by Gibb, Lew
Jerry looked up at the acoustic dropped ceiling panels three feet above the top shelf. He flipped the mop bucket over and used it to scramble up the shelving and then crawl to the front wall. Crouching with his head just below the ceiling, he lifted the panel over the door and stuck his head into the space above the ceiling. It was about three feet high, and he could almost stand straight up. The crawlspace was criss-crossed by a dusty web of wires, piping for water and oxygen, and ductwork for the air conditioning and heating. To his right, a concrete wall encircled the stairwell. The closet’s front wall ran away to his left and disappeared into the darkness. He thought he could just make out another wall that he supposed surrounded the elevator shaft. If there was an emergency hatch, he could get to the elevator and ride it to the ground floor—as long as there was still electricity.
He wasn’t keen on the idea of standing in an elevator as it opened to who knew how many zombies on the other side. There was no need to make any hasty decisions. First, he needed to find out what was happening on his own floor.
With shaking hands, Jerry used the multi-tool’s blade to lift the edge of the first panel on the far side of the wall. Once he could get his fingers into the gap, he raised the panel just enough to see into the hallway. A single zombie curled on its side lay directly below him. His eyes were closed and his breathing was regular, like he’d fallen asleep when he’d gotten tired of pounding on Jerry’s door.
Jerry had never heard of sleeping zombies. That might make it possible to move around more easily at night.
Lifting the panel farther and turning his head to the left brought two more zombies into view. They were curled up beside a pile of bones and dark blue clothing. Jerry’s body went cold when he recognized the EMT patch peeking out of the bloody pile.
He lost several minutes staring at the bones and thinking about the enormity of his loss and the desperation of the situation. He had to physically shake his head to bring himself out of the cycle of recriminations and what ifs.
Across the hall, a parallel wall divided five patient rooms running along the outside of the building from the hallway. Three of their doors were closed, including the one closest to his room.
To his right, an L-shaped metal bracket held the edge of the ceiling to the stair shaft. He reached up and grabbed a water pipe hanging three inches from the ceiling and running parallel to the stairwell wall, then pulled his feet up and stepped as lightly as he could on the bracket. Supporting most of his weight with his arms and walking his hands along the pipe, he managed to reach the wall running parallel to his. He lifted the ceiling panel over the first patient room with his Leatherman blade, and the earthy-metallic odor of blood mixed with excrement filled his nose. It was actually hard to see until he blinked his eyes clear.
Once he could see properly, he wished he had let the ceiling tile drop back into place. In the room below, an obese zombie in a bloody hospital gown slept on her back beside the door. The mound of her stomach stretched the bloodstained hospital gown, and her bare legs were nearly black with dried blood. Intestines snaked from one of her hands and across the floor to the partially eaten body of a dark-haired man in green scrubs. Rusty-red dots of blood, like a bizarre abstract painting, splattered the walls, and a large puddle had dried beneath the man. His right arm lay next to the woman, completely stripped of flesh from shoulder to wrist. The hand’s intact skin and shiny gold wedding band reminded Jerry of a Halloween prop. The savagery of the man’s dismemberment was one of the worst things Jerry had ever seen one person do to another—except for what had happened to Mike. Jerry wondered how long it would be before he saw even worse.
He eased the ceiling panel back into place and crawled along the wall’s top, past the next room whose door had been opened and to the third one in line. The awkward crouch required by the low ceiling and the concentration required to move silently was exhausting. His thighs burned, and the heavy motorcycle jacket had sweat running between his shoulder blades as well as down his face. It was much too hot for the conditions, but even lowering the zipper would give the zombies too much of an opening if they somehow got to him.
Jerry let out a sigh of relief when he peered into the third room and found it empty. After lifting the ceiling panel free of the grid holding it in place, he lowered himself down the wall and onto the bed. The door latch, like the one on the supply closet, was nothing but a flat handle that opened when pushed. He found a desk chair and wedged it under the handle, taking his time and trying to avoid any noises that would wake the sleeping zombies in the hall.
Once the door was braced, Jerry walked to the window and pulled the curtains aside. The sight outside made his heart try to punch its way out of his chest. Jerry counted over a hundred corpses spilling out of a jumbled mess of cars and lying on the lawn surrounding the hospital. He realized he was assessing the scene like he would a mass casualty incident, trying to determine how many extra ambulances he would need to handle the situation. He shook his head at the carnage and the futility of his assessment. He would need more units than there were in the city, but more ambulances wouldn’t do any good. Closer to the building, partially eaten corpses dotted the grass and lay in the bushes and flower beds. The exposed parts of each corpse had been stripped of flesh and the clothing torn to allow access to more of the body beneath.
Directly below his window, a man dressed in tatters of what used to be light blue hospital scrubs reclined against the base of a tree. Nothing was left but shredded clothing and some scraps of red flesh lying among the bones. His hair was still intact, making him look like a skeleton in a spiky red wig. Jerry thought it must have been excruciating to have your flesh torn away until the mercy of blood loss or the removal of a vital organ rendered you unconscious or dead. The memory of Mike’s piercing screams and the pounding on the door to the supply closet brought to mind a vivid picture of Rachel suffering the same hideous fate as Mike. Jerry had to steady himself, placing his hands against the window and closing his eyes until he was able to banish the vision of his wife at the mercy of ravenous zombies.
Jerry felt mentally and physically exhausted. The danger, the need to move quietly, and the adrenaline-fueled emotional rollercoaster of the past hours were catching up with him. He looked at his watch. One in the morning. He couldn’t believe so much time had passed. He realized he had left his makeshift spear in the storage closet. He suddenly felt exposed and vulnerable like never before in his life. If the zombies managed to get inside the room, he would be easy pickings. The thought of traversing the relatively short distance back to the closet seemed impossible in his current condition, not to mention the return trip, and there was no bed in the closet.
He had the backup spears taped to his coat. He would go back for the big one in the morning after he recharged his batteries.
Jerry eased the chair away from the door and unlocked the bed’s wheels. The slight clunk of the mechanism when he disengaged it made him suck in his breath. He shoved the bed against the door and the side wall.
Bam! Bam! Bam! The pounding started just before the bed hit the door.
Adrenaline flooded his system. “Damn, those fuckers have good hearing,” he whispered, stomping on the brake. Jerry grimaced and eased his weight onto the bed. Adding his weight would slow them down if one of them hit the latch and maybe give him time to climb into the ceiling. With his eyes fixed on the door, he curled up on the bed as far away from the door as possible and waited for them to come for him.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Gray dawn light filtered through a two-foot gap in the curtains. Wisps of orange and pink seemed to wrap the world in a mirage of ephemeral threads so the bowl of the sky was like the inside of a cotton candy machine. Jerry wondered how the curtains had gotten open. He distinctly remembered seeing them closed.
A high-pitched wail from the hallway made Jerry jump off the bed and stare at the door.
“Jeeeerrrryyyyy!” Rachel’s agonized and terrified voice sent spikes of terror thr
ough his ears and into his head. Without a thought, he jumped on the bed and reached for the top of the wall. In an instant, almost without effort, he slammed his head through the flimsy ceiling panel and clambered onto the wall.
“Helllllllllp meeeeee!” Rachel’s voice came from farther away and was fading like a train moving into the distance. Fingers of dread wrapped themselves around Jerry’s chest and sent a spike of pain through his heart. He pounded his fist through the panel on the other side of the wall. The fibrous tile exploded into a million bits of dust that swirled around the crawlspace and obscured his view through the opening he’d just made. He waved his arms, frantic to clear his view and save his wife.
And then the dust was gone, and he could see her.
Rachel was running toward him with a pack of zombies on her heels, wearing nothing but a tank top and a pair of shorts, bare feet pounding the floor as she ran. Jerry wished she had listened when he’d insisted she wear the motorcycle gear.
Mike was at the head of the mob, shredded EMS uniform hanging from his bloody limbs, snapping his teeth and reaching for Rachel as they ran toward Jerry.
Mike’s eyes met Jerry’s. “I love you, man!” he yelled, his voice hollow and reverberating in the hallway.
Rachel was looking at Jerry, too. She had her arms stretched out, reaching for him. Jerry stretched his own arm toward her, leaning out so far he was sure he would lose his balance and fall, but he didn’t care. He had to save her. Their hands touched and their fingers wrapped around each other. Jerry pulled, but he wasn’t strong enough to lift her off the ground. He couldn’t use his other arm, or he would fall. Jerry heaved as hard as he could. Rachel arched her back and got her feet against the wall, struggling for traction with her bare feet. She came closer. Inch by inch, he was doing it—he was lifting her to safety.
Then Mike landed on Rachel’s back, leering up at Jerry as he sunk his teeth into her shoulder. Her fingers went limp and slipped from his grasp. She fell and disappeared beneath the horde. Jerry screamed her name and obscenities at Mike, at the other zombies, and at himself. He kept it up until his throat was raw, but the zombies ignored him and kept feeding on his wife.
A hammering in his ears made Jerry’s eyes pop open. He craned his neck and took in the hospital room and the intact ceiling. A one-inch gap in the curtains revealed a slice of the lightening sky. Jerry sat up and dropped his feet to the floor.
“Holy crap!” he gasped and cupped his head in both hands. Tears of relief gushed from his eyes and ran between his fingers. “Only a dream.” He stood and walked to the window, ignoring the continued pounding on the door.
Jerry parted the curtains, taking in the view from his north-facing window. A haze of black and gray blanketed the sky, allowing only a faint pink glow that hovered on the eastern horizon. A band of ashen clouds stretched fingers of gray toward the horizon that smoldered into a fiery orange, as if the eastern half of the world was burning. Jerry wiped more tears from his face until the sun nudged over the horizon.
The shift of the sky’s color, involving yellows, pinks, blues, and turquoise, was one of the most beautiful things Jerry had ever seen, and he wondered at his ability to appreciate a sunrise in the middle of the worst disaster ever. Everyone he knew was most likely dead, or soon would be. And here he was, looking at the sky. Maybe it was his mind’s way of keeping him from dwelling on the enormity of the disaster he was living through.
The fact that he had even slept amazed him almost as much as the sunrise. Working forty-eight-hour shifts had given him the ability to sleep at pretty much any time. Rachel called him a professional napper. He knew sleep wouldn’t come nearly as easy next time. The horrifying and realistic images of Rachel running from the zombies would be a powerful incentive not to go down that road again.
The sleep hadn’t done much to refresh him. His mind felt as fuzzy as the clouds, and his eyelids were scratchy. He felt anything but refreshed.
The need to get home hit him like a physical force pulling him downtown. Jerry checked his phone. Still zero bars and nothing from Rachel or anyone else. The power stations had probably gone out hours ago. He needed to accept that he wouldn’t be hearing from her by phone.
If she was even still alive.
The thought came unbidden, and he pushed it down as soon as it arose. He needed to stay positive and act as if Rachel was waiting for him at home. Without that to look forward to, he didn’t know if he could go on. Talking about survival when you were sitting at home, safe and sound, eating huevos rancheros and convincing your wife she would live through the end of the world in spite of herself was one thing. Reality was something completely different. If he was having trouble motivating himself, he didn’t want to think about what was going through Rachel’s head right now. He had at least been thinking about this for a while and watching all those apocalypse movies. Although his theoretical knowledge of the apocalypse had done nothing to prevent Mike’s death or his own separation from his home at the critical time.
The survival kit he had put together for Rachel should help. It might have been a good idea to make one for himself. At least the ambulance was stocked with weapons and food. Once he was out of the hospital, he would be able to use it to get home.
Thinking of Rachel traveling alone through the zombie-infested city almost sent him into another black hole of negative thoughts. He pulled himself back from the brink by telling himself over and over how Rachel and the dogs were safe and sound at home.
“Nothing happens until you’re out of here,” he told himself. And he wasn’t going anywhere without a weapon. That meant finding something in his current room or going back over the wall to the supply closet for his spear. “She’s still alive. I know she is.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Rachel woke with a start, still seated on the couch. Her heart was racing. She swiveled her eyes around, looking for threats. The room’s curtains were heavy, and the sparse furnishings were just visible in the gray light filtering in from outside. A series of dull thuds echoed from downstairs. That must have been what had woken her. Another louder thud reverberated through the house—it was the front door crashing against the wall in the entryway.
Rachel jumped to her feet. Her eyes snapped from the door to the window. Zombies or humans? Footfalls and muffled voices came from downstairs. She moved to the door. Thick molding surrounding the opening had prevented the desk from pressing tight against it and left a two-inch space to open the door. Rachel’s hand’s shook as she thumbed the latch and eased the door open. She pressed her ear to the crack and strained her ears for a clue about who was causing the crashing sounds echoing up the stairs. She could barely hear over her own rapid breathing. Her mouth was watering and she felt like she was going to barf right on the floor.
“What the Fuck?” she whispered, wondering if somehow she was in the early stages of turning into a zombie. No one said anything about nausea, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a symptom. She had to press her fist against her lips swallow three times to keep the bile down.
“Goddammit, Steve,” a surprisingly high-pitched, male voice said. “I thought your old man said all these fucking rich people were on painkillers.”
“Fuck you, Barry,” another voice said, this one much deeper and raspy, like a heavy smoker. “What’s your goddamn plan?”
“Fuck you, too. This is the third fuckin’ house we been to, and all we have to show for it is three goddamn Oxy and a bottle of Benadryl. Fuckin’ Benadryl, man. I need more than that to come down.”
Rachel grimaced. Meth addicts were some of the most unpredictable people Jerry dealt with. They would binge for days—the drug acting like a continuous supply of adrenaline—before they ran out of money or drugs and had to come down. Then then they would take downers, or pain killers, to overcome the jitters so they could sleep—sometimes also for days.
“You don’t wanna to go back downtown, do you? You almost got your ass killed tryin’ to break into that pharmacy.”
“No shit. Those crazy motherfuckers came out of nowhere. I can’t believe they were trying to bite us.”
“Trying? Hell, my goddamn arm hurts like a bitch, even with those Oxys. How’s your hand?”
“Not too bad. Just scraped from when I knocked that son of a bitch’s teeth out. Motherfucker’ll think twice before trying to bite me again.”
“Yeah, Barry. You knocked his ass out, too. If there weren’t so many of his friends with him, it would have been fun to stick around and beat his ass some more.”
“Speakin’ of ass, what about that chick?”
“What?” A crash followed by the tinkle of glass falling brought to Rachel’s mind an image of the china cabinet tipping forward onto the dining room table.
“Well, not really a chick. She was like mid-forties or something.”
“Oh. Yeah, the one in that weird dress with the apron. She was kind of a MILF.”
“I think it was a diner uniform.” The voice was muffled as if the man was looking into a closet or another room. “It had her name on the front. ‘Annie,’ I think it said. Would have been fun to take care of those guys, and then take care of Annie after. Know what I mean, Steve?”
“That’s what I’m talkin’ about,” Steve laughed. “She looked like she was on a three-day bender herself with those red eyes, but she had a sweet rack.”
“Oh, yeah she did. Even if she was probably a grandma.”
“Fuckin’ A.”
Rachel couldn’t believe it. Here they were in the middle of the apocalypse, and these mother fuckers were talking about raping some poor zombie-waitress.
“But seriously, man,” Steve continued, “this place don’t look too promising. We gotta find something soon, or I’m gonna be hurtin’ for certain.”
“Jesus, quit being such a little bitch, Steve. Let’s just check this place since we’re already here. If we don’t find anything, we can try to make it over to that dealer’s house.”