6 Hours, 6 Minutes, 6 Seconds - Part 1 (666)

by Jolly, Kirk

  They both froze at the sound of footsteps approaching. Josh and Alice came hurrying around the corner. Josh spoke up first.

  “Come quick; we have a problem.”

  Chapter 15: Burn it to the Ground

  They rushed around the corner. The door to the stairwell was partially open and several hands were reaching through. The cabinet and chair Josh used to barricade it had stopped it from opening all the way but wouldn’t hold for long.

  “Sorry, Allen, when I heard them banging at it, I tried to close it but they got their hands through first. Now I can’t get it shut again,” Josh said.

  Without waiting, Allen rushed forward and started beating at the exposed hands and arms with his club. They didn’t relent. If anything, the presence of a live person and the promise of a meal seemed to spur them on. The cabinet groaned and slid a few more inches away from the door. He put his back against the cabinet and pushed. The others joined his efforts and the door closed most of the way, but they couldn’t dislodge all of the reaching hands long enough to completely shut it.

  Suddenly Xavier dashed away.

  “Where are you going?” Josh yelled after him but he didn’t answer. He returned a few moments later with a dripping rag wrapped around the end of a golf club. He pulled a lighter from his pocket and lit the improvised torch.

  “Don’t,” Allen warned.

  Xavier ignored him and held the flame underneath the outstretched hands. The response was immediate. With a scream, the hands withdrew and didn’t return. They slammed the door shut and leaned against the cabinet mopping sweat from his brow.

  “Of course,” Alice said. “They are afraid of fire because it is the only thing that kills them, but if they are afraid of fire won’t they run when we burn the hospital?”

  Allen glared at Xavier for the betrayal but there was nothing to do about it now besides come clean. “Yes they will, unless somebody closes the security gates,” he confessed.

  “But the only way to do that is from the security room on the main floor.” Josh added his eyes growing wide at the realization. “You were planning on going and shutting them in the whole time weren’t you.”

  “Yes,” Allen admitted.

  “And you weren’t even going to tell us?” Alice accused.

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  “But we could help,” Josh added.

  “And that is exactly why I wasn’t going to say anything. There is no need for all of us to die trying to carry out this plan. Two of you can stay down here, keeping the storage room open as long as possible, and I and someone else will go to the main floor. I will get to the security room, activate the gates and shut off the fire alarm, signaling the other person on the main floor to start the fire. Then we’ll both try to make it back to the basement and lock ourselves in.”

  “But you know that you won’t be able to make it to the security room and back, especially not with the fire going,” Xavier said.

  “I might be able to and I will not allow you three to sacrifice yourselves to make this work. This is my plan. I’ll be the one to carry it out.”

  “There’s no guarantee that we’ll live even if we lock ourselves in,” Alice pointed out. “We knew this going in. Why not give the plan the best chance of working. We all fight our way to the security room then start the fire. If we don’t make it back, then that is just the way it is.”

  The others nodded their agreement. Allen looked them each in the eye and saw they were serious about their decision. He ran his fingers through his graying hair and pulled at it in frustration.

  “Fine,” he said finally. He knew the plan would never go forward if he didn’t. “Now let’s get this door secure and finish stocking the room. Hopefully we’ll still need it.”

  They all set to work. They found two more heavy cabinets that once wedged in place left no room between them and the wall for the door to open. There would be no getting through there now. Josh and Alice had already gathered up most of the oxygen tanks so there wasn’t really much else to do. Allen and Xavier each carried a case of bottled water toward the refrigerated locker.

  “Do you really think we’ll need this much water?” Xavier asked. “I mean, if they don’t come and get us within a day or two, we’ll be out of air anyway.”

  “True, but this is to keep you from burning up as much as anything. Even though the fire shouldn’t affect the basement as much since it’s mostly concrete, it’s going to get extremely hot in there. You’re going to have to soak your scrubs and lab coats with water to keep from cooking.”

  “I guess I didn’t think of that,” he replied with a worried look on his face.

  “Well, like I said, I’ve been going through this plan for a while now.” Allen stopped to hold the door for Xavier. Alice and Josh were in the back stacking things up to give them more room.

  “That’s why I have to do this,” he continued, dropping his case of water. Xavier turned in time to see Allen slam the door, trapping them inside. As Allen tried to slide the locking pin into place, the door shuddered from the force of someone’s weight being thrown against it. Allen could hear muffled yelling from inside, but ignored it. The pin dropped home. He watched as they attempted to break free. After a moment, their efforts subsided.

  He set back to work, knowing that he wouldn’t have to worry about them. When a plan is too complex it is destined to fail, and having more people to worry about or watch over complicated things. No matter what happened now, at least they would survive the fire. He’d given them a chance at living.

  Allen prepared a crash cart with bottles of embalming fluid and took the last case of water to the elevator. With that prepared, he pulled the fire alarm and waited. He figured he’d give it ten minutes to attract as many of the Risen as possible. That should be plenty of time to draw in any stragglers who were still milling around in the parking lot.

  He went back to the door of the locker and watched and waited. A few times, those inside pounded on the door and yelled something, but they didn’t try again to open it. They would know the alarm had been set off. There was no siren in there but a flashing light had been installed to signal anybody inside of the danger outside.

  As quietly as he could manage, he pulled the pin free from the handle and walked away. No need to keep them trapped in there after the fire. If the door wasn’t blocked or too warped to open, they might need to get out on their own before anyone rescued them. By the time they realized the door was unlocked, he’d be done.

  The elevator doors slid open at the main floor. He wasn’t worried about any surprises here. The only door in or out was tightly sealed. The problem would be if they’d found their way into the hallway leading into the ER. If there were too many, he’d have to make a choice: try to fight through as planned; go back and get some help after all; or start the fire anyway and hope that it still burned enough dead to rescue the city. He rushed up to the locked door and was relieved to see the hallway beyond empty.

  Allen raised the door bar and pushed his cart through. At the end of the hall where it turned, he stopped to prepare. The torch thing Xavier had done was a good idea and he replicated it now. He knotted the scrubs as tight as possible, hoping this would make them burn longer, and then soaked them. He poked his head around the corner and saw that this hallway too was empty. He eased the cart to the swinging doors at the end and looked through at a strange sight.

  A few of the dead milled around the middle of the room, but the vast majority of them were in clusters around the alarm bells that were sounding. He chuckled to himself. “Like moths to a flame.”

  Before he lost his nerve or his opportunity, he pushed open the door. Once the cart was through, he struck the lighter and ignited his torch. He used this to light the tops of the rags he’d put into the top of the embalming fluid containers turning them into Molotov cocktails.

  Many of The Risen turned and started stalking toward him. He threw the lit bottles at two of the big clusters, igniting them and sending
them scattering. As they ran, they spread the flames to others even better than he’d hoped for.

  The others closed in on him, though. He smashed one more Molotov on the floor in front of him, lighting a couple of beds and balking his pursuers momentarily. The last bottle from the cart in one hand and the torch in the other, he started running in the direction of the security room.

  He used the torch to light fires as he went, and also to fend off zombies. The lit bottle in his other hand grew hot, scalding him, but he gripped it tightly. Rounding the last corner, he saw there was one more group clustered around an alarm directly across from the security room door. He tossed the last bottle at their feet and watched them flee. He body checked two as he dashed for the doors, but they were too busy fleeing the flames to pay him any notice. He ducked into the room out of breath and locked the doors.

  The room was small and contained a desk with a bank of monitors mounted on the wall above it. There was one simple terminal at the desk. Ignoring the monitors for the moment, he slammed the space button on the keyboard, bringing the terminal to life. It took him a moment to remember which menus he needed but he soon found the command that read, “Activate Security Gates.” He scrolled to it and pressed enter. He then looked at the monitors that showed different areas of the hospital. A couple at the far end showed the two main entrances to the hospital, and even as he watched the heavy metal gates closed from above. A few of The Risen made it out, but he’d done it.

  He’d actually done it. He watched the monitors, a smile spreading across his face as the ignited horde spread the flames through the hospital faster than he ever could have.

  “It’s working,” he said to himself. “And I’m still alive.” He looked out the security room and saw the flames leaping at the walls in the hallway.

  “Alive for now.”

  Chapter 16: Final Flight

  Allen found it hard to pull his eyes away from the monitors on the wall. It would be easy to sit and watch his plan unfold from here until the power cut out or the smoke and heat overwhelmed him, but his will to live compelled him to break his trance and look for a fire extinguisher. He had been dimly aware of passing one in the hallway but with the flames licking at the other side of the door, he’d probably need one just to get out of the room. The small room was easy to search and to his surprise, he didn’t find one.

  Smoke poured into the room, already clouding his thoughts. Panic started to rise inside him and without thinking he grabbed the door knob, instantly burning his hand.

  “Shit!” he yelled.

  The pain seemed to help him focus his mind and he wrapped the tail of his lab coat around his hand. Then he bent over and covered as much of his face in the fabric of his scrubs as he could. He threw the door open and was pushed back by the wave of heat that hit him. If he had a mirror and the luxury of time to look at his reflection, he’d see that his eyebrows were singed away. Ducking as low as he could, he ran into the smoke filled hallway.

  Using blind hands, he felt his way along the wall, hoping that his memory was correct and this was the side the extinguisher was on. Just as he was getting ready to give up on it and run for the elevator, his hands felt the slightly raised door and glass of the cabinet. A small hammer hung from a chain next to it and he broke the glass. Retrieving the extinguisher, he crouched low to clear his vision. Through tear-blurred vision, he somehow managed to pull the pin and ready the extinguisher.

  He looked up at what must be the ER that lay ahead of him, although he couldn’t make much out between the smoke and the heat from the flames. Trying to keep low, he hurried forward as fast as he could manage. The smoke ahead suddenly parted and a flaming figure attacked him. The extinguisher fell away from him as burning arms clamped around him. Even aflame, his attacker seemed bent on biting his neck. He clawed at the thing’s face and was horrified as burning flesh seemed to melt away, tearing off in bloody chunks in his hands, but still it didn’t relent.

  Allen managed to roll out from under it with a vaguely remembered wrestling move from his high school days, more of a reflex than anything. Still, it was effective and he was able to scramble away. His hands found the fire extinguisher and he sprayed the zombie directly in the face, blinding it temporarily but long enough for him to sneak away into the smoke. He could still hear the thing howling as he made his way into the ER.

  Even though the ER was the epicenter of the fire, the smoke was clearer here. The space was large and open so he found that he only had to crouch slightly to stay out of the worst of the black fog hanging directly above him. He could see the Risen running blindly all around him and with a few body checks here and there, he was able to navigate his way back to the hallway leading to the morgue.

  He paused at the swinging doors to see if there were any more of the Risen in the hallway beyond. It looked clear and the fire had not spread there yet. He pushed through the doors, unaware of the feet that were shuffling toward him.

  Once through, he took a few deep breaths of the mostly clear air then pressed on. As started to round the corner, the door behind him burst open, stopping him in his tracks. Two of the Risen, both smoldering but not on fire, came stumbling through. They had seen him and started coming after him. Allen ran for the elevator and pressed the button as they rounded the corner. The door came immediately open and he stepped inside.

  He pushed the door close button frantically but nothing happened. He pressed “basement” and then began pressing both at the same time. Something Felix, the maintenance guy, had told him nagged at his mind but he couldn’t quite remember. The door stood stubbornly open. Rather than being trapped in the elevator car with two attackers, he stepped out to face them, suddenly wishing he’d remembered to bring his golf club with him. They were so close to him he couldn’t spray them both with the extinguisher, so he bashed the closer one with the butt end instead. This knocked it to its knees and probably cracked its skull but only slowed it down.

  He pointed the nozzle and sprayed the other in its face, then bashed it for good measure. He kicked the first one away from him, then sprayed it too. Even with all the time that had passed, the elevator door still stood open. Suddenly he remembered Felix’s words.

  When the smoke detectors have been tripped, the elevator goes into fire mode so that only firefighters can operate it, but I’ll show you how. It’s pretty simple. You can only choose one floor at a time and the car will always return to the main floor after the floor you choose. No stops in between. Oh and you have to hold the Door Close button down for a few seconds after you choose your floor or the car will never move.

  The two zombies at his feet were already struggling to get up. He lunged inside, hit the button labeled B, then jammed the Door Close button and held it. His attackers slipped in the foam and struggled toward him but then the doors started to close. He kicked one hand away just as it reached through to block them from closing. Then they were shut and he was safe.

  The elevator started to move down and he took a relieved breath.

  He might actually make it.

  He just might live.

  His knees buckled as the car slammed to a stop and the lights went out.

  “Shit,” he cursed. More of Felix’s lesson came back to him.

  I wouldn’t take the elevator though if you really have to do what you’re planning. If the power goes out, you’re stuck.

  Allen knew it was true. There was little hope the power would come back on now, and climbing out the top hatch would only put him back with the fire and the hundreds of undead. With the dim glow from the emergency light above him, he used the extinguisher to spray foam in all the crevices surrounding the door to insulate from smoke and flames that might get in. He looked at the few supplies he’d managed to stash in the elevator. He only had one oxygen tank and some bottled water. He took the water and soaked his lab coat and wrapped it around him.

  Even now it was growing hot. The concrete shaft may shield him. If the fire didn’t get under him. If h
e didn’t run out of air. If somebody came to rescue him.

  If…

  Chapter 17: Alive?

  “This is Rebecca Powell reporting. We’re live at the scene and as you can see behind me, all that remains of the hospital is its twisted metal frame and a pile of smoldering rubble. Rescue workers have been sifting through the debris for the past two days trying to find survivors but so far all they have found is the burned bodies of the dead. Whether the fire was started accidentally or on purpose, the fire may have rescued the city. Officials at the scene estimate that nearly 500 people who were either dying, dead, or already risen perished in the flames. Indeed, it seems to be the turning point in the outbreak. What was at first thought to be a small outbreak caused by a group suicide, turned out to be a planned attack on the city by the cult calling themselves The Children of the Rising Son.”

  “When Peacekeepers arrived on the scene of the mass suicide, it was learned too late that the cult members had found a way to bypass their monitors and were already risen. In addition, the warehouse where they carried out their ritual was booby-trapped with poisonous gas that killed a dozen Peacekeepers. The number of dead overwhelmed city infrastructure and it wasn’t until the hospital burned that the Peacekeepers were able to regroup and restore order.”

  “Hey, we got something over here!” A voice shouted from off camera.

  “Stay with me,” Rebecca barked as she trotted over to the group of rescue workers gathering. The camera bounced along struggling to keep up. “It seems we may have found our first survivors. Perhaps they’ll be able to shed some light on what happened. What have you found?” she demanded shoving the microphone into the face of the nearest worker.

  “We’ve been working with the crane and dozer today to uncover the basement, that seems to have remained mostly intact. The fire appears to have started on the main floor and burned upward, so there may be people alive down here,” the young fireman said, blushing at the camera.