by Alan Spencer
A woman unsheathed a knife from the flesh along her hip. She sawed her wrist off and then picked up a different hand—one bigger and stronger; a man’s. The woman held it fast to her severed arm and began weaving it with a spool of thread she retrieved from her breast pocket.
The stairs were empty, Hayden realized. This was his chance to escape. Hayden crawled up between two steps and worked up the stairs. He shut the door and threw the bolt. Sharp thuds immediately followed, their fists pounding the door in answer to his getaway. The small bolt wouldn’t stand up against their efforts for long. Hayden wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. He stomped down the hall, and when he thundered into the kitchen to go out the back door, he was struck hard on the back of the head.
Hayden collapsed against the tiles. A towering man with his flesh intact except his face—in holes, like insects had bored through the flesh—stared him down. The dead man clutched a broken tree branch. The corpse threw the limb down.
It happened too fast to prevent, and Hayden was helpless until it ended. A scalpel slashed his cheek just after Hayden’s head was pinned down by the dead man's boot. A square hunk of flesh was uprooted and peeled back carefully. Hayden was shouting in pain as the man fastened the square of flesh to his face by using the nails in his pocket.
“You son-of-a-bitch!” Hayden barked, rising up and kicking the man’s chest. The blow sent the assailant flailing backwards into the living room. “I take your flesh, but you don’t take mine!”
Without a weapon, his words were wasted air.
The basement door flew open. Hayden retreated through the back door, reeling in terror. He’d watched Broman and the woman disappear past the lake moments ago. He followed them in their general direction.
His face bled profusely, so Hayden yanked back the sleeve of his shirt and pressed it against the wound. It wasn’t deep enough to remove the muscle tissue, but the contours of teeth were traceable along the wound.
Hayden challenged the night. “This isn’t over! You shall fear me!"
He was hungry again.
Something will always get in the way of your happiness, but you can have your good thing again. Take it back. Kill Broman and the girl. Show them you’re the strongest. Find a new hideout, and then start anew. This is the greatest place for you to be, and don’t let anyone take that away. This place is precious and worth dying for, Hayden.
Richard’s voice incited confidence in Hayden.
He stalked the woods at full-speed.
It wasn’t long before he came upon Broman and the woman again.
Boyd's Memories
Boyd stood side-by-side with Karen's father, Jack Fuller, who was currently swinging an axe. Jack was chopping up a fresh batch of firewood for the cabin's fireplace. Boyd had driven out to New Haven, Colorado, to spend the week with Karen. This was the second time meeting her parents, but now that he'd dated Karen for almost three years and wanted to propose to her, Boyd decided this was the best time to ask permission.
He wasn't sure how Catholics viewed permission. Regardless, Boyd thought it was a kind gesture. Family support was key in a marriage, he'd read in some self-help book a long time ago.
Jack was a retired firefighter. The man barrel-chested with the belly of a lineman. Intimidating. He wore his black thermal coat and hood. They'd been standing in the backyard for fifteen minutes, while the man tireless committed to chopping wood.
Boyd lost his gall to ask that special question, so he stared out the woods. Everything was encased in three feet of snow.
"Something seems to be on your mind, Boyd. What's wrong?"
Boyd decided he better spit it out. "I want to marry your daughter, sir, and I am asking you for permission."
I hope I didn't sound like an ass. Shit.
Jack placed the axe on a tree stump, and stared off in the distance. He said nothing. Agonizing minutes crept by without a word. Boyd turned to make eye contact. He was shocked. Tears were falling down Jack's eyes.
"Boyd, I barely know you, but Karen has told me so much about you. Enough to know you make her happy. You're of fine stock, Boyd. Cops and doctors are good people. And don't forget the firefighters. All of them are good. Of course you have my blessing, Boyd. Welcome to the family."
Jack managed to control his tears. "My daughter's growing up." He patted Boyd hard on the back. "She's found herself a great catch. We're going to have the biggest Catholic wedding in the history of Catholicism."
Boyd didn't tell him he wasn't Catholic.
He'd let Karen do that.
A New Haven
A parking lot was visible on top of the rise. There were no vehicles, only patches of broken glass and parts of vehicles spread out like a raided salvage yard. The chaos didn't make sense. For the moment, it didn’t matter. Safety and shelter were top priority. Boyd studied the three-story tower less than a quarter mile away.
A hospital.
“You think any of them are inside?” Cindy asked. "At least we can search for something to bandage you up.”
“It better not be like the house," Boyd said. "This town hasn’t been habited by anyone recently. The set-up of this place keeps confusing me. How could you hide an entire town's death, and get away with it?”
“No telling. Perhaps this is also a no-fly zone. Right now, it doesn't matter. So, are we going inside? I don’t see any other choice.”
"I agree."
They cleared the distance from the parking lot to the hospital by jogging in nine yard spans. The windows weren’t sealed up. The entrances weren’t blockaded.
“Keep your eyes open,” he reminded Cindy. "Anything could be waiting for us inside."
The entrance was a revolving door with every glass pane broken. They stepped through it and edged their way into an emergency room. The waiting area was reduced to upturned tables and chairs. They slowed their movements as they crossed the MRI wing. A nurse’s station was in wreckage. Dried blood specked the wall in wild jets and thick spatters.
Again, no bodies.
In room 4, they came upon a gowned torso on a stretcher. Underneath the tatters, the bones were picked clean. Cindy sorted through a metal cart on wheels and removed a roll of gauze and a bottle of peroxide.
“Come here, Boyd. I always wanted to be a nurse. My parents were in the medical field. My mom delivered babies, and my dad worked in the emergency room. That’s the only field of work you’re truly respected. Those that can save lives, what job can top that? Maybe people like Mother Theresa are more respectable. I guess kindness to the sick goes a long way, maybe even greater than the medicine itself.”
“Save your kindness," Boyd said. "Painkillers are better than a good bedside manner."
“I’m sure there’s a pharmacy wing in this place.”
Boyd propped a chair upright and rested. He braced himself for the peroxide. Cindy uncovered the make-shift bandage and winced at the sight of the wound. The bite marks were inches deep. The exposed muscle tissue underneath was pulsing.
“The maniac sure took a chunk out of you.” Cindy held the bottle up to him. “Brace yourself. It's going to hurt. I’m sorry.”
Boyd clutched the bottom of the chair. “Just do it.”
Pouring it over the wound, Boyd grunted and did his best to take the pain.
“I’m not sure if it’s good to use peroxide on such a deep wound, but in our case, it’s better than nothing.” Cindy wrapped the wound in gauze. “Now how about finding you—us—some drugs?”
“Right on."
They exited the emergency room and cleared a pair of back hallways through Radiology and the ICU. The rooms were in the same condition: beds upturned, respirators broken, and IVs strewn on the ground. Blood covered the tiles in every room.
The elevators worked, Boyd was surprised. “I’ve taken it for granted that the power is on." He turned over the idea. "The town’s dead and these corpses are hanging around. Why give them juice?”
“Another question without an answer." Cindy
hit the third floor button and immediately regretted it. “What if those things are on the elevator?”
They aimed their guns at the silver door.
Ding.
The elevator was stopped on the floor above them. Whoever last used it, they were on that floor now. He pushed Cindy back when the door came open.
Nobody was inside.
“This is too much, Boyd. I’ve aged ten years since being in this hell trap. Is my hair white yet?"
“It can’t be any worse than spending forty hours a week behind a desk, can it?”
“I don’t know about that. Or wait, I do—I fucking do! I was a secretary."
They stepped into the elevator. They moved up one floor. When the door opened, they faced a front desk stained in blood. Three monitors were shattered, each belonging to sonogram machines. The concave mirror at the corner of the ceiling was cracked in spider-web lines from a bullet hole. Other bullet holes riddled the walls in countless zigzagging lines. Shell casings slid under his feet. The plastic incubators were empty inside the newborn room.
“This hasn’t been used as a real hospital for awhile." Boyd ran his finger down a baby respirator. “It’s covered in dust. This used to be a normal hospital, but most of the gowns and clothing are military colored.”
“Then what is the point of this place? Why would the government take over a hospital?”
Boyd shook his head. “I have no idea.”
A room at the end of the hall flagged his attention. It was wide open unlike the others that were closed and locked. He hurried to it, the machine gun raised. “Anyone in there?”
Cindy was behind him. “What are you doing?”
“The elevator was on this floor. Someone has to be up here. Maybe they know something.”
“Or they’re like us, and don’t know jack shit.”
Boyd directed his attention at the janitor’s closet. Blood slicked the concrete floor, but it wasn’t congealed.
“This is fresh. Maybe a few hours old.”
Cindy crouched down, plucking an orange prison uniform from the tiles sodden and dripping in red. “This is like yours, Boyd. Other people are being thrown into this place. Jesus, this is like an operation, and someone’s allowing this shit to thrive.”
“And criminals are up on the chopping block. The government thinks they deserve to be killed in this place, maybe. Maybe this is a new way to clean out prisons."
Cindy was flustered. “We should keep searching the place out. If someone’s here, they’ll notice us. Living or dead, we’ll have to deal with it. We need drugs and supplies.”
Boyd agreed. “I guess it’s our only option.”
Cindy hit the elevator button. “Why not start with the bottom floors and work our way back up?”
Boyd stepped inside when the doors opened. A phone rang inside a nearby room. They both looked at each other.
Boyd rushed to pick it up. “Hello?”
“Broman?”
“Yes, it’s me.” Boyd recognized the gruff from before at the station. “How do you know I’m here? How come there are no outgoing lines?”
“Isn’t that obvious?” The speaker offered a wry laugh. “I can’t have you phoning someone and revealing our secret. It’s none of anyone’s business what we’re doing here.
"So have you apprehended Hayden Grubaugh?”
“We were attacked by more of those people, and we got separated, but he’s alive, and if we don’t find him first, he’ll be after us soon.”
“The offer still stands. If you want out of this place, and your life back the way it was, you bring Hayden to the front perimeter gate where we dropped you off.”
“What about my friend?”
“She doesn’t matter.”
Boyd growled into the phone, “You can’t keep this a secret.”
“But we have, and for a damn good reason. You know what trouble this would cause if we didn’t set this perimeter. Countless people would be dead.”
“That doesn’t give you the right to stow innocent people in here, criminals or not, and send them to their deaths.”
The man ignored his concerns. “You do as you’re told, and you’ll be rewarded. It's as simple as that."
The phone went dead.
“Who was it, Boyd—Christ, who was it?”
Boyd placed the phone back onto the receiver. “I don’t know exactly. It's the man who told me to capture Hayden earlier. He must be in charge of this place. He didn't answer any of my questions. I still say we use Hayden as leverage, somehow."
“Won’t those things follow us wherever we go?”
“That could work to our advantage too."
Boyd recalled the drive to the facility. The barbed wire, the watchtowers, the multiple fences to cross, it would be impossible for them to ford without help. Hayden was their only weapon, and with him, they could make progress.
Maybe.
Boyd stepped away from the phone.
The man wasn’t calling back.
“Let’s go ahead and search the basement. The call sure as hell didn't turn up anything new."
Cindy checked the M-16 magazine. “Not many bullets left.”
“The Glock has three rounds, but I have a grenade.”
“You’re going to use it in here? You’ll get us killed.”
“Not if I throw it far enough,” Boyd argued, with a wink, “and we duck.”
They stopped talking after entering the elevator.
They headed down to the basement level.
Hayden's Pursuit
Hayden sprang from the house. The living corpses were pouring from every direction. The dead carried their re-pieced and reworked bodies with new determination to kill. Hayden raced up the hill that marked the end of the woods. Only yards separated him from his aggressors. Broman and the woman were held up in the hospital.
The hospital was the only clear place to seek shelter.
He cleared the revolving door entrance. One of the corpses latched onto his foot to yank him back outside. Hayden seized the attacker by the shoulders and dragged it inside with him. He studied the room for a weapon, and settling for what he could find, Hayden heaved a chair onto its face over and over again until it caved in with a hollow squish. Black and red muck oozed from its nose and eyes in caramel-thick lines. After one hard blow, the eyes were spit out of their sockets to unleash a noxious tide of bubbling green-gray cranial matter.
The rest of the corpses would be inside soon. Hayden came up with a demented plan. He stole a box cutter from the dead man’s pocket. The corpse twitched, its mouth clinking together as its broken teeth slithered from the gums and shattered on the floor.
Hayden dragged the confused corpse down the hall and into a bathroom. Thinking fast to humor a wicked notion, Hayden dragged the box cutter's blade up and down the man’s face. He was tearing and excising ribbons of skin, until a mask-layer peeled from the bones.
Hayden continued the extraction, slicing through the scalp and tracing around the back of the head to remove the man’s hair, a mane of matted and greasy strands. Finished, Hayden carried the pieces to the mirror. Hayden fashioned them. The new face was a rough Halloween mask. The wad of hair was glued onto his head by blood and sticky tissue. Gaining new motivation to stalk without fear, Hayden returned to the corpse, excising more strips and flanks of skin from the dead man’s arms, and then slapping them over his own to complete the metamorphosis.
You’ve become one of them, Hayden.
“Yes,” Hayden rasped. “I am one of them.”
Hayden crept into the hall and spotted the first few of the corpses rampaging through the revolving doors. They averted their attention to him. Hayden wasn't sure if he'd made a mistake by risking his life this way.
He stayed in place. They lurked towards him, but this time, it wasn’t in pursuit. They formed a circle around him.
You are their leader. Guide them to Broman and the girl. Feast among your brethren. This place is yours to thrive in, Hayde
n.
The elevator dinged. Someone was heading to the basement. It had to be Broman and the woman. Hayden stormed the stairs, using them two at a time. The dead followed him, the emergency door not closing as they kept filing through in a continuous line.
Richard spoke proudly to Hayden. Despite your overzealous nature, you’re a smart kiddo, Hayden. Not everyone’s born with that intuition, and not everyone can learn it. You can get away with anything, as long as you think before you act.
The stairs winded down to a door, and when he opened it, Hayden came upon two options. One direction would take him to a room filled with industrial-sized washers and dryers, and the other was a straight shot to a boiler room. The dead bodies piled up at his back, tracing the area with their eyes. Some were already skulking ahead of him, taking an initiative of their own, and entered the boiler room.
A red blinking light caught Hayden's eye further down the dim hall. Hayden slipped into the laundry room and waited for them to pass. He might’ve been cunning, Hayden reasoned, but he was also smart enough not to take any unnecessary risks.
The blinking red light topped his concerns.
A security office to his right was broken into with every monitor shattered and the console splattered in blood.
No body inside.
The blinking red light changed to green. It was the lock mechanism of a doorway. Hayden edged closer to the door. He read the biohazard sign, and then he dove behind a trash can after catching Broman and the woman at the door.
The door in front of them had opened on its own. The corpses had returned from their search of the boiler room and were closing in on Hayden's position.
Hayden waited for Broman and the woman to cross the threshold.
And then he followed them.
A Place to Hide
Boyd and Cindy faced a hallway with two directions to take. Each darkened side could be occupied by anything. Boyd turned to his partner; Cindy’s face was locked in anticipation. Her mouth trembled, and she bit her lip to steady it.