Kicking her way past the bodies on the steps Jennifer ran her way up the last couple flights of stairs, she probably should have been more careful but she knew that she was out of time if Tom got to her first. She was comforted at least that the only gun fire so far in the stairwell had been her own. As soon as she reached the tenth floor she kicked the door in, was unsure what she’d been expecting, a horde to try and push out at her. Only one stumbled through the frame, a slight female in scrubs with a bloodied head and a hand that was degloved nearly to the bone. Jennifer put a bullet in her already ruined face and stepped over the body. She cleared the hall on both ends, for now nothing came at her, she had expected more destruction on this floor. Was it possible for her to keep her fingers crossed and hope that somehow this hadn’t happened because her people were here. She looked both ways down the hall trying to remember what room Clive had been in. Her and her group were regulars at this hospital so usually if they ended up hospitalized in pairs the staff did their best to see them in the same rooms or at least rooms close by. She glanced right, the hall was well lit, a few smears of blood lined the walls but was otherwise clear, to the left at least one of the flourescent lights had taken a bullet and she was pretty certain there were body parts on the floor.
In that moment she really wished that she thought her peoples rooms were to the right but she was pretty sure that at least Clive was to the left. She had no idea at all where Manson was because she’d had no time to visit, if he was in fact dead, then the last she would have seen of him will have been that moment in the alley. The thought had her trying to stow tears, she couldn’t afford them now, not when there was a chance they were alive. She took herself to the left, trying to pull up Clive’s room number on memory, while trying not to slip on the blood-slick floor, tile and blood made for bad footing. Doing her best to glance from room to room and checking in the small windows she took note that most beds, while messy, were abandoned. Had they been evacuating, she hoped that more people had made it out of the building then had been trapped in it. But then this mess had made it all the way down to the first floor, making evacuation unlikely, so it was probable that at least one of these floors was jammed up with zombies. She hoped like hell Tom’s people didn’t find that floor without warning. Finally when everything was looking unfamiliar Jennifer made sure the hall was still clear on both ends then pulled her phone out and scrolled down to a text from a few nights back that had Clive’s room number in it.
She put her phone back in her pocket and glanced at the room numbers around her, so it had been to the right after all. Jennifer shook her head at herself and moved to head in the opposite direction, she passed the body she’d put down just as Tom hit the entrance to the door. "Shit," she took one look at his more pissed then usual expression and she took off to the right at a run. He yelled at her but short of tackling her to the ground and catching her his only other option was shooting her and she didn’t think he was pissed enough for that just yet. She took the corner too fast and nearly fell over a corpse that was squirming on the floor trying to grab her ankles. It wasn’t going anywhere, at least not fast with it’s middle eaten down to the spine, but she made quick work of shooting it in the head because she couldn’t let anyone behind her potentially stumble into it either. But the time it took for her to pause for it had Tom nearly on her in a flash.
"Jennifer stop," he made a grab for her that she dodged, she was too close to her people to let him stop her now.
She made it to the door and grabbed the handle, normally she would have looked to see what she would be running into but Tom was on her again so she turned the handle and shoved her way in. She knew something was wrong because she encountered resistance but she shoved harder until the door was open far enough to give her entry. Clive’s hospital bed was a gory mess, blood and chunks littered the sheets. "No," she made to make her way to the bed but was yanked to a halt by Tom, she made to struggle out of his grip but it was half hearted at best. The time it wasted gave her time to better take in the rest of the room, it contained one bed, a wheel chair that was vacant, and when she was coherent enough to notice the prominent sloppy noise of chewing and bared feet, twitching, sticking out around the hospital bed. "CLIVE!" she renewed her struggle but stopped when almost ominously a another familiar figure raised itself off hands and knees from the floor. "Please no," but she knew Manson, had learned everything she knew from him, how to live, how to survive, how to live in this life and still be able to laugh.
Tom tried to spin her away and for a moment she wanted to let it happen, she let herself be turned and froze halfway, legs were sticking out from behind the door, familiar shoes, "Trish." Manson’s whole world was Trish, his whole world lay lifeless on the floor serving as a doorstop. What had started as tears of mourning quickly turned to rage, she saw Tom leveling his aim on Manson and her arm shot out and knocked it off course. "No," she gave him an ineffective shove that didn’t move him but a step back.
"Jennifer," he made a grab for her again when she turned back into the room, "it has to be done."
"I know," she gave her attention back to the hulking figure of her mentor, flesh and blood running from his mouth, he was gone and there wasn’t any chance for her to say a thing to him now. All that he was had been reduced to this thing in front of her, the thing that had killed his own wife and eaten his best friend. She didn’t give Tom another chance, she aimed the Beretta and pulled the trigger, she flinched when red exploded behind Manson on the wall and he tumbled to the floor. For a moment it was all she could do not to throw up, so she held herself statue still, there was still Clive. She owed it to them to do this, they were her team, they shouldn’t be left to anyone else. She made to shuffle forward but she only got so far before realizing that Tom still had a death grip on her arm. "I’m doing this," she told him and though it couldn’t have been very impressive with tears streaming down her cheeks she glared at him over her shoulder. After a moment he nodded, gave a signal for his people to wait outside then stepped into the room and let her arm go. She tried not to hesitate to make her way around the bed, but faltered anyway. She reached the edge of the bed, didn’t have to look down to know that the body on the floor had been eaten down to bone in some places. Bits and entrails littered the floor half eaten, the only thing that Manson had seemed to have no interest in was the head. From neck down the flesh was stripped and gnawed but Clive’s face was untouched. Jennifer jumped nearly back around the bed when the eyes rolled open, and whatever drove these things had it’s mouth snapping open and closed. Her vision blurred over completely with tears but she pulled the trigger anyway, she knew she made the hit when the sound of teeth chinking together stopped.
She turned back around to find Tom standing over Trish’s body, she hadn’t taken a chance to look at her, she looked untouched. "Is she," but Tom stopped her inquiry dead by shaking his head, "but she looks," her words choked off when Tom plugged the body in the head.
"She broke her neck in the fall," he clarified, "just to be safe," he informed her questioning look about the bullet. She wanted to believe him she really did, but she already felt like she was coming undone at the seams, shooting an untouched corpse wasn’t helping her disposition.
"Why are you here Tom," she asked again, she shouldn’t have bothered and she knew it because his answer if he bothered to give one wasn’t going to improve her current frame of mind.
He just looked at her a moment before pushing the door open again, "Harrison, Wheatly escort Miss Ryan out of the building for decontamination."
"Bastard," she accused him but didn’t put up a fight when Triple-F and another guy she didn’t recognize took up position to lead her out.
Chapter 19
Jennifer didn’t say a thing as they led her out, largely in part because she’d just witnessed the death of two of her greatest friends, and then been forced to shoot them in the head. She knew she might not have reacted in quite as docile a fashion if Tom’s people had tried to lay a
hand on her, or take her gun. Tom knew her pretty well though, he knew her really well if he’d known her since she was five, so he’d known that attempting any of those things would have made throwing her out of a building she had more right to be in then he did wouldn’t have gone well for him. As it was she wasn’t entirely sure she had any fight left in her at the moment if they tried.
She was used to losing people, had been losing them violently her entire life, but she managed to close herself off to it. Manson and Clive were part of how she’d managed to do that, keeping her grounded, keeping her going. They were both dead, which left her feeling almost alone, her team wasn’t gone true but Malcolm was still the ex, so that was uncomfortable, Marcia was the new girl, she didn’t know her well enough to unwind with. There was Zip, but outside of phone calls she’d met him all of twice, maybe he would miss Clive and Manson, maybe he wouldn’t. The even worse reality of it was, who did that leave to watch her back? Tom, given how he was acting now, it seemed as unlikely as ever that she’d fit into his well oiled machine of a unit; the vampire, that notion was so ridiculous, she might as well shoot herself now if that was where she was going to put her trust.
She needed time alone to think, away from this, away from everyone, she wouldn’t be able to take long, she knew that. This situation was already out of hand, she was out of time, and out of allies, taking time to figure it out was what she needed but not what she could afford to give herself. And she still had to go through whatever decontamination process Tom was talking about, she supposed she’d be lucky if it didn’t require a bullet in her head. So she just marched her way down the steps, Triple-F in the lead, not the best idea, and Wheatly at her rear. She had enough day light to burn to take at least an hour to try and straighten her head out, then it was back to hunting Dimitri. She wouldn’t have thought a vampire could be a zombie or a revenant, how could they when they were already dead. Ethan insisted there was more to lose, that vampires still had their souls, she wasn’t going to argue the point, whether it was that or something else entirely it was clear that the two were worlds apart.
She was still in mid-thought when Triple-F came to a screeching halt in front of her, whether he’d motioned for the stop or not she wouldn’t have known, she had been too deep in her own head. She bumped into him, she couldn’t blame the irritated look he shot her, not only had she made him look like an idiot before she could have knocked him into a flock of zombies by bumping into him. "Did you hear that," she didn’t answer because she knew he was talking to Wheatly.
"No," Wheatly took a step forward but Triple-F ignored him turning his head like he was trying to hear further. "Come on man let’ go, if we drop the chick off outside we can probably still make it back in time to get in on the second floor." But Triple-F stood stock still as if he knew if he waited long enough whatever he’d heard would repeat itself. One way or another it didn’t involve Jennifer, she was for all intents and purposes done here. "Man let’s............." but Wheatly’s words died off when a scream sounded, one that didn’t sound at all like a revenant.
"Did you hear it," Triple-F asked again looking over his shoulder at the two of them. Wheatly gave a curt nod and just because Triple-F seemed to expect it she nodded too.
"So what," Wheatly commented from behind, "you know what the mission is, there was never any mention of survivors."
At this Jennifer did look back over her shoulder, she was tempted to pistol whip the guy but kept the urge in check. "Really," she looked from one to the other of them quickly, "we have a special word for that kind of attitude with my people, I’m pretty sure we call it cowardice." She gave Wheatly a sneer before facing forward again.
"Yea well in case you were wondering your people among our people are classified with a special title too, I’m pretty sure it’s called stupidity." Jennifer kept her urge to shoot one of them under control, it wasn’t easy, they’d just insulted her friends, insulted people who had died to protect ignorant, selfish people like them.
"Call us whatever you like, at the end of the day I think it still means your balls have dropped off." She tried to ignore the screaming, tried to tell herself that it didn’t really matter if she did find someone alive, Tom wouldn’t let them leave.
After a minute Triple-F finally said, "we can do this, right?"
"Fuck that, I’m not going off to find some random screamer, for all we know Rev’s scream, they make all kinds of weird noises."
"Yea," Jennifer agreed all sarcasm, "Rev’s scream for help all the time I’m sure."
"Come on man," Triple-F put in, "it sounds like a kid." There was a pause in which Wheatly seemed to genuinely be thinking about it.
"Lieutenant wouldn’t like it," was all he managed to come up with.
"Just blame it on me," Jennifer offered, "say I ran off after screaming children and you were forced to follow." She waited to see if this would work for them, in the end the two finally exchanged a nod. Looked like Triple-F was going to get some practice after all.
"Don’t run off," Wheatly ordered behind her, "can’t chase you and some random screamer at the same time."
"You don’t have to worry about me, I"ll keep it tight," at least this gave her something to hold her focus, an excuse not to fall apart.
"What floor," Triple-F asked over his shoulder, "which floor did that sound like to you."
Wheatly said nothing so finally Jennifer volunteered to be wrong, "sounded close, probably this floor." She pointed to the sign that read the sixth floor, she could be wrong, she suspected it didn’t matter much, if they couldn’t find the source of the sound soon it would likely stop for other reasons.
"That’s pretty far from the cleared zone," Wheatly commented, probably in hopes of deterring the next course of action.
"Look on the bright side Private, you’ll have a high Rev-kill if you manage to survive." Jennifer didn’t think that she liked Wheatly over-much, she was actually sorely missing Brook at this point.
"We’re quiet from this point on," Triple-F gave her an accusatory look before slipping up next to the sixth floor entrance. She didn’t know why he was looking at her like she’d spent her entire time in the building shouting at the top of her lungs. Her team had cleared their hall on the first floor with little fuss, her trip to the tenth floor had been silent outside of Tom screaming at her to get her ass back in line. Maybe he was just doing it because she was lousy at taking orders but if that was the case she rather thought he would have realized that was a bad idea. She thought it was more likely that her earlier display of making him look incompetent had him trying to assert his dominance. That was unlikely to happen, at least not unless he was going to evidence skill and knowledge beyond her comprehension in the next couple minutes.
At least he’d argued to attempt saving a life against orders, that earned him some points, quite a few actually, that was why she would follow his lead. He pulled the door open and a wall splattered with red was the first thing to confront them, it seemed to make Triple-F draw up short. He stood there for a bit as if debating suddenly whether this was the best idea, but then the screaming took up again and he took the step through the frame. It was probably blind luck that nothing was there to greet them, then again if they were revenant’s on this floor maybe all the screaming had drawn them away. So that in fact meant it was more then likely that this wasn’t the best idea that Triple-F had ever had, but at least, unlike Wheatly, he was willing to put his ass on the line for a stranger.
He kept them moving at an even pace and from the general gore and blood everywhere she wouldn’t guess this floor was empty. Whoever was screaming was probably doing it for a very good reason. Triple-F seemed content to make sure that the left side was clear so Jennifer tried to make sure she checked the right she was attempting to ascertain that a room in that direction was clear when she stumbled into Triple-F again, at least this time she knew for certain it wasn’t because she hadn’t been paying attention. "Hey," she whispered at him, "we need to kee
p going," she didn’t imagine they had long for this, whoever was screaming was likely in danger of getting eaten and when Tom figured out they hadn’t delivered her outside it wouldn’t take him long to come looking. He didn’t say anything, and she finally took the time it required to notice that his eyes were practically bugging out in shock, she turned to her left. She didn’t think she’d really taken note of what floor they were on until that moment. Now that she thought about it she wasn’t entirely sure how that was, there were children’s drawings all over the place. But if none of that had gotten her attention this certainly did, to her left were viewing windows, she’d never been on this floor before but knew without having seen it that the view behind those windows was the nursery. They were on a floor that not only was for children, but had at some point held babies, the nursery windows were coated with random smears of blood along the glass. Cradles were emptied and bloodied and she tried really hard not to look or identify anything that was lying in those beds or on the floor. Clearly Triple-F had not thought to ignore the details because it looked like he was trying really hard not to lose his lunch.
Revenant's Kiss (Chronicles of the Afterlife) Page 20