Her tummy was hungry, but it didn't end there. Her blood was hungry. Her bones were hungry. Even her hair, nails and skin were hungry. She was a throbbing, pulsing, quivering bundle of ravenous hunger that consumed her alive like a parasite and left her wanting.
With thoughts of nothing but slaying the beast of hunger overtaking her body, Audrey followed the paramedics into the hospital.
She hated the smell of hospitals, but it smelled different this time. There was the usual cloying scent of disinfectant, but Audrey could also smell flesh and blood. It smelled delicious.
The paramedics stopped in front of the hospital registration desk. There was no one there. There was no one anywhere, at least not in sight.
"What the hell is going on?" one of them asked the other.
Audrey couldn't tell them apart. To her, they were both bags of blood, bones and flesh waiting to be devoured, and she had no idea where that thought came from, but it made her smile.
She watched the paramedics pace back and forth in confusion when they couldn't find a single soul in the hospital emergency room from the admittance area to the examination rooms.
When the paramedics left for a quick exploration of the area, Father Matthew unbuckled the straps on the stretcher and got to his feet.
"Are you okay?" he asked Audrey.
She nodded. The sound of her own heartbeat nearly drowned out his words.
"I told them I was fine." He sighed. "I should have insisted. I hope I didn't scare you. I'm a diabetic, and I forgot to eat. Everything's fine now. You don't have to be afraid."
He looked around the empty hospital emergency room area. "Well, this makes no sense. What do you think we should do now?"
Audrey shrugged.
"Do you want to get that leg checked out while we're here?"
She shook her head.
"I knew you were going to say that." He looked around. "It doesn't exactly look like there are any doctors around anyhow. It's like a ghost town."
Audrey didn't answer.
"I wish they had let us put on some more clothes and grab our shoes before they brought us here. The floor looks clean, but it isn't exactly sanitary to be walking around barefoot in the hospital. Nothing we can do about that now, I guess." He paused to listen. "Did you hear that?"
From down the hallway came the sound of screams. Father Matthew took a few steps in the direction of the noise. "Are you coming?"
Without waiting for an answer, he took Audrey by the hand. "Don't we make a pair?" he said. "A priest in tiny shorts holding hands with a semi-dressed girl. I hope no one recognizes us."
He led Audrey deeper into the hospital, following the nearest hallway until it ended and then turning in the direction of the screams.
"This probably isn't the best idea," he said. "It sounds like someone needs more than a barefoot priest in jogging shorts, but I wouldn't feel right without at least trying to help."
Father Matthew turned the corner, taking Audrey with him. What he saw next made him stop dead in his tracks. A cluster of patients was advancing slowly down the hall.
Although they didn't seem to notice him, he couldn't help but notice that they seemed to be suffering from some kind of affliction.
He blessed himself and backed slowly in the direction he and Audrey had come from. Halfway to the hospital entrance, he turned around and spotted several doctors or nurses lurching toward them.
Father Matthew froze in place. He set his back against the wall and held Audrey by his side. "Be very still," he said. "We can't move in either direction. I don't know what to do."
He looked to the left and to the right. There were no doors off the hallway between the two advancing groups of undead patients and medical professionals.
The smaller group was closer. They moved slowly, without purpose, but still they crept closer with every stumbling step.
The closest of them turned her head and looked into Father Matthew's eyes. Half her face was missing. Her teeth were visible in the place where her cheek had been torn away.
Father Matthew tried to tuck Audrey's body between the wall and his own body, but she resisted him.
To his surprise, she was much stronger than she looked. It turned out to be Audrey who sandwiched the priest's body against the wall.
She faced the approaching throng of people and growled low in her throat like a mama grizzly bear protecting her cubs.
The crowd actually averted their eyes and moved to the opposite side of the hallway in response to Audrey's throaty snarls.
They continued past the pair until they reached the larger group coming from the opposite direction. The two groups stood and stared at each other, not with hostility but in confusion.
Slowly, the two groups merged into one and all the individuals managed to coordinate their movements so that they were facing the same direction.
"They're all heading this way," Father Matthew said. He grabbed Audrey's hand again and pulled her toward the hospital entrance. "We have to go."
This time, the emergency room area wasn't empty. The two paramedics who had brought Father Matthew and Audrey to the hospital were back, but they weren't in the same condition as before.
One of the men was missing an ear, and he had deep wounds to one arm that looked like he had tangled with a hungry alligator and lost.
His eyeball was dangling by the optic nerve, and he had the decidedly confused yet determined look that Father Matthew was beginning to recognize since the ordeal began.
The second paramedic hadn't fared any better than the first. His shirt was torn open. Likewise, his abdomen had been ripped from the bottom of his throat to the top button of his uniform pants.
Blood and shit poured from the wound, and his intestines were sliding out of his body a little bit more with every step.
For the second time, Audrey positioned herself between the priest and those afflicted by some strange condition. A low growl emitted from her dry lips.
At that moment, a man burst into the emergency room supporting a woman who was screaming and bleeding. "My wife is injured," the man shouted. "What do we do? Where do we go?"
He stood and stared at the two paramedics. "What the hell happened to you guys?"
The paramedics didn't move quickly, but neither did the man and his wife. Father Matthew watched in horror as each of the paramedics grabbed at the couple, taking them to the floor.
The pale woman's screams grew louder and more frantic. Not only was she injured and bleeding but her belly was being ripped open by teeth and nails, adding rivers of crimson to the rivulets she'd had when she arrived.
She clutched desperately at the paramedic's arms and back, but no amount of shrieking and fighting back could dislodge him from his place atop her thrashing body.
Once he made an access hole in her stomach, the paramedic reached both hands inside the woman and pulled out her guts fist over fist like he was pulling up an anchor. Using his teeth, he broke through the tough organs, eating select bits and pieces. He looked at her with curiosity, holding her shoulders with his hands and giving her a solid shake.
The woman's breath came in ragged gasps as her eyes fluttered.
Soon, her breath turned to gurgles. Then even those strangled sounds stopped as the paramedic continued to pull organs from her ruined abdomen, taking great bites from some while rejecting others.
The dead woman's husband was pinned down by the second paramedic, whose instincts weren't quite as sharp as the first. He was able to land a solid punch to the man's nose, which broke with a satisfying crunch.
Unfortunately, the broken nose only seemed to energize him, and he managed to sink his teeth into the screaming man's Adam's apple.
Once he got his first taste of human flesh, he fought to tear chunk after chunk of bloody meat from his victim's throat.
When he struck the carotid artery, bright red blood gushed like the water from a fire hydrant. The spray increased with every heartbeat until more of the man's blood was outsi
de his body than within it.
"Let's get out of here while they're busy," Father Matthew said. Once again, he took Audrey's hand in his own. "We've got to get back to the church."
She pulled her hand from his grasp and lunged toward the dying man on the floor.
"Audrey, no," the priest said. He grabbed for her, but he was too late.
She slipped from his grasp and knelt in the spilled blood. Her hands wandered to the waistline of one of the paramedics; he ignored her.
Audrey slid her hands into the feeding man's pockets from behind, feeling around until she found what she was looking for. She held up her hand triumphantly.
"It's the keys to the ambulance," Father Matthew exclaimed. "Let's get out of here." They passed the feeding frenzy, leaving bloody footprints as they exited the building.
The ambulance was still parked in front of the hospital. By some miracle, no one was in the parking lot. Audrey handed the keys to the priest.
Father Matthew silently thanked God that there weren't any potential patients entering the abattoir that was once a place of healing, at least not via the emergency entrance.
There were countless other doors scattered around the perimeter of the hospital, and there was no telling how many visitors had entered, never to return to the cars parked in neat rows in the lifeless lot.
Audrey silently climbed into the passenger seat of the ambulance. Her hands and feet were stained with blood. She was still hungry.
"I don't suppose you know how to drive one of these things," Father Matthew said.
Audrey shook her head and made a noise in her throat. It wasn't quite a growl, but it reminded the priest of how she had held off the afflicted at the hospital, putting herself in the line of fire to protect him.
He decided it wasn't a good time to ask. "Lock your door and put on your seat belt," he said.
Turning the key in the ignition was easy enough. The motor roared to life. He wasn't used to driving such a big vehicle, but he was determined to make it out of the parking lot and onto the road that led back to the church and the rectory, back to safety.
"This might be a bumpy ride. I haven't driven a stick shift since my first car in high school. It was a Camaro, and it was either learn to drive a manual transmission or settle for a second-hand Ford Pinto from my parents, and at the time, I didn't want to drive the Pinto."
He put the vehicle into gear, and it jerked forward. Carefully, he coaxed the ambulance toward the hospital lot exit, clipping a parked car on the way. He found the control for the siren and flicked it on for good measure.
Just as he was about to pull the big ambulance into the road, a car driven by a woman and filled with no fewer than four children began to drive into the lot. "No," he shouted. "Don't go in there."
He honked the horn and waved his hands in the air, but the woman carefully drove around him into the lot.
Father Matthew turned the ambulance onto the main road. The last thing he saw in the rear view mirror was the woman easing her minivan into an empty space. "They're as good as dead," he thought aloud. "Worse than dead."
Audrey didn't answer.
Chapter Six
Back in the X-ray room, Officer Fitzpatrick stood with his back to the open door and watched the radiologist narrowly avoid being grabbed by the dead patient, whose hospital gown had slipped down his shoulders to reveal even more of his otherwise naked physique.
The cop tried to assess the situation, but he was at a loss. His mind was having trouble processing what was happening, and he knew he had to keep his wits about him. It wasn't easy.
He looked over his shoulder. The body of his dead partner, Officer Murphy, still lay in the doorway, preventing it from closing.
The dead woman who'd torn chunks from his neck with her bare teeth lay crumpled on top of him. A pool of congealing blood surrounded them, staining their clothes crimson.
Officer Fitzpatrick thought back to the hospital's John Doe and the way the man had nearly torn his own body in half to escape from the nylon straps that held him down. Neither the voluminous piles of black ash he'd vomited onto the floor nor the ropes of intestines streaming from his ruined abdomen had slowed him down.
Nothing had helped except the bullet Murphy had put into his brain.
Officer Fitzpatrick felt the bile rise in his throat. He looked away from the lifeless bodies. This was supposed to have been an easy shift.
He and his partner should have been standing guard over a single crazy patient who was securely fastened to a hospital bed at five points of contact. The officer wondered how it had come to this.
He was still holding his gun; he didn't lower it.
"Heather," Fitzpatrick said loudly. "That's your name. Right? Heather?" He didn't wait for a response. "I'm going to need you to remain calm. Can you do that for me?" Even as he said the words, he doubted his ability to remain calm himself.
He tried to recall his training, but all he could remember was advice from an old deodorant commercial: Never let them see you sweat. Easier said than done.
From behind the X-ray equipment, Heather let out a high-pitched wail. She ducked lower while dodging the patient's attempts to reach her with his hands and mouth.
With every one of Heather's screams, the half-naked patient seemed to enjoy a renewed desire to reach her from his side of the machine.
He was already doubled over the piece of equipment, balanced on the balls of his feet while his hands reached blindly for the screaming woman.
"I'm going to need to put him down, Heather," Officer Fitzpatrick continued, remembering what his partner had said before going down in a blaze of gnashing teeth and turquoise blue hospital scrubs. "I'm going to shoot him in the head like Old Yeller. We're going to have to get him into the hallway first. If I shoot him in here, the ricochet could be more deadly than he is."
He gestured at the man's back, but Heather didn't answer.
"I'm going to distract him while you run out from behind that machine and into the hallway. I imagine he'll follow you right through the door. Once he's out of this room, I'm going to shoot him in the back of the head. You got it?"
He eyed the doorway nervously, hoping that no one else would join them while he was trying to put his plan in action.
"Why don't you get his attention and let him follow you into the hallway instead?" Heather asked. "I'll just stay where I am until this all blows over." She made no move to leave the relative safety of her position.
Officer Fitzpatrick thought she had a good point, but he wasn't about to tell her that. "He's already got his sights set on you," he hissed. "I think we'd better work with what we have. Get out from behind the machine."
He could see the top of Heather's head move back and forth as she shook it. "No," she said. "I think you were right. He's not smart enough to go around. I'm staying here. You're the cop. You go play the hero. Leave me the fuck alone."
"Go play the hero? Who the fuck do you think you're talking to?" Officer Fitzpatrick took a few steps toward the X-ray machine. With one kick to the small of the naked man's back, he sent the dead patient sprawling toward Heather. "Don't be such a bitch," he said.
The dead man's feet left the floor, and he managed to grab a fistful of Heather's long hair. He began to pull her from her hiding place while she screamed.
"Do something you fucking asshole cop," Heather shouted. "What the fuck is wrong with you, you fucking piece of shit?"
The officer took aim and fired his gun into the base of the dead man's skull from above. The bullet passed through bone, brain and various other tissues before entering Heather's forehead, right above her brow line.
She fell silent.
"Happy now?" Officer Fitzpatrick asked the quiet room. "I told you it was too dangerous to discharge my weapon in this room, and now you're dead." He laughed. "Maybe next time you'll remember who's the victim and who's the fucking hero."
He looked down at the two bodies dripping blood and brain matter onto the cold floor
and smiled. Then he holstered his weapon and turned toward the door. His boots made squelching sounds as he moved, but he didn't notice.
His deceased partner and the woman who had contributed to his death lay peacefully in their coagulating puddle of combined blood.
Officer Fitzpatrick stepped on them on his way out the door and headed down the hallway in the direction of screaming. He couldn't wait to see what was happening now.
A woman ran down the hallway toward him, and it took him a minute to recognize her. It was Sandra, the nurse who'd seemed to have so much trouble administering a simple injection to the now-deceased John Doe.
"Help me," she said. Her scrubs were red with blood. She held out her hands. "We've got to get out of here. They're everywhere. Please." Tears streamed down her face.
Officer Fitzpatrick touched his weapon without thinking about it. "Have you been bit?" He was anxious to put another bullet in someone's brain if given half a reason. "Are you hurt?"
"What?" Sandra asked. "No." Her eyes flitted nervously to his hand, which had settled on his gun. "Look." She brushed her hair aside to show him her neck before raising her arms for his perusal. "No bite marks. It's not my blood. I swear. I slipped and fell and … landed on someone."
She choked back a sob.
"What's going on in this place?" Officer Fitzpatrick asked her. "I need answers."
"I don't know. Listen. You have a car. Right? You have a police cruiser parked outside? We can get the fuck out of here. We can just get in the car and go." She grabbed his arm and tried to drag him back in the direction he'd come from. "Please."
He shook her off his arm. "Don't touch me," he said. "I asked you a question. What's going on?"
"I told you that I don't know." Her voice rose with each word.
"It started with that guy, that John Doe. You saw him yourself. He was the first, but there were others. People were coming into the emergency room with bite marks, human bites. Some of them were turning black and flaking. No one had ever seen anything like it before. Then some of them … they just started changing."
Zombie Dust: An Extreme Horror Novel Page 4