Mad World (Book 1): Epidemic

by Samaire Provost

  I shuddered and turned around and began running. Getting to the doorway, I sneaked another peek over my shoulder and saw the doctor go down, the zombie on top of him, still chewing. God, I thought, this place is going mad. Just as I turned to go through the door, it opened from the other side.

  “OH MY GOD, THEY’RE OUTSIDE, AT THE THEATRE!! THEY’RE COMING THIS WAY!” screamed a man as he bolted into the medic room. We were pushed aside in his panic, and Risa fell. DeAndre reached down and picked her up and looked at me. “Which way?” he asked.

  I made a quick decision and opened the door and looked out. Bad, very bad. At least five zombies were loping toward the observatory door. They looked to be coming from the theatre, just as the man had said. I quickly looked beyond them and saw at least a dozen bodies on the grass, and police officers running toward the theatre. If they were running toward the theatre, when the zombies were running away from it, what on earth worse was at the theatre, I wondered? What could be worse?

  Retreating back into the sick room, I turned to the others, “We need to bolt this door somehow, they’re coming fast.”

  Mike shut the door and locked it, and we faced the inner room. The zombie was still on the ground with the doctor, who was still screaming. I looked around. No one else seemed to have turned, but several looked close. There was only the other door out of the room. Our only escape route. I nodded at DeAndre with Risa and Jacob and Caitlyn and Holly.

  “Follow me,” I said. I moved slowly, trying not to draw the zombie’s attention. At first it seemed to be working, she was concentrating on her victim on the ground and had her back turned to us. We were almost passed her when, all of a sudden, she noticed us. Blood dripped from her mouth as she focused on us and let out an angry growl.

  “Come on!” I said and began sprinting toward the door. DeAndre threw Risa over his shoulder and followed. The others were fast on our heels. I looked over my shoulder as I ran, just in time to see Ellie fall and cry out in pain. Mike grabbed her and kept moving. Ellie clutched her arm and stumbled with him. Paula had joined us again and ran to help Ellie. I looked past them to the zombie.

  The zombie had started to get up to follow us, but as she stumbled over the bleeding doctor on the floor, he grabbed her ankle and held on with both hands. As I watched, his eyes met ours and he yelled, “Run!”

  Enraged by his actions, the zombie turned back to him and fell on him again, growling madly. We heard him scream again. He had sacrificed himself to save us.

  I ran through the door we had used to enter the room and, when the others were through, I closed it firmly and turned to the outer room. Several security guards were racing toward us to help. They opened the door and ran into the room, guns drawn. We put some distance between us and that door, in case they were unable to get a handle on things.

  Several shots rang out, and we could hear someone yelling orders. More officers were moving quickly into the area. I grabbed the others, and we ran to the far doors that had led to the buses that were leaving for Arizona. The crowded room was in a panic, everyone had heard what was happening in the medic room. I grabbed Jacob’s hand and he grabbed Caitlyn’s. With my other hand I grabbed DeAndre’s shirt as he carried Risa. The others linked hands as well. We formed a chain and banded together closely and made our way around the edge of the panicked crowd toward the outside door. It was close to the entry we had first come through, so I hoped that the busses were near our van.

  As we made our way around the panicked crowd, I turned to the others. “Stay on the edge,” I told them. “Do not get pulled into the crowd.” Everyone nodded and followed me through the room and to the door. We were about 25 feet from the exit when I felt the crowd surge against us. The medic room doors had opened, and two grey-faced zombies had appeared in the doorway. They must have come through the far door or had turned just after the first woman. Either way, the sight and sound of this new threat threw the crowd into a frenzy. They were mad to get away from the zombies. People started screaming and pushing against us, trying to get to the door along with us. A bottleneck formed, and the people began to claw at one another, trying to get out. Holly cried out and fell against me. Then she went down, clutching her arm. I grabbed her and got her back on her feet. She held her pregnant belly and looked into my eyes. Her face was white with fear. Blood dripped from a deep cut on her arm where someone had clawed her. We hurriedly scrambled to the side, trying to escape the panicked crowd.

  This was madness, I thought. Worse than a fire at a theatre. We were against a wall ten feet from the door, but there were several hundred people pushed up against it and against us, all frantic and growing more violent by the second. When some of them began to climb over the others, trampling them, I knew we needed to get out of there. I frantically searched above our heads, trying to see another way out.

  At the far end of the room, near the medic doors and the zombies, a wide staircase curled up to the second floor, which looked like an open atrium and walkway. I glanced at the zombies near the far doorway. They were growling and beginning to advance toward the crowd pressed against our end of the room. There was maybe forty feet of space between the edge of the crowd and the zombies. I backed up and began to make my way around the crowd, hugging the wall and trying as hard as I could to avoid attracting the zombies’ attention. Jacob, DeAndre with Risa, Holly and Caitlyn began to follow my lead.

  Ellie saw what we were doing and panicked. She screamed and began clawing her way through the crowd to get to the outside door. One man began to claw back at her, trying to stay on top of the people he had clawed through already. Ellie screamed as she went down and the crowd swallowed her. It happened in just a few seconds. The people surged toward the door, and the man, along with several dozen others, turned to continue climbing on top of the screaming people as Ellie’s screams became muffled and weaker.

  “Oh my God!” Mike exclaimed as he began trying to dig through the crowd to help her. We all came and tried to get to her, Jacob and Mike in the front, grabbing people and shoving them aside. This seemed to panic the crowd further, and they began fighting back. Within minutes, a dozen people were punching and fighting Mike, Jacob and the rest of us as we tried to get to Ellie. We fell back several times, overwhelmed. Paula fell into the crowd once, and Jacob grabbed her leg and pulled her out, but the minute she had been under the trampling feet and pounding fists had been enough. As she was pulled out of there, we saw her face had been bloodied and her arm hung limp. She was in a daze. We pulled her to the side and away from the crowd.

  Mike stood back up and wanted to jump into the crowd again to rescue Ellie, but I held his arm. “Mike, it’s no use. They’re going to trample you, too if you jump back in there.”

  He hung his head, tears in his eyes.

  “She’s my mom’s age. I have to try,” he said. I nodded. He jumped back into the crowd and tried to weave around the worst offenders who were still trying to climb over the others. Jacob went with him, and DeAndre joined him after putting Risa gently down beside Paula, who was groaning.

  I turned back to the doctor. Looking her over, it seemed that her head had been trampled on and her arm had been caught underneath her as she fell. Holly sat on the floor and held Paula’s head in her lap. Paula groaned and opened her eyes.

  “How’re you feeling?” I asked, trying to wipe some of the blood off her face with a napkin that had been dropped nearby.

  Groaning in pain, she seemed halfway delirious. Holly smoothed her hair away from her bloody face, but the back of her head was bleeding, too.

  “Bastards,” Paula whispered, then fell unconscious. Her head must have gotten knocked around. Risa and Caitlyn crouched down with them as I got up to look for help. Looking around, I could no longer see Mike, Jacob or DeAndre at all. God, I hoped they were okay. I looked for anyone who could help us. But everyone, including nurses, orderlies and some security guards who had panicked, were in the midst of the stampeding crowd that was trying frantically to get out th
e door. I looked beyond them to the far door to the medic room and saw that the zombies had advanced farther and were attacking the people on the edge of the crowd. I turned back to Paula and the others.

  “I’m going to get some water to clean her head up,” I said to Holly, Caitlyn and Risa. “Can you hold the fort for a second?” They nodded and, keeping a close eye on the crowd and zombies, I hurriedly walked toward the tables we had eaten lunch at not an hour before. I found a glass of water and some discarded napkins and, grabbing both, I made my way back to the injured doctor. Kneeling down, I wetted the napkins and began to clean the blood off her face. It looked like just superficial wounds for the most part, except for the back of her head. She was out cold. She had probably fallen and cracked her skull; there was a mass of blood there. Paula’s dress was nearly soaked. I wiped up her face, and she groaned as I worked. Regaining consciousness, she was able to sip a bit of the water I had.

  “Oh, my head!” she groaned.

  “I know, just try to take it easy. You’ve banged your head pretty bad, and I think your arm has been injured, too,” I said as I looked down at her arm.

  Paula blinked her eyes, trying to wake up fully. After a few moments, she came to completely and sat up more on her own. I handed the glass of water to Caitlyn and stood up. Turning toward the crowd again, my eyes searched for the guys. I saw Jacob backing out of the crowd pulling Ellie’s limp body behind him. He had to pushed back and fight the mob as he moved backward. DeAndre followed, helping Mike. He halfway carried him, Mike’s left leg seemed to be collapsed under him, and his head was bleeding badly.

  I grimaced and closed my eyes tight for a moment, then opened them again and looked down at Ellie. She wasn’t moving. Jacob pulled her to the side and kneeled next to her, feeling for a pulse at her neck. After a minute he raised his head and our eyes met. He shook his head quietly. I felt tears spring to my eyes as I dropped them to Ellie’s still form. It had all happened so fast, I couldn’t believe it. I heard Mike groan behind me, and I turned to him and DeAndre. Mike was in bad shape. It looked like his jaw was broken and one eye was swollen shut. His left leg was folded beneath him at an odd angle.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  DeAndre just shook his head. “They’re crazed. He was in front of them and they turned on him. One huge guy got in several punches to his face before he stopped, and then he fell, and three other guys began to climb on top of him and stomped his leg at the knee,” he finished.

  I looked down at Mike’s leg, feeling it. He winced and grabbed at the leg as I felt his knee.

  “I’m going to straighten it out, Mike, okay?” I said. He nodded, his face contorted in pain. As I gently pulled his foot over, straightening his leg out, he cried out. His face went white and he broke out in a sweat. He seemed close to passing out from the pain. Mike’s leg needed to be set; he needed medical help now, and Paula was in no condition to help. I looked around again at the chaos in the room and shook my head. No help was in sight. None.

  We all huddled together like that as the crazed mob not fifteen feet away from us continued to scramble to get through the doorway and away from the zombies clawing at their edge. A few made it out, but most of the doorway was stopped up with bodies piled three or four deep. They had been trampled, and many of them were unconscious – or worse. As I looked, I heard more faint screaming coming from the medic room. I looked everywhere for assistance. The police were outside or in the medic room battling zombies in there. The security guards who were left had joined the nurses, orderlies and the hundreds of civilians in stampeding the doors. I looked back at the others and made a decision.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “We have to get out of here. This isn’t safe,” I said. “Grab Mike and Paula, and let’s try and get out of here. Come on.”

  Caitlyn glanced over at Ellie. “What about her?” she asked.

  I just shook my head. “No,” Caitlyn said in a whisper, closing her eyes. Holly began to cry softly. I shook my head. This was madness. I grabbed Paula around the middle and helped her to her feet. Jacob and DeAndre both got Mike to his feet. Caitlyn shuddered and Holly and Risa sniffled as we started moving again, making our way toward the staircase. We hugged the wall and tried to stay as far away as we could from the zombies attacking the crowd. Luckily for us, the people at the edge being attacked were fighting back, and the zombies’ attention was fully engaged in subduing their prey. We made it to the edge of the staircase and began to climb, still staying as far away as possible from the chaos near the exit. At the top of the staircase, we saw the second floor led to an outside balcony and an elevator. No one down on the first floor seemed to realize there was another way out, but that could change at any moment. “Let’s go outside on the balcony, guys,” I said. Everyone went through the doors, and they closed behind us.

  I whispered to Jacob, “If those people in there knew this elevator was here, they’d kill us to get to it.”

  He nodded grimly.

  When the doors closed, the near-deafening sound of the mob and the zombies was replaced by near silence. I stopped for a moment to catch my breath. Holding Paula up wasn’t easy. After a few minutes, I looked at the others and then turned to the elevators. I shifted Paula and reached out to press the call button for the elevator.

  I held my breath. It seemed to take an eternity for the elevator to arrive, but the doors slid open without a problem. Thankfully, the elevator was empty.

  “That was madness, goddammit,” Jacob said angrily as the elevator began to descend. “Those people are insane! They just attacked us!”

  “What happened to Ellie?” asked Risa.

  “Sweetie, I can’t say, I just can’t,” I answered. I straightened up as the elevator came to a halt. The doors slid open and we peered out. The area looked quiet, no zombies or crazed people nearby, so we slowly made our way around the side of the building. Mike grimaced at the pain but was able to stumble along with help. We went around the long way, to avoid the theatre side of the Observatory and the stampeded doorway. Coming around to the front of the building, I peered out and scanned the area. I could hear the people trying to get through the doorway, but what concerned me more were the sounds coming from beyond them from around the second corner that led to the theatre grounds. No screaming, but a low rumbling of growls and moans. Looking beyond the front grassy area to the parking lot, I saw our van, parked and waiting. A tantalizing sight. The walkway from the front of the building to the parking lot was a long and completely open expanse. Open to view from the front door where they were rioting. Open to view from the theatre side, where I believed the zombies were overtaking the area.

  I looked back at our ragtag group. Mike and Paula were being helped along. Holly was pregnant. Risa looked up at me solemnly. She had been watching me assess the situation.

  “We can make it, Alyssa. We can run fast,” she said seriously. I studied her young face for a minute. She looked sure of herself. Determined. Resolute. Looking into the others’ faces I saw them looking back at me. We had lost Ellie back in that building. We had almost lost Paula and Mike too. But they looked back at me and their faces were serious and set. I nodded. We would run for it.

  I estimated the distance at about 100 yards. The length of a football field. Glancing back at my people, I gave them a short nod and said, “Okay. Let’s do this.” Turning back, I held Risa’s hand and began sprinting to the van. Behind me, Caitlyn helped Paula run and DeAndre and Jacob half carried Mike along. Holly ran beside us, clutching her large, pregnant belly.

  As we rounded the front corner and came within sight of the mobbed entry, a new group of rioters broke free from the doorway and began running too. Quite a few of them were running in our direction. Then, as the theatre grounds came into full view, the growling from that area grew louder. I glanced over as I ran and gasped. No fewer than a dozen zombies were loping toward us, encouraged by the rioters, who were screaming in the doorway. I took a breath and ran faster. Behind me
, I heard Caitlyn pant, “Alyssa, help us!”

  Paula was half stumbling, so I ran back and grabbed her other side while Risa got behind and pushed her toward the van. A moment later, we were all running again. Jacob and DeAndre had gotten about ten feet ahead of us. Beside us, Holly panted and ran as fast as she could at eight-plus months pregnant. As I ran, I looked back and to the side again. Most of the zombies from the theatre area had run at the riot crowd, but some had broken away to pursue the people making a dash for the parking lot with us. They were slightly to the side of us though, between us and the zombies. We ran on, we were more than halfway there.

  Paula groaned and stumbled again. Her head wound was causing her to slip in and out of consciousness. I heard Caitlyn moan in fright, and we practically lifted Paula off her feet as we stumbled toward the safety of our van. I heard a growl closer behind us, and I looked back to see two of the zombies had decided to come after us. Risa ran around Paula and took off toward Jacob, DeAndre and Mike, who were closing in on the van. That little girl could run! I glanced back at Holly, who was panting hard and holding her belly as if it hurt her.

  “Hey, you okay?” I asked as I ran along. Holly just gave me a scared look and kept loping. Looking ahead, I saw that we were about 75 feet from the parking lot. Behind us though, the zombies were gaining ground. One of them, who looked like a businessman in a dark suit with a blue tie, was nearly upon us. The look in his eyes was terrifying. His face was a dark grey, and his eyes were milky. Dark blood, almost black, dripped from his head, down the side of his face, and down his arm. He loped behind us in a kind of sideways gait that was keeping pace with us, about 15 feet behind Holly.