“Pervert,” Bob smiled.
“It’s only taken you six months to figure that out,” she laughed.
“Shut up and hand me the pretzels, Red,” Bob smiled.
After eating the stale pretzels and the old crunchy candy bar, they headed for the stairs.
They walked quietly down to the first floor.
Carrie cringed at the sight of the dead lying in the hallway.
Bob walked over and looked at the dead.
“Each of them has a spot on the back of their skulls where something was pressed into their brains,” Bob said.
“What could have done that?” Carrie whispered.
“If the sheet idea worked,” Bob whispered back, “then the doctor and the guys might have been able to walk right up to them and do this.”
Carrie nodded but looked terrified at the thought.
“Come on, Red,” Bob said. “Let’s walk over to the door. Just don’t trip.”
Carrie walked nervously around the dead bodies.
Bob and Carrie walked over to the doors and looked out.
“I can’t see anything,” Bob said. “There are too many of the dead out there.”
Carrie stood perfectly still afraid the dead would pick up on her movements.
They stood and watched the dead stagger by the hospital.
Finally there was a break between waves of the dead.
As the dead on the road in front of the hospital temporarily thinned out between the waves of bodies, Bob counted the bloody sheets lying on the street.
“How many?” Carrie asked as she watched Bob.
“All of them,” Bob replied. “Let’s get back upstairs.”
Chapter 27
Bob woke up, feeling Carrie tightly wrapped around him under the blanket.
Bob looked down at the red hair that covered his chest and felt her soft warm skin pressing against him.
“Maybe this was a mistake,” he thought.
He was starting to really care about Carrie.
He knew the feeling was mutual.
She had to feel the same way about him as he felt about her. She hadn’t called him a pervert or said anything hostile to him in hours.
Bob laughed to himself at that thought.
He had restrained himself from getting too close to anyone because it had always hurt too badly when something happened and he would have to watch the person he had gotten close to die.
Experience had taught him that anyone he got too close to always died.
The life span of a human now days wasn’t very long.
He couldn’t stand to see another friend die at the hand of those grotesque creatures.
The fact that she was all he had left in this world would even make it all that much harder to endure.
Bob also knew he was getting too protective of Carrie.
It was only natural, but it could also be deadly.
If he would be constantly worried about something happening to her, he could end up not paying attention to what he was doing and end up getting himself killed in the process.
He had tried to keep his distance. The wall he had built up between himself and the world began to crack the night Carrie had gotten drunk, taken off her shirt and crawled in bed with him.
He had always felt that getting drunk didn’t make you do anything you really didn’t want to do. It just reduced your inhibitions and allowed you to do what you had wanted to do all along.
That night he knew that this was what he had wanted too.
When Carrie, completely sober the following morning, decided to be honest and expressed her feelings for him, Bob’s wall completely crumbled.
He hadn’t felt this way about anyone since he had met Kathy.
A year, a long horrible year had gone by. He knew Kathy would approve. She wouldn’t want him to be alone but Bob couldn’t imagine any way this could end well.
But he knew it would only be a matter of time.
He would either find himself alone and in pain or it would be Carrie that would be alone after watching him die a horrible death. It was just the way things were.
But there was no way around it now.
If he tried to pull away from Carrie and force his feelings back deep inside where he couldn’t be hurt, he would only be hurting Carrie. She would feel he had been what she had come to expect from those around her. That he had his fun at her expense and then dropped her and moved on, after he had got what he wanted.
Bob knew he could never do that to her.
By his actions he had opened this door and there was no way he could now close it.
Really, he wouldn’t walk away from her, even if he could.
He hadn’t felt like life was worth living like he did now, for the first time in the last year.
When his family died, for some reason he felt he had to live on.
He had hoped that one day he would find a reason for what he and everyone had been forced to endure.
Was this the reason? Was this what some higher power had in mind for him all along?
“Some higher power my ass?” Bob thought as the vision of all the dead staggering around on the street, walking over the bloody sheets that his friends had tried to use to get away from the hospital.
“If God works in mysterious ways,” Bob thought, “then this all has to be the biggest mystery in the history of the universe.”
Carrie moved around next to Bob. The blanket slid down to the middle of her back.
“Then again,” Bob thought, “who am I to second guess God?”
Bob had often thought, even before this whole nightmare started, that the world was screwed up. He had often thought about all the low lives he had to deal with on a daily basis at work. About all the selfish and ungrateful people he saw on the news each day.
He often said to himself that if he was God, he might just scrap the lot of them and start all over again.
“Was this what this nightmare was all about? Had God read his mind and decided to do exactly that, or had this been his plan all along.
“How the hell would I know?” Bob thought.
All Bob knew was that he wanted to live. He wanted Carrie to live too. But he feared what the future would hold for them.
If he had been given a second chance, all he could think was that it was one hell of a second chance.
How it turned out would now be up to him. God apparently had done all he intended to do.
If on the day Bob was fighting to make it to the front door of the hospital, if everything would have stopped and a loud voice sounded from the heavens and gave him two choices. He could either die right then and there, or he could find himself on the roof of the hospital with a beautiful woman as his companion, but he would have to find a way to save him and the woman or they would die.
He would have jumped at the second option.
Bob looked down at Carrie.
“Even though that choice sounded obvious, Bob knew it wasn’t that simple. Even if he found a way out of the hospital, he knew it wouldn’t end with “and then they lived happily ever after.”
In all probability it would only prolong the agony that now passed for living.
In the end, the result would be the same.
Bob also knew that he hadn’t been thinking as clearly about things as he should. Thinking about Carrie had preoccupied too much of his time.
As he looked back over the last few days, there had been a number of things he should have seen but had missed.
He needed to focus and think things through.
Carrie had spotted a number of problems with the doctor’s plan as soon as they read the notebook. Her analogies were a little unusual, even down right crazy, but at least she had questioned the doctor’s conclusions and plan to get everyone out of the hospital.
Bob, who had always been the group’s voice of reason, was disappointed with himself for being so accepting of the doctor’s plan before he had thought things through.
Bob laughed to himself at
Carrie’s comparing the zombies out on the street to the second grade boys that had tried to look under her dress. That was something only she would come up with.
He didn’t know what she had been forced to endure over the last year. Their past horrors weren’t something any of them had talked about with each other. Things that had happened to each of them were things no one ever talked about. They all kept those things buried deep inside and hoped they could forget.
Carrie didn’t like the idea of wearing a bloody sheet and trying to walk through the dead. Bob couldn’t blame her.
He would just have to find another way.
Bob saw some merit in the doctor’s plan, but he also felt the doctor’s plan was a plan of last resort.
They would have to be desperate to try something like that.
But after a year, all of them together hadn’t been able to come up with any other plan.
Bob didn’t know why the plan hadn’t worked. Maybe something happened that was unexpected.
Bob smiled to himself thinking that if he used Carrie’s reasoning, the problem was that some pervert zombie had tried to look under one of the sheets.
But there had to be another way.
He would save the doctor’s plan for another day, a day when they had no other choice but to try the doctor’s plan.
Bob started thinking about the last few days.
He started to slide out from under Carrie’s arm.
“Where are you going?” Carrie asked as she was awakened by Bob moving.
“I need to look at something,” Bob replied.
“I’m coming with you,” Carrie said and crawled out from under the covers.
“You don’t have to,” Bob said, “I’m only going up to the roof.”
“What’s up on the roof?” Carrie asked.
“I have an idea, but I need to see something first,” Bob replied.
“I thought you knew everything that was up there,” Carrie said as she sat up.
Bob laughed, “Red, hold the sixty questions and I’ll show you when we get up to the roof.”
“Sorry,” Carrie smiled. “I guess I talk too much when I first get up in the morning. Usually I just talk to myself. I like having someone to talk to in the morning.”
“I wish I could have listened in on some of those conversations,” Bob laughed.
“I’m glad you couldn’t,” Carrie replied. “You would have thought I was crazy.”
“I’m sure my opinion of you wouldn’t have changed,” Bob smiled. “Besides Red, I already know you’re crazy.”
“Good,” Carrie smiled, “Then I can stop trying to hide it.”
“You call what you’ve been doing the last six months trying to act normal?” Bob laughed. “I better watch my back.”
Carrie walked over and looked up at Bob.
“You’re not going to bite me again are you Red?” Bob grinned.
Carrie hugged him, “Show me what you wanted to look at.”
They walked up to the roof.
The sun was shining brightly but a chilly breeze blew across the roof.
Bob led Carrie over to the edge of the roof that faced the river.
Bob lay down on the roof and stuck his head out over the edge and looked down at the street separating the hospital from the cliff.
Carrie got down next to him.
“Now what are we looking at?” she asked.
“I was laying there this morning thinking and watching you sleep,” Bob said. “I was thinking about what happened over at Allegheny General.”
“What about? Was it the part where I got drunk or was it the part where I wasn’t drunk?” Carrie grinned.
“No, it wasn’t that,” Bob replied.
It wasn’t?” Carrie replied. “You sure know how to deflate a girl’s ego.”
Bob chuckled, “Red, if your ego got much bigger, you would be impossible to live with. Besides, I thought you just wanted to be one of the boys?”
Carrie laughed, “I changed my mind. That never seemed to work out.”
“Yea,” Bob smiled, “I can see where you would have had a few problems with that.”
“Seriously,” Carrie said. “What were you thinking about?”
“I was thinking about the plan you came up with to get us out of the church and get us over to the hospital,” Bob said.
Carrie’s eyes lit up, her and Bob both looked back down towards the street.
“The more I thought about it, I couldn’t believe none of us had thought about it before,” Bob said. “I never paid any attention to the power lines. I guess we had all been conditioned to stay away from the power lines when we were growing up so we wouldn’t get electrocuted.”
Carrie looked at all the power lines coming into the hospital.
“There are a lot of lines running up to the hospital,” Carrie said. “Which line were you thinking we could use?”
“It’s hard to see from up here,” Bob said, “but I was thinking about the line that connects by the windows on the third floor. It goes down to the power lines at the top of the cliff. We could change wires from there. There is another power line that goes down near the river.”
“It shouldn’t take us long to get down to the river,” Carrie smiled. “It’s all downhill. We could just hang on and slide down.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Bob smiled. “The doctor had a good idea to use inflatable mattresses on the river.”
“I’d rather have a boat,” Carrie said.
“We could get lucky, Red,” Bob replied. “Allegheny County has more boats registered per square mile than even Miami. But I wouldn’t expect to find a fancy yacht or anything.”
“Just so it is big enough to sleep on,” Carrie replied, “That would be safer than sleeping along the shore.”
“I hadn’t thought about that,” Bob said, “It has been a while since I had to worry about finding someplace safe to sleep.”
“It’s good we have a way out of here so we won’t starve, but I’m going to miss staying here at the hospital,” Carrie said. “This was the nicest place I’ve been since I left the station. It was almost like having a family again. I’m not looking forward to living out in that jungle again.”
“But at least this time we will be together,” Bob replied.
“At least until you decide you can’t deal with this crazy bitch anymore,” Carrie smiled.
“You may be crazy,” Bob laughed, “but I hardly even notice that anymore. It must be all your other good qualities.”
Carrie laughed.
“So when do you want to leave?” Carrie asked.
“I thought today we could gather all the things we would need for when we leave and then just relax for the remainder of the day and rest up,” Bob answered.
“Maybe then we could go down to one of the lower floors and find another candy bar,” Carrie suggested.
“Why wait,” Bob smiled. “I’m hungry.”
Chapter 28
Jim had been driving for about twenty minutes when Debbie spotted the sign for Ross Mountain Park.
“Ross Mountain Park is four miles ahead,” Debbie said. “Let’s go there.”
“Does Ross Mountain Park have a merry-go-round like Kennywood Park?” Monica asked.
“No, Kennywood is an amusement park,” Debbie answered. “Ross Mountain is a country club with a golf course.”
“I like playing golf too,” Monica said.
“You like playing mini golf, Shrimp,” Debbie laughed. “Ross Mountain only has big golf.”
“And no merry-go-round,” Monica sighed, “no wonder we never went there before. Why are we going there now for? It doesn’t sound like it will be any fun.”
“We are going there because it’s someplace other than New Florence,” Debbie answered. “And we need to find another place to stay.”
“Maybe we can stay in one of those little cottages along the golf course,” Jim suggested.
“Or maybe we can stay at the cou
ntry club,” Debbie said. “I always heard the country club was really nice.”
“I think I’d settle for a tree house if it safe and there are none of those things wandering around up here,” Jim replied.
“Ed can’t climb trees,” Monica added.
“Jimmy was just joking, Shrimp,” Debbie laughed, “There won’t be any tree houses so you and Ed can stop worrying about having to climb trees.”
“Let’s just hope there are none of those things up here,” Jim said. “Then we can worry about where we are going to live.”
Debbie started to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Jim asked, then he had to smile when he looked at Debbie laughing.
“I was just imaging what kind of zombies we might find at a country club,” Debbie smiled.
“You mean like one of those gross things staggering around wearing bright pink plaid pants and a blue hat carrying a golf club,” Jim laughed.
“Fore!” Debbie groaned then started laughing again.
“Sis, it sounds like you ate a bad piece of fish this morning,” Jim laughed.
“Just blowing off steam,” Debbie smiled, “Getting kidnapped and then almost eaten does it to me every time.”
“Speaking of fish,” Jim said, “It looks like we will be eating a lot more fish. I doubt we will find much at the country club or in the cottages. But with the size of the lake at Ross Mountain, we should be able to catch more than carp. The water should be clean and better to drink than that river water.”
“A Lake,” Monica said. “Can we go swimming?”
“If it’s safe up here, I don’t see why not,” Jim answered.
“Good,” Monica said.
“Don’t get too excited, Shrimp,” Debbie said. “The mountain water up here is freezing cold. You’ll freeze off your little butt.”
Monica giggled and whispered to Ed, “Freeze our little butts.”
The dirt road went up a small grade then came out of the woods and continued on through a large clearing.
A massive lake sat off to the left, an overgrown golf course lined the hillside to the right. On top of the hill was a large building, the country club and club house.
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