From below the window Dan holds the bear up so the armed woman can see it as if it is some sort of identification. Dan remains crouched in silence. He waits for the woman to decide whether he can enter or not. He hears a click as the door is unlocked. He picks up the ammo box and stands before the nurse. She is short and round, her black hair is up in a tight bun. Over her shoulder is a pump shotgun.
“Right this way.” She stands aside so he can enter. She leads the way into the labor and delivery section of the hospital after she secures the door.
L&D resembles the rest of the hospital he has seen today. It is dark and has a tense ominous feel. Dan can see one difference, people. Living, breathing people mill about holding candles or huddling under the glow of the emergency lights.
30
Blood pours from new wounds as Bill struggles to get through the door to the stairwell. Hands clutch tightly to his arms and legs. He is able to finally wrench his way free by pulling firmly on the door jam and out of the grip of the dead. He falls to his face.
It doesn’t take long for them to set upon him once again. His hands find the railing to the stairs and he hauls himself up. The old man is ascending in a crawl as the zombies pursue him. They grab at his ankles. He kicks out, knocking them backwards into one another.
The landing is filling up fast. They crowd into the space pushing their brethren down the descending staircase. Bill is halfway up when it dawns on him that no more hands are grabbing at him.
A quick look back and he can see the dead are having trouble getting up the stairs with more and more entering, the herd pushes the leaders down onto the risers. The corpses try to climb over one another in their pursuit of the meat that is getting away.
“Better than I planned.” Bill says. A thick trail of red is left in the man’s wake.
31
The janitor and Toby are hiding in a woman’s restroom on the fifth floor. They had made it to the pharmacy, but several zombies emerged from the shadows forcing them to retreat.
“You never told me your name.” Toby whispers to the large man. He is feeling weak and sleepy.
“Oswald.” He tells the boy. “Call me Oz. Everyone does.”
“Oz.” The boy whispers. “I like that name.” He can hardly keep his eyes open. He isn’t looking good.
Oz watches as the boy’s head lolls limply down. He gently shakes the kid. “Hey, stay with me.”
Toby opens his eyes into little slits.
“Stay awake, Toby.” Oz keeps shaking him. “What pills do you need?”
“I take… 3 blues, a green, and a yellow.”
“What are they called?”
“I dunno.” They boy is drifting off again.
“Would you know them if you saw them?” Oz shakes him harder.
“Maybe.”
Oz looks around the bathroom for a weapon. Anything will do, he thinks. He spots a mop leaning against the wall its head is on the tiles, the strands are bone dry. Ordinarily, this would piss him off since the cleaning gear is supposed to be stored out of sight of the public when not in use. He grabs the mop.
From one of the stalls he finds a can of industrial disinfectant, another faux pas that will do just nicely. He sprays the cleanser onto the mop strings. They absorb the caustic chemicals becoming saturated. Oz pulls out his lighter and ignites the torch. The room lights up in an orange glow.
“I’ll be right back.” He tells the sleeping boy.
32
Bill has made it to the next floor. He needs to take a break. He has lost a lot of blood and is feeling light headed. The dead moan below him. A few have managed to get away from the pack and are climbing the stairs.
“Not like this.” He forces himself to reach for the doorknob from where he sits on the floor. “I will not be eaten anymore.”
Bill slides his body into the hall and closes the door behind him. The dying man gets to his feet and starts walking. He doesn’t know where he’s heading, he just wants to keep moving. His shoulder is pressed against the left hand wall for support. A red smear trails him along the pure white paint.
More moaning comes from behind him. Painfully Bill turns his head to see three figures approaching. They’re moving slightly faster than he can in his current state.
“I can’t catch a break.” He says, unable to move any faster. His shoulder catches something on the wall that halts him.
Bill examines what has just stopped him. A white ridge juts out from the wall, a window. He looks through the glass and can see various bottles on the shelves along the back of this small room. The window is large, but only has a sliding pane that opens. Bill crawls in.
His body lands harshly on the linoleum floor, his limbs strike swivel chairs sending them rolling in every direction. He just laughs.
The dead are outside looking in at him. He pulls one of the chairs closer and plops his carcass into its plush seat. He smirks at the zombies. One is reaching its hand in through the small portal, trying to grab him.
“Pharmacy is closed, asshole.” Bill slams the slider on its arm, pinning it in place.
33
Mortie wasn’t always a necrophiliac. He was once married. Not happily, but he was married. His wife was rather abusive to poor old Mortie. Nothing he did was ever good enough for her, which was ironic since he did practically everything. She had no trouble letting him know just what a disappointment he was to her.
He had a normal sex drive, which was unfortunate since his wife barely let him touch her. They did it once a month with the sole purpose of having a child. One shot, once a month, and lord help him if his seed didn’t take which, it never did. His wife would lace into him about how he wasn’t a man and how she should go elsewhere for the sperm. He would be barraded for weeks as she took several home tests that all told her she was not pregnant.
She was awful to him. She had the mouth of a truck driver and a physique to match. Why would such a nice man marry such a shrew? Everyone would ask. Mortie knew the answer; Bertha was the only woman to ever show any interest in him. Many women found his profession to be unnerving. Who wants to marry a mortician? Bertha did. She knew undertakers make good money.
Mortie isn’t married anymore. One night Bertha had too much to drink with dinner and had gotten on his case about everything. She went on about the size of his penis as compared to the larger ones she had enjoyed in the past. She complained about the fact he was unable to make her climax, and since they were stuck together, she feared she never would again.
She went on and on about how he never does anything other than work, how he never buys her anything, or takes her anywhere. She started throwing things at the small man. It wasn’t the first time things had gotten physical, but it was the last.
Bertha staggered up to bed leaving her cowering husband to nurse a bloody nose. He had caught an ashtray with it. He cried internally. If she heard him so much as whimper or sniffle she would pounce upon him like a puma on a wounded animal.
Mortie waited for a few minutes. He wanted to be sure she was out for the night. Despite everything that had gone on, everything she had said or had done, the man still cuddled up to her that night. He had closed his eyes, prepared to drift off, when he realized she wasn’t making her usual buzz saw sounds. The woman practically snored when awake, he found the silence odd. Her chest wasn’t rising or falling either. She wasn’t breathing.
Mortie went through a moment of horror and sadness. This passed, leaving a feeling he had only dreamed about since their honeymoon, freedom. The sound of the word in his head made him excited. It was the kind of excitement he hadn’t felt since his honeymoon either.
A smile was stretched across his face so wide it hurt. He hadn’t smiled in so long it was a foreign concept. Another painful event he hadn’t felt in some time was the enormous erection he had grown. The skin stretched so taught he thought it might tear. All her abuse had left him quite limp over the years due to stress. If she could only see this, he had thought.
Mortie turned the light on by the bed. She never wanted the lights on; on the rare times they had sex. The man looked at his bride of 7 years; she had never looked lovelier than she did that night. He looked at her open mouth, it was always open. That time it was different, she was actually quiet, and Mortie made good use of it.
He made love to her over and over. By some anatomical miracle he was always ready for another round. It was the most passionate night of his entire life. It was perfect.
Paramedics responded the following day. A mourning husband escorted them to the body of his beloved. He told them she had passed in the night; he had awoken to find the love of his life dead. Nobody ever questioned the presence of semen since they were married after all.
The cause of death was a brain aneurysm. Out of respect for Mortie it was never recorded as post coital, and simply logged as a rupture in her brain. They took her away. Mortie would go on to do the preparations for burial himself. Some may have found that to be odd, he just wanted everything to be perfect.
The thin mortician thinks of his wife every time. It is her he makes love to in his mind, not the random female cadavers he receives as clients. It is her he makes love to now as he thrusts into Dawn’s still body. He disregards the numerous sets of eyes that watch him. He is planning on killing himself as soon as he is done.
Mortie is building towards climax, thinking of Bertha. He truly loved her, and deep down he likes to think she loved him in return. She just had a tough time showing it.
He is seconds away from bliss when the slim girl twitches. Spasms are not uncommon as a body enters rigor mortis. All of her muscles will soon contract and she will become very rigid. It is all perfectly normal. Dawn’s eyes open and stare directly at the man who is inside of her. This is far from normal.
“Oh, God!” Mortie blurts out as the muscles in his penis spasm pleasurably. He can’t enjoy the feeling now that he thinks he has been raping the girl. “I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry!”
He withdraws, begging forgiveness. It is all he can say. His mind warns him not tell her that he thought she was dead, that isn’t any better.
The girl grabs one of his arms, her head jolts up to his bicep, sinking her teeth into the meat. Mortie screams. The pain is intense, yet the shock of her moving still has precedence in his head. He hasn’t had sex with a living woman in many years.
The mortician can’t pull his arm away from her clenched teeth, her incisors dig deeper and deeper. Her jaw has an unusual amount of strength. The frail man panics and is able to bring his knee up to her mouth. He hates the idea of hurting her, considering what he has just done, but he wants her to release him. She has every right to hurt me, he thinks as he brings his knee up again.
The young girl isn’t letting up. It’s as if she can’t feel the pain of him kneeing her jaw. Each blow hurts Mortie as it causes her teeth to close that much more. One final strike and he is free. Her teeth once again meet and her mouth holds a small piece of the man.
His skinny arm is bleeding. His horrified eyes can see the depression among the blood where a bit of his flesh is missing. The people out in the milieu beat on the glass a little harder. Are they cheering? Mortie questions as he holds pressure on his arm.
The girl stands above him chewing on the scrap of meat. She swallows it and approaches ready for another helping.
34
The nurse leads Dan to room 437. She leaves him to resume her post at the admissions desk. Dan hesitates at the door. A million thoughts race through his head, he can’t lock them down long enough to focus on a single one. It feels like he hasn’t seen his wife in years, though it was just that morning. I’m a father now. Is our baby all right? Where do we go from here? Where did the nurse get a shotgun?
He opens the door and enters the dark room. A few candles flicker, small lights glow along the baseboards. He has to stand still and let his eyes adjust. He uses this time to set down his gear.
The shape of a bed appears amid the shadows. Upon it is the silhouette of a person. He knows who it is. The soldier can feel his eyes start to water as he slowly approaches. He is trying not to make a sound as if a sudden start will cause her to disappear like a mirage.
By the bed he can see a chair. He slumps into it and gazes at his wife. A candle within reach is moved closer so he can make her out in better detail. Heather’s eyes are closed. She’s probably exhausted, he thinks while stroking her beautiful black hair.
He notices she isn’t holding their child. Dan looks to the parts of the room the light makes visible and doesn’t see a basinet. Should I wake her and ask? Or, ask a nurse? He/she is probably in the nursery, he reasons. The tired soldier relaxes into the seat and watches his beloved rest. The candle’s golden glow makes her look like a sleeping angel.
35
The torch blazes in Oz’s hand as he approaches the pharmacy. He recognizes the three zombies that are congregated by the window. They were in the group that forced him and the boy to seek refuge in the ladies room. One of them has its hand caught in the dispensary’s window.
The dead turn their attention away from the glass, and to the tall man who nears. As they take steps towards him the torch is presented. The flame is waved close to their faces and it scares them, Oz uses the fire to hold them at bay. He sprays the can of cleaner through the fire creating a blowtorch that singes the blonde hair off of a nurse in a white uniform. Her skin blackens and her blood spattered clothes catch fire. The corpse futilely tries to swat the flames out, only helping it to spread.
A second zombie wears a uniform similar to Oz’s. It’s Hendrix, a co-worker of Oz. The man was a weasel when he was alive, always shirking his duties, which is a trait Oz finds most disagreeable. The big man hates laziness.
Hendrix gets a dose of flame, his blue coveralls are engulfed. Unlike the nurse who now lies on the floor as the fire eats her away, Hendrix is still approaching. He looks like the Human Torch as he reaches for the living man. Oz plants the sole of his boot squarely in his enemy’s chest, sending him flying down the hall several feet where he writhes on the tiled floor. His movements become slower and slower as the fire destroys his muscles until he finally goes still. The smell in the air is terrible, charred flesh and hair mixed with melted synthetic fabrics.
The last zombie is trying to reach Oz, but can’t get close due to its trapped limb. The dead man in street clothes is extending as far as he can, his fingers claw the smoky air in vain.
The torch is burning out. The strands of the mop head are almost gone, reduced to a blackened blob. Small embers glow inside of it slowly going dim. Oz cracks the mop hard across the dead man’s head. The charred mass bursts sending flakes of ash and sparks from the dying fire into the air. The force of the strike knocks the corpse’s face into the window leaving a greasy smear on the glass.
Oz strikes again and again, but the wooden handle doesn’t give him much in the way of power. He fears that he is running out of time. He needs to get the pills and get them to Toby. Oz gives up on the weak assaults. Positioning himself behind the zombie he jams the mop handle into its mouth, holding the wood between its gnashing teeth. The zombie bites the object out of reflex; its teeth chew it creating splinters, thinking it may be meat.
Oz has his knee in the dead man’s back. He twists and cranks the mop handle around until he hears a crack. The zombie’s neck isn’t broken, it is dislocated. The powerful man had pulled its head completely free of the vertebrae. The corpse falls lifelessly to the ground where it hangs limply by its seized arm. Though its body is immobile, Oz notices the head still moves. Its teeth are still working on the wooden handle.
Oz is looking for a door into the pharmacy. It dawns on him that he won’t find one. The pharmacy is only accessible through the service hall that runs adjacent to this one.
“Fuck.” He slaps his meaty palm against the glass. His head droops in frustration and disappointment.
The dangling dead man next to him falls to the floor when the window slid
es open. Oz jumps back.
“Can I help you?” A voice asks from the dark space beyond the glass. The makeshift torch had caused a reflection on the pane that obscured what lay on the other side. Oz can now make out a dark figure slumped in a chair. He can’t believe someone is actually manning the pharmacy through all of this.
“I need pills.” He addresses the clerk.
“Can you be more specific? I have a lot of pills in here, and I’m not exactly a doctor.” The wheels of the chair squeak as the clerk moves it closer to the window. Oz meets a man who is covered in blood, bandages, and gashes. He is sweating profusely, and doesn’t look long for this world.
“3 blues, a green and a yellow.” The janitor says.
The ruined man swivels in his chair and looks along the shelves without getting up.
“I don’t know what they’re called. They’re for a friend.” Oz says, thinking that may help.
“Sure they are.” The dying man says in a mocking tone. “I’ve heard that one before.”
“Do you see them?” Oz asks impatiently.
“I don’t see much of anything to tell you the truth. Even if my eyes weren’t blurry, it’s hard to make out colors in the dark.” The man stands up and starts collecting the bottles and jars from the shelves. He brings armfuls of the containers to the windows. “Something to do with the light spectrum I would imagine.”
Oz lights his lighter and starts opening the childproof lids. Pills are dumped out onto the counter and he examines the pharmaceuticals, sorting them by color.
“Take what you need. That’s all of it. I hope it helps your friend.” Bill tells him as he dumps the last armload.
Oz drops an assortment of medications into empty pill bottles. He has dozens of different shapes and hues, all variations of blue, green and yellow.
Life Among The Dead Page 16