by Jason Offutt
A lone zombie, a doctor by his bloodstained white lab coat and Barker Black shoes, shuffled its way down the hall toward them, its right shoulder against the wall to keep itself standing. A short laugh escaped Terry. “Poor bastard.” He raised his rifle.” Let me put him out of his misery.”
Are you fucking crazy? “No.”
The crack from Terry’s rifle filled the short hallway; Nikki and Doug winced from the explosion. The bullet caught the doctor on the bridge of the nose; the thing’s knees buckled and it dropped backward like a drunken frat boy at formal. Terry turned toward Doug and Nikki. “You see, no worries.”
The light from Nikki’s flashlight sliced into the dark room beyond, the beam glowing off dozens of white eyes. The cardiology waiting room was full of zombies. One of them roared. Goddamnit. Doug pushed Nikki into Terry; the force shoved him backward into a wall. “Run. Run damn you,” he screamed.
Feet shuffled across tiles and the zombies rushed down the hallway. “Boss,” Terry yelled.
“Just run,” Doug screamed back.
The sharp, sudden flashes of Terry and Nikki’s gunfire lit up the black hallway, bullets tore through flesh and ricocheted off the walls. The light disappeared as Terry and Nikki backed down the hallway, the dead human monsters walking into a rain of gunfire. Doug sank against the wall, the darkness of the interior of the hospital perfect. What the fuck am I supposed to do now? He reached to steady himself and his left hand hit the surface of a door. He fumbled in the blackness and found a cold metal handle. He turned it to the right and fell inside.
***
Andi unbuckled the belt of a private who lay half in/half out of a Humvee. His torso was torn and gnawed, but Mr. Peeky didn’t need a shirt, he needed pants. “These will be a little big on you,” she said, grimacing as she pulled the green camouflage combat trousers off the corpse, its legs starting to turn blue. “Just tug your belt real tight and you’ll be okay.” She didn’t turn her back on Mr. Peeky as the boy slowly dropped his wet pants and tighty-whities. Andi didn’t trust Mr. Peeky; privacy was something you earn.
“I saw you spying on them,” Andi said, standing straight, her hand resting on the butt of her sidearm.
“What do you mean?” the boy asked.
“You know what I mean. I saw you following them on the highway, hanging back just far enough they probably wouldn’t see you. Then you were watching them through binoculars in your truck. What are you up to?”
“I’m not up to anything,” he said weakly.
Andi approached the boy; they were about the same height, but he seemed to shrink as she approached. She loomed over him. “I just want to get one thing clear. I don’t trust you, but this isn’t my show. The woman you were sneaking up on and her friends in the hospital, it’s their show. They get to make up their own minds on you.” She leaned closer. “But I already have.”
***
“We lost Doug,” Nikki screamed, the sound of her voice drowned by the roar of Terry’s machine gun. Two zombies danced as bullets riddled their chests, then they dropped to the hallway floor.
“What?”
“We lost Doug.”
“No we didn’t.” Terry squeezed the trigger; the tattoo of bullets filled the hall again. Another zombie, a soldier, its helmet hanging over its left eye, fell in a lump. More came, more than Terry could count in the shitty light. He lowered the weapon and grabbed Nikki’s arm. “Let’s go.”
“But we lost Doug.”
Terry pulled her into motion and they ran down the hall toward the exit, a gray fuzz of sunlight fighting its way into the hospital led them to the front door. “We didn’t lose him. We know right where he is.”
“But how are we going to get him?”
The moaning behind them grew louder as the mob pushed itself hard through the corridor; its next meal was getting away.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not made of ideas.”
***
The flashlight click was loud in the small space. Doug slowly spun the light around the room; racks of gauze and tape, blankets, bottles of isopropyl alcohol. A supply closet. Doug exhaled slowly. Lucky boy. He leaned against the wall. Without Nikki or Terry to help him, hobbling out of this place was going to be tough, but Corson was Priority Number One. Doug was going to find that son of a bitch, he was going to find him and make him talk.
The sound of gunfire grew farther away, the moans and shuffling of the monsters in the hall became faint as the creatures followed Terry and Nikki, then all sound just stopped. Go, Doug thought, trying to will himself into motion. It didn’t work. He couldn’t move fast enough to outrun, outhop, a zombie and if he got trapped between two, he was fucked. He knew that. His light slowly crawled over the interior of the closet as Doug methodically looked through for something, anything. “Well, shit,” he whispered. A pair of aluminum crutches leaned against a wall, hiding from Doug’s first search behind a rack of blankets. “I guess this is a hospital.” He put the crutch pads under his armpits and leaned on them. A bit shorter than he needed, but close enough for now.
Doug listened at the door. Nothing. No moans, no rustling, nothing. He took a deep breath, slowly swung open the door and stepped into the hallway.
***
Terry and Nikki burst from the gaping hole and out into daylight; Terry held his machine gun in one hand, Nikki’s hand in the other. A stream of zombies gushed from the entrance. Five, ten, seventeen. Jenna screamed.
“I have this,” Andi said and raised her weapon.
“Holy shit,” Terry yelled, staring at Andi, the rifle pointing toward them. He pulled Nikki to the left away from this mad stranger by the Prius.
Andi squeezed off a shot, the lead zombie’s head jerked back and it fell to the pavement. The others came fast. She shot again and again. Two more. Another. Jenna raised her weapon and sprayed a line of bullets into the oncoming horror. Three went down. Andi knocked down two more with one shot each. The monsters lost sight of Nikki and Terry and ran straight toward Andi. Pop. Pop. Pop. Three bloody corpses dropped to the pavement. The roar of gunfire sent the crows that lined the awning and electric wires cawing into the sky. Three zombies fell to automatic gunfire as Terry stood his ground and shot into the walking corpses. Nikki shot one down. The two remaining ran straight toward Andi. She put a bullet in the head of a zombie in purple nurse’s scrubs, its brain exploded from the back of its skull. Then the rifle jammed.
Damn. The monster, a fresh one, ran at Andi, its eyes still clear, foam and mucus ran down its pimply face. Ten feet, five feet. Jenna screamed again. Andi leaned the rifle against the Prius, calmly pulled her 9mm sidearm from its holster and fired inches from the slathering monster’s face, the beast’s filthy, bloody hands nearly at her throat. The thing lurched back and dropped to the asphalt in a sickening thud.
“Who the hell is this?” Terry shouted.
“Corporal Andi Bakowski, United States Army,” she said, reholstering her sidearm. “Nice to meet you.”
***
“Where’s Doug?” Tears streamed down Jenna’s face.
“He’s okay,” Terry said.
“Well, where is he?”
“He’s okay,” Terry said again and turned toward Andi. “Where’d you come from?”
“Oklahoma.”
“And this guy?” he asked, pointing at Donnie.
“I have no idea.”
“Colorado,” Jenna said, wiping tears away with the back of her hand. “Now, where’s Doug?”
“Inside.” Terry glared at Donnie. “Can you talk?”
“Yes,” Donnie said, the word barely audible.
Andi walked toward a dead soldier and took the rifle out of its stiff hands. She pulled out the clip and slapped it back in. “You left your friend in there?” Andi said, her voice flat, serious. She pulled back the firing pin then let it snap back with a click. “Let’s go get him.”
“I’m coming, too,” Nikki said, stepping toward Terry. He shook his head.
Nikki nodded and wrapped her arms around Terry’s neck. “You come back out,” she said.
Terry smiled and kissed her. “You just have a beer ready for me when I do.”
“Me, too,” Andi said and nodded at Terry. “Let’s go.”
***
Nothing moved in the hallway; it smelled of death. Blood pooled on the floor under the heap of bodies Terry and Nikki had piled up. Please tell me they got out. A black line on the floor led to administrative offices, an orange one led to the cafeteria, both led away from the carnage. Doug clipped the flashlight to his sweaty shirt, the light swayed as he swung himself down the hall.
The hospital president’s office was luxurious. Doug guessed that was to be expected. A great wooden desk, its surface clear of everything but a layer of dust and a picture of children in front of the Matterhorn at Disneyland. Children? Grandchildren? He’d figured if Corson had set up shop in the hospital, he’d be here, but no trace of the military was in that room. No equipment, no maps, nothing. A gunshot, then two. Doug rushed around the desk toward the windows, heavy maroon curtains hung over them like a cloak. He pulled them aside, the late afternoon light almost blinding.
The front parking lot opened up before him.
Jenna. His heart hammered in his chest. She stood at the Prius next to two strangers, one held a rifle up to her shoulder, zombies fell before her. The other stood behind them, looking away. What’s he doing? The man pounded his fists into his thighs. What the hell’s wrong with him? Terry stopped running and fired into the mob, three zombies hit the ground. Crows flapped around the window, blocking parts of the scene. The last zombie ran at the woman with the rifle. She dropped the rifle, pulled a pistol and blew out the thing’s brains. Doug waved at them, but nobody looked toward the president’s office. Why should they? It was under the shade of a tree far away from the action. Terry and the woman with the rifle ran for the hospital entrance.
Doug smiled. “They’re coming to get me.” His smile faded. “Oh, no. They’re coming to get me.” I can’t leave yet. He turned from the window and hopped back into the hallway on the crutches. Doug looked to his left; the sunlight bathed the hallway in gray. The orange line continued down the hall and ended at a set of double doors. The cafeteria. Well, Terry, you got your way.
Light bled from the cracks where the doors fit into the frame. Sunlight? He didn’t remember any windows in the cafeteria where he’d had his last good meal. Doug grinned. A good meal in a hospital. That’s hilarious. He gently took the aluminum door handle and pulled open one door, artificial light poured over him. “What the hell?”
“The generators are still on,” a voice said. Doug’s head swung toward the voice. The doctor who examined him and repaired his shattered ankle sat at a white table, a wineglass and a plate with a steak, baked potato and broccoli lay in front of him. The doctor popped a piece of medium-well meat into his mouth. “Please shut the door. You’ll let in an HG-17.”
HG-17?
Doug moved away from the door, the pneumatic bar pulled it shut. The doctor cut another piece of steak. “How’d you get in here? The place is crawling with the HG-17 infected.”
“Where’s Corson?” Doug asked.
The doctor shrugged and plucked the meat off his fork. “I don’t know,” he said through a mouthful of food. When the world comes to an end, manners are the first thing to go. “The last time I saw him he was wandering down by Anatomic Pathology.”
Shit. “He’s a zombie?”
The doctor’s face grew blank, then he nodded. “I guess that’s what we’ll have to start calling them now, isn’t it? Yes, he’s a zombie.”
Doug pulled out a seat and sat down. “That will save me from killing him.”
“You didn’t tell me how you got in here.”
“The doors were open,” Doug said. He leaned his crutches against the table and looked hard at the doctor. “I want you to answer a few questions for me.”
The doctor took a sip of red wine. “Merlot, my favorite,” he said. “I wonder if I’ll miss it.”
“Look, doc, is this thing curable?”
“The HG-17?”
Doug nodded. “Yes.”
He took another sip of wine. “No.”
We’re fucked. We’re all fucked. “How did this happen?”
He dabbed his mouth with a white, linen napkin and looked at Doug. “Ophiocordon, as you may have heard.”
Doug nodded.
“After placating the host – and I mean seriously placating - it causes orgasms – the fungus kills the host.” He grinned. “They go out with a bang.”
“Then the stalks grow.”
The doctor nodded and took another sip of wine. “Yes, a sporangium blub emerges from the host’s chest and waits for something to pass by to transfer its spores, HG-17. The new host then becomes—”
“A zombie.”
“Yes, a zombie.”
Doug rested his elbows on the table and clenched his hands. “For what purpose?”
“Who knows?” the doctor said, cutting another piece of steak. “What does any living thing want? To eat and reproduce. The HG — the zombies are going where the spores want them to go, so the spores can continue to reproduce.”
“Someplace hot?”
The doctor nodded. “And wet.”
“A mass migration?”
“It’s possible and soon. I don’t know if zombies can survive the winter. The spores can hibernate, but a zombie is dead matter. When it’s frozen and thawed several times, it will decompose very rapidly once spring arrives.” He ate another piece of steak.
“But someplace like Florida, the fungus will thrive.”
The doctor laughed. “Alligators, hurricanes, invasive Burmese pythons, now zombies. I bet tourism is down this year.”
Doug rubbed his chin, the stubble rough under his fingertips. “I’m with other people. We can’t stay here. Where should we go?”
The doctor frowned and swirled the remaining swallow of wine in the bottom of the glass. “Anywhere there are uninfected people. Set up a colony somewhere far away from these zombies. Given enough time, a lack of hosts will destroy the spores no matter where they are. Do that or the human race isn’t going to survive. It’s probably a good idea to stay out of Florida.”
The doors to the cafeteria swung open and Terry and the stranger rushed in. “I fucking knew it,” Terry said, a smile splitting his face. “The cafeteria.”
“Welcome,” the doctor said. “There’s beer in the refrigerator, if you’d like. Cold beer. I would offer you some wine but–” He drained his glass, “–I’ve just finished it.”
“Thanks, Doc,” Doug said. “But we have to go.”
The doctor nodded. “I’m glad you stopped by.”
What? “You’re coming with us.”
He shook his head, as he cut a large broccoli floret in two. “No.”
“That’s suicide, Doc,” Terry said, walking back to the table from the kitchen. He held a bus tub of beer cans. “There’s zombies all over the place.”
A small laugh escaped, followed by a cough. “I know.” He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small medicine bottle. “The hospital was full of zombies. They’d destroyed the military base here, what the hell was I going to do against them? I didn’t want to be eaten by one of those things, so I injected this into my steak and into my wine. I thought it was sensible at the time.”
“What is it?” the stranger asked.
“Botulinum toxi. It’s–”
“Botulism,” the stranger said. “It’s the same stuff they use in Botox. It paralyzes your muscles and your lungs, then–” She wiped his index finger across her throat.
“I mean, I wish you would have called first,” the doctor said, a series of coughs racked his chest. “I think I’m going to lie down, now. You’d better go.”
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The three left the doctor alone in the hospital cafeteria.
***
“How’d you know that stuff back there?” Doug asked the woman named Andi. They stood on the Missouri River Bridge outside of Omaha, the brown muddy water silently moving beneath them. Doug and Terry had stood on that bridge before, to decide if they should move on to Omaha. Doug knew now that was a mistake.
“I was working on my biology degree at Missouri State when this thing hit,” she said. “My mom caught it, then I think my dad did, too, so I joined the Army.”
“Then why aren’t you with the Army?” Nikki asked.
Andi looked at Nikki, her green eyes welling with tears that threatened to break free. “I was ordered to shoot a man, an American and he wasn’t even infected. I never signed up for that.”
Doug decided, right then, that he liked her. The other guy?
“What’s his story?” Doug nodded toward Donnie who stood next to the Silverado, staring across the water at the Union Pacific steam and diesel engines at a park on the bluff.
Andi shook her head. “I don’t know. When I pulled up to the hospital, I thought he was with you.”
“He’s weird,” Jenna said, staring at Donnie. “He gives me the creeps.”
“Well we can’t just tell him to take his ball and go home,” Doug said. “Nobody has a home anymore.”
The crack of a beer can, a cold beer can, was loud in the afternoon. “What are we doing here, boss?” Terry took a drink of beer and grinned. He never thought he’d drink a cold beer again. “We should have turned back around and gone straight to Wyoming, or Montana, or one of those damned states nobody lives in and played house for the rest of our lives.”
Andi took a beer and rolled the can gently in the palms of her hands. “I was going to Colorado,” she said. “The moment I saw the mass slaughter at the zoo, I was going to just hide in the mountains. Then I saw you driving on the highway.”