by Sarra Cannon
“You can say that again,” Crash mumbled.
They made their way through more rooms, but this whole thing felt like a waste of time. They’d had more luck in the first fifteen minutes back at the ambulance bay than they’d had the past two hours.
“Holy crap, look at this,” Crash said.
Noah pushed past him, his heart racing. In the middle of the room, a dead nurse was slumped over a beige rolling cart. She’d knocked the monitor to the floor, but he was sure this was the kind of cart Karmen had been talking about.
“Jackpot,” he whispered. “I can’t believe we actually found one.”
“Let’s open this puppy up and see what’s inside,” Crash said.
The nurse’s body was blocking most of the front of the cart. Noah hated to just push her to the floor, but they needed to get into those drawers.
He carefully poked at her body with his bat, preparing to swing if she moved.
She didn’t.
He took a deep breath and leaned his bat against the wall. “I’ll get her,” he said.
He wrapped his arms around the nurse’s waist and lifted her onto his shoulder. As carefully as he could, he moved her to the bed and set her down. It wasn’t nearly what the woman deserved, but it was better than shoving her to the floor like a piece of garbage.
There were several drawers on the front side of the cart, but when Crash tugged on them, they didn’t budge.
“Locked,” he said.
“Let me try.” Noah reached toward the drawers, but he paused when the radio at his hip came to life.
Static blasted from it and he grabbed the radio and turned it down.
“Parrish? Is everything okay?” he asked. He let up on the side button and listened. All he heard was more static. Dammit, these things weren’t working. Why hadn’t they checked them earlier?
“We’ll check on them in a second,” Crash said. “Come here and see if you can open this. Or look for a badge on the nurse’s body.”
Noah glanced toward the nurse, but the bed was empty.
“Crash, she’s gone,” he shouted. He reached for his bat, his breath catching in his chest.
Before he could wrap his hands around it, Crash slammed into him and they both fell to the floor. The bat clunked across the tile, out of reach.
Noah scrambled onto his back and reached for his gun, but as the nurse stepped into view, the sight of her brought bile into his throat.
The veins in her arms pulsed as sores broke out across her skin, acid spilling onto the floor. Her jaw unhinged and a set of razor-sharp teeth protruded from her lips as she let out a blood-curdling scream that made every muscle in his body tense.
But the worst of it was that there was no mistaking the fiery red of her eyes.
Whoever wanted them dead had found them.
“It’s a trap,” she shouted. She gripped her sword tighter and spun around, searching for an exit, but they were surrounded. The lights flickered, and Parrish prayed for Crash to hang on to whatever power was controlling those lights.
Karmen fiddled with the radio, screaming into it that they needed help, but the only response was static.
The bodies that littered the floor stood, their eyes locked on the three girls standing in the middle of them.
“What do we do?” Karmen screamed.
“Whatever it was you both did back in Baltimore, I need you to do it again,” she said.
She looked at Lily, catching her eye for a second. The girl looked just as surprised as Parrish, but she wasn’t convinced. Would she help them? Or fight to destroy them?
Her mind raced to find a strategy for survival, but she couldn’t think straight. There were just too many of them. If they cleared back toward the door, they’d still have dozens at their backs.
“Come closer,” she said as she sliced through the neck of the closest rotter. “Put your backs against mine. I’ll kill toward the door. You try to daze or mesmerize the ones behind me if you can.”
“I don’t know if I can do this,” Karmen said. She lifted her shotgun and blasted a hole in the chest of a rotter clawing at her arms.
“You have to,” Parrish said, her ears ringing. “You won’t be able to shoot them fast enough.”
“Take my hand,” Lily said.
Parrish didn’t have time to turn around and see if what they were doing was working or not. There were so many rotters right in front of her that she couldn’t even see the double doors anymore.
She slashed through them as fast as she could, inching forward as each one fell. A dim blue light surrounded her sword.
“Parrish, help,” Karmen screamed.
She stuck her sword through the neck of another rotter and kicked him in the chest, pulling her blade out as he fell backward. She spun on her heels, coming around Lily’s side and planting her boot in the gut of another rotter.
Karmen had her hands on her head and was shaking it back and forth wildly. If she didn’t get her shit together, she was going to get them all killed.
Parrish moved in front of Karmen and sliced down several zombies who had almost reached them on that side, but there was no way she could do this all by herself.
“Hey, I know you’re both scared, but we don’t have time for that right now,” she said as she fought. “We have to work together. I can’t do this alone.”
She paused for a second and grabbed Karmen’s arm, pulling her hands away from her face so she could look her in they eyes.
“You can do this,” she said. “Just breathe.”
Karmen took a deep breath in through her nose and nodded, but her eyes were wild with fear.
A rotting hand grabbed Parrish’s arm and she gritted her teeth, spinning around to kick the zombie’s knee. It cracked and the rotter fell to the ground, its teeth snapping onto the laces on her boot.
She pulled a pistol from the leather strap at her hip and shot it straight through the top of its head.
When she’d created a small space between their group and the rotters behind them, she pushed back through the two other girls and started killing her way toward the doors again. Blood splattered onto her neck and face, but she kept going. Her muscles ached, but she didn’t stop for a second.
One by one the rotters fell.
When she spun around again, relief filled her heart. There were at least ten more rotters on that side, but they were standing there, dazed and unmoving. Karmen and Lily were standing in front of them, their hands clutched together at their sides.
Parrish didn’t know what to make of it. In her mind, she’d decided that if they ran into an ambush today, that meant Lily was their enemy. But the girl was helping them. That had to count for something, right?
With space to shoot, Parrish aimed her pistol at the rotters still blocking the double doors. She missed a couple times, but was finally able to take three down before she ran out of bullets. She stuffed the pistol back into her belt and raised her sword, stepping over the bodies of the dead as she moved forward.
The doors were in her sights now, only seven or eight still blocking the way, but as she took the last of them down, the doors swung open and a nightmare stepped inside.
Blazing red eyes stared back at her and she nearly fell to her knees with exhaustion and hopelessness.
The man was over six feet tall and built like a tank, his skin stretched over grotesque muscles that were easily three or four times larger than any she’d seen on even the largest body-builder. Dark veins pulsed along his flesh. He stood in the doorway, his eyes locked on the three of them.
Her worst fears had come true. The first two hours had lulled her into a false sense of safety. She’d thought they were going to be okay. Just grab the meds and get home by dark. They could do it.
But it had been a trap all along. They’d been foolish to think that getting back on the road would keep their assassin away.
She’d been with them the entire time. They’d welcomed her into the group with open arms, and she’d l
ed them straight into a death trap.
Parrish backed toward the other girls. She grabbed Lily’s burned arm, and the girl shrieked and tried to pull away.
“What have you done?” she asked through gritted teeth. “After all that we did for you, this is how you repay us?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lily said. “Let go. You’re hurting me.”
“Bullshit,” Parrish shouted. She was so angry, the tears on her cheeks fell like lava, so hot they nearly burned her skin. “You aren’t the fifth. I wanted to believe you were a part of this group and that you were our friend, but this proves you never were. How could you do this to us?”
She pushed Lily to the ground and the girl stopped denying it. She doubled over, sobs shaking her small frame.
“I’m sorry,” she said, looking up at Parrish. She was clutching her arm. “I had no choice.”
Were the guys still alive? Or had they been attacked, too?
She prayed they were okay, but right now, she didn’t have time to think about it.
“Karmen, we have to run,” she said.
“What?” Karmen asked. She must have been so focused on holding the other rotters in her trance that she hadn’t yet realized what was going on. She turned toward Parrish and when her eyes landed on the giant near the doors, she unleashed a high-pitched scream that echoed through the halls.
The rotters that had been under her spell woke up and stumbled toward them. They were surrounded by hell on both sides.
“Come on,” she yelled. She grabbed Karmen’s arm and pulled her through the group of rotters. She hit them so hard, several of them stumbled backward, clearing a small path. One of them managed to grab onto a lock of Parrish’s hair and yank her forward. Karmen slipped out of her grip and slammed the barrel of her shotgun into the rotter’s head.
Parrish put both hands on the hilt of her sword and started swinging. They had to get through this group to the next set of doors. Maybe they could find a place to hide until they figured out a plan. She prayed the guys were doing better than they were.
“What about Lily?” Karmen said as they pushed through the crowd and ran toward the doors.
“She’s the one who brought them here,” Parrish said. “Can’t you see that?”
Karmen glanced back at Lily, but Parrish put a hand on her arm.
“Leave her.”
They broke through to the other side and stopped dead in their tracks. They’d made it to the main lobby of the emergency room, a huge open area filled with more zombies than Parrish had ever seen in one place.
She only got that one brief glimpse of them all before all the lights in the hospital went out.
Something hard slammed into him, sending his body flying across the room like a ragdoll. He crashed into Noah and tumbled to the floor, his head smacking against the tile.
Dazed, Crash brought a hand to the side of his head. The lights above him flickered, and he struggled to hold onto his connection with them. A scream pierced the silence, sending a wave of pain through his already throbbing head. Beside him, Noah popped off six rounds of shots from his handgun.
Crash forced his eyes open. His vision blurred, but there was no mistaking the red eyes.
He scrambled backward until his back hit the wall. The machine gun pressed into him. His fear attempted to paralyze him, but he pushed through it, forcing himself to react.
He struggled to grab his weapon and pull it around his body, but his hands were shaking so badly he could hardly find the trigger.
The nurse they’d found slumped over the med cart had been transformed into some kind of monster. Her skin oozed a foul-smelling acid that dripped from the sores on her arms and face onto the floor. The tiles at her feet sizzled.
Pointed teeth that looked like they belonged on a shark more than a human being stretched her lips wide as her mouth snapped open and closed.
The monster lunged toward Noah with terrifying speed, pouncing on his chest and clawing at his arms.
Shit, he couldn’t shoot this thing with enough accuracy to hit it without hitting Noah too.
Crash stood and vaulted over the hospital bed, searching for anything he could use as a weapon. His eyes landed on the cracked monitor on the floor by the nurse’s cart. He picked it up and swung it as hard as he could at the nurse’s head.
She screamed as her head jerked sideways.
Noah rolled over, using the momentum of the hit to push her off his chest. He gripped the edge of the windowsill and catapulted himself toward Crash.
“What do we do?” Crash asked.
Noah leaned down to grab his bat from the floor. He reared back and slammed the weapon into the nurse’s head. Her skull cracked and more acid poured through the wound, but it didn’t kill her.
Crash finally found the trigger on his machine gun and sprayed the monster with bullets. He had a hard time keeping it steady and ended up unloading half his magazine into the wall just above her head.
The bullets that actually hit her seemed to do some damage, and she fell face-first onto the floor. For one brief moment, he thought he might have killed it, but she pushed up on her hands, attempting to stand.
And she was pissed.
“We run,” Noah said. “Go.”
Crash didn’t need to be told twice. He sprinted from the room, waiting until Noah was clear to slam the door shut. That wouldn’t hold her for long, but at least it would buy them some time.
“Which way?” he shouted. If they ran toward the girls, they’d just be leading this thing straight to them. At the same time, if they ran outside, they’d be leaving the girls inside alone.
What if they were being attacked, too? Those damned radios were crap. They should have done a test before they split up, but he just hadn’t thought about it. He tried to connect to the signal in his mind, but it was too much to keep the power going and manage it all at once.
“This way,” Noah said, making the decision for him as he ran in the direction of the ER.
They’d only made it halfway to the next turn before the nurse’s scream echoed down the hallway. The sound seemed to reach inside his mind and twist it. He lifted his hands to his ears and doubled over, the pain so intense he could barely think straight.
When it was over, the nurse was already on them again, her mouth open wide and her red eyes locked on Crash.
Before he could steady his aim to shoot her again, Noah had grabbed his shotgun from his backpack. He blasted the nurse at close range, taking off the entire left side of her face.
Acid spewed from the wound, a single drop landing on Crash’s foot. He screamed as it burned a hole through the top of his boot.
Thank God for steel-toed boots, because he did not want to find out what would happen if that stuff got on his skin.
The nurse fell to her knees for a moment, but wasn’t giving up. She crawled toward them, the bottom half of her jaw hanging loose. Crash aimed and pulled the trigger on his machine gun, spraying her with bullets until he heard the click of his empty magazine.
The nurse screamed again, but this time the sound gurgled as acid poured from her throat and cheeks. She lay completely on the ground now, still clawing her way across the floor.
Noah stepped forward and smashed what was left of her head in with his bat, the acid eroding parts of the wood so fast it disintegrated the entire end of the bat before he could pull it away.
Crash doubled over, bracing his palms against his knees and trying not to lose his lunch.
“She was normal when you moved her, right?” he asked. “I mean, dead, but normal?”
Noah nodded. “We need to get to the girls,” he said. “I think we just got our answer about Lily, which means the girls are in trouble.”
Crash bowed his head, tears of frustration and anger welling in his eyes. He’d really hoped they were wrong about her. This was all his fault.
“Come on,” Noah said.
They ran down the corridor and followed the sig
ns toward the emergency room, but there were rotters everywhere. From the looks of it, all the dead bodies that had littered the floors earlier were now up and walking around. Crash loaded another magazine into his machine gun and sprayed the hallway, taking down ten or eleven that stood in their path.
Noah’s bat was gone, so he’d started blasting heads with his shotgun, but they hadn’t brought enough ammunition for all this. Crash cursed. He had another duffel full of guns and ammo back in the truck, but it wouldn’t do them much good now.
They kept fighting their way forward, but when they rounded another corner, the double-doors leading to the next section of the hospital came into view. The windows were covered in blood, but Crash could hear the moans of the undead on the other side of the doors.
He jogged toward them, but about ten feet before he reached the end of the hall, something leapt at him from the shadows and knocked him to the ground. Pain burned through his arm as something sharp ripped his skin apart.
He couldn’t hold onto his connection with the building’s power and all the lights switched off.
Anger and fear surged through him. He’d come too far to die here, but if this was the end, he was going to take whatever this thing was with him.
Without thinking, he reached up and wrapped his palms around the face of the zombie who had attacked him. It was another woman, her long hair falling against his arm and face as she hovered above him.
She struggled, clawing at his arm with fingers that were sharp as knives.
Deep inside him, something new awakened, like a flame igniting. He poured that fire into his palms, meeting the zombie’s eyes dead-on.
Jolts of high-voltage electricity shot through his fingertips. The zombie’s body jerked and twitched, sparks flying from its eyes and mouth, but he didn’t let go. He sat up, lifting the thing off his chest as it bucked against him, cooking from the inside.
He didn’t let go until it had burned to ashes in his hands.
“We have to turn around,” Karmen whispered, searching for Parrish’s arm in the darkness.