, “How many?”
With her free hand, Alissa held up five fingers and then two more. She moved away from the ER, backtracking against the wall to the blood bank. She tried the knob. Locked.
“Shit,” whispered Nathan.
Alissa pointed to the nurse on the floor and patted her own chest, indicating he should check her for a card badge. He crouched, made his way to the body, and rolled it over. Sure enough, a lanyard with a security card hung around her neck, covered in blood and gore. He took the card in his left hand and pulled the lanyard over—
The nurse’s eyes opened and focused on him. Before he could react, it sat up and bit his wrist. He pushed his arm down, pinning the deader’s head to the floor, and with his right scrambled its primordial brain through its neck. When its body went limp, he pried open its jaw and crawled back against the wall.
A stirring came from the ER.
Alissa scurried over to the body and removed the lanyard. In one swift motion, she pulled Nathan off the floor, swiped the card across the access panel to the blood bank, and, when the security lock clicked, opened the door and dragged him inside. She closed it quickly, slowing down at the last moment so it wouldn’t slam shut and attract any more attention. Listening carefully, Alissa thought she heard at least one deader roaming outside. At least they were safe for now.
Nathan slouched against the opposite wall, shaking and breathing heavily. She ran over to him and knelt by his side, reaching for his arm. Blood stained his sleeve.
“How bad were you bit?”
“I d-don’t know.”
Alissa examined his arm. The deader had bitten him near the end of the leather jacket’s sleeve. Blood stained his wrist. She wiped it off. There were no bite marks underneath, although another two inches and it would have punctured flesh. She saw no tears in the coat. Pulling it off and rolling up his sleeve, she checked Nathan’s arm, terrified of what she would find.
There were no wounds.
“Am I okay?”
“Yes,” Alissa sighed with relief. “You’re fortunate it didn’t break through your coat.”
“That’s why I got us the leather.” Nathan stood up and buttoned up his sleeve.
Alissa went to work completing the task at hand. She found the carrying cooler for transporting blood supplies, placed it on the counter, and opened the lid. Stepping over to the refrigeration units, she opened the door. They were operable.
Nathan patted her shoulder. “You were right about the emergency generators still working.”
“Thank God.” Browsing through them, Alissa found all the supplies of AB- blood and removed them. There were only five bags, which would be more than enough. Alissa placed them one by one in the cooler.
“Shit.”
Nathan slid on his coat. “What’s wrong?”
“The blood is ten to twenty days beyond its expiration date.”
“We went through all this for nothing?”
“Not necessarily. It may not have the same recuperative effects as fresh blood, but it won’t kill him. And it’ll replenish the blood he lost.” Alissa closed the cooler. “Let’s head home.”
“Easier said than done.” Nathan pointed to the monitor for the security camera outside the blood bank.
Five deaders hung around the door.
Chris had driven over a mile while Kiera consulted a map of the area. The pack of deaders still followed behind the Ram, with a few stragglers having joined along the way.
Kiera pointed through the windshield. “There it is, Mr. Andelman.”
“Chris.”
“Excuse me?”
“If we’re going to be hunting deaders together, I want you to call me Chris.”
Kiera beamed. “Okay.”
“Where are we going?”
Kiera pointed again. “Hurricane Mountain Road. A little farther down is a cul de sac that circles around. We can lose them there.”
Chris turned right onto Hurricane Mountain Road. The pack followed. A few hundred feet on the right they came to Crestwood Drive. Chris pulled into it, leading the deaders past several houses. When the rode curved to the left, he accelerated, speeding around the corner and circling around the neighborhood until the road merged with itself near Hurricane Mountain Road. None of the deaders were in sight. As Chris pulled onto the main road and backtracked toward the hospital, he and Kiera gave each other a high five.
Neither realized how premature the gesture was.
While driving down Route 302, they had passed several tourist lodgings bunched together near a scenic overlook. Following the outbreak, local authorities had housed hundreds of displaced persons here to ease the overflow in the downtown area. When the shit hit the fan, this area had been one of the first overrun. With no ready food supply available, the newly reanimated deaders had no reason to stray far from these lodgings, most wandering the nearby woods in search of wildlife. The only noise they had heard in weeks came from the pick-up with the revving engine as Chris lured the pack away, and it brought them back to the highway. Unbeknownst to Chris and Kiera, when they rushed back to rejoin Nathan and Alissa, they sped past deaders emerging from the trees that pursued the food.
As Chris and Kiera approached Memorial Hospital, they were unaware that five hundred deaders followed only a few hundred feet behind them.
Chapter Sixteen
“Is there is another way out of here?” asked Nathan.
Alissa shook her head. “Unless you want to crawl through the air ducts.”
“That only works in movies.” Nathan studied the monitor. “There’s only five of them. We could take them out.”
“And attract every deader in the ER. I don’t like our chances.”
“Then our best bet is to make a break for it.”
Alissa thought for a moment. “We could lead them in here first.”
Nathan thought Alissa had gone crazy.
“You open the door and hide behind it. I’ll lead them around the island in the center of the room and, when the coast is clear, we’ll sneak out.”
“Like I have a choice?”
Alissa placed the cooler of blood on top of the counter by the exit as Nathan took up position. Brandishing the machete, she stood halfway down the right side of the island and nodded to Nathan. He opened the door and remained hidden from view. The closest deader, dressed in a soiled New Hampshire State Trooper uniform, stared at her but did not move. Alissa tapped the tip of the machete on the island loud enough for those in the corridor to hear it. One by one, the five deaders shambled into the blood bank. She prayed none would be attracted from the ER. Alissa slowly backed away, drawing the first four toward her. The fifth deader, noticing the opening to the left of the island, sauntered in that direction. Nathan emerged from behind the door to take it down, but Alissa motioned for him to stay put. She continued around the island, luring the first four deep into the room and getting closer to the fifth. When three feet away from it, she spoke a single word.
“Now.”
Nathan stepped from behind his hiding spot, grabbed the cooler, and held the door open. Alissa slammed the handle of the machete into the face of the fifth deader, shattering several of its teeth and knocking it backwards, giving her enough room to escape. As Alissa ran, the other four snarled and stumbled around the island, anxious for fresh meat. Once she made it to the hall, Nathan closed the door, trapping the deaders inside.
Attracted by the noise, a deader in a security guard uniform pushed its way through the double doors of the ER. Nathan placed his body against the door and shoved, sending it tumbling back into the ER. The noise caught the attention of the others. Eight deaders staggered out of the side rooms and nurses’ station and headed for them.
Placing a hand on Alissa’s shoulder, he gently nudged her. “It’s time to go.”
The horde of deaders from the elementary school/displacement center continued marching north, no longer remembering why, merely moving along via instinct. As it passed Memorial Hospital, something attracted the attention of a deader in a priest’s uniform, its white collar hanging askew after suffering a bite to its neck. A flashing red light over the main entrance. The deader priest did not know what it meant or understand its importance. The remnants of its mind understood that something unusual meant food. Snarling, the deader priest broke from the pack and made its way across the parking lot toward the hospital.
The other two thousand deaders followed.
Alissa and Nathan made their way back through the hospital, staying in the center of the corridor. They passed through the main building, turned left, and followed the shorter corridor that led them to the front entrance. Busting through into the front lobby, Nathan summed up their situation with a single word.
“Fuck.”
Deaders filled the parking lot, swarmed around the Land Rover, and blocked the door, scores reaching for the flashing red light.
“What are we going to do now?” asked Alissa.
The sound of her voice attracted the attention of the closest deader. It spotted the humans and snarled. Within seconds, the living dead poured into the lobby.
“Haul ass.”
They made their way back to the main corridor. A covered walkway led from the main building to the separate orthopedics building out front. As they passed through it, Nathan removed his radi
o from his pocket.
“Chris, we have a situation. The parking lot is full of deaders and we can’t get to the SUV.”
“Where did they come from?”
“Who cares. We need to be extracted.”
“We’re approaching the hospital now and… holy fucking mother of God.”
“That sums it up nicely. Where are you now?”
“At the main entrance.”
Alissa clasped Nathan’s hand and pulled the radio close to her. “Go back to the Emergency Room exit and pull in behind the first building. The orthopedics building. We’re cutting through there and will meet you out back.”
“Roger that.”
As they passed through the opposite end of the walkway, Nathan said, “We have our way out.”
Alissa grabbed his arm and stopped him. “I wouldn’t be too certain about that.”
Only then did they realize that the orthopedics building had been converted into a morgue, more than a dozen deaders had made their way into this part of the building for the free lunch, and were still there.
Chris stared at the horde of deaders flooding across the parking lot and jamming near the main entrance. He had never seen so many of the living dead in one location and hoped he never would again. For a moment, he had no idea what to do. Those closest to the pick-up heard the engine and, attracted by the sound, switched direction toward them.
“Now would be a good time to get out of here,” warned Kiera.
“I agree.” Shifting into reverse, Chris backed the pick-up onto Route 302 and continued north until he entered the ER exit. He pulled alongside the orthopedics center and parked, waiting for Alissa and Nathan.
Nathan peered down the walkway into the main building. A stream of deaders from the lobby filled the main corridor. In front of them, the deaders in the makeshift morgue moved in.
Nurse Alissa vs. the Zombies (Book 2): Escape Page 12