by Won, Mark
Chapter 4
“Wow, you guys have everything here,” I exclaimed. And they did, too. The hospital was well stocked with just about everything anyone could want. It even had an emergency generator set to last at least another few months, as long as they only ran it an hour a day.
“So, you’ll stay with us, then?” Smarty liked the idea, I could tell, but some of the others looked at me like I had a bug on me. Or maybe like I was the bug. I can’t say that I’m a big fan of that expression. Still, I needed a place to hang my hat until I could get resupplied. Freeing everyone had cost me all my homemade boom makers and some other neat toys, so I figured to stick around for a bit.
“Yeah, sure, it’s nice here. I had always heard that hospital food was disgusting but the food here is pretty tasty. Now I can play games on my phone again, too.” It had been a long time but all my old scores were still intact. I love electricity.
“Good. Take any room you like. Maybe you could teach some of us how to shoot guns later on? That would be very helpful.”
“Why do you want to shoot guns? Won’t the bullet holes break them?” That joke never gets old.
Mr. Run let out a strangley laugh but no one else got the joke. I guess with all the trouble they’d had most of them had lost their sense of humor. I hoped it came back soon.
I told Smarty, “I’ll teach anyone to shoot who wants to learn. It’ll be fun. We can go out and knock the heads off some zombies later on. How about after lunch?”
“That sounds good, but shouldn’t we begin with target practice?” Smarty already had it all figured out.
“No, we’re gonna start with gun safety so nobody shoots me. Then we’re going to knock the heads off some zombies. Uncle always said, ‘Never waste ammunition on target practice if there’s something around that needs a good killing. And there’s always something around that needs a good killing.’”
Smarty took a second to digest that pearl of wisdom before replying, “Your uncle sounds like he was a...wise...man. I look forward to the practice.” Then she was off, looking into how the general lock down was coming along.
Once I had explained how anyone who wanted to sneak in to the hospital could easily do so by picking any old lock anytime, Smarty had asked me what to do about it. I said they should use any leftover welding stuff to permanently shut any doors they don’t ever want people coming through. That, and padlock the rest from the inside. Attaching a few bars hear and there wouldn’t have hurt matters either.
Lunch was a thing called beef stroganoff which I’d never had before. It was real good. I always was leery of new foods because most of them are terrible. But not beef stroganoff. Afterward, we all went to the lower roof to see if there were any zombies walking around down below for us to shoot at.
There were six of us. Smarty, Mr. Run, Lindsy, Tammi, Bruce and me. Tracer, Polly, Abby, Zippy and Bob were there too, but none of them like to fire shotguns. Let me tell you, those guys were the absolute worst shots in the history of pulling a trigger. They would have been better off chucking rocks. I was careful not to laugh at them because I didn’t want to hurt their feelings. Instead, I just remembered what Uncle had taught me and slowly brought them through it. At least we had a lot of ammunition.
The fake cops had made so free with the shooting because they had thousands of shells all stashed away in a former patient room. They could have fired at me all day and never noticed the loss. The thought of it made me a bit jealous, I have to admit.
Lindsy asked Smarty, “Do you think we’ll be ready for the rest of them when they come back?” She had a terrified tremble to her voice the way she said it. That was the first I’d heard of a ‘the rest of them’ and it had me curious.
Smarty had a stricken look about her. She looked back and forth between Lindsy and me with a guilty cast to her features. I just kept looking at her expectantly.
Eventually she said to Lindsy, “I’m sure we’ll be able to hold them off with Gideon’s help.” Lindsy looked at me with big eyed fear and Smarty didn’t meet my gaze at all.
I said, “You never told me there were more! How come?” It just seemed like the important kind of thing anyone should be told. I was beginning to think all these people were crazy. How was I supposed to anticipate killing a bunch of people I’d never even met before, if no one would tell me they were on their way? I was obviously going to have to talk to someone about the concept of ‘critical, need to know, information’. Maybe Mr. Run would understand. He seemed way less crazy after just a night of crying and peaceful rest.
Smarty said, “I’m so sorry, Gideon. It’s just that we all need you. If you don’t help us then our lives are over. Or we’ll wish they were.” I didn’t know what the heck she was talking about. And the guilty way she was acting had me wondering if she had done something wrong.
“Why are you talking like that?” I really wanted to know.
Smarty was starting to get confused, I could tell. Maybe I shouldn’t have named her Smarty. I mean, I’m not saying I should have named her ‘Dummy’ or anything, I’m just saying. I decided to go with her other name from then on, Dr. Brittany Summer. Because she definitely wasn’t a Smarty. It was strange, too, because you’d think the name Smarty would be a slam dunk for a doctor.
Good old Mr. Run came to her rescue, “She was afraid, Gideon, that you’d run away and leave us once you knew there were more of them. The friends of the ‘fake cops’ are coming back and they’re every bit as bad as the men you’ve already killed, but Dr. Summer doesn’t think that we’d do any better on the run. She thinks we should stand and fight, but without you we don’t stand a chance. So she didn’t want to tell you they were coming.”
I told him, “She’s right about the ‘you guys running’ part. You wouldn’t last five minutes in the real world. Well, maybe you would would, Mr. Run.” I had seen him run, after all, and knew he could really pick up the pace if he had to. “You all really need to pick up some practical skills, like plucking birds and shooting squirrels.”
Dr. Summer asked, “So you’ll stay, then?”
The problem with someone like me trying to talk to someone like her was the twenty I.Q. point difference thing. Uncle had told me that when two people have over twenty I.Q. points separating them then communication can become troublesome. And it works both ways, too. It isn’t just the dumber one who’ll have trouble understanding me.
“Yeah, of course I’ll stay. Why wouldn’t I stay?” No one answered. Twenty points.
I tried again, “Mr. Run, why do you suppose Dr. Summer thinks I might want to run away?”
He cast a furtive glance her way before answering, “Because maybe you’re afraid of the bad men coming.”
Well, that was just plain dumb. “Do you think I’m afraid, Mr. Run?” I hoped not, it would make things weird between us.
He looked at me with a real open, honest expression and said, “No. I don’t think you’re afraid of anything I would understand. Certainly not any number of people, no matter how dangerous.”
I looked at Dr. Summer and said, “Now, don’t get mad. Just think with me for a minute. I killed, like, fourteen people just to help you. To run away like a scared little girl because I hear a bunch more guys are coming is silly. I’ll just kill them too, see? But by not telling me about it in advance, by trying to make it a surprise, maybe some of you lot might get yourselves killed before I can kill all of them, see?”
Dr. Summer, looking properly abashed, said, “I’m sorry, Gideon, I didn’t understand. Thank you. Thank you for staying.”
All that talk had given me a wistful thought, “It would have been fun, though.”
“What’s that, Gideon?” asked Mr. Run.
“A whole bunch of bad guys for me to get to kill, as a surprise. It would have made for a nice birthday present. A real fun surprise. Oh well. Too impractical.”
There was one of those twenty point pauses I was beginning to get comfortable with, then Mr. Run asked, “When is your bir
thday, Gideon?”
At the same time Tammi asked, “How old are you, Gideon?”
I answered both at once, “I’ll be sixteen next April 30th. That was next year, and some months away.
Bruce said, “I hope we can get you a nice cake then. How does that sound?” He said it kind of slow like he thought I had some kind of mental problem. But one look at his kind face and I could tell that I was overreacting just because lots of other people had treated me that way. Bruce wasn’t like that, he wanted to be friends. Then I got it, Bruce was the one with the mental problem, that’s why he was talking so slowly. Poor guy.
“That sounds real nice. I love cake.” Silly question, though. Who doesn’t like cake?
Chapter 5
Bruce proved to be a great guy. I was surprised that the fake cops had let him live, on account of his handicap. The fake cops didn’t seem like the kind of folks who would tolerate that sort of thing. Bruce and I played all the games in the kids corner together, it was fun. Usually we could get a couple of others interested as well. He showed me the laundry room, and how to use the machines, so I was able to get the worst stains out of my cloak. Dr. Summer had made a big point of telling him to stay by my side ‘just in case’. That didn’t make any sense, of course, but I was getting used to that from her. Bruce took it all in stride like a champ. He was a quick study with a shotgun, too. I was glad to see no one had a problem with me teaching him. I had always been under the impression that normal people didn’t want the mentally handicapped learning how to shoot. I don’t know why I thought that. It was just an impression.
A few days later, He, Tracer, and I were on the lower roof, only a few floors up, talking about the best way to shoot a ghoul when a whole bunch of cars began pulling into the ambulance entrance way. I told Bruce, “Game on, dude. This is going to be hilarious.” He gave me a real nervous, sickly smile and I knew the poor guy wasn’t really aware of what was happening. Training or no, that could be dangerous.
I tried again, “Remember your job? The job we’ve been practicing for the last three days?” It was a non-critical role, so if he’d forgotten then I’d just leave him on the roof with instructions to stay put.
But he nodded, all serious like, “Yeah, I’ll go warn everybody.” and off he went. I picked up a radio.
“Hey, Power Room, start the juice. Let’s get the elevators running for everyone.” That was kind of an embarrassing point for me. When I’d began my little sniper action a few days ago the fake cops had turned the juice on to the elevators for themselves, and then turned it off again after their ambush squad had left the hospital. If I’d thought to ask Mr. Run where the utility room was located I could have saved myself forty flights of stairs.
I wasn’t too worried about the bad guys overhearing my request. They’d just think we were getting things ready for their periodic recreation. I’d been teaching everyone all about radio silence and how to break it without compromising our tactical advantages. You know, by instead of saying, “Okay, lets turn the elevators off now that the enemy is trapped so we can kill them,” just say, “Radio check on the elevators,” or something equally innocuous.
I had given my ambush plan some serious consideration. It had to kill everybody, it had to allow no chance of reprisal, it had to have no chance of casualties, it had to leave our own building unharmed (mostly), it had to have style, and it had to be fun. Not necessarily in that order.
I began cycling through the channels looking for enemy communication. Sure enough it only took a few seconds to catch their message.
“How’s it going y’all? We here an’ comin’ on up. Get them elevators runnin’. Comeback.”
I reached down to pet Tracer and put on my best Big Nose voice, “We got it all ready for ya’. Ain’t nobody at the door. Just come on up. We found someone new who really wants to meet you.”
Radio Bad Guy wanted to know, “Who y’all got up there? Is she pretty? Does she got big...” He went on like that for a while with me just sort of going along with everything he said. I was sure to use non-committal grunts and appreciative noises, however, rather than tell any bald faced lies. I’m a terrible liar. I used the time to begin moving into position.
That’s when I passed Lindsy, Mr. Run, and a couple others hauling lengths of tire spikes to my previous location, just above the drive way leading into the hospitals emergency entrance. They were all armed with pump shotguns, our only ammunition being buckshot. I supposed that was all for the best considering the poor marksmanship of the people doing the shooting.
After telling Tracer to stay with Mr. Run, I made my way down the stairs to the service elevator. For some reason the bad guys never used it. I guess some habits die hard, or maybe it was that they didn’t want to split up that much. They had thirty five thugs who were used to packing four or five thugs to an elevator (Dr. Summer had a real head for numbers). The hospital had eight elevators that the bad guys seemed to prefer. I had placed traps in all of them, including the ones they didn’t normally use. Dr. Summer was waiting to light the baby bombs as soon as all the elevators were in motion.
The service elevator let me out at the ground floor, where I began my sweep for any who had been left behind. There’s always someone, and sure enough I found him at the big double doors leading to the garage, smoking some smelly non-cigarette with a couple of his buddies. They were passing it around like it was caviar wrapped in silk and smothered in diamonds and gold brocade. I was pretty sure it was some kind of cannabis, and they were a bunch of stinky reefer addicts.
I decided to back off and get an update. I called Dr. Summer to see how things had went and if I’d need to charge up them darn stairs again.
She said, in a celebratory tone, “It worked, my God, my God, it worked! They’re all dead. All of them.” Then in a more serious voice, “You’re a genius, Gideon, a mad genius. Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Well, that was nice to hear. Especially the part about me being a genius. Because I am one. I guess that told me everything I wanted to know, but I really wish she’d remembered to keep things a little more on the down low. There were other ears about, after all. She had no idea of my situation.
Sure enough, after checking through the channels on my walkie talkie, I got some new voices over the walkie talkie, “What’s that Carter? Say again. I repeat, say again!” Dr. Summer’s big mouth had just made things fun.
I turned off my radio and bolted back toward the group of three that I’d left getting high. They were all staring at a radio one of them was holding. It was advising them to run for their lives, but at least it was a distraction, which was nice. I planned on saving some prisoners for later.
Up came my liberated cop gun and I softened each of them with a shot to the armored upper torso, you know, just to take some of the wind out of their sails. Then a shot to the arm on each of their gun sides, followed by a couple of hits to each of their legs. I reloaded (I have to admit, I do kind of like clips) and reevaluated the situation.
One thug had a spurter in the leg and I knew he wasn’t going to make it, so I shot him in the head. Another was trying to fork out his gun with both hands so I shot him in each shoulder. That was fun; he was a good screamer. The third guy looked like he was in shock so I took aim and fired a bullet to crease his skull, thus rendering him unconscious, and probably saving his life (for a little while, anyway).
Past the big glass doors I could see the vans the thugs had driven in, driving out. I guess they didn’t want to play no more, but that was okay. At some point Mr. Run had gotten the message that the fight was underway and had tossed a bunch of those cop quality road spikes (cops always got the good stuff) down from the roof. As soon as the vans exited the emergency garage, all three of them tried plowing over the spikes, which went about as well as you’d expect. There was no way any of those vehicles were going to be able to make it up the exit incline until they got some replacement tires.
Then I heard the gunshots, and I k
new Mr. Run, Lindsy, Tammy, and, hopefully, Bruce were attempting to perforate those vans from above. My friends were up above and only about sixty feet away from the vans, so things were looking pretty unlikely for me getting another prisoner to play with. I pushed the hospital doors open and got out there to see if I could join in before it was all over.
That’s when I was able to really see the situation better. Somebody up above had already started throwing the Molotov cocktails, fire was engulfing the whole access driveway and running back down into the garage. Suddenly one of the thugs lunged out of a van side door, engulfed in flames. I would have liked to see him finish his pretty spin dance but someone shot him and knocked him down.
Those guys up above were really pouring on the fire (both literally and metaphorically). It’s true that the vests the thugs were wearing could usually stop the pellets from penetrating, but there are practical limits. Also, they don’t help much against getting the legs shot out. The thugs were bleeding, burning, and dying at what I found to be unacceptably high rate of speed. There weren’t going to be any left for me.
I turned my radio on and called up to the roof, “Stop chucking the cocktails, guys! The fire’s getting into the garage! Are you trying to burn us out of house and home?!” Just then one of the van’s gas tanks exploded and that made it all okay. It was lovely. Sort of a dull wumph, and one van was engulfed in a huge beautiful fireball. It might not have been the gas tank that exploded, I’m not sure, it might have been a big spare gas can. Doesn’t matter, it was awesome either way.
That stopped all my new friends from wasting more ammunition, but I still had to retreat due to the advancing flames. There was a convenient fire extinguisher nearby, so I grabbed it and began playing like I was a fireman. Fortunately, it was rated against gasoline fires (we were in a garage, after all), so it didn’t take too long to get things under control. By the time I was done a couple of nurses had joined me to help out.