Life Among The Dead

by Daniel Cotton

  The roof of the van scrapes along the bottom of a support girder overhead as gravity fights to reclaim them. They touch down and the driver must wrestle the wheel to maintain control. The van is swerving. They crash through a hotdog vender’s abandoned cart, the windshield becomes awash with thick slimy water and small sausages. The wipers go to work trying to improve visibility.

  “Honey, didn’t you want to come here for more guest towels and a new book?” Bill asks his wife.

  They are on Main now, speeding along the trolley tracks. Dan wonders if Lindsey believes the hospital can help her husband, if her risky maneuvers are being made out of hope. As far as he knows, there is no hope for him. It’s a damn shame, he thinks to himself. He likes this man, sadly it’s a fact, Bill is beyond medical attention.

  Lindsey avoids the minor obstacles in her way. Only a stalled trolley car and a couple of inconsiderate drivers paused along the tracks between them and Olive Grove. They pull into the drop off circle in front of the large medical facility. The area is infested with zombies; their dead eyes track the white vehicle.

  “Let’s try the back.” Dan suggests.

  Lindsey backs out the way she had come without looking. On Main again, she cuts the wheel and takes them down a narrow service road that wraps around the building, sandwiched between the hospital and a large wall that was constructed to dampen the noise coming from the industrial park on the other side. Factories normally would be belching black smoke into the air and carrying on with their non-stop racket. Today they are silent. Somewhere beyond that wall is Dan’s normal day job, for once he wishes he was there, enjoying the monotony.

  The service road is wider behind the hospital to allow semi-trucks to back up to the loading docks. This road is named Emergency Way because at the other end is the emergency room. It extends all the way to the end of the wall where it connects to Industrial Road.

  A few trucks jut out from the docks. The area looks clear. Dan hesitates for a moment to see if any zombies appear from blind corners before he disembarks.

  “You know where you’re going, right?” He asks Lindsey.

  “Over the bridge and north to New Castle.” She replies to the soldier, but her eyes are on her husband. Dan hands her the postcard from his Uncle Bruce.

  “This is the place. It’s on a road called Chestnut. Go down Emergency, hang a right onto Industrial. There will be a ramp that will take you onto the bridge.” Dan takes a look over both shoulders.

  “We’ll have to change the lineup.” He tells them. “Hector, can you shoot?”

  The man nods.

  “Good. You will shoot. Lindsey can load. Barbeque, you are perfect right where you are. Becka, can you drive?” He asks the girl in the back.

  “I don’t know… I… I think we should be invisible.” She says.

  “That’s not really an option.” He explains.

  “If we can’t be seen…”

  “These people need you, reflect on that for a second.” Dan says trying hard not to snap at her, though he is losing his patience.

  “Reflect?” She asks.

  “Yeah, think about it. You have the power to save these people.”

  “The dead?” She asks.

  “No, the living. The living people in this van.”

  “The dead stare at themselves… mesmerized.”

  “We don’t have time for poetry, sweetie.” He feels three seconds away from screaming at her. “Can you drive?”

  “I think I can.” She finally says. She stares at Bill uneasily as he is reorganizing the ammo boxes. He carries one box out of the van. Everyone inside shifts positions.

  “Hector,” Bill addresses the man after making sure he has his attention. “Safety is here. Red means fire. Headshots only. One shot each.” He hates speaking to the young man like an idiot because he seems rather bright. Bill just wants to keep it simple. Lindsey is now in the seat her husband had been in. He leans into the van and kisses her.

  “Good bye, my love.” He says sweetly.

  “Bill? No.” She didn’t know he wasn’t continuing with them.

  “I can’t go. I won’t risk turning into one of them around you.”

  “I love you.” Lindsey says as she begins to cry.

  “I love you too.” His own eyes are full of tears. He pulls his brutalized body away from the van, leaning on a rifle. The other two guns are left in the van. The vehicle starts off along the service road, heading towards the emergency room. Bill holds his hand in the air in a stoic wave as he watches his wife leave his sight forever.

  22

  The two men stand in the alley for a few seconds after the white van is out of view. Dan hefts the ammo box on to his shoulder. He wants to keep his right hand free so he can draw his 9mm from his waistband if needed. His empty assault rifle was left in the van. The soldier looks up to the sky and sees it is starting to cloud over. The air is cooling off. It isn’t as cold as it was that morning, but he can tell the night will be very chilly. Bill had told him they are in for a cold snap.

  “Where to?” Bill asks.

  “We need to find the labor and delivery ward.”

  “You don’t know where it is?”

  “No,” Dan says. “They said it was above obstetrics. So it’s somewhere on the 4th floor.”

  “All our kids were born at Memorial. I’ll just have to follow you.” The older man fights a wave of nausea as he starts walking towards the building. Rags adhere to his wounds by his own blood, which soaks through and drips onto his shirt.

  A set of cement stairs leads onto a 5-foot platform. Trashcans are placed under the ledge so people can dump their refuse into the receptacles. A door is ajar, held open with a brick. A look through the crack and Dan can see emergency lights sporadically illuminating a long hallway.

  “I’ll go first.” Bill insists. His intestines feel like they are tied in knots. “They can’t do much more damage to me, now can they?”

  Dan feels bad about the relief this brings. The man is here to be his willing decoy, a sacrificial lamb that holds the knife to its own throat.

  Bill shoves the door open fearlessly. Dan watches as the dying man walks into the hall. He had put the steel box off to the side and has his pistol in his hands. He waits for Bill to scream, or say something. The seconds drag and Dan almost breaks the silence first, then he hears his compatriot.

  “It’s all clear.”

  23

  “Not the morgue. That’s a terrible idea.” A gruff voice says its peace in the dark.

  “It’s secure, the door is thick steel, and it’s nearby.” A smaller male voice counters.

  “The dead are walking around and you want to go to where they are stored. It’s fucking stupid. No.”

  “The dead are not walking. That is impossible.”

  The deeper voiced gentleman lets out a sigh. There is no way he’s going to the morgue.

  “You haven’t seen what I have, Doctor.” He emphasizes the last word pointedly. “I was mopping the ER and I saw a pregnant woman arrive DOA. They cut the kid outta her, and she woke up during it. She practically tore a nurse’s face off.”

  “Medical science can explain that, not science fiction.”

  “Then do it. Take out your PhD, and explain it to me.” The man with the booming voice crosses his arms, even though the gesture is lost in the dark, and waits for the doctor to speak. There is a thick silence between them.

  “I would need all the facts before analyzing the situation.” The doctor stammers.

  “The fact is: She was dead, and then she was undead.”

  The men argue louder and louder. A third in their party is getting worried that their hiding place may be discovered due to the noise.

  “Can we just go somewhere?” The voice of a boy asks. He swivels in his wheelchair trying to make sure the door is still closed.

  “Look.” The larger man says, this time his volume is under control. “I know this place. If you want secure locations there is; the p
sych ward, L&D, and the pharmacies. The pediatric units are also pretty tight. We need to get this kid his medicine anyway.”

  “Fine.” The doctor concedes to the janitor. “Choose one.”

  “The psych ward is closest. And, there is a satellite pharmacy on the way.”

  “Psych it is.”

  The room they inhabit smells of strong cleansers and old mop water. They were able to find weapons in here consisting of broom handles. It is a tight fit with the wheel chair taking up most of the floor space. The janitor feels his way around the sick 15 year old in the chair and along the racks of supplies on his way to the door. The doctor stays at the back of the closet, keeping the other two in front.

  The door is cracked open, the maintenance man peers out. The emergency lights only give him periodic glimpses of the hall. In between the yellow splashes of light is pitch-black shadow. He strains his eyes to see, detecting no movement.

  “It looks safe.” He tells the others as he grabs onto the boy’s handle bars. The tall janitor backs out of the closet, pulling the boy who is dying of a disease he can hardly pronounce. The man doesn’t think it fair that the kid be sick, and have to deal with this situation as well. It just isn’t fucking right. The trio slowly proceeds down the hall.

  “The paramedics made a mistake.” The doctor says.

  “What?” The tall man asks exasperated.

  “She wasn’t dead. She was bradycardic and probably had diminished respirations…”

  “Quiet.” The kid in the chair tells him as they wind through the labyrinth of halls on their way to the psychiatric ward. A satellite pharmacy should be coming up on the right. The janitor hopes the kid can tell him what pills he is on.

  Around the corner they come face to face with a handful of the undead. A female zombie wears a hospital gown and crawls on the floor towards them. She pulls an IV pole behind her, attached to the inside of her elbow. The others are in street clothes. All are advancing on them now. Despite their slow pace the living found the sight to be terrifying.

  The survivors are retreating. The doctor maintains his lead far ahead of the pack. The janitor pushes the chair at a speed that causes it to squeak and makes the small wheels in front wobble erratically. He has to tilt the chair back to hold it steady.

  They’ve lost sight of the doctor. The boy wonders where he has gone to until the man comes back into view, running at them. His lab coat flaps in his wake as he sprints past. The janitor can see the terror on his face and knows immediately what has him so scared.

  The chair is halted. To their right is a stairwell. It is difficult for the custodian to manipulate the door and the chair at the same time. The door was designed to close automatically on a heavy pneumatic arm. It’s hard for him to hold it open with his foot so he can push the chair through. A white streak flashes before his eyes as the medical professional dives over the boy to enter first.

  “C’mon Toby.” The big man says to the boy. “We’ll be safe in here.”

  Toby looks down the hall in both directions. He can see the zombies vanish into the spots of shadow and appear again in the pools of light. They limp and crawl towards them. The janitor bumps and rocks the heavy chair trying to get it over a small ledge. Shouldn’t this be wheelchair accessible? He scolds the facility for their insensitivity, forgetting that those bound to wheelchairs wouldn’t be taking the stairs. The chair is in the stairwell and the door clicks securely behind them.

  The janitor removes a roll of duct tape from his belt and tears off a strip. The door has a narrow rectangular window that he peeks through before he covers the small pane of glass with the tape.

  “The door should hold them back.” He tells the other two. He steals a broom handle from the doctor and jams it against the door and the floor, creating a triangle. “I’m going to go up and see if the second floor is clear.”

  The big man embarks the stairs; each flight is split in half with a small landing between floors. He has always wondered why. Why not just use long ones? Probably saves space, he reasons. Once he reaches the second half he tries to stay low. He doesn’t want to be seen through the little window up here.

  The man in the blue cover-alls peeks out into the hall. He can see one of them, a shriveled old man in a hospital gown. The corpse has his back to the door; deep bedsores are visible through his open gown.

  “Is it safe?” A voice inquires, making the janitor jump. He twirls around and sees the doctor behind him.

  “Why aren’t you with Toby?” He rasps in a hushed whisper and glares at the college grad.

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” The doctor replies in a similar tone.

  “Is he ok? He didn’t get his meds today, but he’ll be all right once we get them, right?”

  “Sure, but for how long. He’s slowing us down.”

  The janitor remains silent.

  “We need to find a safe place. We can’t delay trying to get medications at a pharmacy.”

  “What are you saying?” The janitor asks, knowing exactly what the man is saying.

  “We need to lose the dead weight.” The doctor explains.

  “I don’t follow.” The janitor says, though he follows just fine.

  “The boy has two months to live.” He makes it sound so reasonable. “Unlike us.”

  “What kind of doctor are you?”

  “Pardon?”

  “I mean it in two ways actually. First, in the literal sense of wanting to know your specialty. And second, in a rhetorical show of disgust.”

  “Dermatology.” The skin doctor says simply as the much larger man looms overhead.

  “You know what? You may be right, that boy may only have two months to live, but you’re also wrong about something.”

  “And, what pray tell would that be, Mr. Clean?”

  “Unlike you, he actually has two months.” The janitor opens the door and swings the doctor out into the hall by his stethoscope. His tree-like arms are more than a match for the squirrelly man. The doctor is thrown right into the elderly corpse. The two fall to the linoleum as the door clicks shut.

  The doctor flails on the floor, trying to get away from the gray haired zombie. The arthritic man is grabbing onto him by his white coat trying to get his mouth close enough to take a bite.

  He shakes the geriatric ghoul off of him and tries to open the door. A massive hand is holding it closed. The doctor can see the janitor looking at him through the glass without expression. There is no glee, or sorrow on his face. His eyes watch the scene totally detached.

  The doctor’s eyes on the other hand are wide open as he tries to force his way through the door. The old zombie is wrapping its arms around the young MD’s ankles as its head nears. The janitor tears off a piece of tape with his teeth and covers the window.

  “Where’s the doc?” Toby asks the janitor when he re-joins him on the first floor landing.

  “He had a different plan.”

  “What now?”

  “We’ll try to get to the 4th floor. Your room is up there right? In Pediatrics?”

  “Yeah, I wasn’t old enough for a grown up room. What was the Doc’s plan?”

  “He decided to go to the morgue after all. Alone.” The janitor lies, hefting the boy up the stairs, chair and all.

  “You got a wife and kids?”

  “A boy, about your age. And, a wife.” The janitor carries Toby up to the second floor and continues on to the next set of risers. The sounds of a struggle can be heard faintly through the heavy steel door.

  “Where is your family now?” Toby asks.

  “I’m sure they’re around.”

  “Aren’t you worried?”

  “I’m sure they’re fine.”

  24

  It isn’t out of the ordinary to receive admissions during the dead of night on the psychiatric ward. 1-west gets belligerent, combative people transferred from the ER at all hours. During a full moon they may see 4 or 5 before the day shift takes over.

 
Last night was different. Last night they had triaged sixteen, taking the mental health unit to its maximum capacity of thirty, and the Emergency room continued to call report on more that they wished to turf. The duty Doctor had to refuse a dozen patients because there just weren’t enough beds for them.

  Typically, the night shift ran on a skeleton crew of five; four technicians and a nurse. What made things worse was the fact that some of the staff required medical attention themselves on top of all the chaos. Human bites are always especially nasty.

  All of the new admissions exhibited similar psychological problems. Each was unresponsive to verbal redirection, they were aggressive, and they were all biters. All of them but one: Mortie.

  Mortie is a quiet man; he was admitted for a simple suicide attempt around midnight. His suicidal ideation stemmed from his occupational stress. He is losing business as well as respect in his field. That happens when you are caught having sex with a client. It doesn’t help matters that Mortie is a mortician. He would often introduce himself in just that manner. “Mortie the Mortician” Nobody found the humor in it that he did.

  There are no real laws pertaining to necrophilia, it is more a matter of common decency as long as you didn’t kill the person first. Once people hear you have such a peculiar predilection they don’t want their loved ones being laid to rest by you. Nobody wants to take Grandma to a man like Mortie. He was once the most respected man in his field, now he is the town joke.

  The police had found him. Without any customers, the patrols were used to seeing all the lights out in the creepy white funeral home. Last night, all the lights were on from the basement to the attic. The cops thought it a bit odd since even before the accusations you would never see it lit up like that. They called it in, and proceeded to investigate. They found Mortie in the embalming room.

  Mortie put himself on a steel flood table, thick needles jammed into his arteries, planning to preserve himself forever doing what he loved. The doctor at the ER thought it was a cry for help. Why else turn on all the lights unless you wanted someone to come poking around?