by M. Van
“Not now, Jonesy,” Angie said when she stepped out carrying me.
“You gave that old goat a gun,” Jonesy said, unamused.
“Hey,” Chuck said, “I haven’t shot you yet, but that doesn’t mean I won’t.”
Jonesy growled something incomprehensible under his breath.
Angie sat me down on one of those plastic seating arrangements that could be found in the halls on every floor of this building and then turned to Jonesy. “Give me an update,” she said.
Jonesy explained what had happened in about a third of the amount of words Chuck had used. When he finished, he added, “You were trying to get her out.”
Angie’s face flushed red. She took him by the elbow to guide him away from us.
“I saw what you were trying to do on the security monitors—don’t deny it,” he said before they stepped out of earshot.
Chuck came to sit next to me and rubbed a hand over the fuzzy hair on my head. It felt ice-cold, as if the blood had run and fled from his hand. His face looked a pale white with a bluish sheen on his lips. When I glanced at his oxygen cart, he said in a resigned voice, “There is not much left. But don’t you worry, half pint.”
“We can find some more,” I said and felt the tremor in my voice.
He smiled but didn’t answer. Instead, he padded my head and said, “That is a pretty neat trick we’ve got going, avoiding the zombies and shit.”
I swallowed at the tightness in my throat and produced a smile that I hoped didn’t resemble a grimace. “Yeah, pretty neat.”
I glanced over to the two soldiers arguing. Well, it wasn’t much of an argument—Angie did most of the talking. When they finished, Jonesy disappeared into a connecting hall.
Angie sank down the wall across from us, rifle perched on her lap. She looked exhausted. Strains of hair sprang loosely from her Mohawk braid and all kinds of gunk stuck to her face and clothes. I figured my flimsy white gown would probably look worse, so I didn’t check. Angie dropped the back of her head against the wall, and it seemed to take some effort to pull it back up. I didn’t appreciate the expression on her face when our eyes finally met. She looked concerned.
“He called in the cavalry,” she said in a low voice.
“Son of a bitch,” Chuck bit out. “You can’t trust anyone these days.”
My body felt tired. I didn’t know what time it was, but we had cruised around this hospital since the break of dawn without breakfast. So the gears in my head seemed to spin a little slower, but when it hit, it hit me hard.
“They’re coming back for us,” I said. The fear in my own voice caught me off guard. Chuck and Angie both looked at me as if I were something fragile, ready to break. They were right, but it wasn’t what I wanted to be. My hands clamped down on the edge of the plastic chairs until the rims bit into my fingers. I wanted to be strong, but couldn’t ignore the tears stinging my eyes.
In one swift movement, Angie crossed the floor to kneel in front of me. She placed a comforting hand on my cheek while the hand of an old man whom I had met the night before proved a solid comfort on my back. It seemed surreal, but I listened to Angie’s words and held on to them.
“Just remembered what I promised, okay? I’ll find a way.” Before I could reply, Jonesy stepped around the corner, pushing an old fifties-model wheelchair. The thing seemed to come straight out of a mad scientist movie. He stopped to eye the three of us. Angie backed off with a sigh. As he stepped in closer, he reached out to help me onto the chair.
“I can do it,” I said in a sharp tone. His hands shot up in defense, and he stepped back.
A loud rumble seemed to come from outside. Jonesy’s head snapped up along with the rest of us. Our heads tilted as if we could see the spinning of the blades cutting through the darkening sky. We couldn’t see anything, nothing but the white ceiling with its fluorescent lights in contrast to the blood-smeared walls. I couldn’t see it, but I knew it was there. The helicopter coming to get us had arrived.
| 10
When the sound of the rotors subsided after they must have landed on the roof and shut down the engine, I glanced at the people around me. Chuck sat across from me in one of the plastic chairs. He stared at the ceiling with a grim expression. Darkness hovered in Angie’s eyes, fixed on Jonesy. Not impressed, Jonesy held Angie’s gaze with a grin plastered on his face.
“That’s our ride,” he said gleefully.
“I’m not coming with you,” I said. I wish I sounded more convincing, but my voice came out a broken mess. I didn’t want to go through that again. I didn’t want to be strapped to a bed. The sound of something clattering to the ground drew my attention, and I shifted my gaze to a staircase door a little further down from us.
“You don’t have a choice,” Jonesy said. “You want to stay here among those mindless corpses? So what if they don’t want to eat you? You’ll never make it on your own.”
I ignored Jonesy's remark and noticed Chuck’s focus on the same direction. He must have heard it too. My gaze shifted between the shuffling sounds coming from beyond that open door and the standoff between the two soldiers. For once, I was glad for the stupid sunglasses Jonesy wore on his face. They protected me from a glare that I was sure would cut straight through me. Jonesy shifted his attention to Angie, who hadn’t moved.
“And don’t think you’ll be able to help them. They know we’re here,” he said while he nodded at Chuck and me. With one hand, he removed the sunglasses without taking his gaze from Angie. “And don’t think I don’t know what you are. You are just as much one of them.” Jonesy pointed an accusing finger at Chuck and me.
Except Chuck’s attention wasn’t on Jonesy. His focus was on the fingers that curled around the doorpost. “Did you really think I wouldn’t notice?” Jonesy added. Angie took in a sharp breath that came out in a calming breeze. I wondered if she had seen what Chuck and I saw or if she had heard the scuffle.
“No,” she said, her voice calm. “I didn’t think you’d hold it over me after the shit we’ve been through.”
“It’s nothing personal. You know that,” he said, putting the sunglasses back on his nose. “But like the briefing said, the sacrifice of the few is necessary to ensure the survival of the many.”
With that, Jonesy raised his rifle and pointed it at Angie’s chest. She returned the gesture by raising her own rifle. Through what seemed like a blur of movement, my heart stopped at the sight of the two soldiers, face to face, guns raised. My heart slammed back into motion, hammering against my chest.
Slow and calculated, Chuck gripped the handlebars of his walker to raise himself to a stand. With ease, he backed away from Jonesy, stepping closer to the staircase door.
“Stop moving, old fool,” Jonesy said without moving a muscle.
At the door, the hand morphed into a complete figure in jeans and a red T-shirt. A black, oily substance oozed from several holes in its torso. Torn flesh hung where there used to be an arm. There seemed to be a confusion going on behind the white fog that swam across its eyes. Caught in the white goo, its irises shifted from left to right. As Chuck shifted between the door and Jonesy, the zombie’s nose shot up and sniffed the air.
“What the hell are you doing, old man,” Jonesy said.
“A foolish attempt to save your miserable life,” Chuck answered. Jonesy’s head twitched, but he refused to pull his gaze away from Angie. She still hadn’t moved an inch and didn’t seem to have any intention to do so. Angie could see perfectly well what was happening behind Jonesy’s back.
“Get your ass back here, you old bastard.” Jonesy seemed to be losing his patience.
Another figure appeared in the doorway. This one wore a once-white doctor’s coat, now covered in blood oozing from his scalp down his face and neck.
The two zombies acted calmly—confused but calm, as if they couldn’t sense the reason that had brought them to this floor. Then I realized the reason had to be Chuck. Those funky eyes didn’t help the zombies a thi
ng in their hunt to relieve their hunger. It had to be their sense of smell that must have brought them here. Jonesy had been the one to attract them, but Chuck seemed to be the one to confuse them.
Our bodies, under siege by the accelerated growth of cells, must give off an odor that repelled them, and now Chuck was standing between them and their candy. Chuck actually was attempting to save Jonesy’s life.
“Just stay calm,” Chuck said.
“There are infected in the staircase,” Angie said in her low, calm voice.
“Bullshit,” Jonesy exclaimed, refusing to take his eyes of Angie. “Infected can’t climb stairs.” The words had barely left his mouth when the zombie in the red shirt stretched open its jaw. A wad of black gunk slithered from its torn lips. It hissed and stepped into the hall.
Jonesy flinched at the sound. Immediately, Angie’s eyes grew wider. Would Jonesy shoot her? My hands gripped the wheels of my old chair. I didn’t know what I’d do, but I knew I had to be ready to move. Jonesy eased his head aside to glance over his shoulder.
“Easy,” Angie whispered. His feud with Angie momentarily forgotten, Jonesy slightly turned to get a better look. Chuck released his walker to spread his arms wide. He was trying to spread his scent to mask Jonesy. Having caught up with the old man’s thinking, I spun the wheels of my chair to move to his side.
“Ash,” Angie said, drawing out my name. “What are you doing?” I eyed her over my shoulder. She remained in her fighting stance, rifle raised, but the barrel had shifted slightly and aimed at the zombies now instead of Jonesy.
“They don’t like how we smell,” I said in a hushed voice. “If we keep our scent between Jonesy and them, they won’t attack. Maybe we can lock ourselves inside a room or something.” The words formed as if I hadn’t thought them through. Was I ready to protect Jonesy when all he wanted was to turn us in—including Angie? I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t want anybody else’s death to be my fault either. In the end, would it matter how we died? It wasn’t as if death weren’t coming for me soon enough.
Chuck glanced down with a pleased expression. Did that mean he was proud of me? There was no time to figure out what that look meant. I raised my arms into the air. The decrepit bodies hovered in front of us. The tension swelling in my chest eased. Fear of these creatures relented, and I realized they couldn’t help what they had become. A virus had done this to them. The scientist waiting to set their needles into my flesh stirred a greater fear than these zombies did.
The zombie that wore the doctor’s coat twitched. His head snapped to the side, and a deep-rooted moan clawed its way up its throat. The sound sent chills through my bones. Moans echoed up from down the staircase. Slow, heavy footsteps climbed the steps. Others followed. I swallowed hard and resisted the urge to retreat.
Feet shifted behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder. Angie had stepped in closer and stood almost at Jonesy’s side. As the probable choice on the menu, Jonesy seemed hesitant to move, as if motion might trigger the zombies. He had lowered his weapon, so it wasn't pointing at Angie anymore. With his back still partially turned to me, he looked over his shoulder.
A body slammed into the open door. A bulk of a man over six feet tall and six feet wide clawed at the door with chubby fingers to keep him steady. Blood and that oily stuff smeared his face and stained his shirt. A snarl showed blackened teeth. The giant tripped, shifting his weight to take a step, and came stumbling into the hall.
I had no choice but to reverse, afraid the bulk of his body would flatten me. Chuck had the same sense to move, and he discarded his walker. Chubby fingers clawed the air, growls filled the room as the oversized zombie landed on the walker, and he almost crushed the thing underneath him. Red shirt’s nose flared up, sniffing the air. At its growl, other zombies joined them from out of the stairwell. Shots fired.
I snapped my head around and saw Jonesy firing a barrage of bullets. Bam, bam, bam echoed down the hall while white sparks sprang from his rifle. Jonesy seemed frantic as he reloaded his weapon and fired again. The red shirt’s head cracked open. The doctor’s chest became a black mist. Fat zombie had managed to get on hands and knees but collapsed when his head went missing.
Angie rushed to my side and started to yank at my chair. My head spun to find Chuck, but a flow of bodies pressed themselves through the opening. For every zombie Jonesy killed, two others passed the door. It wasn’t enough. I glanced around, but I didn't see Chuck.
“Ash, let’s go!” Angie shouted. I wasn’t ready to go, not without Chuck.
“Where’s Chuck?” I asked. Before Angie could answer, I saw him—or at least that ugly bathrobe of his. “Chuck,” I called out again. His body was half-buried underneath a flock of zombies.
“Ash,” Angie shouted. She had been pulling at the chair without success. I released the brake, and Angie reversed my chair.
Jonesy’s rifle clicked empty. He cursed as he grabbed his handgun. Six shots later, it clicked empty as well.
Angie had pushed my chair along the hall towards the control room. It didn’t take long for Jonesy to speed past us. We were no match for him. He slammed the door closed before we reached it.
“Son of a bitch,” Angie called out. I topped it off with an exotic range of curse words of my own.
Angie jerked the chair to a stop. The chair turned until I faced her. More than a dozen zombies had followed us, and though in their standard shuffle mode wouldn’t form a threat to us, they seemed to have gone beyond their comfort zone. They looked agitated as hell.
At first glance, I couldn’t see a room to hide in. Patients didn’t reside in this section of the hospital. It didn’t prevent Angie from finding a spot. She lifted me out of the chair to ease me down to the floor. A row of those plastic chairs bolted to the wall hung next to us. Angie ushered me under it, and then she followed and held the chair in place like a shield. My head slammed into the back wall when Angie’s body crammed in. There wasn’t a lot of room in the narrow space.
Angie fought to keep the chair upright as legs clambered past it. I couldn’t see the reason, but I let her. It wasn’t as if I could stop her from doing it anyway.
My eyes locked on that ugly brown bathrobe. I was sure it would have gotten nastier by now. The thought of it prickled tears in my eyes. I had known the old man for no more than a day, and I already liked him better than I liked my dad. Even so, I fought the tears. Chuck wouldn’t want me to cry. Not over my sorry ass, I could hear his voice say in my head. At least, he wouldn’t have to worry about going to the lab.
When the procession of shuffling legs ended, Angie released the chair and plopped down on her back. She exhaled a long breath before she spoke. “You okay, Ash?”
I didn’t feel like answering. Everything in my body screamed of an emptiness along with exhaustion. If my mind and heart weren’t racing at a million miles a second, I could have fallen asleep underneath those plastic chairs. But the position we lay in didn’t allow Angie to see my nod, so I answered, “Fine.”
“Yeah, me too,” she murmured.
Fists pounded and fingers clawed at the control room door behind us. It wasn’t long until we heard glass crack. Angry shouts from Jonesy followed, along with a war cry and screams. Finally, it was only the shuffling of zombie feet until they stopped too. The zombies didn’t leave, but they zoned out into their idle state until the next item of interest would stroll by.
I had no sense of time, so I didn’t know how long we hid underneath those plastic chairs. However, as soon as the zombies retreated into their idle mode, Angie sprang into action. She hadn’t forgotten about the helicopter that had descended onto the hospital’s roof. Angie had to remind me when she sat me down in my chair.
She pushed me past the corpses. This was a good thing too because I don’t think my arms would have been able to move the chair on my own because they felt too weak. As we passed the ugly robe, I refused to look at it. I wanted to remember Chuck as the wrinkled, old cigarette-smoking man with
the Jack Nicholson grin and not how his body had ended up. So I kept my eyes locked on my hands folded in my lap.
“Bye, Chuck,” I said in a whisper. Angie must have heard because she squeezed my shoulder.
At a decent pace, but with enough diligence not to disturb any of the roaming zombies, we took one of the elevators to the third floor. As we stepped into the hallway, it felt eerily quiet. It was as if the entire floor had been deserted, except for a few stray zombies shuffling the halls. Most of the doors to the patients’ rooms were closed. On closer inspection, it looked like a couple of doors had been barricaded. We could see piles of tables and chairs through the window in one of the doors. The staff must have tried to isolate themselves along with the patients.
Angie froze when we heard the muffled sounds of gunshots. It sounded as if the noise came from the floor above us.
“They’re here,” Angie said. I couldn’t speak. I didn’t know what Angie’s plan was, and I felt scared. She picked up the pace, weaving my chair past the zombies, who raised their noses at us as they noticed our approach but seemed to shudder in disgust once they had sniffed us.
The sound of a commotion pulled my gaze to a room of which the door stood open. I could see a man with an arm and leg strapped in some contraption. It seemed we had landed on the orthopedics ward. From the way the man thrashed against his restraints, I figured he must have been infected. I could still hear his moans long after we had passed his room.
More shots fired, and Angie pulled me to a stop in front of a door that stood at a crack. She widened the opening and peered inside as we heard a loud crack.
Not waiting for what it was, she shoved me inside past the bed and into the bathroom. She left me in there, and for a second, I was afraid she wouldn’t return. When she did, she threw a bunch of blankets into the tub and then pulled down the shower curtain and placed it on top. Without an explanation, she scooped me out of the chair and placed me in the tub. Too tired to moan about it, I let her while I silently watched how she pulled a packet from her vest and dropped it into the bathtub. As she kneeled beside me, she sucked in a breath as if she needed to compose herself.