by Perrin Briar
“Sounds like the fighting’s happening in the direction we want to go,” Hugo said.
“Yeah, I noticed that,” Dana said.
She sighed. It was always the way. Things couldn’t go simply, easily, not when there was the opportunity for an obstacle to be put in their way.
“We could go to another hospital,” Hugo said.
“The next closest one is miles away,” Dana said. “And who knows what we’ll run into between here and there in that time.”
“But we know what we’ll run into going this way,” Hugo said. “A frickin’ warzone!”
“Better the devil you know,” Dana said.
“Unless he’s worse than you can imagine,” Hugo said.
What else was there for it? No doubt there were other hospitals around, but were they this close? They were no more than one or two blocks away from the Children’s Hospital.
“We’re wasting time,” Dana said. “And Debbie doesn’t have long left.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
THE GUNSHOTS were coming north east of their location, just around the block. They appeared not to be moving, in a stalemate situation.
Every few minutes there was a terrific thud that shook the ground and made the leaves on the trees shake. Dana could feel the change in air pressure too, like a giant’s footsteps thudding the earth.
“We have to go around the corner?” Hugo said. “Into the line of fire? We’re never going to survive passing through a warzone. Especially not with the way we look now.”
They were certain to be mistaken for the undead. And them carrying an uninfected body? In the frenzy of battle they would have looked like they were attempting to feed on her. What were they to do?
Dana saw the solution. They were lying in puddles of blood on the street.
“The MOPP suits!” Dana said.
“What about them?” Hugo said.
Dana lay her load down. Hugo followed suit. Dana was already moving for one of the fallen soldiers.
“We wear these MOPP suits,” Dana said. “We’ll just look like a pair of soldiers carrying a survivor we found.”
Hugo’s eyes widened. It was so obvious, so simple.
“It just might work,” he said.
“Find the least blood-stained ones you can,” Dana said. “There are bound to be undead wearing these suits too. The last thing we want is to look like them.”
They were quick to put on their suits, pulling them on top of the clothing they already wore. The men wearing the suits had been large, and it wasn’t difficult pulling the oversized clothes on over themselves.
They moved back to Debbie’s unmoving body and picked her up. Dana and Hugo peered at one another through the plastic visors. They were both wide-eyed and awake.
“Ready?” Hugo said.
“That’s my line,” Dana said.
She nodded, and they moved around the corner. It was another world. Hell on Earth.
Bullets flew left, right and center, seemingly without any real aim. Injured soldiers screamed, clutching missing limbs, others bleeding out. Still others fought against their former comrades, having been infected at some point.
Tank turrets turned and fired with huge explosive bursts that knocked the undead off their feet. The bullets whizzed past Dana and Hugo’s ears, and they had to duck down to keep their heads.
An undead roared and ran at them, from nowhere, a former soldier, his helmet smashed. He opened his jaws to bite. Dana was too slow to react, and flinched.
A soldier roared and ran at the undead, blowing it away.
“Get out of here!” the soldier screamed at Dana and Hugo. “Go, go, go!”
Raaaaaw!
Another undead, unseen by the soldier, buried his teeth deep into the soldier’s fleshy shoulder. The soldier screamed, roaring, and pulled at the undead’s hair. But it was too late. The undead fell upon him and dragged him to the ground, where he removed his jaws and bit again, this time for the man’s throat.
The soldier choked, gurgling, his blows ineffective as the undead pulled its head back and tore the man’s throat out. A two-second hero, but a hero nonetheless.
The soldiers were attempting to push the undead back, but were having little effect on their enemy, who pushed back with even greater aggression.
One thought pervaded Dana’s mind more than any other: this was the turning point, the moment when the battle would go against the soldiers. Yet again. Soon, the undead would be a flood, washing over them without remorse.
“We need to get off the street,” Dana said.
“What?” Hugo said.
“We need to get off the street,” Dana said.
She had no intention of still being there when the undead finally did break the soldiers’ line of defense.
“In here!” Dana said.
They entered a building, what had once been the foyer to a large lobby. They rounded a corner to a luxurious scene with fountains. A list of forgotten companies were listed on the roster, along with whichever floor they were located on.
“Not here,” Dana said. “We’ll go up a couple of floors. The undead could stumble in here.”
“What are the chances of the elevators still working?” Hugo said.
“About the same as you popping your cherry in the next hour,” Dana said.
Hugo turned blood red and pursed his lips. Dana had wanted to annoy him, and she had hit the bull’s eye.
They ascending the stairs, puffing and panting as they hefted Debbie’s body. They got to the third floor, both out of breath, and moved to the side of the building that overlooked the battle scene below. They were in a large shopping mall populated with high class stores.
They weren’t alone. A soldier stood in his MOPP suit, clutching his rifle to his chest. His eyes were wide. He looked like a little boy.
“It’s gone,” the shell shocked soldier said. “It’s all gone. Gone.”
“Not yet,” Dana said. “But it soon will be.”
They deposited Debbie on a sofa and looked out the window at the battle taking place before them. They took their helmets off and brushed their sweat-drenched hair out of their eyes.
Dana had been right. The battle was at that very moment turning, in favor of the undead. The soldiers were being pushed back, the tanks taking up new positions to their rear.
“Now what do we do?” Hugo said.
“We hide and wait for the undead to pass,” Dana said. “The hospital is right there.”
Directly across the road, on the other side of the battlefield, was a large monolithic structure. To attempt crossing to it now would be suicide.
“That could take hours,” Hugo said. “Debbie might not have hours.”
A thick layer of sweat drenched Debbie’s forehead. Her clothes were wet, dyed a darker shade by perspiration. They needed to get her to the hospital now.
“Uh, Dana…” Hugo said.
The shell shocked soldier stood looking at them, his gun, trembling in his hands, aimed at them.
“What are you?” he said.
Dana’s mouth was dry. She hadn’t expected the soldier to be a threat to them. She had lowered her guard once again, and it looked like it was really about to bite her in the ass this time. She deserved to die for being so stupid. Words evaded her.
Hugo stepped out in front and addressed the soldier.
“We’re the solution,” he said.
The soldier, eyes still wide and bulging, red with tears, took Hugo in, the words, and his body stiffened.
“There is only one solution,” the soldier said.
He raised the rifle, more confident now, a smile bending his features, as he placed the barrel under his own chin and pulled the trigger.
Chapter Twenty-Three
DANA AND HUGO just stood there, processing what they had just seen. Had it really happened? It was so surreal, like nothing they thought they would ever see before. No rhyme, no reason. The blood and brains running down the walls put paid to any do
ubts they might have had it was a hallucination.
They had seen enough corpses—never mind walking ones—to last a lifetime. But there was something tragic about a soldier who had just taken his own life, without a fight, without trying to stay alive at all costs. It was grotesque when so many people were fighting tooth and nail to simply draw their next breath.
“The hospital’s just over there,” Dana said “Right there. It might as well be on the East Coast. Maybe if we could make a run for it the soldiers won’t shoot.”
“And the zombies?” Hugo said.
Dana let out a sigh.
“They’ll go for Debbie,” she said. “But we need to get across, or else Max is doomed and I’ll never find her.”
“Wait,” Hugo said. “Come look at this.”
“I’m not much in the mood,” Dana said.
“Come look,” Hugo said. “Looks like the military is finally learning from their mistakes and changing their tactics.”
Dana joined Hugo at the window. The soldiers had retreated to the intersection and were unloading into the undead. Nothing particularly special about that, Dana thought. For a moment, she couldn’t see what Hugo was talking about.
And then she did.
The tanks were lined up, and their turrets were all turning together, moving in one direction like a choreographed routine.
“What do you think they’re doing?” Dana said.
“They know they can’t win here, can’t retreat fast enough for the undead not to run them down,” Hugo said. “I know what I would do in that situation.”
“What?” Dana said.
“Stop the flood of undead,” Hugo said. “Build a barricade that will stop them in their tracks.”
“Build a barricade with what?” Dana said. “There’s nothing here.”
“Isn’t there?” Hugo said.
“What?” Dana said.
She looked out at the scene again. Cars? Vehicles? But they were already torn apart. Trees? Wildlife? But they were at their backs.
“Can’t you see it?” Hugo said.
“Will you stop being cryptic and just tell me?” Dana said.
“The buildings,” Hugo said.
Dana’s heart skipped a beat. Assuming the army could tear down a building or two, it might provide a strong enough barricade to hold the undead back.
Dana peered at the tanks, all taking aim in the same direction.
Their direction.
All barrels were aimed directly at their building.
“Hm,” Hugo said. “I didn’t think it would be our building though. Get down!”
They both uttered expletives, but neither of them heard one another, as the tanks fired as one.
Chapter Twenty-Four
THA-DOOM!
Tha-Doom! Tha-Doom!
In both sound and meaning, they were doomed.
The tank shells slammed into the first floor, sending ripples up the building. There was a loud groan as twisted metal fought itself to remain upright.
When the dust had cleared, the damage was atrocious. A mass of body parts that had once been people lay strewn like a toddler’s meal. A great crater had been blown in the street. Dana couldn’t bring herself to imagine what the base of the building must look like.
There was a great deafening squeal of steel as the girders that supported the building’s weight began to give way. The undead turned to look at what had made this gargantuan noise, momentarily distracted. The soldiers took the opportunity to blast a few more undead.
But the tanks were taking no chances, and unleashed a fresh volley of mayhem, blowing another large crater into the building’s underbelly. This time there were snap noises as the girders broke, and the entire building juddered under the strain.
As the girders broke one by one, more weight was applied to those that remained. The girders snapped faster, one after another. The building began to fall forward.
Witnessing such a scene take place outside the building was one thing, but to be inside the building while it was happening was another.
The whole floor shifted under Dana and Hugo’s feet. They slid. Debbie did too, getting terrible carpet burns as the building fell forward.
Swivel chairs rollered across the floor, smacking into the glass-fronted office walls. The desks, thankfully, were bolted down, but the computer monitors and other paraphernalia weren’t. They rolled with the gravity too, only a few snapping loose from their wire fastenings.
Clearly the soldiers had been hoping the building would fall forward and form a barricade across the street, blocking off the undead and giving them a shooting gallery from which to perch and attack the undead. But that hadn’t happened.
Instead, the building was pinned against the front of the hospital on the opposite side of the road. The building Dana and Hugo were inside, what was meant to become the barricade to save the soldiers, had instead turned out to be the very thing that would lead to their destruction.
Dana, who had always been on the side of the military, even when they had turned against her and locked her in the detention center, was now hoping for their downfall, or at least for the tanks to be overrun. If they fired again, if they managed to get off more shots, the building would fall and they would be dead.
She lay on the glass, on her front, watching as the fighting took place beneath her. A few stray bullets blew holes in the glass a few yards from her position. Not close enough to cause alarm.
The undead were still coming, and though the soldiers fired, never ceasing even for a moment, they could not prevent the horde washing over them. The tanks reversed, retreating. The foot soldiers scattered with it, pulling back.
Dana, despite her situation and location, breathed a sigh of relief. They were not doomed.
At least, not yet.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“HOW DO we even get ourselves in these situations?” Hugo said.
“It’s not me,” Dana said. “It’s the universe. It’s always had it in for me.”
“Then we’re doubly unlucky,” Hugo said. “Because it’s always had it in for me too.”
“That’ll explain it then,” Dana said. “All this bad luck is pushing it, even for me. It would require two people with no luck to attract these kinds of events.”
“Now what do we do?” Hugo said. “If we head down, we’re still going to have to deal with the zombies.”
“Then we don’t head down,” Dana said.
She craned her neck up, toward the roof. There was an unbroken space between where they were now and the top of the building. It was a stylish open area designed for people to look out upon the city while shopping.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Hugo said.
“Have you got any better suggestions?” Dana said. “I’m all ears if you do.”
Hugo pursed his lips and frowned, scrabbling for something—anything—that would be better than Dana’s plan.
“Do you think we can really do it?” Hugo said. “Scale all the way to the top of this building on glass that might shatter underneath us at any moment?”
“We have to,” Dana said.
“We’re forgetting one thing,” Hugo said. “Debbie. How are we supposed to carry her with us?”
Dana moved to a computer monitor that dangled from its power cord. She unfastened the monitor and let it drop to the plate window. She used the wire to climb up to the desk it was attached to, and pulled out all the plugs she could find.
The adapters coiled and fell to the glass below too, Hugo hopping out of the way at the last moment. Dana let go and slid down to the window. She picked up the power cables and moved to Debbie.
She slid the thin end of the cables through the hooks in her pants and tied knots so they wouldn’t unfurl. Then she attached the cords to her own pants. She handed the other cable to Hugo.
“This is madness,” Hugo said.
“This is survival,” Dana said. “Woah!”
The floor shifted beneath them a
s the top of their building slid down the hospital, gouging the brickwork. It lasted for but a moment, long enough for them to count their blessings.
“We need to hurry,” Dana said.
They began to climb, slowly, on their hands and knees, crawling along the glass. The cables became taut and Dana braced herself to take Debbie’s weight. Dana was once again surprised by Debbie’s lack of weight. She slid along the glass. With no obstacles or restrictions, it wasn’t too difficult.
They made it to one floor’s height within a few minutes. Debbie hung between Dana and Hugo, hanging by the cords they had attached to her, equally distributing her weight. With any luck they would be at the breach at the top of the building within an hour.
There was one direction Dana did not relish looking, and that was down. Beneath her feet and hands was a drop that, even if it didn’t kill her, would incapacitate her beyond use. And so she kept her eyes forward, inching closer and closer to her goal: the Children’s Hospital.
Dana felt remarkably fresh, alive and awake. Nothing they did now really pushed her. She felt like she could have done this for hours. She wasn’t even breaking a sweat.
Plink!
Plink! Plink!
Something dripped and made soft noises on the glass between her hands. Dana looked up. The roof. But there was nothing up there that could drop at this angle, landing right here between her hands. Was there?
Plink!
Dana raised her hand to her face and touched the skin. Her fingertips came away wet. She wiped her hand over her leather jacket.
“Are you doing okay?” Hugo said.
“I’m fine,” Dana said. “How are you feeling?” Dana said.
“Great,” Hugo said. “Why?”
“You’re sweating a lot,” Dana said. “So am I.”
Hugo touched his own face. He looked surprised by the water he found too.
“What does this mean?” he said.
“It means we’re more like zombies than we thought,” Dana said.