“I’m not giving up. This is too important. Do you see anyone coming?”
She looked down the empty hall, but the plastic sheeting and construction left too many blind spots. “No,” she said and listened for footsteps.
“One more and we’ll leave.” Scott opened the last drawer of the formerly locked file cabinet and let out a long, relieved breath. “Holy shit. Here it is!” He put Miranda’s thick file under his arm.
She held her hand over her mouth, unable to believe he found it. It was going to be all right.
“Come on.” He tucked her behind him and led her into the hall, drawing his pistol as they went into the stairwell.
Shhh.
A moan came from below.
“What is that?” Another groan and her breath caught in her throat. “It sounds like someone’s hurt.”
“Penny.” Scott’s heavy boots tapped on the stairs as he descended in quick succession.
“Scott, wait.” Miranda chased him to just above the third floor and bit her tongue to keep from screaming. A horde of infected patients poured through the open door and scattered like cockroaches.
A young girl’s body covered the width of the landing and held the door open. Blood masked the faint, pink stripes on her uniform. The horde clawed and clamored to devour what was left of her ivory flesh, but two males covered her almost completely.
An elderly female, bleeding from a burst IV site, tore at the larger one’s hospital gown and painted his back with her dripping blood. His ties came undone and the thin smock fell away, leaving him naked and unfazed. A Foley catheter dangled from his flaccid penis, spilling the last of the urine from his human life. He gnawed the young woman’s neck, chewing through the muscle and tendon until her spinal column was exposed.
Miranda shuddered and held her hand over her mouth to hold back the vomit.
Scott drew down on the horde and the sound of him pulling back the slide drew their attention.
The man looked up from his feast, his faced smeared with blood and sinew dangling from between his misaligned teeth. He snarled and snorted, stumbling in an attempt at climbing the stairs after Scott.
“We have to get to the lobby,” Miranda said.
Scott fired several rounds, two of the bullets landing squarely between the man’s eyes. He fired again, repeatedly, and dropped at least three others, but the noise was drawing more of them than he could clear. “I can’t kill them all.”
Unable to walk, the infected crawled, each using the one before it as a stepping stone.
“You have to stop shooting.” Miranda backed up a few steps and handed Scott the ax, her chest pounding as the pack drew closer.
A middle-aged, female with a contracted left hand climbed to the top of the pile. A cast covered her right arm and three of her five fingers had been gnawed to nubs.
Scott checked over his shoulder to make sure he was clear and swung the ax as hard as the narrow stairwell allowed. The blade entered the woman’s skull with a crack and Scott pulled it free, dragging her forward. The gash disfigured the right side of her face. Brain swelled from the near-fatal wound and Miranda turned away to avoid seeing the woman as she half-heartedly kept coming.
Scott took a step back, found firm footing and embedded the blade into her head a second time, splitting her like kindling. Blood collected beneath her, slicking the stairs and making it harder for the already struggling horde to climb.
It slowed them down, but it didn’t stop them.
Scott turned, put his hand on Miranda’s back, and pushed her up. “We’re going to have to get off at the fourth floor. We’ll take another set of stairs.”
Reid appeared in the fourth floor doorway and smiled. “That sounds like a good idea,” he said, holding them both at gunpoint.
* * * * *
The humidity in the van intensified the stench of decay and infection, but it was raining too hard to open the windows.
Billy’s foot tapped and he twitched like an addict craving a fix. His mouth twisted as he injected another dose of viricide.
He was losing control.
“What are you doing?” John asked. “Frank told you to stop. Amy, please talk some sense into him. He’s going to overdose.”
Amy squeezed her eyes shut, in too much pain to speak.
John sat up straighter and pushed against the bag next to him to feel for the pistol in his waistband without being seen. It was a relief to know it was in reach “We need to make sure everyone is safe, including you.”
Billy snarled. “Safe? She look safe ta you?” Billy pointed to Holly’s body rolled up in the tarp. “Did ya think I was safe when ya let me go down in that elevator alone?”
The guilt trip wasn’t working this time. “I said I was sorry, but you pulled a knife on me.”
“And that makes it all fuckin’ better, don’t it?” Rage settled in as the virus tightened its hold. Billy clenched the empty syringe.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” John warned.
Billy drove the needle into his leg and drew up his infected blood. A biological weapon.
“Billy, what are you doing?” John’s heart fluttered, the rapid beating causing him to sweat despite being wet and freezing.
Billy pointed the bloody needle at John. “No one’s safe.”
Amy let out a moan. She nearly doubled over and shot back upright when the pain stopped her.
“Are you all right?” Carlene lifted Amy’s shirt and held her hand to keep her from covering the wound. “Frank, you need to pull over. You really have to look at this.”
“I can’t pull over. The storm’s flooding the roads.”
John moved his hand slowly toward his gun.
“Don’ cha dare,” Billy said, leaning forward into the dome light. His eye color was almost indiscernible through the maturing film.
Carlene tried to reason with him. “Billy, don’t do anything crazy. Your sister needs help.”
John shook his head. “He’s only ever cared about himself.”
A loud crack of thunder rocked the van and John used the distraction to reach for the pistol.
Billy got to his knees faster than John would have guessed possible and had the syringe to his throat before his hand wrapped around the grip. “Not as sick as I look, I know.”
The rotting smell rolling out of Billy’s mouth triggered John’s gag reflex and he held his breath. He couldn’t get sick. He couldn’t afford to even flinch.
“Give me the gun.” Billy held out his left hand, his right one shaking, making John increasingly nervous.
John turned over the pistol and he backed up, but not far.
Amy shivered and cried.
Carlene looked for something to cover her with and tried to engage Billy. “She’s bleeding, bad. Billy, come on. Frank needs to look at your sister. What do you want?”
“I want Frank’s kit and for him to drive Amy an’ I to the cabin.”
Amy fainted and hit her head against the side window. The noise made Frank swerve.
John braced himself to keep from toppling.
He couldn’t believe it had come to this.
“Frank!” Carlene screamed. “You have to pull over. Billy, he needs to check on her.”
Billy snarled. “Fine, a quick look. Do what ya can an’ get drivin’.”
Frank eased into the driveway of an abandoned house and exchanged places with Carlene. “Here, hold this.” He handed her a light with the beam aimed at Amy’s stomach and rummaged through his kit.
“What’s the matter wit ‘er?” Billy asked.
Frank opened a small bottle of sterile water and a pack of gauze pads. “She pulled a stitch and the wound looks infected.” He put his hand to Amy’s forehead. “She’s burning up.”
“Close ‘er back up and let’s go. I know you got stitches in there.”
“It’s not that easy.” Frank flushed the raised, angry wound with the water. “Nixon used retention sutures. I’m not even sure how she managed to
pull this other than the skin breakdown. He must not have been checking this.”
“Your talkin’ over my head.”
“Retention sutures are deep.” Frank explained. “They’re secured to the muscle, not the skin.” The ladder of red suturing material pulled apart to reveal glistening, infected flesh.
“So, now what?” Billy asked.
Amy’s eyelids flickered open and she let out a scream.
Carlene jumped and started to cry.
Frank opened a translucent brown bottle and shook out an assortment of pills. “I’m not sure this will solve anything, infections like this are tricky, but take these.” He handed Amy a pain pill and antibiotics. John, hold her still.”
“I can’t move.” Billy had him at gunpoint, the needle dangling from his other hand.
“You’re going to have to let him up here,” Frank said to Billy. “I don’t have anesthetic and I have to close the wound.”
Billy hesitated and eventually agreed.
John squeezed between the front seat and the dash and lay across Amy’s chest, restraining her with his weight.
Frank dug the tip of the sutures into her stomach and she screamed. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I have to do this.”
John held her tighter, closing his eyes to avoid crying, himself.
Her whole body tensed with every movement Frank made. She alternated howling in pain with absolute silence as the suturing had her in and out of consciousness.
When Frank finished, he snipped the thread. “You can’t take care of her in your condition, Billy. She can’t take care of you in hers, either.”
“I’ve seen how y’all take care of people,” Billy muttered. “I’ll take my chances.”
53.
“Cell phones and weapons on the ground.” Reid ordered. The horde moaning in the stairwell urged their compliance.
Scott set down the ax and his cell phone.
“Gun, too.”
Scott laid down the pistol and Reid collected the pile. He pressed the muzzle of his gun into Miranda’s back and marched her down the fourth floor hallway. “Don’t even think of trying anything,” he said, scowling at Scott. “I swear, I’ll kill her. The trouble the two of you have caused me today, nothing would make me happier.” He nodded toward a vacant inpatient room on the right. “Get in there,” he said.
Miranda scowled. They had no choice but to comply.
“Let her go,” Scott said. “Do whatever you want to with me, but don’t hurt Miranda.”
Reid ignored Scott’s plea.
Miranda’s face twitched and her lip quivered. The tears she’d tried so desperately to hold in spilled from the corners of her eyes.
“Stop your goddamned crying.” Reid drilled the butt of his gun into Scott’s jaw and knocked him unconscious.
“Stop it!” Miranda shouted. “It’s me you want. Let him go and I’ll turn myself over to Nixon. I won’t run again, I swear.”
Reid dragged Scott’s limp body to the center of the room and shoved the bed against the window. He cracked his knuckles and his smile sent chills through Miranda’s body.
Miranda eyed the weapons and phone Reid set on the windowsill.
Reid put his gun to Scott’s head. “You’ll never get to them before I pull the trigger,” he said and flung open a drawer. He withdrew a roll of medical tape and secured Scott’s hands and feet together behind him in a hog-tie fashion.
Miranda looked at the closed door, knowing she couldn’t outrun him, and screamed when he grabbed her wrists. He forced her hands over her head and bound them with a length of plastic tubing, securing her to a bracket bolted to the wall.
Her fingers went purple and numb. Her heart rate sped up and she feared for Scott’s safety more than her own. She had a purpose. Reid wouldn’t risk angering Nixon by hurting her. Much.
Reid kicked over the bedside tray and stomped his heavy boots. He moved around Scott and smashed a plastic wash bin against the inpatient room wall.
Miranda watched, terrified, as Reid pumped himself up. She whispered to Scott who was still unresponsive. “Scott, please answer me.”
Reid grinned and squatted to Miranda’s eye level. “Please answer me.” He mocked her, seizing her by the throat and pinning her legs with his knee. There was no way to fend him off. She let out a wet gasp as his hand bore down on her windpipe. Tears flowed freely and the breath through her nose, congested from crying, wasn’t enough. The lack of oxygen made her dizzy and she opened her mouth wider to try to draw a full breath. A string of drool dripped on Reid’s hand.
For a split-second she wished to be dead.
Reid lapped up the spit and pressed his coarse lips to hers, probing her mouth with his eager tongue. He wrapped her hair around his fist and pulled her head back. Unable to turn away and desperate to breathe, Miranda bit down hard and braced for a hit that never came.
Reid let go of her hair and there was a flash of a pained look, but no real response. He wiped the corner of his mouth and grinned. “You and I have unfinished business,” he said, his tone indicating that his planned payback was worse than a beating. That he’d take his pound of flesh another way. He forced his hands between her tightly closed legs. “I always get what I want.” He licked the blood from his lips and released her throat.
Air rushed into her lungs. She coughed, drew together the saliva in her mouth, and spat in his face. “I’d rather die than fuck you,” she croaked.
Reid threw back his head and his hearty, genuine laugh made Miranda angrier. “If only you weren’t Nixon’s Petri dish.”
And there it was.
“How’s he going to feel about you hurting me?”
“Hurting you? You don’t look hurt to me, just pissed off and kind of ratty.” He chuckled a second longer and without warning, his mood switched. He stepped back from Miranda and drove his fist into Scott’s already bruised and split cheek.
“Now that is hurting someone.”
“Stop!” Miranda shouted.
“And this.” Reid smashed the bone beneath Scott’s right eye and Miranda heard a crack.
Scott groaned weakly, clinging to life.
“Stop it!” she screamed. “You’re killing him.”
Sweat heightened Reid’s muscle definition and his narrowed eyes held a glint of enjoyment as he drove the steel toe of his boot into Scott’s stomach.
Scott tried to curl forward, but his hands were tied to his ankles behind his back, twisting his body into a vulnerable, inverted circle. Blood spilled from the corner of his mouth and Miranda turned away. She couldn’t watch anymore.
“I’m sorry, Reid. Stop. Please.” She feigned sincerity, longing for either the ax or the pistol just feet away in the windowsill.
A bolt of lightning lit up the dark sky. Reid pressed his palms against the wall and dropped his head, his panting the only sound until his cell phone started ringing.
“Hello?” He trained his eyes on Miranda. “Yes, I have her…No. Of course not. No, you know…I…”
It was Nixon. It had to be.
“Help! Help me!” She moaned as if in terrible pain. Reid mouthed the words “shut up”, but she could see he was shaken. “Please, I need a doctor.”
Reid’s brow furrowed. When she refused to be quiet, he went out of the room to finish the call. The door slammed and she hoped the infected would find him.
Scott’s chest rose and fell, his breath wet and raspy.
A thick spray of blood spattered the floor and walls of the disheveled room, expirate from Scott’s coughing. The trashcan was knocked over, supplies thrown, and the furniture rearranged.
Miranda needed him to be okay.
“Wake up,” she said quietly. “Scott, come on. He’s gone, wake up.” She pulled against her bindings reaching for Scott who was lying in the middle of the room, almost beyond her reach. Come on, come on. Her big toe barely nudged him.
Scott blinked, only one eye opening and closing. The other was swollen shut.
“Can you hear me?”He nodded, but barely. “We need to get out of here before he comes back.”
“In my back pants pocket.” His voice was strained and weak. “There’s a knife.”
Thank God Reid hadn’t patted him down.
She stretched out again, the plastic cutting into her wrists and burning. “I can’t reach.” She sniffled.
Scott could barely move. His injuries and the awkward binding made the slightest motion visibly painful. His face twisted with agony as he inched toward her.
“That’s far enough, let me try.” She didn’t want him hurting more than he had to and feared his injuries getting worse. What if his rib was broken and punctured his lung? She couldn’t live with losing him for saving her. She took off the slipper socks she had, until now, wished were shoes. Her bare feet offered some traction and grip.
She pulled herself along using her soles until her butt lifted and she was fully laid out. Shit. She listened to make sure that Reid was still talking. “I still can’t reach.”
“Keep trying.” Scott moved a little closer.
“That’s good, right there.” She worked her foot into the sizeable gap between the large fireman’s pants and Scott’s jeans and felt around until she found the hard lump of the knife. “I got it.” She held it between her toes.
Ten years of yoga was about to pay off. She pulled her foot back, slowly and carefully so as not to lose her grip. If, somehow, the knife got away from her, it was all over. Reid had no reason, no inclination to keep Scott alive. After what he’d done to the orderly, she feared the worst. She lifted her leg as high as she could, ignoring the nausea and the cramps in her stomach, and reached until she felt the cold knife handle against her palm. Relief threaded through her, calming her mind for what needed to be done. She fought the numbness and coldness in her tingling fingers, unfolded the blade, and clumsily sawed the thin tubing.
“Hang in there, Scott.”
Her hands came loose and fell to her sides. She pumped her fists to get the feeling back in her fingers and crawled over to Scott. “How bad are you hurt?” She cut through the tape helped him sit up.
He groaned.
She pressed her lips to his forehead. “We have to go,” she said. “Can you stand up?”
CURE (A Strandville Zombie Novel) Page 20