A couple of seconds later, the party began. The grenades took out most of the creepers in the first two rooms, but one managed to come around through the open door to grab Floyd with one hand (the other arm had been blown off in the grenade explosion. Floyd managed to kick the thing far enough away to aim and blow its head off.
Mikki and the rest started firing down the hallway as occupants from the other rooms came out to see what the fuss was all about. It took only a second or two for them to sense the presence of living flesh and head straight for the newbie warriors. Bullets ripped through the hallway as soon as they began appearing, but several managed to get pretty close, before being dropped by someone with a gun.
For many of the Freedom Fighters, this was their first real encounter with a crowd of zombies in close quarters. Others had similar experiences in the past, and spent months or years trying to forget. For some, however, the adrenaline hit them like a brick and kicked them into high gear. In any case, the training certainly paid off, as they managed to shoot the zombies and not each other. They picked their targets, aimed, and fired with precision. They had all passed their first exam.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Bolstered by their victory, the group was ready for more, but Floyd and Mikki didn’t want them getting overconfident. “Keep it tight, people!” Mikki instructed through the helmet comm system. “We ain’t out of this yet.”
They moved down the hallway, checking each room on the right and on the left as they went forward. The audio in the helmets amplified sounds of movement. Everyone could hear something scrambling around them, but couldn’t be certain where it was coming from.
They cleared a few more stragglers before climbing stairs to the next floor. Peering through the small glass window in the stairwell door, Mikki could see several agitated figures meandering about. Surely, they had heard the noise from below, and were on high alert.
Floyd motioned for everyone to move back down the stairs a bit. He cracked open the door enough for Mikki to kneel down and aim. She fired four shots in fairly rapid succession and four undead heads exploded. Bodies hit the ground as others appeared. They started howling, but thanks to Bonnie’s silencer, they couldn’t tell where the attack was coming from.
Mikki rolled a grenade into the middle of the new crowd and took them all out. She burst through the door, followed closely by Floyd, to deliver final headshots to any brain-eaters that were still moving. Luckily, there were no Super Z’s around. Not encountering any further resistance, they headed up to the next floor.
What they found was chilling. It was some kind of cell block, but there was something odd about it. Instead of bars, the doors were all made of some kind of bulletproof gas. They could see into the control room, but the two guards monitoring the controls were both long dead. They could see a large common area and a row of cells along the far wall. It was like looking into a fishbowl. A fishbowl full of dead bodies.
There was no obvious sign of injury on anyone. No one appeared to have starved to death. A group of men were seated, slumped over a round table with cards in their hands. About 15 other men were seated in chairs, staring at a test pattern on a wall-mounted television. A couple of other men had half-eaten snacks on the table in front of them. All of them wore neon-orange jumpsuits.
It was like looking at that Bodies exhibition, except everyone still had their skin on. No one appeared to have been zombified, either. It was an odd scene in an odd world, with no apparent explanation.
Mikki loaded Bonnie with anti-armor rounds and tried shooting the lock off the glass door, but the round bounced off the door, ricocheted of the wall, rebounded off the floor and hit Carlos in the thigh. He screamed in pain but managed to keep a firm hold on his machine gun. Luckily, the round had expended enough energy bouncing off the walls that it bounced off his armor as well, but it still hurt like hell and would leave a nasty purple bruise for more than a week.
Mikki tagged the building on the way out and they headed over to the last intact building other than the hospital. It was a toss-up as to which was stranger, the Fishbowl of the Dead or this building. The front doors were unlocked, the lights were all on, and soothing elevator music played merrily on every speaker in every room. One by one, Mikki led the group to carefully peek around walls and doors only to see nothing. Nothing at all.
Desks had laptops open with screensavers active. Mikki tried to access them but every one asked for a password. Papers were neatly piled on several desks, but the numbers listed in various columns made no sense. Progress Reports and Requisition Orders were written in business language so generic that they could have meant anything. A chart on the wall of one office with a crooked arrow generally trending up could have indicated the rise of the zombie population or the price of company stock.
Half-empty water bottles and coffee cups full of dried out crud adorned many of the desks, but there were no personal items. There wasn’t a single photograph of a family, a smiling child, or beloved dog. No kindergarten art, macaroni sculpture, no calendars with circled dates, no tiny handprints or finger paintings hanging in any cubicle. Nowhere was there a cross, rosary, Star of David, Bible, Koran, Buddha, or any other symbol of faith. The only books were generic manuals on the latest Microsoft Office software, dictionaries, a thesaurus, a couple of outdated books on HTML Code—even a copy of Google Searches for Dummies—but nothing useful and nothing to indicate what sort of work was conducted here. Not one pen, pencil or pad of paper of any kind could be found, either.
None of the executive offices had a copy of The Power of Now, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Rich Dad Poor Dad, How to Win Friends and Influence People, or The Power of Positive Thinking. The boardroom had an old set of encyclopedias on one shelf and a number of law books on wide range of federal statutes. The meeting rooms all had a Blu-Ray player hooked up to a large flat-panel television, but there were no disks. Several had an old VHS player, as well, but no tapes. Everything was clean as if the maid had just dusted and everything was perfectly in place, but there were no people, anywhere, living or dead.
By the time they reached the top floor, Mikki had gotten sick of the sappy music and started blasting every speaker she could find. By the time they made it back down and out of the building, the silence was most refreshing.
After meeting with Jack, the groups spread out again and searched the rest of what was left of the town. It was mostly just a number of alleys between the last freestanding walls of collapsed buildings. They searched the rubble and walked the perimeter and found nothing to worry about. Finally, it was time to visit the hospital.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Mikki stopped well in front of the sliding glass doors. She remembered the last time she entered here well, but had only a vague memory of what had happened afterward. She remembered getting surprised, but not how or why, exactly. She had lost a lot of blood, so her mind was fuzzy, and her focus at the time was on the closest immediate threats that kept on coming.
An action movie replayed in her head, the motion too fast and blurry to make out any details. She remembered her heart pounding in her chest, as she whirled and twirled with the katana, severing head after head after head, seemingly non-stop. Heads, arms and legs flying in the air, or dropping to the ground. The building was 5 stories tall, but there still seemed to be more creepers than even a building of that size could hold, and she had never even left the first floor. That much, she was certain of.
It was one more mystery in a town full of mysteries. She couldn’t even be certain what she thought she remembered was really real, but the mangled bodies on the ground all around her seemed to indicate it was. Apparently, the battle continued as she left the building. The trail of zombie corpses thinned out and eventually ended a couple hundred feet from the hospital. She vaguely remembered she had pulled a muscle in her leg and couldn’t run, so she had made her final stand here.
It had only been a couple of months since Mikki was here, but the corpses were already
little more than dust and crumbling bones. Leftover creeper bodies didn’t stick around long. They tended to disintegrate fairly rapidly, once the head was gone, but these seemed to decay at an accelerated rate.
“You OK?” Floyd asked, walking up close to Mikki and using the private audio channel that only she could hear.
“Yeah,” she answered, using the same channel. “Just a weird feeling, Floyd. Something I cain’t quite remember. A warning. I don’t know.”
“We can always leave, you know. I’ll even let you blow the building up with one of the nuke grenades, if you like.”
Mikki laughed, but she knew he wasn’t joking. There was the slightest trace of fear in his voice. Fear for her.
“Thanks, Floyd. Maybe later. No, there’s something else in there. Something we really need to get. And there’s a lot of good medical equipment. Surgical kits, Floyd. Sterilized in special cases. Even some good flu medicine so you won’t sneeze in yer helmet again, next time you get sick.”
“Thanks. Now that’s thoughtful of you.”
“I gotta look out for my man!”
“Well, from the number of bodies around here, it doesn’t look like you left many behind.”
“That’s just it, Floyd. There shouldn’t have been that many in the first place. And they just kept on coming!”
Here voice was a little shaky, prompting Floyd to say, “Why don’t you wait out here. I can lead this party.”
“No! It has to be me. I don’t know why, Floyd. Things got pretty crazy, but I got a better idea of what’s in there than anyone. I’ll be fine.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“OK, then, you gotta know one thing first.”
“What’s that, Floyd?”
“I believe in you, Mikki. And I trust you. And I’m right behind you. Lead the way.”
Switching back to general audio, Mikki commanded, “Alright, people! Stay sharp! We’re goin’ in!”
“You want us to wait out here again?” Jack asked.
A chill of foreboding went up Mikki’s spine. She shook it off. “No,” she answered. “We’ll need everyone to load up as much medical supplies as they can. That’s why you all brought backpacks. Just keep your eyes open and listen for my instructions.”
“Roger, that,” Mya answered. She had always wanted to say that, ever since watching old war movies on late night TV.
Mikki stepped forward and the doors slid open automatically. Again, Mya led her group to Mikki’s right, with Jack’s group on the left and everyone else right behind.
“Grover, you hear us?” Mikki asked.
“Yup! Every word. You need us to join you?”
Mikki hesitated a bit, then made a decision. An important decision. “Yeah, bring the pickup trucks to the hospital. We’ll meet you right outside the entrance. Hopefully pretty soon.”
“Right! We’re on our way.”
The FMA moved forward. Raul accidentally stepped on a zombie arm and it turned to dust under his foot. It creeped him out a bit, but he kept himself together.
Every room had several emergency lights mounted high on the wall. The lights themselves were all smashed, but the orange LED lights on the boxes still glowed, indicating there was still power to the building. Of course, the enhanced night vision in the helmets made light unnecessary. If any creepers did show up, the movement would be picked up by the motion sensors in the helmets.
The entry lobby was completely empty, save for the crumbling corpses that seemed to cover the floor. Mikki had been amazingly busy that fateful day.
“This way,” Mikki ordered.
She led the way down a hallway deep into the center of the hospital. Stopping a couple of times to get her bearings, she navigated through a series of hallways. Dried out zombie remnants were everywhere. Floyd began to understand what Mikki was talking about. It didn’t seem there should be that many bodies in the entire building, yet they all had gone after Mikki. Lucky girl. She was really popular, but with all the wrong guys (wrong, as in undead).
“Here!” Mikki stopped in front of a door marked “Medical Storage.” She had shot the lock off before, so the door swung open easily.
Surprisingly, the lights were all on. Mikki remembered that this was one of the surprises she had before. There was another surprise waiting for them. A darker, more sinister surprise that rattled around in the back of her skull, but she couldn’t get it to show itself yet. No matter. This is what they came for.
Mikki walked through the rows and rows of glass-door refrigerators, examining the shelves. She didn’t know what all of it was, but she knew enough to avoid the biohazard coolers and stuck to the regular medicinals. One by one, the F+M soldiers came to her and she pointed out what to take. One by one, the backpacks and shoulder bags got filled. Mikki reserved several of the bags for the surgery room they would visit later.
Wait a minute! Something about that unit in the corner. It was set away from the others. She walked over to it unnoticed by everyone but Floyd and Mya, who came to join her while the others filled their packs, or guarded the hallway in case any curious guests happened by.
“What is it?” Mya asked.
It was a metal refrigerator door with a strange symbol on it. Mikki had read a lot of medical books over the past two years. Homeopathic remedies. Surgery. Nuclear medicine. Gene therapy. Biochemical exploration. She was addicted to medical journals and textbooks. This symbol was in none of them. She had never seen it before. It was like a biohazard symbol, but there were four circles in the corners of a green cross on a yellow background. The lock was open. She remembered picking it, but she hadn’t taken anything.
That’s right! She was here when she first heard the noises outside. She went to take a quick look and was grabbed by a creeper as soon as she opened the door. She dispatched it easily, but another soon took its place. Then another, and another. Then all hell broke loose. This was the last room she had hit on her way out.
She visibly shuddered. Mya and Floyd both noticed it, but said nothing. Quickly, Mikki opened the door and grabbed a couple of sealed vials. She shoved them into a pocket on the forearm of her jacket and zipped it closed.
“Follow me!”
Mikki quickly led the way out and down through another couple of hallways. The clutter of bodies disappeared down the last hall, as she took them into the surgery wing. Again, the lights were all on in this section. Mikki pointed out the small cases of sterile surgical instruments, everything from tiny tweezers to scalpels to rechargeable rotary bone saws. Mikki instructed the others on what to take, including several portable defibrillators, monitors and other equipment.
“Hey, we’re out here! Where are you?” Grover’s voice sounded in their helmets.
“On our way out now,” Mikki answered.
Mikki sent the ones with the heaviest load of equipment on ahead to load everything into the pickup trucks. The group made its way back through the halls, taking a more direct way to the exit than the previous route. They took a wrong turn and ended up at a wall with an elevator. It seemed completely out of place for an elevator to be in this part of the building.
“Hmmm. I wonder where this elevator goes?” Mya asked.
Suddenly, it all came back to Mikki. The ominous memory plaguing her memory suddenly slammed into clear focus. Powerful and terrifying. “That’s not an elevator!” she screamed, but it was too late. Mya had already reached out to hit the button.
“Run! Run!” Mikki screamed.
A loud, very strange noise pierced the air. It was mechanical in nature. Not quite a buzz and not exactly a beep, but not really a siren, either. Some weird combination of all three. Then, the door quickly slid open, and out they came. Hundreds of them, agitated, howling, and angry.
Some of them wore hospital gowns, but most were dressed in ragged street clothes. Two in the front wore matching Grateful Dead T-shirts. Gave a whole new meaning to “Dead Heads.”
“Son of a bitch!” Mya cursed,
firing rapidly as she backed away.
Mikki already had a grenade in her hand, minus the pin, and threw it. Without telling him to, Floyd did the same thing right after. They turned and ran back down the hall as the grenades went off. Somewhere else in the building, they heard that odd siren-alarm go off again, and a stream of creepers cut them off from an adjoining hallway.
“Come on! You bastards!” Mikki screamed. “Time to dance!”
She started firing Bonnie at anything that moved ahead, pausing to throw a grenade only when it was time to switch drum mags.
“Fire! Fire!” Mya ordered her group.
Jack didn’t have to say anything to his group. They were down another hallway, unleashing a flurry of bullets and buckshot.
At least this time, Mikki had a lot more firepower backing her up. They plowed their way through a river of undead. The artillery and explosives blew several apart in the midsection, leaving upper torso creepy-crawlies to hand-walk over to grab at them, biting at their legs. It weirded out more than a few of the newly trained soldiers, and Crazy Joe completely freaked out. He threw down his gun and ran down a hallway, right into a wave of creepers that tore him to bits. Mya had no time (or inclination) to grieve. Stupid bastard!
At this point, the men who had left with the heavy medical equipment came back, guns blazing. They cleared a path for the rest, who ran like hell out of the building and jumped headfirst into the back of the pickup trucks, or onto the rear bumpers as the vehicles spit out gravel and dust with squealing tires. Heading away, they could see a torrent of undead pouring out of the hospital. A number of people started firing behind them as they were driven away.
When they made it back to where the rest of the vehicles were parked. Floyd and Mikki jumped into the Doom Buggy and headed back toward the hospital.
“Where the hell are you going?” Mya screamed. She got no answer.
“Time to play with your newest toy!” Floyd said to Mikki through the helmet audio.
Floyd & Mikki (Book 2): Zombie Slayers (Dawn of the Living) Page 27