Life Among The Dead

by Daniel Cotton

  At the door the proud new father gives one last look back and sees the most wonderful sight he has ever witnessed. In the romantic light of the candles his wife is feeding his son. She looks down at their first born with such a calm loving expression, a slight smile curls the corners of her mouth.

  The bathroom, however, is not a wonderful sight. What greets him is horrifying. Even after all he has seen today, this is the most horrific thing bar none. The ghastly scene makes his testicles constrict with a shivering sensation. He backs out of the lavatory; his eyes are wide from the sight of it.

  “What happened in there?” He asks nobody in particular.

  “Nothing happened,” The gruff lead nurse says, clucking her tongue. “She had a baby. Men are such chickens.” She is shaking her head at him. “Get in there and clean up.”

  He enters the bathroom again. The wall, floor and all the fixtures are a sterile hospital white. Even the towels and washcloths are white. Everywhere he shines the light in the aseptic room is splashed with blood. The toilet rim has a thick clot that had dripped rivulets down the porcelain. The tub has a blood ring around it, left when the water was drained. The floor between the two is marred by wide drops and puddles left to coagulate on the ceramic squares.

  A shiver runs up the soldier’s spine. It really isn’t as bad as he had first thought. It’s the fact that it is so close to the ones he loves. It’s the fact it is his wife’s blood that makes it so terrible. She is a fucking saint to go through this, he commends his wife as he rolls up his sleeves and approaches the blood spattered sink.

  Bleach white cloths are pink from their prior usage. He grabs a fresh towel from a rack nearby and washes his face and hands twice. He inserts his arms into a robe and cinches it tightly over his camouflage uniform.

  Dan returns to his family’s side. He watches as the two bond, feeling completely at peace. He doesn’t notice the younger nurse is still in the room, he walks right past her.

  “Heather told me you want to leave the hospital?” She says in a sweet voice that makes it a question.

  “Yeah.” Dan doesn’t take his eyes from his wife and son to respond.

  “And, you want to take us with you?”

  “Sure, whoever wants to go.” Dan leans closer to see his boy feeding. Heather had decided to breastfeed since she had heard and read about all of the benefits of it. He loved the idea since it helps children develop strong immune systems. He loved it even more because he had heard how expensive formula can be.

  “Do you have a plan?” The nurse continues.

  “Not yet.”

  The nurse seems to be waiting for something, as if he has more information to pass. He really doesn’t. He actually forgets she is there again. The soldier is lost in his gaze of his son. Vincent opens his eyes and seems to be able to see his father. Dan isn’t sure it is possible for the baby to do that this young.

  “I’ll see who wants to go.” The nurse says exiting the room.

  “’Kay.” Dan says absently. He has the only two people that matter to him, right here in this room, and that is all he cares about.

  41

  Oz is barreling down the halls slowing only to negotiate turns. He has encountered only a few lone zombies along his path, and dispatched of them the same way each time. The large man just slugs them in their mouths without hesitating. He then proceeds to smash their heads into the walls until they fall limp. He finds it exhilarating.

  Never in a million years did he think he would be pummeling humans to death, he never really wanted to except for the surgeon who stole his wife. This isn’t exactly taking lives since they are already dead.

  What Oz desires most is to get out of this place. He feels like he has been trapped here for far too long. That is a feeling he has had for a while, even before this madness ever occurred.

  The janitor pauses to think out his escape. He knows the west wing is under renovations. Most of it is closed off and should be relatively clear. The only open wards on that wing are mental health and the emergency room. Both are on the first floor.

  He is running again. The next corner takes him towards the west wing. The contractors have it blocked off with a naked sheet of plywood. Oz drives his shoulder into the temporary barrier and it gives up its hold on the adjoining walls with ease.

  The juggernaut doesn’t stop. He continues through the sheetrock lined halls. He follows the path to an unfinished staircase and bounds down the bare concrete steps, three at a time, all the way to the second floor.

  Oz stops on second because it is right above the ER. He doesn’t want to get too close to it. He remembers how crazy it had been that morning, and all of the blood he had been asked to mop up.

  Exposed two by fours and a half-finished dry walling job surrounds the janitor. Wires and pipes are visible running up and down where the wall is supposed to be. He is searching for particular a window. An awning hangs over the ER and he wants to get on top of it. He can jump down from there.

  The big man can hear moaning, but cannot pinpoint the origin. Scanning the area he spots something leaning against one of the incomplete walls that could prove useful, a twenty-pound sledgehammer. He takes it with a smile.

  42

  Bill’s eyes open. He can see the hallway as he rises to his feet. His vision is a lot clearer now. The man is scared, more scared than he has ever been before in his life. He isn’t afraid of the walking dead anymore. What scares him is the fact he is moving without trying. He isn’t controlling his body.

  The human brain can live for seven minutes without oxygen. After three you risk brain damage.

  “Is this what it’s like?” He asks, but what emerges from his vocal chords is a moan. “I can’t do this… This can’t be it.”

  He is trying to control his body, it is no use. He is on autopilot. All he can do is watch the halls pass by. Bill is forced to see whatever his body decides to look at as his head turns from side to side. He can hear his own footsteps echoing and taste the bourbon he drank hours ago. He cannot feel much of anything though. He can’t feel his legs as they press the ground. He doesn’t feel his shoulder when it bumps against the wall. All he can feel is his stomach. He is experiencing hunger pains like he has never known.

  “Oh, God!” Bill moans. “This is hell.”

  43

  Mortie decides he can attempt to move. The skinny, naked man gets to his feet. His eyes have adjusted to the darkness of the room. Some light is filtering through heavy blinds on the windows. He hobbles over to them, the pain in his back forces him to hunch slightly.

  There are double panes of glass between him and the outside world. Mortie can see Main Street beyond the psychiatric ward’s small enclosed patio area.

  The orderly had told him that is where smoke breaks are taken. It is a concrete slab surrounded by a cage made of thick steel bars painted white. A canopy hangs overhead. To prevent the loons from climbing out, Mortie suspects.

  The door to this outdoor cell is hidden in the shadows of the room; the mortician discovered it by feeling around. There is no knob. He can’t tell if it is locked or not. The man, desperate to elope the mad house, is trying to pry the door open with his fingers. He is squeezing his skinny digits into the crack where the door meets the jam. He feels the heavy steel move; he just can’t get a good enough grip to pull it more than an inch.

  Mortie searches the room for a tool of some kind. All he has turned up are some very old and worn magazines, some arts and crafts projects, and a television.

  The set isn’t bolted down he ascertains by pushing it backwards slightly. He positions himself in front of it. His legs straddle the set so he can slide his forearms underneath. Lifting with his legs he huffs and puffs the set into the air. The escape artist prepares for his next trick. He is going to run and throw it through the window, hoping the device will have enough mass to destroy both panes of glass.

  A grunt leaves Mortie’s throat as he charges the window. His movement is cut short as the set
is pulled away from him. The man is jolted backwards, falling to the ground. His shoulder is sandwiched painfully between the heavy electronic and the hard floor.

  “I forgot to unplug it.” He realizes. He sits up and yanks the cord from the wall. He has to lift the thing again and it is more difficult from its new position. He has to exert himself even more to get it off the ground.

  Another grunt and Mortie charges the window like a battering ram. The set connects only to rebound off of the surface and fly back into his chest. Once more Mortie is on the floor in even more pain. He is struggling for breath, stunned as to what exactly went wrong this time.

  He can see the glass is cracked down the middle, the fracture runs from the top to the bottom of the pane. Is it some sort of safety glass? He asks himself. Of course it is, this is a psych ward. What am I nuts?

  44

  All his degrees, his PhD, all of the diplomas on the wall of his office are worthless. Doctor Reese, dermatologist, had used them to feel superior to others, so he could act like an expert, and pick up woman. They are now just pieces of paper, superfluous titles, as he must now try to find a place to hide.

  He breathes heavily, crouching in a stairwell. He had evaded the elderly zombie, only after it had bitten him. The doctor had shrieked, and ran away. All of the janitor’s talk of zombies has him scared now as to what will come next. If the man in the coveralls is correct, he will soon be among the walking dead.

  He cradles the arm that the old corpse had wrapped his lips around. He is wishing for the first time in his life that he was more like that janitor. That man is big and strong. He probably has good survival skills, and can take care of himself in situations like this.

  “I would trade it all.” He whispers as he peers at the wound. He had been too afraid to look at it until now. He has to laugh at that. What kind of doctor is afraid to look at a wound? He removes the hand that has been clamped over it since he took his arm out of the zombie’s mouth. He had just retreated, holding pressure to his forearm.

  “No marks.” He says puzzled by what he sees. There is no wound. All he can see is two long half-moon indentations in his flesh. “The old man had no teeth.”

  He is so relieved he laughs hysterically. Just moments before he had been contemplating using his belt as a tourniquet in hopes of prolonging the inevitable. He had gone so far as to remove it from the loops of his pants. Dr. Reese wipes tears from his eyes. He doesn’t hear the door to the stairwell open. He didn’t know that someone had stuck a Band-Aid over the latch long ago. All it takes to open is a little push. A figure enters.

  A moan halts the doctor’s fit of laughter. He looks up and sees the walking corpse. His eyes go wide with terror as he takes off trying to get up the stairs as fast as he can. His pants fall down without a belt to support them. The doctor of skin falls on his face, and the zombie falls upon him.

  45

  The screams are terrible. Bill can’t shut them out, he has no choice but to listen and watch. He is witnessing a first person view of himself eating a man in a white coat. His body moves with a mind of its own as it tears away the morsels of flesh.

  Bill’s teeth sink into the doctor’s throat puncturing the arteries. Blood sprays across the white walls of the stairwell. The screaming stops and Bill continues to feed, crying inside his head. He pleads with himself to stop. The taste is the worst of it, like old pennies and raw beef.

  46

  Dan is holding his son. They are looking into each other’s eyes. The light is too low to tell for sure, but he knows they are beautiful. His wife has gorgeous green eyes, and his have always received complements. They are a soothing sky blue.

  The thin reddish hair covering Vincent’s head is soft under Dan’s gentle caress. Heather watches them with a smile, they look so at peace. Dan is definitely feeling serene. He welcomes the feeling, never guessing it possible to be so at ease, considering the hell that he has faced today, and the hell he must soon face again. Going back out there is the furthest thing from his mind.

  The door opens and the thin nurse enters. “All the parents are in.” She whispers.

  “’Kay.” Dan replies.

  “Do we have a plan yet?”

  “No.”

  “Do we know where we are going?”

  “New Castle.”

  “Do we have a car?”

  “Nope.”

  “Nurse Robinson says there’s a senior shuttle that is usually parked by the ER. It will fit all of us.” The thin nurse suggests.

  “Cool.” Dan says simply. He never takes his eyes off of his son as he gently rocks the boy.

  “Well… Whenever you are ready.” The young nurse can see he has no plans on moving just yet and gives up. She leaves the room. Out in the hall multiple voices can be heard clamoring for answers.

  The three are alone again. Heather looks at her husband. He looks so relaxed she can’t imagine disturbing him.

  “Babe.” She finally says after a brief deliberation.

  “I know.” He says. The soldier slowly stands up and gently passes their son to Heather. Vincent has fallen asleep again. “I just wanted a few more seconds before the inevitable.”

  He kisses his wife and heads for the door. In his mind he can’t help but think it unfair that the best day of his life has fallen upon the worst day of his life.

  47

  The twenty-pound sledge splits the white helmet of the site foreman in half as it is brought down upon his head. The zombie collapses to the floor in front of a large window. Oz lifts the dead man’s body and throws him through the pane of glass. This is the window he needs.

  Fresh air rushes into the skeletal space. Plastic sheets hanging from naked rafters start to blow in the breeze. The man in the coveralls and duct tape welcomes the bracing air as he climbs out the shattered window and onto the awning. His breath is a visible specter.

  The awning is made of concrete, it covers the entrance to the emergency room. Ambulances can park underneath it when dropping patients off without the fear of rain or snow. Oz walks to the edge and considers his options.

  He deduces that he can either; drop off the side and try to stay below the hedges that line the asphalt, or he can get on the top of the Psychiatric smoking area. The smoker’s cage is covered by tightly pulled mesh like a trampoline. It angles downward making it lower than the platform on which he is standing. The material doesn’t look that strong, the mesh is fraying and weathered. Oz doesn’t like it. It’s too bad, he thinks. All I would have to do it step onto it.

  He decides to drop the further distance rather than chance falling into the ward’s jail like patio. He drops the sledge before following it down the 15-foot fall off. Oz lands in a crouch, staying below the hedge line. Peeking over the side he can look into the ER’s window. The emergency room is packed with zombies.

  He searches for his next move. His eyes scan the immediate area and land on a groundskeeper’s truck that is parked outside of a neighboring convalescence home. He knows he will find something useful in that pick-up.

  The large man gets to his feet using a blue bus as cover. He doesn’t want to be spotted by the dead in the ER. He thinks he can hear them pounding on the glass already. Carrying the sledgehammer he darts over to the gardener’s truck.

  48

  Mortie has been pounding against the safety glass for what feels like an eternity. The television had long ago broken apart into useless pieces. He now strikes the pane with a wooden chair. His skinny arms throb from the work out, but he has pledged not to quit until he is on the other side.

  The only break he has taken from his attack on the window occurred when he saw a man drop from the sky. A large brutish person dressed in blue, dropped himself from an elevated slab of concrete.

  Mortie had dropped his chair and began to slap his palms against the glass. He screamed and called for the man. He was either ignored, or couldn’t be heard. He watched as the guy crept along the hedges. The man had stayed low; the mortician co
uld only see the top of his head. The figure disappeared behind a blue bus that read: Senior shuttle, on its side in white, parked a little bit before the awning.

  The man now runs across a stretch of lawn that separates the hospital from the next building while holding a long object that Mortie believes to be an axe, or some sort of hammer. He gives up hope that the man will rescue him, and gets back to his task.

  His hands are sore from the vibration in the wooden chair. Every time the seat connects his arms reverberate. The safety glass makes a brief wobbling sound after each blow, as if laughing at his attempt.

  His last strike had knocked one side of the window out. The right side of the fractured window now leans loosely in the space between the double panes. Mortie uses his bare hands to slide it to the left. His palm is sliced open as he pushes the hefty sheet aside. He doesn’t care. He is halfway done at least.

  The second pane turns out to be regular glass. He is surprised when it breaks outward on his first assault. The man shivers against the cold air that enters the television room. He is standing in only his briefs and his hospital issued slippers. I can’t let the cold deter me, he tells himself and carefully climbs through the sill.

  Out on the patio he sees three round tables each is surrounded by large lounge chairs. The skinny, nearly naked man searches for a way out of this cage. Above him he can see some sort of mesh. It looks like it was once white, but through all the years and the weather, not to mention the cigarette smoke passing through it, it is a disgusting brownish yellow. His eyes fall upon something he really needs. On one of the tables is an ashtray that is brimming over with cigarette butts. Among the pile is one that still has half of it to go. The thought makes him laugh.