Mike grunted, lifting with his thick arms, back and legs pushing hard. “Go over you bitch,” he said through clenched teeth.
The appliance lifted from the floor, tilting on two legs. Jimmy swore, biceps jumping as he shoved as hard as he could. Mike huffed breath after breath, breathing like a powerlifter heaving giant stones. Pushing with his legs, lifting with his arms, he felt the refrigerator begin to tilt over. He gave one final great heave, getting the appliance past the tipping point, and felt something in his back give a sharp stab of pain that went all the way down his leg. “Fuck me!” He swore, nausea instantly hitting him with the pain. He fell backward as the fridge slammed forward. One of the doors banged open, the appliance surprisingly empty of food.
Jimmy began to shove it forward toward the table Calvin was struggling to keep in front of the door. “Come on man, we get this done and you can rest.”
“Just fucked my back, Jimbo,” Mike said, pushing himself up. He hobbled over to the appliance, favoring his right side, and began to push. Lancing pain shot down his back and leg, causing him stumble. “Come on man, I don’t need your big ass making this heavier.”
Mike clenched his teeth and pushed, the pain like electricity firing through his nerves.
“Move Cal,” Jimmy said, “Get over here and help us flip this thing.”
Calvin came around the fridge, the table scooting inches as soon as he stepped away. Bloody, torn fingers, some with the flesh entirely stripped away pushed through the crack between the doors.
Together the men lifted, heaving, grunting, wheezing; the refrigerator tilted, crashing onto its back, digging into the broken tile.
Mike sat back on the floor, head hanging. “Calvin, help Jimmy get that other door blocked off, I can’t move right this second.”
Mike listened as his friends worked, the scraping and grunting, huffing and banging. He stood up slowly, working in incremental degrees to get from the floor to an upright position.
Leaning against an island table he watched as they dropped the second fridge in front of the door. “I just hope this shit holds,” Calvin said, dripping greasy sweat.
“You and me both man,” Mike said, “or I just screwed my back up for no reason.”
Jimmy watched his closest friend for several minutes, “You really did do a number on it, I can see it in your face, brother.”
“Hey guys, check it out.” Mike and Jimmy turned to Calvin, who was standing by the long serving counter that faced out to the public area. He was leaning down to peer under the steel roll-up gate. “It isn’t locked down. We can watch through here, maybe get out this way if we have to.”
“Getting out isn’t our biggest concern at this point,” Jimmy said. “We need to figure out what we’re going to do with this pack of zombies.”
Mike stood, moving carefully. “There were twelve or fifteen out there, I think.” He stood facing the first set of blocked double doors. A zombie face was pressed against the glass, lips mashed and oozing against the window. He shuddered at the sound of teeth being drawn across glass. One shot through the window dropped the creature, only to be replaced with by another. “Jimmy, take that side. We can pick them off through the windows. Even if we don’t get them all we can at least thin them out a bit.”
Each shot dropped another zombie, another taking its place in view of the window within seconds. Mike sighted on another undead face, centering on the creature’s forehead when it suddenly exploded outward, a gaping hole spilling dark brain tissue appearing instantly. “What the hell? Jimmy, did you see that?”
“Yeah, I saw.”
Mike hobbled forward, peering through the bullet riddled portal. “Three more out there, but they’re turning away.” Another fell as he was speaking, the right side of its head disappearing as he watched, a faint pop marking the death.
Rick stepped into view, advancing on the final two zombies, followed by Dean and Alex. Two quick pops and Rick waded through the pile of reeking corpses, nearly slipping in the pooling mess on the floor. Face up to the now glassless window, Rick asked, “You guys ok in there?”
Chapter 21
Calvin and Jimmy shoved the roll-up guard to its stopping point, scrambling over the counter. Mike struggled to cross the barrier, his back continuing to fire bolts of pain into the base of his spine and down his leg.
“What the hell did you do, Mike?” Rick asked, offering his hand to the big man.
“Screwed my back all to hell flipping a fucking refrigerator over to block the damn doors.” Mike wore a pinched grimace, his face tight against the pain.
“You good to go or what?”
“I’ll live; can we just get this done?”
Together the group of six moved slowly back down the hall toward the laundry area. Once inside the laundry room Alex and Mike each took a side, watching for zombies as the other men took the many deep laundry carts, flipped them over and began oiling the wheels. There were several full carts they left untouched, bloody, vomit coated sheets and clothing staining the cloth sided carts.
“I still want to swing through the offices, then we move on toward the dispensary,” Rick told the men. “After the dispensary we go upstairs, surgery and labs are up there according to the fire escape map.”
“I know why the dispensary, for all the meds, but why the labs and surgery areas?” Alex asked.
“Surgical tools, items we can make an autoclave with, microscopes, centrifuges, all the stuff Jan asked for,” Rick explained.
Jimmy took point, with Mike taking the rear, suppressed weapons handling guard duties. The other men each took a cart, pushing it in front of them.
“The autoclave, centrifuge, maybe the microscopes will all be electronic, we can’t use any of it.”
“I’m almost certain we can repurpose the centrifuge, find a way to power it, Cal. As for the autoclave, I don’t know, but not all microscopes require electricity. We’ll find a way to make it work,” Alex said.
“We can worry about that shit later, guys. We grab it all and go,” Jimmy told the men behind him.
Moving slowly through the maze of corridors, the men came to the hall of administrative offices. Jimmy crept around corners, using a maneuver colloquially known as slicing-the-pie, ensuring nothing waited around a blind corner. “Hallway’s clear,” he said softly.
Jimmy stopped at the first door, the plaque beside it stating the room belonged to the deputy director of hospital operations. The door hung open, allowing a wide view of a room devoid of life or undead. Rick followed him as he walked into the room, checking every corner, the small coat closet, even behind the large oak desk.
The next room was much the same as the first, though larger, belonging to the director of the hospital. Inspecting the room, they found several dried smears of blood on the desk, floor, and inside door handle.
“Something went down in here. No bodies though,” Rick said after checking the closet.
Jimmy admired an impressive collection of weaponry adorning the walls, all medieval in style. “This guy sure liked his old-school weapons.”
“Most of it looks like replicas, not good for anything than what they’re doing now, hanging on a wall. This one is pretty cool, though.” Rick pulled a long hafted hammer with spike down from the wall.
“You know Mike loves that kind of thing right?”
Back in the hallway, Rick walked to the end of the line where Mike was facing away from the group, watching down the hall. “Hey buddy, found something for you.”
Mike turned, wincing at jab of pain in his back. A smile crept across his broad face when Rick lifted the weapon. “Hell yes! You find this in there?” He asked, indicating the office Rick and Jimmy had just come from. Rick nodded. “It’s a well-made replica of a foot soldier’s war hammer. Pointed tips on the head, two inch spike on the back side, steel langets, solid hickory handle, damn man this thing is nice.” Mike admired the war hammer, turning the haft in his hand.
“Well, you’ve got a new toy, g
lad you like it.” Rick smiled and returned to the front of the line.
Mike turned the hammer over several more times before slipping it through his belt and moving down the hall, trailing the search convoy.
There were three more rooms along the hall, each clear of any undead. “I doubt there was much going on in the way of administration toward the end of things,” Calvin remarked as they cleared another empty office.
“Yeah, I didn’t think there would be,” Rick said, “but thought it wouldn’t hurt to make the easiest part of the trip first.”
The men made their way through the maze of corridors, checking rooms as they went. They were slowly making their way toward the dispensary, which was near the emergency room. Most of the general areas, open to the public were free of the undead, with the exception of the occasional wandering walker.
“I’m surprised there are so few gut-suckers around here, being a hospital and all.”
“I don’t think the common areas would have been too full, especially since things happened so fast, Dean,” Mike said. “I’m just glad we don’t have go to into the ER for anything.”
Coming around a corner, the men entered a short hall leading directly to the ER through large steel double doors. On the left side of the hallway, just before those doors was the dispensary.
The gray painted doors each had one long window, about two feet long and eight inches wide set in the latch side. Through those windows the men glimpsed an area packed with shuffling bodies. Zombies passed by the windows, often obscuring their limited view for several minutes before moving on.
“If those things see us we’re in trouble. I’m guessing there are hundreds packed in that ER, and if they all hit those doors, there’s no stopping them,” Dean said.
“Take the carts slowly down the left side. Once inside we clear everything out. Don’t worry about what you’re shoving into the carts, just get it all. Jan can sort through it later.” Rick looked at Mike and Jimmy, “You guys stay down here, keep a look out. Would suck ass if something happened and we all got trapped in there.”
Mike and Jimmy posted to opposite sides of the hallway, watching around the corner as their group made the agonizingly long walk down the short hallway. Mike caught himself whispering “Come on, come on” willing them to get into the room quickly without being seen.
Several times zombies passed near the windows, though their luck seemed to hold, making it into the room without incident. Several of the men released deeply held breaths, not realizing that they had been holding them nearly the entire time.
“Spread out, start loading these carts up, grab everything,” Rick told his crew.
The large room held everything from medicine to crutches, bandages, to more serious narcotics. The men quickly realized that most of the medicines were locked in cabinets, some with glass fronts, others solid wood. The group as a whole felt a moment of despair, fearing they would be stymied at the last minute by locks they couldn’t pick, nor could they break them open because of the noise.
Reaching out, Dean pulled on one of the wooden cabinet doors, checking to see how heavy the wood was, or how tight the lock. He was pleasantly surprised when the door swung open in his hand. “Too busy to pay attention to protocols, I bet.”
After checking all other doors and cabinets, they found about half of them to be unlocked. They would still have to contend with the locked doors, but they now felt a bit more hopeful. They spent the next ten minutes cleaning out the unlocked cabinets, quietly passing items from cabinet to cart.
Alex stood in front of a locked glass-fronted cabinet, pondering the options they had for breaching the door when Rick stepped up, taking out a Leatherman pocket tool and flipping out a broad flat tip screwdriver. Slipping the tip between the door and the body of the steel cabinet close to the latch he began to turn the tool, as if tightening a particularly difficult screw. He succeeded in creating a slightly wider gap, but failed to pop the latch.
“Had to try,” He said with a shrug.
“Hang on,” Alex told the group, reaching into his daypack and removing a hard plastic water bottle. His fellow scavengers watched as he picked at something with a dirty thumbnail for a moment before he unwrapped a portion of camouflage duct tape from the bottle. “Never leave home without this stuff.” Alex tore off a length about ten inches long, clamping an end between his teeth while stowing his bottle.
In front of the cabinet Rick had tried to force open, Alex tore the strip in half, placing one strip on the glass next to the latch, rubbing it forcefully to ensure it adhered to the glass. Sticking the second strip next to the first, overlapping them about one-fourth of an inch, he rubbed them both vigorously for a moment.
“Ok, this should work.” He borrowed Rick’s folding pocket tool, placing the end on the tape, right up against the frame and began pushing. As he leaned into the push everyone in the room could hear the glass start to crack under the pressure. Alex nearly fell face first into the cabinet as the glass gave way, punching a small ragged hole next to the lock. The tape held all of the fractured pieces together, eliminating the noise from falling shards.
“Very nice, man.”
“Thanks, Cal. Now we widen that hole enough to get in there at the latch and we should be able to pop it pretty easily.”
“Good job, Alex. You want to do the same to the other two locked glass fronts, while a couple of us figure out a way to break open that last wood cabinet?”
Alex nodded, reaching for the tape-wrapped water bottle in his kit and setting to work.
Chapter 22
Jimmy checked his watch, tapping the face several times. “Crap, I think my watch stopped. How long have they been down there?” Jimmy asked, turning the stem on the old wristwatch.
“Almost half an hour. Give ‘em time man, they’ll be done soon.”
Jimmy leaned against the wall, occasionally glancing around the corner and down the corridor, watching for the men inside the dispensary. “You think this is as crazy as I do?”
Mike eyed his friend, “What, the fact that we’re inside a hospital full of zombies? Or the fact that I can even say “hospital full of zombies” without becoming a gibbering idiot?”
“You know what I mean. Why are we out here? I get that having serious medical supplies is a good thing, but is it so damn important that we have to risk our asses to get them?”
Mike glanced down the hall, pulling his head back as a zombie moved past the far window to the ER. “It’s important that we have this stuff, yes. Do I like the situation? Not a single damn bit.”
Jimmy stared at the white tiled wall across from him, a broad stripe of green tile bisecting the white two-thirds of the way down. “I’m ready to get the hell out of here, and we still have to go upstairs to the damn labs and surgery.”
“I know, brother. This place makes my skin crawl. We’re doing ok so far, keep your fingers crossed and your panties clean.”
“You wish I wore panties, make it more fun for you when you stare at my ass.”
“Well, someone’s gotta do it.”
“Ouch, man, that hurts,” Jimmy said, looking over his shoulder, “besides, I have a nice ass.”
“Yep, an ass a zombie would love.”
The two old friends looked at each other for a moment before breaking out into quiet laughter.
Casting another glance down the hall Mike saw a dark-haired head poke through the door for a second and duck back in. “Eyes up, here they come.”
Dean came out first, followed by Rick, Calvin then Alex. They moved quickly, wasting no time moving the filled carts down the corridor where the two men stood guard. Wordlessly they moved past, Mike taking the lead position moving out in front of Dean just as he rounded the corner.
Jimmy kept his rifle up, watching the ER doors for movement at the windows. He turned away as Alex closed the distance to the hallway intersection and did not see the two pairs of glazed eyes come close to the window, watching he and Alex disappear around th
e corner. The men did not hear the two zombies at the windows take up their low moan, alerting the densely packed ER to food that was moving away.
Mike went quickly down hallways they had already cleared, weaving in and out of the maze-like corridors. The wheels of the carts made hollow clacking noises on the tile seams the faster they were pushed.
“Slow down a little, damn it,” Dean hissed. He did not want to fall too far behind Mike, but he feared the wheels would draw attention.
Mike nodded in response, slowing his walk, allowing the little convoy of carts to close the gap he had created.
In the lead position, Mike opened both doors to the receiving room, waiting for the men to trundle through. Calvin was already lifting the large bay door as Jimmy and Mike closed the doors behind them.
“Shove the carts on the truck as is,” Rick told the men. “Upstairs is next for the labs and surgery, then we can be gone from this place.”
The carts were rushed onto the truck and pushed back to the support pillars, still leaving the space in back. The bay door was closed and the group gathered at the door again, watching briefly before stepping into the hallway.
****
The group of scavengers stood looking at a pile of bodies on the turn landing of the second floor stairs. The thick stench of rotted human remains filled the stairwell, forcing the men to gather shirts in front of their faces.
The tangled mass of bodies had decayed to the point where they were beginning to liquefy, greenish-black fluids running down the stairs in tacky trails that stuck to the bottoms of boots as the men stood on the stairs.
“First, how the hell did they all get here? Second, how are we getting around them?”
“Damn good questions, Cal. I can only guess, but I think someone threw them down here. As for the second,” Rick looked around the stairwell, “through them, or climb the rails and go around them.”
The thought of wading through the rotting carcasses caused stomachs to flip, bile rising into the throats of several of the men. “We climb.” Alex said, choking back the bitter taste in his mouth.
American Revenant (Book 3): The Monster In Man Page 11